Complete Works of Emile Zola (1668 page)

“Will you dine at our table this evening, my children?” said Bonnaire, in taking leave.

“Oh no, grandfather; it is impossible this time; we are to be at the table of grandmother Morfain. But at dessert we shall be near you.”

Ragu got into the voiturette again without saying a word. He had visited the house in silence, though he paused a moment before the little electric motor. He still succeeded in repressing the emotion that must have taken possession of him in the presence of so much happiness. But he ended by protesting anew with his provoking sneer.

“See,” cried he, “are these the houses of rich and comfortable
bourgeois
, these houses where, in the largest room, there is a machine? I admit that your workmen are better housed and have had more pleasure since the time that poverty disappeared. But they are still workmen; slaves condemned to labor. Formerly, there were at least a few happy people, the privileged few who did nothing, and all your progress results only in the fact that the entire people are sunk into a common slavery.”

Bonnaire could not help laughing at this cry of despair from the devotee of idleness, whose religion was abolished.

“It should be understood, comrade,” said he, “what you mean by slavery. If to breathe, to eat, to sleep, and to live is slavery, then labor is, too. If you live, it is absolutely necessary to work, for you could not live an hour without working. But we will talk of that later. In the mean time we are going back to luncheon, since we shall spend the afternoon in visiting the workshops and the stores.”

After their luncheon the inspection was resumed, this time on foot, at a walking pace. They visited all the works and all the bright sunny halls where the steel and copper of the new machines shone like jewels.

“No doubt,” Ragu had to concede, “all this is very well, very nice, and very fine; it is better than our dirty holes of old, where we were like pigs in a trough. Progress has certainly been made, but the trouble is that no way has yet been found of giving an income of a hundred thousand francs to each citizen.”

“We have that — the income of a hundred thousand francs,” said Bonnaire, presently. “Come and see.”

He led Ragu to the general stores. These were immense barns, immense storehouses, and immense halls of reserve, where all the wealth of the city was accumulated. These it had been necessary to increase every year. It was no longer possible to find space for the crops, and it had even become necessary to reduce the production of manufactured articles, in order that no encumbrance should occur.

“Here are our incomes,” repeated Bonnaire at each new storehouse; “each of us is at liberty to draw upon these without restriction. Do you not think that this represents a hundred thousand francs so far as the happiness of life is concerned? Of course, we are all rich, but this, as you have said, would spoil the pleasure of it for you, since fortune does not count with you unless it is seasoned with the wretchedness of others. Nevertheless, this has one advantage, and that is that one no longer runs the risk of being robbed and murdered at night at some street comer.”

He then pointed out that a movement was in action outside of the general stores: a direct exchange between one producer and another, proceeding especially from the small workshops and machinery used at home. The large workshops and great social stores would perhaps disappear some day, and that would be still another step towards more liberty and towards the absolute freedom of the individual in an absolutely free humanity.

Ragu listened to him, more and more confused by all that he saw and by this happiness achieved, the existence of which he still wished to deny. Not knowing how to hide his agitation, he cried:

“Then you are an anarchist at present?”

This time Bonnaire laughed outright.

“Oh, my good friend, I was a collectivist, and you once reproached me for not being so any longer. Now you are making me out an anarchist. The truth is that we have been nothing at all since the day when the dream of universal happiness, truth, and justice was realized. And, now that I think of it, come and see something else, in order to conclude our visit.”

Then he led Ragu behind the general warehouses, to the lowest part of the slope of the Monts Bleuses, to the place where Lange had of old installed his rudimentary pottery kilns within a wall of dry stone, a sort of barracks of the independent artisan who lives outside of customs and laws. The place was now occupied by an immense building, a large manufactory of earthenware and crockery, from which came the bricks and the enamelled tiles and the thousands of decorations in brilliant colors with which the entire city was ornamented. All this belonged to Lange, who, in accordance with Luc’s kindly insistence, had agreed to instruct pupils, after he had seen a little equity shown and odious poverty relieved. Since the people were at last rejoicing in happiness, he also was going to be able to realize his dream, and to produce those brilliant terra - cottas, those golden spikes, those blue - bottles and poppies with which he had for a long time wished to adorn the fronts of houses, amid the verdure of the gardens. It seemed to him that a city was building expressly for him, the happy city of workmen set free and ennobled. —

Lange was there, just at that moment, standing on the threshold of the manufactory, at the top of the door-steps. Although he was nearly seventy-five years old, he was still robust, and had preserved his small, dumpy figure. He had still the same square, homely head, set in a tangled mass of hair and beard, which were now as white as snow. But his quick eyes shone to the last with bright smiles of the infinite kindness hidden beneath his rough exterior. A troop of children at play surrounded him, boys and girls who pushed forward with extended hands, while he proceeded to distribute little presents, as he was in the habit of doing upon every
fête
day. He gave them thus, as playthings, little clay figures, made with a few movements of the thumb, coarsely colored and baked, but of extreme elegance, and some of them even charmingly comical. They represented the simplest subjects in the world, the occupations of daily life, the habitual acts and fugitive pleasures of each hour, children crying and laughing, young girls keeping house, laborers at work, and life in all its continual and wonderful fruition.

“There, there! look, my children,” he was saying; “don’t be in such a hurry; there will be enough for everybody! Here, little girl with the fair hair, this is for you, this little girl putting on her stockings! Here, my big boy, this urchin coming home from school is for you! Here, you little brown - hair over there, this blacksmith with his hammer is for you!”

He was calling and laughing and greatly amused in the midst of the happy children, who were disputing about the little men and women, as they called these exquisite figures.

“Ah! take care; you must not break them. Put them in your rooms; that will turn your attention to agreeable lines and pretty colors. Then when you are grown up you will love what is beautiful and what is good, and you will be very beautiful and very good yourselves.”

This was his theory, that people needed beauty in order to be healthy and kindly. A happy people could not help being an intelligent and harmonious people. Everything in their own houses, everything around them, ought to remind them of beauty; above all, the objects in common use, the utensils and furniture of the whole house. It was through the people that art flourished, to bestow upon them grace and brilliance, which are as necessary to their existence as their every-day bread.

“Here we have a peasant mowing, and here again a woman washing her linen! Here! this is for you, my big girl. Here! this is for you, my little man. That is all; be very good now, and embrace your mammas and papas for me. Come, come, my little lambs, my little chickens; life is beautiful, life is good!”

Ragu, standing motionless, had listened in silence, with an air of increasing surprise. He ended by exclaiming, with his terrible sneer:

“So, then, old anarchist, you no longer talk of blowing up the whole place?”

Lange turned round with a sudden movement and looked at him, but without recognizing him. He did not get angry; he began to laugh.

“Ah,” said he, “you know me, you whose name I do not recall. It is very true; I used to wish to blow up the whole concern. I proclaimed that Everywhere — to all the winds of the earth, casting my curses on this miserable town, and announcing its approaching destruction by fire and sword. I had even resolved to do justice myself by burning Beauclair as though by a thunderbolt. But what will you have? Things have turned out otherwise. Enough justice has been done already to disarm me. The town is purified and reconstructed, and I certainly cannot destroy it, now that all I have wished and all that I have dreamed is realized. Isn’t it so, Bonnaire, that peace has been made?”

And he, the former anarchist, extended his hand to the old collectivist, with whom he had once had such furious quarrels.

“We were at daggers’ points, then, were we not, Bonnaire? We were quite agreed as to the town of liberty, equity, and good feeling which we wished to establish. But we differed as to the road we must follow to reach it. Those who believed in turning to the right would have murdered all those who desired to turn to the left. Now that we are there it would be very foolish to continue to quarrel, wouldn’t it, Bonnaire? Peace is made by unity, by the happiness of all.”

Bonnaire, who had held the potter’s hand, pressed it, and shook it affectionately.

“Yes, yes, Lange,” said he, “we were wrong not to understand each other; that is, perhaps, what prevented our making progress. Or, rather, we were both right, since we are now hand in hand, entirely in accord, recognizing that, in reality, we both wished the same thing.”

“And,” resumed Lange, “if things do not yet proceed as absolute justice would require, and if entire liberty and love remain to come, it is only necessary to leave it to these boys and girls to continue the work and complete it some day. You understand this, my little chickens, my little lambs? You must love each other well.”

The shouts and laughter were recommencing when Ragu intervened again.

“And your Barefoot; say, then, old spoiled anarchist, did you marry her?”

Tears rose suddenly in Lange’s eyes. It was now nearly twenty years since this tall, beautiful girl, whom he had picked up out of kindness on the road, and who adored him like a slave, had died in his arms, killed by a terrible accident, the nature of which remained obscure.

Lange advanced roughly towards Ragu.

“You are a reprobate; why do you wring my heart? Who are you? Whence do you come? Don’t you know that my dear wife is dead, and that I still ask pardon of her every evening, excusing myself for having killed her? If I have not become a bad man, I owe it to the tender recollection of her, for she is with me always; she is my good counsellor. But you, you are wicked; I will not recognize you; I do not wish to know your name. Go — go back where you belong!” —

He was superb in his mournful violence. In him, under his roughhewn exterior, the poet that of old indulged in revengeful imaginings of evil portent had now grown tender and become a man of extreme goodness.

“Have you recognized him?” asked Bonnaire, uneasily.
“
Who is he; tell me?”

“I do not wish to recognize him,” repeated Lange, more forcibly. “I will say nothing; let him go away; let him go away at once. He is not fit to be among us.”

Bonnaire, persuaded that the potter had recognized Ragu, led the latter quietly away, desirous of avoiding a painful explanation. Ragu followed him in silence, without stopping to quarrel, being visibly disturbed, and, indeed, completely upset. All that he saw, all that he heard, struck him to the heart, and filled him with a bitter regret, an unlimited envy. He began to falter under the sight of so much happiness, in which he was not, and never would be, a partaker.

But it was in the evening, above all, that the festive appearance of Beauclair was too much for him. A custom prevailed that on this first day of summer each family should spread its table near the threshold of the house and dine out-of-doors, under the eyes of the passers-by. This breaking of bread and drinking of wine in public was like a fraternal communion of the entire city. Then the tables were finally brought close together, so as to make but a single one, and the town was thus changed into an immense hall of festivity, in which the people became one single and united family. Mirth prevailed, and the solidarity of honored, solemnized labor was exalted in this community of healthfulness and joy.

Bonnaire insisted that Ragu should take a place at his own table — that is to say, at that of his granddaughter Claudine, who had married Charles Froment, a son of Luc.

“
I bring you a guest,” said Bonnaire, simply, without mentioning the latter’s name.
“
He is a stranger, and my friend.”

And all responded:

“He is welcome.”

Bonnaire kept Ragu near him. But the table was long, and four generations elbowed each other thereat. The patriarch Bonnaire saw there his son Lucien and his daughter-in-law,
née
Louise Mazelle, both of whom had passed their fiftieth year; his granddaughter Claudine and her husband, Charles Froment, in their maturity; and his great-granddaughter Alice, a sweet little girl of eight years. A very complicated relationship followed. He explained that a gigantic table would have been necessary had not his three other children — Antoinette, Zoé, and Severin — accepted invitations to dine at contiguous tables with their own children. He joked about this, and said that at dessert they would call upon one another, so that it would be the same as if they were all together.

Ragu looked especially at Louise Mazelle, who was still pretty and bright with her fine head, like that of a frolicsome goat. The sight of this daughter of the
bourgeois,
who always displayed so much affection for her husband Lucien, the son of a workman, must have surprised him. He leaned forward and asked Bonnaire, in an undertone: “Are the Mazelles dead, then?”