Complete Works of Emile Zola (1729 page)

On another occasion, a little later, Marc happened to meet Savin the clerk, with whom he had had some unpleasant quarrels at the time when that embittered man’s twin sons, Achille and Philippe, had attended the school. Savin had then thought it good policy to serve the Church, although he publicly pretended to have nothing to do with it, for he was continually dreading lest he should offend his superiors. However, two catastrophes, which fell upon him in rapid succession, steeped him in irremediable bitterness. First of all, things took a very bad turn with his pretty daughter, Hortense — that model pupil, in whose ardent fervour at her first Communion Mademoiselle Rouzaire had gloried, but who in reality was full of precocious hypocrisy. Savin, recognising the girl’s beauty, had dreamt of marrying her to the son of one of his superiors, but, instead of that, he was compelled to marry her to a milkman’s assistant, who led her astray. Then, to complete the clerk’s mortification and despair, he discovered that his wife, the refined and tender-hearted Marguerite, had become unfaithful to him. In spite of her repugnance he had long compelled her to go to confession and Communion, holding that religion was a needful curb for feminine depravity; but, as it happened, her frequent attendance at the chapel of the Capuchins, whose superior, Father Théodose, was her confessor, led to her downfall, for that same holy man became her lover. The facts were never exactly known, for no scandal was raised by Savin, who, however great his rage, was overcome by the irony of things. It was he himself, indeed, who, by his imbecile jealousy, had turned his previously faithful wife into the path of infidelity. But if he raised no great outcry, people declared that he revenged himself terribly on the unhappy woman in the abominable hell which their home had now become.

Having cause to hate the priests and the monks, Savin had drawn a trifle nearer to Marc. On the day when they met in the street the clerk had just quitted his office, and was walking along with a sour and sleepy face, like some old circus horse half stupefied by his never varying round of duties. On perceiving the schoolmaster he seemed to wake up: ‘Ah! I am pleased to meet you, Monsieur Froment,’ he said. ‘It would be very kind of you to come as far as my rooms, for my son Philippe is causing me great anxiety by his idleness, and you are the only person who knows how to lecture him.’

‘Willingly,’ replied Marc, who was always desirous of seeing and judging things.

On reaching the dismal little lodging in the Rue Fauche they found Madame Savin — who still looked charming in spite of her four and forty years — engaged on some bead flowers which had to be delivered that same evening. Since his misfortune the clerk was no longer ashamed of letting people see his wife toil as if she were a mere workwoman. Perhaps, indeed, he hoped it would be thought that she was expiating her transgression. In former times he had evinced much pride in her when she went out wearing a lady’s bonnet, but now she might well put on an apron and contribute to the support of the family. He himself also neglected his appearance, and had given up wearing frock coats.

No sooner did he enter the flat than he became brutal: ‘You’ve taken possession of the whole room as usual!’ he shouted. ‘Where can I ask Monsieur Froment to sit down?’ Gentle, timid, and somewhat red of face, his wife hastened to gather up her reels and boxes. ‘But when I work, my friend,’ she said, ‘I need some room. Besides, I did not expect you home so soon.’

‘Yes, yes, I know, you never expect
me!
’

Those words, in which, perhaps, there was some cruel allusion to what had happened, quite upset the unfortunate woman. One thing which her husband did not forgive her was her lover’s handsomeness, particularly as he knew that he himself was so puny and sickly; and nothing enraged himself more than to read his wife’s excuse in her clear eyes. However, she now bent her head, and made herself as small as possible while she resumed her work.

‘Sit down, Monsieur Froment,’ said Savin. ‘As I was telling you just now, that big fellow yonder drives me to despair. He is now nearly two and twenty, he has already tried two or three trades, and all he seems to be good for is to watch his mother work and pass her the beads she may require.’

Young Philippe, indeed, was sitting in a corner of the room, silent and motionless, like one who strove to keep in the background. Madame Savin, amidst her humiliation, had given him a tender glance, to which he had responded by a slight smile as if by way of consolation. One could detect that he and his mother were linked together by some bond of suffering. Pale, and of poor health, the sly, cowardly, and mendacious schoolboy of former times had become a sorry young fellow, quite destitute, it seemed, of energy, who sought a refuge in his mother’s kindness of heart; she, still so young in appearance, looking like an elder sister, one who also suffered, and who therefore sympathised with him.

‘Why did you not listen to me?’ Marc exclaimed in answer to the clerk; ‘we would have made a schoolmaster of him.’

But Savin protested: ‘Ah! no, indeed. Rather than that I prefer to have him on my hands. To cram one’s brains at school till one is over twenty, then start at a paltry salary of sixty francs a month, and work for more than ten years before earning a hundred — do you call that a profession? A schoolmaster, indeed! Nobody cares to become one nowadays; even the poorest peasants would rather break stones on the highways!’

‘But I thought I had persuaded you to let your son Jules enter the Training College?’ Marc rejoined. ‘Don’t you intend to make him an elementary teacher?’

‘Oh, dear, no. I’ve put him with an artificial-manure merchant. He’s barely sixteen, and he is already earning twenty francs a month. He will thank me for it later on.’

Marc made a gesture expressive of his regret. He remembered having seen Jules as a babe in swaddling clothes in his mother’s arms. Later, the lad, from his seventh to his fourteenth year, had become one of his pupils — a pupil who evinced much higher intelligence than his elder brothers, and who inspired great hopes. Like the master, Madame Savin, no doubt, was worried that her youngest boy’s studies had been cut short by his father; for, again raising her beautiful eyes, she glanced at Marc furtively and sadly.

‘Come,’ said her husband to the latter, ‘what advice can you give me? And first of all can’t you make that big idler feel ashamed of his sloth? As you were his master, perhaps he will listen to you.’

At that moment, however, Achille, the other son, came in, returning from the process-server’s office where he was employed. He had made a start there as an errand boy when he was fifteen, and though nearly seven years had now elapsed he did not yet earn enough to keep himself. Paler and of even poorer blood than his brother Philippe, he had remained a beardless stripling, sly, pusillanimous, and distrustful as in his school days, ever ready to denounce a comrade in order to escape personal punishment. He seemed surprised on seeing his former master, and, after bowing to him, he said, doubtless in a spirit of malice: ‘I don’t know what there can be in
Le Petit Beaumontais
to-day, but people are almost fighting for copies at Mesdames Milhomme’s. It must certainly be something more about that beastly affair.’

Marc already knew that the paper contained a fresh rectification, brimful of extraordinary mendacious impudence, on the part of Brother Gorgias; and he decided to avail himself of this opportunity to sound the young men. ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘whatever
Le Petit Beaumontais
may attempt with its stories of buried millions, and its superb denials of well-established facts, everybody is beginning to admit that Simon is innocent.’

At this the twins shrugged their shoulders, and Achille in his drawling way replied: ‘Oh! only imbeciles believe in their buried millions, and it’s true that they are lying too much: one can see it. But what does it all matter to us?’

‘Eh? what does it matter to you?’ the schoolmaster exclaimed, surprised and failing to understand.

‘Yes, what interest is there for us in that affair with which we have been plagued so long?’

Then Marc gradually became impassioned.

‘My poor lads, I feel sorry for you,’ he said; ‘you admit Simon’s innocence, do you not?’

‘Well — yes. It is by no means clear, as yet; but when one has read things attentively it does seem that he may be innocent.’

‘In that case, do not your feelings rebel at the idea that he is in prison?’

‘Oh!  it certainly isn’t amusing for him,’ Achille admitted; ‘but there are so many other innocent people in prison. Besides, the officials may release him for all I care... One has quite enough worries of one’s own, so why should one spoil one’s life by meddling with the troubles of others?’

Then Philippe, in a more gentle voice, expressed his opinion, saying: ‘I don’t bother about that affair, for it would worry me too much. I can understand that it would be one’s duty to act if one were the master. But when one can do nothing whatever, the best is to ignore it all and keep quiet.’

In vain did Marc censure the indifference, the cowardly egotism and desertion which those words implied. The great voice, the irresistible will of the people, said he, was compounded of individual protests, the protests of the humblest and the weakest. Nobody could claim exemption from his duty, the action of one single isolated individual might suffice to modify destiny. Besides, it was not true to say that only one person’s fate was at stake in the struggle, all the members of the nation were jointly and severally interested, for each defended his own liberty by protecting that of his fellow. And then what a splendid opportunity it was to accomplish at one stroke the work of a century of slow political and social progress. On one side all the forces of reaction were leagued against an unhappy innocent man for the sole purpose of keeping the old Catholic and monarchical scaffoldings erect; and on the other all who were bent on insuring the triumph of the future, all who believed in reason and liberty, had gathered together from the four points of the compass, and united in the name of truth and justice. And an effort on the part of the latter ought to suffice to throw the former beneath the remnants of those old, worm-eaten scaffoldings which were cracking on all sides. The scope of the affair had expanded, it was no longer merely the case of a poor innocent man who had been wrongly convicted; for that man had become the incarnation of the martyrdom of all mankind, which must be wrested from the prison of the ages. The release of Simon indeed would mean increase of freedom for the people of France and an acceleration of its march towards more dignity and happiness.

But Marc suddenly lapsed in silence, for he saw that Achille and Philippe were looking at him in bewilderment, their weak eyes blinking in their pale and sickly faces.

‘
Oh! Monsieur Froment, what’s all that? When you put so many things into the affair we can’t follow you, that’s certain. We know nothing of those things, we can do nothing.’

Savin for his part had listened, sneering and fidgeting, though unwilling to interrupt. Now, however, turning to the schoolmaster, he exploded. ‘All that is humbug — excuse me for saying so, Monsieur Froment. Simon innocent — well, that’s a matter on which I have my doubts. I don’t conceal it; I’m of the same opinion as formerly, and I read nothing; I would rather let myself be killed than consent to swallow a line of all the trash that is published. And, mind, I don’t say that because I like the priests. The dirty beasts — why, I wish a pestilence would sweep them all away! Only, when there is a religion, there is one. It’s the same with the army. The army is the blood of France. I am a Republican, I am now a Freemason, I will go so far as to say that I am a Socialist, in the good sense of the word; but, before everything else, I am a Frenchman, and I won’t have people setting their hands on what constitutes the grandeur of my country. Simon then is guilty; everything proves it: public sentiment, the proofs submitted to the Court, his condemnation, and the ignoble trafficking carried on by the Jews in order to save him. And if, by a miracle, he should not be guilty, the misfortune for the country would be too great; it would be absolutely necessary that he should be guilty all the same.’

Confronted by so much blindness, blended with so much folly, Marc could only bow. And he was about to withdraw when Savin’s daughter Hortense made her appearance with her little girl Charlotte, now nearly seven years of age. Hortense was no longer the good-looking young person of former days; compelled to marry her seducer, the milkman’s assistant, and lead with him a hard and toilsome life of poverty, she appeared faded and careworn. Savin, moreover, received her without cordiality, full of spite as he was, ashamed of that marriage which had mortified his pride. Only the grace and keen intelligence of little Charlotte assuaged, in some slight degree, his intensely bitter feelings.

‘Good morning, grandpapa; good morning, grandmamma,’ said the child. ‘You know, I have been first in reading again, and Mademoiselle Mazeline has given me the medal.’

She was a charming little girl, and Madame Savin, dropping her beads at once, took her on her lap, kissing her and feeling consoled and happy. But the child, turning towards Marc, with whom she was well acquainted, resumed: ‘You know, I was the first, Monsieur Froment. It’s fine — isn’t it? — to be the first!’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said the master, ‘it is very nice to be first. And I know that you are always very good. Mind, you must always listen to Mademoiselle Mazeline, because she will make a very clever and sensible little woman of you — one who will be very happy and who will give a deal of happiness to all her family around her.’

At this Savin again began to growl: Happiness to all her family, indeed! Well, that would be something new, for neither the grandmother nor the mother had given any happiness to him. And if Mademoiselle Mazeline should perform such a miracle as to turn a girl into something decent and useful, he would go to tell Mademoiselle Rouzaire of it. Then, annoyed at seeing his wife laugh, brightened as she was, rejuvenated so to say by the companionship of the child, he bade her get on with her work, speaking in so rough a voice that, as the unhappy woman again lowered her head over her bead flowers, her eyes filled with tears.