Complete Works of Emile Zola (1635 page)

“Oh no, oh no, abbé, no church! Certainly, I do not make any secret of the fact that things here are not organized according to my taste. But if there is any one of these things that I do approve, it is the abandonment of all forms of established worship. Men must be governed — yes, but it will no longer be the priests in churches who will govern them, but us citizens in our mayors’ offices. The churches will be converted into public granaries, for the storing of harvests.”

The Abbé Marie became very much excited, and said that he would not permit sacrilegious words to be spoken in his presence. The dispute became so bitter that Dr. Novarre was obliged to interfere as usual. He had listened up to that moment With observant eyes and the acute air of a man naturally amiable and a little sceptical, who does not allow himself to be troubled by any exchange of words, no matter how violent; but he thought he perceived at this point that Sœurette was beginning to be grieved.

“Come, come, you are evidently almost of the same mind, since both of you wish to utilize the churches. The abbé will always be able to say mass therein, under the condition of leaving a corner for the fruits of the earth in years of great abundance. The good God would surely not condemn such an arrangement, whatever may be his religion.”

Then he spoke of a new rose which he had produced, and which was of the purest white, with a dash of crimson in the centre. He had brought a cluster with him, and Sœurette, looking at them in a vase upon the table, smiled at their charm and perfume; but a feeling of sadness, nevertheless, lingered in her mind, at the virulence which was displayed in the quarrels that occurred at these Tuesday breakfasts, which would soon be no longer possible.

Only then did Jordan awake from his reverie. He had all along preserved an attentive air
,
as if he were listening, but as soon as he spoke it was plain that his mind was far away.

“You know,” he said, “that in America a scientific electrician has just succeeded in storing up enough solar heat to produce electricity.”

When Luc was left alone with Jordan, there was a prolonged silence. The heart of the former was oppressed by the thought of the poor men who were oppressing each other and tearing each other to pieces in their blind pursuit of happiness. As the progress of time showed him the difficulty of working for the common good, and convinced him that it must be done amid the antagonism of the very persons whom he wished to redeem, he was sometimes seized with a discouragement that he had not yet admitted, but which exhausted him bodily and mentally, in the same manner as great and unprofitable fatigue. For an instant his will staggered, almost to the point of failure.

And on this day, also, he uttered his usual cry of distress:

“But they do not love me! If they loved me everything would increase and prosper; everything would flourish and expand like a plant in the sunshine.”

One autumn morning, very early, a few days after this, Sœurette received a painful shock, which occasioned her the deepest distress. She was an early riser, and had gone to give some orders at a dairy which she had established for her children in her
crèche
, when the idea occurred to her, in following the terraced wall which ended at the cottage occupied by Luc, to cast a glance over the Combettes road, which the terrace overlooked. At the moment that she did so, the door of the cottage looking out upon the road having been half opened, she saw a woman come quietly out, a shadowy form which was almost immediately effaced in the rosy mist of the morning. But she had recognized the delicate, graceful figure, with its subtle charm, which, like a vision of infinite tenderness, was flying in the broad light of day. It was Josine, who was coming from Luc’s house; and the fact of her leaving in this manner at sunrise showed that she must have passed the night therein.

Since Ragu had left La Crêcherie, Josine had returned to see Luc occasionally on nights when she was at liberty; and this night she had come to tell him that she could not return again, for fear of being surprised by the neighbors, who were watching her outgoings. The idea of lying and of concealing herself in order to devote herself to her god was so painful to her that she preferred to wait for the hour when she could claim his love in broad daylight. Luc understood her feeling, and resigned himself to it. But they had exchanged so many kisses, so many vows, and so many farewells, that it was already daylight when she tore herself away. The morning mists alone had slightly veiled her departure.

That Josine should come out of Luc’s house at sunrise! This sudden revelation came upon Sœurette with the shock of a mortal catastrophe. She suddenly stood still, glued to the spot, as if the earth had opened before her feet. She was so stunned and such a tumult rose in her brain that she experienced nothing but confusion, without any clear sensation, or any possible reasoning. She did not continue her way, and forgot that she was going to the dairy to give an order. She suddenly turned and fled homeward, re-entered the house, rushed madly up to her room, shut herself in, and threw herself upon her unmade bed, with her hands over her eyes and ears, as if she would neither see nor hear. She did not weep; she knew nothing yet, and was a prey solely to extreme distress, mingled with infinite consternation.

Why then, should she suffer thus, in such a rending of her entire being? She had believed herself to be nothing more than Luc’s very affectionate friend, his disciple and his aid, passionately devoted, like himself, to the work of justice and human happiness, which it was his dream to accomplish. She imagined that she enjoyed nothing more in his presence than the delightful pleasure of a fraternity of soul, without any suspicion of the birth of a deeper emotion. And yet she was all aflame and possessed of a burning fever because of the vision of that other woman passing out of Luc’s house in the morning light. Did she love Luc, then? Did she desire him for herself? Why did she not perceive that such was the case until the day on which the misfortune occurred, and when it was much too late for her to inspire love in her turn? How severe was the blow to learn in so harsh a manner that she herself loved, when another had already taken her place, and driven her from a heart in which she might have enshrined herself, perhaps, as an adored and all-powerful queen. All the rest was of no consequence; she cared not how her love had been born and nourished, nor why she had, in spite of her thirty years, remained in ignorance of it, and had, up to that time, been perfectly content in the possession of Luc’s friendship, without experiencing the pang of desire for a closer intimacy. Her tears flowed at last, and she sobbed over the brutality of the circumstance which had placed this obstacle abruptly between herself and the man to whom she had given her whole heart without being aware of it. The only thought that now occupied her was the question of what she could do in order to make herself loved, for now that she was conscious that she loved, and would never cease to love, it did not seem possible to her that she could not herself be loved. The existence of love once acknowledged seemed to burn her heart, and she felt as if she could not continue to live unless its smart was relieved by the balm of a reciprocated affection. But her ideas were all confusion, and she struggled with irresolute thoughts and undefined resolutions, after the manner of a mature woman who, having remained a child, is suddenly thrown into the torturing realities of life.

She remained thus for a long time, half conscious, with her face pressed into the pillow. The sun was already high and the morning far advanced, without her having found a practical solution in her constantly increasing emotion. The same problem obstinately recurred: What could she do to manifest her own affection and to inspire that of another? The remembrance of her brother suddenly occurred to her; it was he in whom she ought to confide, since he alone of all the world really understood her, and was well aware that her heart had never lied. He was a man, and he surely would comprehend; he would know what ought to be done when one feels the imperative need of happiness. Without any further reasoning she suddenly jumped out of bed and descended to the laboratory, like a child who has found a way out of some great trouble.

Jordan that very morning had met with a disastrous set-back. He had believed for some months that he had found a method of transmitting electrical power under perfect conditions of safety and economy. This was to burn the coal as it came from the shaft, and conduct the electricity without any waste, and thus reduce the net cost considerably. He had spent four years of research upon this problem, though sorely impeded by the various ailments that attacked his delicate person. He utilized what strength he had as well as he could; he slept a great deal, wrapped up in his coverings, and methodically occupied all the rare hours which he thus conquered from unkind nature in developing his method. And by making the most that he could out of that ungrateful instrument, his miserable body, he succeeded in accomplishing a formidable amount of work. The embarrassing crisis through which La Crêcherie was passing was concealed from him, so as not to disturb him. He believed that everything there was going on well, for he was incapable of noticing things or of taking an interest in them, being continually shut up in his laboratory and occupied at his work, which, to him, was the only thing that existed in the world. This very morning he had begun to work early, feeling his intelligence clear, and wishing to turn it to account in a final experiment. The latter had totally failed, for he had suddenly encountered an unforeseen obstacle, an error of calculation, a neglected detail, which suddenly assumed a destructive importance, and postponed indefinitely the long-sought solution of the question of his electrical furnaces.

It was a complete collapse. The immense amount of labor already accomplished was entirely unproductive, and an equally large amount would still be necessary. He had just wrapped himself up again in his coverings, in the vast and desolate room, and was about to stretch himself out in the arm-chair in which he had passed so many hours, when his sister entered. When he saw her pallor and her loss of composure he became greatly uneasy, although he had borne the shock of his own disappointment unmoved, like a man whom nothing could discourage.

“What is the matter, dear?” he asked. “Are you suffering?”

His demand for confidence did not embarrass her. She answered without hesitation, like a child whose heart reveals itself in a sob:

“I am, dear brother. I love Luc, and he does not love me. I am very unhappy.”

Then, in her frank and simple manner, she related the whole story. She told how she had seen Josine come out of Luc’s house, and how this had caused her such intense grief that she had come to him for consolation and relief. She loved Luc, and Luc did not love her.

Jordan listened in stupefaction, as if she had told him of some extraordinary and unexpected interruption to the laws of nature.

“You love Luc!” he repeated; “you love Luc!”

Love — why love? That love should come to visit this adored sister, whom he had always seen beside him like a second self, stunned him. The idea that she should fall in love, and that she should be unhappy in consequence, had never occurred to him. All this was a need of which he was ignorant, a world into which he had never entered. His embarrassment, therefore, became very great — so candid was he himself and so totally ignorant in such a matter as this.

“Oh, tell me, brother,” cried Sœurette, “why should Luc love Josine? Why is it not I whom he loves?”

She was sobbing now, and had clasped her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder, in the grief that rendered her forlorn. What could he say to her that would direct and console her?

“I do not know, dear sister,” he answered, “I do not know. He doubtless loves her simply because he does. There cannot be any other reason. He would be loving you had he loved you first.”

And this was, indeed, the truth. Luc loved Josine because she was a woman of charm and passion, whom he had met when in a state of suffering that aroused all the tenderness of his heart. And then she possessed beauty, that gift which eternally inspires the divine thrill of love.

“But, brother, he knew me before he knew her. Why did he not love me first?”

Jordan, more and more embarrassed by these questions and very much moved, tried with great simplicity to find kind and considerate answers.

“Perhaps because he lived among us like a friend and brother, until he came to feel like a brother towards you.”

He looked at her for a moment as he ceased speaking, regarding her closely as she clung to him, so thin, so frail, and with so insignificant a face. She had no power to inspire love, in spite of the charm of manner which came from her gentleness and goodness. She was too pale and too sad, like all those who spend their lives in silent devotion. Certainly she had never been anything to Luc but an intelligent, kindly, and agreeable companion.

“Do you not see, dear sister, that if he has become your brother, like myself, he cannot love you with the love that he gives Josine? It would never enter his mind. But he loves you very much, all the same, just as I do.”

This speech caused a revolt in Soeurette’s soul. A revulsion of her entire affectionate being made her cry out with a renewed outburst of sobs:

“
No, no, he does not love me much; he does not love me at all. To love a woman is not to love her as a brother does. I see that very well when I suffer as I am suffering now from the knowledge that he is really lost to me. Although I knew nothing of these things but a little while ago, I understand them now, because I know what I am undergoing through them.”

Jordan was greatly moved, and was obliged to restrain the tears that rose to his eyes.

“Dear sister, dear little sister,” said he, “you give me the utmost pain; and it is scarcely reasonable to make yourself really ill from such a cause. I hardly know you — you who are so composed and so quiet, you who understand so entirely what firmness of soul it is necessary to oppose to the miseries of existence.”