Complete Works of Emile Zola (1604 page)

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Everything must belong to us, and we will reconstruct everything, in such wise that each person shall have his just share of labor and of repose, of trouble and of enjoyment. There is no other reasonable solution; in-; justice and suffering have now become too great.”

Ragu and Bourron agreed to all this. Was not the wages system wholly corrupt and rotten? Was it not this system which, by exciting anger and hatred, induced the contention between classes, the long warfare of extermination that was now being waged between capital and labor? It was by reason of this system that man had become the enemy of man in this conflict of egoisms, in this monstrous tyranny of a social state based on iniquity. Poverty and misery had no other cause; the wages system was the plague spot that engendered hunger, with all its woful consequences of theft, murder, and prostitution; it was responsible for the degradation of men and women, who, in a state of rebellion, and outcasts from every kindly feeling, were turned into perverted and destructive forces exerted against a cruel and unjust state of society. There was no cure possible for all this but the abolition of the wages system, which was to be replaced by a new social condition, a wholly different era, that would be the ideal state of society, whose secret was in the possession of to-morrow. At this point there were differences of opinion in regard to method, each reformer believing that he possessed a sure means for insuring the happiness of future ages; and the shock of socialistic parties, each of which desired to impose its own reorganization, its own equitable division of wealth, had resulted in nothing but a rough political mêlée. But the wages system in its existing form was condemned by one and all, and nothing could save it; it had had its day, and it would disappear, as all forms of slavery had disappeared whenever the continual march of progress had completed a period in the history of humanity. It was nothing now but a dead organism which threatened to poison the entire body, but which the vitality of the people was going to eliminate, even though it were at the cost of a final tragedy.

“For all that,” continued Bonnaire, “these Qurignons, who founded the Pit, were not bad people. The last one of them, Michel, whose end was so sad, did a great deal to improve the lot of the working-man. It was he who established a relief association, to which he contributed the first hundred thousand francs, and he promised, in the future, to double each year whatever the members themselves contributed. He founded a library and a lecture-hall, as well as an infirmary, where there are free consultation hours twice a week, and besides these a work-room and school for children. And Monsieur Delaveau, although he is not naturally kind-hearted, has made it a duty to respect these. They have been in operation now for years. But what will you have? It is too late to do anything. It is, as one might say, like cauterizing a wooden leg. All this is charity, not justice. These things might go on for years and years without hunger ever ceasing, without poverty ever being abolished. No, no! there is no means of relief possible; we must strike at the root of the evil!”

At this moment Père Linot,. who had seemed to be asleep again, suddenly remarked from the depths of the gloom:

“The Qurignons! I knew them once.”

Luc turned and perceived the old man seated in his chair and drawing empty puffs at his extinguished pipe. He was fifty years old, and for nearly thirty years he had been at the Pit withdrawing crucibles from the furnace. Small and fat, with a pale, bloated face, one would have said that the fire had inflated him instead of drying him up. Perhaps it was the water coming from the steam, with which he was always soaked, that gave him rheumatism. He walked with difficulty, for it had early taken possession of his legs. And as he did not fulfil the conditions necessary to obtain the pitiful pension of three hundred francs a year, which the more recent workmen were to receive later, he would have perished of hunger in the street if his daughter, La Toupe, had not been willing to take him in; she did so, however, only at Bonnaire’s instigation, and made the old man pay for it by continual reproaches and privations of all kinds.

“Ah, yes,” he repeated, slowly, “I knew them all — the Qurignons! There was Monsieur Michel, who is now dead; he was five years older than I. I entered the works under Monsieur Jérôme when I was eighteen and he was forty-five, but the difference between us does not prevent him from living still.... But before Monsieur Jérôme there was Monsieur Blaise, the founder of the whole thing; he came and settled himself at the Pit with his two sets of machinery nearly twenty-four years ago. I never knew him. My father, Jean Ragu, and my grandfather, Pierre Ragu, worked under him; and I might say that Pierre Ragu was his comrade, since they were both steel-workers, without a cent in their pockets, when they started the business together in this valley in the Monts Bleuses, which was then deserted, and where they found water-power on the bank of the Mionne.... The Qurignons have made a great fortune; and look at me, Jacques Ragu, always without a sou, and with my bad legs; there is my son, too, Auguste Ragu, who will never be richer than I am now after thirty years’ labor, not to speak of my wife and children; they have all suffered from hunger, as all the Ragus have suffered for a hundred years!”

He said these things without displaying any anger, with the resigned air of a beast which is past work. He looked at his pipe for a moment, surprised not to find it draw. Then, seeing that Luc was listening to him with a pitying interest, he concluded, shrugging his shoulders slightly:

“Bah, monsieur, it is the natural fate for us poor wretches. There will always be owners and workmen.

... My grandfather and my father were just like me, and my son will be what I am. What good does it do to rebel? Every one’s lot is cast when he is born.... After all, if one might wish for anything, it would be to have something when one is old to buy enough tobacco.”

“Tobacco!” cried La Toupe; “you smoke two sous’ worth a day. Do you suppose that I am going to provide you with tobacco now that we shall no longer have bread to eat?”

She had put him upon an allowance, and this was Père Linot’s only real cause of distress at present. He tried in vain to relight his pipe, in which there was absolutely nothing but ashes. And Luc, his heart filled with increasing pity, continued to contemplate him, sunk together in a heap upon his chair. This lamentable wreck was the outcome of the wages system; a laborer, used up and thrown aside at fifty. A crucible-man, all his life a crucible-man, whose function had become mechanical, he was now warped, stultified, reduced to imbecility and paralysis. Nothing survived in this unfortunate being but the sentiment of fatalism belonging to his slavery.

Bonnaire now put in a proud protest.

“No, no; it will not be always as it is now; there will not always be owners and laborers; a day will come when there will be nothing but free and joyous men.... Our sons, perhaps, will see that day, and it is surely worth while that we, their fathers, should have the suffering, if we are able by it to gain their happiness in the future.”

“Nonsense!” cried Ragu, in a tone of jollity. “You must make more haste than that. I want to be in it myself. What I want is to sit at my ease and to have chicken for every meal.”

“So do I, so do I,” assented Bourron, in an ecstasy. “I shall take back my place.”

Père Linot, with a gesture of contempt, enforced silence, while he continued:

“Take it easy; it is when one is young that one hopes. One’s head is full of foolishness, and one thinks that one is going to change the order of the universe. And then the universe goes on as usual, and one is swept away just like other people.... For me, I do not want anything from anybody. Sometimes, when I can drag myself outdoors, it happens that I meet Monsieur Jerome in his wheeled chair, pushed by a servant. I take off my hat to him, because it is due to a man for whom you work and who is so rich. I do not believe he recognizes me, for he simply looks at me with those eyes, which seem to be full of clear water.... The Qurignons have drawn a good lot; that is a fine thing, and one respects them for it; there will no longer be any good God, if one gets rid of those who have money.”

Ragu now related how, that same evening, on coming out of the factory, Bourron and he had seen Monsieur Jerome pass in his wheeled chair. They had saluted him, as a natural thing. How could they do otherwise without being impolite? But all the same, a Ragu on foot, in the dirt, with an empty stomach, bowing to a Qurignon, who was riding, with his stomach wrapped up in coverings, and with a domestic taking care of him like a fat baby — all this was maddening, and it made one want to throw one’s tools into the water, and force the rich to share their wealth, so that one could enjoy the luxury of idleness in one’s own turn.

“Idleness? No, no! That would be death itself,” answered Bonnaire. “Everybody must work, and in the end that will be happiness gained and unjust poverty overcome.... One must not envy those Qurignons.

They are an example to us by saying to us, ‘You see plainly that a laborer can achieve a great fortune with intelligence, labor, and economy’ ; but they do irritate me a little, because I know that all this money has been gained by exploiting their comrades, and curtailing for the latter both food and liberty; but that will be paid for some day, all that wickedness. The happiness of all can never be made to agree with the exaggerated prosperity of one.... But we must wait patiently until we can see what the future has in store for each of us. My own idea is, as I have told you: it is that those two little rascals who are now in bed, and who are listening to us, will be happier one day than I shall ever have been; and that their children will in turn be happier than they themselves can ever be.... And in order that this shall be, we need wish for nothing but justice, we need only to understand one another as brothers, and we shall conquer, even though it be at the cost of a great deal of misery yet in store for us.”

Lucien and Antoinette had, in truth, not gone to sleep again; the atmosphere of interest created by every one talking so late had kept them awake, with their rosy heads motionless upon the pillow, and their great eyes wide open and thoughtful, as if they understood what was going on.

“Happier some day than we are,” said La Toupe, dryly. “Yes, for they will suffer to-morrow from hunger, since we shall have no food to give them.”

Her words cut like the stroke of an axe. Bonnaire shuddered, called back from his dreams by the sudden chill of that poverty which he had deliberately chosen in leaving the workshops. Luc felt the shiver of that poverty pass beside him, as he stood in the large, barely furnished room, where the little kerosene lamp smoked dismally.  Was not this present struggle an impossible thing; were not this grandfather, father, mother, and two children doomed to death in the near future if the wages system persisted in its powerless protestation against capital? A gloomy silence prevailed, a great black shadow enveloped the room and darkened all their faces.

But there was a knock at the door, followed by a burst of laughter, and Babette, Bourron’s wife, entered, with her plump face that was always gay. Fresh and round, with a white skin and thick flaxen hair, she looked like an eternal spring. Not having found her husband at Cafliaux’s, she had come to look for him, knowing that he would find it hard to get back if she did not escort him herself. She had, however, no appearance of displeasure; on the contrary, she seemed amused, as if she found it agreeable that her husband should take a little pleasure.

“Ah, there you are, Père la Joie!” she cried, gayly, as soon as she perceived him. “I was pretty sure that you had not left Ragu, and that I should find you here. Do you know that it is late? I have put Marthe and Sebastian to bed, and now I suppose I must put you to bed also.”

Bourron never could get angry with her, she showed so much tact in getting him away from his comrades.

“Ah, but she is strong, that woman! You understand that it is my wife who puts me to bed.... Come on, I am willing, since I am always obliged to end in this way.”

He rose, and Babette, then perceiving from the gloomy faces of all those in the room that she had entered into an atmosphere of great sadness, perhaps into a quarrel, tried to smooth things. In her own house she sang from morning until night, loving her husband, comforting him, and drawing for him glowing pictures of the future whenever he was discouraged. The miserable poverty and suffering in which she had lived since childhood had not been able to embitter her continual good-humor. She was always perfectly convinced that things would turn out well, and she herself was always on the high-road to paradise.

“What is the matter with you all, then? Are the children ill?”

Then when La Toupe burst out afresh and related to her how Bonnaire had left the works, that they should all be dead of hunger before the week was out, and that, so far as she was concerned, the whole of Beauclair might be wiped out, for they were too unhappy — they could no longer live — Babette protested, and prophesied prosperous and sunny days with her air of confident gayety.

“Oh no! oh no! do not make people unhappy,
ma chère! Y
ou will see that everything will settle itself quietly. They will go to work, and they will be happy.”

And she carried off her husband, amusing him by telling him things so droll and so tender that he followed her with docility; she even joked with him on his recent drunkenness, which had now become inoffensive.

Luc had decided to follow them, when La Toupe, in the course of arranging her work on the table, found the key which she had thrown at her brother, and which he had not yet put away.

“Well, do you intend to take it, after all? Are you going up to bed? They say that baggage who belongs to you is waiting for you somewhere. You can go and look her up, if that amuses you.”

Ragu, sneering, balanced the key for a moment on one of his thumbs. All the evening he had been crying in Bourron’s face that he did not intend to feed a good-for-nothing, who was stupid enough to lose a finger in the machinery without getting compensation for it. He had had this girl as he had had plenty of others, all of whom were more than willing that he should have them. The affair was simply at the pleasure of both parties, and when one was tired of it, then, good-morning, good-evening — each one would go back whence he or she came. But since he had been there he had sobered down, and he did not hold to his evil obstinacy. Then his sister, exasperated by him, persisted in dictating to him what he should do.