Complete Works of Emile Zola (1794 page)
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Authors: Émile Zola
All three, Primrose, Sidoine and Médéric, were silent. Around them reigned immense stillness, large indistinct shadows transformed the country into a lake of gloom, with heavy and motionless waves: above their heads was a moonless sky studded with stars, a black vault riddled with golden holes. There, on the ruins of the model school, each following his own train of thought, and with the world at their feet, they sat musing in the darkness. Primrose, slight and supple, had passed her arms around Médéric’s neck, and was leaning upon his breast, her eyes wide open, gazing into the night. Sidoine, half reclining, ashamed and despairing, was hiding his fists and thinking in spite of himself.
Suddenly he spoke, and his rough voice wore an accent of indescribable sadness.
“Alas! brother Médéric,” he said, “how empty my poor head is since the day when you stored it with thoughts! Where are my mangy wolves which I destroyed with such glee, my fine potato-fields that the neighbours planted, my fearless stupidity which protected me from bad dreams?”
“My beauty,” asked Médéric softly, “do you regret our wanderings and the science we have acquired?”
“Yes, brother. I have seen the world and have not understood it. You endeavoured to make me spell it out, but your lessons had a certain bitterness which has disturbed my peaceful tranquillity. At the start I had instinctive beliefs, an implicit faith in my natural whims: at the journey’s end I can no longer see my life clearly. I do not know where to go nor what to do.”
“
I admit, my beauty, that I have taught you in a haphazard way. But tell me, in this mass of sciences, imprudently disturbed, do you not recall some real and practical truths?”
“Well, brother Médéric, it is exactly those beautiful truths which sadden me. I know now that the earth, with its fruits and harvests, does not belong to me; I even doubt my right to amuse myself by killing flies on the walls. Could you not have spared me the terrible agony of thought? Ah, I absolve you now from your promise.”
“What had I promised you, my beauty?”
“To give me a throne to fill, and men to slay. My poor fists, what can I do with them now? Are they not useless enough and in the way! I shall not have courage to raise them against a gnat. We find ourselves in a kingdom which is wisely indifferent to human grandeur and misery; no war, no court, hardly a king. Alas! and it is we who are this shadow of a monarch. This is no doubt the punishment of our ridiculous ambition. Brother Médéric, I beg you, calm my troubled mind.”
“Do not be anxious, do not upset yourself, my beauty, we have reached our destination. It was written that we should be kings, but that is a fatality for which we shall be able to console ourselves. Our travels have had the excellent result of changing our former thoughts of power and conquests. In this sense, our reign over the Blues was a training as salutary as it was rough. Destiny has its logic. We must thank fate that, unable to dispense with royalty, it has given us a fine kingdom, as extensive and fertile as we could wish, wherein we will live as honest men. In following the calling of honorary king, we shall at least gain liberty, not having to bear the burden of the duty; we will grow old in our dignity: enjoying our crown as misers, I mean by showing it to no one; thus, our existence will have a noble aim, that of leaving our subjects undisturbed, and our reward will be the peace they will give us. My beauty, do not despair. We are about to resume our careless life, forgetful of all painful sights, all the evil thoughts of the world we have just travelled over; we are going to be perfectly ignorant and have no other care than that of loving one another. In our royal domains, in the sunshine in winter, beneath the oak trees in summer, my mission will be to fondle Primrose, whilst hers will consist in returning me two caresses for one; you, as you could not keep your fists at rest without being bored to death, shall during this time dig our fields, sow them with corn, reap the harvests, gather the vintage, so that we shall eat bread and drink wine belonging to us. We will never kill again, not even to eat. On these points alone do I consent to remain wise. As I told you at starting, ‘I will set you such a fine task that in a thousand years the world will still talk of your fists.’ For labourers of the future will marvel when passing through these fields. On seeing their eternal fertility, they will say among themselves, ‘King Sidoine formerly worked here.’ I foretold it, my dear fellow, your fists were destined to be the fists of a king; only they will be the fists of a working king, the finest, the rarest in existence.”
On hearing these words, Sidoine could not contain himself for joy. His duty in the household seemed to him by far the most agreeable, as it was that which required the greatest strength.
“Egad! brother,” he exclaimed, “reasoning is a fine thing when one reasons wisely. I am quite consoled. I am king and reign over my field. Nothing could be better. You will see my fine vegetables, my corn as tall as reeds, my vintages fit to intoxicate a province. Ah! I was born to wrestle with the earth. From to-morrow, I will work and sleep in the sun. I will think no more.”
As Sidoine finished speaking he crossed his arms and went off into a half doze. Primrose was still gazing into the darkness, smiling, her arms round Médéric’s neck and hearing only the beating of her friend’s heart.
After a pause the latter resumed:
“My beauty, I have to finish with a speech. It will be the last, I vow. All history, it is said, requires a moral. If ever some poor creature, weary of silence, takes it into his head to relate the astounding story of our adventures, he will certainly cut the silliest figure imaginable in the eyes of his readers, in that he will appear to them perfectly absurd if he sticks to the truth. I even fear he may be stoned, on account of the liberty of speech and beating of his heroes. As this poor creature will no doubt be born in later times, in the midst of a society perfect in every sense, his indifference and denials will justly offend the legitimate pride of his contemporaries. It would, therefore, be charitable before leaving the scene, to seek the morality of our adventures, so as to spare our historian the sorrow of passing for a mendacious man. However, if he has some feeling of honesty, this is what he will pen on the last page: ‘Good people who have perused my work, we are, you and me, utter dunces. To our minds, nothing is so near to reason as folly. It is true I have made game of you; but before that I made game of myself. I believe man is nothing. I doubt everything else. The joke of our apotheosis has lasted too long. We lie impudently in declaring ourselves God’s masterpiece, the creature superior to all, for whom He created heaven and earth. No doubt, one could not imagine a more consoling fable; for if my brethren were to admit, to-morrow, what they are, they would probably go and commit suicide, each in his own corner. I do not fear to lead their reason to this extreme point of logic; they have inexhaustible charity, a copious provision of respect and admiration for their own being. Therefore, I have not even the hope of making them agree as to their nothingness, which would have been as good a morality as any other. Besides, for a belief that I should deprive them of, I could not give them a better one; perhaps I will try later on. To-day, I am full of sadness; I have related my bad dreams of the past night I dedicate the story to humanity. My gift is worthy of it; and after all, what matters one freak more amid the freaks of the world? I shall be accused of being behind my time, of denying progress in the days most rich in conquests. Well, good people, your new lights are as yet but darkness. The great mystery escapes us now as it escaped us in the past. I am saddened as each so-called truth is discovered, for it is not the one I seek, the single and entire Truth which alone would heal my diseased mind. In six thousand years we have not been able to advance a step. If, at this hour, to spare you the trouble of considering me stark mad, you must absolutely have a moral to the adventures of my giant and dwarf, perhaps I shall satisfy you in giving you this one: ‘Six thousand years and yet again six thousand years will lapse without our ever completing our first stride.’ That, my beauty, is what a conscientious historian would deduce from our history. But you can imagine, what fine yells would greet such an inference! I positively decline to be a cause of scandal for our brethren. From this moment, anxious to see our legend, duly authorised and approved, diffused over the world, I draw the moral as follows: ‘Good people who have read me,’ the poor creature will write, ‘I cannot give you the fifteen or twenty morals of this story in detail. There are some for all ages, and for all conditions. It suffices that you collect your wits and interpret my words correctly. But the true moral, the most moralising one, that which I intend turning to account in my next story, is this: When you set out for the Kingdom of the Happy, you must know the way. Are you edified? I am very glad of it.’ What? Sidoine, my beauty, you do not applaud?”
Sidoine was asleep. The moon had just risen in the heavens; a soft light filled the horizon, giving a bluish tinge to space, and falling in sheets of silver from the heights, down upon the plain. The gloom had disappeared; a deeper silence reigned around. Serene sadness had succeeded the dread of the previous hour. At the first ray, Médéric and Primrose, entwined and motionless, appeared at the summit of the ruins; whilst at their feet lay Sidoine, radiant in the broad beams of light.
He opened one eye, and still half asleep, said:
“I hear. Brother Médéric, where is wisdom?”
“My beauty,” Médéric replied, “take a spade.”
“I hear,” said Sidoine. “Where is happiness?”
Then Primrose, unclasping her arms, slowly raised herself. She stretched out her lips and kissed Médéric on the mouth.
Sidoine, satisfied, relapsed into sleep, nodding his head twirling his thumbs, more stupid than ever!
NEW STORIES FOR NINON
CONTENTS
THE SHOULDERS OF THE MARCHIONESS
THE LEGEND OF CUPID’S LITTLE BLUE MANTLE
Zola with his two daughters
TO NINON
IT is just ten years, my dear soul, since I told you my first tales. What delightful lovers we were then! I had recently come from that land of Provence, where I had grown up so free, so confiding, so full of all the hopes of life. I belonged to you, to you alone, to your tenderness, to your dream.
Do you remember, Ninon? That remembrance is now the only joy on which my heart reposes. Until twenty we ran along the same paths together. I can hear your little feet on the hard ground, I perceive the hem of your white skirt grazing the wild plants; I feel your breath among the distant wafts of sage, which reach me like puffs of youth Those charming hours are fresh in my memory: it was a morning, on the bank, beside the barely awakened water, all pure, all rosy with the first red rays of heaven; it was an afternoon, among the trees, in a leafy recess, with the country overcome, slumbering around us, without a rustle; it was an evening, in the middle of a field, slowly becoming enveloped in the bluish flood of twilight that stole down the hills; it was a night, walking along an endless road, both advancing towards the unknown, indifferent even to the stars, finding our pleasure in leaving the city, in losing ourselves far, very far away, in the depths of the discreet darkness. Do you remember, Ninon?
What a happy life! We had launched into love, art, dreamland. There is not a bush that has not hidden our kisses, smothered our chat. I led you along, I walked you about like the living poetry of my childhood. We two had heaven, earth, trees and waters, even the naked rocks that bounded the horizon, to ourselves. It seemed to me, at that age, that on opening my arms, I could take all the country on my breast, to give it a kiss of peace. I felt the strength, the desires, the kind-heartedness of a giant. Our excursions, like those of schoolboys out of bounds, our love-making, like that of the free birds, had inspired me with great contempt for the world, and a quiet belief in one’s own energy. Yes, it was in your constant tenderness, my friend, that formerly I laid up that fund of courage, at which my companions, later on, were so frequently surprised. The illusions of our hearts were plates of finely tempered steel, and they still protect me.