Fruitfulness - Emile Zola
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"Good day, Victor," said Mathieu, "are you well?"
"Oh, I'm no longer young, Monsieur Froment," the other replied. "I shall
soon have to look somewhere for a hole to lie in. Still, I hope it won't
be under an omnibus."
He alluded to the death of his father, who had finally been picked up
under an omnibus in the Rue de Grenelle, with his skull split and both
legs broken.
"But after all," resumed Victor, "one may as well die that way as any
other! It's even quicker. The old man was lucky in having Norine and
Cecile to look after him. If it hadn't been for them, it's starvation
that would have killed him, not an omnibus."
Mathieu interrupted. "Are Norine and Cecile well?" he asked.
"Yes, Monsieur Froment. Leastways, as far as I know, for, as you can
understand, we don't often see one another. Them and me, that's about all
that's left out of our lot; for Irma won't have anything more to do with
us since she's become one of the toffs. Euphrasie was lucky enough to
die, and that brigand Alfred disappeared, which was real relief, I assure
you; for I feared that I should be seeing him at the galleys. And I was
really pleased when I had some news of Norine and Cecile lately. Norine
is older than I am, you know; she will soon be sixty. But she was always
strong, and her boy, it seems, looks after her. Both she and Cecile still
work; yes, Cecile still lives on, though one used to think that a fillip
would have killed her. It's a pretty home, that one of theirs; two
mothers for a big lad of whom they've made a decent fellow."
Mathieu nodded approvingly, and then remarked: "But you yourself, Victor,
had boys and girls who must now in their turn be fathers and mothers."
The old workman waved his hand vaguely.
"Yes," said he, "I had eight, one more than my father. They've all gone
off, and they are fathers and mothers in their turn, as you say, Monsieur
Froment. It's all chance, you know; one has to live. There are some of
them who certainly don't eat white bread, ah! that they don't. And the
question is whether, when my arms fail me, I shall find one to take me
in, as Norine and Cecile took my father. But when everything's said, what
can you expect? It's all seed of poverty, it can't grow well, or yield
anything good."
For a moment he remained silent; then resuming his walk towards the
works, with bent, weary back and hanging hands, dented by toil, he said:
"Au revoir, Monsieur Froment."
"Au revoir, Victor," Mathieu answered in a kindly tone.
Having given his orders, Denis now came to join his father, and proposed
to him that they should go on foot to the Avenue d'Antin. On the way he
warned him that they would certainly find Ambroise alone, for his wife
and four children were still at Dieppe, where, indeed, the two
sisters-in-law, Andree and Marthe, had spent the season together.
In a period of ten years, Ambroise's fortune had increased tenfold.
Though he was barely five-and-forty, he reigned over the Paris market.
With his spirit of enterprise, he had greatly enlarged the business left
him by old Du Hordel, transforming it into a really universal _comptoir_,
through which passed merchandise from all parts of the world. Frontiers
did not exist for Ambroise, he enriched himself with the spoils of the
earth, particularly striving to extract from the colonies all the wealth
they were able to yield, and carrying on his operations with such
triumphant audacity, such keen perception, that the most hazardous of his
campaigns ended victoriously.
A man of this stamp, whose fruitful activity was ever winning battles,
was certain to devour the idle, impotent Seguins. In the downfall of
their fortune, the dispersal of the home and family, he had carved a
share for himself by securing possession of the house in the Avenue
d'Antin. Seguin himself had not resided there for years, he had thought
it original to live at his club, where he secured accommodation after he
and his wife had separated by consent. Two of the children had also gone
off; Gaston, now a major in the army, was on duty in a distant garrison
town, and Lucie was cloistered in an Ursuline convent. Thus, Valentine,
left to herself and feeling very dreary, no longer able, moreover, to
keep up the establishment on a proper footing, in her turn quitted the
mansion for a cheerful and elegant little flat on the Boulevard
Malesherbes, where she finished her life as a very devout old lady,
presiding over a society for providing poor mothers with baby-linen, and
thus devoting herself to the children of others--she who had not known
how to bring up her own. And, in this wise, Ambroise had simply had to
take possession of the empty mansion, which was heavily mortgaged, to
such an extent, indeed, that when the Seguins died their heirs would
certainly be owing him money.
Many were the recollections which awoke when Mathieu, accompanied by
Denis, entered that princely mansion of the Avenue d'Antin! There, as at
the factory, he could see himself arriving in poverty, as a needy tenant
begging his landlord to repair a roof, in order that the rain might no
longer pour down on the four children, whom, with culpable improvidence,
he already had to provide for. There, facing the avenue, was the
sumptuous Renaissance facade with eight lofty windows on each of its
upper floors; there, inside, was the hall, all bronze and marble,
conducting to the spacious ground-floor reception-rooms which a winter
garden prolonged; and there, up above, occupying all the central part of
the first floor, was Seguin's former "cabinet," the vast apartment with
lofty windows of old stained glass. Mathieu could well remember that room
with its profuse and amusing display of "antiquities," old brocades, old
goldsmith's ware and old pottery, and its richly bound books, and its
famous modern pewters. And he remembered it also at a later date, in the
abandonment to which it had fallen, the aspect of ruin which it had
assumed, covered, as it was, with gray dust which bespoke the slow
crumbling of the home. And now he found it once more superb and cheerful,
renovated with healthier and more substantial luxury by Ambroise, who had
put masons and joiners and upholsterers into it for a period of three
months. The whole mansion now lived afresh, more luxurious than ever,
filled at winter-time with sounds of festivity, enlivened by the laughter
of four happy children, and the blaze of a living fortune which effort
and conquest ever renewed. And it was no longer Seguin, the idler, the
artisan of nothingness, whom Mathieu came to see there, it was his own
son Ambroise, a man of creative energy, whose victory had been sought by
the very forces of life, which had made him triumph there, installed him
as the master in the home of the vanquished.
When Mathieu and Denis arrived Ambroise was absent, but was expected home
for lunch. They waited for him, and as the former again crossed the
ante-room the better to judge of some new arrangements that had been
made, he was surprised at being stopped by a lady who was sitting there
patiently, and whom he had not previously noticed.
"I see that Monsieur Froment does not recognize me," she said.
Mathieu made a vague gesture. The woman had a tall, plump figure, and was
certainly more than sixty years of age; but she evidently took care of
her person, and had a smiling mien, with a long, full face and almost
venerable white hair. One might have taken her for some worthy,
well-to-do provincial bourgeoise in full dress.
"Celeste," said she. "Celeste, Madame Seguin's former maid."
Thereupon he fully recognized her, but hid his stupefaction at finding
her so fortunately circumstanced at the close of her career. He had
imagined that she was buried in some sewer.
In a gay, placid way she proceeded to recount her happiness: "Oh! I am
very pleased," she said; "I had retired to Rougemont, my birth-place, and
I ended by there marrying a retired naval officer, who has a very
comfortable pension, not to speak of a little fortune which his first
wife left him. As he has two big sons, I ventured to recommend the
younger one to Monsieur Ambroise, who was kind enough to take him into
his counting-house. And so I have profited by my first journey to Paris
since then, to come and give Monsieur Ambroise my best thanks."
She did not say how she had managed to marry the retired naval officer;
how she had originally been a servant in his household, and how she had
hastened his first wife's death in order to marry him. All things
considered, however, she rendered him very happy, and even rid him of his
sons, who were in his way, thanks to the relations she had kept up in
Paris.
She continued smiling like a worthy woman, whose feelings softened at the
recollection of the past. "You can have no idea how pleased I felt when I
saw you pass just now, Monsieur Froment," she resumed. "Ah! it was a long
time ago that I first had the honor of seeing you here! You remember La
Couteau, don't you? She was always complaining, was she not? But she is
very well pleased now; she and her husband have retired to a pretty
little house of their own, with some little savings which they live on
very quietly. She is no longer young, but she has buried a good many in
her time, and she'll bury more before she has finished! For instance,
Madame Menoux--you must surely remember Madame Menoux, the little
haberdasher close by--well, there was a woman now who never had any luck!
She lost her second child, and she lost that big fellow, her husband,
whom she was so fond of, and she herself died of grief six months
afterwards. I did at one time think of taking her to Rougemont, where the
air is so good for one's health. There are old folks of ninety living
there. Take La Couteau, for instance, she will live as long as she likes!
Oh! yes, it is a very pleasant part indeed, a perfect paradise."
At these words the abominable Rougemont, the bloody Rougemont, arose
before Mathieu's eyes, rearing its peaceful steeple above the low plain,
with its cemetery paved with little Parisians, where wild flowers bloomed
and hid the victims of so many murders.
But Celeste was rattling on again, saying: "You remember Madame Bourdieu
whom you used to know in the Rue de Miromesnil; she died very near our
village on some property where she went to live when she gave up
business, a good many years ago. She was luckier than her colleague La
Rouche, who was far too good-natured with people. You must have read
about her case in the newspapers, she was sent to prison with a medical
man named Sarraille."
"La Rouche! Sarraille!" Yes, Mathieu had certainly read the trial of
those two social pests, who were fated to meet at last in their work of
iniquity. And what an echo did those names awaken in the past: Valerie
Morange! Reine Morange! Already in the factory yard Mathieu had fancied
that he could see the shadow of Morange gliding past him--the punctual,
timid, soft-hearted accountant, whom misfortune and insanity had carried
off into the darkness. And suddenly the unhappy man here again appeared
to Mathieu, like a wandering phantom, the restless victim of all the
imbecile ambition, all the desperate craving for pleasure which animated
the period; a poor, weak, mediocre being, so cruelly punished for the
crimes of others, that he was doubtless unable to sleep in the tomb into
which he had flung himself, bleeding, with broken limbs. And before
Mathieu's eyes there likewise passed the spectre of Seraphine, with the
fierce and pain-fraught face of one who is racked and killed by insatiate
desire.
"Well, excuse me for having ventured to stop you, Monsieur Froment,"
Celeste concluded; "but I am very, very pleased at having met you again."
He was still looking at her; and as he quitted her he said, with the
indulgence born of his optimism: "May you keep happy since you are happy.
Happiness must know what it does."
Nevertheless, Mathieu remained disturbed, as he thought of the apparent
injustice of impassive nature. The memory of his Marianne, struck down by
such deep grief, pining away through the impious quarrels of her sons,
returned to him. And as Ambroise at last came in and gayly embraced him,
after receiving Celeste's thanks, he felt a thrill of anguish, for the
decisive moment which would save or wreck the family was now at hand.
Indeed, Denis, after inviting himself and Mathieu to lunch, promptly
plunged into the subject.
"We are not here for the mere pleasure of lunching with you," said he;
"mamma is ill, did you know it?"
"Ill?" said Ambroise. "Not seriously ill?"
"Yes, very ill, in danger. And are you aware that she has been ill like
this ever since she came to speak to you about the quarrel between
Gregoire and Gervais, when it seems that you treated her very roughly."
"I treated her roughly? We simply talked business, and perhaps I spoke to
her like a business man, a little bluntly."
Then Ambroise turned towards Mathieu, who was waiting, pale and silent:
"Is it true, father, that mamma is ill and causes you anxiety?"
And as his father replied with a long affirmative nod, he gave vent to
his emotion, even as Denis had done at the works immediately on learning
the truth.
"But dash it all," he said; "this affair is becoming quite idiotic! In my
opinion Gregoire is right and Gervais wrong. Only I don't care a fig
about that; they must make it up at once, so that poor mamma may not have
another moment's suffering. But then, why did you shut yourselves up? Why
did you not let us know how grieved you were? Every one would have
reflected and understood things."
Then, all at once, Ambroise embraced his father with that promptness of
decision which he displayed to such happy effect in business as soon as
ever a ray of light illumined his mind.
"After all, father," said he; "you are the cleverest; you understand
things and foresee them. Even if Gregoire were within his rights in
bringing an action against Gervais, it would be idiotic for him to do so,
because far above any petty private interest, there is the interest of
all of us, the interest of the family, which is to remain, united,
compact, and unattackable, if it desires to continue invincible. Our
sovereign strength lies in our union--And so it's simple enough. We will
lunch as quickly as possible and take the first train. We shall go, Denis
and I, to Chantebled with you. Peace must be concluded this evening. I
will see to it."
Laughing, and well pleased to find his own feelings shared by his two
sons, Mathieu returned Ambroise's embrace. And while waiting for lunch to
be served, they went down to see the winter garden, which was being
enlarged for some fetes which Ambroise wished to give. He took pleasure
in adding to the magnificence of the mansion, and in reigning there with
princely pomp. At lunch he apologized for only offering his father and
brother a bachelor's pot-luck, though, truth to tell, the fare was
excellent. Indeed, whenever Andree and the children absented themselves,
Ambroise still kept a good cook to minister to his needs, for he held the
cuisine of restaurants in horror.
"Well, for my part," said Denis, "I go to a restaurant for my meals; for
since Marthe and all the others have been at Dieppe, I have virtually
shut up the house."
"You are a wise man, you see," Ambroise answered, with quiet frankness.
"For my part, as you are aware, I am an enjoyer. Now, make haste and
drink your coffee, and we will start."
They reached Janville by the two o'clock train. Their plan was to repair
to Chantebled in the first instance, in order that Ambroise and Denis
might begin by talking to Gervais, who was of a gentler nature than
Gregoire, and with whom they thought they might devise some means of
conciliation. Then they intended to betake themselves to the mill,
lecture Gregoire, and impose on him such peace conditions as they might
have agreed upon. As they drew nearer and nearer to the farm, however,
the difficulties of their undertaking appeared to them, and seemed to
increase in magnitude. An arrangement would not be arrived at so easily
as they had at first imagined. So they girded their loins in readiness
for a hard battle.
"Suppose we begin by going to see mamma," Denis suggested. "We should see
and embrace her, and that would give us some courage."
Ambroise deemed the idea an excellent one. "Yes, let us go by all means,
particularly as mamma has always been a good counsellor. She must have
some idea."
They climbed to the first floor of the house, to the spacious room where
Marianne spent her days on a couch beside the window. And to their
stupefaction they found her seated on that couch with Gregoire standing
by her and holding both her hands, while on the other side were Gervais
and Claire, laughing softly.
"Why! what is this?" exclaimed Ambroise in amazement. "The work is done!"
"And we who despaired of being able to accomplish it!" declared Denis,
with a gesture of bewilderment.
Mathieu was equally stupefied and delighted, and on noticing the surprise
occasioned by the arrival of the two big brothers from Paris, he
proceeded to explain the position.
"I went to Paris this morning to fetch them," he said, "and I've brought
them here to reconcile us all!"
A joyous peal of laughter resounded. The big brothers were too late!
Neither their wisdom nor their diplomacy had been needed. They themselves
made merry over it, feeling the while greatly relieved that the victory
should have been won without any battle.
Marianne, whose eyes were moist, and who felt divinely happy, so happy
that she seemed already well again, simply replied to Mathieu: "You see,
my friend, it's done. But as yet I know nothing further. Gregoire came
here and kissed me, and wished me to send for Gervais and Claire at once.
Then, of his own accord, he told them that they were all three mad in
causing me such grief, and that they ought to come to an understanding
together. Thereupon they kissed one another. And now it's done; it's all
over."
But Gregoire gayly intervened. "Wait a moment; just listen; I cut too
fine a figure in the story as mamma relates it, and I must tell you the
truth. I wasn't the first to desire the reconciliation; the first was my
wife, Therese. She has a good sterling heart and the very brains of a
mule, in such wise that whenever she is determined on anything I always
have to do it in the end. Well, yesterday evening we had a bit of a
quarrel, for she had heard, I don't know how, that mamma was ill with
grief. And this pained her, and she tried to prove to me how stupid the
quarrel was, for we should all of us lose by it. This morning she began
again, and of course she convinced me, more particularly as, with the
thought of poor mamma lying ill through our fault, I had hardly slept all
night. But father Lepailleur still had to be convinced, and Therese
undertook to do that also. She even hit upon something extraordinary, so
that the old man might imagine that he was the conqueror of conquerors.
She persuaded him at last to sell you that terrible enclosure at such an
insane price that he will be able to shout 'victory!' over all the
house-tops."
Then turning to his brother and sister, Gregoire added, in a jocular
tone; "My dear Gervais, my dear Claire, let yourselves be robbed, I beg
of you. The peace of my home is at stake. Give my father-in-law the last
joy of believing that he alone has always been in the right, and that we
have never been anything but fools."
"Oh! as much money as he likes," replied Gervais, laughing. "Besides,
that enclosure has always been a dishonor for the estate, streaking it
with stones and brambles, like a nasty sore. We have long dreamt of
seeing the property spotless, with its crops waving without a break under
the sun. And Chantebled is rich enough to pay for its glory."
Thus the affair was settled. The wheat of the farm would return to the
mill to be ground, and the mother would get well again. It was the force
of life, the need of love, the union necessary for the whole family if it
were to continue victorious, that had imposed true brotherliness on the
sons, who for a moment had been foolish enough to destroy their power by
assailing one another.
The delight of finding themselves once more together there, Denis,
Ambroise, Gervais, Gregoire, the four big brothers, and Claire, the big
sister, all reconciled and again invincible, increased when Charlotte
arrived, bringing with her the other three daughters, Louise, Madeleine,
and Marthe, who had married and settled in the district. Louise, having
heard that her mother was ill, had gone to fetch her sisters, in order
that they might repair to Chantebled together. And what a hearty laugh
there was when the procession entered!
"Let them all come!" cried Ambroise, in a jocular way. "Let's have the
family complete, a real meeting of the great privy council. You see,
mamma, you must get well at once; the whole of your court is at your
knees, and unanimously decides that it can no longer allow you to have
even a headache."
Then, as Benjamin put in an appearance the very last, behind the three
sisters, the laughter broke out afresh.
"And to think that we were forgetting Benjamin!" Mathieu exclaimed.
"Come, little one, come and kiss me in your turn," said Marianne
affectionately, in a low voice. "The others jest because you are the last
of the brood. But if I spoil you that only concerns ourselves, does it
not? Tell them that you spent the morning with me, and that if you went
out for a walk it was because I wished you to do so."
Benjamin smiled with a gentle and rather sad expression. "But I was
downstairs, mamma; I saw them go up one after the other. I waited for
them all to kiss, before coming up in my turn."
He was already one-and-twenty and extremely handsome, with a bright face,
large brown eyes, long curly hair, and a frizzy, downy beard. Though he
had never been ill, his mother would have it that he was weak, and
insisted on coddling him. All of them, moreover, were very fond of him,
both for his grace of person and the gentle charm of his disposition. He
had grown up in a kind of dream, full of a desire which he could not put
into words, ever seeking the unknown, something which he knew not, did
not possess. And when his parents saw that he had no taste for any
profession, and that even the idea of marrying did not appeal to him,
they evinced no anger, but, on the contrary, they secretly plotted to
keep this son, their last-born, life's final gift, to themselves. Had
they not surrendered all the others? Would they not be forgiven for
yielding to the egotism of love by reserving one for themselves, one who
would be theirs entirely, who would never marry, or toil and moil, but
would merely live beside them and love them, and be loved in return? This
was the dream of their old age, the share which, in return for long
fruitfulness, they would have liked to snatch from devouring life, which,
though it gives one everything, yet takes everything away.
"Oh! just listen, Benjamin," Ambroise suddenly resumed, "you are
interested in our brave Nicolas, I know. Would you like to have some news
of him? I heard from him only the day before yesterday. And it's right
that I should speak of him, since he's the only one of the brood, as
mamma puts it, who cannot be here."
Benjamin at once became quite excited, asking, "Is it true? Has he
written to you? What does he say? What is he doing?"
He could never think without emotion of Nicolas's departure for Senegal.
He was twelve years old at that time, and nearly nine years had gone by
since then, yet the scene, with that eternal farewell, that flight, as it
were, into the infinite of time and hope, was ever present in his mind.
"You know that I have business relations with Nicolas," resumed Ambroise.
"Oh! if we had but a few fellows as intelligent and courageous as he is
in our colonies, we should soon rake in all the scattered wealth of those
virgin lands. Well, Nicolas, as you are aware, went to Senegal with
Lisbeth, who was the very companion and helpmate he needed. Thanks to the
few thousand francs which they possessed between them, they soon
established a prosperous business; but I divined that the field was still
too small for them, and that they dreamt of clearing and conquering a
larger expanse. And now, all at once, Nicolas writes to me that he is
starting for the Soudan, the valley of the Niger, which has only lately
been opened. He is taking his wife and his four children with him, and
they are all going off to conquer as fortune may will it, like valiant
pioneers beset by the idea of founding a new world. I confess that it
amazes me, for it is a very hazardous enterprise. But all the same one
must admit that our Nicolas is a very plucky fellow, and one can't help
admiring his great energy and faith in thus setting out for an almost
unknown region, fully convinced that he will subject and populate it."
Silence fell. A great gust seemed to have swept by, the gust of the
infinite coming from the far away mysterious virgin plains. And the
family could picture that young fellow, one of themselves, going off
through the deserts, carrying the good seed of humanity under the
spreading sky into unknown climes.