'Ah well!' said Ludovic Boisgelin, 'it can't have been very amusing to work in those days. It must have given one too much trouble.'
'Of course,' his sister Aline exclaimed, 'I'm glad that I was born after all that, for it's very amusing to work nowadays.'
Maurice, however, had become serious and thoughtful, turning over in his mind all the incredible things which had been told him. And by way of summing up everything, he ended by saying: 'All the same, grandfather's father must have been awfully strong, and if things go better nowadays it is perhaps because he had such a lot of trouble formerly.'
Luc, who hitherto had contented himself with smiling, was delighted by this remark. He caught up Maurice and kissed him on both cheeks. 'You are right, my boy,' said he. 'And in the same way, if you work with all your heart nowadays, your great-grandchildren will be yet happier than you are—even now, you see, one no longer roasts like a duck.'
By his orders the battery of electrical furnaces was started once more, Claudine and Céline turning the current on or off by a simple gesture. The children wished to direct the mechanism themselves, and how delightful did that easy work seem after the legend-like narrative of Morfain's hard toil—the toil, it seemed, of some pain-racked giant living in a world that had disappeared!
All at once, however, there came an apparition, and the children, perturbed by it, ran off. Then Luc again perceived Boisgelin, who this time stood at one of the doorways of the shed, watching the work in an angry, mistrustful way, like some master who is for ever afraid that his men may rob him. He was often to be seen in this fashion in one or another part of the works, distracted by the idea that the place was too vast to be properly inspected by him, and maddened more and more by the thought of all the millions that he must every day be losing through his inability to check the work of all those people who were earning milliards for him. They were too numerous, he was never able to see them all. He looked so haggard, so exhausted by his fruitless roaming through the workshops, that Luc, stirred by pity, this time wished to join him, calm him, and lead him gently home. But Boisgelin was on his guard, and springing back, ran off towards the large workshops.
His morning ramble over, Luc now returned home, and just as the daylight was waning in the afternoon, after glancing round the general stores, he went to spend an hour with the Jordans. In the little drawing-room overlooking the park he found Sœurette chatting with schoolmaster Hermeline and Abbé Marle; whilst Jordan, stretched on a sofa and wrapped in a rug, remained thinking, according to his wont, with his eyes fixed upon the setting sun. Amiable Doctor Novarre had lately been carried off after an illness of a few hours, his only regret being that he would not behold the realisation of so many beautiful things in the possibility of which he had at the outset scarcely believed. Thus Sœurette nowadays received but the schoolmaster and the priest, and these only called at long intervals, when yielding to their old habit of meeting at her house. Hermeline, now seventy years of age and retired, was ending his days in a state of growing bitterness and anger against all that passed before him. He had reached such a point in this respect that he reproached the old priest with lack of warmth. As a matter of fact Abbé Marle, who was five years older than the other, sought refuge in dolorous dignity, silence which became more and more haughty as he beheld his church becoming empty and his religion expiring.
As Luc entered and took a chair beside Sœurette, who sat there silent, gentle, and patient, it so happened that the schoolmaster was again badgering the priest, like the sectarian and dictatorial republican that he still was. 'Come, come, abbé,' he said, 'since I fall in with your views you ought to help me. This is surely the end of the world. Children's passions, evil growths which we the educators were formerly appointed to crush, are nowadays cultivated, it seems. How is it possible for the State to have any disciplined citizens reared for its service when a free rein is given to anarchical individuality? If we, the men of method and sense, don't manage to save the Republic, it is surely lost!'
Since the day when he had thus begun to speak of saving the Republic from those whom he called the Socialists and the Anarchists, he had gone over to the side of reaction, joining the priest in his hatred of all who dared to free themselves otherwise than by his own narrow Jacobin formula.
And he went on yet more violently: 'I tell you, abbé, that your church will be swept away if you do not defend it! Your religion, no doubt, was never mine. But I have always admitted the necessity of a religion for the people; and Catholicism was certainly an admirable governing machine. So stir yourself! We are with you, and we will have an explanation afterwards, when we have re-conquered the lost ground together.'