第 27 页

frantic madness came upon her, and he then had to struggle with her, and

often hold her for hours in his arms to prevent her from splitting her

head against the walls. Fearful shrieks would ring out for a time, and

then deathlike silence would fall once more.

Grandidier came into the shed where Thomas was working. A handsome man of

forty, with an energetic face, he had a dark and heavy moustache,

brush-like hair and clear eyes. He was very partial to Thomas, and during

the young fellow's apprenticeship there, had treated him like a son. And

he now let him return thither whenever it pleased him, and placed his

appliances at his disposal. He knew that he was trying to devise a new

motor, a question in which he himself was extremely interested; still he

evinced the greatest discretion, never questioning Thomas, but awaiting

the result of his endeavours.

"This is my uncle, Abbe Froment, who looked in to wish me good day," said

the young man, introducing Pierre.

An exchange of polite remarks ensued. Then Grandidier sought to cast off

the sadness which made people think him stern and harsh, and in a

bantering tone exclaimed: "I didn't tell you, Thomas, of my business with

the investigating magistrate. If I hadn't enjoyed a good reputation we

should have had all the spies of the Prefecture here. The magistrate

wanted me to explain the presence of that bradawl in the Rue

Godot-de-Mauroy, and I at once realised that, in his opinion, the culprit

must have worked here. For my part I immediately thought of Salvat. But I

don't denounce people. The magistrate has my hiring-book, and as for

Salvat I simply answered that he worked here for nearly three months last

autumn, and then disappeared. They can look for him themselves! Ah! that

magistrate! you can picture him a little fellow with fair hair and

cat-like eyes, very careful of his appearance, a society man evidently,

but quite frisky at being mixed up in this affair."

"Isn't he Monsieur Amadieu?" asked Pierre.

"Yes, that's his name. Ah! he's certainly delighted with the present

which those Anarchists have made him, with that crime of theirs."

The priest listened in deep anxiety. As his brother had feared, the true

scent, the first conducting wire, had now been found. And he looked at

Thomas to see if he also were disturbed. But the young man was either

ignorant of the ties which linked Salvat to his father, or else he

possessed great power of self-control, for he merely smiled at

Grandidier's sketch of the magistrate.

Then, as Grandidier went to look at the piece of mechanism which Thomas

was finishing, and they began to speak about it, Pierre drew near to an

open doorway which communicated with a long workshop where engine lathes

were rumbling, and the beams of press-drills falling quickly and

rhythmically. Leather gearing spun along with a continuous gliding, and

there was ceaseless bustle and activity amidst the odoriferous dampness

of all the steam. Scores of perspiring workmen, grimy with dust and

filings, were still toiling. Still this was the final effort of the day.

And as three men approached a water-tap near Pierre to wash their hands,

he listened to their talk, and became particularly interested in it when

he heard one of them, a tall, ginger-haired fellow, call another

Toussaint, and the third Charles.

Toussaint, a big, square-shouldered man with knotty arms, only showed his

fifty years on his round, scorched face, which besides being roughened

and wrinkled by labour, bristled with grey hairs, which nowadays he was

content to shave off once a week. It was only his right arm that was

affected by paralysis, and moved rather sluggishly. As for Charles, a

living portrait of his father, he was now in all the strength of his six

and twentieth year, with splendid muscles distending his white skin, and

a full face barred by a heavy black moustache. The three men, like their

employer, were speaking of the explosion at the Duvillard mansion, of the

bradawl found there, and of Salvat, whom they all now suspected.

"Why, only a brigand would do such a thing!" said Toussaint. "That

Anarchism disgusts me. I'll have none of it. But all the same it's for

the _bourgeois_ to settle matters. If the others want to blow them up,

it's their concern. It's they who brought it about."

This indifference was undoubtedly the outcome of a life of want and

social injustice; it was the indifference of an old toiler, who, weary of

struggling and hoping for improvements, was now quite ready to tolerate

the crumbling of a social system, which threatened him with hunger in his

impotent old age.

"Well, you know," rejoined Charles, "I've heard the Anarchists talking,

and they really say some very true and sensible things. And just take

yourself, father; you've been working for thirty years, and isn't it

abominable that you should have had to pass through all that you did pass

through recently, liable to go off like some old horse that's slaughtered

at the first sign of illness? And, of course, it makes me think of

myself, and I can't help feeling that it won't be at all amusing to end

like that. And may the thunder of God kill me if I'm wrong, but one feels

half inclined to join in their great flare-up if it's really to make

everybody happy!"

He certainly lacked the flame of enthusiasm, and if he had come to these

views it was solely from impatience to lead a less toilsome life, for

obligatory military service had given him ideas of equality among all

men--a desire to struggle, raise himself and obtain his legitimate share

of life's enjoyments. It was, in fact, the inevitable step which carries

each generation a little more forward. There was the father, who,

deceived in his hope of a fraternal republic, had grown sceptical and

contemptuous; and there was the son advancing towards a new faith, and

gradually yielding to ideas of violence, since political liberty had

failed to keep its promises.

Nevertheless, as the big, ginger-haired fellow grew angry, and shouted

that if Salvat were guilty, he ought to be caught and guillotined at

once, without waiting for judges, Toussaint ended by endorsing his

opinion. "Yes, yes, he may have married one of my sisters, but I renounce

him.... And yet, you know, it would astonish me to find him guilty,

for he isn't wicked at heart. I'm sure he wouldn't kill a fly."

"But what would you have?" put in Charles. "When a man's driven to

extremities he goes mad."

They had now washed themselves; but Toussaint, on perceiving his

employer, lingered there in order to ask him for an advance. As it

happened, Grandidier, after cordially shaking hands with Pierre,

approached the old workman of his own accord, for he held him in esteem.

And, after listening to him, he gave him a line for the cashier on a

card. As a rule, he was altogether against the practice of advancing

money, and his men disliked him, and said he was over rigid, though in

point of fact he had a good heart. But he had his position as an employer

to defend, and to him concessions meant ruin. With such keen competition

on all sides, with the capitalist system entailing a terrible and

incessant struggle, how could one grant the demands of the workers, even

when they were legitimate?

Sudden compassion came upon Pierre when, after quitting Thomas, he saw

Grandidier, who had finished his round, crossing the courtyard in the

direction of the closed pavilion, where all the grief of his

heart-tragedy awaited him. Here was that man waging the battle of life,

defending his fortune with the risk that his business might melt away

amidst the furious warfare between capital and labour; and at the same

time, in lieu of evening repose, finding naught but anguish it his

hearth: a mad wife, an adored wife, who had sunk back into infancy, and

was for ever dead to love! How incurable was his secret despair! Even on

the days when he triumphed in his workshops, disaster awaited him at

home. And could any more unhappy man, any man more deserving of pity, be

found even among the poor who died of hunger, among those gloomy workers,

those vanquished sons of labour who hated and who envied him?

When Pierre found himself in the street again he was astonished to see

Madame Toussaint and Madame Theodore still there with little Celine. With

their feet in the mud, like bits of wreckage against which beat the

ceaseless flow of wayfarers, they had lingered there, still and ever

chatting, loquacious and doleful, lulling their wretchedness to rest

beneath a deluge of tittle-tattle. And when Toussaint, followed by his

son, came out, delighted with the advance he had secured, he also found

them on the same spot. Then he told Madame Theodore the story of the

bradawl, and the idea which had occurred to him and all his mates that

Salvat might well be the culprit. She, however, though turning very pale,

began to protest, concealing both what she knew and what she really

thought.

"I tell you I haven't seen him for several days," said she. "He must

certainly be in Belgium. And as for a bomb, that's humbug. You say

yourself that he's very gentle and wouldn't harm a fly!"

A little later as Pierre journeyed back to Neuilly in a tramcar he fell

into a deep reverie. All the stir and bustle of that working-class

district, the buzzing of the factory, the overflowing activity of that

hive of labour, seemed to have lingered within him. And for the first

time, amidst his worries, he realised the necessity of work. Yes, it was

fatal, but it also gave health and strength. In effort which sustains and

saves, he at last found a solid basis on which all might be reared. Was

this, then, the first gleam of a new faith? But ah! what mockery! Work an

uncertainty, work hopeless, work always ending in injustice! And then

want ever on the watch for the toiler, strangling him as soon as slack

times came round, and casting him into the streets like a dead dog

immediately old age set in.

On reaching Neuilly, Pierre found Bertheroy at Guillaume's bedside. The

old _savant_ had just dressed the injured wrist, and was not yet certain

that no complications would arise. "The fact is," he said to Guillaume,

"you don't keep quiet. I always find you in a state of feverish emotion

which is the worst possible thing for you. You must calm yourself, my

dear fellow, and not allow anything to worry you."

A few minutes later, though, just as he was going away, he said with his

pleasant smile: "Do you know that a newspaper writer came to interview me

about that explosion? Those reporters imagine that scientific men know

everything! I told the one who called on me that it would be very kind of

_him_ to enlighten _me_ as to what powder was employed. And, by the way,

I am giving a lesson on explosives at my laboratory to-morrow. There will

be just a few persons present. You might come as well, Pierre, so as to

give an account of it to Guillaume; it would interest him."

At a glance from his brother, Pierre accepted the invitation. Then,

Bertheroy having gone, he recounted all he had learnt during the

afternoon, how Salvat was suspected, and how the investigating magistrate

had been put on the right scent. And at this news, intense fever again

came over Guillaume, who, with his head buried in the pillow, and his

eyes closed, stammered as if in a kind of nightmare: "Ah! then, this is

the end! Salvat arrested, Salvat interrogated! Ah! that so much toil and

so much hope should crumble!"

IV. CULTURE AND HOPE

ON the morrow, punctually at one o'clock, Pierre reached the Rue d'Ulm,

where Bertheroy resided in a fairly large house, which the State had

placed at his disposal, in order that he might install in it a laboratory

for study and research. Thus the whole first floor had been transformed

into one spacious apartment, where, from time to time, the illustrious

chemist was fond of receiving a limited number of pupils and admirers,

before whom he made experiments, and explained his new discoveries and

theories.

For these occasions a few chairs were set out before the long and massive

table, which was covered with jars and appliances. In the rear one saw

the furnace, while all around were glass cases, full of vials and

specimens. The persons present were, for the most part, fellow _savants_,

with a few young men, and even a lady or two, and, of course, an

occasional journalist. The whole made up a kind of family gathering, the

visitors chatting with the master in all freedom.

Directly Bertheroy perceived Pierre he came forward, pressed his hand and

seated him on a chair beside Guillaume's son Francois, who had been one

of the first arrivals. The young man was completing his third year at the

Ecole Normale, close by, so he only had a few steps to take to call upon

his master Bertheroy, whom he regarded as one of the firmest minds of the

age. Pierre was delighted to meet his nephew, for he had been greatly

impressed in his favour on the occasion of his visit to Montmartre.

Francois, on his side, greeted his uncle with all the cordial

expansiveness of youth. He was, moreover, well pleased to obtain some

news of his father.

However, Bertheroy began. He spoke in a familiar and sober fashion, but

frequently employed some very happy expressions. At first he gave an

account of his own extensive labours and investigations with regard to

explosive substances, and related with a laugh that he sometimes

manipulated powders which would have blown up the entire district. But,

said he, in order to reassure his listeners, he was always extremely

prudent. At last he turned to the subject of that explosion in the Rue

Godot-de-Mauroy, which, for some days, had filled Paris with dismay. The

remnants of the bomb had been carefully examined by experts, and one

fragment had been brought to him, in order that he might give his opinion