THE FOUR GOSPELS (Les Quatre Évangiles). Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ one could not even hear him breathe.

      Beauchene and Seguin broke in upon the quiet like unlucky sportsmen, with their limbs weary and their faces and hands icy cold. Amid the exclamations of surprise which greeted them, they complained of the folly that had possessed them to venture out of Paris in such bleak weather.

      “Just fancy, my dear fellow,” said Beauchene, “we haven’t seen a single duck! It’s no doubt too cold. And you can’t imagine what a bitter wind blows on the plateau, amid those ponds and bushes bristling with icicles. So we gave up the idea of any shooting. You must give us each a glass of hot wine, and then we’ll get back to Paris.”

      Seguin, who was in even a worse humor, stood before the fire trying to thaw himself; and while Marianne made haste to warm some wine, he began to speak of the cleared fields which he had skirted. Under the icy covering, however, beneath which they stiffly slumbered, hiding the seed within them, he had guessed nothing of the truth, and already felt anxious about this business of Mathieu’s, which looked anything but encouraging. Indeed, he already feared that he would not be paid his purchase money, and so made bold to speak ironically.

      “I say, my dear fellow, I am afraid you have lost your time,” he began; “I noticed it all as I went by, and it did not seem promising. But how can you hope to reap anything from rotten soil in which only reeds have been growing for centuries?”

      “One must wait,” Mathieu quietly answered. “You must come back and see it all next June.”

      But Beauchene interrupted them. “There is a train at four o’clock, I think,” said he; “let us make haste, for it would annoy us tremendously to miss it, would it not, Seguin?”

      So saying, he gave him a gay, meaning glance. They had doubtless planned some little spree together, like husbands bent on availing themselves to the utmost of the convenient pretext of a day’s shooting. Then, having drunk some wine and feeling warmed and livelier, they began to express astonishment at their surroundings.

      “It stupefies me, my dear fellow,” declared Beauchene, “that you can live in this awful solitude in the depth of winter. It is enough to kill anybody. I am all in favor of work, you know; but, dash it! one must have some amusement too.”

      “But we do amuse ourselves,” said Mathieu, waving his hand round that rustic kitchen in which centred all their pleasant family life.

      The two visitors followed his gesture, and gazed in amazement at the walls covered with utensils, at the rough furniture, and at the table on which the children were still building their village after offering their cheeks to be kissed. No doubt they were unable to understand what pleasure there could possibly be there, for, suppressing a jeering laugh, they shook their heads. To them it was really an extraordinary life, a life of most singular taste.

      “Come and see my little Gervais,” said Marianne softly. “He is asleep; mind, you must not wake him.”

      For politeness’ sake they both bent over the cradle, and expressed surprise at finding a child but ten months old so big. He was very good, too. Only, as soon as he should wake, he would no doubt deafen everybody. And then, too, if a fine child like that sufficed to make life happy, how many people must be guilty of spoiling their lives! The visitors came back to the fireside, anxious only to be gone now that they felt enlivened.

      “So it’s understood,” said Mathieu, “you won’t stay to dinner with us?”

      “Oh, no, indeed!” they exclaimed in one breath.

      Then, to attenuate the discourtesy of such a cry, Beauchene began to jest, and accepted the invitation for a later date when the warm weather should have arrived.

      “On my word of honor, we have business in Paris,” he declared. “But I promise you that when it’s fine we will all come and spend a day here — yes, with our wives and children. And you will then show us your work, and we shall see if you have succeeded. So good-by! All my good wishes, my dear fellow! Au revoir, cousin! Au revoir, children; be good!”

      Then came more kisses and handshakes, and the two men disappeared. And when the gentle silence had fallen once more Mathieu and Marianne again found themselves in front of the bright fire, while the children completed the building of their village with a great consumption of paste, and Gervais continued sleeping soundly. Had they been dreaming? Mathieu wondered. What sudden blast from all the shame and suffering of Paris had blown into their faraway quiet? Outside, the country retained its icy rigidity. The fire alone sang the song of hope in life’s future revival. And, all at once, after a few minutes’ reverie the young man began to speak aloud, as if he had at last just found the answer to all sorts of grave questions which he had long since put to himself.

      “But those folks don’t love; they are incapable of loving! Money, power, ambition, pleasure — yes, all those things may be theirs, but not love! Even the husbands who deceive their wives do not really love their mistresses. They have never glowed with the supreme desire, the divine desire which is the world’s very soul, the brazier of eternal life. And that explains everything. Without desire there is no love, no courage, and no hope. By love alone can one create. And if love be restricted in its mission there is but failure. Yes, they lie and deceive, because they do not love. Then they suffer and lapse into moral and physical degradation. And at the end lies the collapse of our rotten society, which breaks up more and more each day before our eyes. That, then, is the truth I was seeking. It is desire and love that save. Whoever loves and creates is the revolutionary saviour, the maker of men for the new world which will shortly dawn.”

      Never before had Mathieu so plainly understood that he and his wife were different from others. This now struck him with extraordinary force. Comparisons ensued, and he realized that their simple life, free from the lust of wealth, their contempt for luxury and worldly vanities, all their common participation in toil which made them accept and glorify life and its duties, all that mode of existence of theirs which was at once their joy and their strength, sprang solely from the source of eternal energy: the love with which they glowed. If, later on, victory should remain with them, if they should some day leave behind them work of value and health and happiness, it would be solely because they had possessed the power of love and the courage to love freely, harvesting, in an ever-increasing family, both the means of support and the means of conquest. And this sudden conviction filled Mathieu with such a glow that he leant towards his wife, who sat there deeply moved by what he said, and kissed her ardently upon the lips. It was divine love passing like a flaming blast. But she, though her own eyes were sparkling, laughingly scolded him, saying: “Hush, hush, you will wake Gervais.”

      Then they remained there hand in hand, pressing each other’s fingers amid the silence. Evening was coming on, and at last the children, their village finished, raised cries of rapture at seeing it standing there among bits of wood, which figured trees. And then the softened glances of the parents strayed now through the window towards the crops sleeping beneath the crystalline rime, and now towards their last-born’s cradle, where hope was likewise slumbering.

      Again did two long months go by. Gervais had just completed his first year, and fine weather, setting in early, was hastening the awaking of the earth. One morning, when Marianne and the children went to join Mathieu on the plateau, they raised shouts of wonder, so completely had the sun transformed the expanse in a single week. It was now all green velvet, a thick endless carpet of sprouting corn, of tender, delicate emerald hue. Never had such a marvellous crop been seen. And thus, as the family walked on through the mild, radiant April morning, amid the country now roused from winter’s sleep, and quivering with fresh youth, they all waxed merry at the sight of that healthfulness, that progressing fruitfulness, which promised the fulfilment of all their hopes. And their rapture yet increased when, all at once, they noticed that little Gervais СКАЧАТЬ