Yet other years rolled by, and death, necessary death, the good helpmate of eternal life, performed his work, carrying off one by one those who had accomplished their tasks. Bourron was the first to go, followed by his wife Babette, who retained her good humour to the last. Then came the turn of Petit-Da and that of Ma-Bleue, whose blue eyes partook of the infinite of the blue heavens. Lange died too, whilst putting the finishing touch to a last little figure, a delightful barefooted girl, the very image of the Barefeet he had loved. Then Nanet and Nise went off, exchanging a last kiss, whilst still young; and finally Bonnaire succumbed like a hero amidst the stir of work one day when he had repaired to the factory to see a new giant hammer, whose every stroke forged a great piece of metal-work.
Of all their generation, of all the founders and creators of triumphant Beauclair, Luc and Jordan alone remained, loved and surrounded with the affectionate attentions of Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne. It seemed as if the three women, whose health and courage in their old age were marvellous, lived on simply to be the helpmates and nurses of the men. Since Luc had scarcely been able to walk, his legs gradually failing him till he was almost fastened to his arm-chair, Suzanne had come to reside in his house, lovingly sharing with Josine the glory of waiting upon him. He was more than eighty now, of unchangeable gaiety and in full possession of his intelligence—quite young indeed, as he said with a laugh, had it not been for those wretched legs of his which were becoming like lead. And in the same way Sœurette did not quit her brother Jordan, who now never left his laboratory, but worked there in the day-time and slept there at night. He was Luc's elder by ten years, and had retained at ninety the slow and methodical activity to which he was indebted for the accomplishment of such a vast amount of work—ever seemingly on the point of expiring, but introducing such logic and such well-reasoned determination into his labour, that he was still working when the sturdiest toilers of his generation had long been sleeping in the grave.
He had often said in his weak little voice: 'People die because they're willing; one doesn't die when one still has something to do. My health is very bad, but all the same I shall live to a good old age, I shall only die on the day when my work is finished. You'll see, you'll see! I shall know when the time has come, and I will warn you, my good friends, saying: "Good-night, my day's over, I'm going to sleep now."'
Thus Jordan still worked because in his estimation his work was not yet finished. He lived on, wrapped in rugs; his drinks were warmed in order that he might not catch cold, and he took long rests on a couch between the brief hours which he was able to devote to his researches. Two or three such hours sufficed him, however, for the accomplishment of a considerable amount of work, in such a methodical manner did he exert himself. Sœurette, all attention and abnegation, was like his second self, at once a nurse, a secretary, and a preparator, allowing nobody to approach and disturb him. On the days, moreover, when his hands were too weak for any exertion, it was she who carried out his thoughts for him, becoming as it were a prolongation of his own life.
To Jordan's thinking his work would only be completed when the new city's supply of beneficent electricity should be as unlimited as the inexhaustible water of the rivers, or the air which one can breathe in all freedom. During the past sixty years he had accomplished a great deal of work tending to that solution. He had diminished the cost of electricity by burning coals when they quitted the pit, and then despatching the electric force he obtained by cable to numerous factories. And after long researches he had devised a new appliance by which he even transformed the calorical energy contained in coal into electrical energy, without mechanical energy having to be employed. He had in this manner done away with boilers, which meant a saving of more than fifty per cent, in the cost price. The dynamos being charged direct, by the simple combustion of the coal, he had been able to work his electrical furnaces cheaply and well, revolutionise metallurgy, and provide the town with an abundance of electricity for all social and domestic purposes. Nevertheless, in his opinion it still remained too costly; he wished to have it for nothing, like the passing breeze which is at the disposal of all. Besides, a fear had come to him, born of the possibility—in fact, the certainty—that the coal mines would in time become exhausted. Before another century perhaps coal would fail one; and would not that mean the death of the world, the cessation of all industry, the suppression of the chief means of locomotion—mankind reduced to immobility, a prey to the cold, like some big body whose blood has ceased to circulate? It was with growing anxiety that Jordan saw each ton of coals burnt; that made a ton the less, he often said. And although he was so puny, feverish, racked by coughing, already with one foot in the grave, he incessantly tortured his mind in thinking of the catastrophe which threatened the future generations. He vowed that he would not die until he should have presented those generations with a flood of power, a flood of endless life, which would prove the source of their civilisation and their happiness. Thus he had set to work again, and for more than ten years already he had been working on the problem.
In the first instance Jordan had naturally thought of the waterfalls. They constituted a primitive mechanical force which had been employed successfully in mountain regions in spite of the capriciousness of the torrents, and the interruptions which dry seasons brought about. Unfortunately, the few watercourses still to be found in the Bleuse Mountains—apart from the springs utilised for the town's water-supply—did not possess the necessary energy. And, besides, no mountain spring would ever yield such a constant, regular, and abundant motive power as was necessary for his great design. Jordan therefore thought of the tides, the continual flux and reflux of the ocean, whose power, ever on the march, beats against the coasts of the continents. Scientists had already given attention to the tides, and he turned to their researches and even devised some experimental appliances. The distance of Beauclair from the sea was not an obstacle, for electrical force could already be transmitted without loss over considerable distances. But another idea haunted him, and gradually took complete possession of him, throwing him into a prodigious dream, full of the thought that if he could bring it to fulfilment he would give happiness to the whole world.
Puny and chilly as he was, Jordan had always evinced a passion for the sun. He often watched it pursuing its course. With a quivering fear of the spreading darkness he saw it set at evening, and at times he rose early in the morning in order that he might have the joy of seeing it appear again. If it should be drowned in the sea; if it should some day never reappear, what endless, icy, deadly night would fall upon mankind! Thus Jordan almost worshipped the sun, regarding it as something divine, the father of our world, the creator and regulator, which after drawing beings from the clay, had warmed them, helped them to develop and spread, and nourished them with the fruits of the earth, throughout an incalculable number of centuries. The sun was the eternal source of life since it was the source of light, heat, and motion. It reigned in its glory like a very powerful, very good, and very just king, a necessary god, without whom there would be nothing, and whose disappearance would bring about the death of all things. This being so, Jordan asked himself why should not the sun continue and complete his work? During thousands of years it had stored its beneficent heat away in the trees of which coal was made. During thousands of years the earth had preserved in its bosom that immense reserve stock of heat, which had come to us like a priceless gift at the hour when our civilisation needed new splendour. And it was to the all-helping sun that one must again apply, it was the sun which would continue giving to that which it had created, the world and man, increase of life, and truth, and justice, all the happiness indeed of which one had dreamt so long. Since the sun vanished each evening, since it disappeared at winter-time, one must ask it to leave us a plentiful share of its blaze, in order that one might without suffering await its return at dawn, and take patience during the cold seasons. The problem was at once a simple and a formidable one; it was necessary to address oneself direct to the sun, capture some of the solar heat, and by special appliances transform it into electricity, of which immense quantities must be stored in air-tight reservoirs. In this fashion one would always have an unlimited source of power, of which one might dispose as one pleased. The rays would be harvested during the scorching days of summer, and stored away in endless granaries. And when the nights grew long, when winter arrived with its darkness and its ice, there would be light and warmth and motion for all mankind. That electrical power, ravished from the all-creating sun and domesticated by man, would then at last prove his docile and ever-ready servant, relieving him of much exertion, and helping him to make of work not only gaiety and health, and just apportionment of wealth, but the very law and cult of life.
The dream which possessed Jordan had already occupied other minds. Scientists had succeeded in devising little appliances which captured solar heat and transformed it into electricity, but in infinitesimal quantities, the instruments being suited merely for laboratory experiments. It was necessary to be able to operate on a large scale, and in a thoroughly practical manner, in order to fill the huge reservoirs which would be needed for the requirements of a whole nation. For years, then, Jordan was seen superintending the building—in the old park of La Crêcherie—of some strange appliances, species of towers, whose purpose could not be divined. For a long while he would not speak out, but kept the secret of his researches from everybody. In fine weather, during the hours when he felt strong enough, he repaired with the short, slow step of a weak old man to the new works which he had set up, and shut himself up inside them with some chosen men. And in spite of repeated failures he clung to his task, wrestled with it, and ended by overcoming the sovereign planet—he, the little hard-working ant, whom too hot a sunray would have killed. Never was there greater heroism, never did the pursuit of an idea afford the spectacle of a loftier victory over the natural forces—forces which yesterday had been deadly thunderbolts for man, and which to-day were conquered, subjected to his service. He succeeded in solving the problem, the great and glorious sun parted with some little of that inexhaustible glow with which, never cooling, it has warmed the earth through so many centuries. After some final trials new works were definitively planned and erected, and supplied Beauclair throughout a whole year with as much electricity as its inhabitants required, even as the springs of the mountains supplied them with water. Nevertheless, an annoying defect was observed: the loss from the reservoirs remained very large, and some last improvements had to be devised, a means of storing without fear of diminution the necessary winter reserve of power, in such wise that another sun, as it were, might be lighted above the town throughout the long cold nights of December.
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.