Complete Works of Emile Zola (1758 page)

‘You see,’ said he, ‘all the requirements for a house will be found united here—’

But he broke off on seeing a stout and smiling man approach him. ‘Why, here’s uncle Charles!’ he exclaimed. ‘I say, uncle, when we build the house for Simon the martyr, which I have told you about, you will undertake to provide all the locksmith’s work at cost price, will you not?’

‘Well, I don’t mind, my boy, if it pleases you,’ said Charles Doloir. ‘And I’ll do it also for your sake, Monsieur Froment, for it pains me at times to think of how I used to worry you.’

Charles, after marrying Marthe Dupuis, his employer’s daughter, had for a long time been managing the business. He had a son named Marcel, who was of about the same age as Adrien, and who, having married a carpenter’s daughter, Laure Dumont, had become a contractor for house carpentry.

‘I am going to your father’s,’ Charles resumed, addressing his nephew; ‘I have an appointment with Marcel about some work. Come with mo, for if you build this house you will have some work to give them as well... And will you come also, Monsieur Froment? It will please you, perhaps, to meet some more of your old pupils.’

‘Yes, indeed it will,’ Marc answered gaily. ‘Besides, we shall be able to settle the specifications.’

‘The specifications! Oh! we have not got to that point yet,’ Adrien replied. ‘Moreover, my father isn’t an enthusiast.... But no matter; I’ll go to see him.’

Auguste Doloir, thanks to the friendly protection of Darras, the former mayor, had become a building contractor in a small way. After his father’s death he had taken his mother to live with him, and since the demolition of the Rue Plaisir he had been residing in the new avenue, where he occupied a ground floor flanked by a large yard, in which he stored some of his materials. The lodging was very clean, very healthy, and full of sunlight.

When Marc found himself in the bright dining-room, face to face with Madame Doloir the elder, some more memories of the past returned to him. The old woman, now sixty-nine years old, had retained the demeanour of a good and prudent housewife, one who was instinctively conservative, and allowed neither her husband nor her children to compromise themselves by dabbling in politics. Marc also recalled her husband, Doloir, the mason, that big, fair, ignorant fellow, good-natured in his way, but spoilt by barrack life, haunted as he was by idiotic notions of the army being disorganised by those who knew no country, and of France being sold to the foreigners by the Jews. One day, unfortunately, he had been brought home dead on a stretcher, after falling from a scaffolding; and it seemed as if he had been drinking previously, though Madame Doloir would not acknowledge it, for she was one of those who never admit the existence of family failings.

On perceiving Marc she at once said to him: ‘Ah! monsieur, we are no longer young; we are very old acquaintances indeed. Auguste and Charles were not more than eight and six years old when I first saw you.’

‘Quite so, madame; I well remember it. I called on you, on behalf of my colleague Simon, to ask you to let your boys tell the truth if they should be questioned.’

At this, though the case was now such a very old one, Madame Doloir became grave and suspicious. ‘That affair was no concern of ours,’ she answered, ‘and I acted rightly in refusing to let it enter our home, for it did great harm to many people.’

Charles, however, perceiving his brother Auguste in the yard with Marcel, ready for the appointment, now called him into the room: ‘Come here a moment; I’ve brought somebody to see you. Besides, your son Adrien is here, and wants to give us an order.’

Auguste, who was as tall and sturdy as his father had been, pressed Marc’s hand vigorously. ‘Ah, Monsieur Froment,’ said he, ‘we often talk about you — Charles and I — when we remember our school-days! I was a very bad pupil, and I’ve regretted it at times. Yet I hope I haven’t disgraced you too much; and, in any case, my son Adrien is becoming a man after your own heart.’ Then he added, laughing: ‘I know what Adrien’s order is! Yes, indeed, the house which he wants to build for your friend Simon!... All the same, a house is perhaps a good deal to give to an ex-convict.’

In spite of the bantering
bonhomie
of Auguste’s tone, Marc felt grieved by that last remark. ‘Do you still think Simon guilty?’ he inquired. ‘At one time you became convinced of his innocence. But you began to doubt it again after that monstrous trial at Rozan.’

‘Well, of course, Monsieur Froment, one feels impressed when a man is found guilty by two juries in succession.... But no! I no longer say that he was the culprit. And besides, at bottom it is all one to us. We are even quite willing that a present should be made to him, if by that means the affair can be brought to an end once and for all, so that we shall never have it dinned into our ears again. Isn’t that so, brother?’

‘That’s correct,’ responded Charles. ‘If those big fellows were listened to, We ourselves should be the only real criminals, on the ground that we tolerated the injustice. It vexes me. There must be an end to it all!’

The two cousins, Adrien and Marcel, who took an equally passionate interest in the affair, laughed triumphantly. ‘So it is settled!’ exclaimed Marcel, as he tapped his father on the shoulder. ‘You will take charge of the locksmith’s work, uncle Auguste of the masonry, and I of the timber work. In that way your share in the crime, as you put it, will be repaired. And we will never mention the matter to you again, we swear it!’

Adrien was laughing and nodding his approval when old Madame Doloir, who had remained standing there, stiff and silent, intervened in her obstinate way. ‘Auguste and Charles,’ said she, ‘have nothing to repair. It will never be known whether Schoolmaster Simon was guilty or not. We little folk ought never to poke our noses into affairs which only concern the Government. And I pity you boys — yes, both of you, Adrien and Marcel — if you imagine that you are strong enough to change things. You fancy that you now know everything, whereas you know nothing at all.... For instance, my poor dead husband, your grandfather, knew that a general meeting of all the Jew millionaires was held in Paris, in a subterranean gallery near the fortifications, every Saturday, when it was decided what sums should be paid to the traitors who betrayed France to Germany. And he knew the story to be a true one, for it had been told him by his own captain, who vouched for it on his honour.’

Marc gazed at the old woman in wonderment, for it was as if he had been carried forty years back. He recognised in her tale one of those extraordinary stories which Doloir the mason had picked up while he was soldiering. For their part, Auguste and Charles had listened to the anecdote in quite a serious way, without any sign of embarrassment, for it was amid similar imbecilities that they had spent their childhood. But neither Adrien nor Marcel could refrain from smiling, however great might be their affectionate deference for their grandmother.

‘The Jew syndicate in a cellar! Ah, what an idea, grandmother!’ said Adrien softly. ‘There are no more Jews, for there will soon be no more Catholics.... The disappearance of the Churches means the end of all religious warfare.’

Then, as his mother now came into the room, he went to kiss her. Angèle Bongard, who had married Auguste Doloir when a shrewd young peasant girl, had largely contributed to her husband’s success, though she had no very exceptional gifts. She now at once asked for news of her brother Fernand, her sister-in-law Lucile, and their daughter Claire, who had married her son. Then the whole family became interested in the latest addition to its number, this being a baby-boy named Célestin, to whom Marcel’s wife had given birth a fortnight previously.

‘You see, Monsieur Froment,’ remarked old Madame Doloir, ‘I have become a great-grandmother for the second time; after Georgette has come this little fellow, Célestin. My younger son, Léon, also has a big boy, Edmond, now twelve years old; but he is only my grandson, so with him I don’t seem to be quite so old.’

The old woman was becoming amiable — anxious, it seemed, to efface the recollection of her former stiffness, for she continued: ‘And, by the way, Monsieur Froment, we never seem to agree; but there is one thing for which I really have to thank you, and that is for having almost compelled me to make Léon a schoolmaster. I didn’t care for that profession, for it seemed to me hardly a tempting one; but you took all sorts of pains; you gave lessons to Léon, and now, though he’s not yet forty, he already has a good position.’

She had become, indeed, very proud of her youngest son, Léon, who had lately succeeded Sébastien Milhomme in the headmastership of a school at Beaumont, Sébastien having been appointed director of the Training College. The schoolmistress whom Léon had married, Juliette Hochard, had also been transferred to Beaumont, there taking the former post of Mademoiselle Rouzaire; and their eldest son, Edmond, now a pupil at the Lycée, was studying brilliantly.

Well pleased at seeing his grandmother so amiable with Marc, Adrien kissed her, and then said jestingly: ‘That’s very nice of you, grandmother; you are now on Monsieur Froment’s side. And, do you know, on the day when Simon returns we will choose you to offer him a bouquet at the railway station.’

But she again became grave and suspicious. ‘Ah, no; not that; certainly not! I don’t want to get myself into trouble. You young men are mad with your new ideas!’ After a merry leave-taking, Adrien and Marc at last retired in order to make their way to Jules Savin’s. The model farm of Les Amettes spread over some two hundred and fifty acres in the outskirts of Maillebois, just beyond the new district. Jules, after his mother’s death, had given a home to his father, the former petty clerk, who was now seventy-one years old; and he had been obliged to do the same for his elder brother, Achille, one of the twins, who, after being for many years a clerk like his father, had been suddenly stricken with paralysis. Philippe, the other twin, and at one time the partner of Jules, was now dead.

It so happened that Marc had become a connection of this family by reason of the marriage of his son Clément with Charlotte, the daughter of Hortense Savin, who had died some years previously. But the marriage had taken place somewhat against Marc’s desires, and thus, while allowing Clément all latitude to follow the dictates of his heart, he had preferred personally to hold aloof. He was too broadminded to make Charlotte responsible for the flighty conduct of her mother, who, after being led astray in her sixteenth year and marrying her seducer, had ended by eloping with another lover, meeting at last with a wretched death in some other part of France. And thus, while imputing nothing to her daughter, Marc harboured certain prejudices against the Savin family generally, and, whatever alacrity he had professed, it had been necessary for him to do violence to his feelings when Adrien had begged him to go to Les Amettes.

. As it happened Jules was not at home, but his return was expected every moment. In the meantime the visitors found themselves in the presence of Savin senior, who was watching over his son Achille in a little sitting-room, where the paralysed man now spent his life in an armchair placed near the window. Directly Savin senior caught sight of Marc he raised a cry of surprise: ‘Ah! Monsieur Froment,’ said he, ‘I thought you were angry with me. Well, it is kind of you to call.’

He was still as thin and as puny as ever, still racked, too, by a dreadful cough, yet he had contrived to survive his fresh, pretty, and plump wife, whom, indeed, he had killed by dint of daily vexations inspired by his bitter jealousy.

‘Angry?’ Marc quietly responded. ‘Why should I be angry with you, Monsieur Savin?’

‘Oh! because our ideas have never been the same,’ said the ex-clerk. ‘Your son may have married my granddaughter, but that does not, suffice to reconcile our opinions.... For instance, you and your friends are now driving away all the priests and monks, which I regard as very unfortunate, for it will only lead to an increase of immorality. Heaven knows that I don’t like those gentry, for I am an old Republican, a Socialist — yes, a Socialist, Monsieur Froment! But then, women and children need the threats of religion to check them from evil courses, as I have never grown tired of saying.’

An involuntary smile escaped Marc as he listened. ‘Religion a police service!’ said he; ‘I know your theory. But how can religion exercise any power when people no longer believe, and there is no longer any reason to fear the priests?’

‘No longer a reason to fear them!’ cried Savin. ‘Good Heavens! you are much mistaken. I myself have always been one of their victims. If I had sided with them, do you think that I should have vegetated all my life in a little office, and now be a charge on my son Jules, after losing my wife, who wag killed by all sorts of privations? And my son Achille, whom you see here, so grievously afflicted — he again is a victim of the priests. I ought to have sent him to a seminary, and he would now be a prefect or a judge, instead of having contracted all sorts of aches and pains in a horrible office, which he left unable to use either his legs or his arms, so that now he cannot even take a basin of soup unassisted.... The priests are dirty scamps; is it not so, Achille? But all the same, it is better to have them on one’s side than against one.’

The cripple, who had greeted his old master with a friendly nod, now remarked slowly, his speech being already impeded by paralysis: ‘The priests long controlled the weather, no doubt; nevertheless, one is beginning to do without them very well.’ Then, with something like a sneer, he added: ‘And so it has become easy enough to settle their account, and play the judge.’

As he spoke he looked at Adrien, for whom that uncomplimentary allusion was doubtless intended. Achille’s unfortunate position, the death of his wife, and a quarrel which had arisen between him and his daughter Léontine, who was married to a Beaumont ironmonger, had embittered his nature. And deeming his allusion insufficient, wishing to be more precise, he continued: ‘You will remember, Monsieur Froment, that I told you I was still convinced of Simon’s innocence at the time when he was recondemned at Rozan. But what could I do? Could I have made a revolution by myself? No, of course not; so it was best to remain silent.... Nevertheless, I now see a number of young gentlemen calling us cowards, and trying to give us a lesson by raising triumphal arches to the martyr. It is brave work indeed!’