“What could be more terrible?” murmured Monsieur Clémency, a thin bald man with soft eyes and a silky beard. “For tell us—for we all agree with you regarding the fate that awaits us in the world that is in the making.”
“Dead right!” said Cazenal, supportively, lifting his pince-nez to look at Laforcade with an intrigued expression. “Tell us what you mean.”
“Quite simply, my good friends, that divorce proceedings were initiated this morning.”
Amazement brought Cazenal, Clémency and Morandes to their feet, their chairs abruptly pushed back.
“You’re getting divorced?” said Morandes.
“From Madame Laforcade?” exclaimed Clémency.
“From whom to do you expect me to get divorced?” said Laforcade, with a bitter laugh.
“You’re getting divorced!”
Laforcade’s three friends surrounded him, talking in low voices, while the people in another group, on the far side of the room were unfolding newspapers and telegrams that a Conference servant had just brought in, and reading them through almost feverishly.
“Nothing to be done, nothing at all!” Laforcade replied to various questions. “It’s all decided. Life impossible…better to end it! And yet, in the dark times ahead, what strength there might have been in finding, beneath the miserable and broken-down roof that might perhaps remain to us, the consoling affection of a loving and devoted heart…”
“Listen!” said one of those scanning the newspapers. “Riot at Black Well; the anticipated clash has occurred; 30 dead, 168 wounded.”
“Strikers?”
“No! Those who wanted to work, along with two engineers and a clerk. The strikers opened fire. The mayor has declared martial law.”
“Who is the mayor?”
“The assistant manager of the Social and Libertarian Bar, of course!”
“I think he’s really a United Factories man.”
“He was, but that’s all smashed. I don’t think you understand what’s happening, you know…”
“Things are getting heated at Le Creusot!” said another. “Shots were also fired at this morning’s meeting of the Great Collectivist Syndicate of Mines, Foundries and Factories of Le Creusot. The miners besieged the metalworkers in the factory; two blast-furnaces were destroyed last night… A civic guard patrol has disappeared, and there’s a great deal of anxiety as to their fate…”
“Is there no news of Saint-Etienne?”
“Yes! Forty deaths attribute to hunger, despite the 15,000 kilos of bread distributed daily, an entire street burned and a quarter looted…”
“And the Chamber?”
“Nothing. Fists flying in the gallery, the speaker knocked down, arm broken, that’s all….ah! Yes, revolver shots in the corridors, a journalist and a deputy…”
“No result?”
“No, an usher stopped one of the bullets, that’s all… Debates are continuing.”
“Personally, I had business interests in that region of mines and blast furnaces, in the days when business deals were still happening… I know the situation out there. The United Factories was a company fief, with dukes and princes of finance at its head, as in the North…”
“So what?”
“So what? The ultimate result of excessive industrialism, it must be recognized, is the pauperization of the workers, who become mere serfs of large-scale industry, riveted in chains, mere implements of human flesh crying out in constant hunger and desperation, sometimes rebelling, but only hurting the lower orders by lashing out blindly in the upward direction of the true masters, international and unreachable…”
“The United Factories belong to the Rixheim Company…”
“Belong, you say? Rixheim has sold his shares, a few at a time, accelerating the anticipated crisis and leaving the manager of the Social Studies Bar to serve as his lightning-conductor… Do you understand now?”
Laforcade went to get a paper. He sat down, setting himself as if to bury himself in his reading, then got up abruptly, threw the paper aside and marched back and forth, eventually doing the same thing all over again in another corner, with another newspaper.
“Look at that,” said Morandes to Cazenal, in a low voice. “Do you know how hard he’s been hit, beneath his habitual mask of indifference and irony.”
“No I don’t,” said Cazenal, “even though we’ve been his friends for 25 years. I’ve followed his career from the beginning, since his earliest ventures. It was already brilliant long before he had his big idea, the lakeside factories in the Alps and the Vosges producing energy transmissible over any distance. We were close friends in those days, Madame Laforcade was charming, simple and sweet…”
“Of course! The success, the excessive wealth in the first ten years drew them into a life of ostentation and showing off in high society—fake, exhausting, deadly. Always on the go, at work or in society, with no rest or respite, Laforcade became the irritable and short-tempered man, horribly weary and demoralized, that we know. Madame Laforcade, addicted to society, is desperately holding on to the vestiges of her luxury now that the bad times have come. It all adds up to profound and destructive discord in the home, moral ruination…”
“And complete material ruination, as he just said! How many others have already gone to the wall since the crisis reached its present pitch?”
“Old Europe is famished and ruined. Threatened from every side, and handicapped by all the socialist ring-leaders in its desperate Industrial competition against Asia and America, it’s breaking its own arms! We know what it’s done to Laforcade—but I think it might be harder still…”
“You’re talking about ruination, I suppose,” said a new arrival. “Who isn’t ruined, nowadays? Not me, as yet!”
“It’s a dark time, my friend…”
“All wealth is false and temporary, damn it, while we wait for the final collapse. The universal apathy manifest since the commencement of this crisis of disorganization, and the incredible absence in our era of all spirit of resistance, have rendered it inevitable. Confronted with all these attempts to apply collectivist theories, everyone is retreating into a corner, huddling there and waiting for the violence to break out.”
“It’s too late for resistance now. The storm’s broken, watch out for the ground shaking!”
Another newcomer interrupted. “Are you talking about the disturbing series of earthquakes that have been afflicting the ruins of Japan, the Indies and South America for three months? The non-volcanic countries seem to be entering into the dance too; dispatches from Russia are announcing some kind of collapse in the Urals, hundreds of league in extent.”
“Bah, that’s a long way off—mere trifles! We were talking about tremors of a different sort.”
“My dear chap, it’s a case of veritable cosmic perturbation. I have a friend at the Observatory, and it appears that they’re extremely anxious. Do you recall those scientists in France, Australia, America and elsewhere who made announcements to the effect that there have been disturbances in the working of the universe for some time, vague breaches of natural law? Well, it’s getting worse. You’re wrong to laugh, you know. My friend tells me every day about the possibility of catastrophes that he refuses to explain… But today’s Russian dispatches seem to justify his fears…”
“Gossip! Let’s talk about more serious threats. Have you seen the program of the Central Committee of Vigilance?”
“No, the Central Committee should be meeting in secret session to delay it…”
“It’s over—it’s in this evening’s news. The session was cut short, the program containing the minimum of reforms demanded by the Central Committee was passed by acclamation and will be taken to the Ministry in the morning. The Minister will have to accept it or resign…”
“He’ll accept!”
“Of course! We still don’t know certain items in the program; the ring-leaders are talking things gradually and keeping surprises up their sleeve. While awaiting further developmen
ts they’ll press on with the realization of the famous Universal Conscription so beloved of the leaders and imposed in the name of the great principle of Equality: obligatory, integral and equal education for everyone up to the age of 15; professional conscription—we need so many masons, so many carpenters, so many roofers, so many mechanics, each year’s contingent to be provided by means of a Selection Committee… Something like the old Military Examination Board. Don’t laugh or shrug your shoulders; there are, it seems, a host of carefully-planned accessory measures—for example: the formation of mobile brigades for all state bodies, designed to equip the supplementary workers temporarily assigned to whatever point; the obligation for industrial conscripts to remained at their assigned posts unless authorized to effect an exchange; access in principle of everyone to all the ranks to be established in each profession, but creation of various posts and cadres dependant on the State, etc., etc…
“Wait before you protest; everything is anticipated—it seems that there’s a little article at the end, which decrees the closure of the borders to prevent emigration, or rather desertion, and a whole host of measures to suppress resistance in advance. And that’s only part of the program; we still don’t know the details of the grand project of the Law of Capitalist Liquidation and Collectivist Organization…
“You understand that, confronted with these prospects, one can’t get very excited about the cosmic perturbations that generate so much emotion among the brave scientists at the Observatory. I’d even say, my dear chap, that your friend the astronomer is more likely to make our mouths water.”
“Personally,” said one of the waiters, who was sitting on the billiard-table, to a colleague, “I’ve had enough of all these exploiters. It’s time for the reign of true equality to begin—I’ve been promised a job as an inspector in the Ministry of Works!”
II. Particular Disasters
Madame Laforcade, negligently sprawled in an armchair, directed her lorgnette at the sheet of stamped paper that was being held out to her by her lawyer, Maître Fardel, a socialist deputy famous since the general strike at Anzin, which he had led so artistically until the strength of the belligerents finally gave out, and from which he had emerged as one of the acknowledged leaders of the party.
Madame Robert Laforcade was a pretty woman, tall and very shapely, extremely elegant, with a flighty attitude. She was very lively, laughing and talking loudly and rapidly, but excessively restless. She seemed to be very young, but also quite worn out. Perhaps a desire for intoxication, or something similar, was distinguishable in the hectic enthusiasm that she habitually manifested. She was 35 years old, but did not look it, save for certain momentary nervous contractions of her lips and certain creases at the corners of her eyes.
“Very well! Very well!” said Madame Laforcade. “I’ve no need to read the document all the way through. I’ll sign…”
“Sign, my dear Madame—then, after a few formalities that I’ll try to cut short, and a few boring details that I won’t bother you with, your divorce will be concluded…”
“Perfect. See that I don’t have to do anything more. How can we poor society wives, whose existence is a perpetual hustle and bustle, possibly find the time for divorce?” Madame Laforcade’s laughter rang a little less true than usual. In spite of the laughter and the irony of her exclamation, her expression was not at all cheerful.
“In finding myself the political adversary of the husband of such a charming Parisian lady, I sometimes experience a degree of remorse,” said Maître Fardel. “I’m truly grateful to you for having got me out of that difficulty; henceforth, I shall be more at ease…”
“To finish our… strangling him. Your committees, your syndicates, your delegations won’t leave him with much, it seems… I don’t know much about it, although I’ve vaguely heard mention of... but that’s no longer my concern, do battle at your ease! I no longer want to know anything about my ex-husband’s troubles. Besides, life is too short and too full of obligations. I’m going out in my carriage; I have five or six five o’clocks before coming home, then dinner at the Ministry of Public Works. Shall I see you there?”
“Not at dinner. A committee meeting to chair—we have five or six strikes under way. Fortunately, I have secretaries, otherwise, all my time would be taken up—but I’ll have the honor of greeting you at the reception…”
“Goodbye—don’t forget our little divorce! Let a strike or two be arranged without you, my dear friend, but disarrange our marriage, and quickly!”
Madame Laforcade burst out laughing as she left.
III. An Old Beard and Old Arms
In every family there are branches particularly favored by profitable circumstances, and less fortunate branches that waste away: rich branches and poor branches, to sum up with two of the most important words in any language, ancient or modern. Among the Laforcades, whose roots were in the Angoumois region, there was the rich and happy Robert Laforcade, with whose scarcely enviable present situation we are familiar, and there was poor old Etienne Laforcade, also from the vicinity of Angoulême: an honest, upstanding and courageous man, formerly a journeyman carpenter, but now—broken by old age, worn out by a life of hard work and privation—an insignificant worker in one of the rich Robert Laforcade’s factories, earning a wage of four francs a day.
Robert Laforcade had no suspicion that there was one of his cousins humbly exercising what little remained of the vigor of his old arms in his employ, any more than poor Etienne suspected that he was related to an employer he had never seen.
Having come to Paris as a young workman, Etienne had rubbed shoulders with the veterans of ’48. In the prime of life he had felt his naïve and honest heart beat faster in response to a host of fine ideas that were floating in the air at the time, candidly accepted as absolute truths: such pretty and clear ideas, which had never been put into action, their beautiful dresses never sullied and tarnished by application to the difficult and sometimes muddy ruts of reality. Etienne had dabbled in politics, as people often do who have only experienced misfortune and do not know how to profit from good opportunities encountered on the staff of a committee or as a result of some petty election. The great political industry requires battalions of these obscure workers, forever destined to remain humble instrumentalists of the ballot paper, or sometimes of the rifle. They are among those who create great fortunes—but the butter, of course, never end up on their bread.
Etienne had lived; he had children. Paris, to which the robust families of the old French countryside come to die out in two or three generations—or sometimes only one—had only left him, for his old age, one sickly daughter and a son who had gone to the bad, an idler and drinking-den orator. Steeped in their youth in pure air and broad daylight, the father and mother had survived many tribulations and, what was worse, much disillusionment; both were approaching their seventieth year. In the old man’s dreams, the green meadows and yellowing harvests of their youth passed vaguely before his eyes, without the hope—which had vanished long before—of ever being able to nourish them again with any but flat horizons, foggy skies and the rampart of factory chimneys that enclosed the somber and terrible urban ant-hive.
Their daughter, without any memories to console her, knew even worse poverty. Married to an electrician, Arnoult, nicknamed Tue-le-Ver,10 she vegetated sadly and fed three children with the produce of dogged labor as a seamstress and the few sous that her husband occasionally consented to give her from his pay.
The little document below will suffice to indicate the kind of familial joy that the father of these grandchildren was able to deliver for the relish of the unfortunate Etienne:
“Whereas citizen Etienne Laforcade has called Citizen Arnoult, his son-in-law—an honest worker who had been refreshing himself on absinthe for four hours in the establishment of Citizen Prunet, spirit-merchant of the Amer Collectiviste—a filthy drunkard; and has also spoken sharply and impolitely to the citizens who happened to be in the establishment, and c
aused a veritable scandal;
“Whereas he has broadcast, as he continually does, reactionary statements and opinions prejudicial to the dignity and the liberty of citizens worthy of that name;
“Whereas, to the observation made by Citizen Prunet, that everyone has rights that cannot be restricted, even by a father-in-law, he responded with insults—among others, that duties take precedence over rights;
“Whereas, interrogated by us, he was unable to do anything but stammer ridiculous and manifestly reactionary explanations;
“Whereas he is constantly seeking, on an everyday basis, by his hypocritical and retrograde statements, to injure the harmony of the working class and disturb it by anti-libertarian excitations every time he finds an opportunity, in the workplace as elsewhere;
“The Jewelry-Makers section of the Syndicate of Electricians and Mechanics enjoins the managing director of the Laforcade & Co. factory to put Citizen Etienne Laforcade on suspension for a fortnight, as a ‘first warning,’ under pain of the factory being blacklisted in case of refusal.
“The above decision has been unanimously approved in the Prune Socialiste, the Verte Espérance, retailer of liquor and congress of socialist studies, the Grand Soir, the Jeunesse Collectiviste, the Avenir, the Grand Bar de la Guerre des Classes and all the meetings in which true Progress is slowly sought, discussed and elaborated.” 11
IV. The Former Academician Palluel
In his mansard at the very top of a partly-unoccupied terraced house, Eudoxe Palluel, political journalist, novelist, poet and philosopher, a member of the Academy for 18 years, was bent over his ancient desk, writing. He was rapidly scribbling lines in coarse handwriting on stamped paper, while following a text on a notepad of similarly-stamped paper.
The Clock of the Centuries Page 6
