Work [Travail]

by Émile Zola

The young workman, Hippolyte Mitaine, who was now nearly three-and-twenty, had drawn near. He was the son of Évariste Mitaine and Olympe Lenfant, and was reported to be betrothed to Laure Fauchard.

'Monsieur Luc,' said he, 'if you would like to see some billets cast we are ready.'

The machinery on being started quietly and easily removed the incandescent crucibles, and then emptied them into the moulds, which another mechanism brought forward in turn. In five minutes, whilst the young man and the girl looked on, the work was properly performed and the furnace was ready to receive yet another charge.

'There!' exclaimed Laure, laughing. 'When I think of all the terrible stories which my poor grandfather Fauchard used to tell me when I was a child I can hardly believe them. He hadn't got much of his wits left, and he related things about his old calling as a drawer that were fit to make one shudder. It was as if he had spent his life in the midst of a fire, with the flames licking his limbs. All the old folk think us very happy nowadays.'

Luc had become grave, and emotion moistened his eyes. 'Yes, yes,' said he, 'the grandfathers suffered a great deal. And that is why the grandchildren enjoy a better life. Work well, and love one another well, the lives of your sons and daughters will be better still.'

Then Luc resumed his round, and wherever he repaired throughout those spacious works he found the same healthy cleanliness, the same tuneful gaiety, the same easy and attractive work, thanks to the variety of the duties entrusted to the staff and the sovereign help of the machinery. The worker was no longer an overpowered beast of burden, held in contempt; with freedom he had recovered conscience and intelligence.

As Luc concluded his inspection in the hall where the rolling-machinery had its place, near the puddling furnaces, he again paused to say a few friendly words to a young man, about twenty-six years of age, who was just arriving.

'Yes, Monsieur Luc,' was the reply, 'I've come from Les Combettes, where I've been helping my father. There was some sowing to finish, so I did two hours at it over yonder. And now I mean to do another two hours here, for there is an urgent order for some rails.'

The young man was named Alexandre, and was a son of Léon Feuillat and Eugénie Yvonnot. Gifted with a lively fancy, he amused himself after completing his regular four-hours' work by preparing ornamental designs for Lange the potter.

However, he had already set himself to his task, which was the superintendence of a train of rollers for the making of rails. Luc, who felt very happy, looked on in a kindly way. Since electrical force had been employed the terrible uproar of the machinery had ceased; one only heard the silvery ring of each rail as it spurted forth, following those which were cooling. 'Twas all the good and constant production of an epoch of peace, rails and yet more rails, in order that every frontier might be crossed, and that the nations, drawn closer and closer together, might become but one sole nation, spread over the surface of the earth, which was becoming a perfect network of roads. And in addition to the rails there were the great steel ships—not the hateful vessels of war, carrying devastation and death across the ocean, but vessels of solidarity and brotherliness, enabling continents to exchange their products, and helping on the increase of mankind's fortune to such a degree that prodigious abundance reigned everywhere. And there were also the bridges facilitating communication, and the girders and all the structural materials for the erection of the innumerable edifices which the reconciled communities needed for their public life, the common-houses, the libraries, the museums, the asylums for infancy and old age, the huge general stores and the granaries, all vast enough for the life and keep of the federated nations. And finally, there were the innumerable machines and appliances which upon all sides and in all forms of labour replaced the arms of men: those which tilled the soil, those which toiled in the workshops, those which travelled along the roads, athwart the waves and through the sky. And Luc rejoiced that all that iron and steel should have become pacific, that the metal of conquest which mankind had so long employed solely to make the swords and spears that it needed for its bloodthirsty struggles, which it had afterwards turned into the guns and shells of its latter days of carnage, should be used, now that peace was won, solely for the erection of its city of fraternity, justice, and happiness.