Chapter XXV: Book IV: I (2)

'But it is your work!' cried Marc with sudden enthusiasm. 'There is a pupil of yours in each of the localities you have named. They are the children of your heart and mind; it was you who sent them as missionaries into lonely country districts to diffuse the new gospel of truth and justice. If people are at last awaking, returning to manly dignity, becoming an equitable, free, and healthy democracy, it is because a generation of your pupils is now installed in our classrooms, instructing the young, and making true citizens of them. You are the good workman; you realised that no progress is possible save by reason and knowledge.'

Then Joulic and Mignot seconded Marc with similar enthusiasm: 'Yes, yes, you have been the father, we are your children! The country will only be worth what the schoolmasters may make it, and the schoolmasters themselves can only be worth what the training colleges have made them.'

Salvan, who seemed very moved, protested with modest _bonhomie_. 'Men like me, my friends? Why, there are some everywhere; there will be plenty when they are allowed to act. Le Barazer helped me a great deal by keeping me at my post, and not tying me down too much. What I did? Why, Mauraisin himself is almost obliged to do the same, for the evolution carries him on; the work, once begun, never stops. And you'll see, Mauraisin's successor will turn out even better masters than those who passed through my hands.... One thing which delights me, and which you have not mentioned, is that nowadays students are recruited much more easily for the training colleges. What made me most anxious in former times was the distrust, the contempt into which the teaching profession had fallen, ill-paid, unhonoured as it was. But since the salaries have been increased, now that real honour attaches to the humblest members of the profession, candidates arrive from all quarters, so that one is able to pick and choose, and form an excellent staff.... And if I have rendered any services you may be sure that, on seeing my work continued and fulfilled, I feel rewarded beyond all my hopes. At present I desire to remain a mere spectator of things; I applaud your efforts, and live happily in my little garden, delighted to be forgotten by everybody--excepting you, my lads.'

He ceased speaking, and a thrill of feeling passed through the others as they sat there at the large stone table in the arbour, balmy with the perfume of the roses, while from the verdant garden, from the whole stretch of country around them, infinite serenity was wafted.

Every year since her parents had removed to Jonville, Louise had spent the vacation with them. Her brother Clément would now soon be ten years old, and Marc still kept him in his school, giving him that elementary education which he would have liked to have seen generalised, applied to all the children of the nation to whatever class they might belong, in order that one might have based upon it, in accordance with the tastes and talents of the pupils, a system of general and gratuitous secondary education. If his own tastes should be shared by his son, he intended to prepare him for the Training College of Beaumont, for the great national work of salvation would lie in the humble village schools for many years longer. Louise also had disinterestedly set her ambition upon becoming an elementary teacher. And, indeed, on quitting the school of Fontenay with the necessary certificates, she was, to her great delight, appointed assistant to her former and well-loved mistress, Mademoiselle Mazeline, at Maillebois.

At that time Louise was nineteen years of age. Salvan had intervened with Le Barazer to secure her appointment, which passed virtually unnoticed. The times were changing more and more; the period of delirium--when the mere names of Simon and Froment had sufficed to raise a tempest--was quite over. And this emboldened Le Barazer, six months later, to appoint Simon's son Joseph as assistant to Joulic. Joseph, it should be said, had made his _début_ at Dherbecourt after quitting the Training College two years previously with an excellent record. As advancement his transfer to Maillebois was of little account, but it was a somewhat bold action to place him in a school where his presence implied at least some preliminary rehabilitation of his father. For a moment there was a slight outcry, the Congregations tried to stir up the parents of the town; but the new assistant soon won their favour, for he behaved very discreetly, gently, yet firmly, in all his intercourse with the children.

One incident which at that time plainly indicated the change in public opinion was the little revolution that took place at the Milhommes' stationery shop. One day Madame Edouard, so long the absolute mistress of the establishment, disappeared into the back shop, where Madame Alexandre had remained so many years. And Madame Alexandre took her place at the counter and served the customers. Nobody mistook the meaning of that revolution,--the customers were changing, the secular school was triumphing over its Congregational rival, and thus, in the interests of the business, Madame Edouard, like a good trader, made way for her sister-in-law. It must be said, too, that Madame Edouard now had some great worries with her son Victor, who, entering the army after his departure from the Brothers' school, and reaching the rank of sergeant, had lately been compromised in a very unpleasant affair; whereas Madame Alexandre had every right to be proud of her son Sébastien, who had been one of Simon's and Marc's best pupils, then Joseph's companion at the Training College, and was now, for three years past, assistant-master at Rouville. Indeed, all those young folk, Sébastien, Joseph, and Louise, after growing up together, had at last reached active life, bringing with them broad minds, ripened early in the midst of tears, to continue the bitterly-contested work of their elders.

A year went by. Louise was now twenty, and, repairing to Jonville every Sunday, spent the day with her parents. She then often met Joseph and Sébastien, who had remained great friends and were very fond of visiting their former masters, Marc and Salvan. It also frequently happened that Joseph was accompanied by his sister Sarah, who was well pleased to spend a day in the open air among her best friends. For three years past she had been residing with her grandparents, the Lehmanns, displaying so much activity and skill that a little prosperity had returned to the dismal shop in the Rue du Trou. Customers had returned to it, and Sarah, retaining the connection formed with some of the large Paris clothiers, had recruited several work girls and banded them together in a kind of co-operative group. Madame Lehmann had lately died, however, and her husband, now seventy-five years old, lingered on with only one regret, which was that his age deprived him of all hope of ever witnessing Simon's rehabilitation. Every year he spent a week or two with Simon, David, and Rachel among the Pyrenees, and returned home well pleased to have found them working quietly in their lonely retreat, but also very sad when he realized that they would know no real happiness as long as the monstrous proceedings of Rozan should remain unrevised. Sarah had tried to induce the old man to stay with the others in the south, but he obstinately returned to the Rue du Trou, under the pretence of making himself useful there by superintending the workroom. And, as it happened, this circumstance enabled the girl to take an occasional holiday when, on accompanying her brother Joseph to Jonville, she chanced to feel somewhat tired.

The reunion of the young people at Jonville, the days they spent there so gaily, brought about the long-foreseen marriages. At first it was a question of Sébastien marrying Sarah, which surprised nobody; though it was regarded as an indication of the changing times that young Milhomme should marry Simon's daughter not only with the consent of his mother but also with the approval of Madame Edouard, his aunt. A little later, when the wedding was postponed for a few months in order that it might coincide with that of Louise and Joseph, a little excitement arose at Maillebois, for this time the proposed union was one between the condemned man's son and the daughter of his most valiant defender. But the idyl of their love, which was the outcome of the old bitter battle and all the heroism that had been displayed in it, touched many a heart, and even tended to pacify the onlookers, though all were curious to learn how Louise's marriage would be regarded by her great-grandmother, Madame Duparque, who, for three years past, had not quitted her little house on the Place des Capucins. And, indeed, the marriage was postponed for another month in order that Madame Duparque might come to some decision respecting it.

Though Louise was now twenty years old, she had not made her first Communion, and it had been settled that only the civil ceremony should be performed at her wedding with Joseph, as at that of Sébastien with Sarah. Anxious as she was for an interview with Madame Duparque, the girl wrote her an entreating letter; but all in vain, for she did not even receive an answer. The old lady's door had not been opened to Geneviève and her children since they had returned to Marc. For nearly five years now the great-grandmother had clung to her fierce oath that she would cast off all her relatives and live cloistered, alone with God. Geneviève, touched by the thought of that woman of fourscore years leading in solitude a life of gloom and silence, had made a few attempts at a _rapprochement_, but they had been savagely, obstinately repulsed. Nevertheless, Louise desired to make a last attempt, distressed as she was at not having the approval of all her kinsfolk in her happiness.

One evening, then, at sunset, she repaired to the little house, which was already steeped in the dimness of twilight. But, to her astonishment, on pulling the bell-knob, she heard no sound; it seemed as if somebody had cut the wire. Gathering courage, she then ventured to knock, at first lightly, and then loudly; and at last she heard a slight noise, the board of a little judas cut in the door, as in the door of a convent, having been pulled aside.

'Is it you, Pélagie?' Louise inquired. 'Is it you? Answer me!'

It was only with difficulty, after placing her ear close to the judas, that she at last heard the servant's deadened and almost unrecognisable voice: 'Go away, go away,' Pélagie answered; 'madame says that you are to go away at once!'

'Well, no, Pélagie, I won't go away,' Louise promptly retorted. 'Go back and tell grandmother that I shall not leave the door until she has come and answered me herself.'

The girl remained waiting for ten minutes, or perhaps a quarter of an hour. From time to time she knocked again--not angrily, but with respectful, solicitous persistence. And all at once the judas was re-opened, but this time in a tempestuous fashion, and a rough, subterranean voice called to her: 'What have you come here for? You wrote to me about a fresh abomination, a marriage, the very shame of which might well suffice to kill me! What is the use of speaking of it? Are you even fit to marry? Have you made your first Communion? No, eh? You amused yourself with me, you were to have made it when you were twenty years old; but to-day, no doubt, you have decided that you will never do so.... So it is useless for you to come here. Be off, I tell you, I am dead to you!'

Louise, quite upset, shuddering as if she had felt an icy breath from the grave sweeping across her cheek, had barely time to cry: 'Grandmother, I will wait a little longer; I will come back in a month's time!' Then the judas was shut violently, and the little dim and silent house became quite deathly in the darkness, which had now gathered all around.

During the previous five years Madame Duparque had gradually relinquished all intercourse with the world. At first, on the morrow of Madame Berthereau's death and Geneviève's departure, she had contented herself with ceasing to receive her relations, restricting herself to the society of a few pious friends of her own sex, and of the priests and other clerics whom she had made her familiars. Among these was Abbé Coquard, who had succeeded Abbé Quandieu at St. Martin's. He was a rigid man, full of a sombre faith, and it delighted Madame Duparque to hear the threats which he addressed to the wicked--threats of hell with its consuming flames, its red forks, and its boiling oil. Thus, morning and evening she was seen repairing now to the parish church, now to the Capuchin Chapel, in order to attend the various offices and ceremonies. But as time went by she went out less and less, and at last a day came when she ceased to cross her threshold. It was as if she were gradually sinking into gloom and silence, burying herself by slow degrees. One day even the shutters of her house, which had still been opened every morning and closed at night, remained closed, the façade becoming blind, as it were, the house dead, neither a glimmer nor a breath of life emanating from it any more. One might have thought that it was abandoned, uninhabited, if sundry frocks and gowns had not been seen slipping through the doorway at nightfall. They were the gowns of Abbé Coquard, Father Théodose, and at times--so people said--Father Crabot, who thus paid the old lady friendly visits. Her little fortune, now a matter of two or three thousand francs a year, which she had arranged to leave, one half to the College of Valmarie, the other to the Capuchin Chapel, hardly sufficed to explain the fidelity of her clerical friends. Their visits must also have been due in part to her exacting and despotic nature, which overcame the most powerful, and in part to their apprehensions of some deed of mystical madness, of which they knew her to be capable. It was said, too, that she had obtained an authorisation to hear Mass and take the Communion at home; and this, no doubt, explained why she no longer set foot out of doors. By the force of her piety she had compelled even the Deity to come to her house, in order that she might be spared the affliction of going to His; for the idea of seeing the streets and the people in them, of again setting her eyes on that abominable age in which Holy Church was agonising, had become such torture to her that she had caused her shutters to be nailed in position, and every chink in the woodwork to be stopped up, in order that no sound or gleam of the world might again reach her.

This was the supreme crisis. She spent her days in prayer. She was not content with having broken off all intercourse with her impious and accursed relations, she asked herself if her own salvation were not in danger through having incurred, perhaps, some responsibility in the damnation of her kinsfolk. She was haunted by a recollection of Madame Berthereau's sacrilegious revolt on her death-bed, and believed that unhappy woman to be not merely in purgatory, but in hell. Then, too, came the thought of Geneviève, whom the demon had assailed so terribly, and who had gone back to her errors like a dog to his vomit. And, finally, there was Louise, the pagan, the godless creature, who had rejected even the gift of the Divine Body of Jesus. Those two--Geneviève and Louise--belonged, both in body and in spirit, to the devil; and if Madame Duparque caused Masses to be said and candles burnt for the repose of her dead daughter's soul, she had abandoned those who still lived to the just wrath of her God of anger and punishment. But, at the same time, her anguish remained extreme; she wondered why Heaven had thus stricken her in her posterity, and strove to interpret this visitation as a terrible trial, whence her own holiness would emerge dazzling and triumphant. The confined, claustral life she led, entirely devoted to religious practices, seemed to her to be necessary reparation, for which she would be rewarded by an eternity of delight. In this wise she expiated the monstrous sinfulness of her descendants, those women guilty of free thought, who, in three generations, had escaped from the Church and ended madly by putting their belief in a religion of human solidarity. Thus, wishing to redeem the apostasy of her grandchildren, Madame Duparque set all her pride in humbling herself, in living for God alone, in seeking to slay what little womanliness still lingered in her; for it was from that womanliness that her condemned descendants had sprung.

So stern and sombre was her ardour that she wearied the few clerics who alone now linked her to the world. She was conscious of the decline of the Church; she could detect the collapse of Catholicism under the efforts of those diabolical times from which she had withdrawn by way of protest against Satan's victory--as if, indeed, she denied that victory by not beholding it. And in her opinion her renunciation, her fancied martyrdom, might perhaps impart new vigour to the soldiers of religion. She would have liked to have seen them as ardent, as resolute, as fierce as she herself was, encasing themselves in the rigidity of dogmas, carrying fire and sword into the midst of the unbelievers, and aiding the great Exterminator to conquer His people by dint of thunderbolts. She never felt satisfied; she found Father Crabot, Father Théodose, even the sombre Abbé Coquard, altogether too lukewarm. She accused them of compounding with the hateful worldly spirit of the times, and of completing the ruin of the Church with their own hands by adapting religion to the tastes of the day. She dictated their duty to them, preached a campaign of frankness and violence, unhinged as she was, thrown into extreme exaltation by her lonely life, and ever athirst with some supreme longings in spite of all the penitence heaped upon her.

Father Crabot was the first to grow tired of that strange penitent, who, at eighty-three years of age, treated herself so harshly, and bore herself like a despairing prophetess, whose uncompromising Catholicism was really a condemnation of the long efforts made by his own Order to humanise the terrible Deity of the stakes and the massacres. Thus the Jesuit allowed long intervals to elapse between his discreet visits, and, finally, he altogether ceased to call, being of opinion, no doubt, that the legacy he had hoped to receive for Valmarie would not be sufficient compensation for the dangers he might incur with a woman whose soul was ever in a tempest. A few months later Abbé Coquard likewise withdrew, not because he had any cowardly fears of being compromised, but because each of his discussions with the old lady degenerated into a horrible battle. Eager and despotic like herself, the Abbé was bent on retaining all his power and authority as a priest; and one day, when Madame Duparque began to thunder in the name of God, reproaching him with inaction, in such wise that he appeared to be a mere transgressing sinner, he became quite angry, for he declined to accept such a reversal of their respective positions. Then, for nearly another year, only Father Théodose's frock was to be seen slipping into the little, silent, closed house of the Place des Capucins.

Father Théodose, no doubt, regarded Madame Duparque's little fortune as worth taking, for the times were hard with poor St. Antony of Padua. In vain did the Capuchin scatter prospectuses broadcast; money did not now flow into the collection boxes as it had done in the happy days when, by a stroke of genius, he had induced Monseigneur Bergerot to bless one of the saint's bones. In those days the miracle lottery had put people into quite a fever; the sick, the idle, and the poor had all dreamt of winning happiness from heaven in return for an investment of twenty sous; whereas, now that a little sense and truth were spreading through the district, thanks to the secular schools, the base commerce of the Capuchin Chapel stood revealed in all its shameful imbecility.

For a time, it is true, another stroke of genius on the part of Father Théodose, the creation of some wonderful mortgage bonds on heaven, had again stirred the souls of the humble and the suffering, who, as life below proved so cruel to them, hungered for felicity beyond the grave. Then, during several months, the money of dupes had flowed in; all the savings hidden in old stockings had been brought forth by believers anxious to secure the chance of a little peace in the Unknown. But finally, being confronted by growing incredulity, Father Théodose had found it difficult to place his remaining bonds, and had thereupon planned a third stroke of genius--this time the invention of some private, reserved gardens in the ever-flowery Fields of the Blessed. According to him there were to be some delightful little nooks in Eternity, garnished with roses and lilies of the very best varieties, under foliage set out to please the eyes, and near springs which would be particularly pure and fresh. And thanks once more to the decisive intervention of St. Antony of Padua, one might book those little nooks in advance, thereby ensuring to oneself the eternal enjoyment of them. Naturally, the booking was very expensive if one desired something spacious and comfortable, though there were indeed gardens at all prices, which varied in accordance with site, charm, and proximity to the abodes of the angels. Two old ladies, it appeared, had already bequeathed their fortunes to the Capuchins in order that the miracle-working saint might reserve for them two of the best gardens that were still vacant, one being in the style of an old French park, whereas the other was more of the 'romantic' type, with a maze and a waterfall. And it was also said that Madame Duparque had in a like way made her choice, this being a golden grotto on the slope of an azure mount, among clumps of myrtle bushes and oleanders.

Father Théodose, then, alone continued to visit the old lady, putting up with her fits of temper, and returning to the house even after she had driven him from it in exasperation at finding him so lukewarm and resigned to the triumph of the Church's enemies. And the Capuchin had actually ended by securing a latch-key in order that he might enter the house whenever he pleased, instead of having to ring the bell again and again, for poor Pélagie had become extremely deaf. It was also at this same moment that the two women, the two recluses as they may be called, cut the bell wire; for of what use was it to retain that connecting link with the outer world? The only living being whom they now received had a key to admit himself, and by cutting the wire they were spared the nervous starts that came upon them whenever they heard that jangling bell which they did not wish to answer. Pélagie, indeed, had become as fierce and as maniacal as her mistress. She had begun by curtailing her chats in the tradespeople's shops, scarcely speaking to anybody when she went out, but gliding swiftly past the houses like a shadow. Next, she had decided to go shopping twice a week only, in this wise condemning her mistress and herself to live on stale bread and a few vegetables--such fare as might have suited a pair of hermits in the desert. And now the few tradespeople came themselves to the house at nightfall on Saturday evenings, and left their goods at the doorway in a basket, which they found waiting for them on the ensuing Saturday, with the money due to them wrapped in a scrap of newspaper.

At the same time Pélagie had one great worry--her nephew Polydor, who had entered a Beaumont monastery in a menial capacity, and who came and made frightful scenes with her whenever he wished to extort money. He alarmed the old woman to such a degree that she did not even dare to leave him at the door, for she felt sure that on some pretext or other he would collect a crowd and force his way in. And when she had admitted him, she trembled still more; for she knew that he was a man to deal her a nasty blow should she refuse to give him a ten-franc piece. For many long years she had caressed the dream of employing all her savings--some ten thousand francs, scraped together copper by copper--to procure some happiness in the other world; and if the little treasure was still carefully hidden away inside her palliasse, this was because she hesitated as to the best, the most efficacious mode of investment. Should she found a perpetual Mass for the repose of her soul, or should she book one of Father Théodose's reserved gardens, a modest little nook in heaven, by the side of her mistress's lordly grotto? And she was still hesitating in this respect when misfortune fell upon her.

One night, when she had been obliged to admit Polydor, the rascal did not murder her, but rushed in turn upon every article of furniture in her garret, finally ripping up the palliasse and fleeing with the ten thousand francs, while Pélagie, whom he had thrust aside and who had fallen beside the bed, groaned with despair at seeing that bandit--who was of her own flesh and blood--make off with the blessed money which St. Antony of Padua was to have given her back in eternal delight. Would she be damned, then, as she no longer possessed the wherewithal to speculate in the miraculous lottery? Such was the shock the old woman experienced that two days later she died; and it was Father Théodose who found her, already stark and cold, in her bare and dirty garret, to which he climbed in his surprise and anxiety at discovering her nowhere else. He was obliged to attend to everything--declare the death, make arrangements for the funeral, and busy himself as to how the last remaining inmate of the little house would live now that she had nobody left to serve her.

For several weeks past Madame Duparque, whose legs had become too feeble to support her weight, had taken to her bed, in which, however, she remained in a sitting posture, erect and tall, though withered. Little breath was left her, yet she still seemed to reign despotically over that silent, dark, and empty house, whence she had driven all her kith and kin, and where the only creature, the domestic animal, whom she had been willing to tolerate, had just died. When Father Théodose, on returning from Pélagie's funeral, tried to ascertain Madame Duparque's intentions with respect to her future mode of life, he could not even extract an answer from her. Greatly embarrassed, he insisted, and offered to send her a sister, pointing out that it was impossible for her to attend to any household duties as she could not even leave her bed. But she at once flew into a temper, growled like some mighty animal stricken unto death and unwilling to be disturbed in its final hour. Vague charges gurgled in her throat; they were all cowards, all traitors to their God, all egotists who abandoned the Church in order that the vaults might not fall upon their heads! Thereupon Father Théodose, in his turn growing exasperated, left her, deciding that he would return the following morning to see if she had become more reasonable.

A night and a day elapsed, for the Superior of the Capuchins was only able to return at dusk, four and twenty hours later. During that night and day, then, Madame Duparque remained alone, absolutely alone, behind the nailed shutters, the carefully closed doors and windows of her dark room, where neither a sound nor a ray of light from the outer world penetrated. She herself had willed it thus, severing all carnal ties with her relations, withdrawing from the world in protest against the hateful society of the times in which sin had proved triumphant. And, after giving herself wholly to the Church, she had gradually become disgusted with its ministers--those priests who lacked all militant faith, those monks who had no heroic bravery, but who were all worldly men bent on personal enjoyment. Thus she had dismissed them also, and now she remained alone with her Deity--an implacable and stubborn Deity, who ruled with absolute, exterminating, and vengeful power. All light and all life had departed from that cold, dismal, fast-closed, and tomb-like house, where there only remained a feeble octogenarian woman, sitting up in bed, gazing into the black darkness, and waiting for her jealous God to carry her away, in order that lukewarm souls might have an example of a really pious end. And when Father Théodose presented himself at the house at dusk he found, to his intense surprise, that the door would not open, that it resisted all his efforts. The key turned readily enough in the lock, and it seemed, therefore, that the door must have been bolted. But who could have bolted it? There was nobody inside except the ailing woman, who could not leave her bed. The Capuchin then made fresh attempts, but in vain; and at last, feeling frightened, unwilling to incur any further responsibility, he hastened to the Town Hall to explain the matter to the authorities. A messenger was at once sent to Mademoiselle Mazeline's for Louise; and, as it happened, Marc and Geneviève were there, having come over from Jonville as the news of Pélagie's death had made them feel anxious.

A tragical business followed. The whole family repaired to the Place des Capucins. As the door would not yield, a locksmith was sent for, but he declared he could do nothing, for assuredly the bolts were fastened. It therefore became necessary to send for a mason, who, with his pick, unsealed the door hinges set in the stone work. At each blow the silent house re-echoed like a closed vault. And when the door had been torn down it was with a quiver that Marc and Geneviève, followed by Louise, re-entered that family abode whence they had been banished. An icy dampness reigned there; it was only with difficulty that they managed to light a candle. And upstairs, in the bed, they found Madame Duparque, still in a sitting posture, propped up by pillows, but quite dead, with a large crucifix between her long, thin, shrivelled hands.

In a superhuman effort she had assuredly found the supreme energy to leave her bed, crawl down the stairs, and shoot the bolts in order that no living soul, not even a priest, might disturb her in her last communion with God. And then she had crawled upstairs again, and had died there. When Father Théodose saw her he fell on his knees, shuddering, and stammering a prayer. He was distraught, for he detected in that death not merely the end of a terrible old woman, raised to a fierce grandeur, as it were, by her uncompromising faith, but also the end of all superstitious and mendacious religion. And Marc, in whose arms Geneviève and Louise had sought a refuge, seemed to feel a great gust sweeping by, as though eternal life were springing from that death.

When the family, after leaving the funeral arrangements to Abbé Coquard, made a search in the old lady's drawers, they found nothing--neither will nor securities of any kind. It could not be said that Father Théodose had purloined any property, for he had not returned to the house. Was it to be assumed, then, that the old lady had previously handed her securities to him or to another? Or had she destroyed them, unwilling that her relatives should benefit by her fortune? The mystery was never solved, not a copper was ever found. Only the little house remained, and it was sold, the proceeds being given to the poor at the request of Geneviève, who said that in taking that course she was certainly doing what her grandmother would have desired.

In the evening, after returning from the funeral, Geneviève cast her arms round her husband's neck, and made him a frank confession: 'If you only knew!' said she. 'I was beset again when I heard that grandmother was all alone, so bravely and loftily adhering to her stubborn faith.... Yes, I asked myself if my place were not beside her, and if I had done right in leaving her.... But what can you expect, dear? I shall never be quite cured. In the depths of my being I shall always retain a little of my old belief.... Yet, what a frightful death that was! And how right you are in asking that people should live as they ought to; that women should be liberated, set in their right position as the equals and companions of men, and that life should partake of all that is good and true and just!'

A month later the two long-deferred weddings at last took place. Louise was married to Joseph, Sarah to Sébastien; and in those espousals Marc perceived a beginning of victory. The good crop, sown with so much difficulty in the midst of persecution and outrage, was germinating and growing already.

II

Years went by, and Marc continued his work, sturdy yet at sixty years of age, and as passionately attached to truth and justice as he had been at the outset of the great struggle. And one day, when he happened to go to Beaumont to call on Delbos, the latter suddenly said to him: 'By the way, my dear fellow, I have had a strange encounter.... The other evening, at dusk, while I was returning home I noticed a man of about your age, looking wretched and ravaged, walking ahead of me along the Avenue des Jaffres.... And, all at once, in the blaze of light coming from the confectioner's shop at the corner of the Rue Gambetta, it seemed to me that I recognised our Gorgias.'

'Eh, our Gorgias?'

'Why, yes, Brother Gorgias, not wearing an Ignorantine's cassock, but a greasy frock-coat, and slipping alongside the walls, with the suspicious gait of an emaciated old wolf.... He must have come back secretly, and must be living in some dark nook or other, still trying to frighten and exploit his old accomplices.'

Marc, whom the announcement had greatly surprised, remained full of doubt. 'You must have been mistaken,' said he; 'Gorgias attaches too much value to his skin to return to Beaumont and run the risk of being sent to the galleys--that is whenever the discovery of a new fact may enable us to apply for the quashing of the Rozan judgment.'

'It is you who are mistaken, my friend,' Delbos answered. 'Our man has nothing more to fear. According to our law of limitation there can be no public action in a criminal matter after the expiration of ten years, and so, even nowadays, little Zéphirin's murderer can walk the streets in the daylight without any fear of arrest.... However, I may have been deceived by a mere resemblance; and in any case the return of Gorgias can have no interest for us, for you agree with me, do you not, that we can derive nothing useful from him?'

'No, nothing whatever. He lied so much at the time of the affair that if he should say anything now he would certainly lie again.... The long-sought truth can never come to us from him.'

In this wise, at long intervals, Marc called upon Delbos in order to chat with him about that everlasting Simon case, which, after the lapse of so many years, still remained like a cancer gnawing at the heart of the country. People might deny its existence, believe it to be dead, cease to speak of it, but nevertheless it still stealthily prosecuted its ravages, like some secret venom poisoning life. Twice a year David quitted his lonely retreat in the Pyrenees and came to Beaumont in order to confer with Delbos and Marc; for, in spite of the pardon granted to his brother, he had not for an hour relinquished his hope of eventual acquittal and rehabilitation. They, David, Delbos, and Marc, were convinced that the monstrous verdict would be some day set aside, and that the affair would end by the victory of the innocent. But, even as in previous years, after the judgment of the Court of Cassation, they found themselves struggling amidst an intricate network of falsehoods. After hesitating for a time as to which scent they might best follow, they had decided to investigate a second crime committed by ex-President Gragnon, a crime which they had already suspected at Rozan, and of which they were now convinced.

Gragnon, at the time of the Rozan proceedings, had repeated his illegal communication trick. On this second occasion, however, he had availed himself, not of one of Simon's letters with a forged postscript and paraph, but of a confession alleged to have been written by the workman who was said to have made a false stamp for the Maillebois schoolmaster--this confession having been handed, it was alleged, to one of the nuns of the Beaumont hospital by the workman in question when he was near his death. Assuredly Gragnon had walked about Beaumont with that confession in his pocket, speaking of it as a thunderbolt which he would hurl at the Simonists if they drove him to extremities, showing it also, or causing it to be shown, to certain members of the jury, those who were pious and weak-minded, but at the same time affecting a keen desire to save the holy nun to whom the confession had been given from being publicly mixed up in such a scandal. And this explained everything. The abominable behaviour of the jury in reconvicting the innocent prisoner became excusable. Those men of average intelligence and honesty had been deceived like the jurors of Beaumont, and had yielded to motives which had remained secret. Marc and David well remembered that they had heard some juryman ask certain questions which had then seemed to them ridiculous. But they now understood that this juryman had referred to the terrible document which Gragnon had stealthily hawked about, and of which it was not prudent to speak plainly. Delbos therefore busied himself with that new fact, that second criminal communication, which, if proved, would entail the immediate annulment of the proceedings at Rozan. But, unfortunately, nothing could be more difficult to prove, and for years Delbos and his friends had striven vainly. Only one hope remained to them: a juror, a retired medical man, named Beauchamp, had acquired a certainty that the workman's alleged confession was simply a gross forgery. In a measure things repeated themselves, as is not infrequently the case in real life, Beauchamp being assailed by remorse like his predecessor, architect Jacquin. He himself, it is true, was not a clerical, but he had an extremely devout wife and did not wish to plunge her into desolation by relieving his conscience. Thus it was necessary to wait.[1]

[Footnote 1: It may be held that M. Zola has perpetrated an artistic blunder by introducing into his narrative a repetition, so to say, of the Jacquin episode; but it should be remembered that the Simon affair is based on the Dreyfus case, in which there were several repetitions of that character. Among those who sat in judgment on Dreyfus, Esterhazy, and Picquart, there were repeated instances of belated conscientious scruples, some indeed known to the initiated but never made public. Thus, if M. Zola is inartistic in making two characters of his story adopt virtually the same course, he is at least true to life.--_Trans._]

However, as the years went by, circumstances became more favourable. Thanks to the spread of secular education the social evolution was being hastened and giving great results. All France was being renewed, a new nation was coming from its thousands of parish schools, whose influence was to be found beneath each fresh reform that was effected, each fresh step that was taken toward solidarity and peace. Things which had seemed impossible in former times were easily accomplished now that the nation was delivered from error and falsehood, endowed with knowledge and force of will.

Thus, at the general elections which took place in May that year, Delbos at last defeated Lemarrois, who had been Mayor of Beaumont for so long a period. At one time it had seemed as if the latter would never lose his seat, personifying as he did the great mass of average public opinion. But the _bourgeoisie_ had denied its revolutionary past, and allied itself with the Church in order that it might not have to abandon any of its usurped power. It clung to the privileges it had acquired, and, rather than share its royalty or its wealth with the masses, it preferred to make use of all the old reactionary forces in order to thrust the now awakened and enlightened people into servitude once more. Lemarrois was a typical example of the _bourgeois_ Republican, who, wishing to defend his class, sank into a kind of involuntary reaction, and was therefore condemned and swept away in the inevitable _débâcle_ of that _bourgeoisie_ which a hundred years of trafficking and enjoyment had sufficed to rot. It was inevitable that the people should ascend to power as soon as it became conscious of its strength, of the inexhaustible reserve of energy, intelligence, and will slumbering within it; and it was sufficient that it should be emancipated, roused from the heavy sleep of ignorance by the schools in order that it might take its due place and rejuvenate the nation. The _bourgeoisie_ was now at the point of death, and the people would necessarily become the great liberating, justice-dealing France of to-morrow. And there was, so to say, an annunciation of all those things in the victory achieved at Beaumont by Delbos, the man who had been Simon's counsel, who had been denied and insulted so long, at first securing only a few Socialist votes, which by degrees had become an overwhelming majority.

Another proof of the people's accession to power was to be found in the complete change which had come over Marcilly. He had formerly figured in a Radical ministry; then, after the reconviction of Simon, he had entered a Moderate administration; and now he affected extreme Socialist principles; and, by harnessing himself to Delbos's triumphal car, had managed to get re-elected. It is true that the popular victory was not complete throughout the department, for Count Hector de Sanglebœuf had also been re-elected, this time as an uncompromising reactionary; for the usual phenomenon of troublous times had appeared, only plain, frank, extreme opinions finding support. The party vanquished for ever was the old Liberal _bourgeoisie_, which had become Conservative from egotism and fright, and which, lacking all strength and logic, was ripe for its fall. And the ascending class, the great mass of those who only the day before had been called the disinherited, would naturally take the place of the _bourgeoisie_ after sweeping away the few stubborn defenders that remained to the Church.

But the election of Delbos was particularly notable as being the first great success achieved by one of those rascals without God or country, one of those traitors who had publicly declared Simon to be innocent. After the monstrous proceedings of Rozan all the notable Simonists had suffered in their persons or their pockets for having dared to desire truth and justice. Insult, persecution, summary dismissal had been heaped upon them. There was Delbos, to whom no client had dared to confide his interests; there was Salvan dismissed, compulsorily retired; there was Marc disgraced, sent to a little village; and behind the leaders how many others there were, relations and friends, who for merely behaving in an upright manner were assailed with worries, and at times even ruined!

Full of mute grief at the sight of such aberration, well understanding that all rebellion was useless, the friends of truth had simply turned to their work, awaiting the inevitable hour when reason and equity would triumph. And that hour seemed to be approaching; for now Delbos, one of the most deeply involved in the affair, had defeated Lemarrois, who had long pursued a pusillanimous policy, refusing to take sides either for or against Simon. Was not this a proof that opinion had changed, that a great advance had been effected? Moreover, Salvan secured consolation, for one of his old pupils was appointed to the directorship of the Training College after Mauraisin had been virtually dismissed for incapacity. Great was the delight of the sage when those tidings reached him, not because it pleased him to crow over his vanquished adversary, but because he at last saw the continuation of his work entrusted to one who was brave and faithful. And, finally, a day came when Le Barazer, who now felt strong enough to repair former injustice, sent for Marc and offered him the head mastership of a school at Beaumont. Such an offer, on the part of that prudent diplomatist, the Academy Inspector, was extremely significant, and Marc was pleased indeed; nevertheless he declined it, for he did not wish to leave Jonville, where his task was not yet finished.

There were also other precursory signs of the great impending change in the country. Prefect Hennebise had been replaced by a very energetic and sensible functionary who had immediately demanded the revocation of Depinvilliers, under whose management the Lycée of Beaumont had become a kind of seminary. Rector Forbes had been compelled to rouse himself from the study of ancient history, in order to dismiss the chaplains, rid the classrooms of the religious emblems placed in them, and secularise secondary as well as elementary education. Then General Jarousse, having been placed on the retired list, had decided to quit Beaumont; for, though his wife owned a house there, he was exasperated with the new spirit which reigned in the town, and did not wish to come into contact with his successor, a Republican general, whom some people even declared to be a Socialist. Moreover, ex-investigating Magistrate Daix had met a wretched death, haunted as he was by spectres, in spite of his belated confession at Rozan; while the former Procureur de la République, Raoul de La Bissonnière, after having a fine career in Paris, seemed likely to come to grief there amidst the collapse of a colossal swindle[2] which he had in some way befriended. And, as a last and excellent symptom of the times, nobody now saluted Gragnon, the ex-presiding judge, when, thin and yellow, he anxiously threaded the Avenue des Jaffres, hanging his head but glancing nervously to right and left as if he feared that somebody might spit upon him as he passed.

[Footnote 2: All newspaper readers know that various judicial personages have been compromised in recent French swindles.--_Trans._]

The happy effects of free and secular education, which brought light and health in its train, were also manifest at Maillebois, whither Marc often repaired to see his daughter Louise, who, with Joseph her husband, lived in the little lodging which Mignot had so long occupied at the Communal school. Maillebois, indeed, was no longer that intensely clerical little town, where the Congregations had succeeded in raising their creature Philis to the mayoralty. In former times the eight hundred working men of the _faubourg_, being divided among themselves, could return only a few Republicans to the Municipal Council, in which they were reduced to inaction. But at the recent elections the whole Republican and Socialist list had passed, by a large majority, in such wise that Darras, defeating his rival Philis, had now again become Mayor. And his delight at returning to that office, whence the priests had driven him, was the keener as he was now supported by a compact majority which would enable him to act frankly instead of being continually reduced to compromises.

Marc met Darras one day and found him quite radiant. 'Yes, I remember,' said he, 'you did not think me very brave in former times. That poor Simon! I was convinced of his innocence, yet I refused to act when you came to me at the municipal offices. But how could I help it? I had a bare majority of two, the council constantly escaped my control, and the proof is that it ended by overthrowing me.... Ah! if I had then only had the majority we now possess! We are the masters at last, and things will move quickly, I promise you.'

Marc smiled and asked him what had become of Philis, his defeated adversary.

'Philis--oh! he has been greatly tried. A certain person--you know whom I mean--died recently, and so he has had to resign himself to living alone with his daughter Octavie, a very pious young woman who does not care to marry. His son Raymond, being a naval officer, is always far away, and the house cannot be very cheerful, unless indeed Philis is already seeking consolation, which may be the case, for I saw a new servant there the other day--yes, quite a sturdy, fresh-looking girl!'

Darras burst into a loud laugh. For his own part, having retired from business with a handsome fortune, he was living his last years in perfect union with his wife, their only regret being that they had no children.

'Well,' Marc resumed, 'Joulic may now feel certain that he will not be worried any more.... It is he, you know, who, in spite of all difficulties, transformed the town with his school, and made your election possible.'

'Oh! you were the first great worker,' Darras exclaimed. 'I don't forget the immense services which you rendered.... But you may be quite easy, Joulic is now safe from all vexations, and I will help him as much as I can in his efforts to make Maillebois free and intelligent.... Besides, your daughter Louise and Simon's son Joseph are now, in their turn, continuing the work of liberation. You are a knot of brave but modest workers, to whom we shall all feel very grateful hereafter.'

Then, for a moment, they chatted about the now distant times when Marc had been first appointed to the Maillebois school. More than thirty years had elapsed! And how many were the events that had occurred, and how many were the children who had passed through the schoolroom and carried some of the new spirit into the district around them! Marc recalled some of his old, his first, pupils. Fernand Bongard, the little peasant with the hard nut, who had married Lucille Doloir, an intelligent girl, whom Mademoiselle Rouzaire had tried to rear in sanctimonious fashion, was now the father of a girl eleven years of age, named Claire, whom Mademoiselle Mazeline was freeing somewhat from clerical servitude. Then Auguste Doloir, the mason's undisciplined son, who had married Angèle Bongard, an obstinate young woman of narrow ambition, had a son of fifteen, Adrien, a remarkably intelligent youth whom Joulic, his master, greatly praised. Charles Doloir, the locksmith, who had been as bad a pupil as his brother, but who had improved somewhat since his marriage with his master's daughter, Marthe Dupuis, also had a son, Marcel, who was now thirteen, and had left the school with excellent certificates. There was also Léon Doloir, who, thanks to Marc, had taken to the teaching profession, and after becoming one of Salvan's best students, now directed the school at Les Bordes, assisted by his wife, Juliette Hochard, who had quitted the Training School at Fontenay with 'No. I' against her name. That young couple was all health and good sense, and their life was brightened by the presence of a little four-year-old urchin, Edmond, who was sharp for his age, already knowing his letters thoroughly. Then came the twin Savins: first Achille, so sly, so addicted to falsehoods as a boy, then placed with a process-server, dulled like his father by years of office work, and married to a colleague's sister, Virginie Deschamps, a lean and insignificant _blonde_, by whom he had a charming little girl, Léontine, who at eleven years of age had just secured her certificate, and was one of Mademoiselle Mazeline's favourite pupils. Then came Philippe Savin, who, long remaining without employment, had been rendered better by a life of hardship, and was now still a bachelor, and manager of a model farm, being associated in that enterprise with his younger brother Jules, the most intelligent of the two, who had given himself to the soil and married a peasant girl, Rosalie Bonin--their firstborn, Pierre, now six years old, having lately entered Joulic's school. Thus generation followed generation, each going towards increase of knowledge, reason, truth, and justice, and it was assuredly from that constant evolution which education produced, that the happiness of the communities of the future would spring.