Complete Works of Emile Zola (1730 page)

But Marc had now risen, and the clerk thereupon reverted to the matter he had at heart: ‘So you can give me no advice about my big idler, Philippe?... Don’t you think that, through Monsieur Salvan, who is the friend of Monsieur Le Barazer, you might get him some petty situation at the Préfecture?’

‘Yes, certainly, I might try. I will speak to Monsieur Salvan about it, I promise you.’

Marc then withdrew, and, on reaching the street, walked slowly, his head bent, while he summed up the results of his visits to the parents of his former pupils. No doubt he had found Achille and Philippe possessed of riper and broader minds than Auguste and Charles, the sons of Doloir the mason, even as he had found the latter freed from the low credulity of Fernand, the son of the peasant Bongard. But at the Savins’ he had once again observed the blind obstinacy of the father, who had learnt nothing, forgotten nothing, but still lingered in the same old rut of error; whilst even the evolution of the sons towards more reason and logic remained a very slight one. Just a little step had been taken, no more, and with that Marc had to remain content. He felt sad indeed when he compared all his efforts during a period of nearly fifteen years with the little amelioration which had resulted from them. And he shuddered as he thought of the vast amount of labour, devotion, and faith which would be required throughout the humble world of the elementary teachers, before they would succeed in transforming the brutified, soiled, enthralled, lowly ones and suffering ones into free and conscious men. Generations indeed would be necessary for that to be effected.

The thought of poor Simon haunted Marc amid the grief he felt at having failed to raise a people of truth and justice, such as would have the strength of mind to rebel against the old iniquity and repair it. The nation still refused to be the noble, generous, and equitable nation, in which he had believed so long; and both his mind and his heart were pained, for he could not accustom himself to the idea of a France steeped in idiotic fanaticism. Then, however, a bright vision flitted before his eyes; he again saw little Charlotte, so wide-awake and so delighted at being the first of her class, and he began to hope once more. The future belonged to the children; and might not some of those charming little ones take giant steps when firm and upright minds should direct them towards the light?

However, as Marc drew near to the school, another meeting brought a pang to his heart. He encountered Madame Férou carrying a bundle — some work which she was taking home with her. Having lost her eldest children, who had succumbed more to want than to disease, she now lived with her remaining girl in a frightful hovel, where they worked themselves almost to death, without ever earning enough to satisfy their hunger. As she glided along the street with downcast eyes, as if ashamed of her poverty, Marc stopped her. She was no longer the plump and pleasant-looking blonde, with fleshy lips and large, bright, prominent eyes, whom he had known in past years, but a poor, squat, careworn woman, aged before her time. ‘Well, Madame Férou,’ he inquired, ‘does the sewing prosper a little?’

She began to stammer, then at last regained some confidence: ‘Oh! things never prosper, Monsieur Froment,’ she said; ‘we may tire our eyes out, but we are lucky when we manage to earn twenty-five
sous
a day between us.’

‘And what about the application for relief which you sent to the Préfecture, as a schoolmaster’s widow?’

‘Oh, they never answered me, and when I ventured to call there in person, I really thought I should be arrested. A big dark man with a fine beard asked me what I meant by daring to recall the memory of my husband, the deserter and Anarchist, who was condemned by court-martial, and then shot like a mad dog. And he frightened me so much that I still tremble when I think of it.’

Then, as Marc, who was quivering, remained silent, the unhappy woman, growing bolder and bolder, resumed: ‘Good heavens! My poor Férou a mad dog! You knew him when we were at Le Moreux. At first he only dreamt of devotion, fraternity, truth, and justice; and it was by dint of wretchedness, persecution, and iniquity that they ended by maddening him. When he left me, never to return, he said to me: “France is done for; it has been completely corrupted by the priests, poisoned by a filthy press, plunged into such a morass of ignorance and credulity that one will never be able to extricate it!”... And you see, Monsieur Froment, he was right!’

‘No no! He wasn’t right, Madame Férou; one must never despair of one’s country.’

But her blood was now up, and she retorted: ‘I tell you that he
was
right! Haven’t you any eyes to see? Are not affairs shameful at Le Moreux, where that man Chagnat, the creature of the priests, does nothing but debase and stupefy the children — to such a point, indeed, that for years past not a single one of them has been able to obtain a certificate of elementary studies? And then Monsieur Jauffre, your successor, does some fine work at Jonville in order to please Abbé Cognasse. At the rate they are all going, France will have forgotten how to read and write before ten years are over!’

She drew herself up as she spoke, and, consumed by hatred and rancour, the rancour of a poor downtrodden woman overcome by social injustice, she went on to prophesy: ‘You hear me, Monsieur Froment. I tell you that France is done for! Nothing good nor just will ever come from her again; she will sink to the level of all those dead nations on whom Catholicism has preyed like vermin and rottenness!’

Then, still quivering with the excitement which had prompted that outburst, and trembling at having dared to say so much, she glided away with humble and anxious mien, returning to the den of suffering where her pale and silent daughter awaited her.

Marc remained confounded; it was as if he had heard Férou himself calling from his grave, crying aloud the bitter pessimism, the savage protest, dictated by the cruel sufferings of his life. And, making all allowance for rancorous exaggeration, there was great truth in the widow’s words. Chagnat, indeed, was still brutifying Le Moreux, and Jauffre, under the stubborn and narrow-minded sway of Abbé Cognasse, was completing his deadly work at Jonville, in spite of the covert rage he experienced at finding that his services remained so long unrecognised, when, by rights, he ought to have been appointed at once to the headmastership of a school at Beaumont. And the great work of elementary education scarcely made more progress in any part of the region. Nearly all the schools of Beaumont wore still in the power of timid masters and mistresses who, thinking of their advancement, wished to remain on good terms with the Church. Mademoiselle Rouzaire achieved great success by her devout zeal, while Doutrequin, that Republican of the early days, whom patriotic alarm had gradually cast into reaction, remained, though he was now on the retired list, a personage of great influence, one whose lofty character was cited to newcomers by way of example. How could young teachers believe in the innocence of Simon, and fight against the Congregational schools, when such a man, a combatant of 1870, a friend of the founder of the Republic, set himself on the side of the Congregations in the name of the country threatened by the Jews? For one Mademoiselle Mazeline, who ever firmly inculcated sense and kindliness, for one Mignot, won by example to the good cause, how many cowards and traitors there were, and how very slowly did the teaching staff progress in breadth of mind, generosity, and devotion, in spite of the reinforcements which came to it every year from the training schools! Yet Salvan persevered in his work of regeneration, full of ardent faith, convinced that the humble schoolmaster alone would save the country from being annihilated by the Clericals, when he himself should at last possess a free mind and the capacity to teach truth and justice. As Salvan ever repeated, the worth of the nation depended on the worth of the schoolmasters. And if the march of progress was so slow, it was because the work of evolution by which good masters might be produced had to be spread over several generations, even as several generations of pupils would be needed before a just nation, freed from error and falsehood, could spring into being.

Having reached that conclusion as the result of his inquiries and the despairing call which seemed to have come to him from Férou’s grave, Marc only retained a feverish eagerness to continue the battle and increase his efforts. For some time past he had been busying himself with what were called ‘after-school’ enterprises, established in order to maintain a link between the masters and their former pupils, whom the laws took from them at thirteen years of age. Friendly societies were being founded on all sides, and some of the organisers dreamt of federating all those of the same arrondissement, then those of the same department, and finally all similar societies in France. Moreover, there were patronage societies, mutual relief and pension funds; but Marc, with the object he had in view, attached most importance to the classes for adults which he held of an evening at his school. Mademoiselle Mazeline, on her side also, had set an excellent example and won very great success by giving occasional evening lessons in cookery, family hygiene, and home nursing to those of her former pupils who were now big girls. And such numbers of young people applied to her that she ended by sacrificing her Sunday afternoons in order to instruct those who could not conveniently attend of an evening. It made her so happy, she said, to help her girls to become good wives and mothers, able to keep house and shed gaiety, health, and happiness around them.

Marc, in the same way, opened his school on three evenings every week, summoned back the boys who had left him, and endeavoured to complete their education with respect to all the practical questions of life. He sowed good seed in those young brains unsparingly, saying to himself that he would be well rewarded for his pains if but one grain out of every hundred should germinate and bear fruit. And he interested himself particularly in the few pupils whom he induced to enter the teaching profession, keeping them near him, and preparing them right zealously for the preliminary examinations at the Training College. On his side, indeed, he devoted his Sunday afternoons to those private lessons, and when evening came he was as delighted as if he had been indulging in the greatest amusement.

One of Marc’s victories at this juncture was to prevail on Madame Doloir to allow him to continue educating little Léon, in order that the boy might enter the Training College in due course. The dearest of all Marc’s former pupils, Sébastien Milhomme, was there already; and Sébastien’s mother, Madame Alexandre, had on her side returned to the stationery shop, though she discreetly remained in the background, for fear lest she might scare away the clerical customers. And Salvan, like Marc, had now become very much attached to Sébastien, regarding him as one of those future missionaries of good tidings, whom he desired to disseminate through the country districts. Recently also, at the beginning of a new term, Marc had experienced the satisfaction of confiding to his old friend yet another pupil, none other than Joseph Simon, the innocent man’s son, who, in spite of every painful obstacle, had resolved to become a schoolmaster like his father, hoping to conquer on the very field where the dear stricken prisoner had fought with so tragical a result. Thus Sébastien and Joseph had met again, each inspired with the same zeal, the same faith, their old bond of friendship tightened by yet closer sympathy than before. And what pleasant hours they spent whenever an afternoon’s holiday enabled them to go to Maillebois together, to shake hands with their former master!

While things were thus slowly moving, Marc, with respect to his home troubles, remained in suspense, one day despairing and the morrow reviving to hope. In vain had he relied on Geneviève returning to him, enlightened at last and saved from the poison; at present he set his only consolation in the quiet firmness of his daughter Louise. She, as she had promised to do, came to see him every Thursday and Sunday, invariably gay and full of gentle resolution. He dared not question her about her mother, respecting whom she seldom volunteered any information, for having no good news to give she doubtless regarded the subject as painful. Louise would now soon be sixteen, and with increase of age she became the better able to understand the cause of their sufferings. She would have been pleased indeed could she have become the mediator, the healer, the one to place the parents she loved so well in each other’s arms once more. On the days when she detected extreme impatient anguish in her father’s glance, she referred discreetly to the frightful situation which haunted them.

‘Mamma is still very poorly,’ she would say; ‘it is necessary to be very careful, and I dare not as yet talk to her as to a friend. But I have hopes. There are times when she takes me in her arms, and presses me to her so tightly that I nearly suffocate, while her eyes fill with tears. At other times, it is true, she becomes harsh and unjust — accuses me of not loving her — complains, indeed, that nobody has ever loved her.... You see, father, one must be very kind to her, for she must suffer frightfully, thinking as she does that she will never more be able to content her heart.’

Then Marc, in his excitement, cried: ‘But why does she not come back here? I still love her to distraction, and if she still loved me, we might be so happy.’

But Louise, in a sorrowful, gentle, caressing way, placed her hand over his mouth:
‘
No, no, papa, do not let us talk of that! I did wrong to begin — it can only make us grieve the more. We must wait... I am now beside mamma; and some day she will surely see that only we two love her. She will listen to me and follow me.’

At other times the girl arrived at her father’s with glittering eyes and a determined bearing, as if she had just emerged from some contest. Marc noticed it, and said to her: ‘You have been disputing with your grandmother again!’

‘Ah! you can see it? Well, it’s true, she kept me for a good hour this morning trying to shame and terrify me about my first Communion. She speaks to me as if I were the vilest of creatures, describes to me all the abominable tortures of hell, and seems quite stupefied and scandalised by what she calls my inconceivable obstinacy.’