Chapter 2

Whilst evolution was carrying Beauclair towards its new destiny, love, young, gay, and victorious, asserted itself, and on all sides there came frequent marriages, drawing various classes together and hastening the advent of harmony and final peace. Love the victorious overthrew all obstacles, triumphed over the greatest resistance with a passion full of happy vitality, an explosion of joy which proclaimed in the broad sunlight what happiness there was in being, in loving, in creating yet more and more.

Luc and Josine had set the example. During the last ten years a family of three boys and two girls had sprung up around them. Hilaire, the eldest, born before the collapse of the Abyss, was already eleven. Then, at intervals of two years, had come the others: Charles, who was now nine years old; Th�r�se, who was seven; Pauline, who was five; and Jules, who was three. To the old pavilion another structure had been added, and there these children romped, filling the place with gaiety and hope, and growing up for future unions. As Luc, in delight, often said to the smiling Josine, the constancy of their affection sprang largely from that triumphant fruitfulness. In Josine, the amorosa had now largely given way to the mother; yet she and Luc were still lovers, for love does not age, it remains the eternal flame, the immortal brazier whence the life of the world derives its being. Never had a home resounded with brighter gaiety than theirs, full as it was of children and flowers. And they loved one another so well there, that misfortune passed them by. Whenever any recollection of the dolorous past returned, when Josine recalled her sufferings and the downfall in which she would have perished had it not been for Luc's helping hand, she flung her arms around his neck in a transport of inexhaustible gratitude, whilst he, full of emotion, felt that the iniquitous opprobrium from which he had saved her rendered her all the dearer to him.

Nanet, little Nanet, who was now becoming a man, lodged with Luc, beside his 'big sister,' as he still called Josine. Gifted with keen intelligence and an enterprising bravery which was ever on the alert, the young fellow captivated Luc, whose dearest pupil he became, a youthful disciple full of the master's lessons. And meantime, at the Jordans', whose house was so near to Luc's, Nise, little Nise, was likewise growing up in the affectionate charge of S�urette, who had given her a home on the morrow of the destruction of the Abyss, happy in being able to adopt the young girl, in whom she found a charming companion and assistant. And it followed that Nanet and Nise, seeing one another every day, ended by living solely one for the other. As a matter of fact, did not their betrothal date from infancy, from the distant days when child-love, divine ingenuousness, had filled them with a craving to be together, impelling them to brave all punishments and even to scale walls in order to meet? They had been fair and curly like little lambs in those days, and how silvery had seemed their laughter when at each meeting they embraced, knowing nothing of what parted them socially, she the bourgeoise by birth, the master's daughter, and he the urchin of the streets, the penniless son of a wretched manual worker. Then had come the frightful tempest of flames, Nise saved by Nanet, to whose neck she had clung, both of them covered with burns, and at one moment in danger of death. And to-day also they were both fair and curly, they gave vent to the same light laughter as in childhood, and displayed a similarity of demeanour as if one matched the other. But Nise had now become a big girl, Nanet a big youth, and they adored one another.

The idyll lasted for nearly seven years longer, whilst Luc was making a man of Nanet, and S�urette was helping Nise to grow up in kindliness and beauty. Nise had been thirteen years of age at the time of the terrible death of her father and mother, whose remains had been reduced to ashes, in such wise that nothing of them was found under the remnants of the burnt house. For long years the girl shuddered at the recollection of that night. There was no reason to hurry her marriage; so far as that was concerned, indeed, her friends wished to wait until she should be twenty in order that she herself might come to a free and sensible decision. Besides, Nanet himself was very young, her elder by scarcely three years, and still an apprentice. With their gay playful natures, moreover, simply intent as they were on making merry together, they themselves were in no hurry. They met every evening, and found a simple enjoyment in telling one another what they had done during the day. They would often sit hand in hand, and when they parted for the night they exchanged an affectionate kiss. But amidst their cordial agreement there were at times some little quarrels. Nanet occasionally found Nise too proud and wilful; she put on her princess's airs, as he was wont to remark. Again, he sometimes thought her too coquettish, too fond of fine attire and of the f�tes at which she displayed it. Of course it was not forbidden to appear beautiful—on the contrary; but it was not right to spoil one's beauty by assuming an air of contempt for others. At first Nise, in whom reappeared some little of her mother's passion for enjoyment and her father's despotic disposition, grew angry when she was reproved, and endeavoured to demonstrate that she was perfection itself. But as she worshipped Nanet she ended by confiding in him, listening to him, and striving to please him by becoming the best and gentlest of little women. And when, as sometimes happened, she did not succeed in this, she remarked with a laugh that if she should ever have a daughter the latter would no doubt be much better than herself, because it was necessary that the blood of the princes of this world should have time to become democratised among a more brotherly line of descendants.

The wedding at last took place, when Nise was twenty and Nanet twenty-three years old. It had long been wished for, foreseen, and awaited. For seven years not a day had elapsed without a step towards this d�nouement of the long and happy idyll. And as this marriage of Delaveau's daughter with the brother of Josine, who was now to all intents and purposes Luc's wife, extinguished all hatred, and sealed a pact of alliance, there was a desire that it should be made a festival celebrating forgiveness of the past and the new community's radiant entry into the future. With this object it was decided that there should be singing and dancing on the very site of the Abyss, in one of the halls now erected there as an adjunct to La Cr�cherie, which at present spread over acres and acres of ground, and ever and ever grew.

Luc and S�urette were the organisers and masters of the ceremonies of this marriage festival, as well as the witnesses of the bridal pair, Luc being witness for Nanet, and S�urette for Nise. They wished to impart to the festival all the splendour of a triumph, to endow it with the gaiety of hope's fulfilment, to make it like the very victory of the city of work and peace, now founded and prosperous. It is good that communities should indulge in great rejoicings; public life needs frequent days of beauty, joy, and exultation. Thus Luc and S�urette chose the great foundry hall, where so many of the monster-like hammers, the gigantic rolling bridges, the movable cranes of prodigious strength were gathered together. The new buildings, all bricks and steelwork, were clean and healthy, and full of joyous brightness with their large windows through which streamed both air and sunlight. And the plant was left in position, especially as, for a festival of triumphant work, one could not have devised any better decorations than were provided by those gigantic appliances, whose powerful forms were instinct with a sovereign beauty compounded of logic, strength, and certainty. However, they were decorated with foliage and crowned with flowers, even as were altars in ancient times. The brick walls, too, were ornamented with garlands of verdure, and the very pavement was strewn with roses and broom flowers. The whole seemed like the blossoming of man's effort to attain happiness, an effort which had ended by flowering there, scattering perfume around the toil of the worker, a toil once unjust and hard, but now attractive and leading solely to happiness.

Two processions set forth, one from the home of the bridegroom, the other from that of the bride. On his side Luc, followed by his wife Josine and their children, brought the hero Nanet; on hers, S�urette, with her brother Jordan, brought their adopted daughter, the heroine Nise. The whole population of the new city, where all work was stopped in token of rejoicing, lined the road to acclaim the bridal pair. The beautiful sun shone out, the gay houses were decked with bright colours, the greenery was full of flowers and birds. And in the rear of either cort�ge followed the crowd of workers, a vast concourse of joyous people who gradually invaded the great halls of the works, which were as lofty and as broad as the naves of the old-time cathedrals. The foundry hall, whither the bridal couple repaired, was soon crowded to excess in spite of its immensity. In addition to Luc, his family, and the Jordans, there were the Boisgelins with Paul, who at that time had not yet married Antoinette, for their wedding was only to take place four years later. Then came the Bonnaires, the Bourrons, even the Fauchards, indeed, all those whose arms had contributed to the victory of work. Those men of good will and faith, those workers of the first days, had increased and multiplied. Was not the throng of comrades around them an enlargement of their families, an assemblage of brothers whose numbers still increased daily? There were five thousand of them, and soon there would be ten. They would increase to a hundred thousand, to a million, and would at last absorb all mankind.

The ceremony, in the midst of the powerful machinery decked with flowers and garlands of verdure, was one of sovereign and touching simplicity.

With smiling mien Luc and S�urette placed Nanet's and Nise's hands one in the other.

'Love one another with all your hearts,' they said to them, 'and have handsome children who will love one another as you yourselves will be loved.'

The crowd raised acclamations, and shouted the word 'Love!' For it was King Love who alone could render work fruitful, by making the race ever more and more numerous, and inflaming it with desire, the eternal source of life.

But in all this there was already too much solemnity for Nanet and Nise, who had loved one another so playfully ever since childhood. Although those two little curly lambs had grown up, they remained like toys in their festival raiment, both clad in white, charming and delightful. And they were not content with a ceremonious hand-shake. They fell upon each other's neck.

'Ah! my little Nise, how happy I am to have you for my wife at last, after waiting for you for years and years!'

'Ah! my little Nanet, how happy I am to belong to you, for it is quite true, you have earned it!'

'And little Nise, do you remember when I pulled you up by the arms to help you over the walls, and when I carried you pick-a-back, and played at being a rearing horse?'

'And little Nanet, do you remember when we played at hide-and-seek, and you ended by finding me among the rosebushes, so well hidden there that it was enough to make me die of laughing?'

'Little Nise, little Nise, we'll love each other as we played, very heartily, with all, all the strength of health and gaiety.'

'Little Nanet, little Nanet, we played so much, and we will love one another so much, that we shall love yet again in our children, and play again even with our children's children.'

And they embraced, and laughed, and played together, raised to the highest felicity. The throng, filled with enthusiasm by the sight, traversed by a wave of sonorous gaiety, clapped hands and acclaimed love, almighty love, which without cessation creates more and more life and happiness. Then the singing began, chorus singing, in which the aged sang their well-earned rest, the men the triumph of their toil, the women the helpful sweetness of their love, the children the confident cheerfulness of their hopes. Afterwards came the dances, with a great final round and chain, which brought all that brotherly little people hand in hand, stretching out and revolving for hours to the strains of gay music, through the halls of the huge works. They had formerly toiled so much and suffered so much in the dirty, grimy, unhealthy inferno which had stood there, and which the flames had swept away. The sunshine, the air, and life, now entered freely. And the marriage ronde still came and went around the huge appliances, the colossal presses, the formidable steam hammers, the gigantic planing-machines, which wore a smiling aspect beneath their adornments of flowers and foliage, whilst the young married couple led the dance, as if in them rested the soul of all those things, that morrow of increase in equity and fraternity, which the victory of their long affection had ensured.

Luc was preparing a surprise for Jordan, for he also wished to celebrate the labour of the scientist whose endeavours would contribute more than a hundred years of politics could have done to the happiness of the city. When the night had fallen and it was quite dark, the whole works suddenly glowed, thousands of lamps casting the gay light of day-time over the place. Jordan's researches, it should be said, had at last yielded fruit. After many defeats he had devised a system for the transport of electrical force without loss, employing new appliances, ingenious means of transmission. Henceforth the cost of conveying coal was saved, it was burnt at the pit's mouth, and the machinery which transformed calorical into electrical energy sent it to La Cr�cherie by special cables, which allowed of no loss on the way, in such wise that the cost price was now only half of what it had formerly been. This then was a first great victory, La Cr�cherie profusely illumined, power distributed abundantly among both the large and the small appliances, comfort increased, work facilitated, and fortune augmented. And at the same time it was virtually a fresh step towards happiness.

When Jordan, on beholding the festive illumination, understood Luc's affectionate intention, he began to laugh like a child.

'Ah! my friend, so you give me a bouquet too! As a matter of fact, I rather deserve it, for as you must remember I had been striving to solve the problem for ten long years! What obstacles, what defeats did I not encounter when I imagined success to be a certainty! But, no matter, I set to work afresh on the morrow, on the ruins of all the experiments that had failed. A man always ends by succeeding when he works.'

Luc was laughing with his friend, whose courage and faith he shared.

'I know that very well,' said he in reply; 'you are the living proof of it. I know no greater, loftier master of energy than you, and I have tried to follow your example. Well, so night is now vanquished, you have put darkness to flight, and as electricity at present costs so little, we shall be able to light up a planet above La Cr�cherie, to replace the sun as soon as evening comes. And you have also wrought economy in human toil, for, thanks to the abundance of mechanical power yielded by your system, one man now suffices for work in which two had to be employed. Thus we acclaim you as the master of light and warmth and power.'

Jordan, wrapped in a rug which S�urette, fearing the coolness of the evening, had thrown over his shoulders, was still looking at the huge pile around him, now sparkling like a palace of fairyland. Short and puny, with a pale face and the feeble air of one who is on the point of dying, he strolled about those glowing halls, examining them curiously, for during the last ten years he had scarcely stirred from his laboratory. Thus he marvelled at the results already obtained, the success of a work of which he had been both the least known and the most active artisan.

'Yes, yes,' he muttered, 'the result is very good already, no little ground has been gained. We are advancing, the future we dreamt of is nearer to us. And I owe you my apologies, my dear Luc, for I did not hide from you at the outset that I scarcely believed in the success of your mission. But you still have a great deal to accomplish, and for my part, alas! I have done next to nothing by the side of all that I should like to do.'

He became grave and thoughtful. 'Though we have reduced the cost of electricity by one half, it still remains too high,' he said; 'and, besides, all the intricate and expensive installations at the mouths of the pits, the steam engines and the boilers, without mentioning the miles of cables which have to be kept in repair, are barbarous, and consume time and money. Something else is needed, something more practical, simple, and direct. I know very well in what direction I ought to look, but such a search seems madness, and I don't dare to tell people what work I have undertaken, for I myself can't describe it clearly. Yet yes, one ought to suppress the engine and the boiler, which are cumbersome intermediaries between the coal extracted and the electricity which is produced. In a word, one ought to be able to transform the calorical energy contained in the coal into electrical energy, without having to bring mechanical energy into play. I don't yet know how that is to be done, but I have set to work, and I hope to succeed. And if I do, you'll then see that electricity will cost scarcely anything. We shall be able to give it to everybody, spread it broadcast, and make it the victorious agent of universal comfort.'

He grew more and more enthusiastic, drawing himself up with passionate gestures as he spoke, he who as a rule remained so silent and thoughtful.

'The day must come,' he resumed, 'when electricity will belong to everybody, like the water of the rivers and the breezes of the heavens. It will be necessary to give it abundantly to one and all, and to allow men to dispose of it as they choose. It must circulate in our towns like the very blood of social life. In each house one must merely have to turn on a switch or a tap to obtain a profusion of power, heat, and light. At night-time, in the black sky, electricity will set another sun, which will extinguish the stars. And it will suppress winter, it will bring eternal summer into being, warming the old earth, and ascending to melt the snow even among the clouds. This is why I am not particularly proud of what I have done as yet, for it is very little by the side of all that has to be accomplished.'

And with an air of quiet disdain he concluded: 'I can't even get a practical result from my electrical furnaces. They are still mere experimental furnaces. Electricity is still too costly—one must wait till its employment proves remunerative, and for that to be it should not cost us more than the waters of the rivers and the atmosphere of the heavens. When I am able to give it in a flood without counting, my furnaces will revolutionise metallurgy. Oh! I well know the only path to follow, and I have already set to work!'

The night festival was a marvellous one. The dancing and singing had begun afresh in the dazzling halls, where the throng continued celebrating the marriage until the time came to escort Nanet and Nise to their nuptial home, amidst acclamations in honour of the love which had united them.

About this time love likewise revolutionised the bourgeoisie of Beauclair, and it was in the home of the Mazelles, those idlers living on their income, that the tempest first burst forth. Their daughter Louise had always surprised and upset them, so different was her nature from their own. An extremely active and enterprising girl, she was ever at work in the house, declaring that idleness would kill her. Her parents, who placed their great delight in doing nothing, could not understand how it was that she spoilt her days by useless agitation. She was an only child, said they, and would have a very fine fortune invested in State Rentes, and so was she not unreasonable in refusing to shut herself up in her cosy nook, well sheltered from the worries of life? They, her parents, were content with their egotistical happiness, and why therefore did she trouble about the passing beggar, the ideas which were changing the world, the incidents which disturbed the streets? But whatever might be said, she remained all of a quiver, full of life, taking a passionate interest in everything; and thus, amidst her parents' deep love for her, there was a great deal of stupefaction at having a daughter so utterly unlike themselves. At last she utterly upset them by a coup de passion, at which they had at first simply shrugged their shoulders, thinking it some mere fancy or whim. But things soon came to such a climax that they almost believed the end of the world to be at hand.

Louise Mazelle had remained a great friend of Nise Delaveau, whom she had frequently met at the home of the Boisgelins, since the latter had been installed at La Cr�cherie. There also she had again met Lucien Bonnaire, her former playmate, now a tall and handsome fellow of twenty-three, whilst she herself was twenty. Lucien no longer made little boats which travelled by themselves over the water, but under Luc's guidance he had become a very intelligent and inventive mechanician, destined to render great services to La Cr�cherie, where he already fitted up the machinery. He was not a 'monsieur,' he took a sort of courageous pride in remaining a simple workman, like his father, whom he revered. And no doubt, in the ardent love with which Louise was inspired for him, there was some little of the natural rebellion which urged her on to flout bourgeois notions, and to behave differently from the folk of her sphere. At all events her old friendship for Lucien became a passionate love that chafed at obstacles. He, touched by the keen attachment of that pretty, active, smiling girl, ended by loving her quite as deeply; but he was certainly the more reasonable of the two, and desired to hurt nobody's feelings. He suffered at the idea that she was too refined and too rich for him, and simply spoke of remaining a bachelor if he could not have her; whereas she, at the mere thought of opposition to their marriage, became wildly rebellious, and talked of throwing up position and fortune to go and live with him.

During nearly six months the battle went on. Lucien's parents looked on the proposed marriage with covert distrust. Bonnaire, with his common sense, would much have preferred to see his son marry some mate's daughter. Time had already done its work, and there was no reason to be proud of seeing one's son rise to another class, on the arm of a daughter of the expiring bourgeoisie. All the profit of such an alliance would soon be on the side of the bourgeoisie itself, which would intermarry with the people in order to regain blood and health and strength. Quarrels on the subject of the match at last broke out in Bonnaire's household. His wife, the proud and terrible Toupe, would doubtless have consented to it, on condition that she also became a lady, with fine gowns and jewels to wear. Nought of the evolution now in progress around her had lessened her craving for domination and display. She retained her hateful disposition even in her present easy circumstances, often reproaching her husband for not having made a big fortune like Monsieur Mazelle, an artful fellow, who had done no work for years past. However, when she heard Lucien declare that even if he should marry Louise, not a copper of the Mazelles' money should ever enter his home, she quite lost her head, and in her turn opposed the match, since it would not bring her any profit.

One evening there was a stormy explanation between La Toupe, Bonnaire, and Lucien, in the presence of Daddy Lunot, who was still alive, and more than seventy years old. They had just finished dining in the bright, clean dining-room, whose window opened on to the garden greenery. There were even flowers on the table, where nowadays food was always plentiful. Daddy Lunot, who at present had as much tobacco as he cared for, had just lighted his pipe, when La Toupe, for the mere pleasure of getting into a temper, according to her old habit, turned to Lucien and said to him sourly: 'So it's decided, eh—you still mean to marry that demoiselle? I saw you with her again this morning at Boisgelin's door. It seems to me that if you cared anything for us you might have ceased meeting her, since you know that both your father and myself are by no means over-pleased with the idea of that marriage.'

Lucien, like a good son, avoided argument, particularly as he knew it to be useless. Turning towards Bonnaire, he simply said: 'But I think that my father is ready to consent.'

To La Toupe this was like a whip-stroke, which urged her upon her husband: 'What!' she exclaimed. 'You give your consent without warning me of it? You told me less than a fortnight ago that such a marriage wasn't reasonable to your thinking, and that you would have fears for our lad's happiness if he were so foolish as to make it! So you turn about like a weather-cock, eh?'

Bonnaire quietly began to explain things: 'I should have preferred to see the lad make another choice, but he's nearly four-and-twenty, and I'm not going to force my will on him in a matter which concerns his own heart. He knows what I think, and he'll do what he thinks best.'

'Ah!' shouted back La Toupe, 'you're easily got over; you fancy yourself a free man, but you always end by saying the same as the others. During the twenty years that you've been here with Monsieur Luc you've repeated that his ideas and yours are not the same, and that he ought to have begun by seizing the instruments of work without accepting money from the bourgeois. But all the same, you give way to Monsieur Luc's wishes, and to-day, perhaps, you begin to like what you've done together.'

She rattled on, striving to hurt her husband's feelings and pride. She had often exasperated him by trying to prove that his actions were in contradiction with his principles. This time, however, he simply shrugged his shoulders. 'There's no doubt that what we've done together is very good,' said he. 'I may still regret that Monsieur Luc did not follow my ideas; only you ought to be the last to complain of what exists here, for we know nothing more of want, we are happy, happier than any one of those bourgeois whom you dream about.'

This reply irritated her the more. 'As for what exists here, it would be kind of you to explain it to me, for I've never understood anything of it, you know,' she said. 'If you are happy, so much the better for you; but I'm not happy, no, I'm not. Happiness is when one has plenty of money and can retire and do nothing afterwards. All your rigmarole, your division of profits, your stores where one gets things cheaply, your coupons and your cash-desks, will never put a hundred thousand francs into my pocket so that I may spend them as I please, on things which I like—I am an unhappy woman, a very unhappy woman!'

She was exaggerating things with the desire to make herself disagreeable, yet there was truth in what she said. She had never grown accustomed to La Cr�cherie, she suffered there like a coquettish, extravagant woman, whose instincts were wounded by Communistic solidarity. A clean and active housewife, but of a quarrelsome, stubborn, dull-witted nature, she continued making her home a hell, when it should have been full of comfort.

Bonnaire at last lost his patience so far as to say to her: 'You are mad; it is you who make yourself unhappy and us too!'

Thereupon she began to sob. Lucien, who felt very embarrassed whenever such disputes arose between his parents, had to emerge from his silence and kiss her and tell her that he loved and respected her. Nevertheless she clung to her views, and shouted to her husband, 'Ah! just ask my father what he thinks of your factory in which everybody has a share, and that wonderful justice and happiness of yours, which are to regenerate the world. He's an old workman, he is! You won't accuse him of saying foolish things like a woman. And he's seventy years old, so you can believe in his experience and sense!'

Turning to Daddy Lunot, who was sucking the stem of his pipe, with the blissful expression of a child, she went on: 'Isn't that so, father? Aren't they idiots with all their inventions to do without masters, and won't they end by making their own fingers smart?'

The old man looked at her in his bewildered way before answering in a husky voice: 'Of course—the Ragus and the Qurignons, ah! they were comrades once upon a time. There was Monsieur Michel, who was five years my senior. As for me, it was under Monsieur J�r�me that I entered the works. But before the others there was Monsieur Blaise, with whom my father, Jean Ragu, and my grandfather, Pierre Ragu worked. Pierre Ragu and Blaise Qurignon were mates together, two wire-drawers, who used the same anvil. And now you see the Qurignons are masters and great millionaires, and the Ragus have remained poor devils as they were before. Things can't change, and so one must believe that they are well as they are.'

He rambled slightly in the somnolence that had come over him, as over some very old, maimed, and forgotten beast of burden, who by a miracle had escaped the universal slaughterhouse. There were often days when he failed to remember what had happened on the previous one.

'But Daddy Lunot,' said Bonnaire, 'it so happens that things have changed a good deal for some time past. Monsieur J�r�me, whom you speak of, has long since been dead, and he gave back all that remained of his fortune.'

'Gave back—how's that?'

'Yes, he gave back to his old comrades the wealth which he owed to their toil and suffering. Don't you remember? it occurred a long time ago already.'

The old man searched in his dim memory. 'Ah! Yes, yes, I recollect—a funny business it was! Well, if he gave his money back he was a fool.'

The words were spoken sharply and contemptuously, for Daddy Lunot had never dreamt of anything but making a big fortune like the Qurignons, in order to enjoy life like a master, an idle gentleman, who amused himself from morning till night. That had remained his ideal, even as it was that of the whole generation of broken-down, exploited slaves, whoso sole regret was that they had not been born among the exploiters.

La Toupe burst into an insulting laugh. 'You see!' she cried, 'Father isn't such a fool as you others are; he's not the man to start on a wild-goose chase! Money's money; and when a man's rich he's the master!'

Bonnaire shrugged his broad shoulders, whilst Lucien gazed in silence through the window at the roses in the garden. What was the use of arguing? She represented the stubborn past, she would pass away in the Communist paradise, in the midst of fraternal happiness, denying its very existence and regretting the days of wretchedness when she had been obliged to save up ten sous one by one in order to buy herself a strip of ribbon.

Just then, however, Babette Bourron came in. Unlike La Toupe, she was ever gay, ever delighted with her new position. By her smiling and comforting optimism she had helped to save her simpleton of a husband from the pit into which Ragu had fallen. She had invariably shown confidence in the future, feeling certain that things would eventually turn out all right. And she often jestingly remarked that La Cr�cherie, where work had become light, cleanly, and pleasant, where one and all lived amidst comforts formerly reserved to the bourgeois alone, was like a fulfilment of her dreams of Paradise. Her doll-like face remained fresh-looking under her carelessly twisted hair, and radiant with the delight she felt at finding her husband cured of his passion for drink, and at living in a gay house of her own with two handsome children whom she would soon be marrying off.

'Well, so it's decided, eh?' she exclaimed. 'Lucien is going to marry Louise Mazelle, that charming little bourgeoise who isn't ashamed of us?'

'Who told you that?' roughly asked La Toupe.

'Why, Madame Luc, Josine, whom I met this morning.'

La Toupe turned white with restrained wrath. Amidst her ceaseless irritation with La Cr�cherie there was a great deal of hatred against Josine, whom she had never forgiven for having become the wife and helpmate of Luc, that hero whom all admired, and for having, moreover, a number of handsome children, who were now growing up for lives of happiness. Could she not remember the days when that wretched creature had been turned starving into the streets by her brother? Yet now she met her wearing a bonnet like a lady. That was a crushing blow. She would never be able to stomach the idea of that creature being happy.

'Josine,' she roughly exclaimed, 'would do better to make people forget what she calls her own marriage before meddling with marriages which don't concern her. And as for me, you do nothing but aggravate me, so just let me be!'

Then she rushed out of the room, banging the door behind her, and leaving the others in silent embarrassment. Babette was the first to laugh, accustomed as she was to the manners of her friend, whom she indulgently pronounced to be a good woman, though a wrong-headed one. Tears, however, had risen to the eyes of Lucien, for it was his future life that was at stake amidst all that quarrelling. His father pressed his hand in a friendly way, as if to promise that he would arrange matters. None the less Bonnaire himself remained very sad, quite upset at finding happiness at the mercy of family jars. Would a spiteful temper always suffice then to spoil the fruits of brotherliness? he wondered. Daddy Lunot alone retained his blissful unconsciousness, sitting there half asleep, with his pipe in his mouth.

If Lucien entertained no doubt of the eventual consent of his parents, Louise felt the resistance of hers increasing, and thus the battle became fiercer every day. The Mazelles adored their daughter, and it was in the name of this adoration that they refused to give way to her. There were no violent explanations between them, but they persevered in a kind of good-natured inertia, by which they fancied that the girl's patience would be tired out. In vain did she fill the house with the incessant rustling of her skirts, play feverishly on the piano, fling flowers out of the window, though they were by no means faded, and give many other signs of perturbation. They still peacefully smiled at her, made a pretence of understanding nothing, and strove to glut her with dainties and presents. She was enraged at being thus overwhelmed with douceurs when she was denied the one thing which would have pleased her; and at last she made up her mind to fall ill. She took to her bed, turned her face to the wall, and refused to answer her parents when they questioned her. Novarre, on being summoned, declared that such ailments did not come within the scope of his profession. The only way to cure girls who fell love-sick was to allow them to love as they desired. Thereupon the Mazelles, quite distracted, realising that the matter was becoming a serious one, held counsel together as to whether they ought to give way. They spent a whole night talking it over, and it seemed such a serious business, the consequences of which might be so great, that they lacked the courage to come to a decision between themselves. They resolved to bring their friends together in order to submit the matter to them. In the revolutionary state of affairs with which Beauclair was struggling, would it not be desertion on their part to give their daughter to a workman? They felt that such a union would be decisive, a final abdication on the part of the bourgeoisie, the mercantile and propertied folk. And it was therefore natural that the authorities, the leaders of the wealthy governing classes, should be consulted. Thus, one fine afternoon, they invited Sub-Prefect Ch�telard, Mayor Gourier, Judge Gaume, and Abb� Marle to take tea with them in their flowery garden, where they had spent so many idle days, stretched face to face in large rocking chairs, and gazing at their roses, without even tiring themselves by talking.

'You see,' said Mazelle to his wife, 'we will do what those gentlemen advise. They know more about such matters than we do, and nobody will be able to blame us for following their counsel. For my part I am quite losing my head, for all this business tortures my brain from morning till night.

'It's like me,' said Madame Mazelle. 'It isn't living to be obliged to keep on thinking and thinking. Nothing could be worse for my complaint, I'm sure of it.'

The tea was served in an arbour of greenery in the garden one beautiful, sunshiny afternoon. Sub-Prefect Ch�telard and Mayor Gourier were the first to arrive. They had remained inseparable, linked it seemed even more closely together since the death of Madame Gourier, the beautiful L�onore, who, during her last five years had remained an invalid in an arm-chair, afflicted with paralysis of the legs, but most devotedly nursed, her lover taking her husband's place to watch over her and read to her whenever the other was obliged to absent himself. It was, indeed, in Ch�telard's arms that L�onore had suddenly expired one evening while he was helping her to drink a cupful of lime-water, whilst Gourier was outside smoking a cigar. When he came in again, the two men wept together for the dear departed. And nowadays they were inseparable, their duties leaving them plenty of leisure, for it was only in a theoretical kind of way that they now governed the town, the sub-prefect having prevailed on the mayor to follow his example, and let things take their own course, rather than spoil his life by trying to oppose the evolution, the progress of which nobody in the world could have prevented. Nevertheless, Gourier, who often felt afraid of the future, had some difficulty in taking this philosophical course. He had become reconciled to his son Achille, whom Ma-Bleue had presented with a very charming daughter, L�onie, who had the eyes of her beautiful mother, big blue eyes suggesting some large blue lake, some vast stretch of blue sky. Nearly twenty years of age at present, fit to be married, L�onie had captivated her grandfather. And he had resigned himself to opening his door to her parents, that son who had formerly rebelled against his authority, and that Ma-Bleue, of whom he still occasionally spoke as a savage. As he himself expressed it, it was hard for him, a mayor, the celebrant of lawful marriage, to receive at his fireside a couple of revolutionaries, who had simply espoused one another under the stars one warm summer's night. But the times were so strange, such extraordinary things happened, that a charming granddaughter become a very acceptable present, even although she were the offspring of impenitent free love. Ch�telard had gaily insisted on reconciliation; and Gourier, since his son had been bringing L�onie to see him, had been more and more won over to the cause of La Cr�cherie, though, to his thinking, it had hitherto remained a source of catastrophes.

Judge Gaume and Abb� Marle were late in arriving that day at the Mazelles', but the latter could not refrain from explaining their position to the sub-prefect and the mayor. Ought they to resign themselves to their daughter's unreasonable whim?

'As you will certainly understand, Monsieur le Sous-Pr�fet,' said Mazelle in an anxious but pompous manner, 'apart from the grief which such a marriage would cause us, we have to consider the deplorable effect which it would have socially, and our heavy responsibility towards distinguished persons of our class. We really seem to be going towards some abyss.'

They were seated in the warm shade, perfumed by the climbing roses, at a table with gay-coloured napery, on which stood several dishes of little cakes; and Ch�telard, still a well-groomed, fine-looking man in spite of his years, smiled in a discreetly ironical manner. 'We are already in the abyss, dear Monsieur Mazelle,' he replied. 'It would be very wrong of you to put yourself out about the Government, the authorities, or even fine society, for only a semblance of these things now exists. I am still sub-prefect and my friend Gourier is still mayor, no doubt. Only we are scarcely more than shadows, and there is no longer any real, substantial State behind us. And it is the same with the powerful and the wealthy, a little of whose power and wealth is carried off each succeeding day by the new organisation of work. So don't take the trouble to defend them, particularly as they themselves, yielding to vertigo, are now becoming active artisans of the revolution. Don't resist then, yield to the current!'

He was fond of that style of jesting, which terrified the last bourgeois of Beauclair. Moreover, it was an amiable and jocular way of telling the truth, for he indeed felt convinced that the old world was done for, and that a new one was springing from the ruins. Most serious events were taking place in Paris, the ancient edifice was falling stone by stone, giving place to a provisional structure, in which one could already plainly detect the outlines of the future city of justice and peace.

But the Mazelles had turned pale. Whilst the wife sank back in her armchair with her eyes fixed on the little cakes, the husband exclaimed: 'Really! do you think us threatened to such a point as that? I know very well that people think of reducing the interest on Rentes.'

'Rentes,' said Ch�telard quietly, 'they will be suppressed before another twenty years have gone by; or, rather, some plan will be found for dispossessing the rentiers by degrees. A scheme to that effect is already being studied.'

Madame Mazelle heaved such a desperate sigh that one might have imagined she was giving up the ghost. 'Oh, I hope we shall be dead by then!' said she; 'I hope that we shan't have the grief of witnessing such infamy! But our poor daughter will suffer by it, and that is an additional reason for compelling her to make a good marriage.'

But Ch�telard pitilessly went on: 'Why, good marriages are no longer possible, since the right of inheritance is about to disappear. That is virtually resolved upon. In future each married couple will have to work out its own happiness. And whether your daughter Louise marries a bourgeois' son or a workman's son, the capital of the newly-wedded pair will soon be identical—so much love, if they are lucky enough to love one another, and so much activity if they are intelligent enough not to be idlers.'

Deep silence fell, and one could hear the faint whirr of a warbler's wings, as it flew about among the roses.

'And so,' Mazelle, who was overwhelmed, ended by asking, 'that is the advice you give us, Monsieur le Sous-Pr�fet? According to you, we can accept that Lucien Bonnaire as our son-in-law, eh?'

'Oh, mon Dieu, yes! The world will none the less continue peacefully revolving. And as the two children are so fond of one another, it is at least certain that you will make them happy.'

Gourier had hitherto said nothing. He felt ill at ease at being called upon to decide such a question—he, whose son had gone off to live with Ma-Bleue, that wild girl of the rocks, whom he now received in his highly respectable middle-class home. At last an avowal of his embarrassment escaped him: 'That's true; the best thing after all is to marry them. When their parents don't marry them the young people take themselves off and get married as they fancy. Ah! in what times are we living!'

He raised his arms towards heaven, and Ch�telard had to exercise all his influence to prevent him from falling into black melancholy. Gourier's old age—following on a somewhat dissolute life—was full of stupor; he constantly fell asleep, at table, in the midst of conversation, even whilst walking out of doors. With the resigned air of a once terrible employer of labour, whom facts had vanquished, he ended by saying: 'Well, what else can be expected? After us the deluge, as many of our class now say. We are done for.'

It was at this moment that Judge Gaume arrived, much behind his time. Nowadays his legs swelled, and it was only with difficulty that he could walk, helping himself along with a stick. He was nearly seventy, and was awaiting his pension, full of secret disgust for that human justice which he had administered during so many years, contenting himself the while with strictly applying the written law, like a priest who no longer believes, but is sustained solely by dogma. In his home, however, the drama of love and betrayal which had wrecked his life had pursued its course, stubbornly and pitilessly. The disaster, which had begun with the suicide of his wife, had been completed by his daughter Lucile, who had caused her husband, Captain Jollivet, to be killed in a murderous duel by one of her lovers, with whom she had afterwards eloped. The police were seeking her, and Gaume now lived alone with her one child, Andr�, a delicate, affectionate youth of sixteen, over whom he watched with anxious affection. Sufficient misfortune had fallen, he felt; avenging destiny, punishing some old unknown crime, must go no further. Yet he still wondered to what good power, what future of true justice and faithful love he might guide that youth in order that his race might be renewed and at last win happiness.

On being questioned by Mazelle respecting the advisability of a marriage between Louise and Lucien Bonnaire, Judge Gaume immediately exclaimed: 'Marry them, marry them—particularly if they feel for one another such great love as to enter into contest with their parents and to pass over all obstacles. Love alone decides happiness.'

Then he regretted, like an avowal, that cry which the bitterness of his whole life had wrung from him, for he was intent on preserving during his last days his wonted mendacious rigidity of demeanour, his austerity and coldness of countenance. 'Do not wait for Abb� Marle,' he resumed. 'I met him just now, and he begged me to apologise to you. He was hastening to the church for the holy vessels, in order to take extreme unction to old Madame Jollivet, an aunt of my son-in-law's, who is in the last pangs. Poor Abb�, in her he is losing one of his last penitents; he had his eyes full of tears.'

'Oh! the fact that the clergy is being swept away is the one good feature of what is happening!' exclaimed Gourier, who had remained a devourer of priests. 'The republic would still be ours if the clergy had not tried to take it from us. It was they who urged the people on to upset everything and become the masters.'

But Ch�telard remarked compassionately: 'Poor Abb� Marle! it grieves me to see him in his empty church. You do quite right, Madame Mazelle, in still sending him some bouquets for the Virgin.'

Silence fell again, and the tragic shadow of the priest seemed to flit by in the bright sunlight amidst the perfume of the roses. In L�onore he had lost his dearest and most faithful parishioner. Madame Mazelle doubtless remained to him, but she was not really a believer; all that she sought in religion was something ornamental—a kind of certificate that she was a right-minded bourgeois. And the Abb� was not ignorant of his destiny—he would some day be found dead at his altar under the remnants of his church, which threatened ruin, but which, for lack of money, he could not repair. Neither at the sub-prefecture nor at the town-hall was there any fund left for such work. He had appealed to the faithful, and in response had with difficulty obtained a ridiculously small sum of money. And now he was resigned to his fate; he awaited the fall, still celebrating the offices as if he were unaware of the threat of annihilation hanging above his head. His church was becoming emptier and emptier, dying a little more each day, and he would die also when the old structure cracked around him and fell crushing him beneath the weight of the great crucifix, which still hung from the wall. And they would have one and the same grave: the earth whither all returns.

As it happened Madame Mazelle was far too much upset by her personal worries to take any interest at that moment in the dolorous fate of Abb� Marle. If there should not be a prompt solution with respect to the marriage, she feared that she might fall seriously ill—she who had derived so many hours of nursing and petting from the malady without a name with which she had embellished her existence. All her guests having now arrived, she quitted her armchair to serve the tea, which steamed in the cups of bright porcelain, whilst a sunray gilded the little cakes lying in the crystal dishes. And she went on shaking her big, placid head, for she was not yet convinced: 'You may say what you like, my friends, but that marriage would really be the last blow, and I cannot make up my mind to it.'

'We will wait,' declared Mazelle; 'we will exhaust Louise's patience.'

But all at once both husband and wife were thunderstruck, for Louise herself stood before them among the sunlit roses at the entrance of the arbour. They had fancied her in her room, on her couch, suffering from that love-sickness which, according to Doctor Novarre, contentment alone could cure. No doubt she had guessed that the others were deciding her fate, and with her beautiful black hair just caught up in a knot, wearing a dressing-gown with a pattern of little red flowers, she had come down in all haste. Quivering with the passion that animated her, she looked charming with her somewhat obliquely-set eyes gleaming in her slender face. Not even grief could entirely extinguish their gay sparkle. She had heard the last words spoken by her parents. 'Ah, mamma! ah, papa! what was that you were saying?' she cried. 'Do you imagine that some merely childish caprice is in question? I've told you already, and I tell you again, I wish Lucien to be my husband, and so he shall!'

Although half-conquered by the sudden apparition of his daughter, Mazelle still tried to struggle against the inevitable. 'But just think of it, you unhappy child! Our fortune, which you were to have inherited, is already in jeopardy, so it is quite possible that one of these days you will find yourself without a penny,' he said.

'Just understand the situation,' remarked Madame Mazelle in her turn. 'With our money, even though it is in danger, you might still make a sensible marriage.'

Then Louise exploded with superb, joyous vehemence, 'Your money! I do not care a pin for it I You can keep it! If you were to give it me Lucien would no longer take me as his wife. Money, indeed! what should I do with it? Money! of what use is it? It does not help one to love and be happy. Lucien will earn my bread for me, and I'll earn it too if necessary. It will be delightful.'

She cried these things aloud with such strength of youth and hope that the Mazelles, fearing for her reason, were anxious to quiet her by at last yielding to her desires. Besides, they were not people to continue battling; they wished to end their days in peace. As for Sub-Prefect Ch�telard, Mayor Gourier, and Judge Gaume, whilst drinking their tea they smiled with some embarrassment, for they felt the girl's free love sweeping them away like bits of straw. One must needs consent to what one cannot prevent.

It was Ch�telard who summed up everything in his amiable, bantering way, the irony of which was scarcely perceptible. 'Our friend Gourier is right—we are done for, since it is our children who make the laws now.'

The marriage of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle took place a month later. Ch�telard for his personal amusement prevailed on his friend Gourier to give a grand ball at the town-hall on the wedding night, as if by way of honouring their friends the Mazelles. At heart he thought it a good joke to make the bourgeoisie of Beauclair dance at this wedding, which became a symbol of the multitude's accession to power. They would dance on the ruins of authority in that town-hall which was gradually becoming the real common-house, where the mayor was no longer anything but a link between the various social groups. The hall was most luxuriously decorated, and there was music and singing as at the wedding of Nanet and Nise. And acclamations once more arose at the sight of the bridal pair, Lucien, so strong and sturdy, followed by all his mates of La Cr�cherie, and Louise, so slim and passionate, followed by all the fine society of the town, whose presence had been desired by her parents as a kind of supreme protest. Only it came to pass that the fine folk were swamped by the multitude, won over to the rush of delight, carried away and conquered to such a point that a great many more marriages between the lads and girls of the different classes ensued. Once more, then, love triumphed, all-powerful love which inflames the living universe, and bears it onward to its happy destiny.

Youth flowered on all sides, other alliances were concluded, couples which everything seemed to separate set out together for the future city of happiness. The old trading class of Beauclair, now on the point of disappearing, gave its daughters and sons to the artisans of La Cr�cherie and the peasants of Les Combettes. The Laboques set the example by allowing their son Auguste to marry Marthe Bourron, and their daughter Eulalie to marry Ars�ne Lenfant. They had ceased struggling for some years already, for they realised that the trade of old times, the useless cogwheel which had consumed so much energy and wealth, was vanquished and dying. At the outset they had been obliged to allow their shop of the Rue de Brias to be turned into a mere d�p�t of the articles manufactured at La Cr�cherie and the other syndicated factories. Then, taking a further step, they had consented to close the shop, which had been merged into the general stores, where Luc's indulgence had procured them an inspectorship by way of occupation. And now old age had come, and they lived in retirement, full of bitterness, and scared by the sight of that new world which evinced none of their own passion for lucre. The new generations had grown up for other forms of activity and delight than moneymaking. And thus their children, Auguste and Eulalie, yielding to love, the great artisan of harmony and peace, married as they pleased, encountering no obstacle on their parents' side save the covert disapproval of old folk who regret the past. It was arranged that the two weddings should be celebrated on the same day at Les Combettes, now a large township, a very suburb of Beauclair, with large bright buildings redolent of the inexhaustible wealth of the earth. And the weddings took place at harvest-time—indeed, on the very last day of the harvesting, when huge ricks already arose upon every side over the great golden plain.

Feuillat, the former farmer of La Guerdache, had already married his son L�on to Eug�nie, daughter of Yvonnot, the assessor, whom he had formerly reconciled with Feuillat, the mayor—that reconciliation whence had sprung the good agreement of all the inhabitants of the place, and that impulse to combine together which had made the wretched village, consumed by hatred, a fraternal and flourishing town. Nowadays Feuillat, who was very aged, had become like the patriarch of that agricultural society, for it was he who had dreamt of it, secretly sought to establish it, in former days, when combating the deadly tenant-farming system, and foreseeing what incalculable wealth the tillers of the soil might draw from it when they should agree together to love it like men of science and method. A true love for that soil which for centuries had been exhausting his ancestors, seemed to have sufficed to enlighten that simple farmer, who originally had been a hard-headed and rapacious man like all of his class. He had perceived in what direction lay salvation, peace among all the peasants, a combination of efforts, the earth becoming once more the sole mother, ploughed, sown, and cropped by one family. And he had beheld the fulfilment of his dream, he had seen his neighbours' fields joined together, the farm of La Guerdache merged into the parish of Les Combettes, other smaller villages joined thereto, a vast estate created, and set on the march for the conquest, by successive annexation, of the whole of the vast plain of La Roumagne. Feuillat, who had remained the soul of the association, formed with Lenfant and Yvonnot, its founders, a kind of 'Conseil des Anciens,' who were consulted on all things, and whose advice was always found profitable.

Thus, when the wedding of Lenfant's son Ars�ne with Eulalie Laboque was decided upon, and the latter's brother Auguste determined to celebrate his marriage with Marthe Bourron at the same time, it occurred to Feuillat, whose idea was accepted and acclaimed by all, to organise a great f�te which should be like the festival of the pacification and triumph of Les Combettes. They would drink to fraternity between the peasant and the industrial worker, formerly so bitterly opposed to one another, but whose alliance alone could establish social wealth and peace. They would drink also to the end of all antagonism, to the disappearance of that barbarous thing called trade which had perpetuated a hateful struggle between the dealer who sold a tool, the peasant who made corn grow, and the baker who sold bread, at a price increased by the thefts of a number of intermediaries. And what better day could be chosen to celebrate the reconciliation than that when the enemies of former days, the castes which had seemed bent on devouring and destroying one another, ended by exchanging their lads and girls, consenting to marriages which would hasten the advent of the future! Thus it was decided that the f�te should take place in a large field near the town, a field where lofty ricks, golden under the bright sun, arose like the symmetrically disposed columns of some gigantic temple. The colonnade stretched indeed to the very horizon; other ricks and other ricks arose, proclaiming the inexhaustible fruitfulness of the soil. And it was there that they sang, that they danced, amidst the pleasant odour of the ripe corn, amidst the great fertile plain, whence the work of man, now at last reconciled, drew bread enough for the happiness of all.

The Laboques brought in their train all the former tradesmen of Beauclair, whilst the Bourrons brought the whole of La Cr�cherie. The Lenfants were there, at home, and never yet had folk fraternised so fully, the groups fast mingling and uniting in one sole family. The Laboques, no doubt, remained grave and somewhat embarrassed, but the Lenfants made merry with all their hearts, whilst the great sight of all was Babette Bourron, whose everlasting good humour, her certainty, even amidst the greatest worries, that things would turn out well at last, now proved triumphant. She personified hope, marching radiant behind the two bridal couples; and when these arrived—Marthe Bourron on the arm of Auguste Laboque, Eulalie Laboque on the arm of Ars�ne Lenfant—they brought with them such a blaze of youth and strength and delight, that endless acclamations rolled from one to the other end of the stubbles. The onlookers called to them affectionately, they were loved, they were praised because they indeed personified sovereign and victorious love, that love which had already drawn all those folk together, by giving them those overflowing harvests amidst which they would henceforth swarm like a free and united people, ignorant alike of hatred and of want.

That same day other marriages were decided upon, as had already happened at the wedding of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle. Madame Mitaine, the former bakeress, who had remained for everybody the 'beautiful Madame Mitaine,' in spite of her sixty-five years, kissed Olympe Lenfant, sister to one of the bridegrooms, and told her that she would be happy to call her 'daughter,' for her son �variste had confessed that he adored her. The beautiful bakeress's husband had been dead for ten years, and her establishment had been merged into the general stores of La Cr�cherie, as was the case with most of the retail businesses of the town. She lived like a retired worker with her son �variste, both very proud of the fact that Luc had given them the charge of the electrical kneading appliances, which yielded an abundance of white light bread. Whilst �variste in his turn was bestowing a betrothal kiss on Olympe, who had turned pink with pleasure, Madame Mitaine suddenly recognised in a thin, dark little woman seated beside a rick, her old neighbour, Madame Dacheux, the butcher's wife. She thereupon went and sat down beside her. 'Must it not all finish in weddings,' she asked gaily, 'since all these young folk were ever playing together?'

Madame Dacheux, however, remained silent and gloomy. She also had lost her husband, who had died from the effects of a badly aimed blow with his chopper, which had struck off his right hand. According to some folk, clumsiness had nothing to do with it, the butcher having voluntarily cut off his hand in a fit of furious anger, rather than sign a transfer of his shop to La Cr�cherie. Decent occurrences, and the idea that holy meat, the meat of the wealthy, was now being placed within the reach of all and appearing at the tables of the poorest, must have maddened that violent, reactionary, and tyrannical man. He had died from the effects of gangrene improperly treated, leaving his wife in a state of terror from the oaths which he had heaped upon her during his final agony.

'And your Julienne, how is she?' Madame Mitaine inquired in her amiable way. 'I met her the other day. She looked superb.'

The butcher's widow was at last obliged to answer. Pointing to a couple figuring in one of the quadrille sets, she said: 'She's dancing yonder. I'm watching her.'

Julienne indeed was dancing on the arm of a tall, good-looking fellow, Louis Fauchard, the son of the former drawer. Sturdy of build, white of skin, her whole face beaming with health, Julienne evidently enjoyed the embrace of that vigorous yet gentle-looking youth, who was one of the best smiths of La Cr�cherie.

'Oh! does that mean another marriage, then?' asked Madame Mitaine, laughing.

But Madame Dacheux shuddered and protested: 'Oh! no, no! How can you say such a thing? You know what my husband's ideas were. He would rise from his tomb if I let our daughter marry that workman, the son of that wretched M�lanie, who was always trying to get a bit of soup-beef on credit, and whom he drove out of our shop so often because she never paid!'

In a low and tremulous voice the butcher's widow went on to relate what a torturing life she led. Her husband appeared to her at night-time. Although he was dead he still made her bow beneath his despotic authority, tormenting her, upbraiding her, frightening her with devilish threats in her dreams. The poor, scared, insignificant woman was so unlucky that even widowhood had not brought her peace.

'If I were to let Julienne marry contrary to his wishes,' she concluded, 'he would certainly come back every night to beat me!'

She was shedding tears now, and Madame Mitaine strove to comfort her, assuring her that she would soon get rid of her nightmares if she would only set a little happiness around her. Just then, as it happened, M�lanie, the ever-complaining Madame Fauchard, whom for years one had seen perpetually running about to procure the four quarts of wine which her husband required for his shift, drew near with a hesitating step. She no longer suffered from want. She occupied one of the bright little houses of La Cr�cherie with Fauchard, who, infirm and stupefied, had now ceased all work. Lodging with her, moreover, was her brother Fortun�, now forty-five years of age, and already an old man, half-blind, and deaf, owing to the brutish, mechanical, uniform toil to which he had been condemned at the Abyss from his fifteenth year onward. Thus, in spite of the comforts which La Fauchard owed to the new pension and mutual relief system, she had remained a complaining creature, a wretched waif of the past, with two old children on her hands. Therein lay a lesson, an example of the shame and grief which the wage-system had brought with it.

'Have you seen my men?' she asked Madame Mitaine, referring to her husband and brother. 'I lost them in the crowd. Oh! there they are!'

With halting gait, arm-in-arm, by way of propping up each other, the brothers-in-law passed by—Fauchard, wrecked and done for, suggesting some ghost of the painful toil of the past; and Fortun�, looking less aged but quite as downcast, stricken seemingly with imbecility. Through all the sturdy crowd, overflowing with new life and hope amidst the sweet-smelling ricks, in which was piled the corn of a whole community, the two unfortunate men strolled hither and thither, freely displaying their decrepitude, understanding nothing of what went on around them, and not even acknowledging the salutations of acquaintances.

'Leave them in the sunshine—it does them good,' resumed Madame Mitaine, addressing La Fauchard. 'Your son is sturdy and gay enough!'

'That's true; Louis has the best of health,' the other replied. 'The sons are not much like the fathers, now that the times have changed. Just see how he dances! He will never know cold and hunger.'

Thereupon Madame Mitaine, in her good-natured way, resolved to promote the happiness of the young couple who were smiling at each other so lovingly whilst they danced before her. She brought the two mothers, Madame Fauchard and Madame Dacheux, together, and made them sit down side by side, and then she moved the butcher's widow and convinced her that she ought to consent to her daughter's marriage. It was solitude that made the poor old creature suffer; she needed grandchildren to climb up on her knees and put all troublesome phantoms to flight.

'Ah, mon Dieu!' she ended by exclaiming, 'I'm agreeable all the same, on condition that I'm not left alone. I myself never said no to anybody. It was he who wouldn't have it. But if you all wish it, and promise to defend me, then do, do as you like.'

When Louis and Julienne learnt that their mothers consented to their wedding, they hastened to them and fell in their arms with tears and laughter. And thus amidst the general joy fresh joy was born.

'How could you think of parting these young people?' Madame Mitaine repeated; 'they seem to have grown up one for the other. I've given my �variste to Olympe Lenfant, whom I remember as quite a little girl, when she used to come to my shop and my boy gave her cakes. It's the same with Louis Fauchard. How many times have I not seen him prowling near your shop, Madame Dacheux, and playing with your Julienne! The Laboques, the Bourrons, the Lenfants and the Yvonnots, whose marriages are now being celebrated, why, they all grew up together, at the very time when their parents were attacking one another, and now you see their harvest time has come.'

She laughed yet more loudly as she recalled the past, while an expression of infinite kindness spread over her face. And joy was rising around her. People came to say that other betrothals had just taken place—that of S�bastien Bourron with Agathe Fauchard, and that of Nicolas Yvonnot with Zo� Bonnaire. Love, sovereign love, was incessantly perfecting the reconciliation, blending all classes together. And the f�te lasted until night-time, until the stars came out, whilst love thus triumphed, bringing heart nearer to heart and merging one into another, amidst the dances and songs of those joyous people marching towards future unity and harmony.

Amidst the growing fraternity, however, there was one man, one of the old ones, Master-smelter Morfain, who remained apart from all the rest, mute and wild, unable and unwilling to understand. He still dwelt, like one of the prehistoric Vulcans, in the rocky cavity near the smeltery under his charge, and now he was quite alone there, like a solitaire who had broken off all intercourse with the rising generations. When his daughter Ma-Bleue had gone off to realise her dream of love with Achille Gourier, the Prince Charming of her blue nights, Morfain had already felt that the new times were robbing him of the best part of himself. Then another love affair had carried away his son Petit-Da, that tall young fellow who had become so passionately enamoured of Honorine, a quick, alert little brunette, daughter of Caffiaux, the grocer and taverner. Morfain had at first peremptorily refused to consent to their marriage, full of contempt as he was for that shady family of poisoners, the Caffiaux, who on their side returned his disdain with interest, and in their vanity were by no means inclined to allow their daughter to marry a worker. Nevertheless, Caffiaux was the first to give way, for he was of a supple and crafty nature. After closing his tavern he had secured a very comfortable post as chief guardian at the general stores of La Cr�cherie, and the nasty stories once told of him were being forgotten; whilst for his part he feigned too much devotion to the principles of solidarity to cling obstinately to a decision which might have harmed him. Thus Petit-Da, carried away by his passion, took no further notice of his father's opposition, and the result was that a terrible quarrel, a frightful rupture, between the two men ensued. From that time forward the master-smelter no longer spoke, save to direct the furnace work, but shut himself up in his cavern like some fierce and motionless spectre of the dead ages.

Though years and years went by Morfain did not appear to age. He was always the same old-time conqueror of fire, a colossus with a huge head, a nose like an eagle's beak, and flaming eyes set between cheeks which a flow of lava seemed to have ravaged. His twisted lips, now seldom parted, retained their tawny redness suggestive of burns. And it seemed as if no human considerations would again weigh with him in the depths of the implacable solitude in which he had shut himself on perceiving that his daughter and his son had joined the party of to-morrow. Ma-Bleue had presented Achille with a sweet little girl, L�onie, who was growing up all grace and tenderness. And Petit-Da's wife, Honorine, had given birth to a strong and charming boy, Raymond, now an intelligent young man who would soon be old enough to marry. But the children's grandfather did not soften—he repulsed them, shrank even from seeing them.

On the other hand, however, amidst the collapse of his affection for his kin, the species of paternal passion which he had always evinced for his furnace seemed to increase. That growling monster ever afire, whose flaming digestion he controlled both day and night, was seemingly regarded by him as some child. The slightest disturbance in its work threw him into anguish; he spent sleepless nights in watching over the working of the twyers, displaying all the devotion of a young lover amidst the embers whose heat his skin no longer feared. Luc, rendered anxious by Morfain's great age, had spoken of pensioning him off, but renounced the idea at the sight of the quivering rebellion, the inconsolable grief which was displayed by that hero of toil, who was so proud of having exhausted, consumed his muscles in pursuing the conquest of fire. However, the hour for retirement would come forcibly from the inevitable march of progress, and Luc indulgently decided to wait awhile.

Morfain had already felt that he was threatened. He was aware of the researches which Jordan was making with the view of replacing the old, slow, barbarous smeltery by batteries of electrical furnaces. The idea that one might extinguish and demolish the giant pile which flamed during seven and eight years at a stretch, quite distracted the master-smelter, and he became seriously alarmed when Jordan effected a first improvement by burning coal at the mouth of the pit from which it was extracted, and bringing electricity without loss to La Cr�cherie by cable. However, as the cost price still remained too high for electricity to be employed for smelting ore, Morfain was able to rejoice over the futility of Jordan's victory. During the ensuing ten years each fresh defeat which fell on Jordan delighted him. He indulged in covert irony, feeling convinced that fire would never suffer itself to be conquered by that strange new power, that mysterious thunder, whose flashes were not even visible. He longed for his master's defeat, the annihilation of the new appliances which were ever being constructed and improved. But all at once the position became very threatening, a rumour spread that Jordan had at last completed his great work, having discovered a means of transforming calorical energy direct into electrical energy, without the help of mechanical energy being required. That is, the steam engine, that cumbersome and costly intermediary, was suppressed. And in thiswise the problem was solved, the cost of electricity would be lowered by one-half, and it would be possible to employ it for the smelting of ore. A first battery of electrical furnaces was indeed already being fitted up, and Morfain, full of despair, prowled fiercely around his blast-furnace, as if anxious to defend it.

Luc did not immediately give orders for its demolition. He wished first of all to make some conclusive experiments with the battery. Thus, during a period of six months, the work went on in both forms, and the old smelter spent some abominable days, for he now realised that the well-loved monster in his charge was condemned. He saw it forsaken now, nobody came up the hill to see it, whereas the inquisitive thronged around those electrical furnaces below, which occupied such little space, and did their work, it was said, so well and so speedily. Morfain, for his part, full of rancour, never went down to see them, but spoke of them disdainfully as of toys for children. Was it possible that the ancient method of smelting which had given man the empire of the world could be dethroned? No, no, one would have to revert to those giant furnaces which had burnt for centuries without ever being extinguished! And, alone with the few men under his orders, who remained silent like himself, Morfain looked down contemptuously on the shed in which the electrical furnaces were working, and still felt happy at night-time, when he was able to set the horizon all aglow with a 'run' of dazzling metal.

But the day at last came when Luc passed sentence on the blast-furnace, whose work was now shown to be both slower and more costly than the other. Thus it was decided that following upon a final run it should be allowed to go out, after which it might be demolished. Morfain, on being warned of this, did not answer, but remained impassive, his bronze countenance revealing nothing of the tempest in his soul. His calmness frightened people; Ma-Bleue came up to see him, accompanied by her daughter L�onie, and Petit-Da, moved by the same affectionate impulse, brought his son Raymond. For a moment the family found itself assembled, as in former days, in the rocky hillside cavern, and the old man allowed himself to be kissed and caressed, without repulsing his grandchildren as he had usually done. Still he did not return their caresses, but seemed far away, like one who belonged to a past period, one in whom no human feeling was left. It was a cold and gloomy autumn day, and the crapelike veil of the early twilight was falling from a livid sky over the dark earth. At last Morfain arose and broke the silence, saying, 'Well, they are waiting for me, there is yet another run.'

It was the last. They all followed him to the blast-furnace. The men under his orders were present, already shadowy in the increasing gloom, and once again, for the last time, the usual work was accomplished. A bar was thrust into the plug of refractory clay, the hole was enlarged, and finally the tumultuous flood of fusing metal poured forth, a stream of flames rolling along the channels in the sand and filling the moulds with blazing pools. And once again, too, from those tracks and fields of fire arose a harvest of sparks, blue sparks of delicate ethereality, and golden fusees delightfully refined, a florescence of cornflowers, as it were, amidst golden ears of wheat. And a blinding glow burst on the mournful twilight, illumining the furnace, the neighbouring buildings, the distant roofs of Beauclair, and the whole of the great horizon. Then everything disappeared, deep night reigned all around; the end had come, the furnace's life was over.

Morfain, who without a word had stood looking at it all, remained there in the gloom motionless like one of the neighbouring rocks which the shades of night again enveloped.

'Father,' said Ma-Bleue gently, 'now that there is no more work to be done here, you must come down to us. Your room has long been ready for you.'

And Petit-Da in his turn exclaimed: 'Father, you've certainly got to rest now. There is a room for you in my place too. You must let each of us have you in turn, you must live sometimes with one and sometimes with the other.'

But the old master-smelter did not immediately answer. A great sigh made his breast heave dolorously. At last he said: 'That's it, I'll go down, I'll have a look. But you can go away now.'

For another fifteen days it was impossible to induce Morfain to quit the furnace. He watched it cooling, as one watches beside a death-bed. Every evening he felt it in order to make sure that it was not quite dead. And as long as he found a little warmth remaining, he lingered obstinately beside it as if it were a friend whose remains it would be wrong to abandon. But at last the demolishers arrived, and then one morning the grand old vanquished man was seen to descend from his cavern to La Cr�cherie, where he repaired with a still firm step to the large glazed shed in which the battery of electrical furnaces was working.

As it happened, both Jordan and Luc were there with Petit-Da, whom they had appointed to direct the smelting in conjunction with his son Raymond, the latter already being a good electrician. The work was being brought to greater precision day by day; and Jordan scarcely quitted the shed, eager as he was to perfect the new method which had cost him so many years of study and experiment.

'Ah! Morfain, my old friend!' he exclaimed joyously. 'So you've become sensible!'

The other's face, the colour of old iron, remained impassive, and he contented himself with replying: 'Yes, Monsieur Jordan, I wanted to see your machine.'

Luc, however, scrutinised him rather anxiously. He had given orders to have him watched, for he had learnt that he had been found leaning over the mouth of the blast furnace, when the latter was still full of glowing embers, like a man preparing to fling himself into that frightful hell. One of the smelters under his orders, however, had saved him from that death which he had contemplated, perchance as a last gift of his scorched frame to the monster, as though indeed he set his pride in dying by fire, after loving and serving it so faithfully for more than half a century.

'It is pleasant to find you still inquisitive at your age, my good Morfain,' said Luc, without taking his eyes from him. 'Now, just examine these toys.'

The battery stretched out before them, showing ten furnaces, ten cubes of red brick-work over six feet high and nearly five feet long. And above them one only saw the powerful electrodes, thick cylinders of carbon, to which the electric cables were attached. The operations were very simple. An endless screw, worked by a switch, served the ten furnaces, bringing the ore and discharging it into them. A second switch set up the current, the arc whose extraordinary temperature of two thousand degrees sufficed to melt almost four hundredweight of metal in five minutes. And it was only necessary to turn a third switch for the platinum door of each oven to rise up and for a kind of rolling way, lined with fine sand, to start off on the march and receive the ten pigs, each of four hundredweight, and carry them into the cool air outside.

'Well, my good Morfain,' asked Jordan with the gaiety of a happy child, 'what do you think of it?'

Then he told him of the output. Those toys, each yielding four hundredweight of metal every five minutes, could turn out altogether a total of two hundred and forty tons daily, if they were allowed to work ten hours at a stretch. This was a prodigious output when one considered that the old blast-furnace, burning day and night alike, could not supply one-third of the quantity. As a matter of fact the electrical furnaces were seldom kept working more than three or four hours, and the advantage was that they could be lighted and extinguished as one pleased, in accordance with one's needs, whatever quantity of raw material that was required being immediately obtained. And how easily they worked, and what cleanliness and simplicity there was! As the electrodes themselves supplied the carbon necessary for the carburisation of the ore, there was little dust. The gases alone escaped, and the quantity of slag was so small that a daily cleaning sufficed to get rid of it. There was no longer any need of a barbarous colossus whose digestion caused disquietude, nor of any of the numerous and cumbersome appendages, the purifiers, the heaters, the blast machinery, and the constant current of water, with which it had been necessary to surround it. There was no longer any fear of stoppages or cooling down, nor any talk of demolishing or emptying the monster whilst still ablaze, because a twyer simply went wrong. Loaders watching at the mouth, and smelters piercing the plug and broiling in the flames of the 'runs' were no longer required to be on the alert, following one another incessantly with day and night shifts. The battery of the ten electrical furnaces, extending over a surface under fifty feet in length and some sixteen feet in width, was at its ease in the large, bright, glazed shed which sheltered it. And three children would have sufficed to set everything going, one at the switch of the endless screw, a second at the switch of the electrodes, and a third at that of the rolling way.

'What do you think of it? What do you think of it, my good Morfain?' repeated Jordan triumphantly.

The old master-smelter still looked at the furnaces without moving or speaking. Night was already at hand, shadows were filling the shed, and the working of the battery, with its gentle mechanical regularity, was quite impressive. Cold and dim, the ten furnaces seemed to slumber, whilst the little cars of ore, moved by the endless screw, were emptied one by one. Then every five minutes the platinum doors opened, the ten white jets of the ten 'runs' blazed upon the gloom, and the ten pigs, flowery with cornflowers amidst ears of wheat, slowly and continuously journeyed off on the rolling way.

However, Petit-Da, who hitherto had remained silent, wished to give some explanations, and pointing to the thick cable which, descending from the rafters, brought the current to the furnaces, he said, 'You see, father, the electricity comes along that cable, and such is its force that if the wires were severed everything would be blown up!'

Luc, whom Morfain's calmness had reassured, began to laugh. 'Don't say that,' he exclaimed, 'you would frighten our young people. Nothing would be blown up. Only the imprudent man who touched the wires would be in danger. Besides, the cable is a strong one.'

'Yes, that's true,' Petit-Da resumed; 'a strong wrist would be needed to break it.'

Morfain, still impassive, drew near. To reach the cable he simply had to raise his hands. However, for a moment longer he remained there motionless, nothing on his scorched face revealing what his thoughts might be. But all at once such a flame shot from his eyes that Luc again felt anxious, as if with a vague presentiment of a catastrophe.

'A strong wrist, you say?' Morfain at last exclaimed, making up his mind to speak. 'Just let us see, my lad.'

And before the others had time to intervene he caught hold of the cable with his hands, hardened by fire and as strong as iron pincers. And he bent the cable and broke it, even as an irritated giant might break the string of some child's toy. And lightning came, the wires met, and a mighty dazzling flash burst forth. Then the whole shed was plunged into darkness, amidst which one heard nought but the fall of that tall, lightning-stricken old man, who dropped, all of a piece, like an oak felled in the forest.

Lanterns had to be fetched. Jordan and Luc, utterly distracted, could only pronounce Morfain to be dead, whilst Petit-Da shrieked aloud and wept. Stretched upon his back, the old smelter did not appear to have suffered. He lay there like some colossal figure of old iron. However, his garments were smouldering, and the fire had to be put out. Doubtless he had been unwilling to survive the well-loved monster, that blast-furnace of which he had been the last fervent worshipper. With him had finished the first battle: man, the subduer of fire, the conqueror of metals, bending beneath the slavery of dolorous toil, and so proud of that long and overwhelming labour—the labour of humanity marching towards future happiness—as to make it a title of nobility. He had even shrunk from knowing that new times were born, bringing to each by the victory of a just apportionment of work, a little rest, a little gaiety, a little happy enjoyment, such as hitherto only a few privileged beings had tasted, deriving it from the iniquitous suffering of the greater number. And he had fallen like some fierce, obstinate hero of the ancient and terrible corv�e, like a Vulcan chained to his forge, a blind enemy of all that would have freed him, setting his glory in his servitude, and regarding the possible diminution of suffering and effort as mere downfall. And the force of the new age, the lightning which he had come to deny and insult, had annihilated him. And now he slept.

Three years later three more marriages took place, still further blending the classes together and tightening the bonds of that fraternal and peaceful people which was ever and ever spreading. Hilaire Froment, the eldest son of Luc and Josine, a strong young man already twenty-six, espoused Colette, the daughter of Nanet and Nise, a delightful little blonde in all the flowery springtide of her eighteen summers. And the blood of the Delaveaus became calmer on mingling with that of the Froments and Josine, the erstwhile wretched wanderer, who had been picked up, half dead of starvation, almost on the threshold of the Abyss. Then yet another Froment, Th�r�se, the third-born, a tall, gay, good-looking girl, became when seventeen the wife of Raymond, son of Petit-Da and Honorine Caffiaux, her senior by two years. And this time the blood of the Froments was allied with that of those epic toilers the Morfains and that of the Caffiaux, the representatives of the old trade system, which the advent of La Cr�cherie had swept away. Finally L�onie, the amiable daughter of Achille Gourier and Ma-Bleue, married one of Bonnaire's sons, who was twenty, like herself. This was S�verin, Lucien's younger brother; and in this marriage the expiring bourgeoisie became united to the people, the resigned and mighty toilers of the dead ages, and the revolutionary workers who were attaining to freedom.

Great f�tes were given, for the happy descendants of Luc and Josine were about to increase and multiply, helping to people the new city which Luc had founded in order that Josine and all others might be saved from iniquitous want. The torrent of Love was flowing forth, life was incessantly spreading, doubling the harvests, ever creating more and more men for increase of truth and increase of justice. Love the victorious, young and gay, bore couples, and families, and the whole town towards final harmony and happiness. Each marriage led to the building of another little house among the greenery; and the march of those houses never ceased. Old Beauclair had long since been invaded and swept away. The ancient leprous district, the filthy hovels where labour had agonised for centuries, had been razed to the ground, over which now stretched broad roads planted with trees and edged with smiling dwellings. Even the bourgeois quarter of Beauclair was threatened; the piercing of new streets enabled one to enlarge and turn to other uses the old public edifices such as the sub-prefecture, the law courts, and the prison. The ancient church alone remained, cracking and crumbling in the centre of a small deserted square, which suggested a field of nettles and brambles. On all sides the old-time houses where people had lived cooped up in flats, had given place to healthier dwellings scattered through the huge garden, which Beauclair was becoming, each of them gay with light and with streaming water. And the city was founded, a very great and very glorious city, whose sunlit avenues ever stretched away, overflowing already into the neighbouring fields of the fertile Roumagne.