Complete Works of Emile Zola (1642 page)

The first time that Josine, entirely recovered, was able to begin her new existence, side by side with Luc, the latter clasped her in his arms, crying:

“Ah, you are mine alone; you have never been anything but mine, since your child is mine! We are now entirely one, and we fear nothing more at the hands of fate.”

When Luc was able to resume the direction of the works he was received with the warmest sympathy on all sides, and this did him a great deal of good. But it was not only the baptism of blood which he had received that caused the continuous progress of La Crêcherie and insured its success. A fortunate occurrence which combined to do this was that the mine became a source of enormous wealth, owing to the discovery of extensive lodes of excellent ore, which Morfain had always said would be the case. From this time on, both iron and steel were produced so cheaply and of so fine a quality that the Pit found itself threatened even in its manufacture of objects of fine steel at a high price. All competition between the two became impossible. Then again, there was a great democratic impetus, which multiplied ways of communication, an endless extension of railroads, and a tenfold increase in the construction of bridges, buildings, and entire cities, in which iron and steel were employed in large and constantly increasing quantities. From the time that Vulcan’s descendants first melted iron in a hole in order to forge weapons therefrom to defend themselves and to conquer both the animate and inanimate world, the uses of iron have steadily increased in extent; and in the future, when science shall have provided means for its production at a nominal cost, and for its adaptation to all purposes, iron will prove to be the source of justice and of peace. But what brought about the prosperity and triumph of La Crêcherie, above all, were natural causes, such as a better administration, more truth, more equity, and more solidarity. Its success lay within itself, from the day that it was called into being, under the transition system of a wise association between capital, labor, and intelligence, and the dark days through which it had just passed, with obstacles of all kinds and crises that had seemed to be mortal, were simply the ordinary obstructions of the road, which are inevitable during the early stages of any march, and which it is a necessity to endure if it is desired to reach the goal. Now it became apparent that the good work was and had always been full of vitality, and it stood forth on a firm basis, replete with vigor, in sure promise of a future harvest.

It had now become an object-lesson, a successful experiment, which was gradually to convince the whole world. How was it possible to deny the strength, of this association of capital, labor, and intelligence when the profits arising from it were becoming greater year by year, and the workmen at La Crêcherie were already gaining double what their comrades were at the other works? How was it possible not to recognize the fact that the system of eight hours’ labor, of six hours’, or three hours’, a system of labor made enjoyable by diversity of employment and the attractive surroundings of light, cheerful workshops, and machines that children could operate, was the very foundation of future society, when the wretched wage-earners of yesterday were seen becoming healthy, intelligent, cheerful, and gentlemen in this progress towards total liberty and justice? How was it possible to deny the necessity of co-operation, which would suppress intermediary parasites, through whom so much wealth and effort are lost, when the general stores were operating without impediment, increasing tenfold the welfare of the poverty stricken of yesterday and providing them with all the enjoyments that had hitherto been reserved for the rich, alone? How was it possible to witness the happy reunions at the Communal House, with its libraries, its museums, its halls for amusement, its gardens, its games, and its recreations of all kinds, without being convinced that the results of a community of interest were to render life attractive and make it one long enjoyment to the dwellers upon earth? ‘And, lastly, how was it possible that instruction and discipline should not be inspired with a new life when they were no longer based upon the idleness of man, but upon his inextinguishable craving for knowledge, when study was made attractive by permitting each pupil to follow his individual bent, when the two sexes, who ought to be brought up side by side from infancy, were taught together, when the schools, relieved from the oppression of too many books, and combining lessons with recreation and with a first training in apprenticeship, became altogether prosperous, each succeeding generation being thus stimulated to attain that ideal city towards which humanity has been progressing through so many ages?

So the extraordinary example that La Crêcherie was daily giving in full view of everybody was becoming contagious. It was no longer a matter of theory; it represented a fact which was being accomplished, under the eyes of all, and which, now that its period of full floresence had been reached, was continuing to expand without any check. As a natural result of all this the association was, by degrees, gaining both men and neighboring land, and new workmen were presenting themselves in crowds, attracted by the profits and welfare; and new buildings, springing up in every direction, were added continually to those first constructed. The population of the town doubled in three years, and its progress in all directions was advancing with incredible rapidity. It was the city of the future, the city of reorganized labor; it was the city of finally achieved happiness that springs naturally from the earth. Around the enlarged works, the city was in the way of becoming a metropolis, the central’ heart, the source of life, and the dispenser and regulator of social existence; the workshops, the large manufacturing buildings increased in number, and covered acres of ground, while the little houses, bright and cheerful in the midst of the verdure of their gardens, multiplied rapidly in accordance with the increase in numbers of the workmen and employees of all kinds. The town, little by little, outstripped its own borders, and advanced towards the Pit, threatening to absorb it. At first there had been vast barren tracts between the two works, which consisted of the uncultivated land owned by Jordan at the bottom of the slopes of the Monts Bleuses. Then a few houses were built just outside La Crêcherie, others appeared adjoining them, and still others, until there arose a line of buildings which went on encroaching like a rising tide, until it was only two or three hundred yards from the Pit. Would not the latter soon, when the waves began to beat against it, be submerged and swept away, to be replaced by the triumphant accomplishment of health and joy? Old Beauclair itself also was menaced, for a whole section of the rapidly growing city was moving against it, and was about to sweep away that dark and fetid quarter, the nest of suffering and disease, under whose crumbling walls the wages system was now dying hard. Luc sometimes watched the advance of this budding city, of which he was the creator and the founder, developing as he had seen it in his dream upon the evening when his work had been decided on. He could hardly believe that it was realized, and that it stood before him as a part of the conquest of the past, sprung from the soil of the Beauclair of the future, the happy dwelling-place of a happy human race. All Beauclair would eventually become part of it. Situated as it was between the two promontories of the Monts Bleuses, the whole estuary between the Brias gorges would in time be covered with cheerful houses surrounded with verdure, and extending as far as to the wide, fertile plains of Roumagne. It might be that years and years would still be required for this, but he saw already, with the eyes of a seer, that happy city which he had called into existence by his will, and which was steadily advancing.

One evening Bonnaire brought to him Babette, Bourron’s wife, who said, with her air of perpetual good-humor:

“Monsieur Luc, my husband would like very much to return to work at La Crêcherie; but he does not dare to come and speak to you himself, for he remembers that he behaved very badly when he left you. So I have come.”

Bonnaire added:

“You must forgive Bourron, for he was under the influence of that wretch Ragu. Bourron is not bad, he is merely weak; and there is no doubt that we can still save him.”

“Bring back Bourron by all means,” cried Luc, cheerfully. “I am very far from wishing for the death of the sinner! I should never abandon a man who was the victim of his boon companions, without opposing any resistance to the idlers and drunkards. He is a good recruit, and we will make an example of him.”

Luc had never felt so delighted, for this return of Bourron seemed to him decisive, although the workman was an indifferent one. If he could be saved, if he could be reformed, as Bonnaire thought, would not this be a triumph over the wages system? And thus one more house was added to his town, one tiny stream joining itself to the other streams and swelling the flood which would eventually sweep away the old world.

Another evening, a little later on, Bonnaire came to beg him once more to admit a workman from the Pit. But this time the recruit was such a pitiful one that he did not press the point.

“It is that poor Fauchard,” said he. “You remember him. He walked around La Crêcherie several times, but could not form a resolution. He was afraid to choose, so greatly had grinding labor, always the same, stupefied and crushed him. He is no longer a man, but a piece of machinery, warped and out of true. I am afraid that nothing good can be gotten out of him.”

Luc reflected, and recalled to mind his early days at Beauclair.

“Yes, I know him; he has a wife, Natalie, has he not? A careworn, melancholy woman, always seeking credit. And he has a brother-in-law, Fortuné, who was only sixteen when I saw him, but was already pallid and stupefied, so entirely was he even then the victim of mechanical and precocious labor. Oh! the poor creatures! Well, let them all come to us; why should they not do so? It will be another example, even if we cannot make a free and happy man out of Fauchard!”

Then he added, with an air of pleasantry:

“Still another family, still another house added to the others. The town grows populous, does it not? Bonnaire, we are in a fair way to enjoy that large and beautiful city of which I have so often spoken to you from the outset, and which you refused to believe in. Do you remember? The experiment left you uneasy, and you worked with me only from a sense of duty and gratitude. Are you convinced now?”

Bonnaire, a little annoyed, did not answer immediately. However, he at length said, with his habitual frankness:

“Is a person ever convinced? He must have tangible results. No doubt the works are prosperous, our association is expanding, the working-people live better, and there is something more of justice and happiness. But you know my opinions, Monsieur Luc: you are still working on the accursed wages system, and I see no signs that a collectivist society is on the way.”

However, it was theory alone that was now defending itself in him. If, as he maintained, his opinions remained unchanged, he showed at least that he had admirable faith in labor, activity, and courage. He was the workman hero who, by setting his comrades a friendly example of community of interest, had really been the leading spirit in the achievement of La Crecherie’s victory. When he made his appearance in the workshops, so tall, so strong, and so good-natured, all hands were held out to greet him, and he himself was already more converted than he was willing to admit. He was overjoyed at seeing his comrades suffering less, enjoying every pleasure, and living in healthy houses with flowers around them. He therefore could not leave until the wish of his life should be fulfilled, and that was that there should be less poverty and more justice.

“Yes, yes, a collectivist society,” laughingly said Luc; “we shall realize that and shall realize it better; and if we do not do it ourselves, our children will see to it, the little ones whom we are bringing up for that purpose. Have faith, Bonnaire; say to yourself that henceforward the future is ours, since our town is steadily on the increase.”

As he spoke he called attention with a broad sweep of the hand to the roofs of the houses adorned with colored earthen tiles, so brilliant in the setting sun, amid the young trees. These houses were always present in his thoughts; they were an actuality which seemed to have sprung from the ground at the touch of his breath, and which he saw progressing under his eyes, like a pacific army, whose function it was to sow the seed of the future upon the ruins of old Beauclair and the Pit.

But if at La Crêcherie the industrial population had triumphed alone, it would have been simply a fortunate event, with consequences open to discussion. What rendered the event decisive and far-reaching was that the peasant population of Combettes was sharing in the victory, in the common effort, and in the association that had been formed between the village and the works. Here also there was only a beginning; but what a promise of prodigious fortune! From the day on which the mayor, Lenfant, and his associate, Yvonnot, reconciled by the necessity of a mutual understanding if they wished to continue the struggle for existence, had induced all the small land-owners of the commune to form an association, and to join their little parcels of land to each other, so as to form one single large tract of several hundred acres, the land had shown an extraordinary fertility. Up to this time, and especially of late years, the soil had seemed completely exhausted, as was the case over all the immense plain of Roumagne, formerly so fertile, now to all appearance completely sterile, and covered with a scanty, thorny stubble. All this, however, was in reality only the effect of the idleness, indifference, and obstinate ignorance of man, of his superannuated methods, and the lack of fertilizers, machines, and good judgment. Therefore what a lesson it afforded, from the time that the associates of Combettes began to cultivate their domain in common! They bought fertilizers very cheap, and procured tools and machines from La Crêcherie in exchange for the bread, wine, and vegetables with which they furnished it. Their present prosperity arose from the fact that from the moment that they assumed the bond of a joint interest they were no longer isolated, and that the tie between the village and the works was thereafter indestructible. They represented the long-dreamed-of alliance between the peasant and the artisan, the peasant who gives the grain by which man is fed, and the artisan who gives the iron by means of which the land must be tilled in order that the grain may be raised. If La Crêcherie had need of Combettes, Combettes would not be able to exist without La Crêcherie. The union between them once accomplished, it would give rise to the happy social conditions of the future. And already what a wonderful spectacle was presented by this once desolate plain, this almost abandoned town, the one covered with a rich harvest, the other occupied by prosperous people! In the midst of other lands lying desolate through disunion and negligence, Combettes appeared like a little island of luxuriant verdure, and the people in the adjoining country regarded it with wonder, which by degrees was succeeded with envy. Such aridness, such sterility yesterday, and such vigor, such fertility to-day! Therefore, why not follow the example of Combettes? The neighboring communes became interested, asked questions, and wished to imitate. Fleuranges, de Lignerolles, and de Bonneheux began to be spoken of as places where the mayors were drawing up plans for co-operation and collecting signatures. Soon the little green sea would spread and join itself to other seas, and its green flood would go on continually increasing in strength, until the whole of Roumagne, as far as the eye could see, would be one single territory, one single peaceful ocean of grain, large enough to sustain an entire population. This time was, indeed, approaching, for the land which was so carefully tended was itself beginning to progress.