Work [Travail]

Again did Jordan set to work. He sought, he struggled still, resolved upon keeping alive until his task should be completed. His strength declined, he was at last unable to go out, and had to rest content with sending his orders to the works respecting the final, long-debated ameliorations. In this fashion several months went by. Shut up in his laboratory he there perfected his work, resolved to die there on the day when this work should be ended. And that day arrived: he found a means of preventing all loss, of rendering his reservoirs absolutely impermeable, capable of holding their store of electric force for a long period. And then he had but one desire—to bid farewell to his work, embrace his friends, and return again into universal life.

The month of October had come, and the sun was still gilding the last leaves with warm, clear gold. Jordan requested Sœurette to have him carried in an arm-chair, for the last time, to the works where the new reservoirs had been installed. He wished to gaze upon his creation, to make sure that enough sunshine was stored away to enable Beauclair to wait for the return of spring. And so one delightful afternoon he was taken to the works, and spent two hours in them, inspecting everything and regulating the action of the appliances. The works were built at the very foot of the Bleuse Mountains, in a part of the old park which looked towards the south, and which had formerly been an overflowing paradise of fruit and flowers. There were towers rising above large buildings with long roofs of steel and glass, but nothing connected with the work could be seen from the outside, for all the conducting cables passed underground.

At last, by way of finishing his visit, Jordan bade his bearers halt for a moment in the central courtyard, where he gave a long supreme glance around him at that nucleus of a new world, endowed with the source of eternal life, his creation, the passion of his whole life. And finally he turned towards Sœurette, who, never quitting him, had followed his arm-chair step by step. 'Well,' said he with a smile, 'it's finished, and it seems quite satisfactory; so now I can go off. Let us return to the house, sister.'

He was very gay, radiant like a toiler who thinks that he will at last be able to rest since his work is done. However, his sister, hoping that he might benefit by the sunshine, told the men carrying the arm-chair not to hurry, but to go back to the house by a somewhat roundabout way. And thus it happened that on emerging from one of the paths Jordan suddenly found himself in front of the pavilion where Luc still dwelt, reduced like his friend to immobility, since he had lost the use of his legs. For some months now the two friends had not seen one another. They could only correspond, obtain news of each other through their dear nurses, their guardian angels, who were ever coming and going between them. And a final desire, the last desire of his heart, suddenly upbuoyed the sinking Jordan.

'Oh! sister, I beg you,' said he, 'let them stop and place my chair yonder, under that tree, at the edge of the tall grass. And go up to Luc at once and tell him that I am here, at his door, waiting for him.'

Sœurette hesitated for a moment, feeling somewhat anxious at the thought of all the emotion which such an interview would bring with it. 'But Luc is like yourself, my friend,' she said, 'he cannot stir. How would you have him come downstairs?'

The gay smile which revived the brilliancy of Jordan's eyes, again appeared upon his face.

'My bearers will carry him down, sister,' he replied. 'Since I have come so far in my arm-chair he can surely come here in his.' And he added tenderly: 'It is so pleasant here, we can have a last chat together, and bid one another goodbye. How can we part for ever without embracing?'

It was impossible for Sœurette to refuse his request any longer, so she went into the pavilion for Luc. Jordan waited quietly amidst the caress of the declining sun; and his sister soon returned, announcing that his friend was coming. Deep was the emotion when Luc appeared, likewise carried by the men in his arm-chair. He was brought towards the greenery, followed by Josine and Suzanne, who did not leave him. At last the bearers deposited him near Jordan, the chairs touching one another, and the two friends were then able to press each other's hands.

'Ah! my good Jordan, how much I thank you,' said Luc; 'how kind of you to have thought of bringing us together in order that we might see one another again and bid one another a last good-bye!'

'You would have done the same, my dear Luc,' Jordan answered. 'As I was passing and you were there it was natural that we should meet for the last time on this grass, under one of our dear trees, whose shade we have loved so well.'

The tree under which they sat was a big silvery lime-tree, a superb giant that had already shed its leaves. But the sunshine still gilded it delightfully, and the golden dust of the planet fell in a warm rain athwart its branches. The evening too was exquisite, an evening of intense peacefulness, fraught with the sweetest charm. A broad sun ray enveloped the two old men as with a loving splendour, whilst the three women, standing in the rear, watched over them with solicitude.

'Just think of it, my friend!' Jordan resumed. 'For so many years past whilst we have been pursuing parallel tasks, our lives have been mingled. I should have gone off full of remorse if I had not again excused myself for having placed such little faith in your work when you first came to me and asked my help to build the future city of Justice. I was at that time convinced that you would encounter defeat.'

Luc began to laugh: 'Yes, yes, as you said, my friend, political, economical, and social struggles were not your business. No doubt there has been much futile agitation among men. But was one to abstain on that account from taking part in what went on, was one to allow evolution to take place as it listed, and refrain from hastening the hour of deliverance? All the compromises—often necessary ones—all the base devices to which the leaders of men have stooped, have had their excuse in the double march which they have at times helped mankind to effect.'

Jordan hastily interrupted him: 'You were right, my friend,' said he, 'and you have proved it magnificently. Your battle here has created, hastened the advent of a new world. Perhaps you have snatched a hundred years from human wretchedness. At all events this new town of Beauclair, where more justice and happiness now flower, proclaims the excellence of your mission, the beneficent glory of your achievement. I am with you entirely, you see, in mind and in heart, and I do not wish to quit you without telling you once more how thoroughly you won me over to your work, and with what growing affection I watched you whilst you were realising so many great things. You were often an example for me.'

But Luc protested: 'Oh! do not let us speak of any example of mine, my friend. It was you who ever gave me one, the loftiest, the most magnificent! Remember my lassitude, my occasional attacks of weakness, whereas I always found you erect, endowed with more courage, more and more faith in your work, even on the days when everything seemed to be crumbling around you. That which made you invincible was that you believed solely in work, in which, alone, you set health and the one reason for living and doing. And your own work became your very heart and brain, the blood pulsing in your veins, the thought ever on the alert in the depths of your mind. Your work alone existed for you, building itself up with all the life that you bestowed on it, hour by hour. And what an imperishable monument, what a gift of splendour and happiness you will leave to mankind! I might never have been able to carry out my own work, as a builder of towns, and leader of men, and at all events it would as yet be as nothing, had it not been for yours.'

Silence fell, and some birds flew by, whilst through the bare branches of the lime-tree the autumn sunshine streamed more gently as evening advanced. Sœurette, in her motherly fashion, became anxious, and drew Jordan's rug over his knees, whilst Josine and Suzanne bent over Luc, fearing lest he should tire himself.

But the latter replied to Jordan: 'Science remains the great revolutionary. You told me so at the outset, and every forward step in our long lives has shown me how right you were. Would our town of Beauclair, now all comfort and solidarity, have been possible as yet if you had not placed at its disposal that electrical power which has become the necessary agent of all work, all social life? Science, truth, will alone emancipate man, make him master of his destiny, and give him sovereignty over the world by reducing the natural forces to the status of obedient servants. Whilst I was building, my friend, you gave me what was needed to infuse life into my stones and mortar.'

'It is true, no doubt, that science will free man,' Jordan quietly replied in his weak little voice, 'for at bottom truth is the one powerful artisan of fraternity and justice. And I'm going off, feeling well pleased with myself, for I've just paid my last visit to our factory, and it is working now as I desired it to work, for the relief and felicity of all.'

He went on giving explanations and instructions respecting the working of the new appliances, the employment of those reservoirs of force, as if indeed he were dictating his last will and testament to his friend. Electricity already cost nothing, and was so abundant that it might be given to the inhabitants of Beauclair in whatever measure they desired, like the streams whose flood was inexhaustible; like the air which came freely from the four corners of the heavens. And given in this wise electricity was life.

In every public edifice and private house, even the most modest, light, heat, and motive power were distributed without counting. It was only necessary to turn on a few switches and the house was illumined and warmed, food was cooked, and various trade and household appliances were set working. All sorts of ingenious little mechanisms were being invented for household requirements, relieving women of the work which they had formerly done, substituting mechanical action for manual toil. In a word, from the housewife to the factory-worker, the ancient human beast of burden had been altogether relieved of physical exertion and useless suffering; a subjugated and domesticated natural force now replacing the old-time toilers and performing all the work allotted to it, in silence and cleanliness, with merely an attendant to check its action. And this also meant relief and freedom for the mind, a moral and intellectual rise for every brain, hitherto weighed down by excessive work, badly apportioned and fraught with savage iniquity for the greater number of the disinherited, whom it had plunged in ignorance, baseness and crime. And it was not slothful idleness that now reigned in the place of excessive toil, but work into which more freedom and conscience entered; man really becoming the king of work, devoting himself to the occupations he preferred, and creating more truth and beauty according to his tastes, after the few hours of general work which he gave to the community. And meantime also the unhappy domestic animals, the sad-looking horses, all the beasts used for draught, burden, and servitude were freed from the carts they had been compelled to drag, the millstones they had turned, the loads they had carried, and were restored to happy life in the fields and the woods.

But the purposes for which the electric force could be used were innumerable, and each day brought with it some fresh benefit. Jordan had invented some lamps of such great power that two or three sufficed to illumine an avenue. Thus the dream of lighting another sun above Beauclair at night-time would assuredly be fulfilled. Some huge and splendid glass houses had also been erected, in which by means of an improved system of heating, flowers, vegetables, and fruits could be easily grown at all seasons. The town was full of them, they were distributed broadcast, and winter, like night, ceased to exist. Moreover, transport and locomotion were facilitated more and more, thanks to the free motive power which was applied to an infinity of vehicles, bicycles, carriages, carts, and trains of several coaches.

'Yes, I am going off feeling well pleased,' Jordan repeated with serene gaiety. 'I've done my own work, and the general task is sufficiently well advanced to allow me to fall asleep in all peacefulness. To-morrow the secret of aerial navigation will be discovered, and man will conquer the atmosphere even as he conquered the oceans. To-morrow he will be able to correspond from one to the other end of the earth without wire or cable. Human speech, human gesture will dart round the world with the rapidity of lightning. And that indeed, my friend, is the deliverance of the nations by science, the great invincible revolutionary, who will ever bring them increase of peace and truth. You yourself long ago obliterated the frontiers, so to say, by your rails, your railway lines which have extended further and further, crossing rivers, transpiercing mountains, gathering the nations together in a closer and closer network of intercourse. And what will it be when one capital can chat in friendly fashion with another, however far away, when the same thought at the same minute occupies the attention of distant continents, and when the balloon cars travel freely through the infinite, man's common patrimony, without knowing aught of customs' tariffs? The air which we all breathe, that space which is the property of all, will prove a field of harmony, in which the men of to-morrow will assuredly become reconciled. And this is why you have always seen me so composed, my friend, so convinced of final deliverance. Men might do all they could to devour one another, religions might pile error upon error in order to retain their domination, but science was taking a step forward every day, creating more light, more brotherliness, more happiness. And by the irresistible force of truth it will at last sweep away all the dark and hateful past, liberate the minds of men, and draw their hearts closer and closer together under the great and beneficent sun, the father of us all.'

Jordan was growing tired, and his voice became very faint. Nevertheless he laughed again as he concluded: 'You see, my friend, I was as much of a revolutionist as you.'

'I know it,' Luc replied with affectionate gentleness. 'You have been my master in all things. I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently for the admirable lesson of energy you gave me by your superb faith in work.'

The sun was now fast declining, and a light quiver had passed between the branches of the great lime-tree, whence fell the planet's golden dust, now of a paler hue. Night approached, and a delightful stillness spread slowly over the tall herbage. The three women, still standing there, silent and attentive, full of respect for that supreme interview, nevertheless became anxious, and gently intervened. However, as Josine and Sœurette covered Luc, in his turn, with a rug, he said to them: 'I don't feel cold, the evening is so beautiful.'

But Sœurette turned to glance at the sun, which was about to disappear from the horizon, and Jordan following her glance, exclaimed: 'Yes, night is falling. But the sun may go to bed now—it has left some of its beneficence and power in our granaries. If it now sets the meaning is that my day is over. I am going to sleep. Good-bye, my friend.'

'Good-bye, my friend,' Luc rejoined; 'I shall soon go to sleep also.'

This was their farewell, full of poignant affection, simple yet wondrous grandeur. They knew that they would never more see one another, and they exchanged a last glance and spoke a few last words.

'Good-bye, my friend,' Jordan repeated. 'Do not be sad, death is good and necessary. One lives again in others, one remains immortal. We have already given ourselves to others, we have worked for them only, and we shall be born again in them, and thus enjoy our share of our work. Goodbye, my friend.'

Then Luc once again repeated: 'Good-bye, my friend, all that will remain of us will tell how much we loved and hoped. Each is born for his task, that is the sole reason of life; nature brings a fresh being into the world each time that she needs another workman. And when his day's work is over, the workman can lie down, the earth will take him again for other uses. Good-bye, my friend.'

He leant forward, for he wished to embrace Jordan; but he was unable to do so until the three affectionate women came to the help of both of them, sustaining them whilst they exchanged that last embrace. They laughed at it like children, they were full of gaiety and serenity at that moment of separation, feeling neither regret nor remorse, since they had done all their duty, all their work as men. And they had no fears, no terror of the morrow of death, certain as they were of the deep quietude in which good workmen slumber. They exchanged a long and very tender embrace, putting all the strength that remained to them into that last kiss.

'Good-bye, my dear Jordan.'

'Good-bye, my dear Luc.'

Then they spoke no more. The silence became intense and holy. The sun disappeared from the great heavens, vanishing behind the vague and distant horizon. A bird perched on the lime-tree ceased singing, and delicate shadows stole over the branches, whilst the lofty herbage, and all the park with its clumps of trees, its paths and its lawns, sank into the delightful quietude of twilight.

Then, at a sign from Sœurette, the bearers took up Jordan's chair, and slowly, gently carried him away. Luc had asked that he might be allowed to remain under the tree a little longer, and as he still sat there he watched his friend going off along a broad, straight pathway. At one moment Jordan looked round, and a last glance and a half-stifled laugh were exchanged. Then all was over, Luc saw the arm-chair disappear, whilst the park was invaded by the gathering gloom. And Jordan, on returning to his laboratory, went to bed there; and even as he had said to Luc—his work being done, his day being ended—he let death take him, dying on the morrow very peacefully, with a smile upon his lips, in Sœurette's loving arms.

Luc was destined to live five years longer in that arm-chair of his which he seldom quitted, and which was placed near a window of his room whence he could see his city spreading and growing day by day. A week after Jordan's death Sœurette came to join Josine and Suzanne, and from that day forward all three women encompassed Luc with their loving attentions. During the long hours which he spent gazing upon his happy city he often lived through the past again. He once more saw his point of departure, the distant night of insomnia when he had taken up a little book in which the doctrines of Fourier were set forth. And Fourier's ideas of genius: the honouring, the utilisation, the acceptance of the human passions as the very forces of life; the extrication of work from its prison, its ennoblement, its transformation into something attractive, into a new social code, liberty and justice being gradually won by pacific means, thanks to a confederation of capital, work, and brain power—all those ideas of genius had suddenly illumined Luc's mind and prompted him to action on the very morrow. It was to Fourier that he was indebted if he had dared to make that experiment at La Crêcherie. The first common-house with its school, the first bright clean workshops, the first dwelling-houses with their white walls smiling amidst the greenery, had all sprung from Fourierist ideas, ideas which had been left slumbering like good grain in winter fields, ever ready to germinate and flower. Even like Catholicism, the Religion of Humanity might need centuries to be firmly established. But what an evolution afterwards, what a continuous broadening of principles as love grew and the city spread! By proposing combination between capital, work, and brain power as an immediate experiment, Fourier, the evolutionist, a man of method and practicability, virtually led one first to the social organisation of the Collectivists, and afterwards even to the Libertarian dream of the Anarchists. In that association capital gradually became annihilated, and work and intelligence became the only regulators and basis of the new social compact. At the end lay the disappearance of ordinary trade, and the suppression of money, the first a cumbersome cogwheel levying toll and consuming energy, the second a fictitious value, which became useless in a community in which all contributed to produce prodigious wealth, that circulated in continual exchanges. And thus, starting with Fourier's experiment, the new city was fated to transform itself at each fresh advance, marching on to more and more liberty and equity, and conquering on its way all the socialists of the various hostile sects, the Collectivists and even the Anarchists, and finally grouping them in a brotherly people, reconciled amidst the fulfilment of their common ideal, the kingdom of heaven set at last upon the earth.

And that was the admirable spectacle which Luc ever had before his eyes, a spectacle summed up in that city of happiness whose bright roofs spread out among the trees before his window. The march which the first generation, imbued with all the ancient errors, spoilt by iniquitous surroundings, had begun so painfully, amidst so many obstacles and so much hatred, was pursued with a joyous easy step by the ensuing generations which the new schools and workshops had created. They were attaining to heights which had once been declared inaccessible. Thanks to continuous change, the children and the children's children seemed to have hearts and brains different from those of their forerunners, and brotherliness became easy to them in a community in which the happiness of each was virtually compounded of the happiness of all.

With trade, theft had disappeared. With money, all criminal cupidity had vanished. Inheritance no longer existed, and so no more privileged idlers were born, and men no longer butchered each other to benefit by somebody's will. What was the use of hating one another, of being envious of one another, of seeking to acquire somebody's property by ruse or force, when the public fortune belonged to one and all, each being born, living and dying, in as good circumstances as his neighbour? Crime became senseless, idiotic, and the whole savage apparatus of repression and chastisement, instituted to protect the thefts of a few rich beings from the rebellion of the wretched multitude, had fallen to pieces like something useless, gendarmes and law courts and prisons alike being swept away. Living among that people who knew not the horrors of war, who obeyed the one law of work, with a solidarity simply based upon reason and individual interest, properly understood, a people, too, saved from the monstrous falsehoods of religion, well informed, knowing the truth and bent on justice, one realised how possible became the alleged 'utopia' of universal happiness. Since the passions, instead of being combated and stifled, had been cultivated like the very forces of life, they had lost all criminal bitterness, and had become social virtues, a continuous flowering of individual energies. Legitimate happiness lay in the development and education of the five senses and the sense of love. The long efforts of mankind ended in the free expansion of the individual, and in a social system satisfying every need, man being man in his entirety, and living life in its entirety also. And the happy city had thus secured realisation in the practice of the religion of life, the religion of humanity freed from dogmas, finding in itself its raison d'être, its end, its joy, and its glory.

But Luc particularly beheld the triumph of Work, the saviour, creator, regulator of the world. He had at the very outset desired to destroy the iniquitous wage-system, and had dreamt of a new compact which would allow of a just apportionment of wealth. But what a deal of ground it had been necessary to traverse! In this respect again the evolution had started from Fourier, for to him could be traced the association of workers, the varied, attractive, limited labour of the workshops, the groups of workers forming successive series, parting to meet again and mingling with all the constant play of free organs—the play of life itself. The germs of the Libertarian Commune may be found in Fourier, for if he repudiated brutal revolution, and began by making use of the existing mechanism of society, his doctrines tended in their result to that society's destruction. No doubt the wage-system had long lingered at the works of La Crêcherie, passing through various stages of association, division of profits, a percentage of interest in the common toil. At last it had been transformed in such a manner as to satisfy the Collectivists, realising their formula, a regulated circulation of 'vouchers for work.' Nevertheless it still remained the wage-system, attenuated, disguised, but refusing to die. And the doctrine of the Libertarian Commune alone had swept it away in the course of a last advance, that of deliverance by liberty and justice in their entirety, that chimera of other days, that unity and harmony which now really lived. At present no authority remained, the new social compact was based solely on the bond of necessary work, accepted by all, and constituting both law and cult. An infinity of groups practised it, starting with the old groups of the building, clothing, and metal trades, the industrial workers and the tillers of the soil, but multiplying and varying incessantly, in such wise as to be adapted to all individual desires as well as to all the needs of the community. Nothing hindered individual expansion, each citizen formed part of as many groups as he desired, passed from the cultivation of the soil to factory work, gave his time as best suited his faculties and his desires. And there was no longer any contention between classes, since only one class existed, a whole nation of workers, equally rich, equally happy, educated to the same level, with no difference either in attire, or in dwelling-place, or in manners and customs. Work was king, the only guide, only master, and only deity, instinct with sovereign nobility, since it had redeemed mankind when it was dying of falsehood and injustice, and had restored it to vigour and to the joy of life, and to love, and to beauty.

Luc laughed gaily when the morning breeze wafted towards him all the sonorous gaiety of his city. How good, easy, and delightful was the work performed there! It lasted only a few hours each day, and so much of it, the most delicate as well as the mightiest task, was performed by the new machinery which completed man's conquest of nature and loaded him with wealth and abundance. Freed from long hours of rough toil, man was the better able to exert his mind; art and science soared; the level of current mentality was ever rising; great intelligence ceased to be an exception, and men of genius sprang up in crowds.

The science of alimentation had already been revolutionised by chemistry, the earth might have yielded no more wheat, no more olives, no more grapes, and yet enough bread, oil, and wine for the whole city would have come from its laboratories. In physics, in electricity especially, fresh inventions were ever and ever enlarging the domain of the possible, and endowing men with the power of gods, knowing all, seeing all, and capable of all. Then came the flight of art, the growth and diffusion of beauty in every respect, an extraordinary florescence of all the arts, now that the soul of the multitude throbbed in every soul, and that life was lived with all its passions freed, love given and received in its entirety. Inspired by the universal loving kindness, music became the very voice of the happy people, through and for whom musicians found the most sublime chants, in whose continual harmony theatres, workshops, dwellings, and streets were ever steeped. And for the people architects built vast and superb palaces, made in its own image, of a size and a majesty at once varied and yet all one, like the multitude itself, all the charming variations of thousands of individualities finding expression in them. Then sculptors peopled the gardens and museums with living bronze and marble; and painters decorated the public edifices, the railway stations, the markets, the libraries, the theatres, and the halls for study and diversion with scenes borrowed from daily life. Writers moreover gave to that innumerable people, who all read them, vast, strong, and powerful works, born of them, created for them. Genius expanded, acquiring fresh strength from increase of knowledge and freedom among the community; never before had it displayed such splendour. The narrow, cramped, aristocratic, hot-house literature of the past had been swept away by the literature of humanity, poems overflowing with life, which all had helped to create with their blood, and which returned to the hearts of all.

Full of serenity, without fear for the future, Luc watched his town growing like a beautiful being, endowed with eternal youth. It had descended from the Brias gorges, between the two promontories of the Bleuse Mountains, and was now spread over the meadow-land of La Roumagne. In fine weather its white house-fronts smiled amidst the verdure without a single puff of smoke besmirching the pure atmosphere, for there were no chimneys left, electricity having everywhere replaced coal and wood for heating purposes. The light silk canopy of the broad blue sky spread over all, immaculate, without a speck of soot. Thus in aspect the town remained a new one, bright and gay under the refreshing breezes, whilst on all sides one heard the carolling of water, the crystalline streaming of springs, whose purity brought health and perpetual delight. The population steadily increased, fresh houses were built, fresh gardens were planted. A happy people, free and brotherly, becomes a centre of attraction, and thus the little towns of the neighbourhood, Saint-Cron, Formerie, and Magnolles, had found it necessary to follow the example of Beauclair, and had ended by becoming so many prolongations of the original city. It had been sufficient to make an experiment on a small scale, and by degrees the arrondissement, the department, the whole region was won over. Irresistible happiness was on the march, and nothing will be able to withstand the force of happiness when men possess a clear and decisive perception of it. Mankind has known but one struggle through the ages, the struggle for happiness, which is to be found beneath every form of religion, every form of government. Egotism is merely an individual effort to acquire the greatest possible sum of happiness for self; and why should not each set his egotism in treating his fellows as brothers when he becomes convinced that the happiness of each rests in the happiness of all? If there was contention between different interests in the past, it was because the old social pact opposed them one to the other, making warfare the very soul of society. But let it be demonstrated that work reorganised will apportion wealth justly, and that the passions, playing freely, will lead to harmony and unity, and then peace will at once ensue, and happiness will be established in a brotherly contract of solidarity. Why should one fight one against the other, when interests cease to clash? If all the desperate, pain-fraught exertions of generations, the prodigious sum of efforts, blood, and tears that mankind has given to mutual slaughter throughout so many centuries, had only been devoted to the conquest of the world, the subjugation of the natural forces, man would long since have been the absolute, happy sovereign of creatures and things. When humanity at last became conscious of its imbecile dementia, when man ceased to be wolfishly inclined towards his brother, and resolved to devote some of the genius and wealth hitherto squandered in mutual annihilation, to the common work of happiness, the mastery of the elements, on that day the nations first started on their march towards the happy city. And no! it is not true that a nation having its every need satisfied, having to battle no longer for existence, would thereby gradually lose the strength it requires to live, and sink into torpor and catalepsy. The human dream will always be without a limit, there will always remain much of the Unknown to be conquered. Each time a new craving is contented, desire will give birth to another, the satisfaction of which will exalt men and make them heroes of science and beauty. Desire is infinite, and if men long battled together in order to steal happiness one from the other, they will battle side by side to increase it, to make it an immense banquet, resplendent with joy and glory, vast enough to satiate the passions of thousands of millions of human creatures. And there will be only heroes left, and each fresh child born into the world will receive as his birthgift the whole earth, the unbounded expanse of heaven, and the paternal sun, the source of immortal life.

As Luc gaily contemplated his triumphant town he often repeated that love alone had created all the prodigies he beheld. He had sown the seed, and now he reaped inexhaustible harvests of kindliness and brotherliness. At the very outset he had felt that it was necessary to found his city by and for woman if it was to prove fruitful and for ever desirable and beautiful. Woman saved—Josine set in her due place of beauty, dignity, and tenderness—was not that the symbol of the future alliance, the union of the sexes, ensuring social peace, and free and just life in common? Then, too, the new system of education, the sexes being reared together and acquiring the same knowledge, had brought them to a complete understanding, and made them sincerely desirous of attaining to the one object of life, that object which was reached by loving a great deal in order that one might be loved a great deal in return. True wisdom lay in creating happiness, it was thus that one logically became happy oneself. And now love chose freely; no law, mutual consent alone, regulated marriage. A young man, a young girl had known one another since their schooldays, had passed through the same workshops together, and when they bestowed themselves one on the other, that bestowal was simply like the florescence of their long intimacy. They gave themselves to one another for life, long and faithful unions predominating; they grew old together, even as they had grown up together, in a bestowal of their whole beings, their rights being equal, their love equal also. Yet their liberty remained entire, separation was always possible for those who ceased to agree, and their offspring remained with one or the other, as they decided, or when difficulties supervened in the charge of the community. The bitter duel of man and woman, all the questions which had so long set the sexes one against the other, like savage, irreconcilable enemies, came to an end in that solution: woman free in all respects, woman the free companion of man, resuming her position as an equal, as an indispensable factor in the union of love. She had a right to abstain from marrying, to live as a man, to play a man's part as far as she desired, if she chose; but why should she deny desire, and set herself apart from life? Only one thing is sensible and beautiful, and that is life in its entirety. And so the natural order of things had come about, peace was signed between the reconciled sexes, each finding happiness in the happiness of a common home tasting at last all the delights of the bond of love, which was freed from the baseness of pecuniary and social considerations. One could no longer sell himself for the other's dowry, families could no longer barter their sons and daughters like mere merchandise.

Thus the fulness of love reigned in the community. The sense of love, developed and purified, became the perfume, the flame, the focus of existence. It was widespread, general, universal love, springing from the mated couple, and passing to the mother, the father, the children, the relations, the neighbours, the citizens, the men and women of the whole world in ever-broadening waves, a sea of love which ended by bathing the entire earth. Loving kindness was like the pure air on which every breast fed; there remained but one breath of brotherly affection, and that alone had at last brought about the long-dreamt-of unity, the divine harmony. Humanity—equilibrated like the planets, by force of attraction, by the law of justice, solidarity and love—would henceforth journey happily through the eternal infinite. And such was the ever-recurring harvest, the immense harvest of tenderness and kindliness, which Luc each morning saw arising from all sides; from all the furrows which he had sown so abundantly; from his entire city, where for so many years he had cast the good seed by the handful into the schools, into the workshops, into every home, and even into every heart.

'Look! look!' he said with a laugh some morning when Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne remained near his arm-chair before the open window. 'Look, there are trees which have flowered since last night, and it seems as if kisses were winging their flight, like song-birds, from some of the roofs. There, yonder, both on the right and on the left, love flaps his wings, as it were, in the rising sunlight.'

The three women joined in his laughter, and jested in a tender way to please him. 'Certainly,' Josine would say, 'on that side, above that house with the blue tiles spangled with white stars, there is a great quiver of the sunlight, telling of internal rapture. That must be the house of some newly-wedded pair.'

'And straight before us,' said Sœurette, 'see how the window-panes are flashing with the splendour of a rising planet, in that house-front where the faïence ornaments are decorated with roses! Assuredly a child has been born there.'

'And on all sides, over all the dwellings, over the whole town the rays are pouring,' said Suzanne in her turn. 'They form sheaves of wheat, a field of prodigious fertility. Is it not the peace springing from the love of all that grows and is harvested there each day?'

Luc listened to them with rapture. What a delightful reward was that which he himself had won from love, which had surrounded him with the sublime affection of those three women, whose presence filled his last days with perfume and brilliancy! They were full of solicitude, infinitely good, infinitely loving, with serene eyes which ever brought him joy in life, and gentle hands which sustained him to the very threshold of the grave. And they were very old and quite white, light and aerial like souls, like gay, active, pure flames, glowing with youthful, eternal passion. He lived on; and they lived on also, and were like his force, his activity and intelligence, healthy and strong as they were in spite of everything, coming and going for him when he himself could no longer move, like guardians, housewives, and companions, who prolonged and broadened his life far beyond the usual limits.

At seventy-eight years of age Josine remained the amorosa, the Eve, who had long ago been saved from error and suffering. Extremely slim, suggesting a dry, pallid flower that had retained its perfume, she had preserved her supple gracefulness, her delicate charm. In the bright sunlight her white hair seemed to recover some of its golden hue, the sovereign gold of youth. And Luc adored her still, as on the distant day when he had succoured her, setting in his love for her his love for the whole suffering people, for all tortured women; choosing her, indeed, as the most wretched, the most dolorous, in order that with her—should he save her—he might likewise save all the disinherited of the world whom shame and hunger were clutching at the throat. Even nowadays it was religiously that he kissed her mutilated hand, the wound dealt by iniquitous labour, in the prison of the wage-system, from which his compassion and love for her had helped him to extricate the workers. He had not remained unfruitful in his mission of redemption and deliverance; he had felt the need of woman, the necessity of being strong and complete in order to redeem his brothers. It was the mated couple, the fruitful spouse, that had given birth to the new people. When she had borne him children his work itself had begun to create, had become lasting. And on her side she likewise adored him, with the adoration of their first meeting, a flame of tender gratitude, a gift of her whole person, a passion and a desire for the infinite of love, whose inextinguishable flame age had not weakened.

Sœurette, born the same year as Luc, her eighty-fifth birthday being near at hand, was the most active of the three women, on her feet, busy the whole day long. It had long seemed as if she had ceased to grow older. Small of frame, shrunken even, she had nevertheless been beautified by gentle age. So dark, so thin, so graceless in former times, she had become a delightful little old woman, a little white mouse, whose eyes were full of light. Long ago, in the distressing crisis of her love for Luc, amidst her grief at loving and remaining unloved, her good brother Jordan had told her that she would become resigned, and would sacrifice her passion to the love of others. And each day she had indeed become more and more resigned, her renunciation proving at last a source of pure joy, a force of divine delight. She still loved Luc, she loved him in each of his children and grandchildren, with whom she had long assisted Josine. And she loved him with a deeper and deeper love, freed from all egotism, a chaste flame, that glowed with sisterly affection and motherliness. The delicate attentions, the discreet comforts which she had lavished on her brother, were now bestowed on her friend. She was always on the watch, in order to make his every hour delight. And all her happiness lay in that: to feel how greatly he himself was attached to her, to end almost a century of life in that passionate friendship, which was as sweet as love itself.

Suzanne, now eight-and-eighty years of age, was the eldest, the most serious, the most venerable of the women. Slender of figure, she remained upright, showing a tender countenance, whose only charm, as in days before, rested in its expression of kindliness, indulgence, and sterling good sense. But nowadays she could scarcely walk, and her compassionate eyes alone expressed her craving to interest herself in others and expend her strength in good work. As a rule she remained seated near Luc, keeping him company, whilst Josine and Sœurette quietly and attentively trotted around them. She, on her side, had loved Luc so tenderly in her sad younger days, loved him with a consoling love, of which she had long remained ignorant. She had given herself without knowing it amidst her dream of a hero whom she would have liked to encourage, assist with her affection. And on the day when her heart had spoken, the hero was already in another's arms, and only room for a friend remained at his hearth. She had been that friend for numerous years now, and had found perfect peace in the communion of heart and mind in which she had lived with the man who had become her brother. Doubtless, too, as in the case of Sœurette, if that friendship proved so delightful, it was because it had sprung from a brasier of love, and retained its eternal fire.

Thus Luc, very aged, glorious, and handsome, lived his last days encompassed by the love of those three women, who also were very old, glorious, and beautiful. His eighty-five years had failed to bend his lofty figure, he remained healthy and strong, save for that stiffening of his legs which kept him at his window like a happy spectator of the city he had founded. His hair had not fallen from above his lofty, towering brow, it had simply whitened, surrounding his head with a great white mane, like that of some old, resting lion. And his last days were brightened and perfumed by the adoration with which Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne surrounded him. He had loved all three of them, and still loved them with that vast love of his, whence flowed so much desire, so much brotherliness and kindness. But signs appeared. As with Jordan, no doubt, the work being done, Luc was soon to die. Somnolence came over him, like a foretaste of the well-earned repose whose advent he awaited with joyous serenity. It was with good spirits that he saw death approaching, for he knew it to be necessary and gentle, and he had no need of any mendacious promise of a heaven in order to accept it with a brave heart. Heaven henceforth was set upon the earth, where the greatest possible sum of truth and justice realised the ideal, the entirety of human happiness. Each being remained immortal in the generations born of him, the torrent of love was increased by each fresh love that came into being, and rolled and rolled along, assuring eternity to all who had lived, loved, and created. And Luc knew that, although he might die, he would continually be born anew in the innumerable men whose lives he had desired to see improved, more fortunate. That was the only certainty of survival, and it brought him delightful peace. He had loved others so much, and had expended his strength so much for the relief of their wretchedness, that he found reward and beatitude in falling asleep in them, in profiting himself by his work in the bosom of generations which would ever become happier and happier.

Anxious though they felt at seeing him thus gently sinking, Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne did not wish to be sad. They opened the windows every morning in order that the sun might enter freely, they decorated and perfumed the room with flowers, huge nosegays possessing all the brightness and aroma of youth. And knowing how attached Luc was to children, they surrounded him with a joyous party of little lads and lassies, whose fair and dark heads were like other nosegays—the flowery to-morrow, the strength and beauty of the years to come. And when all those little folk were present, laughing and playing around his arm-chair, Luc smiled at them tenderly and watched their play with an air of amusement, enraptured at heart at departing amidst such pure delight, such living hope.

Now, on the day when death, very just and very good, was to come upon Luc with the twilight, the three women, who divined its approach by the expression in the clear eyes of the grand old man, sent for his great-grandchildren, the very little ones, those who would set the most childhood, the most future promise around him in his last moments. And these children brought others, playmates and so forth, some of them their elders, and all of them descendants of the workers by whose solidarity and exertion La Crêcherie had formerly been founded. It was a charming spectacle, that sunlit room full of children and roses, and the hero, the old lion with the white mane, still cheerfully and lovingly taking an interest in the little ones. He recognised them all, named them, and questioned them.

A tall lad of eighteen, François, the son of Hippolyte Mitaine and Laure Fauchard, strove to restrain his tears as he looked at him.

'Come and shake hands with me, my handsome François,' said Luc. 'You must not be sad, you see how cheerful we all are. And be a good man. You have grown taller lately, you will make a superb sweetheart for some charming girl.'

Then came the turn of two girls of fifteen, Amélie, the daughter of Alexandre Feuillat and Clémentine Bourron, and Simonne, the daughter of Adolphe Laboque and Germaine Yvonnot. 'Ah! you at least are gay, my pretty ones,' said Luc, 'and it is right that you should be so. Come and let me kiss you on your fresh cheeks, and be always gay and beautiful, for therein lies happiness.'

Then he only recognised his own descendants, whose number was destined to multiply without cessation. Two of his grandchildren were present, a granddaughter aged eighteen, Alice, who had sprung from Charles Froment and Claudine Bonnaire, and a grandson of sixteen, Richard, who had sprung from Jules Froment and Céline Lenfant. Only the unmarried grandchildren had been invited, for the room could not have held the married ones with their wives and families. And Luc laughed yet more tenderly as he called Alice and Richard to him. 'Sly fair Alice,' said he, 'you are of an age to marry now. Choose a lad who is joyous and healthy like yourself. Ah! is it done already? Then love one another well, and may your children be as healthy and joyous as you are.—And you Richard, my big fellow, you are about to begin your apprenticeship as a bootmaker, I hear, and you also have a perfect passion for music. Well, work and sing, and be a genius!'

But at this moment he was surrounded by a stream of little ones. Three boys and a girl, all of them his grandchildren, tried to climb upon his knees. He began by taking the eldest, a boy of seven, Georges, the son of a pair of cousins, Maurice Morfain and Berthe Jollivet, Maurice being the son of Raymond Morfain and Thérèse Froment, whilst Berthe was one of the daughters of André Jollivet and Pauline Froment.

'Ah! my dear little Georges, the dear little grandson of my two daughters—Thérèse the brunette, and Pauline the blonde. Your eyes used to be like my Pauline's, but now they are becoming like those of my Thérèse. And your fresh and laughing mouth, whose is that? Is it Thérèse's or Pauline's? Give me a good kiss, a good kiss, my dear little Georges, so that you may remember me for a long, long time.'

Then came the turn of Grégoire Bonnaire, who was barely five years old. He was the son of Félicien Bonnaire and Hélène Jollivet; Félicien having sprung from Séverin Bonnaire and Léonie Gourier, and Hélène being the daughter of André Jollivet and Pauline Froment.

'Another of my Pauline's little men!' said Luc. 'Eh, my little Grégoire, isn't grandmamma Pauline very kind, hasn't she always plenty of nice things in her hands? And you love me, too, your great-grandpapa, don't you, Grégoire? And you will always wish to be good and handsome when you remember me, eh? Kiss me, give me a good kiss.'

By way of conclusion he took up the two others, Clément and Luce, brother and sister, one on his right and the other on his left knee. Clément was five and Luce two years old. They were the children of Ludovic Boisgelin and Mariette Froment. But at the thought of Ludovic and Mariette a host of memories arose, for he was the son of Paul Boisgelin and Antoinette Bonnaire, and she, the daughter of Hilaire Froment and Colette, the eldest child of Nanet and Nise. The Delaveaus, the Boisgelins, the Bonnaires mingling with the Froments, were born anew in those pure brows, that light and curly hair.

'Come, little Clément, come little Luce, my pets,' said Luc. 'If you only knew all that I recognise, all that I read in the depths of your bright eyes. You are already very good and strong, little Clément, I know it well, for grandfather Hilaire has told me, and is well pleased to hear you always laughing! And you, little Luce, my little mite who can scarcely talk, one knows that you are a brave little girl, for you never cry, but gaily stretch your chubby little hands towards the good sun. You also must kiss me, my beautiful well-loved children, the best of myself, all my strength and all my hope!'

The others had drawn near, and he would have liked to have had arms long enough to embrace and press every one of them to his heart. It was to them that he confided the future, that he bequeathed his work as to new forces which would ever enlarge it. He had always relied on the children, the future generations, to complete the work of happiness. And those dear children who had sprung from him and by whom he was so lovingly surrounded in the serene peacefulness of his last hour, what a testament of justice, truth, and kindness he left them, and with what intense passion he appointed them the executors of his will, his dream of humanity freed more and more, and dwelling together in happiness!

'Go, go, my dear children! Be good, very good, and very just with one another! Remember that you all kissed me to-day; and always love me well, and love each other well also! You will know everything some day, you will do as we have done, and it will be for your children to do as you do. Let there be plenty of work, plenty of life, and plenty of love! Meantime, my dear children, go and play, and keep full of health and gaiety!'

Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne then wished to send the joyous band home, for fear of a noise, as they could see that Luc was growing weaker and weaker. But he would not consent to this—he desired that the children might remain near him, in order that he might gently depart amidst the joyous sounds of their laughter. It was then arranged that they should play in the garden under his window. He could thus hear and see them, and felt well pleased.

The sun—a great summer sun which made the whole town resplendent—was already sinking on the horizon. It gilded the room as with a glory, and Luc, seated in his arm-chair amidst that splendour, long remained silent, gazing the while far away. Josine and Sœurette, silent like himself, came and leant one on his right, the other on his left, whilst Suzanne, seated close by, appeared to be sharing his dream. At last, in a voice which seemed to become more and more distant, he slowly said: 'Yes, our town is yonder. Regenerated Beauclair scintillates in the pure atmosphere, and I know that the neighbouring towns—Brias, Magnolles, Formerie, and Saint-Cron—have followed us, won over by our example to the cause of all-powerful happiness. But what is becoming of the world beyond the horizon, on the other side of the Bleuse Mountains, and beyond the great dim plain of La Roumagne—what point have the provinces and nations reached in the long struggle, the difficult and bloody march towards the happy city?'

Again he became silent, full of thought. He was aware that the evolution was in progress everywhere, spreading each hour with increasing speed. From the towns the movement had gained the provinces, then the whole nation, and then the neighbouring nations; and there were no more frontiers, no more insurmountable mountains and oceans—deliverance flew from continent to continent, sweeping away governments and religions and uniting races. However, things did not on all sides take the same course. Whilst the evolution, in the form of a slow advance towards the conquest of every liberty, had progressed at Beauclair without too much battling, thanks to the experiment of association made there, on other sides it was revolution which had broken out, and blood had flowed amidst massacre and conflagration. No two neighbouring states indeed had taken the same road; it was after following the most varied and contrary paths that the nations were to meet at last in one and the same fraternal city, the metropolis of the human federation.

And Luc, as in a dream, repeated in his failing voice: 'Ah! I should like to know—yes, before quitting my work I should like to know how far the great task has now advanced. I should sleep better; I should carry yet more certainty and hope away with me.'

Silence fell again. Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne, very old, very beautiful, and very good, were, like himself, still dreaming, with their glances wandering afar.

It was at last Josine who began: 'I have heard of things—a traveller told them me,' she said. 'In one great Republic the Collectivists became the masters of power. For years they had waged the most desperate of political battles in order to gain possession of the legislature and the government. And as they were unable to do so in legal fashion, they had recourse to a coup d'état when they felt strong enough for one, and certain of substantial support among the nation. On the morrow, by laws and decrees, they put their entire programme into force. Expropriation en masse began, all private wealth became the wealth of the nation, all the instruments of work reverted to the workers. No landowners, nor capitalists, nor employers were left; the State reigned alone, master of everything, both landowner and capitalist and employer, regulator and distributor of social life. But, of course, that tremendous shock, those sudden radical changes, could not take place without terrible troubles arising. The classes would not allow themselves to be dispossessed even of property they had stolen, and there were frightful outbreaks on all sides. Landowners preferred to get killed on the threshold of their estates. Other people destroyed their property, flooded mines, broke up railroads, annihilated factories and goods, whilst capitalists burnt their scrip and flung their gold into the sea. Certain houses had to be besieged, whole towns had to be taken by assault. That frightful civil war lasted for years, and the pavements of the towns became red with blood, whilst the rivers still and ever carried corpses to the ocean. Then the sovereign State experienced all sorts of difficulties in getting the new order of things to work smoothly. An hour's work became the standard of value, exchanges being facilitated by a system of vouchers. At first a statistical commission was established to watch over production and distribute products in accordance with each person's amount of work. Then other controlling offices were found necessary, and little by little an intricate organisation grew up, impeding the working of the new social system. People fell into a kind of regimentation and barrack life; never had men been penned up in smaller compartments. And yet evolution was taking place, even this was a step towards justice; for work rose to honour once more, and wealth was each day divided with more equity. At the end, assuredly, there lay the disappearance of the wage-system and of capital—the suppression of trade and money. And I have been told that this Collectivist State, ravaged by so many catastrophes, deluged with so much blood, is to-day entering the sphere of peace, coming at last to the fraternal solidarity of the free, working nations.'

Josine ceased speaking, and again relapsed into a mute contemplation of the great horizon. But Luc gently replied: 'Yes, that was one of the bloody paths, one of those which I would not follow. But now, what matters it, since it has led them to the same unity, the same harmony as our own?'

Then Sœurette, still gazing far away, as if exploring the world behind the gigantic promontories of the Bleuse Mountains, in her turn took up the tale: 'I also heard a story—some eye-witnesses told me these frightful things. They happened in a vast neighbouring empire where the Anarchists by means of bombs and shrapnel succeeded in blowing up the old social framework. The people had suffered so dreadfully that they ended by leaguing themselves with the Anarchists in order to complete the liberating work of destruction, and sweep away the last crumbs of the rotten world. For a long time the cities flared like torches in the night, amidst the howling of the old butchers of the people, who in their turn were now being slaughtered, and who did not wish to die. And this was the prophesied deluge of blood, the fruitful necessity of which had long been foretold by the prophets of Anarchy. Afterwards the new times began. The cry was no longer: "To each according to his work," but: "To each according to his needs." Man had a right to life, lodging, clothing, and daily bread. So all the wealth was heaped together and divided, people only being rationed when there was a lack of abundance. But with all mankind at work, and nature exploited scientifically and methodically, there must come incalculable produce, an immense fortune, sufficient to satisfy the appetites of all. When the thieving and parasitic society of olden time had disappeared, together with money, the source of all crimes, and the savage laws of restriction and repression which had been the sources of every iniquity, peace would reign in the Libertarian community, in which the happiness of each would be derived from the happiness of all. And there was to be no more authority of any kind, no more laws, no more government. If the Anarchists had accepted iron and fire as their instruments, believing in the sanguinary necessity of extermination as a first step, it was because they were convinced that they could not utterly destroy monarchical and religious atavism, and for ever crush the last surviving germs of authority, unless the ancient sore should be thus brutally cauterised. In order that one might not be caught in the toils again it was necessary to sever every living link with a past of error and despotism. All politics were evil and poisonous, because they were fatally compounded of compromises and bargains, in which the disinherited were duped. And the lofty, pure dream of Anarchy had sought realisation when the old world had been ruined and swept away. That dream was the broadest and the most ideal conception of a just and peaceful human race, man free in a free state of society, and each man delivered from every hindrance and shackle, living in the full enjoyment of all his senses and faculties, fully exercising his right to live and to be happy through his share in the possession of all the wealth of the earth. But then, Anarchy had gradually become merged into the Communist evolution, for in reality it was only a form of political negation, and simply differed from other kinds of socialism by its determination to throw everything down before building up afresh. It accepted association, the constitution of free groups living by exchanges, constantly circulating, expending their strength and reconstituting themselves, like the very blood of the human body; and thus the great empire where it triumphed amidst massacre and conflagration, has now joined the other freed nations in the universal federation.'

Sœurette ceased speaking and remained motionless and dreamy, with her elbow resting on the back of Luc's arm-chair. He, whose voice was thickening, slowly said: 'Yes, the Anarchists, after the Collectivists, were bound to follow the disciples of Fourier on the last day on reaching the threshold of the promised land. If the roads were different, the goal remained identical.' And after thinking a while he resumed: 'Yet, how many tears, how much blood, how many abominable wars there have been in order to win that fraternal peace which all equally desired! How many centuries of fratricidal slaughter have followed one after the other when the question was simply whether one ought to turn to right or left in order to reach happiness more quickly!'

Then Suzanne, who hitherto had remained silent, and whose eyes also had been wandering beyond the horizon, at last spoke in a voice which quivered with compassion: 'Ah! the last war, the last battle! It was so frightful that when it was over men for ever destroyed their swords and their guns. It took place during the earlier stage of the great social crises which have renewed the world, and I was told of it by men who had well nigh lost their senses amidst that supreme shock of the nations. In that crisis which distracted them, whilst they were pregnant with the future, one-half of Europe rushed upon the other half, and other continents followed them, and fleets of ships battled on all the oceans for dominion over water and earth. Not a single nation was able to remain apart, in a state of neutrality, they all dragged one another forward; and two immense armies entered into line, glowing with hereditary fury, and resolved upon exterminating one another, as if out of every two men there was one too many in the empty, barren fields. And the two huge armies of hostile brothers met in the centre of Europe, on some vast plains where millions of beings had space to murder one another. Over leagues and leagues did the troops deploy, followed by reinforcements; such a torrent of men, indeed, that the battle lasted for a month. Each day that dawned there still remained human flesh for bullets and shells. The combatants did not even take time to remove their dead; the piles of corpses formed walls, behind which new regiments ever advanced in order to get killed. And night did not stay the battle, men murdered one another in the darkness. Each time that the sun arose it illumined yet larger pools of blood, a field of carnage where death in his horrible harvesting piled the corpses of the soldiers in loftier and loftier ricks. And on all sides there was lightning, entire army corps disappeared amidst a clap of thunder. It was not necessary that the combatants should draw near or even see each other, their guns carried long miles, and threw shells which in exploding swept acres of ground bare, and asphyxiated and poisoned all around. Balloons also threw bombs from the very heavens, setting towns ablaze as they passed. Science had invented explosives and murderous engines which carried death over prodigious distances, and annihilated a whole community as suddenly as an earthquake might have done. And what a monstrous massacre showed forth on the last evening of that gigantic battle! Never before had such a huge human sacrifice smoked beneath the heavens! More than a million men lay there in the great ravaged fields, alongside the watercourses, across the meadows. One could walk for hours and hours, and one ever met a yet larger harvest of slaughtered soldiers, who lay there with their eyes wide open, and their black mouths agape, as if to cry aloud that mankind was mad! And that was the last battle, to such a degree did horror freeze every heart when men awakened from that frightful intoxication, born of greed for dominion, lust for power; whilst the conviction came to all that war was no longer possible, since science in its almightiness was destined to be the sovereign creator of life, and not the artisan of destruction.'

Then Suzanne in her turn relapsed into silence, quivering the while, but with bright eyes, radiant indeed with the peace of the future. And Luc, whose voice was becoming a mere breath, concluded: 'Yes, war is dead, the supreme étape has been reached, the brotherly kiss comes after the long, rough, dolorous journey. And my day is over, I can now go to sleep.'

He spoke no more. That last minute was august and sweet. Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne did not stir, but waited, exempt from sadness, full indeed of tender fervour in that calm room, gay with flowers and sunshine. Under the window the joyous children were still playing—one could hear the shrill cries of the very little ones, and the laughter of their elders, all the mirth of the future on the march to broader and broader joys. And then there was the friendly sun resplendent on the horizon, the sun, the fertiliser, the father, whose creative force had been captured and domesticated. And under the flaring of its rays of glory appeared the glittering roofs of triumphant Beauclair, the busy hive where by a just apportionment of this world's riches regenerated work now only created happy folk. And yet again beyond La Roumagne, and on the other side of the Bleuse Mountains, there was the coming federation of the peoples, the one sole brotherly nation, mankind at last fulfilling its destiny of truth and justice and peace.

Then, for the last time, Luc gazed around him, his glance embracing the town, the horizon, the whole earth, where the evolution which he had started was progressing, and drawing nigh to completion. The work was done, the city was founded. And Luc expired, entered into the torrent of universal love and of everlasting life.

THE END.