Work [Travail]

by Émile Zola

'For you to understand things properly, my good fellow,' said he, 'it's necessary that I should tell you something about our position before we take a stroll through Beauclair. We have now got to the triumph, the full florescence of the movement, which was scarcely beginning when you went away.'

Then he reverted to the origin of the evolution, the establishment of the works of La Crêcherie, based on an association between capital, labour, and brains, and its struggle with the Abyss, where the barbarous wage-system had been enforced. At last the latter had been vanquished and replaced, and La Crêcherie, with its pleasant white houses, had gradually spread over the site of Old Beauclair, the wretched home of want. Then Bonnaire showed how, both in a spirit of imitation and by reason of the necessities of the position, all the neighbouring works had ended by joining the original association; and how in due course other groups had been formed, every calling of a similar kind gradually being syndicated together, every family, as it were, meeting and uniting. Then the co-operation of producers on the one hand and of consumers on the other had completed the victory, work being reorganised on a basis of human solidarity, and bringing in its train a new form of society. There was now only four hours' work a day, and it was work freely chosen and constantly varied, in order that it might remain attractive; whilst machinery, the enemy of former days, had at present become a docile slave, upon whom all great efforts were cast. Then, moreover, the co-operation of consumers had swept away old-time trade, which had simply absorbed so much energy and gain. Huge general stores centralised products of all kinds, and distributed them according to consumers' needs, and in this manner millions of money were saved, agiotage and theft abstracting nothing on the way. Indeed, life was becoming greatly simplified: there was a tendency towards the complete suppression of specie and the closing of law courts and prisons; for disputes on matters of private interest ceased, and no longer urged man against man in some mad fit of fraud, pillage, or murder. Why should there be any crime left since there were no more poor, no more disinherited ones, since brotherly peace was being established more and more firmly every day, all being at last convinced that individual happiness came from the happiness of all? A long peace reigned, the blood tax—the conscription—had disappeared like all other taxes; there were no longer any rates of any kind or any prohibitive laws, but in lieu thereof full liberty for production and exchange. And in particular, since the parasites—the innumerable employés, functionaries, magistrates, barrack-men, and churchmen—had been suppressed, the greatest wealth had set in, such a prodigious heap of riches accumulating that from year to year the granaries became too small and threatened to burst beneath the ever-growing abundance of the public fortune.

'That's all right,' interrupted Ragu when Bonnaire had reached this point. 'But all the same, the real pleasure is to do nothing; and if you still work you are not a gentleman. To my idea there's no getting away from that. Besides, in one manner or another you are still paid, so that you still have a wage-system. But you are converted, eh?—you, who always demanded the absolute destruction of capital?'

Bonnaire laughed with joyous frankness. 'It's true, they've ended by converting me,' he said. 'I believed in the necessity of a sudden revolution, some stroke which would have placed power in our hands, together with possession of the soil and all the instruments of work. But how can one resist the force of experience? For so many years past I've been witnessing here the assured victory of social justice and brotherly happiness, which I dreamt of so long! And thus patience has come to me; I'm weak enough—if you like to put it that way—to rest content with to-day's conquests, certain as I am of to-morrow's final victory. Of course, I'm ready to grant that a great deal remains to be done—our liberty and justice are not complete, capital and the wage-system must entirely disappear, the social pact must be rid of all forms of authority, we must have the free individual in the free community. And we try to act in such wise that our grandchildren's children may bring about the reign of justice and liberty in their entirety.'

Then he explained the new educational methods which were in force, the working of the crèches, schools, and apprenticeship workshops, the adoption and cultivation of all the forms of energy springing from the passions, and the up-bringing of boys and girls together with the view of drawing yet closer the ties of love on which the city's strength would depend. The cause of greater freedom in the future rested with the couples of to-morrow; it might be taken that each generation growing up amidst an increase of equity and kindliness would contribute its stone to the final edifice. Meantime, the city's wealth would continue accumulating now that the suppression of the right of inheritance—almost entirely accomplished—prevented the building up of huge, scandalous, and poisonous individual fortunes; in such wise that the prodigious output of the work of all was becoming the property of all. Such things as the State Funds were also falling to pieces, the Rentiers, the idlers who lived on the work of others or on egotistical savings of their own, were disappearing. All citizens were equally rich, since the city—overflowing with work, freed from obstacles and hindrances, preserved from waste and theft—was piling up such immense wealth, that production would assuredly some day have to be moderated. Enjoyments once reserved for a few privileged beings were to-day already within the reach of all, and if family life remained simple the public edifices had become wonderfully sumptuous, large enough to hold huge multitudes, and so charming and so commodious as to be indeed true palaces of the people, centres of enjoyment where it loved to live. There were museums, and libraries, theatres, bathing establishments, places for diversions of one and another kind, together with simple 'porches,' opening out of meeting and lecture halls which the whole town frequented in its hours of rest. There was also a great number of hospitals, special isolated hospitals, for each kind of disease, and asylums which the infirm and the aged could enter freely; others, too, particularly for mothers and children, for pregnant women, who were carefully nursed from an early stage until their babes were born, and they themselves had fully recovered their strength. In this wise the new city affirmed its faith in motherhood and childhood—the mother who is the source of eternal life, the child who is the victorious messenger of the future.

'And now,' Bonnaire gaily concluded, 'since you have finished breakfast, let us go to see all those fine things, our Beauclair in its festive gaiety. I shan't spare you a single interesting nook of it.'

At this Ragu, who had resolved upon no surrender, simply shrugged his shoulders, repeating what he deemed to be his decisive argument: 'As you like; but all the same you are not gentlemen, you are still poor devils if you still work. Work's your master, and, when all's said, you've remained a people of slaves.'

At the door of the house a little electric car with accommodation for two persons was waiting. Similar cars were at the disposal of all. The old master-puddler, who, despite his advanced years, had retained a clear eyesight and a firm hand, made his companion get in, and then took his own seat as driver.

'You don't mean to cripple me for good with this mechanism, eh?' asked Ragu.

'No, no, don't be alarmed. We get on very well together, electricity and I,' Bonnaire replied, adding: 'You will find it everywhere; it is the one force which drives our machinery, and it is in general use in our homes, just like a domestic servant. Oh! it has been necessary to produce it in incalculable quantities, and yet it seems that there's not enough, and that the former master of La Crêcherie is trying to provide us with a still larger supply, in order that we may have something like a planet blazing over Beauclair at night-time, and live amidst the glow of eternal day.'