Fruitfulness - Emile Zola
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"Ah!" said Benjamin softly, his eyes dilating and gazing far, far away as
if to the world's end; "ah! he's happy, for he sees other rivers, and
other forests, and other suns than ours!"
But Marianne shuddered. "No, no, my boy," said she; "there are no other
rivers than the Yeuse, no other forests but our woods of Lillebonne, no
other sun but that of Chantebled. Come and kiss me again--let us all kiss
once more, and I shall get well, and we shall never be parted again."
The laughter began afresh with the embraces. It was a great day, a day of
victory, the most decisive victory which the family had ever won by
refusing to let discord destroy it. Henceforth it would be invincible.
At twilight, on the evening of that day, Mathieu and Marianne again found
themselves, as on the previous evening, hand in hand near the window
whence they could see the estate stretching to the horizon; that horizon
behind which arose the breath of Paris, the tawny cloud of its gigantic
forge. But how little did that serene evening resemble the other, and how
great was their present felicity, their trust in the goodness of their
work.
"Do you feel better?" Mathieu asked his wife; "do you feel your strength
returning; does your heart beat more freely?"
"Oh! my friend, I feel cured; I was only pining with grief. To-morrow I
shall be strong."
Then Mathieu sank into a deep reverie, as he sat there face to face with
his conquest--that estate which spread out under the setting sun. And
again, as in the morning, did recollections crowd upon him; he remembered
a morning more than forty years previously when he had left Marianne,
with thirty sous in her purse, in the little tumbledown shooting-box on
the verge of the woods. They lived there on next to nothing; they owed
money, they typified gay improvidence with the four little mouths which
they already had to feed, those children who had sprung from their love,
their faith in life.
Then he recalled his return home at night time, the three hundred francs,
a month's salary, which he had carried in his pocket, the calculations
which he had made, the cowardly anxiety which he had felt, disturbed as
he was by the poisonous egotism which he had encountered in Paris. There
were the Beauchenes, with their factory, and their only son, Maurice,
whom they were bringing up to be a future prince, the Beauchenes, who had
prophesied to him that he and his wife and their troop of children could
only expect a life of black misery, and death in a garret. There were
also the Seguins, then his landlords, who had shown him their millions,
and their magnificent mansion, full of treasures, crushing him the while,
treating him with derisive pity because he did not behave sensibly like
themselves, who were content with having but two children, a boy and a
girl. And even those poor Moranges had talked to him of giving a royal
dowry to their one daughter Reine, dreaming at that time of an
appointment that would bring in twelve thousand francs a year, and full
of contempt for the misery which a numerous family entails. And then the
very Lepailleurs, the people of the mill, had evinced distrust because
there were twelve francs owing to them for milk and eggs; for it had
seemed to them doubtful whether a bourgeois, insane enough to have so
many children, could possibly pay his debts. Ah! the views of the others
had then appeared to be correct; he had repeated to himself that he would
never have a factory, nor a mansion, nor even a mill, and that in all
probability he would never earn twelve thousand francs a year. The others
had everything and he nothing. The others, the rich, behaved sensibly,
and did not burden themselves with offspring; whereas, he, the poor man,
already had more children than he could provide for. What madness it had
seemed to be!
But forty years had rolled away, and behold his madness was wisdom! He
had conquered by his divine improvidence; the poor man had vanquished the
wealthy. He had placed his trust in the future, and now the whole harvest
was garnered. The Beauchene factory was his through his son Denis; the
Seguins' mansion was his through his son Ambroise; the Lepailleurs' mill
was his through his son Gregoire. Tragical, even excessive punishment,
had blown those sorry Moranges away in a tempest of blood and insanity.
And other social wastage had swept by and rolled into the gutter;
Seraphine, the useless creature, had succumbed to her passions; the
Moineauds had been dispersed, annihilated by their poisonous environment.
And he, Mathieu, and Marianne alone remained erect, face to face with
that estate of Chantebled, which they had conquered from the Seguins, and
where their children, Gervais and Claire, at present reigned, prolonging
the dynasty of their race. This was their kingdom; as far as the eye
could see the fields spread out with wondrous fertility under the sun's
farewell, proclaiming the battles, the heroic creative labor of their
lives. There was their work, there was what they had produced, whether in
the realm of animate or inanimate nature, thanks to the power of love
within them, and their energy of will. By love, and resolution, and
action, they had created a world.
"Look, look!" murmured Mathieu, waving his arm, "all that has sprung from
us, and we must continue to love, we must continue to be happy, in order
that it may all live."
"Ah!" Marianne gayly replied, "it will live forever now, since we have
all become reconciled and united amid our victory."
Victory! yes, it was the natural, necessary victory that is reaped by the
numerous family! Thanks to numbers they had ended by invading every
sphere and possessing everything. Fruitfulness was the invincible,
sovereign conqueress. Yet their conquest had not been meditated and
planned; ever serenely loyal in their dealings with others, they owed it
simply to the fulfilment of duty throughout their long years of toil. And
they now stood before it hand in hand, like heroic figures, glorious
because they had ever been good and strong, because they had created
abundantly, because they had given abundance of joy, and health, and hope
to the world amid all the everlasting struggles and the everlasting
tears.
XXIII
AND Mathieu and Marianne lived more than a score of years longer, and
Mathieu was ninety years old and Marianne eighty-seven, when their three
eldest sons, Denis, Ambroise, and Gervais, ever erect beside them,
planned that they would celebrate their diamond wedding, the seventieth
anniversary of their marriage, by a fete at which they would assemble all
the members of the family at Chantebled.
It was no little affair. When they had drawn up a complete list, they
found that one hundred and fifty-eight children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren had sprung from Mathieu and Marianne, without
counting a few little ones of a fourth generation. By adding to the above
those who had married into the family as husbands and wives they would be
three hundred in number. And where at the farm could they find a room
large enough for the huge table of the patriarchal feast that they dreamt
of? The anniversary fell on June 2, and the spring that year was one of
incomparable mildness and beauty. So they decided that they would lunch
out of doors, and place the tables in front of the old pavilion, on the
large lawn, enclosed by curtains of superb elms and hornbeams, which gave
the spot the aspect of a huge hall of verdure. There they would be at
home, on the very breast of the beneficent earth, under the central and
now gigantic oak, planted by the two ancestors, whose blessed
fruitfulness the whole swarming progeny was about to celebrate.
Thus the festival was settled and organized amid a great impulse of love
and joy. All were eager to take part in it, all hastened to the triumphal
gathering, from the white-haired old men to the urchins who still sucked
their thumbs. And the broad blue sky and the flaming sun were bent on
participating in it also, as well as the whole estate, the streaming
springs and the fields in flower, giving promise of bounteous harvests.
Magnificent looked the huge horseshoe table set out amid the grass, with
handsome china and snowy cloths which the sunbeams flecked athwart the
foliage. The august pair, the father and mother, were to sit side by
side, in the centre, under the oak tree. It was decided also that the
other couples should not be separated, that it would be charming to place
them side by side according to the generation they belonged to. But as
for the young folks, the youths and maidens, the urchins and the little
girls, they, it was thought, might well be left to seat themselves as
their fancy listed.
Early in the morning those bidden to the feast began to arrive in bands;
the dispersed family returned to the common nest, swooping down upon it
from the four points of the compass. But alas! death's scythe had been at
work, and there were many who could not come. Departed ones slept, each
year more numerous, in the peaceful, flowery, Janville cemetery. Near
Rose and Blaise, who had been the first to depart, others had gone
thither to sleep the eternal sleep, each time carrying away a little more
of the family's heart, and making of that sacred spot a place of worship
and eternal souvenir. First Charlotte, after long illness, had joined
Blaise, happy in leaving Berthe to replace her beside Mathieu and
Marianne, who were heart-stricken by her death, as if indeed they were
for the second time losing their dear son. Afterwards their daughter
Claire had likewise departed from them, leaving the farm to her husband
Frederic and her brother Gervais, who likewise had become a widower
during the ensuing year. Then, too, Mathieu and Marianne had lost their
son Gregoire, the master of the mill, whose widow Therese still ruled
there amid a numerous progeny. And again they had to mourn another of
their daughters, the kind-hearted Marguerite, Dr. Chambouvet's wife, who
sickened and died, through having sheltered a poor workman's little
children, who were affected with croup. And the other losses could no
longer be counted among them were some who had married into the family,
wives and husbands, and there were in particular many children, the tithe
that death always exacts, those who are struck down by the storms which
sweep over the human crop, all the dear little ones for whom the living
weep, and who sanctify the ground in which they rest.
But if the dear departed yonder slept in deepest silence, how gay was the
uproar and how great the victory of life that morning along the roads
which led to Chantebled! The number of those who were born surpassed that
of those who died. From each that departed, a whole florescence of living
beings seemed to blossom forth. They sprang up in dozens from the ground
where their forerunners had laid themselves to sleep when weary of their
work. And they flocked to Chantebled from every side, even as swallows
return at spring to revivify their old nests, filling the blue sky with
the joy of their return. Outside the farm, vehicles were ever setting
down fresh families with troops of children, whose sea of fair heads was
always expanding. Great-grandfathers with snowy hair came leading little
ones who could scarcely toddle. There were very nice-looking old ladies
whom young girls of dazzling freshness assisted to alight. There were
mothers expecting the arrival of other babes, and fathers to whom the
charming idea had occurred of inviting their daughters' affianced lovers.
And they were all related, they had all sprung from a common ancestry,
they were all mingled in an inextricable tangle, fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, fathers-in-law, mothers-in-law, brothers-in-law,
sisters-in-law, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, of every
possible degree, down to the fourth generation. And they were all one
family; one sole little nation, assembling in joy and pride to celebrate
that diamond wedding, the rare prodigious nuptials of two heroic
creatures whom life had glorified and from whom all had sprung! And what
an epic, what a Biblical numbering of that people suggested itself! How
even name all those who entered the farm, how simply set forth their
names, their ages, their degree of relationship, the health, the
strength, and the hope that they had brought into the world!
Before everybody else there were those of the farm itself, all those who
had been born and who had grown up there. Gervais, now sixty-two, was
helped by his two eldest sons, Leon and Henri, who between them had ten
children; while his three daughters, Mathilde, Leontine, and Julienne,
who were married in the district, in like way numbered between them
twelve. Then Frederic, Claire's husband, who was five years older than
Gervais, had surrendered his post as a faithful lieutenant to his son
Joseph, while his daughters Angele and Lucille, as well as a second son
Jules, also helped on the farm, the four supplying a troop of fifteen
children, some of them boys and some girls.
Then, of all those who came from without, the mill claimed the first
place. Therese, Gregoire's widow, arrived with her offspring, her son
Robert, who now managed the mill under her control, and her three
daughters, Genevieve, Aline, and Natalie, followed by quite a train of
children, ten belonging to the daughters and four to Robert. Next came
Louise, notary Mazaud's wife, and Madeleine, architect Herbette's wife,
followed by Dr. Chambouvet, who had lost his wife, the good Marguerite.
And here again were three valiant companies; in the first, four
daughters, of whom Colette was the eldest; in the second, five sons with
Hilary at the head of them; and in the third, a son and daughter only,
Sebastien and Christine; the whole, however, forming quite an army, for
there were twenty of Mathieu's great-grandchildren in the rear.
But Paris arrived on the scene with Denis and his wife Marthe, who headed
a grand cortege. Denis, now nearly seventy, and a great-grandfather
through his daughters Hortense and Marcelle, had enjoyed the happy rest
which follows accomplished labor ever since he had handed his works over
to his eldest sons Lucien and Paul, who were both men of more than forty,
and whose own sons were already on the road to every sort of fortune. And
what with the mother and father, the four children, the fifteen
grandchildren, and the three great-grandchildren, two of whom were yet in
swaddling clothes, this was really an invading tribe packed into five
vehicles.
Then the final entry was that of the little nation which had sprung from
Ambroise, who to his great grief had early lost his wife Andree. His was
such a green old age that at sixty-seven he still directed his business,
in which his sons Leonce and Charles remained simple _employes_ like his
sons-in-law--the husbands of his daughters, Pauline and Sophie--who
trembled before him, uncontested king that he remained, obeyed by one and
all, grandfather of seven big bearded young men and nine strong young
women, through four of whom he had become a great-grandfather even before
his elder, the wise Denis. For this troop six carriages were required.
And the defile lasted two hours, and the farm was soon full of a happy,
laughing throng, holiday-making in the bright June sunlight.
Mathieu and Marianne had not yet put in an appearance. Ambroise, who was
the grand master of the ceremonies that day, had made them promise to
remain in their room, like sovereigns hidden from their people, until he
should go to fetch them. He desired that they should appear in all
solemnity. And when he made up his mind to summon them, the whole nation
being assembled together, he found his brother Benjamin on the threshold
of the house defending the door like a bodyguard.
He, Benjamin, had remained the one idler, the one unfruitful scion of
that swarming tribe, which had toiled and multiplied so prodigiously. Now
three-and-forty years of age, without a wife and without children, he
lived, it seemed, solely for the joy of the old home, as a companion to
his father and a passionate worshipper of his mother, who with the
egotism of love had set themselves upon keeping him for themselves alone.
At first they had not been opposed to his marrying, but when they had
seen him refuse one match after another, they had secretly felt great
delight. Nevertheless, as years rolled by, some unacknowledged remorse
had come to them amid their happiness at having him beside them like some
hoarded treasure, the delight of an avaricious old age, following a life
of prodigality. Did not their Benjamin suffer at having been thus
monopolized, shut up for their sole pleasure within the four walls of
their house? He had at all times displayed an anxious dreaminess, his
eyes had ever sought far-away things, the unknown land where perfect
satisfaction dwelt, yonder, behind the horizon. And now that age was
stealing upon him his torment seemed to increase, as if he were in
despair at finding himself unable to try the possibilities of the
unknown, before he ended a useless life devoid of happiness.
However, Benjamin moved away from the door, Ambroise gave his orders, and
Mathieu and Marianne appeared upon the verdant lawn in the sunlight. An
acclamation, merry laughter, affectionate clapping of hands greeted them.
The gay excited throng, the whole swarming family cried aloud: "Long live
the Father! Long live the Mother! Long life, long life to the Father and
the Mother!"
At ninety years of age Mathieu was still very upright and slim, closely
buttoned in a black frock-coat like a young bridegroom. Over his bare
head fell a snowy fleece, for after long wearing his hair cut short he
had now in a final impulse of coquetry allowed it to grow, so that it
seemed liked the _renouveau_ of an old but vigorous tree. Age might have
withered and worn and wrinkled his face, but he still retained the eyes
of his young days, large lustrous eyes, at once smiling and pensive,
which still bespoke a man of thought and action, one who was very simple,
very gay, and very good-hearted. And Marianne at eighty-seven years of
age also held herself very upright in her light bridal gown, still strong
and still showing some of the healthy beauty of other days. With hair
white like Mathieu's, and softened face, illumined as by a last glow
under her silky tresses, she resembled one of those sacred marbles whose
features time has ravined, without, however, being able to efface from
them the tranquil splendor of life. She seemed, indeed, like some
fruitful Cybele, retaining all firmness of contour, and living anew in
the broad daylight with gentle good humor sparkling in her large black
eyes.
Arm-in-arm close to one another, like a worthy couple who had come from
afar, who had walked on side by side without ever parting for seventy
long years, Mathieu and Marianne smiled with tears of joy in their eyes
at the whole swarming family which had sprung from their love, and which
still acclaimed them:
"Long live the Father! Long live the Mother! Long life, long life to the
Father and the Mother!"
Then came the ceremony of reciting a compliment and offering a bouquet. A
fair-haired little girl named Rose, five years of age, had been intrusted
with this duty. She had been chosen because she was the eldest child of
the fourth generation. She was the daughter of Angeline, who was the
daughter of Berthe, who was the daughter of Charlotte, wife of Blaise.
And when the two ancestors saw her approach them with her big bouquet,
their emotion increased, happy tears again gathered in their eyes, and
recollections faltered on their lips: "Oh! our little Rose! Our Blaise,
our Charlotte!"
All the past revived before them. The name of Rose had been given to the
child in memory of the other long-mourned Rose, who had been the first to
leave them, and who slept yonder in the little cemetery. There in his
turn had Blaise been laid, and thither Charlotte had followed them. Then
Berthe, Blaise's daughter, who had married Philippe Havard, had given
birth to Angeline. And, later, Angeline, having married Georges Delmas,
had given birth to Rose. Berthe and Philippe Havard, Angeline and Georges
Delmas stood behind the child. And she represented one and all, the dead,
the living, the whole flourishing line, its many griefs, its many joys,
all the valiant toil of creation, all the river of life that it typified,
for everything ended in her, dear, frail, fair-haired angel, with eyes
bright like the dawn, in whose depths the future sparkled.
"Oh! our Rose! our Rose!"
With a big bouquet between her little hands Rose had stepped forward. She
had been learning a very fine compliment for a fortnight past, and that
very morning she had recited it to her mother without making a single
mistake. But when she found herself there among all these people she
could not recollect a word of it. Still that did not trouble her, she was
already a very bold little damsel, and she frankly dropped her bouquet
and sprang at the necks of Mathieu and Marianne, exclaiming in her
shrill, flute-like voice: "Grandpapa, grandmamma, it's your fete, and I
kiss you with all my heart!"
And that suited everybody remarkably well. They even found it far better
than any compliment. Laughter and clapping of hands and acclamations
again arose. Then they forthwith began to take their seats at table.
This, however, was quite an affair, so large was the horse-shoe table
spread out under the oak on the short, freshly cut grass. First Mathieu
and Marianne, still arm in arm, went ceremoniously to seat themselves in
the centre with their backs towards the trunk of the great tree. On
Mathieu's left, Marthe and Denis, Louise and her husband, notary Mazaud,
took their places, since it had been fittingly decided that the husbands
and wives should not be separated. On the right of Marianne came
Ambroise, Therese, Gervais, Dr. Chambouvet, three widowers and a widow,
then another married couple, Madeleine and her husband, architect
Herbette, and then Benjamin alone. The other married folks afterwards
installed themselves according to the generation they belonged to; and
then, as had been decided, youth and childhood, the whole troop of young
people and little ones took seats as they pleased amid no little
turbulence.
What a moment of sovereign glory it was for Mathieu and Marianne! They
found themselves there in a triumph of which they would never have dared
to dream. Life, as if to reward them for having shown faith in her, for
having increased her sway with all bravery, seemed to have taken pleasure
in prolonging their existences beyond the usual limits so that their eyes
might behold the marvellous blossoming of their work. The whole of their
dear Chantebled, everything good and beautiful that they had there
begotten and established, participated in the festival. From the
cultivated fields that they had set in the place of marshes came the
broad quiver of great coming harvests; from the pasture lands amid the
distant woods came the warm breath of cattle and innumerable flocks which
ever increased the ark of life; and they heard, too, the loud babble of
the captured springs with which they had fertilized the now fruitful
moorlands, the flow of that water which is like the very blood of our
mother earth. The social task was accomplished, bread was won,
subsistence had been created, drawn from the nothingness of barren soil.
And on what a lovely and well-loved spot did their happy, grateful race
offer them that festival! Those elms and hornbeams, which made the lawn a
great hall of greenery, had been planted by themselves; they had seen
them growing day by day like the most peaceable and most sturdy of their
children. And in particular that oak, now so gigantic, thanks to the
clear waters of the adjoining basin through which one of the sources ever
streamed, was their own big son, one that dated from the day when they
had founded Chantebled, he, Mathieu, digging the hole and she, Marianne,
holding the sapling erect. And now, as that tree stood there, shading
them with its expanse of verdure, was it not like some royal symbol of
the whole family? Like that oak the family had grown and multiplied, ever
throwing out fresh branches which spread far over the ground; and like
that oak it now formed by itself a perfect forest sprung from a single
trunk, vivified by the same sap, strong in the same health, and full of
song, and breeziness, and sunlight.
Leaning against that giant tree Mathieu and Marianne became merged in its
sovereign glory and majesty, and was not their royalty akin to its own?
Had they not begotten as many beings as the tree had begotten branches?
Did they not reign there over a nation of their children, who lived by
them, even as the leaves above lived by the tree? The three hundred big
and little ones seated around them were but a prolongation of themselves;
they belonged to the same tree of life, they had sprung from their love
and still clung to them by every fibre. Mathieu and Marianne divined how
joyous they all were at glorifying themselves in making much of them; how
moved the elder ones, how turbulently merry the younger felt. They could
hear their own hearts beating in the breasts of the fair-haired urchins
who already laughed with ecstasy at the sight of the cakes and pastry on
the table. And their work of human creation was assembled in front of
them and within them, in the same way as the oak's huge dome spread out
above it; and all around they were likewise encompassed by the
fruitfulness of their other work, the fertility and growth of nature
which had increased even as they themselves multiplied.