第 67 页

rooms overhead. And as Pierre glanced at him with some remaining anxiety

and spoke of travelling, for he feared that his wound was not yet healed,

and that their presence might bring him suffering, Guillaume responded:

"No, no, I mean to keep you. If I'm marrying you, it is to have you both

here. Don't worry about me. I have so much work to do, I shall work."

In the evening when Thomas and Francois came home and learnt the news,

they did not seem particularly surprised by it. They had doubtless felt

that things would end like this. And they bowed to the _denouement_, not

venturing to say a word, since it was their father himself who announced

the decision which had been taken, with his usual air of composure. As

for Antoine, who on his own side quivered with love for Lise, he gazed

with doubting, anxious eyes at his father, who had thus had the courage

to pluck out his heart. Could he really survive such a sacrifice, must it

not kill him? Then Antoine kissed his father passionately, and the elder

brothers in their turn embraced him with all their hearts. Guillaume

smiled and his eyes became moist. After his victory over his horrible

torments nothing could have been sweeter to him than the embraces of his

three big sons.

There was, however, further emotion in store for him that evening. Just

as the daylight was departing, and he was sitting at his large table near

the window, again checking and classifying the documents and plans

connected with his invention, he was surprised to see his old master and

friend Bertheroy enter the workroom. The illustrious chemist called on

him in this fashion at long intervals, and Guillaume felt the honour thus

conferred on him by this old man to whom eminence and fame had brought so

many titles, offices and decorations. Moreover, Bertheroy, with his

position as an official _savant_ and member of the Institute, showed some

courage in thus venturing to call on one whom so-called respectable folks

regarded with contumely. And on this occasion, Guillaume at once

understood that it was some feeling of curiosity that had brought him.

And so he was greatly embarrassed, for he hardly dared to remove the

papers and plans which were lying on the table.

"Oh, don't be frightened," gaily exclaimed Bertheroy, who, despite his

careless and abrupt ways, was really very shrewd. "I haven't come to pry

into your secrets.... Leave your papers there, I promise you that I

won't read anything."

Then, in all frankness, he turned the conversation on the subject of

explosives, which he was still studying, he said, with passionate

interest. He had made some new discoveries which he did not conceal.

Incidentally, too, he spoke of the opinion he had given in Salvat's

affair. His dream was to discover some explosive of great power, which

one might attempt to domesticate and reduce to complete obedience. And

with a smile he pointedly concluded: "I don't know where that madman

found the formula of his powder. But if you should ever discover it,

remember that the future perhaps lies in the employment of explosives as

motive power."

Then, all at once, he added: "By the way, that fellow Salvat will be

executed on the day after to-morrow. A friend of mine at the Ministry of

Justice has just told me so."

Guillaume had hitherto listened to him with an air of mingled distrust

and amusement. But this announcement of Salvat's execution stirred him to

anger and revolt, though for some days past he had known it to be

inevitable, in spite of the sympathy which the condemned man was now

rousing in many quarters.

"It will be a murder!" he cried vehemently.

Bertheroy waved his hand: "What would you have?" he answered: "there's a

social system and it defends itself when it is attacked. Besides, those

Anarchists are really too foolish in imagining that they will transform

the world with their squibs and crackers! In my opinion, you know,

science is the only revolutionist. Science will not only bring us truth

but justice also, if indeed justice ever be possible on this earth. And

that is why I lead so calm a life and am so tolerant."

Once again Bertheroy appeared to Guillaume as a revolutionist, one who

was convinced that he helped on the ruin of the ancient abominable

society of today, with its dogmas and laws, even whilst he was working in

the depths of his laboratory. He was, however, too desirous of repose,

and had too great a contempt for futilities to mingle with the events of

the day, and he preferred to live in quietude, liberally paid and

rewarded, and at peace with the government whatever it might be, whilst

at the same time foreseeing and preparing for the formidable parturition

of the future.

He waved his hand towards Paris, over which a sun of victory was setting,

and then again spoke: "Do you hear the rumble? It is we who are the

stokers, we who are ever flinging fresh fuel under the boiler. Science

does not pause in her work for a single hour, and she is the artisan of

Paris, which--let us hope it--will be the artisan of the future. All the

rest is of no account."

But Guillaume was no longer listening to him. He was thinking of Salvat

and the terrible engine of war he had invented, that engine which before

long would shatter cities. And a new idea was dawning and growing in his

mind. He had just freed himself of his last tie, he had created all the

happiness he could create around him. Ah! to recover his courage, to be

master of himself once more, and, at any rate, derive from the sacrifice

of his heart the lofty delight of being free, of being able to lay down

even his life, should he some day deem it necessary!

BOOK V.

I. THE GUILLOTINE

FOR some reason of his own Guillaume was bent upon witnessing the

execution of Salvat. Pierre tried to dissuade him from doing so; and

finding his efforts vain, became somewhat anxious. He accordingly

resolved to spend the night at Montmartre, accompany his brother and

watch over him. In former times, when engaged with Abbe Rose in

charitable work in the Charonne district, he had learnt that the

guillotine could be seen from the house where Mege, the Socialist deputy,

resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. He therefore offered himself as

a guide. As the execution was to take place as soon as it should legally

be daybreak, that is, about half-past four o'clock, the brothers did not

go to bed but sat up in the workroom, feeling somewhat drowsy, and

exchanging few words. Then as soon as two o'clock struck, they started

off.

The night was beautifully serene and clear. The full moon, shining like a

silver lamp in the cloudless, far-stretching heavens, threw a calm,

dreamy light over the vague immensity of Paris, which was like some

spell-bound city of sleep, so overcome by fatigue that not a murmur arose

from it. It was as if beneath the soft radiance which spread over its

roofs, its panting labour and its cries of suffering were lulled to

repose until the dawn. Yet, in a far, out of the way district, dark work

was even now progressing, a knife was being raised on high in order that

a man might be killed.

Pierre and Guillaume paused in the Rue St. Eleuthere, and gazed at the

vaporous, tremulous city spread out below then. And as they turned they

perceived the basilica of the Sacred Heart, still domeless but already

looking huge indeed in the moonbeams, whose clear white light accentuated

its outlines and brought them into sharp relief against a mass of

shadows. Under the pale nocturnal sky, the edifice showed like a colossal

monster, symbolical of provocation and sovereign dominion. Never before

had Guillaume found it so huge, never had it appeared to him to dominate

Paris, even in the latter's hours of slumber, with such stubborn and

overwhelming might.

This wounded him so keenly in the state of mind in which he found

himself, that he could not help exclaiming: "Ah! they chose a good site

for it, and how stupid it was to let them do so! I know of nothing more

nonsensical; Paris crowned and dominated by that temple of idolatry! How

impudent it is, what a buffet for the cause of reason after so many

centuries of science, labour, and battle! And to think of it being reared

over Paris, the one city in the world which ought never to have been

soiled in this fashion! One can understand it at Lourdes and Rome; but

not in Paris, in the very field of intelligence which has been so deeply

ploughed, and whence the future is sprouting. It is a declaration of war,

an insolent proclamation that they hope to conquer Paris also!"

Guillaume usually evinced all the tolerance of a _savant_, for whom

religions are simply social phenomena. He even willingly admitted the

grandeur or grace of certain Catholic legends. But Marie Alacoque's

famous vision, which has given rise to the cult of the Sacred Heart,

filled him with irritation and something like physical disgust. He

suffered at the mere idea of Christ's open, bleeding breast, and the

gigantic heart which the saint asserted she had seen beating in the

depths of the wound--the huge heart in which Jesus placed the woman's

little heart to restore it to her inflated and glowing with love. What

base and loathsome materialism there was in all this! What a display of

viscera, muscles and blood suggestive of a butcher's shop! And Guillaume

was particularly disgusted with the engraving which depicted this horror,

and which he found everywhere, crudely coloured with red and yellow and

blue, like some badly executed anatomical plate.

Pierre on his side was also looking at the basilica as, white with

moonlight, it rose out of the darkness like a gigantic fortress raised to

crush and conquer the city slumbering beneath it. It had already brought

him suffering during the last days when he had said mass in it and was

struggling with his torments. "They call it the national votive

offering," he now exclaimed. "But the nation's longing is for health and

strength and restoration to its old position by work. That is a thing the

Church does not understand. It argues that if France was stricken with

defeat, it was because she deserved punishment. She was guilty, and so

to-day she ought to repent. Repent of what? Of the Revolution, of a

century of free examination and science, of the emancipation of her mind,

of her initiatory and liberative labour in all parts of the world? That

indeed is her real transgression; and it is as a punishment for all our

labour, search for truth, increase of knowledge and march towards justice

that they have reared that huge pile which Paris will see from all her

streets, and will never be able to see without feeling derided and

insulted in her labour and glory."

With a wave of his hand he pointed to the city, slumbering in the

moonlight as beneath a sheet of silver, and then set off again with his

brother, down the slopes, towards the black and deserted streets.

They did not meet a living soul until they reached the outer boulevard.

Here, however, no matter what the hour may be, life continues with

scarcely a pause. No sooner are the wine shops, music and dancing halls

closed, than vice and want, cast into the street, there resume their

nocturnal existence. Thus the brothers came upon all the homeless ones:

low prostitutes seeking a pallet, vagabonds stretched on the benches

under the trees, rogues who prowled hither and thither on the lookout for

a good stroke. Encouraged by their accomplice--night, all the mire and

woe of Paris had returned to the surface. The empty roadway now belonged

to the breadless, homeless starvelings, those for whom there was no place

in the sunlight, the vague, swarming, despairing herd which is only

espied at night-time. Ah! what spectres of destitution, what apparitions

of grief and fright there were! What a sob of agony passed by in Paris

that morning, when as soon as the dawn should rise, a man--a pauper, a

sufferer like the others--was to be guillotined!

As Guillaume and Pierre were about to descend the Rue des Martyrs, the

former perceived an old man lying on a bench with his bare feet

protruding from his gaping, filthy shoes. Guillaume pointed to him in

silence. Then, a few steps farther on, Pierre in his turn pointed to a

ragged girl, crouching, asleep with open month, in the corner of a

doorway. There was no need for the brothers to express in words all the

compassion and anger which stirred their hearts. At long intervals

policemen, walking slowly two by two, shook the poor wretches and

compelled them to rise and walk on and on. Occasionally, if they found

them suspicious or refractory, they marched them off to the

police-station. And then rancour and the contagion of imprisonment often

transformed a mere vagabond into a thief or a murderer.

In the Rue des Martyrs and the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, the brothers

found night-birds of another kind, women who slunk past them, close to

the house-fronts, and men and hussies who belaboured one another with

blows. Then, upon the grand boulevards, on the thresholds of lofty black

houses, only one row of whose windows flared in the night, pale-faced

individuals, who had just come down from their clubs, stood lighting

cigars before going home. A lady with a ball wrap over her evening gown

went by accompanied by a servant. A few cabs, moreover, still jogged up

and down the roadway, while others, which had been waiting for hours,

stood on their ranks in rows, with drivers and horses alike asleep. And

as one boulevard after another was reached, the Boulevard Poissonniere,

the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, the Boulevard St. Denis, and so forth, as

far as the Place de la Republique, there came fresh want and misery, more

forsaken and hungry ones, more and more of the human "waste" that is cast

into the streets and the darkness. And on the other hand, an army of

street-sweepers was now appearing to remove all the filth of the past

four and twenty hours, in order that Paris, spruce already at sunrise,