Fruitfulness - Emile Zola
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The Froments had been in the country fully a month when one evening
Marianne, wheeling Gervais's little carriage in front of her, came as far
as the bridge over the Yeuse to await Mathieu, who had promised to return
early. Indeed, he got there before six o'clock. And as the evening was
fine, it occurred to Marianne to go as far as the Lepailleurs' mill down
the river, and buy some new-laid eggs there.
"I'm willing," said Mathieu. "I'm very fond of their romantic old mill,
you know; though if it were mine I should pull it down and build another
one with proper appliances."
In the yard of the picturesque old building, half covered with ivy, with
its mossy wheel slumbering amid water-lilies, they found the Lepailleurs,
the man tall, dry, and carroty, the woman as carroty and as dry as
himself, but both of them young and hardy. Their child Antonin was
sitting on the ground, digging a hole with his little hands.
"Eggs?" La Lepailleur exclaimed; "yes, certainly, madame, there must be
some."
She made no haste to fetch them, however, but stood looking at Gervais,
who was asleep in his little vehicle.
"Ah! so that's your last. He's plump and pretty enough, I must say," she
remarked.
But Lepailleur raised a derisive laugh, and with the familiarity which
the peasant displays towards the bourgeois whom he knows to be hard up,
he said: "And so that makes you five, monsieur. Ah, well! that would be a
deal too many for poor folks like us."
"Why?" Mathieu quietly inquired. "Haven't you got this mill, and don't
you own fields, to give labor to the arms that would come and whose labor
would double and treble your produce?"
These simple words were like a whipstroke that made Lepailleur rear. And
once again he poured forth all his spite. Ah! surely now, it wasn't his
tumble-down old mill that would ever enrich him, since it had enriched
neither his father nor his grandfather. And as for his fields, well, that
was a pretty dowry that his wife had brought him, land in which nothing
more would grow, and which, however much one might water it with one's
sweat, did not even pay for manuring and sowing.
"But in the first place," resumed Mathieu, "your mill ought to be
repaired and its old mechanism replaced, or, better still, you should buy
a good steam-engine."
"Repair the mill! Buy an engine! Why, that's madness," the other replied.
"What would be the use of it? As it is, people hereabouts have almost
renounced growing corn, and I remain idle every other month."
"And then," continued Mathieu, "if your fields yield less, it is because
you cultivate them badly, following the old routine, without proper care
or appliances or artificial manure."
"Appliances! Artificial manure! All that humbug which has only sent poor
folks to rack and ruin! Ah! I should just like to see you trying to
cultivate the land better, and make it yield what it'll never yield any
more."
Thereupon he quite lost his temper, became violent and brutal, launching
against the ungrateful earth all the charges which his love of idleness
and his obstinacy suggested. He had travelled, he had fought in Africa as
a soldier, folks could not say that he had always lived in his hole like
an ignorant beast. But, none the less, on leaving his regiment he had
lost all taste for work and come to the conclusion that agriculture was
doomed, and would never give him aught but dry bread to eat. The land
would soon be bankrupt, and the peasantry no longer believed in it, so
old and empty and worn out had it become. And even the sun got out of
order nowadays; they had snow in July and thunderstorms in December, a
perfect upsetting of seasons, which wrecked the crops almost before they
were out of the ground.
"No, monsieur," said Lepailleur, "what you say is impossible; it's all
past. The soil and work, there's nothing left of either. It's barefaced
robbery, and though the peasant may kill himself with labor, he will soon
be left without even water to drink. Children indeed! No, no! There's
Antonin, of course, and for him we may just be able to provide. But I
assure you that I won't even make Antonin a peasant against his will! If
he takes to schooling and wishes to go to Paris, I shall tell him that
he's quite right, for Paris is nowadays the only chance for sturdy chaps
who want to make a fortune. So he will be at liberty to sell everything,
if he chooses, and try his luck there. The only thing that I regret is
that I didn't make the venture myself when there was still time."
Mathieu began to laugh. Was it not singular that he, a bourgeois with a
bachelor's degree and scientific attainments, should dream of coming back
to the soil, to the common mother of all labor and wealth, when this
peasant, sprung from peasants, cursed and insulted the earth, and hoped
that his son would altogether renounce it? Never had anything struck him
as more significant. It symbolized that disastrous exodus from the rural
districts towards the towns, an exodus which year by year increased,
unhinging the nation and reducing it to anaemia.
"You are wrong," he said in a jovial way so as to drive all bitterness
from the discussion. "Don't be unfaithful to the earth; she's an old
mistress who would revenge herself. In your place I would lay myself out
to obtain from her, by increase of care, all that I might want. As in the
world's early days, she is still the great fruitful spouse, and she
yields abundantly when she is loved in proper fashion."
But Lepailleur, raising his fists, retorted: "No, no; I've had enough of
her!"
"And, by the way," continued Mathieu, "one thing which astonishes me is
that no courageous, intelligent man has ever yet come forward to do
something with all that vast abandoned estate yonder--that
Chantebled--which old Seguin, formerly, dreamt of turning into a princely
domain. There are great stretches of waste land, woods which one might
partly fell, heaths and moorland which might easily be restored to
cultivation. What a splendid task! What a work of creation for a bold man
to undertake!"
This so amazed Lepailleur that he stood there openmouthed. Then his
jeering spirit asserted itself: "But, my dear sir--excuse my saying
it--you must be mad! Cultivate Chantebled, clear those stony tracts, wade
about in those marshes! Why, one might bury millions there without
reaping a single bushel of oats! It's a cursed spot, which my
grandfather's father saw such as it is now, and which my grandson's son
will see just the same. Ah! well, I'm not inquisitive, but it would
really amuse me to meet the fool who might attempt such madness."
"_Mon Dieu_, who knows?" Mathieu quietly concluded. "When one only loves
strongly one may work miracles."
La Lepailleur, after going to fetch a dozen eggs, now stood erect before
her husband in admiration at hearing him talk so eloquently to a
bourgeois. They agreed very well together in their avaricious rage at
being unable to amass money by the handful without any great exertion,
and in their ambition to make their son a gentleman, since only a
gentleman could become wealthy. And thus, as Marianne was going off after
placing the eggs under a cushion in Gervais' little carriage, the other
complacently called her attention to Antonin, who, having made a hole in
the ground, was now spitting into it.
"Oh! he's smart," said she; "he knows his alphabet already, and we are
going to put him to school. If he takes after his father he will be no
fool, I assure you."
It was on a Sunday, some ten days later, that the supreme revelation, the
great flash of light which was to decide his life and that of those he
loved, fell suddenly upon Mathieu during a walk he took with his wife and
the children. They had gone out for the whole afternoon, taking a little
snack with them in order that they might share it amid the long grass in
the fields. And after scouring the paths, crossing the copses, rambling
over the moorland, they came back to the verge of the woods and sat down
under an oak. Thence the whole expanse spread out before them, from the
little pavilion where they dwelt to the distant village of Janville. On
their right was the great marshy plateau, from which broad, dry, sterile
slopes descended; while lower ground stretched away on their left. Then,
behind them, spread the woods with deep thickets parted by clearings,
full of herbage which no scythe had ever touched. And not a soul was to
be seen around them; there was naught save wild Nature, grandly quiescent
under the bright sun of that splendid April day. The earth seemed to be
dilating with all the sap amassed within it, and a flood of life could be
felt rising and quivering in the vigorous trees, the spreading plants,
and the impetuous growth of brambles and nettles which stretched
invadingly over the soil. And on all sides a powerful, pungent odor was
diffused.
"Don't go too far," Marianne called to the children; "we shall stay under
this oak. We will have something to eat by and by."
Blaise and Denis were already bounding along, followed by Ambroise, to
see who could run the fastest; but Rose pettishly called them back, for
she preferred to play at gathering wild flowers. The open air fairly
intoxicated the youngsters; the herbage rose, here and there, to their
very shoulders. But they came back and gathered flowers; and after a time
they set off at a wild run once more, one of the big brothers carrying
the little sister on his back.
Mathieu, however, had remained absent-minded, with his eyes wandering
hither and thither, throughout their walk. At times he did not hear
Marianne when she spoke to him; he lapsed into reverie before some
uncultivated tract, some copse overrun with brushwood, some spring which
suddenly bubbled up and was then lost in mire. Nevertheless, she felt
that there was no sadness nor feeling of indifference in his heart; for
as soon as he returned to her he laughed once more with his soft, loving
laugh. It was she who often sent him roaming about the country, even
alone, for she felt that it would do him good; and although she had
guessed that something very serious was passing through his mind, she
retained full confidence, waiting till it should please him to speak to
her.
Now, however, just as he had sunk once more into his reverie, his glance
wandering afar, studying the great varied expanse of land, she raised a
light cry: "Oh! look, look!"
Under the big oak tree she had placed Master Gervais in his little
carriage, among wild weeds which hid its wheels. And while she handed a
little silver mug, from which it was intended they should drink while
taking their snack, she had noticed that the child raised his head and
followed the movement of her hand, in which the silver sparkled beneath
the sun-rays. Forthwith she repeated the experiment, and again the
child's eyes followed the starry gleam.
"Ah! it can't be said that I'm mistaken, and am simply fancying it!" she
exclaimed. "It is certain that he can see quite plainly now. My pretty
pet, my little darling!"
She darted to the child to kiss him in celebration of that first clear
glance. And then, too, came the delight of the first smile.
"Why, look!" in his turn said Mathieu, who was leaning over the child
beside her, yielding to the same feeling of rapture, "there he is smiling
at you now. But of course, as soon as these little fellows see clearly
they begin to laugh."
She herself burst into a laugh. "You are right, he is laughing! Ah! how
funny he looks, and how happy I am!"
Both father and mother laughed together with content at the sight of that
infantile smile, vague and fleeting, like a faint ripple on the pure
water of some spring.
Amid this joy Marianne called the four others, who were bounding under
the young foliage around them: "Come, Rose! come, Ambroise! come, Blaise
and Denis! It's time now; come at once to have something to eat."
They hastened up and the snack was set out on a patch of soft grass.
Mathieu unhooked the basket which hung in front of the baby's little
vehicle; and Marianne, having drawn some slices of bread-and-butter from
it, proceeded to distribute them. Perfect silence ensued while all four
children began biting with hearty appetite, which it was a pleasure to
see. But all at once a scream arose. It came from Master Gervais, who was
vexed at not having been served first.
"Ah! yes, it's true I was forgetting you," said Marianne gayly; "you
shall have your share. There, open your mouth, you darling;" and, with an
easy, simple gesture, she unfastened her dress-body; and then, under the
sunlight which steeped her in golden radiance, in full view of the
far-spreading countryside, where all likewise was bare--the soil, the
trees, the plants, streaming with sap--having seated herself in the long
grass, where she almost disappeared amid the swarming growth of April's
germs, the babe on her breast eagerly sucked in her warm milk, even as
all the encompassing verdure was sucking life from the soil.
"How hungry you are!" she exclaimed. "Don't pinch me so hard, you little
glutton!"
Meantime Mathieu had remained standing amid the enchantment of the
child's first smile and the gayety born of the hearty hunger around him.
Then his dream of creation came back to him, and he at last gave voice to
those plans for the future which haunted him, and of which he had so far
spoken to nobody: "Ah, well, it is high time that I should set to work
and found a kingdom, if these children are to have enough soup to make
them grow. Shall I tell you what I've thought--shall I tell you?"
Marianne raised her eyes, smiling and all attention. "Yes, tell me your
secret if the time has come. Oh! I could guess that you had some great
hope in you. But I did not ask you anything; I preferred to wait."
He did not give a direct reply, for at a sudden recollection his feelings
rebelled. "That Lepailleur," said he, "is simply a lazy fellow and a fool
in spite of all his cunning airs. Can there be any more sacrilegious
folly than to imagine that the earth has lost her fruitfulness and is
becoming bankrupt--she, the eternal mother, eternal life? She only shows
herself a bad mother to her bad sons, the malicious, the obstinate, and
the dull-witted, who do not know how to love and cultivate her. But if an
intelligent son comes and devotes himself to her, and works her with the
help of experience and all the new systems of science, you will soon see
her quicken and yield tremendous harvests unceasingly. Ah! folks say in
the district that this estate of Chantebled has never yielded and never
will yield anything but nettles. Well, nevertheless, a man will come who
will transform it and make it a new land of joy and abundance."
Then, suddenly turning round, with outstretched arm, and pointing to the
spots to which he referred in turn, he went on: "Yonder in the rear there
are nearly five hundred acres of little woods, stretching as far as the
farms of Mareuil and Lillebonne. They are separated by clearings of
excellent soil which broad gaps unite, and which could easily be turned
into good pastures, for there are numerous springs. And, indeed, the
springs become so abundant on the right, that they have changed that big
plateau into a kind of marshland, dotted with ponds, and planted with
reeds and rushes. But picture a man of bold mind, a clearer, a conqueror,
who should drain those lands and rid them of superfluous water by means
of a few canals which might easily be dug! Why, then a huge stretch of
land would be reclaimed, handed over to cultivation, and wheat would grow
there with extraordinary vigor. But that is not all. There is the expanse
before us, those gentle slopes from Janville to Vieux-Bourg, that is
another five hundred acres, which are left almost uncultivated on account
of their dryness, the stony poverty of their soil. So it is all very
simple. One would merely have to take the sources up yonder, the waters,
now stagnant, and carry them across those sterile slopes, which, when
irrigated, would gradually develop extraordinary fertility. I have seen
everything, I have studied everything. I feel that there are at least
twelve hundred acres of land which a bold creator might turn into a most
productive estate. Yonder lies a whole kingdom of corn, a whole new world
to be created by labor, with the help of the beneficent waters and our
father the sun, the source of eternal life."
Marianne gazed at him and admired him as he stood there quivering,
pondering over all that he evoked from his dream. But she was frightened
by the vastness of such hopes, and could not restrain a cry of
disquietude and prudence.
"No, no, that is too much; you desire the impossible. How can you think
that we shall ever possess so much--that our fortune will spread over the
entire region? Think of the capital, the arms that would be needed for
such a conquest!"
For a moment Mathieu remained silent on thus suddenly being brought back
to reality. Then with his affectionate, sensible air, he began to laugh.
"You are right; I have been dreaming and talking wildly," he replied. "I
am not yet so ambitious as to wish to be King of Chantebled. But there is
truth in what I have said to you; and, besides, what harm can there be in
dreaming of great plans to give oneself faith and courage? Meantime I
intend to try cultivating just a few acres, which Seguin will no doubt
sell me cheaply enough, together with the little pavilion in which we
live. I know that the unproductiveness of the estate weighs on him. And,
later on, we shall see if the earth is disposed to love us and come to us
as we go to her. Ah well, my dear, give that little glutton plenty of
life, and you, my darlings, eat and drink and grow in strength, for the
earth belongs to those who are healthy and numerous."
Blaise and Denis made answer by taking some fresh slices of
bread-and-butter, while Rose drained the mug of wine and water which
Ambroise handed her. And Marianne sat there like the symbol of blossoming
Fruitfulness, the source of vigor and conquest, while Gervais heartily
nursed on. He pulled so hard, indeed, that one could hear the sound of
his lips. It was like the faint noise which attends the rise of a
spring--a slender rill of milk that is to swell and become a river.
Around her the mother heard that source springing up and spreading on all
sides. She was not nourishing alone: the sap of April was dilating the
land, sending a quiver through the woods, raising the long herbage which
embowered her. And beneath her, from the bosom of the earth, which was
ever in travail, she felt that flood of sap reaching and ever pervading
her. And it was like a stream of milk flowing through the world, a stream
of eternal life for humanity's eternal crop. And on that gay day of
spring the dazzling, singing, fragrant countryside was steeped in it all,
triumphal with that beauty of the mother, who, in the full light of the
sun, in view of the vast horizon, sat there nursing her child.
VIII
ON the morrow, after a morning's hard toil at his office at the works,
Mathieu, having things well advanced, bethought himself of going to see
Norine at Madame Bourdieu's. He knew that she had given birth to a child
a fortnight previously, and he wished to ascertain the exact state of
affairs, in order to carry to an end the mission with which Beauchene had
intrusted him. As the other, however, had never again spoken to him on
the subject, he simply told him that he was going out in the afternoon,
without indicating the motive of his absence. At the same time he knew
what secret relief Beauchene would experience when he at last learnt that
the whole business was at an end--the child cast adrift and the mother
following her own course.
On reaching the Rue de Miromesnil, Mathieu had to go up to Norine's room,
for though she was to leave the house on the following Thursday, she
still kept her bed. And at the foot of the bedstead, asleep in a cradle,
he was surprised to see the infant, of which, he thought, she had already
rid herself.
"Oh! is it you?" she joyously exclaimed. "I was about to write to you,
for I wanted to see you before going away. My little sister here would
have taken you the letter."
Cecile Moineaud was indeed there, together with the younger girl, Irma.
The mother, unable to absent herself from her household duties, had sent
them to make inquiries, and give Norine three big oranges, which
glistened on the table beside the bed. The little girls had made the
journey on foot, greatly interested by all the sights of the streets and
the displays in the shop-windows. And now they were enraptured with the
fine house in which they found their big sister sojourning, and full of
curiosity with respect to the baby which slept under the cradle's muslin
curtains.
Mathieu made the usual inquiries of Norine, who answered him gayly, but
pouted somewhat at the prospect of having so soon to leave the house,
where she had found herself so comfortable.
"We shan't easily find such soft mattresses and such good food, eh,
Victoire?" she asked. Whereupon Mathieu perceived that another girl was
present, a pale little creature with wavy red hair, tip-tilted nose, and
long mouth, whom he had already seen there on the occasion of a previous
visit. She slept in one of the two other beds which the room contained,
and now sat beside it mending some linen. She was to leave the house on
the morrow, having already sent her child to the Foundling Hospital; and
in the meantime she was mending some things for Rosine, the well-to-do
young person of great beauty whom Mathieu had previously espied, and
whose story, according to Norine, was so sadly pathetic.
Victoire ceased sewing and raised her head. She was a servant girl by
calling, one of those unlucky creatures who are overtaken by trouble when
they have scarce arrived in the great city from their native village.
"Well," said she, "it's quite certain that one won't be able to dawdle in
bed, and that one won't have warm milk given one to drink before getting
up. But, all the same, it isn't lively to see nothing but that big gray
wall yonder from the window. And, besides, one can't go on forever doing
nothing."
Norine laughed and jerked her head, as if she were not of this opinion.
Then, as her little sisters embarrassed her, she wished to get rid of
them.
"And so, my pussies," said she, "you say that papa's still angry with me,
and that I'm not to go back home."
"Oh!" cried Cecile, "it's not so much that he's angry, but he says that
all the neighbors would point their fingers at him if he let you come
home. Besides, Euphrasie keeps his anger up, particularly since she's
arranged to get married."
"What! Euphrasie going to be married? You didn't tell me that."
Norine looked very vexed, particularly when her sisters, speaking both
together, told her that the future husband was Auguste Benard, a jovial
young mason who lived on the floor above them. He had taken a fancy to
Euphrasie, though she had no good looks, and was as thin, at eighteen, as
a grasshopper. Doubtless, however, he considered her strong and
hard-working.
"Much good may it do them!" said Norine spitefully. "Why, with her evil
temper, she'll be beating him before six months are over. You can just
tell mamma that I don't care a rap for any of you, and that I need
nobody. I'll go and look for work, and I'll find somebody to help me. So,
you hear, don't you come back here. I don't want to be bothered by you
any more."
At this, Irma, but eight years old and tender-hearted, began to cry. "Why
do you scold us? We didn't come to worry you. I wanted to ask you, too,
if that baby's yours, and if we may kiss it before we go away."
Norine immediately regretted her spiteful outburst. She once more called
the girls her "little pussies," kissed them tenderly, and told them that
although they must run away now they might come back another day to see
her if it amused them. "Thank mamma from me for her oranges. And as for
the baby, well, you may look at it, but you mustn't touch it, for if it
woke up we shouldn't be able to hear ourselves."
Then, as the two children leant inquisitively over the cradle, Mathieu
also glanced at it, and saw a healthy, sturdy-looking child, with a
square face and strong features. And it seemed to him that the infant was
singularly like Beauchene.
At that moment, however, Madame Bourdieu came in, accompanied by a woman,
whom he recognized as Sophie Couteau, "La Couteau," that nurse-agent whom
he had seen at the Seguins' one day when she had gone thither to offer to
procure them a nurse. She also certainly recognized this gentleman, whose
wife, proud of being able to suckle her own children, had evinced such
little inclination to help others to do business. She pretended, however,
that she saw him for the first time; for she was discreet by profession
and not even inquisitive, since so many matters were ever coming to her
knowledge without the asking.
Little Cecile and little Irma went off at once; and then Madame Bourdieu,
addressing Norine, inquired: "Well, my child, have you thought it over;
have you quite made up your mind about that poor little darling, who is
sleeping there so prettily? Here is the person I spoke to you about. She
comes from Normandy every fortnight, bringing nurses to Paris; and each
time she takes babies away with her to put them out to nurse in the
country. Though you say you won't feed it, you surely need not cast off
your child altogether; you might confide it to this person until you are
in a position to take it back. Or else, if you have made up your mind to
abandon it altogether, she will kindly take it to the Foundling Hospital
at once."