Truth [Vérité]

The strange scene seemed to have stupefied Marsouillier. He had remained on one side, at a loss apparently as to how he might quit those sorrowing folk, and since he had heard the child's story his eyes had been all astonishment. The recognition of the handkerchief brought his dismay to a climax, and at last, profiting by the arrival of the doctor fetched by the assistant teacher, he managed to slip away. Marc, on his side, went into the dining-room to await the result of the medical examination. Rose's right arm was indeed broken, but there was nothing of a disquieting character about the fracture, and the wrenched wrists and a few bruises were the only other marks of violence which the doctor found. He, indeed, was most concerned respecting the result of the nervous shock which the girl had experienced, for it had been a violent one. And he only left her an hour later, when he had reduced the fracture and saw her overcome, as it were, plunged in a heavy sleep.

Marc, however, had meantime sent a message to his wife and Louise, for he feared that they might be alarmed by his failure to return home. And they hastened to the school, terrified by this frightful business, which reminded them also of the old and abominable affair. Thérèse having joined them, a kind of family council was held, the door of the bedroom remaining open in order that they might at once hear the injured girl if she should wake up. Marc, who was quite feverish, expressed his views at length. What possible reason could there have been for François to commit such a deed? He might have yielded to a transport of passion by running away with Colette, but he had invariably shown himself to be a loving father, and his wife did not even complain of his manner towards herself, for it had remained outwardly dignified, almost deferential. Thus, what motive could have prompted him if he were guilty? Hidden away with his mistress in some unknown retreat, it could hardly be that he had experienced a sudden craving to have his daughter with him. What could he have done with the child? She would have been a burden on him in the life he must be leading. And even supposing that he had wished to strike a cruel blow at his wife, and reduce her to solitude, without a consolation remaining to her, it was incredible that he should have ill-used and injured his daughter, have left her upon the ground senseless! He would simply have taken her away with him. Thus, in spite of Rose's statements, in spite of the handkerchief, François could not be guilty, the impossibilities were too great. Nevertheless, faced as he was by this mysterious problem, and the task of again seeking the truth, Marc felt disturbed and anxious, for he was convinced that Marsouillier would relate what he had seen and heard, and that all Maillebois would be discussing the drama on the morrow. And as all the appearances were against François, would public opinion denounce him, even as in former days it had denounced his grandfather, Simon the Jew? In that case, how could he be defended? what ought to be done to prevent a renewal of the monstrous iniquity of long ago?

'The one thing that tends to tranquillise me,' said Marc at last, 'is that the times have changed. We now have to deal with people who have been freed and educated, and it will greatly surprise me if they do not help us to unravel the truth.'

Silence fell. At last, in spite of the little quiver which she was unable to master, Thérèse exclaimed energetically, 'You are right, grandfather. Before everything else we must establish the innocence of François, which I cannot possibly doubt, whatever may be the accusations.... He has made me suffer dreadfully, but I will forget it, and you may rely on me, I will help you with all my strength.'

Geneviève and Louise nodded their assent. 'Ah!' muttered the latter, 'the unhappy lad! When he was seven years old he used to throw his arms round me and say, "Little mother, I love you very dearly!" He has a tender and passionate nature, and thus one must forgive him a great deal.'

'There is always some resource when one has to deal with loving natures,' remarked Geneviève in her turn. 'Even if they become guilty of great transgressions, love helps them to repair them.'

On the morrow, even as Marc had foreseen, all Maillebois was in a hubbub. People talked of nothing but that assault, of the charge which the injured girl had brought against her own father, of the handkerchief picked up by a passer, and recognised by the wife. Marsouillier told the story to all who were willing to listen to him, and he even embellished it somewhat, making out that he had seen and done everything in connection with the rescue. He was not a malicious man, he was simply vain and inclined to poltroonery in such wise that while it flattered his feelings to become a personage he remained secretly apprehensive of great personal worries if the affair should turn out badly. He was, as already mentioned, a nephew of the pious Philis, and he lived on his pay as a beadle, which pay was extremely small now that only a few believers provided for the expenses at St. Martin's. And it was said that he himself was not a believer at all, that his views were really very free ones, and that if he thus ate the bread of hypocrisy it was simply because he was unable to earn any other. However that might be, the few remaining worshippers who paid his salary, the last Catholics of the district, who were enraged by their defeat and the abandonment into which the Church was sinking, at once seized upon his adventure and resolved to exploit that scandal which had assuredly been vouchsafed to them by Heaven. Never had they dared to hope for such an opportunity to resume hostilities, and they must profit by the divine favour to make a supreme effort. Thus black skirts were again seen gliding along the streets of Maillebois, old ladies were again heard telling the most extraordinary stories. Some unknown person had related that she had seen François on the night of the crime in the company of two masked men, who were Freemasons undoubtedly. And, as everybody knew that the Freemasons needed the blood of a young girl for their Black Mass, it followed that François, after some drawing of lots, had been chosen to provide the blood of his daughter. Did that not explain everything—the sectarian's savage violence, his unnatural ferocity? But it happened that the inventors of that idiotic fable could not find a single newspaper to print it, and thus they had to spread it by word of mouth among the poorer folk. When evening came it had already gone all round the town, and had even reached Jonville, Le Moreux, and other neighbouring villages. And the seed of falsehood being sown, the plotters only had to wait for the poisonous crop which they hoped to see arise from the popular ignorance.

But, as Marc had said, the times had changed. On all sides people shrugged their shoulders when they heard that foolish story. Such inventions had been all very well in former times, when men were children and fell eagerly on improbabilities. But nowadays people knew too much, and a story of that kind was not accepted without due examination. In the first place, it was immediately ascertained that François did not happen to be a Freemason. Moreover, nobody had seen him in the town; and it seemed certain that he was hidden away at a distance with that girl Colette, who had disappeared from Maillebois at the same time as himself. Again, there were all sorts of reasons for thinking him innocent. Indeed the whole district pronounced the same opinion on him as his relatives had done. He was a man of an amorous nature, who might yield to a passionate transport, but he was also a loving father, and as such incapable of ill-treating his own child. Excellent testimony came in from all sides. His pupils and their parents praised his gentleness; several neighbours related that in spite of his errors he had remained affectionately attached to his wife. Nevertheless, people were confronted by the accusations of Rose, the disquieting clue of the handkerchief, the scene repeatedly recounted by Marsouillier—the whole constituting an irritating mystery, a distressing problem for all who were competent to weigh and judge facts. If, indeed, François were not guilty, however much appearances might be against him, somebody else must be the culprit, and who could that be, and how was he to be discovered?

Then, while the judicial authorities were inquiring into the matter, something quite new was seen—mere ordinary townsfolk came forward, quite voluntarily, to relate whatever they knew, whatever they had witnessed, felt, or surmised. Now that men's minds were cultivated there was a general desire for justice, a dread of any possible error. A Bongard came to say that on the evening of the assault, while he was passing the town hall, he had seen a man who looked somewhat scared, and who seemed to have run up from the direction of the Place des Capucins. And that man was not François. Then a Doloir brought a smoker's tinder-box, which he had found between two paving-stones behind the schools. And he pointed out that this box might have fallen from the culprit's pocket, and that François did not smoke. A Savin also recounted that he had overheard a conversation between two old ladies, from which he had drawn the conclusion that the culprit was to be sought among the acquaintances of Marsouillier, the latter having let his tongue wag while he was in the company of certain friendly devotees. But the most intelligent and active helpers were the sisters Landois, who kept the drapery shop in the High Street. They had been pupils of Mademoiselle Mazeline; and, indeed, all the workers in the cause of truth, all the voluntary witnesses, had passed through the hands of the secular teachers, Marc, Joulic, or Joseph. As for the sisters Landois, it had occurred to them to consult their books to ascertain the names of the persons to whom they had sold handkerchiefs similar to the one which the culprit had wished to employ as a gag. They readily found François' name; and below it, two days later, they perceived that of Faustin Roudille, the brother of the young woman Colette, with whom François had fled. That was the first clue, the first gleam of the light which was to spread and become decisive.

As it happened, this man Faustin had been without a situation for the last fortnight. After coming to an agreement with the surrounding localities, the town of Maillebois had at last purchased the magnificent estate of La Désirade, which it intended to transform into a People's Palace, a convalescent home, a public park, open to all the workers of the region. Instead of some congregation of black frocks being installed in that delightful spot, under that royal verdure, among those plashing waters and those gleaming marbles, swains and their lassies, young mothers and their babes, old folk desirous of repose, would flock thither to enjoy the sweetness and splendour of the scene. Thus Faustin, the ex-keeper, a creature of the last remaining clericalists, had quitted the estate, and was to be seen prowling about Maillebois, showing himself very bitter and aggressive, especially with respect to his sister Colette, whose escapade, said he, had dishonoured him. People were somewhat surprised by this sudden severity on his part, for nobody was ignorant of the good understanding which had previously reigned between the brother and the sister, and the frequency with which the former had borrowed money from the young woman when he knew her to be in funds. Had there been a rupture, then? Was Faustin exasperated with Colette because she had taken herself off just as he lost his situation? Or was he playing some comedy, still remaining in agreement with his sister, acquainted with her hiding-place, and secretly working on her behalf? These points remained obscure, but the discovery made by the sisters Landois directed general attention to Faustin, his actions, and his words. A week, then, sufficed for the inquiry to make considerable progress.

First of all, Bongard's evidence was confirmed; several people now remembered that on the evening of the assault they had met Faustin in the High Street, looking agitated, and turning round as if he wished to ascertain what might be taking place in the direction of the schools. And it was certainly he whom they had seen; they had positively recognised him. Then, too, the tinder-box found by Doloir seemed to belong to him—at least, folk asserted that they had seen a similar one in his hands. Finally, the conversation which Savin had overheard, and the hypothesis of an acquaintance between Marsouillier and the culprit received striking confirmation, for the beadle and the ex-keeper of La Désirade had been quite intimate. That seemed to be the decisive fact, the clue which would lead to full enlightenment, as Marc, who was following the inquiry with impassioned attention, immediately understood. Thus he took it upon himself to extract a confession from Marsouillier. He recalled the beadle's strange manner when he had found him near Rose after the culprit's flight. He remembered that he had seemed embarrassed and anxious, disturbed at having to give up the handkerchief; and he particularly recalled his stupefaction when Rose had accused her father, and Thérèse had produced some similar handkerchiefs from her chest of drawers. And he was greatly struck by that word 'Imbecile!' which the culprit had cast in the beadle's face, and which the latter in his perturbation had repeated. It was a significant word, it was like a reproach hurled by a man at a blundering friend whose inopportune arrival on the scene had spoilt everything.

Thus Marc called upon Marsouillier. 'You know, my man,' he said to him, 'the gravest charges are being accumulated against Faustin; he will certainly be arrested this evening. Are you not afraid of being compromised?'

Silent, with hanging head, the beadle listened to an enumeration of the proofs.

'Come, own that you recognised him!' Marc added.

'But how could I have recognised him, Monsieur Froment?' said Marsouillier. 'Faustin has no beard, and he wears a cap; whereas the man I saw had a full beard and a felt hat.'

Those were points which Rose herself confirmed, and which as yet remained unelucidated.

'Oh! he might have got a hat somewhere, and have put on a false beard,' Marc suggested. 'But in any case he spoke; you yourself told me so. Surely you must have recognised his voice when he called you an imbecile!'

Marsouillier was already raising his hand to contradict himself, and swear that the man had not pronounced a single word. But Marc's bright eyes were fixed upon him, and as he met their gaze his strength failed him. And then, good-hearted man as he was at bottom, he grew disturbed, no longer having the courage to do a bad action in some stupid spirit of vanity.

'Naturally I have inquired into your connection with Faustin,' Marc resumed. 'I know that you and he often met, and that he readily cast that expression "imbecile" in your face when he found you more scrupulous than he liked.'

'That's true,' Marsouillier admitted; 'he called me an imbecile, and it ended by being hardly pleasant.'

Then, on being pressed, exhorted to relieve his conscience in his own interest, for the authorities might believe him to be an accomplice, he ended by yielding to his fears as much as to his respect for truth. 'Well, yes, Monsieur Froment, I did recognise him.... Only he could have called me an imbecile in that voice. I can't be mistaken, he has given me that name too many times. And he must merely have worn a false beard, as you surmise, and have pulled it off as he ran away, for when some people saw him at the corner of the High Street he was wearing a hat, but he was shaven as usual, with no beard at all.'

Marc felt delighted, for this testimony would certainly prove decisive. Shaking hands with Marsouillier, he said to him: 'Ah! I knew it very well; you are a good fellow.'

'A good fellow, no doubt.... You see, Monsieur Froment, I am an old pupil of Monsieur Joulic, and when a master has taught one to love truth it never goes away. One may wish to tell a falsehood, but the whole of one's being rises up in protest. Besides, when one knows how to use one's reason a little, it becomes impossible to credit the foolish things which are put into circulation. I was very worried at heart about this unhappy affair. But then I'm a very poor man; I have only my post as beadle as a means of livelihood, and my position compelled me to say the same as the old friends of my uncle Philis.'

Then Marsouillier paused, and, with a gesture of despair, big tears gathering the while in his eyes, he added: 'Ah! I'm done for now. I shall be turned out of doors, and left to starve in the streets.'

But Marc reassured him by a positive promise to find him some employment. And then he hastened away, eager as he was to acquaint Thérèse with the result of the interview, that conclusive testimony by which François was completely cleared.

For a fortnight past Thérèse had remained nursing Rose, still feeling firmly convinced of her husband's innocence, but intensely hurt at receiving no news of him in spite of the stir occasioned by the affair, which all the newspapers had recounted. And since her daughter had been recovering, already able to get up, her arm healing in a satisfactory manner, Thérèse, mastered by increasing sorrow, had remained mute, quite overcome, in her deserted home. But that very evening, while Marc was gaily completing his account of his conversation with Marsouillier, she experienced a great shock, for François suddenly entered the room. And the scene was a poignant one, however simple might be the words that were exchanged.

'You did not think me guilty, Thérèse?'

'No, François, I assure you.'

'This morning, in the sad solitude in which I found myself, I was still ignorant of everything.... But I happened to glance at an old newspaper, and then I hastened here. How is Rose?'

'She is much better. She is there, in the bedroom.'

François had not dared to kiss his wife. She stood before him, erect and severe amid her emotion. But Marc, who had risen, caught hold of his grandson's hands, guessing by his pallor, his ravaged face, which still bore traces of his tears, that he had been involved in some tragic drama.

'Come, tell me everything, my poor lad.'

Then François, in a few quivering words and with all sincerity, recounted his folly—his sudden flight from Maillebois on the arm of that Colette who had maddened him; their life of seclusion in a lonely district of Beaumont, where they had scarcely quitted their room; a fortnight's cloistered life, interspersed with furious storms, extravagant caprices on the part of that passionate gipsy, reproaches, tears, and even blows; then, all at once, her flight nobody knew whither, after a last scene when she had flung the furniture at her lover's head. That had happened three weeks previously, and at first he had awaited her return, then buried himself, as it were, in the seclusion of that lonely room, full of despair and remorse, no longer knowing how to return to Maillebois to his wife, whom he declared he had never ceased to love in spite of all his folly.

While he spoke, Thérèse, who was still standing there, had turned her head aside. And when he had finished she said, 'There is no occasion for me to know those things.... I merely understand that you have come back to answer the charges brought against you.'

'Oh!' Marc gently observed, 'those charges have now ceased to exist.'

'I have come back to see Rose,' François on his side declared, 'and I repeat that I would have been here the very next day if I had not remained ignorant of everything.'

'Very good,' Thérèse rejoined; 'I do not prevent you from seeing your daughter; she is there—you may go in.'

There ensued a very singular scene which Marc watched with impassioned interest. Rose was seated in an armchair, reading, her injured arm hanging in a sling. As the door opened she looked up and raised a quivering cry, instinct, it seemed, both with fear and with joy.

'Oh! papa!'

Then she rose, and all at once seemed stupefied. 'But it wasn't you, papa—was it—the other evening?' she cried. 'The man was shorter and his beard was different!'

And she continued to scrutinise her father as if she found him otherwise than she had pictured him since his flight—since she had watched her forsaken mother weeping. Had she pictured him as a wicked man, then, squat of build and with an ogre's face? She now recognised the father with the pleasant smile, whom she adored; and if he had come back it was surely in order that no more tears might be shed in their dear home. But all at once she began to tremble at the thought of the dreadful consequences of her error.

'And to think I accused you, papa—that I kept on saying that the man was you! No, no, it wasn't you, I told a story; I will explain it to the gendarmes if they come to take you!'

She sank back in the arm-chair, weeping bitterly, and her father had to take her on his lap, kiss her, and vow to her that their sorrows were all over. He himself stammered with emotion as he spoke. Had he behaved so vilely, then, that he had appeared a very monster in the eyes of his daughter, and that she had thought him capable of ill-using her so dreadfully?

Thérèse, meantime, while listening, had striven to remain impassive, saying never a word. François glanced at her anxiously, as if to ascertain whether she would again tolerate his presence in that home which he had ravaged. And Marc, noticing the severity of her demeanour, her unwillingness to forgive, preferred to take his grandson away with him and provide him with a lodging pending the advent of a calmer hour.

That very evening the officers of the law presented themselves at Faustin's dwelling, but they did not find the rascal there. The place was closed, the man had fled, and the search for him failed: he was never taken. People ended by believing that he had escaped to America. His sister Colette had perhaps accompanied him thither, for although she was sought she was never seen again, either at Maillebois or at Beaumont. And the whole affair remained very obscure; one was reduced to conjectures. Had the brother and sister been accomplices? Had Colette co-operated in some plot when she had induced François to carry her off, or had Faustin merely wished to avail himself in some mysterious manner of the situation which the elopement had created? But the chief point of all was whether there had been some superior behind him, some man of intelligence and will, who had planned and prepared everything in view of a supreme assault on the new order of things, by renewing, as it were, the old Simon affair. All those suppositions were allowable, given the facts; and in the end nobody doubted that there had really been some mysterious agreement and ambush.

Thus, how great was Marc's relief when the authorities, being convinced of Faustin's guilt and flight, set the affair aside. At the first moment that renewal of the old abominations, that last supreme attempt to besmirch the secular schools, had greatly disquieted Marc. But he was astonished at the rapidity with which the truth had been made manifest by public good sense. The appearances against François had been far greater than those against Simon in the old days. His own daughter had accused him; and, even if she had retracted her words, it would simply have been said that she had yielded to family pressure. In former times no witnesses, neither a Bongard, nor a Doloir, nor a Savin, would have dared to come forward and say what they had heard or seen, for fear of compromising themselves. In former times Marsouillier would not have relieved his conscience; firstly, because he would have felt no need of doing so, and secondly because a powerful faction would have immediately risen to support and glorify his original falsehood. The Congregations had then been ready at hand, poisoning everything, making a dogma, a cult, of error. Rome in her battle against free thought had made a savage use of political parties, maddening them, hurling them one upon the other, in the hope of some civil war which, by cutting the nation in halves, might render her mistress of the majority, the poor and ignorant. And now that Rome was vanquished, that the Congregations were disappearing, that not a Jesuit would soon be left to obscure men's thoughts and pervert their actions, human reason was working freely. The explanation of all the good sense and logic which Marc had lately observed was not to be sought elsewhere. The simple fact was that the people, being now educated and freed from the errors of centuries, were becoming capable of truth and justice.

But amid the delight of victory some anxiety lingered in Marc's heart, anxiety at the rupture which had occurred between François and Thérèse, that question of the happiness of man and woman, which happiness can only spring from their perfect agreement. Marc did not entertain any wild hope of being able to kill the passions and prevent our poor humanity from bleeding beneath the spur of desire. There would always be broken hearts, tortured and jealous flesh. Only, might one not hope that woman, being freed and raised to equality with man, would render the sexual struggle less bitter, impart to it some calm dignity? Already during the recent scandal women had shown themselves the friends of truth, employing all their energy to discover it. They were emancipated from the Church; they were no longer possessed by base superstition and the fear of hell; they no longer feigned a false humility before the priests; they were no longer the servants who prostrated themselves before men, the sex which seems to acknowledge its abjection and which revenges itself for its enforced humility by rotting and disorganising everything. They had ceased to act as snares of voluptuousness in accordance with the discreet advice of their confessors, seeking to entrap men in order to promote the triumph of religion. They had become normal wives and mothers since they had been wrested from that morbid falsehood of the divine spouse, which had unhinged so many poor minds. And now was it not their duty to complete the great work by exercising the rights they had regained with great wisdom and kindness?

At last it occurred to Marc to assemble the whole family at the school, in that large classroom where he himself had taught, and where Joseph and François had taught after him. And there was a certain solemnity about that meeting, held one afternoon at the close of September, amid the sunshine which cast gentle beams on the master's desk, the boys' forms, the blackboards, and the pictures hanging from the walls. Sébastien and Sarah came from Beaumont; Clément and Charlotte arrived with their daughter Lucienne from Jonville. And Joseph, warned some days previously, had returned from a holiday tour feeling very much affected by all that had occurred in his absence. Finally, Marc himself and Geneviève, accompanied by Louise and Joseph, repaired to the rendezvous, taking François with them—Thérèse and Rose awaiting their arrival in the classroom. Altogether twelve members of the family attended the gathering, and at first deep silence prevailed.

'My dear Thérèse,' said Marc at last, 'we have no wish to do violence to your feelings, we have only come here for a family chat.... You have no doubt suffered in your heart, but you have never known such a great rending as when husband and wife have seemed to come from two different worlds, and have suddenly found themselves parted by such an abyss as to suggest no likelihood of ever being united again. In former times woman, in the hands of the Church, had become an instrument of torture for man, who was already freed. Ah! how many tears were shed in those days, how many homes were broken up!'

Silence fell again; then Geneviève, who was deeply moved, in her turn said: 'Yes, my dear Marc, I often regarded you wrongly, I often tortured you in the old days, and you do right to recall those evil years; your words cannot wound me now, since I have had strength enough to overcome the poison. But how many women remained agonising in the old dungeon, how many homes perished in grief? I myself have never been entirely cured; I have always trembled with the dread of being mastered once more by long heredity and the perverting influence of early education. And if I have managed to remain erect, it is thanks to you, your sturdy good sense and active affection, for all which I thank you, my good Marc.'

Happy tears had come into her eyes, and she continued with increasing emotion: 'Ah! my poor grandmother, my poor mother! Yes, they were to be pitied! They were so wretched, assailed by destructive ferments, cast out of their sex, as it were, by their voluntary martyrdom. My poor grandmother was a terrible woman; but then she had never known a joy in life, she lived in perpetual nothingness—and thus why should she not have dreamt of reducing others to the same painful renunciation of everything which she had imposed upon herself? And my poor mother, too, what a long agony did she undergo from having tasted the delight of being loved, and afterwards from having lapsed for ever into that religion of falsehood and death which denies all the powers and joys of life!'

While Geneviève spoke two shadowy forms seemed to flit by—the vanished forms of Madame Duparque and Madame Berthereau—those pitiable, disquieting devotees of another age, one of whom had belonged entirely to the ferocious, exterminating Church, while the other, of a gentler nature, had died in despair at the thought that she had never attempted to sever her chain. Geneviève's eyes seemed to wander away after them both. She herself had known the great battle, for it had been waged around her and within her; and it was happiness for her to think that she had one day felt free again, and had returned to life and to health. But her eyes at last fell upon her daughter Louise, who smiled at her very lovingly, and then leant forward to kiss her.

'Mother,' said Louise, 'you were the bravest and the most deserving, for it was you who fought and suffered. It is to you we owe the victory, paid for with so many tears. I remember. Coming as I did after you, it was no great merit for me to free myself from the past; and if never a quiver of error disturbed me, it was because I profited by the terrible lesson which at one time made all our hearts bleed in our poor mourning home.'

'Be quiet, you flatterer,' replied Geneviève, laughing and returning her kiss. 'You were the child who saved us, whose strong and skilful little mind intervened so lovingly and triumphed over every obstacle. We owe our peace to you; you were the first free little woman with enough intelligence, will, and resolution to set happiness on earth.

Then Marc, turning towards Thérèse, explained: 'You were not born, my dear, at the time of all those things, and you are ignorant of them. Having come after Louise, having never had anything to do with baptism or confession or communion, you find it easy and simple to live freely beyond the pale of religious imposture and social prejudice, with no other bonds about you than those of your own reason and conscience. But, for things to be as they are, mothers and grandmothers passed through frightful crises, the worst follies, the worst torments.... As is the case with all the social questions, the one solution lay in education. It was necessary to impart knowledge to woman before setting her in her legitimate place as the equal and companion of man. That was the first thing necessary, the essential condition of human happiness, for woman could only free man after being freed herself. As long as she remained the priest's servant and accomplice, an instrument of reaction, espionage, and warfare in the home, man himself remained in chains, incapable of all virile and decisive action. The strength of the future will lie in the absolute agreement of man and wife.... And so, my dear, you see how sad it makes us that misfortune should again have come into your home. There is no abyss created by different beliefs between you and François. You are of the same spheres, the same education. He is not your master by law and custom, as he would have been in the old days; you are not his servant, seeking an opportunity to revenge yourself on him for his mastery. You have the same rights as he has. You can dispose of your life as you choose. Your joint peace and agreement are based solely on reason, logic, and the dictates of life itself, which, to be lived in health and all fulness, requires the mating of man and woman. But, alas! we see your peace destroyed by the eternal fragility of human nature, unless indeed kindness of heart should help you to win it back.'

Thérèse had listened, calm, dignified, and with an expression of great deference: 'I know all those things, grandfather; you must not think I have forgotten them,' said she. 'But why has François been living with you for some days past? He might have remained here. There are two lodgings, the schoolmaster's and the schoolmistress's, and I do not prevent him from taking possession of the former while I occupy the other. In that fashion he can resume his duties when the boys come back in a few days' time. We are free, as you say, and I desire to remain free.'

Her father and her mother, Sébastien and Sarah, then tried to intervene affectionately; and Geneviève, Louise, and Charlotte, indeed all the women present, smiled at her, entreated her with their glances; but she would listen to nothing, she rejected their suggestions resolutely, though without any anger.

'François has wounded me cruelly,' she said. 'I thought I had quite ceased to love him, and I should be telling you a falsehood if I said that I am now certain I love him still.... You cannot wish me to tell an untruth, you cannot wish me to resume life in common with him, when it would be cowardice and shame.'

At this a cry escaped François, who hitherto had remained silent, and visibly anxious. 'But I, Thérèse, I still love you!' he exclaimed. 'I love you as I never loved you before, and if you have suffered, I think that I now suffer even more than you have done!'

She turned towards him, and said very gently:' You speak the truth, I am willing to believe it.... It is quite possible that you still love, in spite of your folly, for amid all our craving for reason, our poor human hearts will ever remain a source of dementia. And as you suffer so much, there are two of us who suffer ... dreadfully. But I cannot be your wife again if I no longer love you, if I no longer wish you for my husband. It would be unworthy of us both, our ill, in lieu of healing, would be poisoned by it. The best course for us to follow is to live as good neighbours, good friends, and attending to our work, each free once more.'

'But I, mamma!' cried Rose, whose eyes were full of tears.

'You, my darling? You will love us both to-morrow as you loved us yesterday.... And don't be anxious, these are questions which one only understands when one is older than you are.'

With a caressing gesture Marc summoned the girl to him, and, having seated her on his knees, he was about to plead the cause of François once more when Thérèse hastily forestalled him.

'No, no, grandfather, do not insist, I beg you. It is your tender heart, not your reason, that now wishes to speak. If you prevailed over me you might have cause to repent it. Let me be wise and strong.... I know very well that you wish to spare us suffering. Ah! let us confess that suffering will be eternal. It is in us, no doubt, for one of the unknown purposes of life. Our poor hearts will always bleed, we shall always rend them in hours of exasperated passion, in spite of all the health and all the good sense that we may succeed in acquiring. And, perhaps, that is the necessary good for happiness!'

A slight chilling quiver seemed to dim the bright sunlight; through all there passed a consciousness of the sorrowful grandeur of that recognition of suffering.

'But what does it matter?' Thérèse continued. 'Have no fears, grandfather, we will be worthy and brave. It is nothing to suffer, it is only necessary that suffering should not make us blind and wicked. Nobody will know that we suffer, and we will even try to be the better for it, more gentle to others, more desirous of assuaging the causes of grief which exist in the world.... And, besides, grandfather, do not regret anything; say to yourself that you have done all you possibly could do, that you have carried out an admirable task which will give us all the happiness that reason can yield. As for the rest, as for sentimental life, each with his or her love will settle that according to personal circumstances, even if it be in tears. Leave us, François and me, leave us to live and suffer even, as we choose, for it only concerns ourselves. It is sufficient that you should have freed our minds, and made us conscious of a world of truth and justice.... And as you have brought us together here, grandfather, it shall not be for the purpose of preventing a rupture, of which only François and myself can be the judges, but it shall be to give us an opportunity to acclaim you, to express to you our adoration, and our gratitude for your work!'

At this they all clapped hands, transported with delight, and the splendour of the sun seemed to have returned and to stream in a sheet of gold through the lofty windows. Yes, yes, this was the grandfather's triumph in that very classroom where he had fought so bravely, where he had given the best of his heart and his mind to those who would become the people of the morrow. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, all were his pupils, and all surrounded him as if he were a very venerable and powerful patriarch, from whom the happy future had sprung. He had kept Rose, who represented the last generation in its flower, on his lap; and she had twined her arms about his neck, and was covering his face with kisses. His daughter Louise, his son Clément, had set themselves beside him with Joseph and Charlotte. And Sébastien and Sarah smiled at him and stretched out their clasped hands, while Thérèse and François, drawn nearer together, it seemed, by their affection for the august old man, seated themselves at his feet. At last Marc, deeply moved, almost stifled by the caresses heaped on him, said jestingly, with a pleasant laugh, 'My children, my children, you must not make a god of me! You know very well that the churches are being shut up.... I am only a hard worker who has finished his day. Besides, I don't want to triumph without my dear Geneviève beside me.'

He drew her near, taking her by the arm, and they all kissed her as they had kissed him, in such wise that the husband and wife, once parted, then reconciled and from that time commanding all possible happiness, were conjointly glorified in that elementary classroom, among those humble forms on which, again and again, the children's children, all the generations going towards the happy city, would take their seats.

And that was Marc's reward for all his years of courage and effort. He saw his work before him. Rome had lost the battle, France was saved from death, from the dust and ruin in which Catholic nations disappear, one after the other. She had been rid of the clerical faction which had chosen her territory as its battlefield, ravaging her fields, poisoning her people, striving to create darkness in order to dominate the world once more. She was no longer threatened with burial beneath the ashes of a dead religion; she had again become her own mistress; she could go forward to her destiny as a liberating and justice-dealing power. And if she had conquered it was solely by the means of that primary education which had extracted the humble, the lowly ones of her country districts, from the ignorance of slaves, from the deadly imbecility in which Roman Catholicism had maintained them for centuries. Some had dared to say, 'Happy the poor in spirit!' and from that mortal error had sprung the misery of two thousand years. The legend of the benefits of ignorance now appeared like a prolonged social crime. Poverty, dirt, superstition, falsehood, tyranny, woman exploited and held in contempt, man stupefied and mastered, every physical and every moral ill, were the fruits of that ignorance which had been fostered intentionally, which had served as a system of state politics and religious police. Knowledge alone would slay mendacious dogmas, disperse those who traded and lived on them, and become the source of wealth, whether in respect to the harvests of the soil or the general florescence of the human mind. No! happiness had never had its abode in ignorance; it lay in knowledge, which will change the frightful field of material and moral wretchedness into a vast and fruitful expanse, whose wealth from year to year culture will increase tenfold.

Thus Marc, laden with years and glory, had enjoyed the great reward of living long enough to see his work's result. Justice resides in truth alone, and there is no happiness apart from justice. And after the creation of families, after the foundation of the cities of just work, the nation itself was constituted on the day when, by decreeing integral education for all its citizens, it showed itself capable of practising truth and equity.

THE END