THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
THE 
 NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 (La Nouvelle Carthage) 
 
 BY 
 GEORGES EEKHOUD 
 
 Translated with an Introduction by 
 
 LLOYD R. MORRIS 
 
 Author of "The Celtic Dawt," "The Young Idea^' 
 CROWNED BY THE BELGIAN ACADEMY 
 
 New York 
 
 DUFPIELD AND COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
COPYWGHT, I917, BY 
 
 DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 
 
To His Majesty 
 
 The King of the Belgians 
 
 This volume is dedicated 
 
 in profound homage by the 
 
 Translator 
 
 /*.50365 
 
CONTENTS 
 Introduction 
 
 Part I 
 Regina 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The Garden 3 
 
 II The Stone Mill . . . .15 
 
 III The Factory 23 
 
 IV "The Swiss Family Robinson" . . 31 
 
 V The Drain 45 
 
 VI The New Suit 51 
 
 VII Hemixem 58 
 
 VIII In Society 74 
 
 IX "TheGina" . . . . .93 
 
 X The Orangery 104 
 
 Part II 
 
 Freddy BiIjard 
 
 I The Harbor 119 
 
 II The Cap 126 
 
 III Swarms and Wasps' Nests . .131 
 
 IV The Cantata 141 
 
 V The Election 150 
 
 VI Troubles 166 
 
 VII Son-in-Law and Father-in-Law . 176 
 
 VIII Daelmans-Deynze .... 187 
 
 IX The Stock Exchange . . . 200 
 vii 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Part III 
 Laurent Paridael 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I The Patrimony 
 
 II The Emigrants 
 
 III The Riet-Dijk . 
 
 IV Contumacy 
 V The Runners . 
 
 VI The Carnival . 
 VII The Cartridge Plant 
 
 PAdt 
 
 221 
 
 261 
 270 
 298 
 325 
 
 347 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Georges Eekhoud was born in Antwerp in 1854. 
 His mother came of German and Dutch parentage; 
 his father, who came of Flemish stock, died m the 
 boy's eleventh year. The boy received his schooling 
 in Switzerland and upon his return to Belgium was 
 destined for the profession of engineering by his uncle 
 and guardian, but the plan failed dismally and Eek- 
 houd was sent to military school, from which, after 
 some months, he ran away. He was then cast off by 
 his family, and as the income of his fathers estate 
 was insufficient for his needs, he turned to journalism 
 as a means of earning a livelihood. After a time his 
 grandmother, a woman of some wealth, took him into 
 her home; here he enjoyed a period of leisure and 
 study Upon her death he inherited a comfortable for- 
 tune which he invested in an estate at Capellen, to 
 the north of Antwerp. His subsequent experience as 
 a gentleman-farmer, although it was an economic fail- 
 ure provided him with the opportunity of acquiring 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 that familiarity with the psychology, the life and the 
 customs of the peasantry which became the essential 
 foundation of so much of his art. In 1881 he once 
 more had recourse to journalism, this time in Brus- 
 sels, where he became literary and musical critic of 
 UEtoile Beige. During the period which elapsed be- 
 tween his arrival in Brussels and the foundation of La 
 Jeune Belgique, Eekhoud became acquainted with the 
 group of men who were striving to give Belgium a 
 contemporary national literature. Chief among them 
 were Camille Lemonnier, Theodore Hannon, Max 
 Waller (Maurice Warlomont), the founder of La 
 Jeune Belgique, and the group of contributors to that 
 magazine who have since achieved world-wide recog- 
 nition: Maeterlinck, Verhaeren, George Rodenbach 
 and Charles Van Lerberghe. 
 
 Before 1880 the literary revolt instituted by the 
 younger men centered at the University of Louvain, 
 where the future writers, painters and musicians — 
 among the latter Jan Blockx, the Flemish composer, 
 and Van Dyck, the Wagnerian tenor — were supposed 
 to be studying law, but were, in reality, far more exer- 
 cised over the future of the arts in Belgium. The 
 movement was a healthy and normal expression of 
 youthful vigor accompanied by the publication of many 
 manifestos, a good deal of unconventional thinking, 
 writing and talking, some humorous escapades which 
 thoroughly shocked the University authorities, and an 
 atmosphere of rousing collegiate life. 
 
 From Louvain the headquarters of the movement 
 were transferred to Brussels. La Jeune Belgique, 
 which under the editorial direction of Max Waller 
 had brought the work of Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, Ro- 
 denbach, Van Lerberghe and Eekhoud to the attention 
 
INTRODUCTON 
 
 of the public, was charged with decadence by ^L'Art 
 Moderne, the organ of the lawyer, Edmond Picard. 
 To Waller's doctrine of "Art for art's sake," Picard 
 opposed the ideals of an art embodying a social con- 
 tent, and preeminently reflecting the Flemish race con- 
 sciousness as in an earlier day it had been reflected 
 in the paintings of the Flemish masters. The conflict 
 over the form and content of Belgian literature and 
 the attitude of the Belgian writer produced a schism 
 in the movement, the writers of nationalistic tendencies 
 rallying to Picard's magazine, while the Parnassians, 
 as they came to be called, found a haven in La Jeune 
 Belgique. In this schism Eekhoud, with Maeterlinck 
 and Verhaeren, gave his allegiance to the revolutionary 
 and nationalist program. And that part of the con- 
 temporary literature of Belgium which is best known 
 to the world outside its native land has been produced 
 neither by the few inheritors of the Parnassian tra- 
 dition who, although living in Belgium, have written 
 as Frenchmen, nor by the writers of the Walloon, nor 
 by the writers of the Flemish school who have written 
 in the Flemish language, but by those writers who 
 have created a body of literature which, in the quality 
 of its spiritual content as a record of racial experience, 
 is purely Flemish, though writteh in French. 
 
II 
 
 Unlike many of the other contributors to the Belgian 
 literary renascence, Georges Eekhoud combines with a 
 passionate love of his native land a broadly cosmopoli- 
 tan culture. His contact with English literature has 
 been especially significant as an influence upon his art. 
 Of the Victorians, Dickens and De Quincey have pro- 
 foundly impressed him ; Dickens because of his humani- 
 tarian motive, De Quincey because of his hatred of 
 the middle class and his sympathy with the criminal 
 and the downtrodden. But Eekhoud*s most effective 
 service to English literature has been done as an inter- 
 preter and translator of Elizabethan writers. His "Au 
 Siecle le Shakespeare," a striking volume of criticism, 
 has done much to make popular in Belgium the writ- 
 ings of the Elizabethan masters. In addition to this 
 book he has published translations into French of Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher's "Philaster" and Marlowe's "Ed- 
 ward n." His single original play, "Perkin War- 
 beck," is a tragedy founded upon the career of the 
 Flemish pretender to the throne of England ; and when 
 the Great War beat down upon Belgium he was pre- 
 paring for the press a volume of "Etudes Elisabethi- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 anes." As a critic he has chosen to interpret that 
 period in EngHsh literature which gave expression to 
 a life closely akin to that of which his own art is a 
 record. 
 
 To adequately understand the reaction to experi- 
 ence of which Eekhoud's novels and tales — "Kees 
 Doorik/* "Kermesses," "Nouvelles Kermesses/* "Cycle 
 Patibulaire," "Mes Communions," "Escal- Vigor," "La 
 Faneuse d' Amour," "La Nouvelle Carthage," and its 
 sequel, "L' Autre Vue" — are the expression, we must 
 recall the character of the Flemish mind as it has found 
 expression in literature. The Walloons, whose culture 
 is purely Gallic, are logical, primarily intellectual, mu- 
 sical and scientific. They have, in letters, the French 
 respect for clearness of conception, for lucidity and 
 precision of expression, for purity of style and for 
 intelligent discrimination. The genius of the Flem- 
 ings, however, is emotional rather than intellectual, 
 and among its characteristics have been the conflicting 
 tendencies of religious mysticism and an almost pagan 
 love of the sensual aspects of life. They think pro- 
 foundly about life less than they feel strongly about 
 it. They are steeped in the tradition of their glorious 
 past, and they are keenly aware of an immediate and 
 insistent present. 
 
 Until the middle of the last century the Flemish 
 genius had achieved its fullest expression in painting, 
 perhaps because even until three years ago Flanders 
 was an essentially picturesque country. When the 
 movement toward the creation of a national literature 
 began to assert itself, the younger writers derived the 
 method of their art not from a literary tradition, but 
 quite consciously from the tradition of Flemish paint- 
 ing. For their inspiration they sought in the life about 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 them, but they sought with eyes that had been taught 
 to see by Rembrandt, Rubens, Teniers, Jan Steen, 
 Ruysdael and Van Ostade. The qualities of mys- 
 ticism, sensuality, love of nature and of life, and emo- 
 tional enthusiasm were the first to be registered in the 
 art of the Flemish writers, and to the service of liter- 
 ature they brought the sensitive feeling for form and 
 color and the robust love of the material world which 
 had always been characteristic of the art of their great 
 masters. Almost as compelling was the influence of 
 the various French schools of literature; realism, es- 
 pecially psychological realism, and subsequently sym- 
 bolism, captivated the minds of the younger Flemish 
 writers. Consequently the method of realism, which 
 they soon began to apply to the life of the spirit, pro- 
 duced a literature that is mystic and symbolic in essen- 
 tial direction, but which finds its symbols in the life 
 about it, a life in which there is a fusion of the roman- 
 tic, enigmatic past and the industrial present to which 
 the character inherited from the past is seeking to 
 adjust itself. The most important tendency in the 
 recent literature of Belgium is, however, the transfer 
 of the method of painting to the subject matter of 
 literature; the vision of the Belgian writers is the 
 vision of their painters, taking delight in color and 
 form, wooing the four other senses through its vivid 
 appeal to the eye, founded upon accurate observation 
 and delicate perception. 
 
 Georges Eekhoud found in the life of the peasantry 
 the subject-matter for his art. He is a regional writer, 
 and the region which he describes is the country to 
 the north of Antwerp ; the polders of the Scheldt and 
 the wastes of the Campine. The polders of the Scheldt 
 are rich plains, thickly inhabited by a vigorous and 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 sturdy race of small farmers. The Campine is a far- 
 reaching and sandy waste that stretches over a great 
 part of the provinces of Antwerp and Limburg. Its 
 little towns are scattered and have infrequent com- 
 munication with the outside world; it is a wasted, 
 dreary, forbidding country of cold, stagnant pools, 
 dull marshes, russet heather and tenacious furze, and 
 a sky that is by turns leaden and coppery. The peas- 
 ants manage only with hardship to wreak a living 
 from the sandy soil; they are brutally sensual, ignor- 
 ant, superstitious, fatalistic and almost savage. It is 
 with the life and the customs of this region that 
 Eekhoud's art is chiefly concerned, and his preoccupa- 
 tion finds its analogue in recent English literature in 
 the novels and tales of Thomas Hardy. 
 
Ill 
 
 In "The New Carthage" Eekhoud turned his atten- 
 tion to the Hfe of Antwerp. And in order that his 
 fundamental intention in writing the book may be 
 immediately apparent, I quote the following paragraph 
 from the body of the novel : 
 
 "To paint Antwerp, its life, its harbor, its river, its 
 sailors, its dockers, its luxuriant women, its rosy and 
 chubby children whom Rubens, in other days, had 
 thought sufficiently plastic and appetizing to populate 
 his heavens and Olympuses ; to paint this human mob 
 in its own ways, its costume and surroundings, wfth 
 the most cherishing care for its special customs and 
 morals, without neglecting the correlations which ac- 
 centuate and characterize it; to interpret the very soul 
 of the city of Rubens with a sympathy bordering upon 
 assimilation — what a program and what an objective !" 
 
 It is to this conception that Eekhoud adhered in 
 writing "The New Carthage," and the novel is essen- 
 tially a record of the life of the whole city. Its pro- 
 tagonist is Antwerp itself, or, more definitely, the 
 proletariat of Antwerp as its life is experienced by 
 Laurent Paridael. The novel is largely autobiographi- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 cal; Laurent, like Eekhoud himself, is left an orphan 
 at the age of eleven and committed to the care of J^ 
 wealthy uncle, who, like Eekhoud's uncle, the Mayor 
 of Borgerhout, is a manufacturer of candles. But this 
 identification of Laurent with Eekhoud, beyond offer- 
 ing us an assurance that the novel is written out of an 
 experience which the author has lived, is scarcely of 
 major interest. 
 
 The fundamental content of the novel lies in its 
 social feeling. Being a Fleming, Eekhoud reasons 
 about life less than he feels it. He has a profound 
 sympathy with the poor, the weak and the downtrod- 
 den. He denounces with bitter contempt the hypocrisy 
 of the capitalistic organization of industrial society 
 and the complacent philosophy of the bourgeoisie. 
 Spiritually, morally and philosophically, Eekhoud is an 
 anarchist. He distrusts all organization as setting an 
 arbitrary limit upon life, as imposing its special utili- 
 tarian categories upon the mass of humanity. He 
 challenges the cruelty of our contemporary industrial 
 civilization, and sternly bids us face the facts of real- 
 ity, however unlovely they may be. His own reaction 
 to life's unloveliness seems, at first sight, supremely 
 discouraging. If there were no organization, he tells 
 us, there would be no evil, since evil is but a term 
 applied to certain actions by an artificial society. More- 
 over, since atavism is the most potent force in nature, 
 civilization begins and ends in savagery. This, how- 
 ever, is but one half of his doctrine. The other is 
 contained in the following passage : 
 
 "And then, too, Antwerp will undergo a moral re- 
 generation also. She will be restored again to her true 
 children. You will see it, Paridael; the oppressed 
 masses are becoming insubordinate. I tell you that a 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 new order will soon come into being! A breath of 
 emancipation and youth has blown across the mob; 
 there is something better here than a rich and proud 
 city ; there is a people no less interesting who are com- 
 mencing to revolt against the representatives who serve 
 them badly and compromise them." 
 
 Eekhoud, like Whitman, puts his faith in humanity 
 and in an essentially spiritual democracy. If he seems 
 to advocate anarchy, we must remember that this an- 
 archy is but a logical extension of the democratic prin- 
 ciple. His vision of the future is a social order in 
 which the masses will have achieved self-expression. 
 Like that other great Belgian artist, Constantin Meu- 
 nier, he celebrates the modern beauty of labor and of 
 the crowd. With Meunier and with Verhaeren, Eek- 
 houd has made his art a vehicle for the wider social 
 feeling and the plea for social justice which, in these 
 days, is our chief concern. 
 
IV 
 
 I have endeavored, in this translation of "La Nou- 
 velle Carthage," to enable the reader to obtain some- 
 thing of the effect which is produced by the original 
 French. But Eekhoud, although a great writer, is in 
 no sense a stylist. He is controlled by his emotion and 
 by his conception, and his prose is exuberant and often 
 rhapsodic ; in his work we have a clear case of content 
 creating its own form. 
 
 It has been necessary to delete one paragraph from 
 the chapter entitled "The Runners,'* and several pass- 
 ages from the chapter dealing with "The Riet-Dijk." 
 These passages are purely descriptive, and to French 
 readers their frankness would have its warrant in the 
 tradition of literary realism; in this matter Anglo- 
 Saxon and Gallic taste are at variance. 
 
 Lloyd R. Morris. 
 
THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
PART I 
 REGINA 
 
THE GARDEN 
 
 Monsieur William Dobouziez arranged the fun- 
 eral of Jacques Paridael in a manner deserving the ap- 
 probation of his set, and the admiration of modest folk. 
 That he was doing things handsomely could not help 
 but be the opinion of the crowd. He would not have 
 done better for himself. A second class service, but, 
 with the exception of the undertaker's assistants, who 
 was sufficiently experienced to distinguish the slight 
 shading of difference between the first class and the 
 second? A plain chant mass, but no general absolu- 
 tion, for he felt it useless to prolong a ceremony so 
 trying for those concerned and so tedious to the indif- 
 ferent. So and so many yards of black mourning 
 crape bordered with white, so and so many pounds 
 of yellow wax candles. During his life the late Pari- 
 dael, poor devil, had never hoped for such obsequies 
 as these. 
 
 Forty-five years old, upright, but already becoming 
 grey, nervous, dry and precise, the red ribbon in the 
 buttonhole of his tightly fitting coat. Monsieur William 
 Dobouziez walked behind little Laurent, his ward, the 
 only child of the dead man, who was plunged in an 
 acute and hysterical grief. 
 
 3 
 
'*! ... . . THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 . Sjnjce.his ifather's death Laurent had not ceased cry- 
 ing., 'fa ciiii^rch he was a pitiable sight. The doleful 
 tolling of the great chimes and especially the abrupt 
 jingling of the choir bell produced little convulsive 
 tremors throughout his body. This obvious affliction 
 exasperated his cousin William, a former officer in 
 the army, thick skinned, an enemy to all exaggera- 
 tion. 
 
 "Come, come, Laurent! For heaven's sake control 
 yourself! Be sensible! . . . Stand up! ... Sit 
 down! . . . Come along, now!" he kept repeating in 
 a whisper. 
 
 It was of no avail. Every minute the little boy com- 
 promised the irreproachable progress of the ceremony 
 by his wailing and his trembling. And just when so 
 great an honor was being paid his father ! 
 
 Before the funeral procession began to leave the 
 church Monsieur Dobouziez, being a man who thought 
 of everything, gave his ward a twenty franc coin, one 
 of five francs, and a twenty-sou piece. The first was 
 for the collection plate, the other two for alms. But the 
 child, decidedly as awkward as he looked, became con- 
 fused in the division of his offerings and, contrary 
 to custom, gave the gold piece to the representative 
 of the poor, five francs to the churchwarden, and the 
 twenty-sou piece to the priest. 
 
 At the cemetery he barely escaped falling into the 
 grave when throwing the little clod of yellow, fetid 
 earth which sank with so muffled and lugubrious a 
 sound. 
 
 Finally, to the great relief of his guardian, he was 
 put into the carriage, and the coach and two horses 
 rapidly regained the home and factory of the Do- 
 bouziez', located in a suburb outside the fortifications. 
 
THE GARDEN 5 
 
 At dinner the conversation was general, and the 
 family, without lingering over the events of the morn- 
 ing, accorded only an awkward attention to Laurent, 
 who was seated between his great-aunt and Monsieur 
 Dobouziez. He addressed no word to Laurent except- 
 ing to exhort him to duty, good behaviour, and com- 
 mon sense, three words sufficiently abstract to a boy 
 who had barely received his first communion. 
 
 His kindly great-aunt wished to sympathize more 
 tenderly with the orphan's grief, but she feared being 
 taxed with weakness by the master and mistress of the 
 house, and doing him an ill turn with them. She even 
 tried to staunch his tears through fear that his pro- 
 longed grief would seem ungrateful to the two peo- 
 ple who, from that time forth, were to take the place 
 of his father and mother. But, when one is but eleven 
 years old, one lacks tact, and her whispered injunctions 
 provoked only a recrudescence of tears. 
 
 Through the mist that veiled his eyes, Laurent, fear- 
 ful and panting like a hunted bird, surreptitiously ex- 
 amined the group around the table. 
 
 Madame Dobouziez, his cousin Lydia, was enthroned 
 directly across the table from her husband. A little 
 woman, slightly bent, her skin was yellow, and shriv- 
 elled like that of a prune. Her hair was black and 
 shiny and dressed in thick coils that hid her forehead 
 and touched the thick, heavy eyebrows that shaded her 
 eyes, black also, gelatinous and almost popping out of 
 her head. Her face was singularly inexpressive in its 
 masculine features, thin and colorless lips, and flat- 
 tened nose beneath the nostrils of which a little down 
 was perceptible. Her voice was harsh and guttural, 
 bringing to mind the cry of a guinea hen. A heart cold 
 and contracted rather than entirely absent; she had 
 
(5 THE NEW_ CARTHAGE 
 
 moments of kindness, but never of delicacy, and her 
 soul was narrow and constricted. 
 
 William Dobouziez, brilliant captain of industry, 
 had married her for her money. The dowry of this 
 daughter of a retired Brussels hosier served, after he 
 had resigned from the army, to build his factory and 
 become the first stepping-stone toward a rapidly ac- 
 quired fortune. 
 
 Laurent's eyes rested with more satisfaction and 
 even with a certain pleasure upon Regina, or Gina, 
 the only child of the Dobouziez', a few years older 
 than himself, a slender, nervous brunette with expres- 
 sive black eyes, a mass of curly hair, and a flawlessly 
 oval face. The nostrils of her aquiline nose were sen- 
 sitive, her mouth was roguish and wilful, her chin 
 marked by a deHcious dimple, and the soft rose of her 
 coloring had the delicate, dull transparence of a cameo. 
 Never before had Laurent seen so exquisite a little 
 girl. 
 
 Nevertheless, he did not dare stare at her for very 
 long, nor endure the fire of her malicious eyes. The 
 turbulence of this spoiled and roguish child was tem- 
 pered by a little of the solemnity and arrogance of 
 cousin Dobouziez. And already something disdain- 
 ful and inexpressibly bantering puckered her innocent 
 lips and altered the tone of her candid laugh. 
 
 She dazzled Laurent, she impressed him as being 
 a personage. And vaguely, he felt afraid of her. Es- 
 pecially since she had looked at him fixedly two or 
 three times, accompanying her examination with 4 
 smile full of condescension and superiority. 
 
 Conscious herself of the favorable effect that she 
 had produced upon him, she became even more rest- 
 less and capricious than usual. She began to intrude 
 
THE GARDEN f 
 
 upon the conversation, and toyed with her food, not 
 knowing how to attract attention to herself. Her 
 mother seemed unable to control her and, reluctant to 
 scold her, since that would draw the minx's malice 
 upon herself, she cast distressed glances at Dobouziez. 
 
 He resisted his wife's desperate appeal as long as he 
 possibly could. Finally, he interfered. Gina yielded 
 instantly, with an amusingly martyred air, to the kindly 
 command of her father. In behalf of Gina the head of 
 the family dispensed with his habitual rigidity. He 
 controlled himself with a violent effort that he might 
 not reply to the irritating sallies of his darling child ; 
 when he did finally call her to account, it was only in 
 self-defence. And the unaccustomed sweetness of his 
 tone and of his look recalled to Laurent the voice and 
 the smile of Jacques Paridael. So much so that Lorki, 
 for that was the name by which his dear absent father 
 had called him, could hardly believe that the cousin 
 Dobouziez who was remonstrating with his little Gina 
 was the same rigid disciplinarian who, at the sad cere- 
 mony so shortly before, had commanded him to do 
 this, and then that, to do so many things that he had 
 not known which to do first. And in what a brief 
 and peremptory tone those instructions had been ut- 
 tered ! 
 
 What matter ; though his childish heart was breaking 
 at the comparison, the Lorki of yesterday, the Laurent 
 of to-day did not bear his little cousin a grudge for 
 being the favorite. She was far too beautiful for that ! 
 But, had it been a question of some other child, a 
 boy like himself, for example, the orphan would bit- 
 terly have resented this revelation of the extent of 
 his loss; he would have experienced malice and hate 
 as well as consternation and despair. It would have 
 
8 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 gone badly with the other child, for the injustice of 
 his own lot would have made him rebellious. 
 
 But Gina seemed to him one of the radiant princesses 
 or fairies of his nursery tales, and it seemed natural 
 that God should be more clement toward beings of so 
 superior an essence ! 
 
 The little fairy could control herself no longer. 
 
 "Run along, children, and play," said her father, 
 making a sign to Laurent to follow her. 
 
 Gina led him into the garden. 
 
 It was an enclosure as regularly laid out as a peas- 
 ant's backyard, bounded by walls roughcast with lime 
 upon which fruit trees were being trained. It was a 
 kitchen-garden and orchard as well as a pleasure gar- 
 den ; as large as a park, it offered neither sloping lawns 
 nor shady woods. 
 
 It boasted, however, a single curiosity, a turret built 
 of red brick, its back to a little hill, at the foot of which 
 stagnated a tiny sheet of water serving as an habita- 
 tion for two pairs of ducks. Winding paths converged 
 at the top of the hillock, from which one commanded 
 a view of the pond and the garden. This bizarre 
 structure was rather pompously known as "The Laby- 
 rinth." 
 
 Gina did the honors to Laurent. With the air of a 
 busy guide she showed him everything of importance. 
 She marched him along with her in a protecting man- 
 ner. 
 
 "Lookout! Don't fall into the water . . . !" 
 
 "Mama doesn't allow anyone to pick the raspber- 
 ries. . . . r 
 
 She laughed heartily at his awkwardness. When 
 two or three hardly elegant phrases crept into their 
 jargon, she reproved him. Laurent, who was little of 
 
THE GARDEN 9 
 
 a talker, became even more taciturn than usual. His 
 timidity increased, and he felt disgusted with himself 
 for appearing ridiculous to Gina. 
 
 That day Gina was wearing her school dress, grey 
 trimmed with blue silk. She described to her com- 
 panion, who never wearied of listening to her, all the 
 peculiarities of the convent at Malines. She even re- 
 galed him with a few caricatures, imitating, with 
 grimaces and gestures, several of the good sisters. 
 The Reverend Mother squinted and Sister Veronica, 
 who took care of the linens, spoke through her nose, 
 and Sister Hubertine fell asleep and snored during the 
 evening study hour. 
 
 The chapter of infirmities and defects of her teach- 
 ers having put her in good humor, she took delight in 
 embarrassing her companion. 
 
 "Is it true that your father was nothing but a clerk ? 
 Was there only one little door to your house? Why 
 did you never come to see us? We are cousins, eh? 
 Funny, isn't it ? Paridael, that's a Flemish name, isn't 
 it ? You know Gaston and Anthanasius Saint-Fardier, 
 the sons of my father's partner. Monsieur Saint-Far- 
 dier ? They are two merry fellows. They ride horse- 
 back, and they don't wear caps. They're not at all 
 Hke you. Papa told me you looked like a little peas- 
 ant, with your red cheeks, your big teeth, and your 
 hair pasted down flat. Who cut your hair that way? 
 Yes, father is right, you look very much like the little 
 peasants who assist the priest at the mass here !" 
 
 She set upon Laurent with implacable malice. Every 
 word went straight to his heart. Blushing more than 
 ever, he forced himself to laugh as he had at the por- 
 traits of the good sisters, and found nothing to say in 
 reply. 
 
io THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 He would have liked to prove to the little tease that 
 one may wear a blouse puffed out like a bag, a coat both 
 too long and too wide, made to last for two years, that 
 clung to one's legs and made one look knock-kneed, a 
 starched collar from which emerged a face as childish 
 and blank as that of John the Baptist after his de- 
 capitation, a cap with grotesque lace trimming badly 
 concealed by a mourning band, buttons of jet and vel- 
 vet, useless buckles and cumbersome tassels, that one 
 may, in short, be dressed like a peasant's son and yet 
 not be more silly and ungainly than a Gaston or Atha- 
 nasius Saint-Fardier ! 
 
 His good nurse Siska was not a model tailor, but at 
 least she knew how to make the most of the material. 
 And then, too, Jacques Paridael had liked these clothes 
 so well upon his little Laurent. On the day of his 
 first communion the dear man had repeated, as he 
 embraced him, "You are as handsome as a prince, 
 my Lorki !" 
 
 And even now he was wearing that same holiday 
 suit, just as it had been then, with the exception of 
 the crape wound about his cap and replacing, upon 
 his right arm, the glorious band of moire trimmed with 
 silver. 
 
 The tease was suddenly seized with a good impulse. 
 While running through the flower beds she picked a 
 China-aster with poppy colored petals and golden heart. 
 
 "Here, Peasant," she cried, "put this flower in your 
 buttonhole!'* 
 
 She might call him Peasant all she wanted! He 
 forgave her freely. This flower stuck in his black 
 blouse was the first smile that illumined his grief. 
 Even less able to put into words his joy than he had 
 been able to express his bitterness of heart, he would, 
 
THE GARDEN ll 
 
 had he dared, have fallen upon his knees before the 
 little girl and kissed her hand, as he had seen the 
 plumed knights do in an old volume of the "Family 
 Magazine'* that he had read on Sunday afternoons 
 in Winter, munching roasted chestnuts as he turned the 
 pages. 
 
 But Regina skipped to the other end of the garden 
 without waiting for Laurent to put his gratitude into 
 words. 
 
 He felt a pang of remorse at having allowed himself 
 to be so quickly tamed, and sullenly tore the gay flower 
 from his blouse. But instead of throwing it away, 
 he put it tenderly into his pocket. And, giving himself 
 up to his loneliness, he began to think of his home. 
 It was empty now, and had been placed upon the mar- 
 ket. His dog, good old Lion, had been willingly aban- 
 doned to a neighbor who consented to relieve the house 
 of death of its presence. Siska, having been paid off, 
 had also left. Where was she now? Would he ever 
 see her again? Lorki had not said farewell to her 
 in the morning. He saw her face as he had seen it 
 in church, far at the farther end, as swollen with tears 
 as his own. 
 
 In leaving, he had had to pass her, urged on by 
 Cousin William, when he would so greatly have loved 
 to throw his arms about her neck. In the carriage, he 
 had timidly hazarded a single question. 
 
 "Where are we going now. Cousin William?" 
 "To the factory, of course ! Where did you think ?" 
 So they were not going to return to the house ! The 
 little boy had not insisted ; he had not even asked per- 
 mission to say farewell to his nurse. It was not be- 
 cause he had already become hard and proud. He was 
 only timid, and out of his element. Cousin William 
 
12 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 would have snubbed him had he mentioned so incon- 
 spicuous a person as Siska. . . . ! 
 
 Tired of calling him, Gina decided to return to the 
 dreamer. She took his arm. 
 
 "You must be deaf. . . . Come, I want you to see 
 the nectarines. They are Mamma's special fruit, and 
 Felicite counts them each morning. There are twelve 
 of them. Don't touch any!" 
 
 She did not notice that Laurent had removed the 
 flower. The little girl's indifference enlivened the 
 Peasant, though he would have preferred her to ask 
 what had become of her present. 
 
 He tried to forget his grief, and allowed himself 
 to be led about by Gina. They played boys* games. 
 To please her, he tumbled about, yelled like a little 
 savage, rolled on the grass and in the paths, soiling his 
 good clothes, mottling his cheeks, wet with perspira- 
 tion, tears and mud. 
 
 "Oh! What a funny sight!" cried the little girl. 
 
 She dipped the corner of her handkerchief in the 
 pond and tried to clean Laurent's face, but she laughed 
 too much, and succeeded only in making it even more 
 dirty. 
 
 During this operation there came the squeaking of 
 a shrill voice. 
 
 "Madamoiselle, Monsieur would like you to come 
 in. The guests are leaving. . . . And you, come here ! 
 Tomorrow you go back to school! You have had 
 enough vacation as it is !" 
 
 But at the sight of young Paridael Felicite, the re- 
 doubtable Felicite, confidential servant to the family, 
 cried out as though she had met the devil himself. 
 
 "Faugh ! You nasty child !" 
 
 She had called for him at school the night before, 
 
THE GARDEN 13 
 
 and was to take him back again. Acrid, grumbling, 
 crafty, flattering the pride of her masters by copy- 
 ing their faults, she had immediately divined the foot- 
 ing upon which the child was to be treated by the house- 
 hold. Cousin Lydia had shifted to this wretched ser- 
 vant the maintenance and supervision of the intruder. 
 
 The imprudent child had just provided Felicite with 
 a magnificent debut in her role of guardian. The 
 harpy took good care not to neglect this windfall. 
 She gave free play to her amiable sentiments. 
 
 Gina, still shaking with laughter, abandoned her 
 companion to the taunts and scolding of the servant, 
 and entered the drawing-room at top speed, so anxious 
 was she to describe the farce to her parents and their 
 guests. 
 
 Laurent made a movement to rejoin the little rogue, 
 but Felicite did not let him escape. She pushed him 
 toward the stairs, giving him, as she did so, such a 
 description of the dispositions of Monsieur and Ma- 
 dame Dobouziez toward little pigs like himself that, 
 wholly terrified, he hastened to gain the garret in which 
 he had been lodged, and hid himself beneath the sheets. 
 
 Felicite had pinched and cuffed him. He had been 
 stoic, not uttering a sound, controlling himself as far 
 as possible before the shrew. 
 
 The stormy ending of the day diverted his mind 
 from his grief. Emotion, fatigue, and the open air 
 produced a heavy sleep disturbed by dreams in which 
 contradictory images blended in a fantastic sarabande. 
 Armed with the faery ring, the radiantly laughing Gina 
 conducted the dance, and alternately sacrificed him to 
 and saved him from the dark plots of an old scorceress 
 incarnated in Felicite. In the background the pale and 
 sweet shades of his father and Siska, the dead and 
 
14 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the absent, stretched their arms toward him. He threw 
 himself toward them, but Monsieur Dobouziez with an 
 ironic "Stop it, young rascal !" seized him in full flight. 
 Bells were ringing. He was throwing the China-aster, 
 Gina's gift, into the collection plate. The flower fell 
 with a clink like that of a gold-piece, accompanied by 
 the sprightly laugh of his little cousin, and the sound 
 put to flight the mocking goblins and the pitying 
 shades. . . . 
 
 Such was the initiation of Laurent Paridael into 
 his new family life. . . . 
 
II 
 
 THE STONE MILL 
 
 On his second visit and on those which followed, 
 when vacations sent him home to his guardians, Lau- 
 rent found himself no more acclimated than he had 
 been on the first day. Each time he seemed to fall in 
 upon them from the moon and take up space. 
 
 They did not wait until he had put down his satchel 
 to find out the length of his stay, and they were more 
 anxious about the state of his clothes than they were 
 about himself. A welcome utterly without effusion: 
 Cousin Lydia mechanically offered him her lemon-like 
 cheek, Gina appeared to have forgotten him since the 
 last time, and as for Cousin William, he did not ex- 
 pect to be disturbed at his business for so small a mat- 
 ter as the arrival of a young rapscaUion whom he 
 would see soon enough at the next meal. 
 
 "Ah ! So there you are, eh ? Have you been good ? 
 Have you improved in your studies?" 
 
 Always the same questions, asked with an air of 
 doubt, never of encouragement. H Laurent brought 
 home a prize it was ever his bad luck that it was one 
 of those to which Monsieur Dobouziez attached no 
 importance. 
 
 At the table, the round eyes of Cousin Lydia, implac- 
 
 ^5 
 
i6 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 ably levelled at him, seemed to reproach him for the 
 lusty appetite of his twelve years. Truly, she made 
 him let fall glasses from his fingers and morsels from 
 his fork. These accidents did not always earn him the 
 epithet of clumsy, but his cousin could make a con- 
 temptuous little grimace which told her thoughts very 
 clearly. And this grimace was as nothing compared 
 to the bantering smile of the impeccable Gina. 
 
 Cousin William, whom it was necessary to call sev- 
 eral times before the family took their places at the 
 table, would finally arrive, his expression preoccupied, 
 his mind upon a new invention, computing the results, 
 calculating the probable income from one or another 
 improvement, his brain crammed with figures. 
 
 With his wife Monsieur Dobouziez talked shop and 
 she understood it admirably, and when answering him 
 made use of barbarous technical words that would 
 have proved a stumbling block to many a man in the 
 same business. 
 
 Monsieur Dobouziez never ceased figuring, and re- 
 laxed only to admire and cajole his daughter. More 
 and more Laurent came to feel the absolute and almost 
 idolatrous understanding existing between them. If 
 the man of business became human in troubling him- 
 self about her, then, reciprocally, Gina abandoned, 
 with her father, her airs of superiority, her little man- 
 ner of conceit and detachment. Monsieur Dobouziez 
 anticipated her desires, satisfied her least caprice, de- 
 fended her even against her mother. With Gina he, 
 the practical and matter-of-fact man, amused himself 
 in futilities. 
 
 On each vacation Laurent found his little cousin 
 more beautiful and more distant. Her parents had 
 withdrawn her from school, and able, worldly tutors 
 
THE STONE MILL ly 
 
 were preparing her for the destiny of an opulent 
 heiress. 
 
 Having become too big a girl, too much the young 
 lady to amuse herself with the boy, she entertained or 
 visited friends of her own age. The little Vanderling 
 girls, daughters of the most celebrated lawyer of the 
 city, two blonde and lively little gossips were her boon 
 companions, in both studies and pleasures. And if, 
 by exception, lacking any other company, Gina so far 
 forgot herself as to play with the Peasant, Cousin 
 Lydia immediately found a pretext for interrupting 
 this recreation. She would send Felicite to warn 
 Mademoiselle of the arrival of some professor, or the 
 dressmaker would be bringing a dress for her to try on, 
 or it would be time for her to practise upon the piano. 
 Felicite, who had been worthily trained, usually antici- 
 pated her mistress's intentions and carried out this 
 kind of mission with the most laudable zeal. Laurent 
 had nothing to do but to amuse himself as best he 
 could. 
 
 The factory was becoming so prosperous that each 
 year new installations were being made ; sheds, work- 
 rooms, stores began to encroach upon the gardens sur- 
 rounding the house. Laurent witnessed, not without 
 regret, the disappearance of the Labyrinth with its 
 tower, its pond and its ducks; that abomination had 
 become dear to him because of Gina. 
 
 The house also annexed a part of the garden. In 
 view of the coming debiit of their daughter the Do- 
 bouziez's were erecting a veritable palace containing 
 a suite of rooms decorated and furnished by the most 
 aristocratic interior decorators. Cousin William 
 seemed to preside over these embellishments, but he 
 always deferred to the selection and the taste of his 
 
i8 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 daughter. He had already contrived for the spoiled 
 child a delicious little suite of two rooms, done in blue 
 and silver, which would have delighted the heart of 
 any lady of elegance. 
 
 The physiognomy of young Paridaers room changed 
 like that of the others. His mansard under the roofs 
 assumed a more and more provisional appearance. It 
 seemed as if a deliberate malice had presided over the 
 destiny of the young collegian's lodging. Felicite had 
 cleared out only a space sufficient to hold a folding 
 bed. 
 
 The attic no longer offered enough room in which 
 to store away the rubbish accruing from the former 
 furnishings of the house, and, preferring not to cum- 
 ber the servants' rooms with such bric-a-brac, the 
 housekeeper transported them to Laurent's retreat. 
 She put so much zeal into doing this that the child 
 already foresaw the time when he would have to emi- 
 grate to the stair-landing. At heart he was not dis- 
 pleased by this investiture. The conversion of his 
 quarters into a place of confusion produced unforeseen 
 and charming results. A certain sympathy, aris- 
 ing from the similarity of their condition, was estab- 
 lished between the forlorn orphan and the objects 
 which had ceased to please. But that Laurent amused 
 himself with these old things was sufficient excuse for 
 the amiable factotum to remove them elsewhere. To 
 conceal his treasures and secrete his finds, the young 
 rogue resorted to the ruses of a true smuggler. 
 
 In this garret were hoarded up, to the great joy 
 of the refractory youth, the books condemned as too 
 frivolous by Monsieur Dobouziez. Forbidden fruit, 
 like the raspberries and nectarines in the gardens ! The 
 mic^e had already nibbled powdery holes in them, an4 
 
THE STONE MILL 19 
 
 Laurent took delight in what the voracious little beasts 
 had the good grace to leave him of this literature. 
 Often he became so absorbed in his reading that he 
 forgot all precautions. Walking on tip-toe so that 
 she might give him no warning, Felicite would take 
 him by surprise in his asylum. If she did not catch 
 him red-handed at the prohibited reading, the old 
 devil would perceive that he had rummaged over the 
 shelves and upset the books. Then came a squall from 
 the shrew, and howls from the punished, which ended 
 by exciting Cousin Lydia. 
 
 Once he was caught in the act of reading "Paul and 
 Virginia." "A bad book! You would do better to study 
 your arithmetic!" she admonished. And Monsieur 
 Doboiiziez ratified the decree of his better half by 
 adding that the precocious scapegrace, too great a 
 reader and too much the dreamer, would never amount 
 to anything, would remain all his life a poor devil like 
 Jacques Paridael. A dreamer! What scorn Cousin 
 William put into that word ! 
 
 On winter evenings, Laurent rejoiced in gaining his 
 dear attic as early as he could. Downstairs in the 
 dining-room, where they detained him after dinner, 
 he felt himself a bore and a nuisance. Why did they 
 not send him up to bed! If he suppressed a desire 
 to stretch, if he yawned, if he took his eyes off the 
 school book before the clock struck ten, the sacramental 
 hour. Cousin Lydia would roll her round eyes, and 
 Gina would bridle, affecting to be more wide awake 
 than ever, and chiding the boy for his temper. 
 
 Even during the day, after some remonstrance or 
 other, Laurent would run for his refuge under the 
 roof. 
 
 Deprived of his books, he opened the skylight, 
 
20 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 climbed upon a chair, and surveyed the suburb. 
 
 Low, red, suburban houses huddled together in com- 
 pact blocks. The growing city, having broken through 
 its girdling ramparts, had designs upon the neighbor- 
 ing radish beds. Streets had already been planned, 
 running in a straight line through the harvests. Pave- 
 ments bordered fields exploited until the last moment 
 by the expropriated peasant. In the midst of harvests 
 there emerged, at the top of a stake, like a scarecrow, 
 signs bearing this phrase: ''Building Plots." And, 
 veritable scouts, sentinels sent in advance by the army 
 of urban construction, saloons took the corners of the 
 new streets, and from the height of their many-storied, 
 ordinary facades, new, but already of a sordid aspect, 
 surveyed the stubble, cut short and gathered in and 
 seeming to implore the clemency of the invaders. 
 There is nothing as suggestive as the meeting of the 
 country and the city. They riot in a real combat of 
 outposts. 
 
 The plethoric, unnatural, shy appearance of the 
 landscape was darkened by the embankments of the 
 fortifications: crenelated doors, sombre as tunnels, 
 crushed under platforms; walls pierced by loopholes; 
 barracks from which plaintive bugles replied to the 
 factory clock. 
 
 Three windmills, straggling in the fields, turned in 
 full flight, playing their last stake while waiting to 
 share the lot of a fourth, whose stone walls rose 
 pitiably above the scafifolding against which was rising 
 a tenement of workingmen's hovels, and whose wings 
 the besiegers, with the customary behaviour of the 
 rabble, had cut away like drunken bird-catchers. 
 
 Laurent sympathized with the poor dismantled mill 
 without coming to detest the population of the little 
 
THE STONE MILL 21 
 
 streets that hugged it, hard-hitters and habitual vaga- 
 bonds, heroes of many a sinister adventure, a tor- 
 menting race which the poHce did not always dare to 
 grapple with in its own haunts. These "millers of the 
 stone mill" were among the most sturdy ruffians of the 
 city scum. The prowlers on the docks and the fresh 
 water sharks, better known under the name of "run- 
 ners" came chiefly from these waters. 
 
 But even aside from this gang of irregulars and 
 criminals, whom Laurent came in time to know at 
 closer range, the rest of this half-urban, half-rural pop- 
 ulation, a hard-working and tractable people, sufficed 
 to invite and preoccupy the speculative child. Besides, 
 the millers inevitably gave the neighborhood its color; 
 they sprinkled with a vulgar and spicy leaven these 
 fugitives from the villages, farm laborers turned ma- 
 sons and dockers, or, reciprocally, artisans turned mar- 
 ket-gardeners, and work girls become dairy maids. By 
 scratching the bully, one could find the cowherd; the 
 butcher's boy had been a herdsman. Strange mon- 
 grels, sullen and fanatical as in a village, cynics and 
 fault finders as in the city, at once surly and unre- 
 served, truculent and lustful, fundamentally believers 
 and superficially blasphemers, awkward and sharp- 
 witted, patriotic, chauvinistic, their hybrid and badly 
 defined character, their tawny, muscled and sanguine 
 complexion endeared them, perhaps from that time 
 forth, to the kindred barbarian, the vibrant and com- 
 plex brute that was Paridael. 
 
 For a long time these affinities smouldered, vague, 
 instinctive, latent within him. 
 
 Standing upon his chair, the view of the far lying 
 suburb beneath him, he saturated himself in his home- 
 sickness and tore himself away from his morbid con- 
 
22 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 templation only when he had reached the point of tears. 
 And then, falHng to his knees or rolHng upon his bed, 
 he poured out in a flood of tears all the bitterness and 
 distress that had accumulated within him. And the 
 sprightly noise of the mills, clear and detached like 
 the laugh of Gina, and the snarling of the factory, 
 grumbling and disdainful as a rebuff from Felicite, 
 accompanied and stimulated the slow and full fall of 
 his tears, mild and enervating showers of a weary 
 April. And this bantering, tormenting lullaby seemed 
 to repeat : "More ! . . . More ! . . . More ! . . , " 
 
Ill 
 
 THE FACTORY 
 
 FELICIT1& ended by locking up the hermifs garret 
 during the day, and sending him out into the garden 
 to play. The garden itself had been reduced, by one 
 encroachment after the other, to the dimensions of a 
 back-yard. From the windows of the house the eyes 
 of the spy could pry into its furthest corners. And, 
 wearied by her surveillance, the boy made incursions 
 into the workshops. 
 
 The fifteen hundred hands in the factory were held 
 in check by rules of a draconian severity. For the 
 least infraction there were penalties, salaries were held 
 up, dismissals accorded against which there was no 
 appeal. A strict justice. No actual iniquity, but the 
 discipline was that of a barracks, the code of penalties 
 was badly proportioned to the offenses, and the balance 
 invariably inclined toward the owners. 
 
 Saint-Fardier, a stout man with the head of a comic 
 mask, an olive green skin, thick lipped, with woolly 
 hair like that of a quadroon, scoured the factory upon 
 certain days, leaving behind him a trail of flame and 
 brimstone. He bellowed, rolled his basilisk eyes, 
 shoved his way about, slammed doors, and bounded 
 like a ball of fire from one room to the next. Like a 
 waterspout, he left in his wake despair and desolation. 
 
 23 
 
24 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Penalties rained like grapeshot upon the bewildered 
 population. The least peccadillo entailed the discharge 
 of the best and oldest hand. Saint-Fardier showed 
 himself as abrupt with the foremen as with the most 
 recent apprentice. One would have thought that if it 
 occurred to him to measure his blows and distinguish 
 between his victims, he would have preferred to smite 
 the oldest employees, those whom no punishment had 
 ever compassed, and those who had been with the fac- 
 tory since its foundation. The workers had named 
 him "The Pasha," equally because of his despotism and 
 his wantoness. 
 
 Dobouziez, who w^as as self-willed and as arbitrary 
 as his partner, was less demonstrative and more close- 
 mouthed. He was the judge, the other, the execu- 
 tioner. Dobouziez, crafty and well-bred, gauged at his 
 true value the illiterate and boorish partner whom a 
 rich marriage had put into the possession of a fortune 
 equal to his own. The mathematician was happy in 
 making use of the man of strength, the man whose 
 mouth was as scorching as that of a furnace, in ex- 
 tremities repellant to his own finely tempered nature. 
 
 It was generally known among the workers that the 
 worst holocausts among the important employees 
 usually coincided with a decline in the demand for the 
 manufactured article or an increase in the price of 
 raw materials. 
 
 Nevertheless, Dobouziez found it necessary to curb 
 the zeal of his partner, who, urged on by a chronic af- 
 fection of the liver, rioted in proscriptions worthy of 
 a Marius. 
 
 A very shrewd business man, but none the less clever, 
 Dobouziez, who permitted the exploitation of the pro- 
 letariat, disapproved equally of Utopian schemes and 
 
THE FACTORY 25 
 
 poetic eccentricities and of useless brutality and com- 
 promising cruelty. He likened his workers to beings 
 of an inferior race, to beasts of burden that he worked 
 for his personal gain. He was a frigid positivist, a 
 perfect money-making machine, without the slightest 
 inopportune vibration, without any sentimental fan- 
 cies, never deviating by the thousandth part of a sec- 
 ond. With him nothing was unforeseen. His con- 
 science represented a superb sextant, a magnificent in- 
 strument of precision. If he was virtuous, it was be- 
 cause of his dignity and his aversion to all irregularity, 
 scandal and publicity, and also because he had found 
 it true of human life that a straight line is the shortest 
 distance between two points. It was virtue of a purely 
 abstract order. 
 
 If he disapproved of the uproar of his too hasty 
 acolyte, it was in the name of equilibrium, of good 
 order, because of his respect for the proper alignment, 
 for the golden mean, because he wished to preserve ap- 
 pearances and a nicely adjusted symmetry. 
 
 When he walked around the factory, which he did 
 only upon rare occasions, as, for instance, when it was 
 necessary to experiment with or apply some new in- 
 vention, he often found himself astonished at the ab- 
 sence of a face to which he had become accustomed. 
 
 "Hm!" he would say to his partner, "I don't see 
 old Jeff around any more !" 
 
 "Cleared out!" replied Saint-Fardier, with a ges- 
 ture as sharp as a chopper. 
 
 "And why?" Dobouziez objected. "A man who has 
 worked for us for twenty years." 
 
 "Peuh! He drank. ... He became careless and 
 negligent. What?" 
 
 "Really? And his successor?" 
 
26 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "A solid, healthy workman who draws only a quar- 
 ter of what that old invalid used to cost us." And 
 Saint-Fardier winked maliciously, noting a smile of 
 intelligence on the face of his partner. But the other 
 soothsayer did not unbend, and without disapproving 
 of the discharge, called off the dogs with an indiffer- 
 ent air. 
 
 A strong dose of philosophy and of patience was 
 required by the workers in order to endure without 
 contempt the haughtiness, the scornful treatment, the 
 rigor, the despotism of employers armed against them 
 with an iniquitous legality. 
 
 And what accidents, infirmities, deaths did not ag- 
 gravate the lot of these helots! 
 
 Laurent, who visited all parts of the factory, who 
 followed the many complex processes necessary in the 
 making of candles from the treatment of the fetid 
 organic matter, beef and mutton fats, from which the 
 white and glossy stearine was separated with great 
 difficulty, to the packing, the casing, and the loading 
 of the trucks — Laurent was not long in attributing an 
 occult influence, fatal and perverse, to this place itself, 
 to all this apparatus, to this stock of tools to which 
 was applied all the perfection of mechanics and the 
 most recent chemical discoveries. 
 
 He went down into the engine room, dodged about 
 the machine room, passed the vats in which the raw 
 matter was purified by being melted and remelted, and 
 came to the presses where, refined of its impurities, it 
 was compressed in skins and again solidified. 
 
 Of all the rooms in which the fats were triturated, 
 the one in worst repute was that in which they were 
 treated with acreoline, a colorless and volatile sub- 
 stance whose gases attacked the eyes of the workmen. 
 
THE FACTORY 27 
 
 In vain they were relieved every twelve hours, and 
 from time to time took a respite in which to neutra- 
 lize the effect of the poison; in the end the odious 
 essence frustrated their precautions and ate away their 
 eyeballs. 
 
 It was as if Nature, the eternal sphynx, furious at 
 having her secrets torn from her, revenged herself 
 upon the lowest auxiliaries of the defeats inflicted upon 
 her by the scientists. 
 
 More expeditious than the corrosive vapors, but as 
 artful and as silently inevitable in its effect, the dy- 
 namic force masked itself and, not always succeeding 
 in gaining in a single blow its revenge upon the men 
 whom it had enslaved, it lay in wait and trapped its 
 victims one by one. Danger was not present in the 
 spot where the machine, in full activity, rumbled, bel- 
 lowed and stamped, and shook the cage of thick ma- 
 sonry in which was plunged, like a giant buried alive, 
 its mass of steel, copper and cast iron. Its roars kept 
 the vigilance of its guardians ever keen. And just 
 when it was ready to free itself from its shackles, to 
 burst forth, to shatter everything around it, the mon- 
 ster would be betrayed by its gauge, and the accumu- 
 lated steam would inoffensively escape through the 
 safety valves. But far away from the generator, the 
 fly-wheel and the cranks, the machine conspired against 
 its servitors. Simple bands of leather detached them- 
 selves from the principal mass like the long tentacles 
 of an octopus, and, through holes let into the walls, 
 ran tributary machines. These endless bands wound 
 and unwound upon their reels with a grace and a 
 smoothness that banished any idea of cruelty and as- 
 sault. They moved so rapidly that they seemed im- 
 mobile. And there were even moments in which they 
 
28 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 were no longer visible. They escaped, flew away, re- 
 turned to their point of departure, flew forth again 
 tirelessly, accomplished the same operation thousands 
 of times, making as they revolved hardly as much 
 noise as the beating of wings or the purr of a wheed- 
 ling kitten, and in nearing them their breath floated 
 past with a soft and gentle caress. 
 
 In the end, the workmen who kept them in repair 
 and superintended them did not suspect them of any 
 more harm than the trainer suspects the apparent for- 
 bearance of his felines. At intervals in the work they 
 lulled him to sleep or induced him to revery like the 
 murmur of water or the nasal whirr of a spinning 
 wheel. But velvety cats are panthers on the watch. 
 Forever lying in wait, they took advantage of his 
 drowsiness, of a slight relaxing of his attention, of a 
 furtive heedlessness, of a careless gesture in working, 
 of his desire to lean back, to stretch and yawn. 
 
 They took advantage even of his untidiness. A 
 puffed shirt, a loose blouse, a mere crease sufficed 
 them. Masters of a tip of his clothing, the transmis- 
 sion belts, their endless bands like prehensile, sucking 
 tentacles, pulled at the cloth and, before it could tear, 
 drew it toward them, sucked it in and the poor fellow 
 with it. Vainly he tried to fight it off. Dizziness over- 
 came him. A cry of horror strangled in his throat. 
 The torturer exhausted upon him the whole series of 
 obsolete punishments. He was extended upon the rack, 
 torn, scalped, mangled, hacked to pieces, flung piece 
 by piece yards away like a stone from a sling, or 
 squeezed like a lemon in the gearing, his blood, his 
 brain and his marrow were sprinkled over the excited 
 and helpless gang of laborers. Most rarely did the 
 burnt offering get an opportunity to take reprisals 
 
THE FACTORY 29 
 
 upon the drunken minotaur. If he did recover, it 
 was with one member the less, an arm reduced to pulp, 
 a leg broken in twenty places. Dead forever to work, 
 he was a living mockery. 
 
 Fall upon the murderer ? Shut off the power ? The 
 man is either mangled or killed before one has time to 
 see the unequal struggle. 
 
 Laurent absorbed from the worst instruments of tor- 
 ture and the most malignant elixirs of the inquisitors 
 the highly vaunted marvels of physics and industrial 
 chemistry ; he could see only the reverse of that pros- 
 perous industrialism of which Gina, from her side, 
 saw only the radiant and brilliant aspect. He dis- 
 covered the lie innate in the word Progress so con- 
 stantly upon the lips of the middle classes, he saw the 
 illusion of a society, claiming to be fraternal and demo- 
 cratic, founded upon a third estate more rapacious and 
 more inhuman than the feudal lords. And, from that 
 moment, a profound pity, an instinctive and absorbing 
 affection, a sympathy partly maternal, partly that of 
 a lover, seized him, a fundamental pity for these pa- 
 riahs, beginning with those of his own environment, 
 the brave daily laborers of the Dobouziez factory, who 
 belonged to the eccentric and interloping suburban pro- 
 letariat that swarmed about the Stone Mill. He took 
 forever the side of these wide-awake, husky, well-built 
 chaps, who worked with such energy, who braved each 
 day sickness, poisoning, mutilation, formidable tools 
 that turned against them, without losing for an instant 
 their rude, free manner, their familiarity, whose relish 
 excused its indecency. 
 
 With them the boy became communicative. When 
 he met them, black, sweaty, panting, and they doffed 
 their caps to him, he summoned enough courage to 
 
3b THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 stop them and ask questions. After the little persecu- 
 tion of veiled hints, of irony, of reticence, and the 
 blind torture that he had undergone in the drawing- 
 room of his guardians, to speak to them was like in- 
 haling brisk country air after being in a hot-house of 
 forced plants whose perfume made him giddy. He 
 began to consider himself a sharer in the destiny of 
 the lowly. His downtrodden weakness communed with 
 their passive force. He conciliated stokers, machinists, 
 draymen, laborers. They responded to the halting ad- 
 vances made by this repulsed child, morally neglected, 
 misunderstood, severed from parental tenderness, 
 whom the servants, scum of the common people, pat- 
 terning themselves upon Felicite, treated as a burden 
 upon the establishment. 
 
IV 
 
 "THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON" 
 
 "Were I to live till the end of the world,'* the ma- 
 chinist, a former cavalryman, said to Laurent while he 
 cleaned, polished and rubbed down the three hundred 
 horsepower metal monster, "I should never forget that 
 scene. Yes, sir ! This jade here did a pretty piece of 
 business that day! And instead of grooming it as I 
 am doing now, I am often tempted to hack it into as 
 many pieces as it made of my pal. And he hadn't 
 even been drawn, that stoker of mine! And he was 
 so robust, so healthy, that they called him the blond 
 'Curly.' Not a blemish on his body. There was a 
 conscript for you whom the board of militia would not 
 have discharged! He was so well built that one of 
 those gentlemen from the Academy sculptured him in 
 white marble, like the 'poses' in the park — idols, they 
 say ! Maybe that resemblance to the false gods brought 
 him bad luck ! It wouldn't have made any difference 
 had he walked around naked like our first parents; 
 nobody would have been shocked. Oh, well ! It wasn't 
 in ten, but in a hundred pieces that he was hacked by 
 this machine. After the pieces had been gathered to- 
 gether with great trouble, it was necessary to shroud 
 them, and I began with two other good chaps — I tell 
 you it was necessary — by swallowing, one right after 
 
 31 
 
32 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the other, five glasses of pure gin. We rolled that 
 human chopped meat, like so much sausage meat into 
 sausage casing, into a half dozen linen sheets reluct- 
 antly sacrificed by Mademoiselle Felicite. And six 
 sheets were not enough, for the blood trickled through 
 the last one !" 
 
 While this tale, so evocative in its barbaric candor, 
 was distressing young Laurent, he heard his name 
 called by a great voice which was trying to make it- 
 self small. 
 
 "Hey, Master Laurent! . . . Master Lorki!" 
 
 Lorki ! He had not been called that since leaving his 
 father's house. He turned swiftly, in agony, expect- 
 ing to see a ghost rise before him. And what was his 
 joy in recognizing a stocky, bronzed fellow with twin- 
 kling eyes and a great curly beard. 
 
 "Vincent r* he cried, pale with emotion. "You, 
 here!" 
 
 "At your service. Master Lorki. But sit down. My 
 word! One would say I'd scared you. I'm foreman 
 of the packing-room; you know, the women's work- 
 shop " 
 
 This packing-room was the only part of the factory 
 into which Laurent had not yet adventured. These 
 low women, more brazen, more roystering, less pa- 
 tient than their companions, had never ceased fright- 
 ening him. From his bed, at night, Laurent had often 
 heard the clock strike the hour of deliverance. The 
 women were released fifteen minutes before the men. 
 Directly there arose, from the carters' door, the stamp- 
 ing, the galloping, the uproar of the unbridled fillies. 
 Outside, however, they dawdled, dragging their feet. 
 The clock struck once more. The men, in turn, packed 
 up, more heavily, joking with each other in less sharp 
 
''THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON" 33 
 
 voices. And in a few moments there arose from the 
 end of the street the confused clamor of badly treated 
 women and their surly swains. It made Laurent's 
 flesh creep. 
 
 "The devils, they're hurting them !" 
 
 The innocent boy did not yet understand the oaths, 
 the jerky laughs that became shrill shrieks. The up- 
 roar turned the corner of the street, lost itself at the 
 bottom of blind alleys, dispersed, little by little, in the 
 windings of the courts, until the district again fell into 
 dismal and secret silence, a party to the gloom, aus- 
 picious for lurking and pairing off in the glutted, wan- 
 ton night around the Stone Mill. 
 
 The next day, those who had yelped and clamored 
 in a heart-rending fashion appeared sprightly, alert, 
 even more full of pranks than before ; and in the halls 
 on the ground floor the men, vainglorious and pleased 
 with themselves, jostled each other with an air of con- 
 nivance, winking to each other, avidly gabbling. 
 
 To what mysterious conquests were they alluding, 
 these truculent fellows? 
 
 "What! You don't know the packing-room?" cried 
 Vincent Tilbak. "It's the most curious corner of the 
 factory. You must see my crew ! Regular bees, they 
 are!" 
 
 Tilbak was a sailor, and from the same district as 
 Siska. 
 
 Formerly, after a long voyage, having hardly dis- 
 embarked, he would make for the house of the Pari- 
 daels. His clothing of coarse blue cloth exhaled tar, 
 seaweed, brome, the salt water, and all the fragrance 
 of the open, and from his being emanated a perfume 
 no less virile and loyal. To assure himself of a wel- 
 come, his pockets were always full of curiosities from 
 
34 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the ocean and the antipodes; carnation-colored shells, 
 scented fruit for Laurent, and for Siska some mate- 
 rial from the far East, a Japanese jewel, a cannibal's 
 amulet. Tilbak told of his adventures, and so great 
 was the pleasure that Laurent derived from these tales 
 that when the teller had exhausted his repertoire of 
 true ones, he had to draw upon his imagination. And 
 woe to him should he decide to abridge them, or alter 
 a single detail ! Laurent did not permit any variants, 
 and implacably recalled the primitive version. Hap- 
 pily for the willing rhapsodist, the little tyrant, in 
 spite of his vigilance and his curiosity, would fall 
 asleep. Siska would then put him to bed in a little 
 room next to the master's. And then the two friends, 
 relieved of their beloved though occasionally annoying 
 witness, could talk of other things than shipwrecks, 
 whales, white bears and cannibals. 
 
 One time when they thought he was fast asleep, be- 
 fore Siska had taken him upstairs, Laurent half woke 
 up at the sound of a sonorous kiss immediately fol- 
 lowed by a slap no less generously administered. The 
 kiss was Vincent's work, the blow, Siska's. Good old 
 Vincent ! Laurent inter f erred in the quarrel and recon- 
 ciled the two friends before going back to sleep for 
 good. At other times Siska wickedly chided the good- 
 natured fellow on account of his acrid tobacco, which 
 made her cough, she said, and which smelled up the 
 whole house. One should have seen the contrite and 
 appealing face, at once radiant and abashed, of this 
 "tar-coat," as Siska called him. 
 
 And it was this Vincent, this bewitching Vincent, 
 whose cap and loosely hanging oilskins, whose large 
 turned-down collar and high boots dazzled him to the 
 point of making him wish to become a cabin-boy, that 
 
''THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON'' 35 
 
 young Paridael saw again this morning, in the prosaic 
 costume of a landlubber, in the stifling factory of 
 Cousin Dobouziez ! How did that happen ? 
 
 In spite of his passion for the "big pond" and for 
 dangerous but ennobling adventures which banished 
 from him all vile and narrow thoughts, Tilbak had re- 
 signed himself, for love of Siska, to doff his tarry 
 brogues, his blue cotton jersey, his oilskin sou'wester, 
 and to set foot upon dry land. The friends had mar- 
 ried. From their savings they bought a little food- 
 shop for sailors in the sailors' quarter. Siska ran the 
 shop, and Vincent had just taken the position of fore- 
 man with Monsieur Doubouziez, having been recom- 
 mended by his former captain, who had become very 
 fond of his brave topman. 
 
 "And Siska?" young Paridael kept asking. 
 
 "Prettier than ever. Master Lorki — Master Lau- 
 rent, I should say, for you are a man now. . . . How 
 happy she would be to see you ! No day goes by that 
 she does not talk about you to me. During the three 
 weeks that I have shipped here, she has asked me at 
 least a thousand times whether I hadn't seen you, 
 whether I didn't know what had become of you, how 
 her Lorki looked, for, by your leave, she continues to 
 call you by the name you were called by when your 
 late dear father was alive. But, confound it, I did 
 not know who would give me any information. These 
 bourgeois here — excuse my frankness — have some- 
 thing about them that takes away any desire to talk 
 to them. Really, he isn't a very comfortable person, 
 that Captain Doubouziez! And the other! A regu- 
 lar old field marshal ! But here you are, anyhow, so 
 tell me quickly what to say to Siska! And when will 
 you come to see us ?" 
 
36 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 And the good fellow, always square, always frank, 
 always open hearted as he had been in other days, a 
 little more bearded, a trifle less burnt, his ears still 
 pierced by silver rings, thought it was his duty to tell 
 young Paridael how well he looked, although the boy 
 no longer had his former bright and carefree air. But 
 at that minute the boy's joy at seeing Vincent again 
 was so great that a transient gleam dissipated the shad- 
 ows of his prematurely thoughtful expression. 
 
 "I never go out alone," he answered, sighing 
 deeply. "My cousin thinks it wasted time, and that 
 visits would distract my attention from my studies. 
 Studies ! That's all my cousin ever thinks about !" 
 
 "True ! Well, it's a pity," said Vincent, a little dis- 
 appointed. "But it's for your own good. Siska will 
 understand that ! And you will become a great scholar 
 and do us all proud, eh. Master Lorki?" 
 
 What would he not have given to seize the sailor 
 and charge him with kisses for Siska ! But within the 
 walls of that malevolent factory, so near the room in 
 which his majestic cousin sat enthroned, not far from 
 the place haunted by the terrible Felicite and the mock- 
 ing Gina, the schoolboy felt ill at ease, hampered, con- 
 strained, and so did not give expression to his emo- 
 tion. And he felt a little remorseful at the thought 
 that he had not once inquired for his faithful Siska 
 since the day of his father's funeral. 
 
 Vincent divined the boy's embarrassment. At Lau- 
 rent's age feelings are not easily disguised, and Vin- 
 cent easily read the boy's pain in his serious expres- 
 sion, his husky voice, and especially in the fervent 
 looks that lingered upon this dear inhabitant of his 
 father's house. And as tears threatened to veil 
 Laurent's big homesick eyes: 
 
"THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON" 37 
 
 "Come, come, Master Lorki !'* he said, grasping the 
 boy's hands in his and pressing them warmly. "None 
 of that, now, by my quid ! Shh ! Hush ! We're not 
 setting sail yet! At least you can join me on the 
 bridge of the schooner! I'll wait for you. Now I'm 
 going to heave anchor, for I hear the voice of old Cat 
 o' Nine Tails, otherwise called The Pasha. To your 
 posts, all of you!" 
 
 The packing-room, a huge hall around the sides of 
 which ran a platform, was situated on the first floor 
 of the main building, and accommodated three hun- 
 dred workwomen, for the most part fresh, plump, tur- 
 bulent girls, brazen, full blooded, with laughing, sen- 
 sual mouths, intrepid eyes, possessing the gift of gab. 
 They were uniformly and cleanly garbed in blue skirts 
 and cottonette jackets, their hair tightly twisted into a 
 knot at the back and held together under little, white 
 frilled caps, the strings of which fell down their backs. 
 Employed in putting the finishing touches to the can- 
 dles as they came out of the mould, in polishing and 
 packing them, some plying the roller, others the wick- 
 cutter, they bustled about the three rows of tables and 
 polishing machines, and the candles passed from one 
 machine to the next, approaching, with each manipu- 
 lation, the type destined to garnish candelabra and 
 girandoles. Since it was very hot working above the 
 steam propelled machines, and since they worked with 
 a great deal of spirit, many of them, in order to be 
 more comfortable, opened their waists and uncovered 
 their throats, braving the reproofs administered by 
 Tilbak reluctantly, and, to borrow his own picturesque 
 phrase, only when the girls had reefed their last sails. 
 They and their machines were reflected in the floor, 
 constantly waxed by stearine waste, and as slippery 
 
38 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 as the floors of "The PeHcan" or "The Mirror," 
 their favorite dance halls. In the evening, the 
 light of many lamps enlivened this multiplied re- 
 flection, and added to the noise of many voices and the 
 grinding of the machines, blinded and deafened Lau- 
 rent each time that he had come to the door of the 
 room. What troubled him most was the sight of all 
 these pretty girls facing him as they stood at their 
 benches. Very abashed and very clumsy, he passed 
 between the long lines of benches and, stepping ging- 
 erly to avoid slipping on the glassy floor, he gained 
 the end of the room where Vincent Tilback sat 
 enthroned in a species of pulpit that he termed his 
 "poop." 
 
 There, under the protection of his friend, Laurent 
 soon regained his self-possession. He suffered the in- 
 quisition of those many dark and brilliant eyes, re- 
 sponded to the smiles upon those shining faces, and 
 gathered his courage sufficiently to approach the polish- 
 ers and follow the movement of rosy hands as smooth 
 as the stearine itself. 
 
 One day Tilbak asked him if he still cared as much 
 for stories as he used to. "Oh ! more than ever," ex- 
 claimed Laurent. The sailor took from beneath his 
 coat two volumes that had been tightly pressed to his 
 breast, and gave them to the young schoolboy. 
 
 "Accept these books as a remembrance from Siska 
 and Vincent," said the good fellow. They were "The 
 Swiss Family Robinson." "I inherited them from a 
 helmsman who died of yellow fever in the Antilles. 
 I do not know how to read, Master Lorki; when I 
 was nine years old I took care of the cows with Siska, 
 and I was a cabin-boy at twelve." 
 
 Laurent did not foresee the consequences of receiv- 
 
"THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON'' 39 
 
 ing this gift. Felicite soon discovered the two poor 
 volumes so well hidden at the bottom of his trunk. 
 He had not yet read them through. Outrageously 
 spoiled, these two contraband old books exhaled that 
 odor of the hold and of stale tobacco which obstin- 
 ately impregnates the belongings of sea-folk, and as 
 suspicious as an excise-man, Felicite doubted greatly 
 that they could have come from the library, hermetical- 
 ly shut since last vacation. The untidy people and the 
 air of adventure in "The Swiss Family Robinson" 
 likewise contributed to excite the horror and indig- 
 nation of Felicite. Souls of her species become harder 
 and haughtier in proportion as they wish to impress 
 humble folk with their importance. She began a genu- 
 ine magisterial hearing. Laurent submitted to ques- 
 tion after question, and, since he was firm in his re- 
 fusal to name the donor of the books, she took them 
 to Cousin Dobouziez. Called before his guardian, Lau- 
 rent refused to answer his summons. He was de- 
 prived of dessert, put upon a diet of bread and water, 
 locked in a dark room, but they forced not one more 
 word from him. Denounce Tilbak ! He would rather 
 have been crushed to his last fiber by the man-killing 
 machine ! While waiting to share the lot of the blond 
 "Curly," he commenced by braving old Cat o* Nine 
 Tails, whom Dobouziez, who had exhausted all his 
 methods of intimidation, had decided to call to the 
 rescue. 
 
 The Pasha had stripped the boy with the truculence 
 of a flagellant friar, and held the boy*s head between 
 his knees. Laurent did not deign to make the slight- 
 est plea for mercy. Already the executioner began to 
 raise his cane to thrash the rebel, when Dobouziez, 
 overcome by some scruple or shocked by a spectacle 
 
40 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 more worthy of a convict gang than a respectable place 
 of business, stopped his partner^s hand. 
 
 "I have just found a method of breaking your pig- 
 headed will," he declared to Laurent, whom Felicite 
 had come to remove to his cell. "Tomorrow you will 
 leave for Saint Hubert, where parents lock up rascals 
 like you with young thieves !" 
 
 Laurent told himself that, prison for prison, any one 
 would be satisfactory that did not have Felicite for 
 its jailor. 
 
 However, Tilbak, worried because he no longer saw 
 his young friend, that very day asked the servants, 
 and having been told what had happened, he immedi- 
 ately asked to see Monsieur Dobouziez about an urgent 
 matter. 
 
 Sitting at his desk, his back turned to the door, the 
 manufacturer, who had just condemned his ward, had 
 recovered his habitual calm and was working with his 
 usual lucidity of spirit. Tilbak presented himself, hat 
 in hand, and took off his great boots in deference to the 
 rich Tournal carpet. Dobouziez barely turned his 
 head, and without raising his eyes from the diagram 
 stretched before him called : 
 
 "Come here! What do you want of me?" 
 
 "Excuse me, sir, but it was I who gave Master 
 Laurent the books which made you so angry with 
 him. ..." 
 
 "Oh! It was yon, was it?" was all that Dobouziez 
 said, and he pressed the electric button on his desk. 
 
 "Please ask Mademoiselle Felicite for the objects 
 forfeited by Monsieur Paridael," he ordered the office 
 boy who had run from the next room. 
 
 The circumstantial evidence having been brought to 
 him, the manufacturer rose with a bored air, consid- 
 
"THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON'' 41 
 
 ered a moment, with disgust, the poor old books, as 
 if they represented to him a jelly fish or some other 
 slimy and gelatinous inhabitant of the waves, and, 
 having no forceps with which to touch them, made a 
 sign to Tilbak to remove his property. 
 
 "Hereafter you will spare yourself the trouble of 
 putting such rubbish in the hands of my ward." 
 
 "Certainly, sir. And be sure that had I foreseen 
 the trouble which these old books caused the dear boy, 
 I should have been careful not to give them to him. 
 Forgive him, I beg you. It wasn't his fault. I am the 
 guilty party. ..." 
 
 Monsieur Dobouziez, visibly annoyed by this inter- 
 cession, turned his back upon the pleader, seated him- 
 self, and methodically filling the space between the 
 two branches of his compass with Chinese ink, settled 
 himself to continue his diagram. 
 
 "Listen to me, boss," insisted Tilbak, after having 
 coughed to attract the magnate's attention, "your ward 
 is not a rascal. They are deceiving you about 
 him. . . . My wife knows him better, you know. She 
 can tell you what he's worth ! Are you serious about 
 locking him up with thieves? Captain, I appeal to 
 your honor, to your feelings as a former soldier. It 
 is impossible foe you to condemn that child because 
 he refused to be a Judas! . . . Yes — a Judas!" 
 
 At this heated defiance. Monsieur Dobouziez 
 jumped, half rose from his chair, and more white than 
 usual, stretched his arm toward the door with so per- 
 emptory a gesture, and cast so bitter a look at Tilbak, 
 that the latter, fearing to do an ill office to Paridael 
 by insisting, decided to draw on his boots, and to walk 
 out, holding his hand to his hat. 
 
 Did the mediation of Tilbak cause the wise Do- 
 
42 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 bouziez to reflect? Or did the moderate man fear 
 the effect that such an extremely rigorous act would 
 have upon public opinion ? Laurent escaped the prison 
 of Saint Hubert. Only, to the numerous interdictions 
 which weighed down upon him, his guardian added one 
 forbidding him entrance to the factory and converse 
 with the workmen. 
 
 "As if he were not ill-bred and common enough 
 without that," added Felicite, charged with keeping a 
 tighter rein than ever upon the unnatural child. 
 
 "Beware, Peasant, if I catch you rooting about the 
 workroom!'* said Saint-Fardier, accompanying this 
 menace with a twirl of his cane. 
 
 As if Laurent would have recoiled before the dan- 
 gers of a whipping! He tried more than once to vio- 
 late the interdiction, and to see Tilbak, to thank him 
 and convey to him his faithful affection, but they had 
 not forgotten the key in the door connecting the gar- 
 den with the factory, and the date of his return to 
 school came before he had found the chance to climb 
 the wall in order to visit the foreman. 
 
 In the following vacation, Felicite told Laurent, in 
 the guise of welcome news, that his sailor had not re- 
 mained in the factory for long after the affair of "The 
 Swiss Family Robinson." Particularly designated for 
 the ill-humor and meddling ways of Saint-Fardier, 
 the much-enduring and very stoic man had finally re- 
 plied in kind, and the satrap, who was seeking only a 
 single pretext for getting rid of him, did not allow the 
 occasion to slip by. 
 
 All broken up by this news, Laurent sought Gina, 
 counting upon interesting her in the fate of Tilbak and 
 his family, for the poor folk had children. 
 
 During the drama which ended with the discharge 
 
"THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON'' 43 
 
 of the foreman, Gina had affected a supreme indiffer- 
 ence to what was occurring. Far from seeking to 
 excuse the so-called fault of Vincent Tilbak, she had 
 not even interceded in Laurent's favor. On the con- 
 trary, as soon as she heard of her cousin's relations 
 with "common people," she outdid her former coldness 
 and disdain, ceasing even to speak to him of the scan- 
 dal that was turning the house upside down. During 
 the boy's quarantine, for Tilbak and his book had 
 given the boy the pestilence, the proud little lady had 
 not once asked for him. And when he was put back 
 into circulation she hardly deigned to recognize him. 
 
 And in despite of this, Laurent retained illusions 
 concerning his cousin's character. He imputed her 
 dryness and her lack of feeling to her education. How 
 could she be interested in the working classes, people 
 whose existence she scarcely suspected? She never 
 came in contact with them, and she heard theni spoken 
 of by her parents as a fourth kingdom of nature, a 
 tool, an animated mineral less interesting than plants, 
 and more dangerous than animals. 
 
 He found Gina alone in the dining room, watering 
 the hyacinths that flourished in the window-boxes. 
 Emboldened by his affection for Vincent, Laurent 
 came up to her and began without preamble : 
 
 "Gina, Cousin Gina, ask your father to reinstate 
 Vincent Tilbak. ..." 
 
 " — Vincent," she answered, continuing to tend to 
 her aristocratic flowers, "I do not know Vincent Til- 
 bak. ..." 
 
 "The foreman of the packing room, whom Mon- 
 sieur Saint-Fardier discharged. ..." 
 
 "Ah! Now I know whom you mean. *The Swiss 
 Family Robinson !' The man who made us all angry 
 
44 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 with you ! Are you not ashamed to speak again of that 
 pretty mess? I certainly shall be careful not to men- 
 tion his name to my father !'* 
 
 And, with a scandalized grimace, Gina passed into 
 the other room, humming a popular song. Laurent 
 remained stupefied, mechanically looking at the hya- 
 cinths, pretty and crisp, of which Gina was so careful. 
 For an instant he nourished a desire to ravage these 
 flowers, persuaded for the moment that he had taken 
 an eternal dislike to his inhuman little cousin. 
 
V 
 
 THE DRAIN 
 
 That vacation passed like the others, with this dif- 
 ference only, that in the great, newly-furnished house, 
 Laurent was even more neglected and left to himself 
 than usual. He came to envy the lot of the old pieces 
 of furniture, cast off and doomed to slumber in the 
 gloom and the dust of the attic. At least, when they 
 had ceased to please, they were not humiliated by being 
 placed in contact with their successors, while he, who 
 had never pleased, nevertheless continued to figure as 
 an incongruous and melancholy contrast to the assort- 
 ment of rich furnishings and chilly plants. He felt 
 himself more and more out of place in this costly and 
 exclusive environment. Waiting for that day to come 
 when he would be free to join others among his fel- 
 low men as ill-favored as himself, he used to long for 
 night to come so that he might rejoin, in his narrow 
 corner under the roof, the repudiated and banished 
 objects that he loved. 
 
 And yet, as dismal and long as these vacations 
 seemed to him, he was surprised to find that, hardly 
 returned to school, he began to lament their end out of 
 a real love of those tedious hours. 
 
 Of his sojourn with his guardians, he remembered 
 most pleasantly the melancholy episodes, and it was the 
 
 45 
 
46 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 least pleasing and the most rough and corroded aspects 
 of the factory that haunted him as he studied, or when 
 he could not sleep. Out of aversion for the hyacinths 
 that to him symbolized his beautiful cousin's harshness 
 toward the poor and the downtrodden, he would have 
 collected withered bouquets and rustic flowers. To 
 the expensive nectarines reserved for Cousin Lydia, he 
 preferred a hard apple that would crunch between his 
 teeth. 
 
 In the same way, he retained in his nostrils the any- 
 thing but soft odour of the factory, especially the smell 
 of the drain which bordered the immense inclosure and 
 into which was discharged the refuse of the various 
 chemical processes, pestilential acids, the waste arising 
 from the refining of the tallow. The musty, oily odour 
 exhaled by these filthy excrescences pursued him, when 
 he was at school, with the obstinacy of a vulgar re- 
 frain. This reek was associated in his mind with the 
 working classes, with the poor wretches blinded by 
 acreoline, mangled by the machines, discharged by 
 Saint-Fardier ; it spoke to Laurent of the packing 
 room and its girls, with their breasts bare, of Tilbak 
 and the episode of "The Swiss Family Robinson** ; it 
 suggested the peculiar suburb, the glutted, wanton 
 night about the Stone Mill. 
 
 When he set foot in his natal city it was by this drain 
 that the realm of Gina announced its presence to him. 
 Of all that belonged to the factory, this drain alone 
 came to meet him at a distance, took him when he got 
 out of the train, welcomed him with a certain cheer- 
 fulness long before he had seen, through its curtain of 
 trees, the first roofs and mills of the suburb, the high, 
 red, rigid chimneys shaking their fulginous plumes in 
 derisive welcome. It was also the last to say farewell 
 
THE DRAIN 4jr 
 
 to him when he went away, like a lost, mangy dog 
 that runs along after a pitying passer-by. 
 
 Its dark surface streaked with delicate colours, this 
 horrible sink flowed, open to the sky, the whole length 
 of the leprous road leading to the factory. With inso- 
 lent sluggishness it sought the branch of the river 
 whose waters it dishonored. The dwellers upon the 
 banks of the river, humble folks who were dependent 
 upon the all-powerful factory, murmured among them- 
 selves but did not dare complain too loudly. Confident 
 of their submission, the owners kept adjourning the 
 great expense of covering this cesspool. An epidemic 
 of cholera, breaking out in the middle of August, gave 
 them, however, something to think about. Provoked 
 and stimulated by the noxious exhalations of the drain, 
 the scourge struck the factory quarters more cruelly 
 than any other. The working people died like flies. 
 Although the survivors feared famine should they pro- 
 test openly against the stench, the Dobouziez family 
 thought they could win over the population, secretly 
 rising against them, and came to the relief of the 
 stricken families. But their almost forced generosity 
 expended itself without good grace, without tact, with- 
 out that pity which enhances kindness and distin- 
 guishes true charity from made-to-order philanthropy. 
 To the charitable Felicite had been entrusted the dis- 
 tribution of alms. Occupied in this direction, she had 
 less chance to watch Laurent, and he profited by this 
 laxity in taking an occasional furlough. 
 
 One opaque and coppery evening he was making his 
 way toward the factory-quarter. While walking slow- 
 ly down the long workingman^s street, sordidly lit at 
 great intervals by a smoky lantern, his attention, more 
 finely sharpened and more subtle than usual, was dis- 
 
48 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 tracted by a prolonged and mournful murmur. He 
 thought first of a chorus of frogs, but immediately 
 knew that no living beast ever haunted the silt of the 
 drain. As he advanced, the noise became more dis- 
 tinct. Upon turning the corner near a crossroad close 
 to the factory he discovered the cause. 
 
 In a little bracketed niche adorning the angle of two 
 streets was enthroned a Madonna of painted wood 
 about which a hundred tallow candles made a resplen- 
 dent halo. The total obscurity of the rest of the road 
 rendered this partial illumination especially fantastic. 
 At the foot of the glistening tabernacle, before which 
 there usually burned only a small night light, under- 
 neath this naive simulcarum of the Assumption, so low 
 that the tongues of flame darting and trembling in the 
 immobile, suffocating night could barely reach them, 
 the poor women of the quarter swarmed in a prostrate 
 mass. In black mantles and white caps, they told their 
 rosaries, mumbling litanies in the broken and whining 
 voices of beggars who tell their misfortunes. They 
 had each paid their share of this offering of illumina- 
 tion in the hope of prevailing, through the interces- 
 sion of His Mother, upon the God who at will lets 
 loose and withholds devouring plagues. 
 
 It was to be expected that the illumination would 
 not last as long as the psalmody. The aureole was 
 already punctured with black stains. And each time 
 that a candle threatened to become extinguished the 
 supplicants redoubled their prayers, lamented more 
 loudly and quickly. Without doubt the dear souls of 
 a brother, a husband or a child corresponded to those 
 agonizing flames. And they would cease trembling at 
 the moment when the invalid was in the throes of 
 death. It was as if so many last breaths extinguished 
 
THE DRAIN 49 
 
 one by one the tremulous glimmering candles. And 
 the shadows thickened, heavily weighted with the 
 day's dead. A few steps away rose the factory, even 
 darker than the surrounding gloom, like the temple of 
 a malicious divinity. An excess of calamity: at that 
 equivocal hour the terrible drain, rising higher than 
 usual, neutralized by its murderous effluvia the increase 
 of their prayers and the holy water of their tears. 
 
 To reinforce this impression of agony and despair, 
 it seemed to Laurent, who was closely scrutinizing the 
 smiling Madonna, that her face reproduced the impe- 
 rious and too regular features of his Cousin Gina. Was 
 it possible that, in order to make these devotions mis- 
 carry, the spirit of the Dobouziez factory had substi- 
 tuted itself for the Queen of Heaven? Just then the 
 poor mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, children and 
 grandmothers began to intone, after the vicar, a plead- 
 ing and lamentable Regina Coeli ! 
 
 Laurent could no longer doubt it. He recognized 
 her overweening expression, her distant and mocking 
 glance. He would have sworn that a breath escaped 
 between the lips of the false Madonna, and that she 
 was taking a crafty pleasure in blowing out the last 
 candles ! 
 
 He was tempted to throw himself between the crowd 
 and the idol and to cry to them : 
 
 "Stop! You are deceiving yourselves cruelly, O 
 poor women, my sisters! She whose aid you are in- 
 yoking is the other Queen, as beautiful, but the most 
 pitiless of all queens. Stop ! She is Regina, the nymph 
 of the drain, the flower of the cesspool; it nourishes 
 her and makes her proud and strong. But you ! You 
 it poisons, and you it kills !'* 
 
 But the canticle melted suddenly into a torrent of 
 
50 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 tears. Not one candle was burning any longer. The 
 little Madonna hid herself from the imploring eyes of 
 those many women. The last victim of the cholera 
 had just expired. 
 
VI 
 
 THE NEW SUIT 
 
 That winter Mademoiselle Dobouziez was to make 
 her debut. The days passed in errands and purchases. 
 Gina was ordering many expensive and rare gowns. 
 Her mother, forced to chaperon and accompany her, 
 felt the effects of an access of coquetry. She thought it 
 proper to dress like a young girl, to wear light colors, 
 to choose gowns and hats as nearly like her daughter's 
 as she could obtain them. Pushing her love of artifi- 
 cial flowers and flashy ribbons to an extreme, she 
 turned the modistes' shops topsy turvy, unrolling all the 
 ribbons, upsetting all the reels of trimming, bathing 
 in a sea of feathers, ribbons, marabou and ostrich 
 plumes. Had Regina not been there to take the mil- 
 liner aside as she left the shop and cancel some of the 
 embellishments chosen by the good lady, her mother 
 would have harbored upon her hats enough things to 
 decorate the chief altar of the cathedral or to enrich 
 a botanical and ornithological museum. It was not 
 without a struggle that Gina, who was very sensitive 
 to ridicule, succeeded in pruning away a few of the 
 shrubs from the nursery that Madame Dobouziez 
 proposed to offer to the admiration of the commercial 
 aristocracy. 
 
 51 
 
52 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Gina was already beginning to reveal a feminine rest- 
 lessness, to cherish some thoughts of emancipation. 
 For the surroundings in which she exhibited them, her 
 girlish gowns were a little lacking in modesty, so the 
 provincial puritans said, but they possessed a great 
 deal of character, and Gina wore them with a chal- 
 lenging swagger that was very alluring. Laurent felt 
 himself more and more greatly fascinated by the radi- 
 ant heiress, and that without discerning whether his 
 feeling for her was envy or love. 
 
 He arrived at the moment when the perspective of 
 continued pleasures and new successes was beginning 
 to excite Gina and make her more communicative and 
 more amiable to those around her. Won by her good 
 spirits, her conciliating and jovial moods, Laurent 
 himself often remained near her. When he sulked in 
 his corner she would call him, tell him her plans, dis- 
 close the number of invitations being sent out for her 
 first dance, show him her purchases, even deign to 
 consult him about the shade or the hang of a gown or 
 the choice of a ring. 
 
 "Come here, Peasant, and show that you have some 
 taste!" 
 
 She darted out the sobriquet with a good humor 
 that deprived it of any disagreeable impHcation. 
 Would this momentary calm in their family relations 
 endure? Laurent availed himself of it as a famished 
 tramp happily warms himself at an hospitable hearth- 
 side, forgetting that in an hour he will have to resume 
 his road out in the snow and ice. 
 
 When Laurent went to the vestibule or to the porte- 
 cochere to watch their departure, Gina accepted his 
 attentions, consenting to let him hold her evening 
 wrap, her fan, her umbrella. He watched her quickly 
 
THE NEW SUIT 53 
 
 get into the carriage, lifting the lacy flounces of her 
 petticoat with an adorable gesture. 
 
 "Are you coming, Mother? Good-by, Peasant!'* 
 
 Cousin Lydia, all out of breath, hoisted herself into 
 the carriage. The step creaked under her weight, and 
 the carriage itself leaned down on her side. 
 
 Finally she was installed. Gina's nervous little 
 gloved hand let down the window. The footman, hat 
 in hand, opened the folding doors of the entrance hall 
 and saluted the ladies. She had gone! 
 
 It was necessary also to give some attention to the 
 outfitting of young Paridael, who was to be sent far 
 away, to an international college, from which he would 
 not return until he had finished his studies. 
 
 Cousin Lydia and the inevitable Felicite made in- 
 roads upon the wardrobe of Monsieur Dobouziez. 
 With the minute exactitude of archaeologists they in- 
 spected, piece by piece, the togs that "Monsieur" no 
 longer wore, passing them from hand to hand, weigh- 
 ing them, fingering the material, deliberating together. 
 Herself won over by the spirit of gayety that filled the 
 house, Madame Dobouziez declared herself ready to 
 sacrifice, in order to complete Laurent's outfit, one of 
 her husband's coats, almost new, or an overcoat that 
 was rather more out of fashion than worn out. 
 
 But Felicite invariably found the clothes too good 
 for a boy so negligent about his belongings. 
 
 "Really, madame, the boots, cap and leather trous- 
 ers of one of our workmen would suit him better." 
 
 Cousin Lydia tore a promise from Laurent, almost 
 upon his oath, to take good care of his clothes. It 
 was "you are sure, now ?" and "you'll do better, won't 
 you?" as if they had been confiding to his care the 
 seamless tunic of the Saviour. They brought it to 
 
54 THE NEW, CARTHAGE 
 
 such a pass that rather than saddle himself with the 
 responsibility which he had to assume with his cousin's 
 cast-off clothes, Laurent would have preferred to wear 
 the comfortable and durable clothes of his friends the 
 laborers. 
 
 Nothing remained but to dispose of a certain pair 
 of green and blue plaid trousers, an abomination that 
 Cousin Wilham himself, who was not very exact- 
 ing in regard to his wearing apparel, had ceased using 
 after its third wearing. 
 
 Felicite coveted these disastrous breeches with a 
 view to reselling them to the haberdasher. Each piece 
 of clothing falling to the orphan decreased by so much 
 the profit which she usually made on her employers' 
 wardrobe. This circumstance was no stranger to the 
 animosity that she cherished for Laurent. He, more- 
 over, would willingly have given her his cousin's en- 
 tire outfit, and especially the frightful spinach and in- 
 digo trousers, but he did not dare show his repugnance 
 openly, since Cousin Lydia had taken it into her head 
 that they would please him mightily. 
 
 At this moment Regina, who was looking for her 
 mother, appeared on the stair-landing. 
 
 "Oh ! The nightmare !" she cried, *T hope, Mamma, 
 that you're not going to give that to Laurent ? All the 
 Peasant needs is that horror to make him deserve his 
 name !" 
 
 And in an outburst of fraternal emotion, Gina, hav- 
 ing examined the pile of old clothes destined for her 
 cousin, declared that some of it might do for lounging 
 clothes, but that there was no single suit which he could 
 wear in public. 
 
 "Let's go. Mamma," she said, "I have two things to 
 tend to down town, and, in passing, we'll stop at the 
 
THE NEW SUIT 55 
 
 Saint-Fardier's tailor's. He will find a way to polish 
 this young man up a bit. Come along, you, too." 
 
 There was no way of resisting Gina. Felicite swal- 
 lowed her spite, and consoled herself for the unwonted 
 favor which the capricious girl was bestowing upon 
 the accursed child by appropriating the plaid trousers 
 entirely without repugnance. 
 
 It was the first time that Laurent had gone out rid- 
 ing with his cousins. Seated next to the coachman, 
 whom surprise had almost precipitated from his seat 
 when Laurent perched there, he turned from time to 
 time to show Gina a less sullen expression than usual, 
 and to thank her by his unaccustomed joy. He counted 
 for something in the Dobouziez family! This sudden 
 access of favor just escaped making him vain. He 
 felt a bit of conceit creeping into his spirit and looked 
 down upon the pedestrians from the height of his 
 grandeur. Under the effect of this moment he forgot 
 the disparagement and the affronts that he had pre- 
 viously undergone, the harshness of Gina and her par- 
 ents toward the Tilbaks, and he remembered, not with- 
 out remorse, his blasphemies against the "nymph of 
 the drain" on that sinister night of the no vena when 
 the cholera was raging. 
 
 Ah! the cholera-stricken, the wounded, the pariahs 
 were far away ! He had not abjured them, but he no 
 longer worried about them. He was ready to recog- 
 nize without pain or reserve the benificence of his 
 guardian, to find Cousin Lydia very affectionate, to 
 account for the Pasha's ferocity on the score of his 
 liver trouble. He no longer bore a grudge even against 
 Felicite. 
 
 A charming morning of reconciliation! It was a 
 beautiful day, the streets seemed in holiday apparel, 
 
56 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the ladies whose carriages passed theirs almost included 
 him in their bows. 
 
 They stopped in turn at the Saint-Fardier's tailor, 
 haberdasher, bootmaker and hatter. The tailor took 
 Paridael's measure for a suit, for which Gina chose 
 the most expensive and finest material, in spite of the 
 protests of her mother, who was beginning to find 
 Gina's solicitude for their young, poor relative a rather 
 ruinous affair. To what prodigalities would Gina not 
 go before being obliged to return home ? Every min- 
 ute the economical lady consulted her watch. 
 
 "Gina, if s time for luncheon. Your father is wait- 
 ing for us." 
 
 But Gina had taken it into her head that it was her 
 turn to arrange her cousin's outfit, and she brought 
 to the execution of her plan her customary haste and 
 petulance. When she had decided to do something she 
 brooked neither delay nor reflection. "Now or never" 
 could well have been upon her crest. 
 
 At the haberdasher's, besides ordering six fine linen 
 shirts to be made up for her protege, she bought a 
 couple of beautiful ties. At the hatter's he exchanged 
 his worn felt for an irreproachable headgear, and at 
 the bootmaker's he bought shoes that fitted his foot to 
 perfection. He wore his new shoes and hat. It was 
 the beginning of a metamorphosis. At the glove shop 
 Gina remarked for the first time that he had a finely 
 shaped foot and hand. She rejoiced in the gradual 
 change that was taking place in the boy's appearance. 
 
 "Look, Mamma ! He hasn't such a clownish appear- 
 ance now. In fact, he is almost nice looking, isn't 
 he?" 
 
 The "almost" spoiled Laurent's happiness at bit, but 
 he could hope that when he was newly clad from head 
 
THE NEW SUIT 57 
 
 to foot Gina would find him altogether presentable. 
 
 An illusion, a lure, a mirage, that day was none the 
 less one of the happiest in Laurent's experience. After 
 Gina had paved the way, every one at the factory, even 
 Cousin William and the irreconciliable Felicite, was 
 more gentle with the boy, and did not scold him as 
 often. 
 
 "Mademoiselle acts as if she still played with dolls," 
 the peevish creature contented herself with saying in 
 an undertone, when Gina made Laurent turn and turn 
 so that he might show his new things to Cousin Will- 
 iam. 
 
 The game must have amused the girl, for when the 
 tailor delivered Laurent's things on the eve of a boat 
 trip to Hemixem, where the Dobouziez had their coun- 
 try place, she asked that he be included in the party. 
 As he was to leave the following day, her parents lent 
 themselves to this latest fancy, upon condition that he 
 merit it by prodigies of application to his studies. 
 
 Decidedly Laurent felt his last prejudices disappear. 
 He was of the privileged age when injuries are for- 
 given, VN^hen the slightest attention compensates for 
 years of disaffection and indifference. 
 
vn 
 
 HEMIXEM 
 
 Happy Laurent ! At the wharf, exulting in his new 
 clothes, carrying his head high, he mixed with the 
 guests with a confidence and an equality that he had 
 never before felt. There were at least thirty people 
 in the party. Ladies and girls in fresh, delicate sum- 
 mer gowns, gentlemen in elegant neglige, straw hat 
 and white flannels. Not only was Laurent as well 
 dressed as they, but even better dressed, and the Saint- 
 Fardier boys, two prigs of eighteen and twenty, to 
 whom Gina introduced him as a young savage reputed 
 to be incorrigible, but in the process of being trained, 
 looked askance, exchanging a smile of understanding 
 with the young girl, which, at any other moment, would 
 have quite taken the starch out of Laurent. That smile 
 commented clearly upon the anomaly of his city clothes. 
 
 Athanasius and Gaston were inseparable, and always 
 dressed alike, so that they looked like two fingers from 
 the same hand, or two stalks of asparagus from the 
 same box. Spare, pale, unhealthy looking, they made 
 their weak tonsils a pretext for exaggerating the height 
 of their collars and for periodically muffling up their 
 throats. 
 
 The widow Saint-Fardier, their grandmother, mis- 
 tress of a gouty and almost imbecile nobleman, had 
 
 S8 
 
HEMIXEM 59 
 
 wheedled her lover so successfully that he had forced 
 his daughter, a charming and affectionate girl, to con- 
 tract a mesaillance with the son of his concubine. To 
 the misconduct of the Pasha was attributed the moral 
 affliction and the mysterious and incurable disease 
 which caused the premature death of Madame Saint- 
 Fardier. Athanasius and Gaston had inherited from 
 their mother her agreeable features and a certain 
 native distinction, but they were no more intelligent 
 than the Baron de La Bellone, their grandfather, and 
 the paternal immoralities had marked them with the 
 stigmata that had obliterated the kings of France. 
 
 To Saint-Fardier, his pitiful offspring constituted a 
 reproach, a living remorse. He had had a horror of 
 them since he first saw them in their cradle, but his 
 repugnance prevailed over his hatred, and he never 
 dared to whip them. He kept them at a distance, con- 
 fided them to the care of strangers, or left them to 
 themselves, filled their pockets with money and sent 
 them travelling, so that he might see as little of them 
 as he possibly could. They ended by living their own 
 life, as he lived his, by taking their meals and 
 lodging outside the house, treating him simply as a 
 banker, and even having business only with the cashier 
 of the factory. It was not his fault that they had 
 not become horrible scamps; that they came to be 
 nothing but high livers infatuated with their own ap- 
 pearance, but not thoroughly rotten. In spite of their 
 weak mentality, they could not forgive him for what 
 they had vaguely heard of the death of their mother. 
 The jockey-like pace of the Pasha made them blush. 
 They avoided talking to him, frequented patrician so- 
 ciety, looking to their mother's name as protection, 
 and had themselves called Saint-Fardier de La Bellone, 
 
6o THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Blase and unsophisticated, young and already senile, 
 their appearance recalled to Laurent his own when, 
 one All Souls' day, Siska had made him up to look 
 like an old man. But the young Saint-Fardiers did 
 not claim his attention for very long. 
 
 A gong rang, the signal for departure. The gang- 
 plank had been drawn in, the engine was stretching its 
 limbs, and everybody, having hurried to gtt on board, 
 placed themselves as best they could on the front deck, 
 which had been covered with an awning to protect the 
 passengers from the indiscreet ardors of an August sun. 
 
 The weather favored the excursionists. Not a cloud 
 appeared in a sky blue with the clear color of a tur- 
 quoise. 
 
 The wide olive-yellow river had a holiday aspect. 
 Toward the north, in the roadstead and in the basins, 
 reposed the great ships of commerce, steamers and 
 sailors, deserted by the bulk of their crews. The gangs 
 of dockers were taking a day off. At most one boat 
 would be loaded in time to get to sea by afternoon. 
 There was no other movement on the river than that 
 of the pleasure excursions ; yawls, the yachts of ama- 
 teurs and sportsmen rigged for a cruise, steamers offer- 
 ing trips at a reduced price to the principal riverside 
 villages for the idle working people. 
 
 Entire societies, in holiday attire and accompanied 
 by fanfares, embarked upon these little boats. A great, 
 noisy, demonstrative gaiety, a pressing haste, a fever 
 of excitement exhilarated the emancipated populace, 
 a legion of accidental and inexperienced sailors. Fam- 
 ilies joked with each other on the shore about parcels 
 that had been left in saloons. Choral societies sang 
 in double quick time after the signal for departure 
 had been given, and one or another boat, having un- 
 
HEMIXBM 6i 
 
 moored, left the shore and tacked majestically before 
 gaining the current in the middle of the river. 
 
 The yacht upon which the Dobouziez and their 
 guests had embarked belonged to Bejard, a great 
 ship-owner and wholesale merchant of the city. He 
 had placed his elegant and spacious boat at the service 
 of the Dobouziez's, and in exchange accepted their in- 
 vitation to be one of the party. 
 
 The yacht weighed anchor, to the great joy of Lau- 
 rent. 
 
 The Scheldt! With what emotion the boy saw it 
 again! Another old and good friend of his father's 
 day. How many times had they not walked, the two 
 Paridaels, on the tree-planted quays, making a halt 
 now and then in one of the little restaurants, so well 
 frequented on Sunday afternoons that the doors were 
 not wide enough to accommodate the crowd of patrons 
 who entered through the windows, after climbing a 
 little portable staircase set against the wall outside. 
 There, if one could find a table, how nice it was to 
 follow the movements of the strollers on the quay and 
 the sails on the water! What a sweet freshness was 
 in the air at twilight ! How many years had gone by 
 without his having seen his beloved river. 
 
 But it was the first time that Laurent had sailed upon 
 it, and the new impressions allayed his regrets. 
 
 The yacht, after having turned about with the co- 
 quetry of a bird that tries its wings before taking flight, 
 found the channel and stole away, under redoubled 
 pressure of steam. The panorama of the great city 
 became visible at first in all its length, and then be- 
 trayed the audacious and grandiose proportions of its 
 monuments. It was as if the city appeared out of the 
 earth. The trees on the quays shot forth their leafy 
 
62 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 tops, then the roofs of the houses appeared above the 
 foHage; the piles of the churches, surging above the 
 high houses, looked across the roofs of warehouses, 
 markets, historic halls, higher and always higher, 
 towers, donjons, campaniles, pointing, mounting, seem- 
 ing to climb the sky, till the moment came when they 
 all ceased, vanquished, breathless, except the glorious 
 tower of the cathedral. That alone continued its 
 ascension, leaving far behind the highest of the others. 
 Again! Again! In its turn it abandons the attempt. 
 It overhangs the city and towers above the country. 
 The aerial and lacy belfry surpasses all its rivals, so 
 high that one can now see nothing else. Antwerp is 
 eclipsed by a bend in the river ; the tower, like a proud 
 lighthouse, marks the location of the powerful me- 
 tropolis. And Laurent contemplated the tower of 
 Notre Dame until it melted, slowly, into the far dis- 
 tance where the blue horizon paled. 
 
 Then the devout passenger began to look at the banks 
 of the river; clayey polders, reddish brickyards among 
 green dykes; white villas curtained by trees, whose 
 vast lawns, descending gently to the banks, afforded 
 a perspective from the river. But, more than all else, 
 the Scheldt itself made an impression upon the boy. 
 He filled his heart with it through his eyes, his nostrils, 
 his ears, with the avidity of an exile on the eve of 
 banishment; he drank in pictures that were to be the 
 stuff of his dreams during so many to-morrows. 
 
 Leaning against the rail at the stern, he amused 
 himself with the foamy back- wash of their wake, with 
 a flock of sea gulls, battering down upon the water, 
 calling each other with a harsh cry, with the bulging, 
 heavily laden lighters which passed by the yacht, with 
 sails that were like landmarks in the far reaches of the 
 
HEMIXEM 63 
 
 distance. Then Laurent awoke to his surroundings, 
 to the bustle on the bridge, to the work being done by 
 three or four stalwart looking sailors picked from 
 among the most robust in Monsieur Bejard's crews — 
 for, being the founder of a line of steamers running 
 between Antwerp and Melbourne and Antwerp and 
 Batavia, the owner of the yacht owned more serious 
 craft than his plaything. 
 
 "Do you see that hull?" Bejard was asking Made- 
 moiselle Dobouziez, not far from where Laurent was 
 standing, pointing to the dockyards on the right bank. 
 "Excuse me, mademoiselle; hull is the technical word 
 for the skeleton of a boat under construction. That one 
 IS the embryo which is to become a vessel of nine hun- 
 dred tons, equipped in a fashion never before seen, 
 the pearl of our merchant fleet. It will be called the 
 Regina if, in a year's time, you will do us the honor 
 of being its godmother." And he bowed politely. 
 
 "In one year ! We shall have time to think it over. 
 Monsieur Bejard. And do you not find me a little lean 
 and young to hold a beau as corpulent as your boat over 
 the baptismal fount? I who do not weigh as much 
 as a small cask ! For I had myself weighed the other 
 day at the factory, like any keg of stearine. Suppose 
 some misfortune were to befall my godson!" 
 
 "Oh !" said Bejard, with the laugh of one who plays 
 a sure hand, "nothing ever happens to the Southern 
 Cross boats. They are all born under a good star. 
 Besides, they are insured!" 
 
 "That makes no difference," answered Gina, "I have 
 the pride of a godmother, and all the insurance in the 
 world would not make amends for my chagrin in 
 knowing my great godson engulfed in the bottom of 
 the sea, gone to the kingdom of the madrepores. Vrn 
 
64 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 sorry; I give you back your hull." And laughing, 
 she ran to join a neighboring group in which her 
 friends, the Vanderlings, were chattering. 
 
 Hearing Gina's clear voice, Laurent turned toward 
 the speakers. He regarded the proprietor of the yacht 
 attentively. 
 
 Bejard had, in addition to the haughty manner com- 
 mon to the great merchants of Antwerp, a furtive 
 expression in his eyes and a crafty manner of speech. 
 Forty-five years old, of medium height, dry and 
 gnarled, a yellowish, almost watery complexion, a 
 hooked nose, long reddish beard and auburn hair 
 brushed back from his forehead, thick lips, grey eyes, 
 an arched forehead and distorted ears; such was the 
 physical aspect of the man. In his manner and his 
 features there was both the shrewdness of a musty 
 Jew behind the counter in a sordid alley of Frankfort 
 or Amsterdam, and the audacity of an adventurer who 
 has skimmed the seas and traded in vague, distant 
 lands. But this mixture of braggadocio and honeyed 
 urbanity was irritating in its atrocious discordance. 
 His expression was protean and desperate; his dull 
 eyes gave the lie to a sharp word, or his crafty, cloy- 
 ing voice contradicted the malicious, hard gleam of 
 his grey eyes. Withal, he was correct, well bred, a 
 facile conversationalist, a prodigal host. 
 
 He was not well liked in society, but he was sought 
 assiduously, people suspected him, but sought to pro- 
 pitiate him. Through his fortune, his activity, his 
 address he had become an influence in the world of 
 business, and now he was seeking to cut a figure in 
 the world of politics and that of art and literature in 
 Antwerp. He paraded the most complete tolerance, 
 extolled broad ideas, claimed tg be a free-trader and 
 
HEMIXEM 65 
 
 a utilitarian, swore by Cobden and Guizot, affected, 
 during business hours, the manners of a Yankee, but, 
 having left the atmosphere of commerce, he aped the 
 etiquette and the bearing of a perfect "EngHsh gen- 
 tleman." 
 
 His origin and that of his fortune was far from 
 being commensurate with his actual prestige. Cred- 
 ible tales, strange and disquieting as legends, were told 
 of him. With an utter detachment and perfect seren- 
 ity he had just called Gina's attention to the Fulton 
 dockyard. And nevertheless, the mere sight of that 
 locality should have seared his heart, or at least shamed 
 him into modesty, so bound up was it with some de- 
 plorable pages of his career. 
 
 Many years before, his father had been the direc- 
 tor of that same dockyard when unheard of abuses 
 and monstrous acts which had been committed there 
 were brought to light. 
 
 Succumbing to a perverted imagination, rare enough 
 among the common people, the workmen in the dock- 
 yard had amused themselves by martyrising their 
 young apprentices, threatening them with even more 
 atrocious tortures or with death itself, should they 
 ever attempt to divulge these abominable practices. 
 The victims, terrorized as the "fags" in English col- 
 leges used to be, could only succeed in escaping these 
 tortures by paying over to their tormentors the greater 
 part of their wages. Finally, however, the whole pro- 
 ceedings came to light. 
 
 The scandal was tremendous. 
 
 The band of torturers were lined up in court, and, 
 as long as the trial lasted, a special detail of police- 
 men and soldiers had difficulty in protecting them from 
 the reprisals of the crowd, especially from the rag- 
 
66 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 ing women, whose nails would have torn them to 
 pieces. The court proceedings had revealed abomin- 
 able mysteries; sham crucifixions, wholesale flagella- 
 tions, drownings pushed almost to the last extremity, 
 a veritable auto-da-fe. Children had been buried for 
 hours up to their necks, others had been forced to eat 
 revolting things, still others had been forced to fight 
 with each other, though they cherished no animosity. 
 
 The verdict removed any suspicion of direct com- 
 plicity with his underlings on the part of Monsieur Be- 
 jard, but his negligence was made manifest in a most 
 crushing manner. The company having dismissed him 
 from its employ, the public was not yet satisfied, and, 
 confusing Bejard's father with the criminals who had 
 been sentenced to hard labor, forced him to leave the 
 city. One circumstance that had been established by 
 all the testimony contributed to their ostracism. The 
 disgraced director's son, then a schoolboy fifteen 
 years old, had presided more than once at these specta- 
 cles, and, upon the oath of those concerned, took pleas- 
 ure in them. Little more would have been necessary to 
 make the public, in their great excitement, urge the 
 imprisonment of the crafty sneak who had taken such 
 good care not to denounce to his father the people re- 
 sponsible for these pleasures. 
 
 Twenty-five years later it was rumored that Bejard, 
 junior, was coming back to his natal city. His father 
 had become wealthy in Texas, and had left him im- 
 portant plantations of rice and sugar cane, cultivated 
 by an army of blacks. On the eve of the Civil War, 
 Freddy Bejard liquidated a part of his holdings and 
 placed the proceeds in the principal European banks. 
 He stayed in America for the beginning of the cam- 
 paign less because of sympathy with the slavery party 
 
HEMIXEM 67 
 
 than to protect his remaining property. He was under 
 fire as a prairie guerilla against the northerners. Fi- 
 nally, after peace had been declared, many times a 
 millionaire in spite of his great losses, he returned to 
 Antwerp, dreaming, perhaps of clearing his repu- 
 tation from the blots and stains of the past. 
 
 This was what was known about Bejard and his an- 
 tecedents, and he himself had avowed it, with an air 
 of boasting, in his moments of good humor. 
 
 His ostentation and the magnificent enterprises 
 through which he contributed to the superficial pros- 
 perity of his city, opened all doors to him, at least those 
 of the business world, for the aristocracy and the 
 higher patrician bourgeoisie held him in as shabby re- 
 pute as did the common people. 
 
 If the flatterers of success, the admirers of "clever 
 business men," the speculators bowed down before 
 his millions, forgot and buried the past, the most es- 
 sentially local classes, the stable population, the old 
 families of Antwerp remembered former scandals and 
 cherished an inveterate antipathy for Freddy Bejard. 
 
 Thus they had gone as far as to claim that, enraged 
 by the victory of the North, whose abolition movement 
 had cut into his fortune, he had, far from freeing his 
 slaves at the conclusion of the war, sold them to a 
 Spanish slave dealer in the Antilles, and that he had 
 had to leave his adopted country in order to evade 
 the law. Another version had it that, rather than obey 
 the decree by which the slaves were freed, he had 
 slaughtered his down to the very last one. 
 
 The business men treated all these stories as old 
 women's tales invented by jealous people and by the 
 political adversaries of the parvenu. Monsieur Dobou- 
 ziez himself, without exhibiting a fondness for Bejard 
 
68 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 which it was not his habit to lavish, could not but admit 
 that the enterprising and courageous shipowner was be- 
 ing held responsible for a fault, or, rather, an accident, 
 that had been expiated with enough pain by his father. 
 Saint-Fardier evinced for this daring chap Bejard the 
 admiration of a connoiseur. He was ambitious to 
 serve him as a ferocious and faithful retriever, for he 
 approved of the bloodhounds with which the planters 
 tracked down their fugitive slaves. At bottom he 
 chafed under the scruples of the correct Dobouziez; 
 his proper partner would have been Bejard. 
 
 Laurent had never seen Bejard before, and he was 
 ignorant of his reputation. And, nevertheless, an un- 
 speakable uneasiness took possession of him in that 
 man's presence. He had a sad presentiment, his heart 
 contracted, and when he had turned away from the 
 shipowner to resume his contemplation of the land- 
 scape, the banks of the river seemed to exhale a fatidi- 
 cal sadness. 
 
 Just as the Fulton dockyard was about to disappear 
 behind a band in the Scheldt, the complicated frame- 
 work surrounding the hull took on the appearance of 
 an enormous skeleton to which clung, here and there, 
 strips of flesh and burned clothing. But this sinister 
 illusion lasted for but a moment, and the charm of 
 other parts of the landscape reassured the momentarily 
 troubled spirit of Paridael. 
 
 After the illusion had passed, he attached no im- 
 portance to it, but later he was destined to recall it 
 when, with a redoubled horror, it occurred again in 
 the most tragic moment of his life. 
 
 They had spared themselves the trouble of pre- 
 senting Laurent to the proprietor of the yacht. Sev- 
 eral times Bejard threw a keen and distrustful glance 
 
HEMIXEM 69 
 
 at the boy, who, embarrassed by his new clothes and 
 staying by himself, was continually contemplating the 
 Flemish scenery, too flat and too unpicturesque to be 
 of interest to an habitual tourist. The shipowner 
 himself inquired about the intruder, having made ready 
 to stop the boat and land him. 
 
 "Let him be," said the elegant Saint-Fardier, 
 laughing at his annoyance, "he's a poor young rela- 
 tion of the Dobouziez'. They are sending him away to- 
 morrow, and no doubt that is why he is so taciturn.'* 
 
 "I understand," answered Bejard, not laying claim, 
 by that exclamation, to understanding the orphan's 
 feeHngs, but simply approving of the isolation in 
 which he had been left. And reassured of the 
 identity of this worthless person, he ceased worrying 
 about him. 
 
 In the natural order of events, the little passenger 
 in the stern would have held no claim to the atten- 
 tion of Croesus. But had he foreseen the decisive role 
 which the scamp was to play in the future ! The other 
 passengers, informed about Laurent in equally indif- 
 ferent terms, accorded him no more attention. He 
 did not notice their disdain today. He rejoiced in 
 being able to draw in, at his ease, the full raciness of 
 his beloved land. 
 
 Cousin Lydia, wearing a gown of Nile green 
 trimmed with ivy, and looking like a walking arbor, 
 was exhausting her breath in schooling the host of 
 servants who accompanied the society with baskets of 
 provisions. Cousin William was conferring with Be- 
 jard, Saint-Fardier, and the eminent lawyer Vander- 
 ling. If these grave gentlemen honored the Scheldt 
 by looking at it, it was only to discuss the profit that 
 a group of capitalists were drawing from a manufac- 
 
70 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 tory of chemical matches or of guano that had been es- 
 tabHshed upon its banks. 
 
 Regina, clothed in tea-rose muslin, her curly head 
 topped by a large straw hat turned back a la Lamballe, 
 was the center and the life of a group of young girls 
 who amused themselves by making piquant remarks 
 about a circle of young men in the midst of which 
 were enthroned the Saint-Fardier brothers. The two 
 little Vanderling girls, blonde, plump, loquacious and 
 very alluring, had taken their eye. 
 
 The yacht glided up to the pier of Hemixem. Once 
 landed, the program was accomplished without impedi^ 
 ment. During their walk, the excursionists occupied 
 themselves chiefly by ascertaining the names of the 
 proprietors of the principal villas and estates. The 
 young fellows guessed at the contents of the stables, 
 and the young girls exclaimed over the beautiful white 
 swans and red, red roses. And when the whole troupe 
 stopped with some respect before a gilded grille at the 
 foot of a lordly avenue at the end of which could be 
 seen, across the lawns, a beautiful renaissance pa- 
 vilion : 
 
 "Yes, it's very handsome," said Bejard, who, with 
 his inseparable chum Dupoissy, had rejoined them, "It 
 belongs to Baron de Waerlant, and it is very hand- 
 some. But it is mortgaged up to the hilt, and one can 
 have the whole thing for fifty thousand francs above 
 his debts, which amount to about a hundred thousand 
 francs. So if you like it, buy it !" 
 
 "A just punishment for a do-nothing aristocrat, a 
 libertine," added Dupoissy, in a nasal tone like that of 
 the chanter of funeral offices. 
 
 These figures threw cold water upon the admiration 
 of these well-bred people who one and all laid claim 
 
HEMIXEM 71 
 
 to a solid position. They hurried on their way, 
 ashamed of their condescension toward this real estate, 
 feeling a little as if the proprietor, reduced to the last 
 ditch, was going to make his appearance from a grave 
 and borrow money from them. 
 
 After an hour's walk under the blue cupola in which 
 carolling larks were darting, through fields of after- 
 math exhaling perfume from every rick, all of them, 
 without daring to say so, were beginning to have 
 enough of the blue and green, of the little farms and 
 the big estates whose owners they did not know. A 
 halt was made in a little wood of fir trees, the only 
 one in the district, a horrible little artificial grotto 
 placed there by the proprietor, the Dobouziez' chief 
 clerk, a fellow who understood "country pleasures'* 
 and "al-fresco breakfasts." They had skirted superb 
 avenues of generously shady beeches and oaks, all be- 
 seeching them to halt. But they must needs have a 
 wood, even though that wood were wretched and 
 scraggly. 
 
 The ladies' parasols supplemented the miserly shade 
 of the firs. The provisions were unpacked, and they 
 ate cold food and drank warm drinks, the ingenious 
 apparatus for freezing the champagne having refused 
 to work, as such things usually do. Nevertheless, the 
 luncheon was very gay, subjects for conversation not 
 being lacking, thanks to the cursed apparatus and the 
 heat. The bugs and caterpillars that fell into plates 
 and upon the necks of the ladies gave Gaston and 
 Athanasius Saint-Fardier an opportunity to remove 
 them from Angele and Cora Vanderling, near whom 
 they had placed themselves, and whose coquetry held 
 them fast. 
 
 A company of little peasants returning from high 
 
^2 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 mass were regaining their hamlet at an accelerated 
 pace. At first timid and defiant, they halted, and after 
 having consulted together, red as the neck of a turkey- 
 cock, they drew close, pushing each other, and the 
 crowd filled the boys' pockets and the girls' aprons 
 with the remains of the meat-patties, sandwiches, badly 
 broken bones and carcasses of chicken, and, as they 
 were about to leave, called them back to put the hardly 
 opened bottles of wine under their arms. 
 
 This interlude diverted the walkers until they came 
 to the estate of the Dobouziez'. Cousin William, a 
 good walker, would have liked to take the longest road 
 back to the dock. His guests wanted first to know 
 whether it was shadier, and whether there was any- 
 thing else to see but fields and trees. 
 
 But as, after searching his memory. Monsieur Do- 
 bouziez remembered no other curiosities than an aban- 
 doned distillery and the military depot of Saint Ber- 
 nard, the majority wanted to retrace their way by the 
 shortest path at the risk of stumbling upon the penni- 
 less baron. 
 
 Having reached the house, and while waiting for din- 
 ner, the ladies went upstairs to freshen up, and the 
 gentlemen went off to look at the grounds. 
 
 At dinner, which was served in a fashion to satisfy 
 folk who did not care for rustic gastronomy, all were 
 unanimous in praising their luncheon in the woods, 
 and the younger folk, whose craving for food had now 
 been satisfied, feigned astonishment at their appetites. 
 "It is true that the walk and the fresh air . . . " 
 
 They took coffee on the terrace. Bejard took Gina 
 to the piano and begged her to sing. Laurent went 
 down into the garden, allured by the delicious evening- 
 tide, the breeze from the Scheldt, the perfume of the 
 
HEMIXEM 73 
 
 thickets, the sensuous and heady silence that teased 
 the cry of the crickets and dulled the oblique, velvety 
 flight of the bats, terrified by the unwonted presence 
 of the masters of this deserted country place. 
 
 The voice of Gina, clear and pearled, reached him 
 at the other end of the garden. She sang the waltz 
 from Romeo et Juliette divinely; the interpretation 
 was superior to the song. She gave it the sincerity 
 that it lacked, she treated it with the cavalier spirit of 
 a virtuouso. She parodied its sophistication by exag- 
 gerating the rhythm to such an extent that one could 
 have danced to it. Laurent felt that Gina was showing 
 herself to be too much the woman of that waltz, the 
 woman of the void, of the vortex, of intoxication, of 
 rarity, of velleity. Without having read Shakespeare, 
 Laurent detested this tinkling music, thought its trill- 
 ing out of place : this song, too gay, too laughing, be- 
 came worse than an air of bravura, an air of bravado. 
 
 The listeners, Bejard and the Saint-Fardiers, ap- 
 plauded and called for more. Laurent tried to ap- 
 proach the beautiful singer to say farewell to her. The 
 first morning train was to take him away. He had 
 so many things to say to his cousin. He wanted to 
 thank her for her kindness of the past week; to ask 
 her to remember him from time to time. He could 
 only stammer the simplest of goodbyes. She negli- 
 gently gave him her finger tips, not turning toward 
 him, continuing to skirmish with Bejard. Laurent 
 was beginning to despair of attracting her attention 
 and of obtaining a word with her, a word sweet to 
 keep in memory, when she threw him with a coolness 
 and a self-possession truly cruel a : "Goodnight, Lau- 
 rent ; be good and study hard !" 
 
 Monsieur Dobouziez could not have said it better. 
 
VIII 
 IN SOCIETY 
 
 Regina was to enter society. Six hundred invita- 
 tions were sent out ; two hundred more than had been 
 issued for the last ball given by the governor of the 
 province ! In the city the only subject of conversation 
 was the great event that was being prepared for. If 
 Madame Van Belt met Madame Van Bilt, they 
 broached the important question immediately after the 
 usual salutations had been disposed of. They inquired 
 what each other's daughters were going to wear. Ma- 
 dam Van Bal dreamed of eclipsing Madam Van Bol, 
 and Madam Van Bui enjoyed talking it over with Ma- 
 dam Van Brul, her most intimate friend, who had, 
 doubtless through an oversight, not been invited. 
 Madam Van Brand, also omitted, pretended to have 
 sent her regrets, although she had not received even the 
 shadow of an invitation. But they were all partial to 
 details, and when they could not obtain them from their 
 friends, they tried to drag them by main force from 
 the tradesmen. Florists, restaurateurs, confection- 
 ers; the Dobouziez* monopolized them and retained 
 them all. 
 
 "They have them all," said the Saint-Fardiers. Other 
 clients resigned all hope of being served. Even the 
 highest in the social scale, if they were insistent, drew 
 
 74 
 
IN SOCIETY 75 
 
 forth this reply. "Impossible, madame, for that day 
 we have the ball at the DobouziezM" The caterer, 
 Balduyn, entrusted with the arrangement of the buffet, 
 prepared prodigies. All the chairs at the furniture 
 stores and the caterers' had been requisitioned. But 
 nothing equalled the rush at the dressmakers'. Even 
 in Brussels they cut, fitted, sewed, hemmed, embroid- 
 ered and ruffled yards of goods in preparation for the 
 inauguration of the social season in Antwerp. What 
 ill-humor, enervation, caprice and exigencies these 
 dressmakers had to undergo because of their beautiful 
 clients will be placed to their credit in paradise, and, 
 while waiting, were paid for in thousand franc bills on 
 this earth. 
 
 The hosts were no less excited than the guests. 
 Felicite had never been so disagreeable. She exer- 
 cised her tyrannical authority upon the reinforcements 
 of servants and workmen to whom the preparations 
 had been entrusted. Madam Dobouziez could not stay 
 still for a moment ; her increasing embonpoint grieved 
 her ; thanks to the confusion and the exercise, she would 
 lose a few pounds. Gina and Cousin William were 
 more reasonable. Together they had curbed the list 
 of guests. Gina was radiant; the trouble everyone 
 was taking on her account flattered her and exalted 
 her still more in her own opinion; from time to time 
 she deigned to be pleased. 
 
 This monster ball occupied the thoughts of the 
 clerks in the factory, and even the workmen talked 
 of it during their hour of respite, as they drank their 
 cold coffee. These good people did not know exactly 
 what was going to take place, but for some days there 
 had been such a procession of vans, of boxes, cartons 
 and cases before the delivery entrance that even the 
 
76 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 least lazy among them had been distracted from their 
 work. 
 
 Happily, Laurent was away at college for there 
 was no room for him in his garret ! 
 
 Invitations had been sent to the three chief clerks, 
 to the bookkeeper, the man of country revels, to the 
 cashier and the correspondent. This flattered the 
 whole body of penmen, and the office boy manifested 
 pride in the favor extended to his superior officers. 
 The three elect were to represent their colleagues. 
 During business hours, when they knew that Dobou- 
 ziez was at home, they discussed in a very serious man- 
 ner points of etiquette, convention, and social usage. 
 The three privileged men first consulted their com- 
 rades about the word of the letter that had to be 
 sent to Monsieur and Madam Dobouziez. Was it to be 
 addressed to Madame or Monsieur? Having settled 
 that point, they had to agree upon other points of eti- 
 quette. Should they wear chamois gloves, or pearl 
 gray kids? Should they or should they not perfume 
 their handkerchiefs? The office boy, having spoken 
 of patchouli as being a very aristocratic scent, raised 
 such a hue and cry that he did not dare risk any fur- 
 ther remarks. And afterwards? Did they have to 
 pay a party-call? And if so, when? 
 
 "Oh ! let 'afterwards* take care of itself. We shall 
 see when the time comes!" said the bookkeeper, 
 the lover of the fields, the man of the little fir 
 wood. 
 
 It is the eve — it is the day — it is the evening of the 
 ball. The floors are waxed, the chandeliers illumined, 
 lackeys in full uniform take their posts. At nine 
 o'clock a first carriage risks itself in the tortuous and 
 badly paved street leading to the factory, then a sec- 
 
IN SOCIETY yy 
 
 ond, and then a long line begins to form. It begins to 
 look like a nocturnal Longchamps. 
 
 The vile, stagnant drain which, the cholera having 
 passed away, the owners no longer thought of closing 
 over, had never been bordered by such a cavalcade. 
 In its perplexity, it forgot to poison the wintry air. 
 
 The gossips, their chubby babies in their arms, 
 amused themselves by watching, from the doorsteps 
 of their hovels, the procession of carriages, and tried 
 vainly to look through their misty windows as they 
 passed, and see the beautiful women lounging in their 
 little rolling rooms. But the poor women saw noth- 
 ing but the light of the lamps, the shining gleam of the 
 harness, the flashing of curb chains, the cockade on 
 the coachman's hat. The horses whinnied and sent 
 their white breath out into the night. The little Ma- 
 donna of the crossroads, reduced to the illumination 
 of a single vacillating candle, seemed as poor and as 
 humble as her devout people. 
 
 The factory did not abstain from labor, however. 
 The night shift had taken the place of the day work- 
 ers, and were busy feeding the furnaces, for the stuff 
 must never be allowed to chill. Toil and sweat, O 
 brave "prolos," while your masters are amusing them- 
 selves ! 
 
 In getting out of their carriages under the porte- 
 cochere, the muffled-up guests had, at the bottom of the 
 vast back courtyard, a momentary vision of the fac- 
 tory walls, and could hear the drowsy but sleepless 
 machines, and an odour of fat assailed their nostrils. 
 But instantly the great glass doors opened upon the 
 vestibule filled with flowers and plants, and the radia- 
 tors sent forth a gust of warm, caressing air. 
 
 The three gentlemen from the office were the first 
 
78 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 to arrive. That afternoon they had hired, at joint 
 expense, a coupe from the livery stable, although the 
 factory was but fifteen minutes' walk from their lodg- 
 ings. The office must be represented with dignity! 
 They left their overcoats in the waiting room, greatly 
 confused by the attention which the lackeys accorded 
 them. It was even necessary for the footmen to insist 
 before the three friends consented to accept their 
 services. 
 
 Madame Dobouziez, who was finishing her toilette, 
 hastened to come down to the reception room. A foot- 
 man announced the trio and showed them into the 
 room. The lady started to come forward and meet 
 these too punctual guests, but, when they had pre- 
 sented themselves as three of the columns of the house 
 of Dobouziez and Co., the welcoming smile with which 
 Madame Dobouziez had greeted them began to visibly 
 contract. She condescended to inquire about their 
 health ; they bowed and bowed again to express their 
 satisfaction. They were delighted to see that their 
 employer's wife had never enjoyed better health! 
 
 At this point of the conversation, Madame Dobou- 
 ziez feigned the necessity of giving some orders, and, 
 after apologising to them, left the room. She went up- 
 stairs to add a rose and some golden combs to her 
 coiffure, which Regina had made decidedly too simple. 
 
 However, the crowd, the really distinguished guests, 
 began to arrive. Madame Dobouziez repeated to sa- 
 tiety the three or four formulas of welcome consonant 
 with the rank of their guests. 
 
 Among them was the Governor of the province, the 
 Burgomaster of Antwerp and his wife, the Military 
 Governor of the city and his wife, the Commander-in- 
 Chief of the Province and his wife, the Presiding Jus- 
 
IN SOCIETY 79 
 
 tice of the Court of the First Instance and his wife, the 
 Colonel of the Civic Guard and his wife, the superior 
 grades of the army, but especially Monsieur du Million, 
 Madame du Million, and the young du Millions of both 
 sexes with German, French, and Flemish particles, 
 or with no particles at all ; there were also all the Vans 
 of commerce, all the Vons from the banks, Janssens, 
 Verbists, Meyers, Stevens, and Peeters in a body. 
 Everybody was there who possessed a negotiable name, 
 a name that could be discounted at the banks ; wealthy 
 picture dealers jostled with usurers, the upstart of 
 today lounged next to the bankrupt of tomorrow. 
 Each guest could have made good an income of twenty- 
 five thousand francs, or a capital of two hundred thou- 
 sand francs invested in business. A judicious and sa- 
 gacious proportion. If the names announced by the 
 footman resembled each other, the bonds of identity 
 were even more obvious in the people themselves. The 
 same black dress suits, the same white ties, the same 
 opera hats. The same faces, too, for the similarity of 
 their professions, the worship of money, gave them all 
 a certain family resemblance. The brands of identical 
 preoccupations made them all resemble each other, the 
 apoplectic and the ascetic, the fat and the thin. There 
 were gross, self-satisfied faces, imperturbable and sol- 
 emn, more tightly closed than the strong-boxes of their 
 possessors. There were uneasy, shrewd, mobile faces, 
 bucket-shop faces, spying faces, the faces of choir boys 
 who gorged upon the remains of the abundant heca- 
 tombs devoured by the high priests of Mercury. Long, 
 narrow noses, winking eyes, shifty looks. These peo- 
 ple were possessed with a badly repressed temptation 
 to scratch their beards as they did when they thought 
 out a business transaction or a good deal; sensual 
 
8o THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 mouths, a vaguely sardonic grin, goose- footed, bald, 
 wearing massive rings consistent with their short, 
 stubby fingers and pontificial stomachs. Those who 
 spent most of their time in their offices were the palest, 
 others, travellers who were constantly moving about, 
 retained the tan of the sea and the open air. 
 
 Despite their uniform clothing, they were distin- 
 guishable by certain habits : a young stock broker, em- 
 barrassed by his dangling arms, manipulated his dance 
 card as he would his memorandum pad; a dealer in 
 novelties searched his pockets for samples of sachet; 
 the fingers of a manufacturer of worsteds were mag- 
 netically attracted to the upholstery of the chairs and 
 portieres. Some of these wealthy people pushed their 
 haughtiness and arrogance almost to the point of 
 monomania. Old man Brullekens would never touch 
 a piece of money, gold, silver, copper, unless as a pre- 
 liminary it had been polished, scraped and cleaned in 
 such a fashion that not the slightest bit of dirt adhered 
 to it. A footman wore himself out every day polish- 
 ing up his small change. By preference he desired 
 'freshly coined pieces, and collected bills newly come 
 from the bank. 
 
 His neighbor, De Zater, never offered an ungloved 
 hand to anyone, not even to his children, and if he were 
 to inadventently pollute his aristocratic right hand by 
 touching that of one of his acquaintances, he could 
 not rest until he had washed it. 
 
 All were learned in the arcana of commerce, in the 
 tricks and the legerdemain that made money pass from 
 other people's hands into their own coffers, as if by 
 virtue of the phenomenon of endosmose established 
 by the physicists; all of them practised dupery and 
 legal theft ; all were experts in finesse, in composition 
 
IN SOCIETY 8i 
 
 under a strict law, in the art of evading the law itself. 
 Rich, but insatiable, they wished to be even richer. 
 The younger men, their heirs, already looked weary, 
 care-ridden and prematurely old. They had the oldish 
 foreheads of dejected men about town as much worn 
 out by scheming as by dissipation. Although they were 
 in society, they scrutinized and interrogated each other, 
 their looks crossed swords as if it were necessary to 
 play a careful game and "get" the other fellow. The 
 practice of lying and of giving orders, the habit of 
 deprecating and appraising everything, the instinct of 
 craftiness and greed enveloped their persons with a 
 feverish temperature. They could hardly refrain from 
 being brusque even when people were polite to them. 
 Their decorum was convulsive, their handshake seemed 
 to feel the pulse of your fortune, and their fingers had 
 soft and crafty flexions like those of a placid strangler 
 who is about to twist the neck of a fat chicken. And 
 in the very young, the greenhorns, and the fops, one 
 felt the humiliation and the timidity of novices an- 
 noyed more because they had not yet begun to make 
 money than because they could not spend it as they 
 wished. 
 
 There was as much monotony and professional re- 
 semblance among the women. Only by the variety 
 of plumage was the collective preoccupation masked 
 and disguised. Fat mammas were stufifed into corsets 
 far too tightly laced; bilious matrons seemed to have 
 just broken a long fast, although the price of the ca- 
 bochons illuminating their ear lobes was sufficient to 
 feed fifty poor families for two years. As for the 
 young girls, there were tall ones, thin ones, precocious 
 ones; there were the unsophisticated, the elegant, the 
 chubby, the blondes, the brunettes, the sentimental, the 
 
82 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 laughing, and the affected. They had deHcate judg- 
 ment but narrow sentiments. In order to echpse their 
 friends, these ladies would employ as much Machiavel- 
 ism in their social relations as did their fathers, broth- 
 ers and husbands in order to bankrupt their competi- 
 tors. Their conversation ? It was of the most gossipy 
 banalities. 
 
 The salons now being filled with people, Regina, 
 whom the dressmaker, the chambermaid, the hair- 
 dresser and Felicite had succeeded in dressing, made 
 her entrance on her father's arm. Among all these 
 graven personages, his associates and his equals. Mon- 
 sieur Dobouziez looked the youngest and the most care- 
 free, at least on this occasion, for his paternal pride 
 had brightened his usually worried expression. Nev- 
 ertheless, his excitement did not prevent him from 
 strictly observing, as he passed from group to group 
 introducing his daughter, the administrative and finan- 
 cial hierarchy of his guests. 
 
 Gina's appearance provoked a whispered murmur 
 of approval. Laurent would have been more dazzled 
 than ever before. She wore a gown of white net, 
 strewn with tiny beads of silver; lilies-of-the-valley 
 and forget-me-nots were on her shoulder-strap and in 
 her hair. Her regular, classic beauty was enhanced 
 by a graceful carriage ; she created a harmony of ges- 
 ture and contour that would have been the despair of 
 any sculptor. Her great black eyes, her moist red lips, 
 her profile, like an antique medallion graven upon an 
 agate of faint rose, were framed by the wilful curls 
 of her opulent hair, and crowned a figure of beautiful 
 proportions and the exquisite modelling of her neck 
 and shoulders. 
 
 The sm^rt little pencils had finished marking up 
 
IN SOCIETY 83 
 
 the satin surface of the dance-cards, and the beautiful 
 girls were now showing each other their lists, mur- 
 muring, whispering, envying each other for having so 
 many dances taken by the one man, consoling them- 
 selves in the fact that his name did not appear so fre- 
 quently on their friends' cards. 
 
 The two brothers Saint-Fardier were very much in 
 demand. They were on familiar terms with all the 
 men, and they flirted with all the girls. But it was, 
 however, the little Vanderlings who attracted them 
 most. Nervous and excited, they had a stock of 
 phrases v^hich they kept repeating. "It is almost as 
 good as the Count d'Hamberville's last affair," they 
 were pleased to remark. 
 
 Monsieur Saint-Fardier, senior, ill at ease in his eve- 
 ning clothes, perorated and gesticulated as if he were 
 setting upon the workmen in the factory. Angele and 
 Cora wore, with hoydenish ease, scandalous dresses de- 
 signed by their mother, who, being the daughter of a 
 wealthy cabinet-maker of the Faubourg Saint Antoine 
 in Paris, professed a most aristocratic disdain for com- 
 mercial and provincial society. She admired only Gas- 
 ton and Athanasius Saint-Fardier de la Bellone, who at 
 least had been educated in Paris, and as soon as they 
 had seemed to select her daughters, she resolutely 
 pushed Angele and Cora upon them. Alluring, in- 
 toxicating, cleverly trained by the Parisienne — the 
 nickname given to Madame Vanderling, a superior 
 woman who was as crafty as a procuress — the two 
 girls allowed their suitors no respite, and it seemed 
 as if the game were hunting the hunters. Their 
 father, the eminent Vanderling, a well-known figure 
 in all important cases before the courts, abandoned to 
 his wife the care of providing for their daughters, 
 
84 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 and, retiring to the little card room, was telling, be- 
 tween two games of bridge, the story of the crime of 
 passion whose author he was to defend. 
 
 "Ah ! an affair with an unquestionable relish. Just 
 as if it came out of Byron's work. Lara or the Cor- 
 sair in real life," he said, passing his hand over his 
 apostolic beard with a gesture that he had copied from 
 a veteran of the Parisian bar who had been exiled to 
 Antwerp during the Second Empire. 
 
 Here, too, was Freddy Bejard, accompanied by 
 his bosom friend, his shadow, his man-of -straw, so 
 evil tongues whispered. Dupoissy was the planet 
 that received light and heat only in the sunlight of 
 Bejard*s presence. Whatever he was he owed to the 
 powerful shipowner. The business men were hard 
 put to it to find out just what he was "in." Was he 
 in — it is the consecrated expression — grain, coffee, or 
 sugar? Eloi Dupoissy was "in" everything, and 
 nothing. If he were left alone for two minutes, he 
 would ask, with an uneasy air, where Bejard, his mas- 
 ter, was. Being but a subaltern, he never refused to 
 carry out any orders with which he was entrusted by 
 the omnipotent ship-owner. He cherished a contempt 
 for the people with whom Bejard did not agree, exag- 
 gerated Bejard's haughtiness, made his opinions his 
 own. Mealy-mouthed, insinuating, sticky, when Du- 
 poissy opened his mouth he resembled a music-loving 
 carp striking the pitch before singing a song. Orig- 
 inally from Sedan, he passed himself off as a merchant 
 of wholesale woolens. It was characteristic of him to 
 speak of the little country in which he was living in 
 the tone of indulgent protection so irritating in exiles 
 from large nations. He felt as much at home as did 
 Tartuffe with Orgon, took part in everything, discov- 
 
IN SOCIETY 85 
 
 ered local glories, fulminated literary anathemas, and 
 sent articles to the newspapers. 
 
 In France, the most centralized of countries, the 
 draining of values toward Paris is formidable. Un- 
 happily, in no other country than France is provincial 
 life so narrow and insipid. And Dupoissy had exiled 
 himself from one of these provinces in order to initiate 
 the people of Antwerp into the life of the intellect, 
 and to contribute his efforts to their moral renascence. 
 Dupoissy possessed one defect which rendered his ca- 
 reer as a well-known man about town very difficult. 
 His breath was so malodorous that Madame Vander- 
 ling, the Parisienne, who treated the French provincial 
 with the utmost contempt, complained that he had 
 swallowed a dead rat. 
 
 He tried vainly to conquer this pestilential effluence 
 by means of a strong dose of mint, cachous, and other 
 remedies ; the stench only dominated their faint aromas 
 and became more formidable than ever. 
 
 Dupoissy did not dance, but while his patron was 
 dancing with Mademoiselle Dobouziez he extolled the 
 power of Terpischore, and with the sickly expression 
 of an obese and elderly counter-jumper he entertained 
 the crowd by recalling his youthful exploits. He re- 
 marked devotedly that Bejard and Regina were a 
 beautiful couple; they evoked for him, among other 
 allegories, Beauty giving wings to Genius. This and 
 other poetic efforts made him both hungry and thirsty 
 and he profited by the absence of his master to make 
 frequent visits to the buffet and place an embargo upon 
 all the food and drink that was being served. 
 
 The ball grew livelier and livelier. The three clerks, 
 having been presented to some dowerless girls, daugh- 
 ters of functionaries to whom the Dobouziez* were 
 
86 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 obligated, conscientiously did their duty, and, since the 
 girls were as pretty and far more amiable than the 
 rich heiresses, the penmen considered themselves as 
 happy as the Bejards, Saint-Fardiers and Dupoissys. 
 Bejard's assiduous attention to Mademoiselle Dobou- 
 ziez worried all the mothers, who either wanted the 
 shipowner for their daughters or the daughter of the 
 wealthy manufacturer for their sons. 
 
 But, and nobody could have foreseen such an occur- 
 ence, the dancer especially honored by Mademoiselle 
 Dobouziez at this memorable ball was the grain-dealer 
 Theodore Bergmans, or Door den Berg, as he was 
 familiarly called by his friends, that is to say, by the 
 whole population. 
 
 Door Bergmans was an exception, in the breadth of 
 his views and the loftiness of his spirit, to the selfish 
 and tardigrade men with whom he came in contact. 
 He was young, hardly twenty-five years old, and did 
 not look his age. Vigorous and healthy, he had the 
 stature of a mortal destined to command, and he was 
 taller by a head than the tallest man in the assembled 
 company. His thick, flaxen hair curled slightly above 
 his high forehead, his kindly, penetrating eyes were 
 set beneath arched eyebrows, the pupils of that blue- 
 violet which becomes darker or lighter in the reflection 
 of thought in the same way as does a sheet of water 
 beneath the play of clouds. His nose was aquiline, his 
 mouth small and hidden by a cavalier mustache, his 
 beard was like those seen in portraits by Franz Hals. 
 His voice, warm and vibrating, had that compelling 
 tone which sways the minds of crowds from the very 
 first words, one of those fatal voices that subjugate 
 and inspire, so musical that the significance of the 
 words is not immediately apparent. The son of a low- 
 
IN SOCIETY 87 
 
 grade fish-dealer in the ruelle des Crabes, who sold 
 more eels than he did herrings and fresh sea fish, the 
 bromides and iodine and the odour of fish that sat- 
 urated his father's underground shop doubtless con- 
 tributed in endowing young Door with the healthy and 
 appetizing complexion that is characteristic of most 
 young fishermen. At the primary school, where his^ 
 parents sent him upon the advice of customers who had 
 been struck by the boy's intelligence and vivacity, his 
 record for conduct was impossible, but he carried off 
 all the prizes. Taken to the Flemish Theater, he de- 
 veloped a passion for the Flemish language, the only 
 language of the poor. At fifteen he wrote a play which 
 was produced at the Poesjenellekelder, a puppet show 
 that had been established in the cellar of the old Halle- 
 de-la- Viande', where all the children of the boatmen 
 and mussel-merchants came to be amused. When he 
 had left grammar school he did not pursue his studies, 
 having learned enough to be able to perfect himself 
 without the assistance of teachers. Forced into the 
 paternal business, he attracted custom by his good 
 humor, his fluent wit, his sharp mind. Among the 
 lower middle classes there flourished formerly, and still 
 flourish, "societies" of all sorts, political, musical, and 
 so forth. Bergmans, who already exercised a tre- 
 mendous influence among his friends, only had to pre- 
 sent himself in one of these societies to be immediately 
 elected president. From that moment politics called 
 him, but politics of a broad nature, essentially inspired 
 by the needs of the common people and especially 
 adapted to the character, the customs and the condi- 
 tion of the land and of the race. He took the initiative 
 in a great movement for a national revival, in which the 
 youth of the country followed him. But his lofty 
 
88 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 ideals did not interfere with his material welfare. 
 Fortune favored him. He pleased old Daelmans- 
 Deynze, one of the old aristocrats of Antwerp, who 
 loaned him capital with which to extend his business. 
 Leaving his fishmongery, young Bergmans, after a 
 profitable apprenticeship to his patron, launched him- 
 self into the world of big business, especially into the 
 grain-market He became rich, but his fortune did 
 not impair his popularity. He remained the idol of 
 the people even though he was highly thought of by 
 the bigwigs and met the proudest and most aristocratic 
 people on an equal footing. He became the head of 
 the democratic and nationalistic movement. 
 
 Without yet holding any office, he represented a 
 much more actual power than that of the deputes or 
 the ediles elected by a limited body of voters vaguely 
 corrupted by foreign influences. He was, in brief, 
 one of those men for whom his followers, even though 
 they comprised the majority of the truly representa- 
 tive public of Antwerp, would have thrown them- 
 selves into the fire — a tribune of the people, a ruwaert. 
 He was so upright, so lucid in his spirit, he possessed 
 so much common-sense and so much kindliness of 
 nature, that the most delicate people forgave his 
 trivial faults, his braggadocio, his gasconades, his tend- 
 ency to employ flashy, vulgar and trivial methods of 
 speech. 
 
 This violent and often brutal tribune became, in 
 society, a perfect conversationalist. He spoke French 
 with a pronounced accent, drawling his words, and 
 introducing a profusion of images and an unexpected 
 color. He expressed his admiration for women in 
 terms that were often a trifle frank, of which the bour- 
 geois, weary of conventions and banalities, tasted the 
 
IN SOCIETY 89 
 
 spicy flavour even while pretending to be shocked and 
 finding fault. Bergmans had a rare barbarism and 
 an always piquant license. 
 
 At the Dobouziez's ball he lived up to his flattering 
 reputation of being a charmer and a heart-breaker. 
 Quite naturally, he was very attentive to Gina. It was 
 the first time he had met her. Beneath her proud 
 beauty, which caressed his taste for fine lines, noble 
 blood, well-modelled flesh, he divined a character more 
 original and more interesting than those of the other 
 heiresses. On her part Gina did not fail to save him 
 one of her so greatly coveted dances. Bergmans' 
 frank and pleasing expression, his inherent ease of 
 manner, impressed this proud young girl who for the 
 first time had met in him a young man worthy of her 
 attention. Beyond the perfect fashion of their clothes, 
 Gina had for a long time found nothing to appre- 
 ciate in the Saint-Fardiers. Therefore she did not for 
 a moment dream of disputing Angele's and Cora's 
 title to them. And as for Laurent Paridael, that 
 thick-witted savage could, at the most, hope only for 
 her patronage. 
 
 During the dance Mademoiselle Dobouziez engaged 
 Bergmans in one of those spirited skirmishes in which 
 she excelled ; but this time she met her match, for the 
 tribune parried her sallies with a skill equal to his 
 courtesy. Several times he reluctantly returned a 
 spirited retort, showing, in doing it, his great desire 
 not to conquer his petulant antagonist. They were seen 
 together several times during the course of the eve- 
 ning. Even while she was dancing with other men, 
 Gina tried to join the groups in which Bergmans found 
 himself, and enter the conversation. Her interest in 
 him was not lacking in a little vexation with this son 
 
90 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 of the people, this revolutionist, this species of in- 
 truder who allowed himself to possess both better 
 looks and more clever conversation than all the poten- 
 tates of commerce. Instead of being thankful for 
 the moderation with which he had defended himself 
 against her epigrams, she was humiliated at having 
 been spared, the more because from the first engage- 
 ment she had recognized his superiority. Into each 
 of his reluctant retorts the young man had put a rever- 
 ent gallantry. Gina's sentiment toward him was in- 
 definable. Admiration or vexation; which was it? 
 Perhaps aversion, perhaps sympathy. At one time, 
 knowing herself too weak, she called Bejard to 
 her aid. He was recognized as one of the most con- 
 vincing dialecticiants of his set. She gave Bergmans 
 an opportunity to confute one of the beings whom he 
 held responsible for the moral decay of the city. 
 
 The tribune was bitter. He stripped his foils of their 
 buttons. Nevertheless he showed himself to be a man 
 of the world, respected the neutrality of the salon in 
 which he was being entertained, did not forget him- 
 self, and tried to merit the esteem of Regina. 
 
 Bejard, irritated by Bergmans' moderation, fenced 
 maladroitly, and became almost uncouth. Neither of 
 them touched apparently upon the matter nearest their 
 hearts ; but they measured each other, looked for each 
 other's vulnerable spots, told each other in an indirect 
 manner their animosities, their contrary instincts, their 
 disagreements. Bejard was not fooled by his adver- 
 sary's tact and conciliating spirit. They revealed to 
 him a force, a character and a talent even more for- 
 midable than those which he had learned to know in 
 the public meetings. Was the tribune also a poli- 
 tician? Bejard would not admit that this idol of the 
 
IN SOCIETY 91 
 
 people, this fanatic nationalist found as much pleas- 
 ure as the others were willing to think in frivolous 
 meetings and in conversations in which so many things 
 had to be said and done contrary to his convictions. 
 
 And Bejard likewise began to realize with what con- 
 tempt and aversion Bergmans regarded people of his 
 species. However, Bergmans' ironic good humor and 
 ease of manner increased with the growing discom- 
 fiture of his opponent. Bejard ended by being totally 
 eclipsed. Gina was annoyed by Bergmans* success ; it 
 was impertinent of him, a mere street-corner orator, 
 to put to rout an oracle so greatly esteemed by Mon- 
 sieur Dobouziez. 
 
 Several times during that winter, Gina and Berg- 
 mans met at various functions. She continued to pay 
 him a little more attention than she did to the others. 
 She treated him as a comrade, but nothing in her 
 manner told him that she preferred him to the rest. 
 And to the Vanderlings, who teased her about him, 
 she answered : "Nonsense. He only amuses me l" 
 
 Nobody, after all, attached any importance to their 
 friendship. 
 
 Bergmans, irresistibly attracted by Gina*s charm, 
 held himself violently in check in order not to tell her 
 his feelings. The soHdarity of caste and of inter- 
 ests, the community of sentiments and aspirations that 
 he knew existed between Bejard and Gina's parents 
 made him disconsolate. 
 
 Many times he had been on the point of proposing to 
 her. In the meanwhile, Gina went about so much and 
 with such an alarming ardor that Monsieur Dobouziez 
 had to beg her to rest and take care of herself. She 
 was the belle of the season, the most feted, the most 
 flattered, the most intrepid. 
 
92 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Everywhere Bergmans and Gina treated each other 
 with an assumed familiarity, trying to put each other 
 upon the wrong scent with regard to their reserve and 
 their intimate thoughts. And each bore a grudge to 
 the other because of this paraded friendship and flirta- 
 tion, under which a profound and tender sentiment 
 was budding. 
 
 "I shall draw no inferences!" thought Door Berg- 
 mans, as little experienced as Hercules at the feet of 
 Omphale. "She thinks me a little livelier playtoy than 
 the others, and nothing else! Does she know how 
 much she fascinates me ? Why am I not richer, or she 
 poor and bom to another sphere? I would have pro- 
 posed long ago!" 
 
 Regina suffered no less. She was forced to admit 
 to herself that she loved this "anarchist," she, the well- 
 born girl, the heiress of the Dobouziez*. She would 
 never have dared speak to her father about such a 
 preference. 
 
IX 
 "THE GINA" 
 
 The dockyard of Fulton and Co., shipbuilders, was 
 being cleared for action. A new ship, built for the 
 Southern Cross, the line plying between Antwerp and 
 Australia, was about to be launched. The ceremony 
 had been announced for eleven o*clock. The last prep- 
 arations were being made. Like an enormous butter- 
 fly that had for a long time been dormant in its chrys- 
 alis, the boat, now completely matured, had been 
 stripped of its envelope of timber work. 
 
 The dockyard was decorated with masts and with 
 porticos that vanished beneath a profusion of ban- 
 ners and flags of all colors and all nations, among 
 which the most prevalent was the red, yellow and black 
 of Belgium. Ingenious monograms drew together the 
 names of the ship, its builder and its owner: Gina, 
 Fulton, Bejard. And here and there were displayed 
 figures telling when the work had been begun and 
 when finished. 
 
 Near the ship itself rose a platform hung with sail- 
 cloth, which the damp wind blew furiously about. Near 
 the water, looking like a stranded whale, lay the huge 
 boat, a powerful carcass, shored up and freshly paint- 
 ed black and red. On the poop, in golden letters upon 
 
 93 
 
94 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 a carved shield representing a siren, could be read the 
 word Gina. 
 
 Since early morning the dockyard had been filled 
 by a crowd of curious people. The guests who were 
 fortified with cards of admittance took their places in 
 the tiers of the platform. In the front row arm chairs, 
 upholstered in Utrecht velvet, awaited the authorities, 
 the godmother and her family. Lookers on of little 
 importance and the workmen took risks by placing 
 themselves near the shore and the boat. 
 
 It was a beautiful, sunshiny day, as beautiful as 
 It had been when they had made the excursion to 
 Hemixem, almost a year before. Everybody who had 
 the slightest pretension to importance in the world of 
 intellect, style and politics, met there as if by chance. 
 They strutted about, these people who counted, the 
 Saint-Fardiers, the Vanderlings, the Brullekens, the 
 De Zaters, the Fuchskops, the many Verhulsts, Ver- 
 bists, Peeters and Janssens, and all the Vons and the 
 Vans of the other occasion. It was always the same 
 crowd. 
 
 Dupoissy was radiant and put on as many airs as 
 if he had been the designer, owner and captain of the 
 ship all in one. The ladies exhibited charming gowns 
 designed with very evident meaning. Angele and 
 Cora Vanderling sat simpering next to their fiances, 
 the young Saint-Fardiers, who were parading stylish 
 lounging suits of blue with brass buttons, like the uni- 
 form of a naval officer. Door Bergmans was also at 
 the ceremony, accompanied by his friends, the realist 
 painter William Marbol and Rombaut de Vyveloy, 
 the composer. 
 
 And now everything was ready. The crew gath- 
 ered upon the bridge of the boat, according to the cus- 
 
"THE GIN A'' 95 
 
 torn. The sailors, clean looking in their holiday 
 clothes, good-natured, frank fellows, would have re- 
 called to Laurent, had he been there, his old friend 
 Vincent Tilbak. A little embarrassed by their sea- 
 legs, they looked as if they did not relish parading 
 upon a boat that was still on dry land. Caught, as 
 they were, in the midst of the crew, some of the 
 lookers-on would have liked to give themselves the 
 emotion of going down the ways on the boat. The 
 wheedling Dupoissy would have liked to be among 
 them, but his delicate duties kept him on shore. While 
 waiting for the master he had to receive the guests, 
 find a place for the ladies under the awning, and also 
 do the duty of manager, and, when necessary, dis- 
 lodge the outsiders. He was conscious of his import- 
 ance, and very radiant. It was good to see him take 
 the Misses Vanderling close to the boat and explain 
 the details of its construction in technical terms. He 
 confided to them, too, with an air of mystery, that he 
 had prepared some verse, which he thought were "well 
 turned." In order to get rid of him, the editor of the 
 great commercial daily had promised to intercalate 
 them in his account. 
 
 Several crews of the most picturesque and vigorous 
 laborers on the dockyards waited, at arm's length from 
 the boat, for the moment to set her at liberty. They 
 were waiting only for the authorities and the prin- 
 cipal actors in the ceremony to arrive. Outside the 
 dockyards, on the quays, and down stream toward the 
 city, thousands of curious people, stemmed only by the 
 Fulton buildings, which were filled to suffocation, were 
 standing, waiting to take their part in the spectacle, 
 and were pushing each other in an uproar of excite- 
 ment. 
 
96 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Attention! Dupoissy, his handkerchief tied to the 
 end of his cane, gave a signal like a starter at the 
 races. 
 
 Extemporaneous artillerymen, hidden behind the 
 sheds, set off the charges of powder. ''The cannon," 
 said the crowd, trembling with a delicious thrill of 
 expectation. The young Saint-Fardiers teased An- 
 gele and Cora, who had jumped at the noise. 
 
 A choral society began singing "La Braban^onne." 
 "They have come ! They have come !'* 
 They had arrived. Getting out of the carriage were 
 the burgomaster, the godfather of the ship, giving his 
 arm to the godmother. Mademoiselle Dobouziez, who 
 looked ravishing in a gown of rose silk and net; then 
 Bejard, leading Mamma Dobouziez, who was more 
 beflowered and beplumed than ever, especially since 
 Gina had given up opposing her mother's innocent 
 mania. At the very end came Dobouziez, who was 
 escorting the wife of the constructor. The populace, 
 whom the police had great difficulty in keeping out 
 of the reserved space, wondered naively at Mademoi- 
 selle Dobouziez' beauty. They had acclaimed Door 
 Den Berg, but had grumbled audibly as Bejard 
 went by And there were to be found in 
 more than one group of these good people and 
 even on the benches upon the platform, narrators 
 to establish a contrast between the brilliant cere- 
 mony of that day at the Fulton Dockyards, and the 
 atrocities that had taken place there twenty-five years 
 before, under the responsibility of Bejard senior, and 
 with the complicity of Freddy Bejard, the future ship- 
 owner. But the hardly repressed hisses and murmurs 
 were drowned by the silly gaiety and idle jubilation. 
 When the cortege had gained their places there was 
 
"THE GIN A" 97 
 
 another peal of cannon. The musicians were about 
 to start playing when Dupoissy gave them a furious 
 signal to be quiet. And, planting himself in front of 
 the platform, on the steep bank of the river, a few 
 steps away from the boat, he took a rose-colored paper 
 from his pocket, opened it, coughed, bowed, and twit- 
 tered in a voice like that of a prematurely weaned kid 
 a whole litany of rancid alexandrines to which no- 
 body, however, paid the slightest attention. From 
 time to time, through the talking that was going on, 
 one could catch a hemstitch : "Oh, ship ! Thou son of 
 earth! . . . Thou conqueror of the seas! ... On 
 distant shores . . . Salute for us . . . dawn creeps 
 above the horizon over the sea . . . symbol of our 
 laws . . . kingdom of Amphytrite ..." 
 
 "What a lot of commonplaces !" murmured Madame 
 Vanderling in Gaston Saint-Fardier's ear. "You will 
 see that he won't pass one up ! That man is a veritable 
 almanach of the muses !" 
 
 He finished. There were a few discreet bravos. A 
 few people whispered "Not bad, not bad!" Most of 
 the audience indulged in a sigh of relief. Finally the 
 really moving part of the ceremony began to be pre- 
 pared. The musicians played an air of Gretry's: 
 ''Ou peut-on etre mieuxf M. Fulton, the builder, 
 gave a sharp order to the workmen. 
 
 Beneath the powerful pressure of the rams and the 
 wedges that were urging her forward, the immense 
 hulk, immovable until now, began to move almost in- 
 visibly. All eyes anxiously followed the efforts of the 
 robust crew of workmen massed under the bow of the 
 ship, shoring it up from that side, and armed with 
 handspikes in order to make it slide down the ways 
 with greater speed. Piles, stanchions and braces had 
 
98 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 all been removed; the last bit of shoring had been 
 taken away. 
 
 Bejard had escorted Mademoiselle Dobouziez close 
 to the mooring. Taking a plush-handled hatchet, the 
 blade of which had been filed down to a razor-like 
 keenness, he offered it to the godmother, and asked her 
 to cut the last restraining cable with one sharp blow. 
 The beautiful Gina, usually so adroit, went about it 
 badly; she struck the cable, but the stout hemp held 
 fast. She hacked at it a second and a third time, be- 
 came impatient, and uttered a clicking sound of irrita- 
 tion. The silence in the crowd was such that the pant- 
 ing spectators, holding their breath, perceived the 
 spoiled child's obstinate access of temper. The wags 
 laughed. 
 
 "Ifs a bad omen for the ship," said the sailors to 
 each other. 
 
 "And for the godmother !" added the lookers on. 
 
 As Mademoiselle Dobouziez did not make an end to 
 it, Bejard, in turn, became impatient, took the recalci- 
 trant tool from her hands, and with a firm and vigor- 
 ous stroke cut the cable. 
 
 The enormous hulk creaked in every plank, began 
 to move, and slid majestically down into its ultimate 
 domain. 
 
 It was an affecting moment. What was it that 
 made the hearts of all these people beat a little faster ; 
 not only those of the unpretentious, but those of the 
 most vain and haughty, more difificult to move than 
 the enormous colossus itself? 
 
 In slipping down to the water the boat, which now 
 seemed possessed of a strange life, continued to creak 
 and groan. Nothing could have been as majestic as 
 the prolonged rumble that reverberated in the flanks 
 
''THE GIN A" 99 
 
 of The Gina. Some horses whinney thus with pleas- 
 ure and pride when their master puts to the test their 
 vigor and their speed. Then, brusquely, it traversed, 
 like an impatient diver, the distance by which it was 
 separated from the undulating water. Then with a 
 crash it plunged into the Scheldt, whose foamy mass 
 seemed to quiver and make way. 
 
 The noise of the boat having ceased, there arose from 
 the crowd prolonged and insistent cheers. The band 
 sent forth repeated and inspiring fanfares, the salvos 
 began again, an immense tricolor was hoisted to the 
 top of the largest mast. The crew of The Gina burst 
 forth with cries of jubilation, and her sham passen- 
 gers, convinced of their importance, waved hats and 
 handkerchiefs. 
 
 Presently the ship strode into the middle of the river 
 and turned with the dignity and easy grace of a tri- 
 umpher. It was no longer the heavy, inert, crabbed 
 and rather woeful mass that, a moment before, every- 
 one had admired only in expectation; for a ship out 
 of water has always the look of a wreck, but, as soon 
 as it strikes its element, it is buoyed up and quick- 
 ened into life. Its engines had been put in motion, its 
 huge screws were churning the water, smoke was es- 
 caping from its great funnel. Its formidable organ- 
 ism was functioning, its muscles of steel and iron be- 
 gan to work, it groaned, it breathed, it lived. And 
 the cheers were louder than ever. In the meanwhile, un- 
 der the tent on the shore. Monsieur Fulton's manager 
 had champagne and biscuits passed around. All the 
 man drank, in high good humor, pretending a great 
 joy, to the good fortune of The Gina. Everyone 
 crowded about the beautiful godmother to express 
 their good wishes for her godson. Gina carried her 
 
loo THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 glass to her lips and replied to every toast, with a 
 dignified and aristocratic smile. The little Vander- 
 lings, however, really drank. Held tightly by their 
 fiances, they pretended to be ticklish, laughing like lit- 
 tle lunatics, white, plump, red-lipped, their eyes full 
 of the science of love. 
 
 Bejard redoubled his attentions to Gina. 
 
 "Well, you are linked up to my fortunes, made- 
 moiselle," he said, not without intention. "In The 
 Gina that belongs to me, and which will do honor to 
 its name, I don't doubt, I shall rejoice to find some- 
 thing of you. Besides, the English, our teachers in 
 commerce, have done their ships the honor of includ- 
 ing them among the women. For them, all objects 
 are alike in being of the neuter gender. Only ships 
 belong to the fair sex !'* 
 
 "I feel like a little girl beside that imposing matron !" 
 Gina replied, laughing. "And I find it difficult to be- 
 lieve that I held her over the baptismal fount. It was 
 rather she who seemed to accord me her patronage. 
 And that explains my emotion of a few moments ago ! 
 Really, all my nerve left me!" 
 
 Dobouziez, in a generous humor because of his 
 daughter's success, and always anxious to follow usage 
 and not to be stingy in public, had had the foreman 
 called. 
 
 "Here," he said, giving him five louis, "here are 
 the baptismal sweetmeats! Divide them among your 
 men and have them quench their thirst!" 
 
 "What an idea!" grumbled Saint-Fardier senior in 
 Bejard's ear. "The brutes won't be able to stand on 
 their feet. Perhaps you think that I'd give them a 
 tip! You ought to see how I sober them up at the 
 factory on Monday mornings!" 
 
"THE GINA'' loi 
 
 After having executed several rxiktioeuvres; iri ot^tc 
 to show herself to full advantage to the fashionable 
 and critical crowd that had attended her first gambol- 
 lings The Gina put on double speed and flew off to 
 the roadstead to rejoice the eyes of other spectators. 
 A berth had been prepared for her near the quay, 
 where she could wait until she had taken on her full 
 equipment and crew and her first cargo of passengers 
 and merchandise. It had been agreed by the owner 
 and the captain that she was to put to sea in a week's 
 time. 
 
 Dupoissy, a little mortified at the slight success of 
 his verses, approached the water, and, his glass filled 
 with champagne, standing at the extreme end of the 
 ways from which the boat had taken to the water, he 
 called the crowd, with the air of a juggler waiting to 
 do a new trick : "Attention, please !*' 
 
 Every one turned to look at him. He had drunk 
 glass after glass of champagne while nobody w^as pay- 
 ing any attention to him, and now, dishevelled and a 
 little grey, he had remembered the marriage of the 
 Doge and the Adriatic, and the antique libations to the 
 Ocean made by the pagans in order to propitiate Nep- 
 tune and Amphytrite. 
 
 "May this nectar of Bacchus, poured into the king- 
 dom of the waves, assure to the glorious Gina the 
 clemency of the elements !" 
 
 He spoke, and, seeking a graceful pose, put all his 
 weight upon one foot and poured the Roederer into 
 the river. But, being a fat man, he narrowly escaped 
 following it ; had Bergmans not held him back by his 
 coat-tails he would have taken a header. Every one 
 applauded and laughed. 
 
102 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "GoDcl! Cur bard is going to throw himself into 
 the river," sneered the Parisienne. 
 
 *'Be careful, monsieur, the ancient gods and the old 
 Scheldt do not seem to be pleased with your parody 
 of their rites!" said Bergmans. 
 
 "Oh, yes! I am a profane foreigner, am I not?" 
 the pseudo wool merchant answered spitefully, in- 
 stead of thanking his rescuer. "Only pure-blooded 
 natives of Antwerp may revive the ancient ritual !" 
 
 "I did not say quite that!" added Bergmans with 
 a laugh. 
 
 The company took leave of each other; the guests 
 began to enter their carriages. The workmen, holding 
 their tip as a pledge, cheered the important personages 
 with more conviction than at their arrival. That after- 
 noon there was to be a dance in the dockyard for all 
 the staff; several casks were to be broached. Some of 
 the workmen were already skipping about, making 
 preparations for this new part of the program. Being 
 fond of such ceremonies, Marbol and his friend Rom- 
 baut resolved to return with Bergmans in the after- 
 noon. 
 
 "And you," he hazarded to Gina; "are you not go- 
 ing to attend these good folks' gambol; are you not 
 going to take part in their joy, which is, after all, a 
 little due to you?" 
 
 She made a little face of disgust. 
 
 "Peuh ! It's not to my taste ! That sort of thing is 
 all right for democrats like you! You and Laurent 
 would get along perfectly!" 
 
 "Who is Laurent?" 
 
 "A very distant cousin, both actually and figurative- 
 ly, for just now he is at school some hundred miles 
 away. He believes, like you, in the importance of 
 
''THE GINA'* 103 
 
 the common herd. But he hasn't the excuse of paint- 
 ing them Hke your friend Marbol, and making money 
 out of them; or, like you, the prospect of becoming 
 president of the Republic and Free City of Antwerp." 
 
 She only thought of Paridael in order to make an 
 uncomplimentary comparison, at least in her own 
 mind, between Bergmans and the boy. She was an- 
 noyed with Bergmans for not having been sufficientTy 
 attentive to her during the ceremony, and for having 
 left her alone with Bejard the whole time. 
 
 "Decidedly," thought Door, "our opinions and 
 feelings are widely separated. I would do anything to 
 overcome the divergence. She is intelligent enough, 
 and fundamentally she has a great deal of rectitude. 
 If she loved me, I could easily interest her in my work 
 and in my ideals. I should make an ally of her! If 
 she but loved me. For in spite of her pride and dis- 
 dain and her submission to convention and prejudice, 
 she is out of place in her world. She is worth more, 
 or will be worth more than her parents. Noble ideals 
 and superior thoughts should find a place in her. Her 
 beauty and her instinct contradict her education! 
 Why should not I contend for her against the rich 
 eligibles who are always prowling around her?" 
 
X 
 
 THE ORANGERY 
 
 A YEAR slipped by. Young Paridael was able to 
 come home for a few weeks. Dobouziez put him 
 through an examination which showed conclusively 
 that he had put all his energy into ^'grinding" harder 
 than ever at subjects which his guardian thought un- 
 important, or that he studied them from a point of 
 view totally opposed to that of his guardian. Thus, 
 instead of learning from the modern languages the 
 things necessary to a good business correspondent, he 
 had crammed his head with literary nonsense. 
 
 "As if there were not enough silly stories in 
 French !" protested Monsieur Dobouziez. 
 
 Laurent had become a tall, ruddy youth with 
 straight hair and the constitution of a day laborer, 
 but beneath his too material exterior, his sullen and 
 dull expression, he hid a disposition that was ex- 
 cessively impressionable, an intense need for tender- 
 ness, an exalted imagination, a passionate tempera- 
 ment, and a heart greedy for justice. His seeming 
 apathy, complicated by an insurmountable timidity and 
 a slow and embarrassed diction, shackled and thwarted 
 feelings that were almost morbidly acute, and vibrant 
 and hypersensitive nerves. Beneath his torpor surged 
 a lava, a ferment of desires and ideals. 
 
 From his earliest infancy he had been a little dif- 
 
 104 
 
THE ORANGERY 105 
 
 ferent, a little inconsistent, and this had made his 
 parents fear for his future. The foreboding of the 
 ordeals stored up for him by the world at large only 
 endeared to them this scion who was both ill-favored 
 and elect. But with the exception of these well-be- 
 loved folk, to whom his merits were revealed by the 
 tie of flesh and blood, few people appreciated him. It 
 need not be added that the boy baffled immediate ob- 
 servation, and discouraged commonplace advances. 
 Then, too, when he was overflowing with feeling and 
 thought, either his modesty or a false sense of shame 
 prevented him from expressing them, or, if he tried to 
 put them into words, what he said seemed excessively 
 far-fetched and passed the bounds of normality set 
 by convention. 
 
 Laurent was destined to be fatally misunderstood. 
 The best-disposed and most penetrating people did not 
 fathom him or were shocked by his unbridled enthusi- 
 asm and unusual opinions. He gave himself up to 
 unseasonable demonstrations, and these would be fol- 
 lowed by abrupt moods of dejection. Enthusiastic 
 outbursts completely strangled themselves in his 
 throat, and ended in an unintelligible, harsh and al- 
 most brutal grunt, as if his jealous soul were sharply 
 recalling this flight of incendiary captives before they 
 achieved expression, or as if he despaired of making 
 himself understood and recoiled before the strangeness 
 of his effusions. At times it was like the pantomime 
 and the guttural noise of a deaf-mute on the point of 
 speech. His impressions and his impulses congested 
 him. At school he made but few friends. The other 
 boys would have made him a laughing-stock had he 
 not been able to make them keep their distance with 
 his fists. 
 
io6 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 The premature death of his parents resulted not in 
 disgusting him with Hfe but in making him compre- 
 hend it in his own way, love it for other reasons, 
 see it through other eyes, look askance at codes, mor- 
 als and conventions. He became more and more taci- 
 turn. His apparent inertia resembled that of a Ley- 
 den jar filled to the poi;^t of explosion. Suffering, 
 always constrained, plethoric, his instincts might have 
 indemnified themselves for their long repression; he 
 might have suddenly burst forth, gratified his pas- 
 sions without halt, ruined himself forever and ever; 
 but, in doing so, he would have avenged himself upon 
 life. Capable of any self-sacrifice and any tenderness, 
 but also of any fanaticism, in certain events he would 
 have justified vice and vindicated crime; according 
 to circumstances, he might have been a martyr or an 
 assassin; perhaps both. 
 
 At one of the informal dinners now quite frequent 
 at the home of his guardians, Laurent became ac- 
 quainted with Door Bergmans. His frank manner, 
 his commanding appearance and his kindly attention 
 tamed the young savage. Frequenters of the house 
 had never taken any notice of the poor relation. Gina 
 teased Bergmans about it. 
 
 "Do you remember my prediction on the day of the 
 launching of the ship?" 
 
 "Perfectly," answered Bergmans, "and I must say 
 that if that is the boy you were referring to he inter- 
 ests me greatly. The few words that I wormed out 
 of him reveal a nature far above the ordinary." 
 
 Gina seemed not to take this praise seriously, but 
 thereafter she condescended to talk more frequently 
 with her cousin. 
 
 The marrying of Gina was not accomplished as eas- 
 
THE ORANGERY 107 
 
 ily as Monsieur Dobouziez could have supposed. Many 
 obstacles stood in her road, even though she was an 
 heiress and exceedingly beautiful. Suitors dreaded her 
 imperious and trenchant disposition and her love of 
 ostentation. Admirers were not lacking. She had 
 around her a perpetual swarm of men paying her at- 
 tentions, a siege of flirting and gallantry, but no recog- 
 nized suitor presented himself. 
 
 Cora and Angele Vanderling, who were younger 
 than Gina, had just married Athanasius and Gaston 
 Saint-Fardier. They plagued her with secret confi- 
 dences and vaunted the liberty of conjugal life. Both 
 led their lymphatic husbands around by the nose and 
 hesitated less than ever to flirt with the gallants. 
 Saint-Fardier senior, overjoyed at having rid himself 
 of his sons, had obtained positions for both of them, 
 one with an exchange-broker, and the other in the 
 office of a nautical assessor. Vanderling, on his part, 
 had dowered his daughters very fairly. The two 
 young couples lived in very high style, and the girls, 
 who were becoming ever more radiant and dazzling 
 in their beauty, abandoned themselves to every whim. 
 
 With Bergmans, Bejard still remained the most 
 assiduous visitor at the Dobouziez's. Laurent, who 
 now knew the shipowner's antecedents, did not hide 
 his aversion for him. Inclined toward a vague mysti- 
 cism, he now accounted for the moment of hallucina- 
 tion that had come to him on the excursion to Hem- 
 ixem. To Laurent, Freddy Bejard seemed to exhale 
 the corrosive vapor of acreoline, to embody in cor- 
 poreal form the manslaughtering machines. He, 
 therefore suffered indescribably at seeing this sinister 
 and inauspicious satellite incessantly gravitate in the 
 orbit of the radiant Gina. Bejard had an intuition 
 
io8 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 of the feeling that he inspired in Laurent, and amused 
 himself by irritating him, but distantly and prudently, 
 as one irritates a watch dog that can unloose himself. 
 
 "My word!" he often used to say to Gina; "he 
 hasn't a reassuring manner at all, that young raga- 
 muffin! Look how he gloats over us with his assas- 
 sin's eyes ! Don't you think he will bite some fine day ? 
 Were I you I should muzzle him!" 
 
 In fairness to Gina it must be said that although 
 Bergmans' praise of the little savage had annoyed her, 
 she was nevertheless tempted to defend Laurent 
 against Bejard's sarcasm. 
 
 Laurent was drawn closer to Bergmans by the fact 
 that he was a competitor against Bejard. Laurent 
 had heard Bergmans speak publicly, and, having been 
 profoundly stirred by his imaginative and savory elo- 
 quence, he was not only his friend, but his partisan, 
 too. 
 
 Nevertheless, by degrees a feeling of jealousy took 
 possession of him, a feeling so vague that he could not 
 have fairly said whether he was jealous of Gina or of 
 Bergmans. One of Bergmans' inoffensive jokes, made 
 before Gina, had wounded him. He turned his back 
 on his friend, was sulky with him for days afterward, 
 and was moodier toward him than toward any of the 
 others. 
 
 "What's the matter with our little cousin now?" 
 asked Bergmans. 
 
 But, unlike Bejard, who was amused by this fit of 
 bad temper, Bergmans sought the poor boy and scolded 
 him tenderly with so much real kindliness that the 
 child finished by being captivated once more and asked 
 Bergmans' forgiveness for his whims. 
 
 Since his puberty the capricious and indefinite sen- 
 
THE ORANGERY 109 
 
 timent that he cherished for his cousin had been aggra- 
 vated by enervating sensuous appeals. With increas- 
 ing age he became even more impressionable. The 
 unreasonable demands of his temperament made him 
 impatient of his innate reserve and timidity. 
 
 At school, when he was in his fifteenth year, he 
 fainted like a little girl at the too ardent perfume of 
 the vernal gardens. The witchery of the springtime, 
 whiffs of stormy twilights, the heavy winds that pre- 
 ceded rain, beating down upon the tall grass and seem- 
 ing to swoon there, too intoxicated with joy to re- 
 sume their flight, the atmosphere of the summer sol- 
 stice and the autumnal equinox caressed him like the 
 touch of invisible lips. 
 
 During these moments the whole of creation em- 
 braced him, and demoralized and beside himself, he 
 burned to give it caress for caress ! Why could he not 
 clasp to him in a spasm of total possession the trees 
 that grazed him with their branches, the hay-ricks 
 against which he leaned, and all the perfumed and soul- 
 stirring environment ? He longed to be absorbed for- 
 ever into Nature in ferment. To live for but one sea- 
 son, but to live the life of that season! What gentle 
 melancholy, what a renunciation of his being, what a 
 delicious anguish there was in this already posthumous 
 suppleness! One day the singular timbre of an alto 
 voice had moved him to tears. He discovered again 
 its velvety, grave sound, sombre and rich like the 
 mantle of night, or like an autumnal thicket, in his 
 cousin's voice. He compared the despotism of her 
 voice to the quality of those unusual nights when he 
 obtained only a mocking sleep; nights propitious to 
 nightmare, to entreaties and attempted violation — the 
 nights of the Stone Mill. 
 
I lo THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 He had not ceased, he thought, bearing Gina a 
 grudge; he judged her with more severity and bitter- 
 ness than ever. And the fact that she accepted no one 
 brought him a certain amount of pleasure. Not only 
 did he rejoice in the disdain and malice with which she 
 treated Bejard, but he was almost happy when she 
 teased and repulsed Bergmans. Apparently she did 
 not encourage either more than the other. "The lit- 
 tle mischief-maker," he said to himself with a labored 
 and artificial indigation, "in Door's place Fd teach her 
 a lesson." 
 
 Distrustful as he was, he noticed one day the tender 
 and almost passionate intonation m which she said a 
 few inconsequential words to Door. And he was so 
 troubled by it that, alone with her afterward, he gath- 
 ered his courage and said, point blank: 
 
 "Why don't you marry Monsieur Bergmans?" 
 
 She burst out laughing, and looking him straight 
 in the eye: 
 
 "I? Marry a demagogue like him and become the 
 wife of Citizen Bergmans?" she cried with so great 
 an accent of sincerity that Laurent allowed himself 
 to believe her. 
 
 Although he protested bitterly, at heart he was over- 
 joyed. Her words so greatly reassured him that he 
 pretended to reproach Bergmans for his hesitancy and 
 backwardness. He was deceitful unpremeditatedly, 
 instinctively; he was indignant at his own diplomacy, 
 and was furious at finding all the dictates of his up- 
 right conscience thwarted and paralyzed in the meshes 
 of a sensual duplicity. H ostensibly he were serving 
 his friend Bergmans, it was in spite of the cry of his 
 flesh'. 
 
 "I, marry? Ask for the hand of Mademoiselle Do- 
 
THE ORANGERY in 
 
 bouziez? You're joking, my boy!" protested Berg- 
 mans at the perspective that young Paridael had just 
 suggested to him, not wholly without anxiety. "Who 
 the devil put that bee in your bonnet? In the first 
 place, the girl is too rich for me. . . ." And when 
 Paridael urged him : "To tell the truth, I do love her, 
 and I have made seeing her a delicious habit. If she 
 had encouraged me the slightest bit perhaps I should 
 have dared to open my heart to Father Dobouziez. . . . 
 But what you have just said is a warning to me ! Other 
 people have also probably taken note of my assiduity. 
 It's time that I stopped compromising your cousin!" 
 
 "What a pity 1" answered Laurent. "You two seem 
 made for each other." But in spite of this justifiable 
 conviction the paradoxical youth had difficulty in con- 
 taining his joy, and not throwing his arms about Berg- 
 mans. He did his best, however, to combat and dispel 
 his friend's scruples. And when he thought that if 
 Bergmans stopped coming to the house he would have 
 no more chance to see him, he found himself exhort- 
 ing his friend without a mental reservation, for he 
 was honestly and exceedingly fond of him. 
 
 As for Bejard, Laurent was certain that Gina would 
 never accept him as her husband. Not only could the 
 shipowner have been her father, but the correct and 
 irreproachable Dobouziez esteemed him in a purely 
 professional way which did not render him oblivious 
 to the little peccadilloes that this aspirant had upon his 
 conscience. He would more easily have chosen Be- 
 jard for a partner than for a son-in-law. 
 
 Faithful to his resolution, Bergmans frequented the 
 house less regularly, and, after a month of these visits, 
 farther and farther apart, he ceased coming altogether. 
 
 Laurent breathed freely, although he was both 
 
112 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 happy and heart-broken; almost happy in spite of 
 himself and his remorse. But he was not yet at the 
 end of his anguish. 
 
 Gina, the flirtatious and mischievous Gina, who 
 seemed to have made so little of Bergmans* attentions, 
 seemed most affected by his absence. Her regret and 
 her worry became so apparent that finally a light broke 
 upon Laurent. 
 
 "She lied to me ; she loves him !'* he said to himself. 
 And the lacerating torture that this discovery caused 
 him made him admit to himself his own desperate love 
 for her. He was struck down, for he knew instantly 
 that she could never love him. 
 
 In that case it was his duty to bring the two lovers 
 together. He should have warned the girl long ago of 
 the love that Bergmans bore her. If he kept quiet now 
 he would be acting like a cheat. By one word he could 
 have consoled his cousin and overwhelmed his friend 
 Bergmans with joy. Racked with remorse, he ab- 
 stained from saying that word. He endured an un- 
 heard-of martyrdom. "Are you finally going to 
 speak?" asked his conscience. "No! No! Pity! 
 Have mercy on me !" sobbed his flesh. "Call Bergmans 
 back as quickly as you can." "I can't! I'd rather 
 die!" "Miserable fool, I tell you she will never love 
 you !" "It makes no difference ! She will never belong 
 to anyone!" "But Bergmans is your friend!" "I 
 hate him !" "Murderer, Gina is dying !" "Rather than 
 bring them together I shall kill them both!" 
 
 That Gina was dying was true. Watching her be- 
 come thin, emaciated, sad, so feeble, so quiet and 
 sweet, never laughing or teasing, indifferent to all dis- 
 tractions, Laurent was a hundred times upon the point 
 of telling what he knew of Bergmans' feeling. His 
 
THE ORANGERY 113 
 
 tongue burned like that of a mute whom one word 
 will relieve, but whom pitiless nature prevents from 
 pronouncing that word. A hundred times, too, upon 
 the point of writing to Door, he let the pen drop from 
 his hand. He would have preferred to sign his death 
 warrant. 
 
 Having left for Odessa, Bergmans sent two or three 
 business letters from the shores of the Black Sea so 
 that people would not comment upon his prolonged 
 eclipse. The anguish of the Dobouziez' was so great 
 that they paid no attention to their ward's convulsed 
 face and extraordinary manner. 
 
 Laurent, who did not feel able to talk to Gina, re- 
 solved one evening to tell everything to her father 
 the next day. "She will never love me!" he said to 
 himself, like a stoic refining his torture in order the 
 less to feel it. "And am I sure that I love her? Is 
 it not envy that blinds me, and which makes me, be- 
 cause I am gloomy and without inheritance, hostile to 
 the good fortune of everyone else?'* In spite of all 
 the effort that he made to persuade himself that such 
 was the case, in the presence of Dobouziez he could 
 not speak one word, and all his spiritual grandeur 
 foundered in the abyss of his love. 
 
 He went and sat beside the invalid, in the orangery, 
 among the intoxicating and perverse flowers with 
 which she persisted in surrounding herself. Since 
 her illness she had accustomed herself to Laurent's 
 presence and care as she would have to those of a 
 trained nurse. Generally he read to her, and she took 
 pleasure in finding fault with him. On this particu- 
 lar morning he stammered and stuttered outrageously. 
 
 "What is the matter with you, Laurent?" she asked. 
 "I can no longer understand, one word, that you are, 
 reading !" 
 
1 14 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 He threw the book down on the table and seized her 
 attenuated hands. 
 
 "Regina," he muttered; "I have something very 
 serious to tell you. ..." He stopped, looked in her 
 eyes and became very red. He was about to pro- 
 nounce the name of Door Bergmans, and again that 
 name stuck in his throat. Without saying another 
 word, carried away by an irresistible impulse, seized 
 with dizziness, he could only fall upon his knees and 
 cover with kisses the bands which Gina, confused and 
 even frightened, was trying to withdraw. Annoyed 
 and excited by her aversion for him, instead of ceas- 
 ing, he came nearer and brutally caught her to 
 him. Gina gave vent to a piercing scream, in 
 answer to which the providential Felicite came run- 
 ning. 
 
 "Better and better!" shrieked the factotum, throw- 
 ing her arms in the air. 
 
 Laurent ceased, and ran out, his fists clenched, furi- 
 ous at having betrayed himself and ruined everything 
 just when he was about to score a victory. The ser- 
 vant immediately told her employers, and that same 
 day, before his vacation had expired, Monsieur Do- 
 bouziez sent Laurent back to college. 
 
 From there the guilty boy, abashed and ashamed of 
 his violence, and worried at its probable conse- 
 quences for Gina, wrote letter after letter asking for 
 news. Nobody answered them. He was horror- 
 stricken. Without doubt, Gina was getting worse. 
 Was not the aggravation of her illness due to the emo- 
 tion which he had caused her to undergo ? Perhaps she 
 was in agony ; perhaps dead ! Finally he was no longer 
 able to contain himself, and he fled from college and 
 fell like a bomb into the factory. The first person he 
 
THE ORANGERY 115 
 
 met was the terrible Saint-Fardier. The telegraph had 
 already warned the establishment of his flight. 
 
 "Ah! Here you are, good-for-nothing?" cried 
 Saint-Fardier, making a face as though he would have 
 liked to cut off Laurent's ears. 
 
 "I beg you, monsieur, tell me how my Cousin Re- 
 gina is.** 
 
 "Madame Bejard is much better since she no longer 
 has occasion to have anything to do with a rascal like 
 your 
 
 Madame Bejard ! Laurent heard nothing but these 
 two words and stood dully, so dully that when Saint- 
 Fardier took him by his collar he did not even think to 
 defend himself. Dobouziez interfered at that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "Let him go," he said to his partner. "Fll finish 
 with this blackguard !" And to Laurent : "You, come 
 with me to my office !" 
 
 The young man obeyed mechanically. 
 
 "Here are a hundred francs,'* Dobouziez said to 
 him. "On the first of each month you will be sent 
 that amount. That sum represents the income from 
 the modest capital left by your father. And now, get 
 out. Oh ! One word of advice. You can never count 
 upon any member of my family. All our doors are 
 closed to you! That indefensible prank of yours has 
 placed you without the pale of your relatives. Good- 
 by. I am not detaining you!** 
 
 "Cousin Gina has become Madame Bejard, hasn*t 
 she?** Laurent hazarded, hardly having heard the ma- 
 jor excommunication fulminated against him. 
 
 "Mme. Bejard is no longer your cousin. Come, take 
 your money. And see that I never hear you spoken 
 of!** 
 
ii6 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Laurent paused at the door. Already Dobouziez 
 had sat down in front of his desk and was going back 
 to work as if nothing important had happened, as if 
 he had simply been paying off a discharged clerk. 
 
 His attitude froze Laurent, and recalled him to the 
 feeling of the situation. For several seconds he was 
 plunged in grief, and foreswore life; then he came 
 to his senses. 
 
 "Very well! So be it!" he thought. "It is just as 
 well that we separate !" 
 
 He left the room. In the street a nervous gaiety 
 took possession of him, in reaction. Was he not free, 
 emancipated, his own master? No more college, no 
 more control, no more guardians. And, especially, no 
 more remorse, no more jealousy, even no more love. 
 He believed her to be Madame Bejard now, detached 
 her forever from Gina. He rejected his cousin as if 
 he were throwing away a flower polluted by a slug. 
 
 "And to think that the Dobouziez' think that they 
 are punishing me in throwing me upon my own re- 
 sources!" he repeated excitedly. "And that brute of 
 a Saint-Fardier ! If I had not been taken by storm by 
 the news I would have strangled him on the spot !" 
 
 And in going along the ditch : "You speak in vain^ 
 oh, greasy, putrid water 1 It is the past, my past, that 
 wallows at the bottom of your oily urn. It is a ca- 
 daver, a chrysalis that you withhold! Your nymph 
 has become Mme. Bejard ! Cloaca for cloaca, oh, dis- 
 astrous ditch, you seem less disgusting to me than cer- 
 tain marriages !" 
 
PART II 
 FREDDY BEJARD 
 
THE HARBOR 
 
 Carrying his head high and throwing out his chest 
 with the air of a conqueror, Laurent began to walk 
 through his native city. One thing he had to consider 
 immediately, and that was the choice of a lodging. 
 The merchants' quarter, in the heart of the city, sum- 
 moned him more strongly than any of the others. 
 
 He took lodgings on the second floor of one of 
 those picturesque houses, with wooden facade and 
 Spanish gables, in the Marche-au-Lait, a narrow and 
 much frequented street encumbered from morning un- 
 til night with all sorts of vehicles, the trucks and drays 
 of large manufacturing corporations, the hampers and 
 carts of the market gardeners. 
 
 Laurent's windows looked out over the hovels 
 across the street, upon the gardens of the cathedral. 
 The immense Gothic pile rose above the grove of tall 
 trees. A few crows flew about the coping of the 
 cathedral. It was at Notre Dame that Laurent had 
 been baptised, and precisely the same dear carillon, the 
 melodious soul of the tower, that used to lull him to 
 sleep during his early childhood, when he used to play 
 marbles or hopscotch in front of the cathedral door 
 with the boys of the neighborhood, began to peal out 
 the notes of an old Flemish ballad that Siska used to 
 sing: 
 
 119 
 
I20 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "Au bord d'un rivelet rapide, 
 Se lamentait une blanche jeune fille." 
 
 Laurent resolved to hunt up his faithful friend im- 
 mediately. 
 
 A new shock awaited him at the water-gate. He 
 passed through the Place du Bourg, where the quay 
 broadens and juts a point out into the roadstead. 
 From the very end of this promontory the view was 
 magnificent. 
 
 Upstream and downstream the Scheldt spread out 
 with a majestic quietude the superb surge of its tide. 
 One could see it describe a curve to the northwest, re- 
 cede, wind back again, proceed on its way, turn once 
 again, as if it wanted to retrace its steps and again 
 salute the sovereign metropolis, the pearl of all the 
 cities through which it flowed, as if it were forsaking 
 her with regret. 
 
 On the horizon sails receded toward the sea, funnels 
 of steamers unfurled against the milky, pearly grey 
 of the sky, long woolly pennants, like exiles who wave 
 farewell with their handkerchiefs as long as they are 
 able to see the beloved shores. Sea gulls scattered in 
 flight above the tawny, green surface of the water, ris- 
 ing and falling in the gentle and subtle curves that will 
 forever be the despair of marine painters. 
 
 The sun was slowly setting ; it, too, could not decide 
 to leave these shores. Its fiery glow, pierced with wide 
 bands of gold, crested the waves with luminous little 
 drops of blood. As far as the eye could see along the 
 wharfs and the tree-planted quays and beyond the 
 grassy.dikes of Polder, there was a fluttering and scin- 
 tillating of living jewels. 
 
 Fishing boats began to regain the canals and basins 
 
THE HARBOR 121 
 
 in which they were to tie up for the night. Lazy 
 barges slipped down stream with the tide so slowly 
 that they seemed almost immobile and unconscious of 
 the titillating caress of the flaming water, charged with 
 electricity like the fur of a cat. 
 
 White sails became rose. The decks, the loins 
 and the flanks of the boats were almost lifeless at this 
 hour. And every little while the graceful silhouette 
 of a sailor, hauling in a cable or repairing a mast, 
 would stand in bold relief, tall and black, against the 
 sail of the ship's boat, taking on an air of indescrib- 
 ably fateful authority and superterrestrial worth. 
 
 To the right, on the border of the residence quarter, 
 there plunged deeply inland, as if following upon a 
 victory of the river over the land, great square sheets 
 of water that were the basins, and yet more basins, 
 from which shot up in compact tufts thousands of en- 
 tangled crossyards and masts. And in this forest of 
 masts, pierheads, gangways, locks and drydocks, rose 
 faintly and by fits and starts against the horizon. 
 
 In certain parts of the basins the crowding was so 
 great that, viewed from a distance, the masting and 
 rigging of the closely packed boats seemed to be tan- 
 gled up, to cross, and conjured up a web so tightly 
 woven that it clouded the opaline sky or pricked off 
 an early star, setting one to dream of the cloths woven 
 by fabled genii, where the multicolored signal lights 
 and silvery constellations began to appear like glow- 
 worms and fireflies. 
 
 Ready to seek its rest, the swarm of workers hur- 
 ried, redoubled its activity, in a desire to finish its daily 
 task. To recrudescences of tumult there succeeded sud- 
 den lulls. The calkers' pickaxes ceased hammering at 
 rotted hulls, the chains of the hand winches suspended 
 
122 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 their grinding; a snorting, whining steamboat held its 
 peace ; the yells and the rhythmic chant of sailors and 
 longshoremen working in gangs suddenly died down. 
 
 And these alternate moments of silence and tumult 
 extended simultaneously in all parts of the laboring 
 city, giving the effect of the sighs of a Titan con- 
 fronted with interminable labor. 
 
 In the infinite confusion, Laurent distinguished gut- 
 tural calls, raucous or strident, as plaintive as the bugle 
 calls at the barracks, as sad as the moaning of exhaust- 
 ed forces. 
 
 And after each phrase of the human chorus there 
 resounded a grosser noise ; bales fell to the bottom of 
 the hold, bars of iron tumbled and rebounded upon the 
 flagging of the quays. 
 
 In turning his attention from the river to the shore 
 Laurent perceived a gang of workmen uniting their 
 forces to move a giant cedar sent from America. 
 Their manner of forming in line, of grouping them- 
 selves, of bringing their force to bear upon its inert 
 mass, of bringing into play their shoulders, backs and 
 loins, would have made a bas-relief of heroic days look 
 quaint in comparison. 
 
 But a strange and complex odor, compounded of 
 sweat, spices, the skins of animals, fruit, tar, wrack, 
 coffee and herbage, intensified by the heat, went to his 
 head like the bouquet of a superfine wine ; the incense 
 pleasing to the god of commerce. This perfume, teas- 
 ing his nostrils, sensitized his other organs. 
 
 The carillon began to peal once more. Rippling 
 down from above the water, the sound seemed even 
 more gentle and tender, as if lubricated by some mys- 
 terious unction. 
 
 The sea gulls were wheeling, their oblique flight tak- 
 
THE HARBOR 123 
 
 ing the air over his shoulder. They came near, flew 
 away, returned, surrendered themselves to a choreogra- 
 phy determined by the most elemental rites; in turn, 
 attracted by the water, the earth and the sky at the 
 moment when these three masters of space were kin- 
 dled in the same bath of humid and unctuous vesperal 
 light. 
 
 At this last magic spell Laurent turned away, fas- 
 cinated, almost reeling, sucked in by the abyss. He 
 looked once more at the workmen who had been toil- 
 ing at the cedar; then saw, nearer to him, a huge 
 dray to which a powerful horse was harnessed, and the 
 driver waiting at its side for his wagon to be loaded. 
 And on the plank between the dray and the ship, the 
 cadenced coming and going of the plastic, hooded 
 longshoremen, bending their necks but not their 
 bodies beneath their burdens, their figures in full re- 
 lief against the stern of the boat, their knees bend- 
 ing a little at each step, settling their load firmly on 
 their shoulders with one hand, the other fist at their 
 hips, Gods ! 
 
 A pyramid of bales gradually piled up upon the 
 dray. The tackle and the hydraulic crane never ceased 
 to search and bite into the entrails of the transatlantic 
 steamer and to withdraw gobbets of merchandise. 
 
 Not far away a contrary operation was taking 
 place. Instead of emptying the stomach of a steamer 
 they were gorging it without respite ; coal was sliding 
 into its bunkers, bags and cases engulfed themselves 
 in the insatiable depths of its hold. And its purveyors 
 sweated hugely without succeeding in allaying its sud- 
 den pangs of hunger. 
 
 The manual labor being accomplished by picked 
 ynen suggested to the observer the grandeur and the 
 
124 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 omnipotence of his native city. But it did not cease 
 to frighten and intimidate him. 
 
 "Shall I again be repulsed and held at a distance?" 
 he asked himself. 
 
 And in its proud raiment Antwerp, in its turn, 
 seemed to him the incarnation of a no less haughty 
 and triumphant creature. 
 
 One night when going to theater in full evening 
 dress, his Cousin Gina had been so dazzling that an 
 ineluctable impulse had precipitated him toward her 
 like a ruffian. But the radiant young girl had fore- 
 seen his movement of adoration. She had settled her- 
 self, waved aside his candid idolatry with a distant ges- 
 ture, as if it were unclean dust, and with a desperately 
 even voice, without pleasure, without even the gleam 
 of satisfaction that all homage, even the shallowest, 
 calls up in a woman's face, she said to him : 
 
 "Go away, silly! You will crumple my flounces!" 
 
 Yes, his city, too rich, too beautiful, too vast for her 
 foster child, deceived Laurent that evening. 
 
 "Is she, too, going to wave me aside, as if I were 
 valueless and unworthy ?" he asked himself in anguish. 
 
 But it was as if the adorable city, less hard and 
 less cruel than the woman, had read the distress of 
 the declassed youth and determined that nothing should 
 spoil the intoxication of his emancipation before he 
 had entirely succumbed to grief, and the flaming sky 
 dulled its too brilliant radiance, and at the same mo- 
 ment, the water, into which it seemed that rubies had 
 been poured, took on its normal appearance. The twi- 
 light air became tender and fluid once again ; the waves 
 were velvety with a fleeting mist, on the horizon there 
 was but the vague memory of the furious kindling that 
 had terrified Paridael. 
 
THE HARBOR 125 
 
 It was a veritable relaxing. The city was going to 
 treat him more kindly and with more pity! 
 
 Even the movements of the longshoremen seemed 
 less superhuman, less hieratic. The workers, on the 
 point of quitting work, surprised him by breathing 
 like simple mortals, their arms crossed or hanging 
 loosely at their sides, or wiping their foreheads with 
 the back of their sleeves. Laurent found them as hand- 
 some this way, and more kindly. At the moment of 
 going home, of bathing themselves in the intimacy of 
 home life, they laughed, having become listless in ad- 
 vance, and a langor descended from their backs to their 
 legs, and their embraces sought objects less rough and 
 less inert. 
 
 Laurent set foot upon reality once again. 
 
II 
 
 THE CAP 
 
 He began his search for the home of the Tilbaks in 
 the Quartier des Bateliers. 
 
 The street lamps were beginning to be lit when he 
 spied a little shop, bearing a sign proclaiming it to be 
 At the Sign of the Cocoanut. The show window dis- 
 played a pile of the most incongruous objects; field 
 glasses and compasses, tarred hats, coarse woolen caps, 
 packages of English and American tobacco wrapped in 
 yellow paper, plugs of Cavendish and rolls of chewing 
 tobacco, penknives, bottles of perfume, and Windsor 
 soap. 
 
 Something told him that it was the home of his dear 
 Siska. He had no further doubt when he saw, inside 
 the shop, a woman busy putting in order the objects 
 that had been misplaced. She had her back turned 
 toward Laurent, and, as the room had not yet been lit, 
 he could hardly discern her silhouette. But before she 
 turned her face toward him he had recognized her. 
 She lit the oil lamps. He saw her in full face. It 
 was the same good, open face of former days ; she still 
 wore her hair in the curly bands, now beginning to be- 
 come a little grey, in which the lad's fingers used to 
 become tangled, and which he used to pull mercilessly. 
 He stood still in front of the show window with the 
 
 126 
 
THE CAP 127 
 
 air of a customer making his choice, and as the street 
 was even darker than the store, Siska could hardly see 
 him. From time to time, while busy tidying up her 
 shop, she threw the unknown a stealthy glance. That 
 didn't please him? What did he need to decoy him 
 into the shop? Poor woman! Laurent wondered 
 whether she sold many of these things. 
 
 Siska, no longer counting upon this customer, be- 
 gan walking toward the little room at the back of the 
 shop. In opening the door Laurent rang a little bell ; 
 she turned and came toward him with the alacrity and 
 the engaging smile that shopkeepers display before a 
 customer. 
 
 In the most serious manner possible Laurent asked 
 to try on some caps. She looked him up and down, 
 trying to guess which among her stock of caps would 
 please him. This rapid examination gave her, with- 
 out doubt, a sufficiently high notion of Paridael's ele- 
 gance, for she showed him the dearest ones, fancy 
 sailors' caps such as stylish travellers wear. But Lau- 
 rent asked to see peasants' caps, stevedores' caps, or 
 carters' caps, and pretended to fix his choice upon huge 
 tufted, peaked, brown woolen ones. 
 
 Siska looked at him suspiciously. He surely was an 
 odd one ! Or he had good reason to disguise himself 
 when it was not carnival time! Nothing good about 
 that. She filled Laurent's cup of malicious joy to the 
 brim by quickly removing her bunch of keys from the 
 counter ; he watched her out of the corner of his eye. 
 Laurent had occasion to remember, because of its con- 
 sequences, this sudden desire to masquerade, and his 
 fancy for plebeian headgear. 
 
 Keeping one of the flashiest specimens of the assort- 
 ment, a rakish cap that would have delighted the heart 
 
128 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 of a wharf rat, upon his head, he asked the price. She 
 looked at him with so amusing and sincere an air of 
 consternation that he could no longer control himself. 
 While she gave him change for a twenty-franc note 
 with the haste of one who would willingly be rid of 
 a suspicious customer, he, on the contrary, took his 
 time, could not finish looking at himself in the mirror, 
 or adjusting his purchase in the most impudent and 
 flippant manner. 
 
 Finally he planked himself down comically, his hands 
 on his hips, before the shopkeeper, and looked her up 
 and down fixedly. And when, nettled by his gaze, the 
 good woman changed color, recognizing in his eyes a 
 familiar expression, Laurent abruptly threw his arms 
 about her neck. With a little cry she had already 
 opened her arms to him. 
 
 "It is I, Siska, I. Laurent Paridael, your Lorki !'* 
 
 "Lorki ! Monsieur Laurent ! It isn't possible !" the 
 good soul exclaimed. 
 
 She released him, stepped back to admire him, 
 hugged him again, uttering over and over again: 
 
 "What an old rogue ! What a child to make a fool 
 of me so seriously !" 
 
 However, at Siska's cries of joy, Vincent had run 
 in, no less agreeably surprised than his wife. They 
 took Laurent by the shoulders and pushed him into 
 their little living room. 
 
 This retreat resembled a cabin with a vengeance. 
 During the day a window as narrow as a porthole ad- 
 mitted a dull, filtered light as though it were submerged 
 under water. Its industrious occupants solved anew 
 each day the problem of making it hold the greatest 
 possible number of people and objects. There was not 
 an empty inch of space. The walls of the room were 
 
THE CAP 129 
 
 daubed in a brown color to look like mahogany, dec- 
 orated with cuts of travel scenes ; on the mantel there 
 was a miniature three-master riding at full sail, a 
 masterpiece of Vincent's handiwork, and several of 
 those large shells which, when they are held against 
 the ear, reverberate with the surge of the sea. 
 
 Laurent found himself in the presence of a string 
 of children of all ages. They first introduced him to 
 Henriette, a demure little housewife. She had an oval 
 face, elongated without being badly proportioned, blue 
 eyes that were astonishingly tender, and, so to speak, 
 milky, blonde curls, a quiet and confident expression; 
 her whole personality spoke sweetly of primordial can- 
 dor and deep-seated purity. 
 
 Siska's possession of such a grown-up girl puzzled 
 Laurent greatly. Before he had time to count the 
 number of years that had slipped by since their mar- 
 riage Vincent profited by a moment during which the 
 girl left the room to whisper in his ear, nudging him 
 and winking as he laughed heartily : 
 
 "You see. Monsieur Laurent, after Siska had put 
 you to bed, we had to spend the time somehow. . . . 
 The humbug only slapped me and held me off while 
 you were in the room !'* 
 
 And Laurent recalled a certain mysterious illness 
 that had come upon the servant, and with what joy 
 and good-heartedness Jacques Paridael had summoned 
 her home after a month in the country. 
 
 After Henriette came Felix, a long-limbed, dark lad 
 of fourteen, who resembled his father, and whom Door 
 Bergmans had engaged as office and errand boy; then 
 Pierket, a delightful little chap of twelve with the 
 blonde hair of his mother and big sister, and the fiery 
 brown eyes and slightly ambered coloring of his father 
 
I30 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 and Felix ; and Lusse, a baby of at most six years, the 
 miniature of her mother. 
 
 How many confidences were poured out! Laurent 
 told the Tilbaks everything that had happened since 
 Vincent had been discharged, but his bashfulness kept 
 him from saying anything about Gina. He was not 
 sure that he detested her as much as he would have 
 liked to. Had he not just conjured up her image on 
 the bank of the Scheldt? 
 
 Always allured by his favorite element, Vincent had 
 been forced to relinquish even pilotage and the coast- 
 ing trade, and discharged the functions of a ferryman, 
 a lighterman and a barge pilot at one and the same 
 time. He also took down to the mouth of the river the 
 river clerks sent out by the traffickers to meet ships at 
 the pilot station. 
 
 "And you, what are you going to become?" asked 
 Vincent, with such a show of devotion that one could 
 never have taxed him with indiscretion. 
 
 The young man himself did not know. He had 
 nothing to look for from the people of his family, and 
 even had his hundred francs of income been enough 
 to live on, he was not at an age to fritter away his time. 
 
 "If I understood you correctly," Siska's husband 
 resumed, "you would prefer, to a sedentary occupation, 
 a job that would leave you free to come and go and 
 give you plenty of exercise? Perhaps I can arrange 
 it for you. The head of one of the 'Nations,' a com- 
 rade of mine, needs an employee who can help him 
 with his estimates and superintend the work, both at 
 the dockyards and at the warehouse. Shall I speak to 
 him about you?" 
 
 Laurent could ask nothing better; it was arranged 
 that he come and hear the result the next day. 
 
) ■• 
 
 III 
 
 SWARMS AND WASPS' NESTS 
 
 Master Jean Vingerhout immediately engaged 
 the young man recommended by his friend Vincent 
 Tilbak. Jean was a jolly fellow, vigorously, solidly 
 built, the youngest son of a well-known family of 
 farmers of the Polders, the alluvions of the Scheldt, 
 who, tired of farming at a loss, had bought, with the 
 proceeds of his inheritance, a share in one of the 
 "Nations." 
 
 The "Nations," trades unions reminiscent of the an- 
 cient Flemish guilds, shared the business of loading, 
 unloading, stowage, cartage and warehousing of mer- 
 chandise ; they formed a power in the modern city upon 
 which the most powerful merchants had to rely, for, 
 combined, they had at their command an army of not 
 too precise workers capable of entailing a complete 
 paralysis of commerce and holding the power of the 
 Municipal Council under their thumb. With them, at 
 least, the rights of the native sons would be safe- 
 guarded; no immigrant would ever supplant the true 
 bom inhabitant of the district of Antwerp as baes, or 
 director, or even as a simple journeyman. 
 
 The "America," the oldest and richest of these na- 
 tions, into whose service Laurent had just entered, 
 
 131 
 
132 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 took the best workmen, had at its command the finest 
 horses, possessed model buildings and a highly per- 
 fected equipment. Their trucks, harness, cart tilts, lines, 
 hampers, pulleys and scales were unequalled among the 
 rival corporations. From Hoboken to Austruweel and 
 Merxem one met only their busy gangs of workmen. 
 Their weighers and gaugers were transhipping grain 
 imported in lighters of an invariable burden; their 
 porters were shouldering sacks and bales and lining 
 them up on the quays, or hoisting them into drays, 
 their dockers were piling planks, beams and raw wood 
 upon the shore in assembling the products of the same 
 species. 
 
 Too long accustomed to working with their two hands 
 to peg away with pen and pencil, it was to Laurent 
 that, on the recommendation of their colleague Vinger- 
 hout, the syndic of the directors or haes, they entrust- 
 ed the office work and the task of checking up, at the 
 entrance or exit of the docks, the accounts turned in 
 by the weighers and gaugers of other corporations. 
 
 If a coffee merchant, a customer of the America, 
 bought up a part of a colleague^s commodity, Laurent 
 had to receive the stock from the rival Nation with 
 which the seller had dealt. A day's weighing in the 
 midst of a tumult, under the broiling heat of the sun, 
 or in rain or snow, was frequently his lot. But he was 
 absorbed in his work. Hundreds of bales, stamped 
 and numbered from the first to the last, marched past 
 him. He added up columns of figures as he kept a 
 sharp watch upon the records of the scales. For be- 
 ware of mistakes! If the buyer did not find what he 
 had paid for he would hold the America responsible 
 for the mistake, unless Laurent could prove that the 
 loss emanated from the seller and his workmen. 
 
SWARMS AND WASPS' NESTS 133 
 
 Many times he had to watch shipments from the 
 Dobouziez factory, and it was not without emotion 
 that he saw the white cases slashed by a black brush 
 with the decisive "D. B. Z." 
 
 But he did not evince the slightest regret at his 
 change in position. On the contrary. He rejoiced in 
 working for employers who were without any arro- 
 gance, these baes, who were so easy in their man- 
 ner, instead of toiling in the gloomy salesroom of 
 a Bejard or some other arrogant parvenu. In sight of 
 the roadstead and the basins, the uninterrupted move- 
 ment of landing and embarking, the gorging or dis- 
 gorging of cargoes, the coming and going between the 
 floating warehouses and the docks on shore, the con- 
 stant fall of merchandise on the quay and into the bot- 
 tom of the holds, commerce no longer seemed an ab- 
 straction to him, but a tangible and imposing organism. 
 
 Laurent often attended the meeting of the baes in 
 the evening, in one of the cafes near the Port. Wagons 
 and drays had been put in the sheds, mangers had been 
 filled, litters had been renewed. The horses were chew- 
 ing their oats, the accountant had closed his books, the 
 huge buildings now sheltered no other worker than the 
 stable watchman, and the great doors, real fortress 
 gates, protected the fortune of the America from the 
 attacks of thieves. 
 
 What clamorous parties, what epic unbosoming of 
 yarns, what smutty stories ! Gods ! The rugged chiefs 
 of the union, these baes who were hardly less ill-bred 
 than their subalterns, let loose such stiff ones that, as 
 they themselves put it, a peasant would have fallen off 
 his horse had he heard them. It was fine to see them 
 wash their mouths with a deep draught after an out- 
 rageous bit of wantonness that they had all enjoyed. 
 
134 THE NEW, CARTHAGE 
 
 and which made them all rock on their stools and 
 communicated to the table, the army of half -litres and 
 the window-panes a tremor like that provoked during 
 the day by one of their enormous wagons jolting along 
 the street. 
 
 Laurent came away from these meetings dum found- 
 ed, overpowered, a little suffocated, as though he had 
 been surfeited with strong quarters of beef, or even 
 been exposed, like a ham, to prolonged fumigation. 
 And in the face of these hurricanes of abundant hu- 
 mour, how could anybody charge the full-blooded ex- 
 uberance and the almost brutal license of the colorists 
 of the past with being exaggerated ? 
 
 In busy times, when the stationary force of workers 
 on the premises was not sufficient to carry on the 
 abundance of work, Laurent had the opportunity of 
 accompanying Jean Vingerhout to the Coin des Pares- 
 seux, the crowded thoroughfare bordering the Maison 
 Hanseatique, so called because it was there that the 
 perpetually jobless congregated. Very typical were the 
 scenes of enlisting and recruiting which he attended 
 there ! The first time Laurent did not understand why 
 baes Jean, needing a reinforcement of only five men, 
 had bothered himself with twenty of these tramps, all 
 very strong, certainly, and even built for gigantic la- 
 bors, but who exercised their muscles only in fighting, 
 and mixed too much alcohol with their rich blood. 
 
 "Just you wait !" said the baes, who knew his men, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 After the most ridiculous negotiations they finally 
 accepted his terms and started on their way, but re- 
 luctantly, and sighing in the most heartrending fash- 
 ion after every step. About twenty meters away from 
 their standing place, one or another of these lazaroni 
 
SWARMS AND WASPS' NESTS 135 
 
 of the north would stop short and declare he could go 
 no further unless he were given a drink. 
 
 Vingerhout having turned a deaf ear to this de- 
 mand, the thirsty one dragged along grumbling, ready 
 to give vent to the same declaration a few steps further 
 along. Although two other recruits had upheld the 
 petition of their comrade by a suggestive smacking of 
 their lips and gestures worthy of Tantalus, the re- 
 cruiter paid no more attention to them than he had 
 before. 
 
 At the third liquor shop, that is to say, the sixth 
 house, the sufferer gave in, and, with an oath of des- 
 pair, deserted the troop for the bar, which drew him 
 more irresistibly than any magnet. His two partisans 
 dragged along until the next temptation presented it- 
 self, and then, after a supreme but unsuccessful plea 
 to their recruiter, they resumed their libations to the 
 god Gin. 
 
 Laurent began to understand why Vingerhout had 
 enlisted the contingent. 
 
 "Those three were drunkards and licensed loafers !" 
 said the baes. *T engaged them more to ease my con- 
 science than for any other reason, for I was sure that 
 they would give me the slip at the first turn. And I 
 am not sure of the others!'* 
 
 Jean had good reason to distrust their force of char- 
 acter. The dockyard to which they were going being 
 about a kilometer further on, a few more defections 
 became manifest, one man debouching the other, so 
 that when they finally arrived at their destination, there 
 only remained to Vingerhout the five hands that he 
 required. 
 
 "We ought to thank our lucky stars that even they 
 did not give us the slip at the last minute, and so 
 
136 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 make us return to their fishpond and commence an- 
 gling all over again !" concluded the Polderian philoso- 
 pher, without in any other way epiloguing this edifying 
 episode. And in recognition of their kindness he 
 treated them to a round of gin. 
 
 Laurent learned to know queer chaps, even more ec- 
 centric than these loafers, on his trips with Vincent 
 Tilbak, who took one or another of the river clerks 
 down to meet an arrival in his boat. Having weighed 
 anchor, the oarsman could only scull at first, in order 
 to make his way out of the basin and the roadstead 
 without crashing into barges and boats at anchor. The 
 yawl passed between two ships whose dead hulks re- 
 sembled somnolent whales having the winking ship 
 lights for eyes. Then Tilbak began to row quickly. 
 An intermittent silence, more impressive than absolute 
 calm, hovered above the earth and the sky. Laurent 
 listened to the grinding of the oars in the oarlocks, to 
 the drip of the water from the blades, to the plashing 
 of the water under the keel. From time to time a 
 "Who goes there ?" came from a custom-house launch 
 searching for smugglers. The name and the voice of 
 Tilbak made the excise men more sociable. At Doe! 
 they passed the night, according to the season, in the 
 common room of the frugal inn, a hut built of tarred 
 wood, or beneath the stars, on the grassy dike. 
 
 There they met a fraudulent crowd of industrious 
 time-servers whom Laurent had leisure to observe 
 minutely. Unlicensed brokers, couriers, dragomen for 
 places of ill repute, or, of a still lower rank, defaulting 
 pilots' apprentices, discharged stewards' boys, wharf 
 rats come from the reformatory, young fish from the 
 penitentiary, usually called "runners." Beardless, 
 sharp-witted youths, they were as greatly given to 
 
SWARMS AND WASPS' NESTS 137 
 
 prowling by night as torn cats, and as insinuating as 
 girls; good bait for fishing in troubled waters. 
 
 "Don't be afraid, Monsieur Lorki," said Tilbak, mis- 
 understanding Laurent's amazement at the sight of 
 this bivouac of smugglers. 
 
 Laurent, however, was concealing a more than par- 
 tial curiosity beneath a very plausible constraint and 
 repugnance. They were chewing tobacco, cheating at 
 cards, passing the bottle, behaving as loosely as they 
 could, mixing with their Burgundian-Flemish dialect 
 the terms of a cosmopolitan language, eructations of 
 slang. Trickery, anger, the lust for gain, and vice 
 ruffled faces that were comely when shaded by the large 
 peaks of sailors' caps, and the Rembrandtesque light of 
 the wretched little den, the fleeting moonlight and the 
 coppery false-dawn without, such a false-dawn as usu- 
 ally graces an execution, lent them an added ambig- 
 uity. 
 
 The good Tilbak, whom they respected sufficiently 
 to let his customer pass first, disliked them from his 
 sailor days. 
 
 "They know how to gouge the seafolk!" he said. 
 "Ah ! How they used to make me swear, those sloppy 
 tars. The temptations and the claptrap chatter that 
 I had to suffer when they swooped down on my deck 
 like a school of flying fish. Fortunately I was too 
 smitten with Siska to let myself be caught by their bait. 
 They used to have samples of it, and their favors 
 brought a market price. I would never have been fool 
 enough to pledge them my advance pay, my flesh and 
 my welfare. Never mind; I was glad to get on dry 
 land in order to escape their hooks. I tell you. Mon- 
 sieur Laurent, those runners are the true agents of the 
 seven deadly sins !" 
 
138 THE NEW. CARTHAGE 
 
 Vincent Tilbak should have noticed that, instead 
 of sharing his animadversion, Laurent was scruti- 
 nizing the young runners with unseasonable kind- 
 ness. 
 
 One day he let his mentor hear of the affinity that 
 he had discovered between these nasty little fellows 
 and himself. 
 
 At this confidence the face of Vincent Tilbak ex- 
 pressed such pitiful consternation that the madcap 
 hastened to disavow his misplaced sympathies, and de- 
 clared, not without blushing, that he had simply wanted 
 to joke. Perverted and obstinate instincts smouldered 
 within him. From them arose, without his being able 
 to explain them, the muffled desires, the enervating 
 pangs, the painful curiosity, and the jealous and piti- 
 able heartaches, at once timorous and tender, that used 
 to torment him before the wild Stone Mill, the haunt, 
 but also the asylum, of asymmetrical souls. 
 
 The hard-working and salubrious life that he led 
 with honest and upright fellows like Jean Vingerhout, 
 the friendship of Vincent and Siska, but even more 
 greatly, the gentle influence of Henriette, should have 
 deferred the hatching of these morbid germs. Laurent 
 had become an habitual guest at the Tilbaks for meals. 
 A fraternal confidence grew up immediately between 
 himself and Henriette. Never before had he felt so 
 greatly, the gentle influence of Henriette, should have 
 charmed opposite a person of the other sex. He seemed 
 to have known her for a long time. It was just as if 
 they had grown up together. In the evening Laurent 
 helped the children, Pierket and Lusse, to write their 
 exercises and learn their lessons. The elder sister, 
 tending to her housekeeping, coming and going through 
 the room, used to admire the young fellow's knowl- 
 
SWARMS AND WASPS' NESTS 139 
 
 edge. After supper he read out loud to the whole fam- 
 ily, or instructed them in talking to them. Henrietta 
 would listen with a fervor not free from uneasiness. 
 When he talked of world issues and of the condition 
 of humanity the young girl was much more impressed 
 by the excitement, the restlessness and the revolt that 
 talk betrayed, than by the actual sense of his objurga- 
 tions. With the second-sight of an affectionate fem- 
 inine soul, she guessed him to be fundamentally sad 
 and troubled, and the more he showed solicitude for 
 the unfortunates, the suffering and the misguided, the 
 more did she become frankly absorbed in him, 
 having a presentiment that among all this world's 
 wretched people this one had the greatest need for 
 charity. 
 
 On the other hand, when he was with her, the train 
 of his thought took a less harassing turn. Under the 
 protecting caress of her great blue eyes, ingenuously 
 fixed upon him, he saw only the present quietude, the 
 loyal ambience, and the smile of life. He ceased to 
 look for difficulties where there were none, and 
 doomed his stormy speculations to silence. 
 
 Formerly, at the factory, the pupils of Gina's eyes 
 had injected a traitorous liquid under his skin; he 
 could not contain himself, became bad, dreamed of 
 ruin and reprisals, a rising of the humble and a revolt 
 of the servile, after which he would have seized, as 
 part of his booty, the proud and scornful patrician girl 
 and subdued her to the outrages of his burning desire. 
 It was as much due to bitterness toward Gina as to 
 hate of the directors and capitalists that he had turned 
 to the exploited. He was going to descend to the sub- 
 versive pariahs when he met proletarians who were 
 reconciled to their lot. He became a kind of dilet- 
 
I40 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 tante laborer. The wholesomeness, the placidity, the 
 good humor and the philosophy of the people in his 
 new surroundings, especially the sweetness and the 
 charm of Henriette allayed his bitterness and his grief, 
 made him complacent and almost an opportunist. The 
 image of Gina began to pale. 
 
IV 
 
 THE CANTATA 
 
 While strolling about the quays Door Bergmans 
 Saw a fellow whose expression attracted him. He 
 started with astonishment. "I must be mistaken," he 
 thought, as he continued on his way. But, having gone 
 a few steps, he turned back, and, making sure that it 
 really was Laurent Paridael, walked toward him with 
 his hand outstretched. 
 
 Laurent, who was busy superintending the loading 
 of a cargo of bales of rice contracted for by the Amer- 
 ica, was a little disconcerted, and even tried to shun 
 him, but, reassured by the simple and kindly greeting, 
 left his post for the moment and let himself be drawn 
 a few feet away. When he heard the news, Bergmans 
 teased him gently about the whim that had made him 
 enter the service of a Nation as tally keeper, and assist 
 the stevedores. Why had he not come to him ? Berg- 
 mans offered him on the spot a place more worthy 
 of his talents and more compatible with his education. 
 But, to his great surprise, Laurent refused to abandon 
 his new position. He described his new surroundings 
 and his new friends with such lyricism and in such 
 enthusiastic terms that he almost justified his strange 
 vocation, and Bergmans thought better of insisting 
 any further. He abstained from speaking of Gina. 
 
 141 
 
142 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Put completely at his ease, Laurent hailed with delight 
 the proposition that he, Bergmans, Marbol and Vyve- 
 loy should meet from time to time. 
 
 The artist Marbol, a little, dry man, all nerves, con- 
 cealed beneath an anemic and delicate appearance, an 
 extraordinary fund of energy and perseverance. With- 
 in the past two or three years he had gained something 
 of a reputation for painting what he saw about him. 
 Alone in this great city literally infested by daubers 
 and studio painters, in this ancient hotbed of art now 
 almost totally extinguished — a necropolis rather than 
 a metropolis — ^he was commencing to exploit the local 
 "plein-air," streets, scenery and types. He had left 
 the ancient academy founded by Teniers and the deli- 
 cious realists of the seventeenth century, but now 
 fallen in the hands of false artists, as timid painters 
 as they were intolerant teachers, with a certain eclat 
 on the eve of the concours de Rome. In so doing, the 
 young man had made enemies of the official coterie, 
 the dealers, the amateurs, the critics and the collectors, 
 those who procure bread as well as those who award 
 renown. 
 
 To paint Antwerp, its life, its harbor, its river, its 
 sailors, its dockers, its luxuriant women, its rosy and 
 chubby children whom Rubens, in other days, had 
 thought sufficiently plastic and appetizing to populate 
 his heavens and Olympuses ; to paint this human mob 
 in its own ways, its costume and surroundings, with 
 the most scrupulous and cherishing care for its spe- 
 cial customs and morals, without neglecting any of the 
 correlations which accentuate and characterize it; to 
 interpret the very soul of the city of Rubens with a 
 sympathy bordering upon assimilation — what a pro- 
 gram and what an objective! It was, from the point 
 
THE CANTATA 143 
 
 of view of these makers and buyers of dolls and man- 
 nequins, the deed of a crazy man, of an eccentric rad- 
 ical. 
 
 One of Marbol's paintings, destined for a foreign 
 international exposition, and submited before be- 
 ing sent to the approval of his fellow townsmen, sent 
 them all into shrieks of laughter, and made him the 
 object of ironic condolence and bitter and distrustful 
 silence. This picture was "Dockers Resting." 
 
 At noon, upon an unharnessed truck close to the 
 docks, three workmen were lying down. One lay 
 on his back, his legs spread slightly apart, his 
 head resting between his bent arms, in his hands 
 clasped beneath his neck. His face was swarthy, rough, 
 but handsome, half asleep, his eyelids slightly parted 
 and showing the velvety black of the pupils. The two 
 other dockers had thrown themselves down flat on their 
 stomachs; the bottom of their leathery, smoky coats 
 tightened across their well-developed haunches; their 
 chests were slightly lifted; their chins rested in 
 their calloused hands; leaning upon their elbows, 
 they turned their backs to the spectators, show- 
 ing their curly heads, their ears, the powerful muscles 
 of their necks and their broad backs as they gaped at 
 a corner of the roadstead that glistened amidst the 
 forest of masts. 
 
 In Paris this audacious canvas drew forth a studio 
 war and ferocious polemics; for years past such a 
 hue and cry had not been raised. Marbol made as 
 many friends as he did enemies ; a goodly number of 
 each. One of the big dealers of the chausee d'Antin, 
 having bought the scandalous composition, the dealers 
 of Antwerp shuddered with rage and astonishment. 
 What honest man could have consented to hang this 
 
144 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 portrait of three ragged workmen, badly clothed, un- 
 shorn, fleshy, gross, with disquieting haunches and 
 fists? To reveal the full extent of his horror, Du- 
 poissy had written that the picture exhaled an odor 
 of sweat and red herring and onions ; that he scented 
 its low debauchery. 
 
 Another exposition was held in Paris. Marbol en- 
 tered a picture no less audacious than the first, and, 
 to the redoubled stupefaction of the hostile and tim- 
 orous clan, the jurors awarded him the grand 
 medal. 
 
 Even though the high priests of painting maliciously 
 ranged themselves in opposition to the young painter, 
 these successes, shortly afterward ratified in Munich, 
 Vienna and London, gave the amateurs and collectors 
 of Antwerp high society something to brood upon. It 
 could not be denied that the fellow was making a 
 success. If he had been able to prove his superiority 
 only by what is called fame ; magazine articles, applause 
 from the starving, who, when they lack food, find nour- 
 ishment in dreams, had this been the case, practical 
 people would have continued to shrug their shoulders 
 at this blustering bungler. But from the minute that 
 he was able to finger his gold pieces his case became 
 interesting. 
 
 "Well, well! Surely a weird taste! Painting that 
 isn't at all decorative; pictures that one would not 
 wish to hang in one's home, at least not in a lady's 
 sitting room. But he is a clever business man, and 
 very shrewd after all. He did not make his plans 
 so very badly, either. And what difference does it 
 make that he paints pictures that one would not touch 
 with a pair of tongs, since we all entertain that nice 
 chap Vanderzeepen, even though we all know that the 
 
THE CANTATA 145 
 
 worthy man made his two hundred houses, his resi- 
 dence in the Place de Meir, and his chateau at Bors- 
 beek out of the proceeds of a sewage collecting plant? 
 Like Vanderzeepen, this Monsieur Marbol has found 
 the philosopher's stone; with all due respect, he has 
 made gold out of dung!" 
 
 Prejudice began to give way. The captains of high 
 finance commenced to bow to this person whom they 
 had formerly thought a mangy tatterdemalion; they 
 even risked mentioning his name before their very 
 prudish wives, a thing which, a few months before, 
 would have seemed most unconventional. Not being 
 decently able to extol his incendiary and anarchistic art, 
 they pretended to praise Marbol's commercial genius 
 and ability in raising cash with such facility upon his 
 disagreeable daubs and scarecrows from rich Parisians, 
 jocular Yankees, or Englishmen, who, as every one 
 knows, are partial to monstrous and peculiar 
 scenes. 
 
 The musician Rombaut de Vyveloy, Door Bergmans' 
 other friend, brought to mind, because of his height, 
 his robust build, his leonine head, and its abundant 
 shock of hair, and his ruddy complexion, the figure of 
 the chief of the gods in the Jordaens "]\x^\itv and 
 Mercury at the house of Philemon and Baucis." This 
 Brabantian was, if not a pagan, at least a man of the 
 Renaissance. There was nothing about him, either 
 physically or morally, that suggested the dull sanctity 
 of the emaciated types to be found in the work of 
 primitives like Memling or Van Eyck. He had trans- 
 formed old Bach's Christian oratorio into one of pan- 
 theism. 
 
 The passionate and essentially plastic art of Vyve- 
 loy was bound to make a deeper impression upon Lau- 
 
146 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 rent Paridael than Marbol's paintings, which, although 
 strong in conception, were a Httle weak and a Httle 
 frigid in realization, and which, ^as he began to feel 
 more and more undeniably as time went on, were not 
 vibrant enough. 
 
 That year Antwerp inaugurated the celebration of 
 the tercentenary of Rubens' birth with a cantata by 
 Rombaut de Vyveloy, sung one evening in the Place 
 Verte in the open air. Laurent did not fail to attend 
 this performance. 
 
 Near the statue of the great Peter-Paul, the chorus 
 and the orchestra occupied a semi-circular grand stand, 
 in the center of which the composer was enthroned. 
 The square, which had been roped off, was allotted to 
 the bourgoisie. The common people, crowding into 
 the surrounding places, respected the demarcation, and 
 the converging streets vomited forth increasing mobs 
 in vain ; the appalling multitude appeared more digni- 
 fied and more calm than the privileged spectators, and 
 less riotous than the obnoxious police or the cumber- 
 ing mounted gendarmes. There were no scuffling and 
 no murmuring. For hours past workmen and poor 
 people had stamped about in their places without los- 
 ing any of their good humor or serenity. What fluid 
 had silenced these riotous tongues and turbulent pates ? 
 Arms crossed themselves placidly on breasts that were 
 panting with curiosity. Did not these Antwerpians of 
 robust stock but lowly rank anticipate the unique splen- 
 dor of the celebration which they were preluding with 
 such impressiveness ? The infants on the housewives' 
 arms abstained from wailing, and the street dogs cir- 
 culated amidst the compact plantation of legs without 
 being molested by their natural tormentors, the street 
 boys. 
 
THE CANTATA 147 
 
 And in this impressive and magnetic silence, above 
 the flowing sea of curdling surges, upon which the blue 
 shadows, descending gently, caressingly, had stretched 
 an additional peace and solemnity, there fell from the 
 highest gallery of the structure, where the eye tried 
 in vain to discern the heralds at arms, the martial fan- 
 fare of trumpets playing in unison. And the soprani 
 of the sister cities, Bruges and Ghent, hailed and ac- 
 claimed the Metropolis again and again. Their salu- 
 tations, ever warmer and more strident, were followed 
 by the hoarse blasts of the aerial fanfare. After this 
 dialogue the carillon began to tintinnabulate, slowly and 
 muted at first, like a covey awakening at dawn in the 
 dew of a coppice, then springing into life, elevating 
 their voices, darting forth in flight with a shower of 
 chords of jubilation. A burst of sunshine. iThen the 
 orchestra and the choruses entered the lists. And this 
 was the apotheosis of Wealth and Art. 
 
 The poet extolled the Great Market in virulent 
 strophes, in hyperbolical and sonorous commonplaces 
 to which the mise-en-scene, the ecstacy of the crowd, 
 and Vyveloy^s music lent a sublime import. The four 
 quarters of the globe came to salute Antwerp, all the 
 nations of the globe were paying her humble tribute, 
 and, as if modem times and the middle ages were not 
 enough to swell the triumphant sails of the proud city, 
 the cantata went back to antiquity and enlisted the 
 forty centuries of the Pyramids as mace-bearers and 
 lictors. Everything, time and the universe, geography 
 and history, the infinite and the eternal, blended, in 
 this work, into a celebration of the city of Rubens. 
 And in closing one's eyes one could have imagined the 
 passing of a majestic cortege before the throne of the 
 preeminently triumphant painter. 
 
148 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 When it was over and the garrison band, at the head 
 of the torchhght procession, took up, as they began to 
 march, the principal theme of the cantata, Laurent, 
 tinghng to his very marrow, his nerves coursing with 
 an indefinable and contagious enthusiasm, momentar- 
 ily beside himself, locked step with the soldiers and 
 pushed on with the equally enthusiastic and excited 
 mob in which bourgeois and workmen, entangled arm 
 in arm, struck up in full voice the dithyrambic 
 chant. 
 
 Tirelessly Laurent marched with the procession over 
 the whole of its route. 
 
 The flowing escort renewed itself with fresh relays 
 at every corner, but in vain, for in his intense excite- 
 ment he could not bring himself to leave it. Vyveloy*s 
 music would have carried him to the end of the world. 
 Although others were used up by the heroic measures 
 of the torchlight procession and disappeared in the 
 cross streets, he was conscious of an even-increasing 
 intrepidity in his legs and flame in his heart. New 
 marchers, however, were always replacing those who 
 had dropped out, and the character of the procession 
 varied with the quarters that it traversed. Along the 
 roadstead and the basins Laurent felt the elbows of 
 sailors and dockers ; in the heart of the city he became 
 one of a crowd of salesmen and shop girls; on the 
 boulevards of the new city he found himself again with 
 young men of good family and the clerks of the largest 
 firms; finally, in the labyrinths of the Quartier Saint 
 Andre, the habitation of the beggars, waifs and strays, 
 bareheaded wantons took his arm familiarly, and tawny 
 young blackguards, perhaps runners, carried him off 
 in their farandole. All for Antwerp, all for Reubens. 
 Laurent heard only the cantata ; he was filled and sat- 
 
THE CANTATA 149 
 
 urated with it. He accompanied the bands to their 
 last halting place, sad and almost frustrated when the 
 gunners, having dismounted, blew out the Venetian 
 lanterns hung upon their wooden lances, and tram- 
 pled the last resin torches under their heels. 
 
THE ELECTION 
 
 "Ah ! haughty city, wealthy city, selfish city, city of 
 wolves so eager for their prey that they devour each 
 other when there are no more sheep to shear to the 
 bone! City conforming to the spirit of Darwin's 
 law! Fecund city, but harsh mother! In your hypo- 
 critical corruption, your blatancy, your licentiousness, 
 your opulence, your greedy instincts, your hatred of 
 the poor, your fear of hirelings, you conjure up Car- 
 thage before me. Were you of Carthage, too, not 
 filled with the prejudice against soldiers that Ant- 
 werp still maintains ? Even Antwerpians whose sons 
 are in the army are pitiless and harsh with troopers. In 
 no other part of Belgium does one hear of terrible 
 brawls between soldiers and the bourgoisie, of the am- 
 bushes where the slaughterers fall upon a drunken sol- 
 dier on leave as he is returning to some barracks in 
 the slums or a fort lost at the very end of a suburb.* 
 
 "Who have we at the head of Antwerp ? Vain, stu- 
 pid councillors, as inflated as were the magistrates of 
 
 ♦Attention must be called to the fact that this book was 
 written before the introduction into Belgium of compulsory per- 
 sonal military service. The same observation applies to im- 
 portant passages in the third part, notably thQ chapter entitled 
 Contumacy. G, E, 
 
 ISO 
 
THE ELECTION 151 
 
 Carthage. Do you know what their last stroke was, 
 Bergmans; do you know it? 
 
 "One day, having nothing else to demolish and re- 
 build, always an annoying situation to municipal coun- 
 cillors, they decreed to tear down the Tour Bleue, one 
 of the few specimens of the military architecture of the 
 fourteenth century remaining in Europe. All the 
 artists and connoisseurs of the city stirred themselves 
 up, protested against it, sent petitions to the "Regency." 
 In the face of this opposition, what did our soothsay- 
 ers do? They deigned to consult the famous expert, 
 Viollet-Le-Duc. The archaelogist agreed with all 
 the artists in favor of maintaining the old bastille. 
 Look, then, upon their queer fellow who allowed him- 
 self to be of another mind than these omniscient mer- 
 chants! And they had nothing more urgent to do 
 than to raze the venerable relic without any form of 
 trial. . . . 
 
 "And, nevertheless, a sublime city! You are right, 
 Rombaut, to praise its indefinable charm, which closes 
 the mouths of her detractors. We cannot bear her a 
 grudge for having given herself to that brood of pluto- 
 crats. We love her as we would a wanton and flirta- 
 tious woman, as we would a treacherous and adorable 
 courtesan. And even her pariahs do not consent to 
 curse her !" 
 
 It was Laurent Paridael who was railing thus before 
 Bergmans, Rombaut and Marbol, at the cabaret Croix- 
 Blanche, on the Plaine du Bourg. 
 
 "Good ! The young docker's servant is taking the bit 
 in his teeth," said Vyveloy. "And all because he finds 
 that I have put too much chauvinism in my cantata, at 
 the expense of Bruges and Ghent. The devil! You 
 can understand the shortsightedness of the parish bel- 
 
152 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 fry when the belfry happens to be the pile of Notre 
 Dame!" 
 
 "Absolutely," said Bergmans, approvingly. "And 
 then, too, Antwerp will undergo a moral regeneration 
 also. She will shake off the yoke that degrades her. 
 She will be restored again to her true children. You 
 will see it, Paridael; the oppressed masses are becom- 
 ing insubordinate. I tell you that a new order will 
 soon come into being! A breath of emancipation and 
 youth has blown across the mob; there is something 
 better here than a rich and proud city ; there is a peo- 
 ple no less interesting who are commencing to revolt 
 against the representatives who do serve them badly 
 and compromise them." 
 
 Bergmans' prediction was not long delayed in its 
 realization. For a long time the air had been charged 
 with electricity. Vyveloy*s passionate cantata had con- 
 tributed in no small measure to the reawakening of 
 the population. The rich folk, in taking the initiative 
 in a celebration in honor of Rubens, had not expected 
 to raise up such a ferment. It happened that the 
 painters of the Renaissance began to evoke the lead- 
 ers of men of the sixteenth century, William the 
 Silent, Mamix of Sainte-Aldegonde. They exhumed, 
 an an ensign, the insulting epithet of the days of 
 Charles V. and Philip II., the name of "gueux" which 
 their valiant ancestors had been proud to bear as a 
 badge of honor. 
 
 The mummified nobility, indifferent to all and ultra- 
 mundane in addition, perhaps rejoiced at the dissension 
 which the new current had in store for the upstarts, 
 but did not dare to sponsor a party united under the 
 name and the banner of the victorious adversaries of 
 Catholic Spain. 
 
THE ELECTION 153 
 
 The effervescence swayed, above all, the working 
 population of the harbor. 
 
 Isolated conflicts had already broken out between 
 Bejard and the Nations. At first there were disagree- 
 ments over an account due from him to the America. 
 The shipowner constantly refused to pay his bill. Then 
 there arrived from Riga a grain ship with a cargo 
 consigned to the recalcitrant debtor. 
 
 Bejard applied for the unloading of his merchandise 
 to one of his creditor's rivals, but under such condi- 
 tions the corporations made common cause, and the 
 Nation sought by him refused the enterprise until he 
 should have settled with their competitors. He ap- 
 plied to a third and a fourth Nation, meeting the same 
 reply from both. 
 
 Obstinate and furious, he had dockers brought from 
 Flushing, the nearest seaport. The Antwerpian dock- 
 ers threw many of the Hollanders into the basins, and 
 took them out half -drowned, only to plunge them in 
 again, so that all of them took the train home for 
 their country the same day, swearing that they never 
 again could be forced to interfere with and oppose the 
 the expeditious Antwerpians in their strikes. In truth, 
 when these workmen, as even-tempered as they were 
 vigorous, decided to become nasty, they did it in the 
 fashion of felines. 
 
 Bejard, having heard of the desertion of the Hol- 
 landers after the treatment that had been inflicted 
 upon them, foamed with fury and swore that sooner 
 or later he would get even with Vingerhout and his 
 insolent Nations. But since, as time went on, his grain 
 threatened to rot in the bottom of the hold, he gave in 
 to claims of the dockers. 
 
 A little later on, an occasion presented itself to 
 
154 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 reopen hostilities against these much too rebellious 
 plebes. There had just been invented in the United 
 States elevators, apparatus which replaced cranes, 
 lighters and computers, the adoption of which for the 
 unloading of grain would fatally destroy a great part 
 of the hand-labor, and in consequence would entail ruin 
 for many members of the Nations. 
 
 So that there was great agitation among the people 
 when it was learned that Bejard had recommended, in 
 the councils of the ^'Regency," the acquisition of sim- 
 ilar apparatus. 
 
 On the evening upon which Bejard's proposition was 
 to be put to a vote in the meeting of the municipal 
 council, the haes, deans and workers massed themselves 
 in a compact and formidable array in the Grand' Place, 
 in front of the Hotel de Ville. In their working clothes, 
 their sleeves rolled up, their biceps bare, they waited 
 there terribly resolute, their fists upon their hips, their 
 noses in the air, their eyes fastened upon the lighted 
 windows. With a jeering air, his pipe between his 
 teeth, as radiant as though he were on his way to a 
 dance, Jean Vingerhout circulated from group to group 
 giving his instructions to the men. Although he need- 
 ed no secretary for this night's work, he had with him 
 young Paridael, who was enchanted by the little ex- 
 plosion that threatened the odious Bejard. 
 
 "We shall all laugh, my boy," said Jean, rubbing 
 his hands so briskly that it seemed as if he would 
 break the bones of his fingers. 
 
 Siska had kept her husband at home, not, however, 
 without difficulty. 
 
 Several suspicious looking loungers, of the type of 
 the young runners of Doel, had also approached the 
 husky workers, but Jean did not intend to entangle 
 
THE ELECTION 155 
 
 himself with compromising allies. He rejected all of 
 them without snubbing them too greatly. Good folk 
 would suffice for the business in hand. 
 
 Policemen had tried to disperse the assembled crowd, 
 but they did not insist in the face of the dignified man- 
 ner, portentous in its calm, with which they were wel- 
 comed by the mutineers. 
 
 A rather long street, the Canal au Sucre, separates 
 the Grand* Place from the Scheldt, but two hundred 
 meters was no distance for these fellows, and the 
 policemen, sly but puny, would not be heavy to carry as 
 far as the water. 
 
 "What are they going to do ?" the police asked them- 
 selves. They were alarmed by the inertia and the 
 resolute and slightly ironic air of the dockers. The 
 loafers of the Coin du Paresseux were not more of- 
 fensive while waiting for the baes who steeped them 
 in drink. To those who questioned them the workers 
 responded with a certain vade retro as brief as it was 
 energetic, untranslatable in any other idiom than their 
 terrible Flemish, and to which their manner of making 
 it ring out added an eloquent savor. 
 
 The windows of the left wing on the second floor 
 of the ancient Hotel de Ville were illumined. It ap- 
 peared that they were still deliberating. The vote was 
 imminent; all those people were hand in glove with 
 each other. 
 
 Nine o'clock pealed forth. At the last stroke, at a 
 whistle from Vingerhout, the workers leaned over and 
 phlegmatically set about pulling up the paving stones 
 beneath them. They went about their work rapidly, so 
 rapidly that the alguazils got out of breath uselessly 
 in trying to prevent them. 
 
 And then Jean Vingerhout, in order to show how 
 
156 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 they were going to set to work, ardoitly sent a paving 
 stone through one of the windows of the council cham- 
 ber. Other arms rose, each hand grasping its paving 
 stone with the steadiness and the vigor of a catapult. 
 But at a sign from Vingerhout they replaced them upon 
 the ground. 
 
 "Very gently. Perhaps one warning will suffice 
 them!" 
 
 And presently an usher came running across the 
 square, out of breath, and, spying Vingerhout, told 
 him that the gentlemen of the Council were adjourn- 
 ing their decision. 
 
 "What are they waiting for, then?'* asked Vinger- 
 hout, always attracted by the lighted windows. 
 
 Fundamentally, this terrible Vingerhout was a 
 shrewd, but a good fellow. He knew the layout of the 
 Hotel de Ville, and knew, too, that the stone which 
 he had thrown would fall in an empty space in the 
 room. But he admitted this only to Laurent. 
 
 The windows receded into the darkness. The bur- 
 gomaster, the aldermen and councillors came out of 
 the communal palace abashed, surrounded by a cloud 
 of policemen; the reserves and the outposts had 
 been placed in requisition, and the commandants of 
 the barracks had been telegraphed. Bejard had even 
 wanted to ask aid from Brussels. But the Nations 
 thought that they had achieved a sufficient result from 
 their little manifestation, and, leaving their paving 
 stones behind them, they dispersed slowly, like the 
 good giants that they were, contenting themselves with 
 sending a sagnificant jeer after the councillors, espe- 
 cially after Bejard, who had very seriously thought 
 that they were going to treat him like Deacon Steven. 
 
 Intimidated, the Council very wisely decided to bury 
 
THE ELECTION 157 
 
 the much too burning question until after the election 
 for the legislative chambers. 
 
 The haes of the corporations violently exposed the 
 campaign of Bergmans, who had frankly sided with 
 the dockers and was running for candidacy against 
 Freddy Bejard. Laurent had entered a society of 
 fanatics of his own age, the Jenne Garde des Gueux, 
 recruited from among the apprentices and the sons of 
 minor employes. 
 
 As the campaigning period advanced, it became 
 more and more fraught with bitterness. The pluto- 
 crats, owners of newspapers, devoted themselves to 
 a debauch of posters, enormous, multicolored, eye- 
 compelling, of brochures, of pamphlets, all printed in 
 large type. 
 
 Restlessness increased among the lower classes. 
 
 "What matter?'* stormed Bejard. "Those outcasts 
 ^re not electors. I shall be elected just the same." 
 
 As a matter of fact, the majority of "copyholders'* 
 took sides with the rich. But the latter, fearing that 
 Bejard's unpopularity would jeopardize the rest of 
 their ballot, tried to obtain the shipowner's promise 
 that he would postpone his candidacy until a more fa- 
 vorable time. He flatly refused. He had waited too 
 long; the seat was due him as an indemnification for 
 his long and precious service to the oligarchy. They 
 did not insist. Moreover, he held them in the palm 
 of his hand. A thousand compromising secrets, a 
 thousand skeletons subsisted between them and him. 
 His light-fingered hands held the reputation and for- 
 tune of his colleagues. And this diabolic man possessed 
 the genius for organization to such an extent that he 
 was indispensible. He alone knew how to conduct an 
 electoral campaign and to manoeuvre the cohorts of 
 
1 58 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 shopkeepers by tickling their interests. Without his 
 assistance they might as well have declared themselves 
 beaten in advance. 
 
 Not at all scrupulous as to the means that he em- 
 ployed, his agents multrplied trips to saloons and visits 
 from house to house. They had been instructed to see 
 the thwarted shopkeepers and to promise them cap- 
 ital or customers. To the more stubborn they went 
 as far as to give half of a banknote, the other half 
 to be delivered to them on the night of the count, if 
 the director of the Southern Cross won. 
 
 Other employes in his imposing campaign organi- 
 zation, as complicated and as numerous as a ministry, 
 prepared marked ballots for voters of whom they were 
 suspicious; still others were busy compiling statistics 
 of his chances, in dividing the voters in "good," *'bad" 
 and "doubtful" classes. The forecasts gave at least 
 a thousand votes in majority to Bejard. He continued, 
 however, to buy as many as he could, spending the 
 party's money freely, drawing even upon his private 
 resources. He would have ruined himself in order to 
 win. 
 
 His assistants worked upon the imagination of the 
 peasants of the district, orthodox people like the no- 
 bility, and superstitious besides. Ignorant of history, 
 these rural folk took the name of gueux in its literal 
 sense. The least landholder, having been confirmed 
 in his terrors by the talks of old folk on winter eve- 
 nings, saw his holdings already pillaged, given over to | 
 the torch, and himself trampled down as by the Cos- 
 sacks, and by anticipation, the soles of his feet began 
 to burn. He would not vote for foot-broilers and 
 incendiaries. In the villages Bejard's heelers gossiped 
 quite naturally about Bergmans and his people, venting 
 
THE ELECTION 159 
 
 the most monstrous and extravagant calumnies, diffi- 
 cult to make city- folk believe, but which passed for 
 truth among the rustics as if they had been articles 
 of the evangel. 
 
 Door den Berg could oppose these underhand plots 
 only with his character, his talent, his personal worth, 
 his warm conviction and eloquence, his frank expres- 
 sion; in the battle of newspapers, posters and bro- 
 chures, he got the worst of it; on the other hand, in 
 public meetings, wherever the merits of the candidates 
 were threshed out, he had the advantage. Moreover, 
 one had to be infeudated into the clan of Bejard to 
 take his, or rather Dupoissy's, prose and eloquence 
 seriously, for it was Dupoissy who manufactured his 
 speeches and articles. 
 
 Nothing could have been more disgusting than his 
 humanitarian and long-winded confections ; collections 
 of commonplaces worthy of the worst departmental ga- 
 zette, filled with cliches, hollow aphorisms, flat and 
 redundant phrases, rhetoric so vile and so ranting that 
 the very words seemed to refuse to cover his lies and 
 obscenity any longer. 
 
 The night before the eve of election a monster meet- 
 ing was held at the Varietes, an immense dance hall, 
 in which political mass-meetings alternated with 
 shrove-tide masquerades. 
 
 For the first time during the many years that he had 
 been regaling the gulls and his creatures with doctrin- 
 aire harangues, always delivered in the same nasal, 
 monotonous voice, Bejard was sharply hissed. He 
 was not even allowed to finish his speech. 
 
 The heaving crowd, electrified by a hearty phillipic 
 from Bergmans, rushed like a furious tide to attack 
 the speaker's table on the platform, passed over the 
 
i6o THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 orchestra pit, overturned the table, trampled and tore 
 the green carpet to tatters, inundated the parquet with 
 water from the carafes intended for the speakers, 
 kicked about the jangling bell of the chairman, and 
 barely refrained from hacking the organizers of the 
 meeting to pieces. 
 
 Happily, as they saw the cyclone coming on, these 
 prudent folk beat a retreat, candidates and bosses to- 
 gether, and left the place to the people. 
 
 Election day finally dawned; a grey October day. 
 From early morning the drums of the civic guard beat 
 out the call for voters; the city bustled with an un- 
 usual life that was not its every-day activity, the busi- 
 ness of clerks and tradespeople, cartage and traffic. 
 The voters, in holiday attire, left their houses, and un- 
 der their stovepipe hats wore a grave and slightly 
 strained expression, citizens conscious of their dignity. 
 With their voting papers in their hands they walked 
 quickly to the election booths, school buildings, foyers 
 of theatres and other public buildings. 
 
 Young bloods, rich men*s sons, wearing an orange 
 cockade, the party color, at their buttonhole, hired 
 hacks to bring feeble, sickly, or indifferent voters to 
 the polls. They gave themselves airs of importance, 
 consulted their lists, greeted each other mysteriously, 
 gnawed at the pencils which they used to register the 
 voters. Omnibuses left very early to pick up the rural 
 voters in distant little straggling villages. Dumfound- 
 ed and red with excitement, the peasants grouped them- 
 selves according to their parishes, and the black-coat- 
 ed priests went about among these blue-clad folk giving 
 advice and counting the votes. Groups formed in 
 front of the polls. They were reading posters still 
 wet from the press, in which one or the other candi- 
 
THE ELECTION i6i 
 
 date denounced a last-minute manoeuvre of his adver- 
 sary, and uttered a final, laconic and vigorous procla- 
 mation. Nearly all these manifestos began with the 
 phrase: "Voters! You are being deceived!" News- 
 boys were crying the latest extras. On each side of 
 the poll a ne'er-do-well was standing, wearing a sign- 
 board inviting people to vote for one or the other 
 ticket. The blue cockades in one group exchanged de- 
 fiant glances with the orange rosettes of another ; peo- 
 ple who were ordinarily quite inoffensive assumed a 
 belligerent air, and hands feverishly tormented the 
 handles of canes. They talked a great deal, but in 
 low voices, like conspirators. 
 
 However, each booth having been provided with a 
 chairman and two watchers, the voting began. An- 
 swering to the roll-call in alphabetical order, the voters 
 brushed a passage through the crowd, passed behind a 
 partition, and presented themselves before the three 
 grave men. The latter sat behind a table, covered with 
 the traditional green cloth and bearing an ugly black, 
 cubic box, pompously called the urn. The voter 
 pushed his ballot, folded four times and stamped with 
 the arms of the city, for a brief second beneath the 
 eyeglassed and suspicious nose of the chairman, and 
 then let it fall into the urn as if it were a poor-box, 
 a money-box, or a letter-box. There were some upon 
 whom this simple action made a profound impression ; 
 they lost their wits, dropped their canes, became con- 
 fused in their bows, and persisted in trying to put 
 their ballot into the watcher's inkwell. 
 
 On the partition, on the side of the waiting room, 
 were displayed the lists of candidates; nearsighted 
 men put their noses right up to it; dirty fingers trav- 
 elled alj py?r it as over the timetable posted up in 
 
i62 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 railroad stations. The classroom reeked with the 
 stench of dog's ordure and the butts of extinguished 
 cigars, and there Hngered the musty smell of poor 
 scholars who had fed upon dehcatessen. 
 
 There were many absences. The "junior guards" 
 of both parties, on picket duty at the entrance, iden- 
 tified their men, and kept sending carriages to get 
 their absentees, in anticipation of the check-roll. The 
 litany of names, the long procession of voters, kept 
 passing in ruefully. From time to time incidents 
 cropped up that relieved the monotony. A voter 
 omitted from the list or challenged became angry; 
 people having the same name presented themselves 
 for each other ; they persisted in summoning dead men 
 whom they absolutely wished to see vote, or, on the 
 other hand, they tried to persuade living men that they 
 were no longer of this world. 
 
 Upon coming out from the booths into which only 
 one rnan went at a time, their happy and relieved ex- 
 pression and their sprightly air would have lead one to 
 suppose they had isolated themselves for other motives. 
 
 The taking of the vote, checking and counter check- 
 ing, lasted until noon, and then the count commenced. 
 No one knew anything definite, but they hazarded a 
 reckoning of results. "Few absences!" 
 
 The orange cockades commiserated each other upon 
 the abundance of blouses, gloved hands and shovel 
 hats ; on the other hand, the blues were worrying over 
 the unusual contingent of hoes from the Nations, of 
 business people, and of patriotic officers. 
 
 Nobody went home ; everybody ate badly at taverns 
 crammed with patrons, and fever and anxiety having 
 dried their throats, they became intoxicated with both. 
 beer and words. 
 
THE ELECTION 163 
 
 People began to mass themselves, their noses in the 
 air, in the Grand' Place, in front of the "Association," 
 Bejard's club and that of other wealthy men, where 
 there were just beginning to be displayed, in the eight 
 windows of the first floor, the results of twenty-six 
 polling places; and also down at the waterfront, in 
 front of the Croix Blanche, where the "Nationalists," 
 Bergmans* partisans, were gathered. 
 
 A fine rain drenched the onlookers, but curiosity 
 made stoics of them. Hawkers continued to bawl the 
 article of the day, blue or orange cockades. 
 
 There was a threatening storm brewing in the ex- 
 cited and taciturn crowd, swelled now by many 
 laborers, minor employees, and students who did not 
 appear upon the rolls. Enraged because they had not 
 been able to vote for Door den Berg, they nourished 
 deep in their hearts a violent desire to manifest their 
 preference in another manner. 
 
 And, at present, the blue cockades dominated in 
 the crowd. The laborers pinned them upon their 
 woolen vests. Brawls had broken out in the morning 
 outside the booths where the country-folk had cast 
 their votes. And, intimidated by the look of hate 
 thrown at them by their comrades of the waterfront, 
 the peasants hastened, after voting in accordance with 
 the wishes of their parish priests, to climb upon the 
 roofs of the waiting coaches, and put miles of polders 
 or heather between themselves and the ramparts of 
 the metropolis. 
 
 The party men crowded into the salons of the "rvsso- 
 ciation," where the party bosses and candidates sat 
 waiting the results. The harsh, metallic voice of Be- 
 jard rose above the whispers of the talkers; Dupois- 
 sy, congratulatory and inspired, Saint-Fardier, tur- 
 
i64 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 bulent and aggressive, speaking in thunderclaps of 
 Bergmans and the whole of the dirty common people, 
 Dobouziez, sober in his judgment, aged, worried 
 looking, little interested in active politics and grum- 
 bling to himself at the costly ambition of his son-in- 
 law ; finally, the young Saint-Fardiers, gaping till their 
 jaws almost broke, tapping upon the window-panes, 
 watching the crowd gather in the square. 
 
 At the Croix Blanche, Door did not have hands 
 enough to grip the hands of every one who insisted 
 upon shaking his. The affection, the exuberance and 
 the sincerity of these well-worn and upright natures 
 touched him keenly. 
 
 Laurent, the Tilbaks, Jean Vingerhout, Marbol and 
 Vyveloy could not stay still, but went out, looked at 
 the returns, ran to the central poll where the general 
 count was being taken. 
 
 The first favorable results for Bejard and for Berg- 
 mans were greeted by hisses from the Association, 
 by cheers from the Croix Blanche, or vice-versa. But 
 the manifestations of the assembled plutocracy awoke 
 a contradictory echo each time from the crowds in the 
 square. Thus, when the figures of the majority attrib- 
 uted to Bejard appeared upon the sign at the windows 
 of the Association, there was a little timid applause, 
 promptly smothered beneath a chorus of groans and 
 whistles ; the opposite occurred whenever luck favored 
 ''Our Door." 
 
 Several times the votes balanced each other. The 
 majority of the voters in the city declared for Berg- 
 mans. Already the crowd in the street and at the 
 Croix Blanche trembled with happiness; every one 
 began hugging every one else, and congratulating 
 Bergmans. Paridael even wanted them to fly the 
 
THE ELECTION 165 
 
 flag of the Gueux, orange, white and blue, with the 
 two hands fraternally entwined, the two hands drawn 
 and quartered upon the shield of Antwerp. Berg- 
 mans, less optimistic, had difficulty in preventing his 
 friends from triumphing too early. Our enthusiasts 
 did not reckon upon the country. Not only did the 
 rural poll overwhelm the swerving results, but the 
 total of the peasant vote grew greater, always dis- 
 tending, swallowing up, like a stupid tide, and sub- 
 merging under its waves the legitimate hopes of, the 
 majority of urban citizens. 
 
VI 
 
 TROUBLES 
 
 First consternation, and then rage, took possession 
 of the people of Antwerp at the final outcome of the 
 struggle. The plutocracy had carried it off, but only 
 with the co-operation of corruption and stupidity. The 
 peasantry had opposed their veto to the will of the 
 great city. The victors, who could not conceal from 
 themselves the equivocal alloy of their triumph, com- 
 mitted the error of wishing to celebrate it, and, 
 although inwardly somewhat crestfallen, they faced 
 it out, feigned jubilation, and resolved the crowd, by 
 their bravado and their grimacing challenges, upon the 
 explosion of hostile sentiments that it had been con- 
 taining with great difficulty since the morning. They 
 did not, however, risk showing themselves upon the 
 balcony of their club, whither they were ironically 
 called by the mob, a sea of convulsive heads, pale and 
 wan with fury, red and inflamed, grinning sardon- 
 ically, tight-lipped, beating back their tears of rage. 
 
 Five o'clock. Night had fallen. The wealthy folk 
 had returned to their houses in the new part of the 
 city, sliding timidly through the crowd that was still 
 keeping watch in the square. 
 
 They all stayed there, uneasy, not knowing what 
 
 i66 
 
TROUBLES 167 
 
 to make up their minds to do, their fists clenched, cer- 
 tain that "it was not going to go on this way," but not 
 knowing how "it was going on." 
 
 In anticipation of trouble, the burgomaster had 
 called out the civic guard, posts had been doubled ; the 
 gendarmerie was under arms. 
 
 Bergmans, while crossing the square, had been rec- 
 ognized, cheered, and borne off in triumph. He freed 
 himself as best he could from these ovations; since 
 early in the morning he had exhorted all those who 
 came in contact with him to calm and resignation. 
 "We shall be victorious next time !" he said. 
 
 The orange flag floating from the balcony of the 
 Association bearded and exasperated his friends. In 
 the first moments after the news of defeat the con- 
 sternation of the vanquished had given the victors an 
 opportunity to hoist their flag with impunity. 
 
 Suddenly a pushing this way and that began in the 
 crowd. Paridael and his young comrades of the 
 "Jeune Garde des Gueux" jostled their way through 
 until they reached the club. 
 
 Carried upon the shoulders of Jean Vingerhout, 
 Laurent, as nimble as a monkey, using both hands and 
 feet, clinging to whatever slight ledges he could, 
 climbed to the balcony, clutched the flagstaff, tried to 
 loosen it, and ending by hanging from it, pulling on 
 the material. A cracking was heard; the wood 
 snapped. . . . 
 
 The crowd yelled with anxiety. 
 
 The flag was conquered, but the daring conqueror 
 tumbled into empty space with his trophy. He would 
 have broken his neck upon the pavement had the vig- 
 ilant and solidly built Vingerhout not been there. Vin- 
 gerhout caught Laurent in his arms without flinching 
 
i68 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 as if he were catching a bale of rice or a sack of 
 cereal in full flight. Then he put Laurent quietly upon 
 his feet with an oath of approval. The young fellow, 
 feeling the earth once more beneath his feet, began to 
 wave his flag over the heads of the crowd. A burst 
 of stormy cheers broke out and continued. The police 
 tried to take Laurent by the collar. Hundreds of 
 hands, following Vingerhout's fist, freed him, threw 
 the policemen into disorder, and reduced them to im- 
 potence. 
 
 The young fellows took the head of a huge column 
 that began moving after having sent three volleys of 
 cat-calls toward the dismantled balcony, singing the 
 "Hymne des Gueux" composed by Vyveloy, and a 
 Flemish refrain improvised in honor of their leader. 
 
 From a distance came the song of the other party. 
 Where could such a challenge come from ? An electric 
 tremor ran through the whole line. 
 
 "Down with them !" And the crowd rushed wildly 
 across the Place de Meir. 
 
 At the corner of this square, where it becomes nar- 
 rowest, the Gueux fell upon a crew of young revellers 
 with blue cockades, with a band and torches. With a 
 frightful clamor they threw themselves upon their 
 provokers. In an instant the torches had been torn 
 from their hands, a hole had been kicked in the drum, 
 the whole crew had been thoroughly trounced and 
 trampled upon without having made the slightest re- 
 sistance. 
 
 And by the time that the middle and the tail 
 of the line had come up to the place where the 
 scuffle had taken place, the fugitives were already far 
 away. 
 
 The Gueux, however, had heard that the rich people, 
 
TROUBLES 169 
 
 thinking themselves sheltered from the wrath of the 
 mob, on the Boulevard Leopold, in the new part of 
 the city, had illuminated their houses and decorated 
 them with flags. 
 
 "To Bejard's!" howled the mob. 
 
 From the Place de Meir onward the demonstration 
 took on a sinister aspect. The ranks of workmen, 
 dockers and bourgeois disappeared to make way for 
 a crowd of shameless fellows. They were no longer 
 singing the "Hymne des Gueux," but were shouting 
 incendiary refrains. 
 
 On the road, in the Avenue des Arts, a runner threw 
 a paving stone through the door of the Saint-Fardier 
 residence, the windows of which were decorated with 
 lanterns. The panes of glass smashed to pieces. The 
 wind, rustling a silk curtain, blew it close to the flame 
 of a lantern ; the goods took fire. The ferocious mob 
 shivered and cheered the flames, an unexpected accom- 
 plice. 
 
 "That's it ! Let's burn the whole caboose !" 
 
 But a half -company of gendarmes, the police, and 
 a company of the civic guard prevented them from 
 carrying this pleasantry any further. 
 
 While one part of the procession remained behind 
 to annoy the gendarmes, the others made good their 
 escape by passing through the side streets and coming 
 out upon the Boulevard Leopold almost opposite 
 Bejard's residence. 
 
 "Down with Bejard ! . . . Down with the vendor 
 of souls! . . . Down with the slave-trader! . . . 
 Down with the torturer of children ! . . . " 
 
 An outburst of bloodthirsty cries greeted the home 
 of the oligarch. Whether or not he knew what was 
 in the air, Bejard, the foreigner, the elect of the peas- 
 
xyo THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 antry, had abstained from illuminating his mansion. 
 The shutters on the ground floor were closed, and it 
 seemed as if there were no light within. 
 
 But this discretion did not disarm the mob. They 
 hurled themselves furiously upon the accursed house. 
 Prowlers and vagrants, of which the greater part of 
 the procession now consisted, especially excel in demo- 
 lition. The barred shutters were torn from the win- 
 dows, and the windows themselves shattered to 
 splinters. 
 
 "To the death ! To the death !" shrieked the rioters. 
 
 Confiding the flag to his faithful Vingerhout, Par- 
 idael came between them, and tried to prevent them 
 from breaking into the house, for suddenly all his 
 thoughts had returned to the wife of the unpopular 
 ship-owner, his Cousin Gina. Let them tear Bejard 
 to pieces or hang him ! Laurent would not have cared 
 at all. Let them not leave one stone of the house 
 upon another! Laurent would have willingly helped 
 the destroyers. But he would give his last drop of 
 blood to spare Madame Bejard one fright or emotion ! 
 
 Ah! luckless fellow, why had he had not foreseen 
 this danger sooner? 
 
 He called Vingerhout to his aid. But they were 
 swept aside. It was impossible to dam the furious 
 mass. There was nothing to do but follow them, 
 or, better, precede them into the house and bring help 
 to the young woman. Laurent jumped through a win- 
 dow into the salon. Already a swarm of infuriated 
 men were struggling in there like epileptics ; shattering 
 the furniture and bibelots, tearing down curtains, cut- 
 ting holes into cushions, pulling pictures from the wall, 
 reducing tapestries and hangings to lint, throwing the 
 
TROUBLES 171 
 
 debris out of the windows, pillaging and degrading 
 everything that came to hand. 
 
 Laurent outran them into the neighboring room ; it 
 was dark and deserted. He penetrated into a third 
 salon; nobody there; into the dining room. Again 
 nobody; he ransacked the orangery and the conserva- 
 tory without meeting a living soul. 
 
 Others, however, followed him. Weary of breaking 
 everything, they wanted to do their business with 
 Bejard. Laurent rushed out into the vestibule, saw 
 the staircase, and mounted it four steps at a time. 
 
 He reached the first floor landing, penetrated into 
 the bedrooms, a dressing room, and another room. 
 Nobody. He called, "Gina! Gina!" Not even the 
 ghost of Gina! He continued his search, rummaging 
 all the corners, opening closets and wardrobes, looking 
 under the beds. And still nothing! She was not on 
 the upper floors, or in the garret. Coming downstairs 
 in despair he ran into the ringleaders, who were still 
 howling for Bejard. For a very little they would have 
 accused Paridael of having let his enemy escape. Hap- 
 pily, Vingerhout came along just in time to take him 
 out of their hands. 
 
 Outside the tumult was augmenting. Laurent 
 •walked out into the garden and visited the stables with 
 no greater success. 
 
 Finally he resolved to quit the deserted house. In 
 the street, where hundreds of spectators among the 
 rioters watched the sacking of this luxurious home with 
 sanctimonious curiosity, he learned from the servants 
 that the master and mistress were dining with Madame 
 Athanasius Saint-Fardier. Reassured, he was about 
 to leave the theatre of the saturnalia when he heard 
 a furious galloping resounding in the distance. 
 
172 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "The civic guard on horseback! Every one for 
 himself!" 
 
 Pillagers and destroyers interrupted their business. 
 
 The platoon approached at a gallop. At a hundred 
 meters distance from the rabble the captain, Van Frans 
 the banker, an old friend of the Dobouziez family, 
 ordered a halt. 
 
 All rich men and the sons of rich men, parade sol- 
 diers only, they were proud of their handsome dark 
 green uniform, of their silver-buttoned tunics and black 
 brandenburgs, of their trousers with the amaranthine 
 stripe, of their astrachan knapsacks with the red shoul- 
 der-straps and silver tassels. Their mounts had sha- 
 bracks matching the uniform, on the corners of which 
 were embroidered silver bugles, and an ordonnance 
 cloak was rolled up on the front of the saddles. 
 
 Pale, excited, their eyes glistening, they made their 
 horses wheel and paw the ground. Seeing that they 
 had stopped, the rioters were emboldened to mock 
 them. "Cardboard soldiers! Buffoons! Sunday 
 cavaliers!" Laurent recognized Athanasius and Gas- 
 ton Saint-Fardier, and heard the former, who was 
 pushing his horse forward, say to Van Frans: "Are 
 we never going to charge that rabble, Captain?" In 
 passing through the Avenue des Arts the two brothers 
 had seen the havoc wrought upon their father's house, 
 and burned with impatience to avenge the affront. 
 
 Until now the service of this honorary squadron had 
 been a recreation, a simple sport, a pretext for walks 
 and excursions and parties in the country. It was not 
 the fault of the handsome dilettante in uniform that 
 these loafers forced them to take themselves seriously. 
 
 "Draw . . . sabres!" commanded Van Frans in a 
 slightly trembling voice. And the virgin swords, drawn 
 
TROUBLES 173 
 
 from their sheaths with a metallic clinking, added a 
 livid flame to the gloved hand of every cavalier. 
 
 This v^as enough to throw the looters into a panic. 
 The crowd broke in front, and flung themselves into 
 the side streets to the left and right. The more daring 
 hurried to get out of the way on the opposite pave- 
 ment or beneath the trees in the center of the avenue. 
 
 "Charge!" ordered Van Frans, sharply. "For- 
 ward!" 
 
 And the squadron dashed forward at a breakneck 
 gallop. Stirrups and scabbards clanked each other, 
 the pavement sparkled like an anvil. 
 
 After having put the mob to flight and pretended 
 to chase them, the soldiers halted, wheeled, and charged 
 a second time, in the opposite direction. 
 
 The police succeeded in dispersing the last rioters, 
 and by now, being in the majority, began to capture 
 the ringleaders and put them under arrest. 
 
 Pursued from that side, the most infurated mem- 
 bers of the mob resigned themselves to making a dem- 
 onstration elsewhere. 
 
 Turning the comer of a street, Laurent found him- 
 self face to face with Regina. The news of the riot 
 had surprised the Bejards at the dinner table, and 
 while her husband had gone to the Hotel de Ville to 
 confer with his friends, Gina, in spite of all efforts 
 to detain her, had walked out alone, curious to see 
 for herself her husband's unpopularity. 
 
 Laurent took her by the arm. 
 
 "Come with me, Regina. You can't go home. Your 
 house is a ruin, and even the street is dangerous for 
 you. It would be better for you to go to your father's," 
 
 She saw that he was wearing the colors of Berg- 
 mans' party upon his cap. 
 
174 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "You are making common cause with them; you 
 were among those who made that little expedition to 
 my house. . . . Really, Laurent, that's the last straw ! 
 What a dirty deed !" 
 
 "This is not the time to recriminate and say unpleas- 
 ant things to me!" said Paridael with an assurance 
 that he had never before felt in talking to her. "Come 
 with me V* 
 
 Frightened and overmastered by his air of resolu- 
 tion, she allowed herself to be led, and even took his 
 arm. He lifted her into the first carriage that 
 they met, cast the Dobouziez address to the cabby, 
 and sat down opposite her before she had risked a 
 remark. 
 
 "Excuse me," he said, "I shall not leave you until 
 I know that you are in a safe place." 
 
 She did not answer. Neither of them opened their 
 lips again. 
 
 Laurent's knees brushed those of the young woman ; 
 their feet met, and she withdrew hers with a terrified 
 start, drawing back into a corner of the carriage, or 
 pretending to look out of the window. Laurent held 
 his breath in order the better to hear hers; he could 
 have wished that the trip would last forever. Both 
 were thinking of the last time they had met. She 
 began to be afraid ; he felt himself again becoming the 
 lover of former days. 
 
 They passed drunken runners brandishing cudgels 
 at the end of which were attached shreds of material 
 torn from the furniture and hangings of the mansions 
 that had been sacked. As they passed each street lamp 
 Laurent caught a fleeting vision of the young woman. 
 The alarm that he was causing his cousin sorely vexed 
 him. Forever, then, he was to be an object of aversion 
 
TROUBLES 175 
 
 and scorn ! When they reached the factory he got out 
 first and offered her his hand. She stepped out with- 
 out taking his proffered assistance, and said, for the 
 sake of politeness: 
 
 "Won't you come in?" 
 
 "You know that your father has sworn never to 
 receive me. ..." 
 
 "True. I almost forgot that. . . . However, I 
 owe you my thanks, don't I? . . . Monsieur Bejard 
 has some chivalrous enemies. . . ." 
 
 "I beg you, cousin, don't scoff at me ! If you only 
 knew how unjust your sarcasms are ! Instead, believe 
 in my unalterable devotion and my profound . . . ad- 
 miration for you." 
 
 "You talk like the end of a letter," she answered 
 with a faint air of having taken up her old bantering 
 manner. But it lacked sincerity and good humor. 
 "Very well . . . again, thank you. . . ." And she 
 vanished into the house. 
 
VII 
 
 SON-IN-LAW AND FATHER-IN-LAW 
 
 Freddy Bejard, the newly elected deputy, gave 
 his political friends the great dinner postponed by the 
 sacking of his house and the effervescence of the 
 masses. 
 
 The disturbance had not lasted. The next day 
 the peaceful bourgeois, whom the tumult had kept 
 awake and shaking with fear in their beds, began 
 to make the principal mansions ravaged by the popu- 
 lace the object of their promenades. And since the 
 rich did not hesitate to impute these acts of vandalism 
 to Bergmans, notwithstanding his protestations and 
 energetic disavowals, Freddy Bejard benefited by 
 the indignation of sober-minded and scrupulous 
 citizens. 
 
 The newspapers, having been importuned by Du- 
 poissey for weeks, published editorials dealing with 
 "law and order," "the hydra of civil war" and "the 
 specter of anarchy," with the result that many good 
 people of Antwerp, detesting Bejard and foreigners in 
 general, and inclining toward Bergmans, feared that 
 by continuing to support him they were encouraging 
 fresh disorder. 
 
 As it was incumbent upon the city to indemnify 
 the victims of the mob, Bejard lost nothing, in 
 
 176 
 
SON-IN-LAW AND FATHER-IN-LAW 177 
 
 a financial way, and made a profit by overestimating 
 the value of the havoc. 
 
 So that it was in a repainted and refurnished man- 
 sion, costlier than ever, showing no traces of the run- 
 ners' visit, that monsieur de depute feasted his trusty 
 friends ; his colleagues of the Antwerp "bench" in par- 
 liament, his equals the rich; Dobouziez, Vanderling, 
 Saint-Fardier senior and the two young Saint-Fardier 
 couples. Van Frans and the other Vans, the Peeters, 
 the Willems, the Janssens, not omitting the indispens- 
 able Dupoissy. 
 
 The beautiful Madame Bejard presided at the din- 
 ner. She was more beautiful than ever. She was 
 loaded with compliments and congratulations, and Du- 
 poissy could not lift his glass without looking gallantly 
 at Madame la representante. 
 
 In truth, however, Madame Bejard was profoundly 
 unhappy. 
 
 Her husband, whom she had never loved, she now 
 detested and scorned. For a long time past their house- 
 hold had been a living hell; but her pride made her 
 suffer tortures, and she succeeded in acting so cleverly 
 before the world that she fooled all the gossips. 
 
 She knew that her husband was maintaining an Eng- 
 lish ballet girl, a great, common, vulgar woman who 
 swore like a trooper, smoked cigarettes until they 
 burned her fingers, and drank gin by the bottle. 
 
 Virtuous and upright, proud, but possessing a char- 
 acter to which any slovenly actions were repugnant* 
 Gina had been forced to put up with her husband's 
 cynical confidences. The infamy of the private and 
 public life of the people of her world had been re- 
 vealed to her by this aspirant. And, suddenly, she had 
 seen clearly through this society, so brilliant from the 
 
178 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 outside ; she understood Bergmans' intransigeance, she 
 loved him for it so deeply that she, the proud Gina, 
 espoused the cause of this revolutionary, or, as her 
 husband termed him, this king of the wastrels, in the 
 very depth of her heart. 
 
 And during the trouble, when she had met Laurent 
 Paridael, she had been aloof and bantering because it 
 was habitual, because of a certain reserve, because of 
 a last false shame that prevented her from letting him 
 know that she had been converted to the benevolent 
 sentiments which she had so despised and carped at in 
 him. 
 
 In reality, at the time of the election she had prayed 
 ardently for Bergmans' success and cursed her hus- 
 band's good fortune. So much so that the looting of 
 their house on that evening of popular fury had cor- 
 responded with her mood of weariness, vexation and 
 failure. But as she was never to be Bergmans' wife 
 she would keep such feelings sealed in the bottom 
 of her heart. She was living only for her son, a baby 
 a year old, who was the image of her, and for her 
 father, the only rich person she still loved and believed 
 in. Those little sirens, Angele and Cora, continued to 
 waste effort in trying to inculcate in Gina their own 
 special philosophy: to take life as though it was a 
 perpetual pleasure party, never to conjure up dreams 
 or ideals, to attach one's self but moderately so that 
 detachment would be easy, to profit by youth and the 
 smile of opportunity, to close one's eyes to all sad- 
 ness and pain. They were at the dinner, alluring, in 
 evening gowns, their bodies prepossessing, laughing 
 and rattling like plants vivacious in the conquering 
 breath of summer; bawling, cackling, irritating their 
 neighbors, and from time to time darting a conniving 
 
SON-IN-LAW AND FATHER-IN-LAW 179 
 
 glance to one side of the table or the others. It was 
 very naive of their friend Gina to harbor blue devils 
 and black butterflies ! 
 
 Madame Bejard, suffering from an excruciating 
 headache, presided with irreproachable tact over this 
 dinner that seemed never to come to an end. 
 
 What would she have not given to retort to the 
 calumny which, in order to flatter her husband, his 
 friends, led by Dupoissy, were sprinkling upon the 
 reputation of Bergmans! 
 
 " — Oh ! very funny, very delicate ! Did you under- 
 stand it?"' 
 
 And Dupoissy hurried to repeat the little scandal in 
 veiled language. If Gina were not enthusiastic over 
 It she must at least approve it with a smile or a nod. 
 
 Bejard was trying the fit of his new role. He was 
 talking jargon in imitation of his colleagues, speaking 
 at length of reports, investigations, commissions, 
 budgets. 
 
 Dobouziez spoke even less than usual. The 
 knowledge of his daughter's unhappiness had aged 
 him. It was useless for her to pretend that she was 
 happy and contented; he loved her too deeply not to 
 feel intuitively what she was concealing. A year ago 
 he had become a widower; his hair had whitened, his 
 chest did not swell as proudly as it used to, his shoul- 
 ders bent slightly. One would have thought, to see 
 him, that some of his problems had remained unsolved, 
 or that the algebraist had found their solutions incon- 
 sistent. 
 
 After dessert, the hostess was asked to sing. Re- 
 gina still possessed a beautiful voice, supple and power- 
 ful as it had been that night at Hemixem, but made 
 richer by the expression, the melancholy and the charm 
 
i8o THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 of maturity that had invested her formerly too serene 
 face. And she did not sing the bounding wahz from 
 Romeo tonight, but an ample and passionate melody 
 of Schubert, the Adieu, 
 
 Sitting alone in a corner, Dobouziez was hang- 
 ing upon the sound of his daughter's voice, when he 
 felt a hand upon his shoulder. He jumped. And Be- 
 jard whispered : 
 
 "Let's go into my study for a moment, father-in- 
 law. I have something to say to you. . . ." 
 
 The manufacturer, a little disappointed at being thus 
 torn away from one of the few distractions that re- 
 mained to him, followed his son-in-law, filled with dis- 
 may at the strange intonation in his voice. 
 
 When they were seated opposite each other in front 
 of his desk, Bejard opened a drawer, rummaged 
 through a set of pigeonholes, and handed a file of pa- 
 pers to Dobouziez. 
 
 "Will you kindly take note of these letters?" 
 
 He leaned back in his arm-chair, his fingers drum- 
 ming upon the leather pads, while with his eyes he 
 followed the impression made by the letters reflected 
 in Dobouziez's face. 
 
 The manufacturer's face fell; he paled and his lips 
 moved convulsively. Suddenly, he broke off reading. 
 
 "Will you please tell me what all this meai^s?" he 
 said, looking at his son-in-law with more distress than 
 anger. 
 
 "Simply that I am ruined, that in a month, or per- 
 haps two weeks, I shall be proclaimed a bankrupt. . . . 
 If you do not come to my assistance ..." 
 
 "To your assistance!" And Dobouziez flew into 
 a passion. "You wretch! Have I not already 
 plunged myself in difficulties from which I cannot re- 
 
SON 'IN -LAW AND FATHER-IN-LAW i8l 
 
 trieve myself ? And at this very minute, isn't the dis- 
 aster that is striking you carrying me down with you ? 
 You must be mad, or very brazen, to look to me again !'* 
 
 "Nevertheless, you had better get busy, sir. ... Or 
 perhaps you would rather be known as the father-in- 
 law of an insolvent man? But you haven't finished 
 reading those letters. Please continue. You will see 
 that it merits at least some reflection. . . . Admit that 
 it's not my fault. The failure of Smithson and Co., 
 of New York! Such a well-estabHshed bank! Who 
 could have foreseen that ? And those copper mines at 
 Sgreveness; the shares have dropped to twenty below 
 par ! But it was not I who persuaded you into it ! Be 
 fair, and remember your confidence in that little en- 
 gineer, your brother genius, who offered to let you in 
 on the business ! . . ." 
 
 "Keep quiet!" interrupted Dobouziez. "For 
 heaven's sake, stop! What about those wild specula- 
 tions in coffee that swallowed up your wife's dowry 
 in less than four days ? I suppose you went into them 
 on my advice, too! And that gamble in the public 
 funds, in which you made use of Dupoissy! Maybe 
 you think that the fellows on the Exchange are stupid 
 enough to suppose for one minute that the hundred or 
 two hundred thousand francs above the market paid 
 by that lamb, who never had any wool of his own, came 
 out of his own pocket ! And that boot-licking rascal is 
 very quietly letting go of you. You ought to hear 
 how he talks about you behind your back ! You have 
 succeeded in nauseating even that nobody ! On the ex- 
 change he doesn't hesitate to say out loud what he 
 thinks of your new . . . industry, the emigration 
 agency, which will involve you, in all probability, in 
 trouble with the courts ! Shame on you 1" 
 
i82 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "Sir! . . ." said Bejard, jumping to his feet; 
 "Dupoissy is a blackmailer whom I shall put in 
 jail!" 
 
 But without even listening to the interruption, Do- 
 bouziez was continuing: 
 
 "And you have gone from bad to worse ! To stoop 
 to becoming a dealer in human flesh! Really, I am 
 beginning to believe the stories that they tell about 
 you. First dealing in negroes, then in whites ; it's quite 
 proper ! On my word of honor, I don't know which 
 I should rather have, a slave-dealer or an emigration 
 agent. You haven't even had enough shame to change 
 the name of the "Gina," which now carries off all those 
 poor wretches to Buenos Aires! And your political 
 jobbery ! I suppose that I borrowed from your cash- 
 register all the goldpieces and banknotes with which 
 you had yourself elected deputy. ... I don't have to 
 remind you with how much enthusiasm and sin- 
 cerity! . . ." 
 
 And, terrible, regaining the commanding air and 
 bitter tone of other days, Dobouziez threw all his griev- 
 ances in his son-in-law's face. 
 
 "And as if all this were not enough," he continued ; 
 "not content with having stupidly ruined yourself, 
 and having lost with criminal laxity the property of 
 your wife and child, you are making Gina unhappy; 
 you not only sacrifice her to your political ambition, 
 but you have mistresses, too . . . you have to keep ac- 
 tresses . . . with the excuse that it's a man's privi- 
 lege ! And that's not all. The houses of ill-fame in the 
 Riet-Dijk have no customer as frequent and as prodi- 
 gal as Deputy Bejard ! Look here ! If I could follow 
 my own inclination, I should take Gina and her child 
 home with me, and I should let you give yourself all 
 
SON-IN-LAW AND FATHER-IN -LAW 183 
 
 your parliamentary airs before the empty cash-box 
 and exhausted credit. . . ." 
 
 'Your daughter! You had better talk about your 
 daughter!" sneered Bejard, pulling and chewing his 
 reddish whiskers with temper. "Do you reckon as 
 nothing Madame's whims and her unreasonableness? 
 Damn it ! I had to resort to speculation and lucrative 
 business to meet her harlot's luxury. My income as a 
 ship-owner would never have been enough. But that 
 was to be expected, after the splendid education you 
 gave her !" 
 
 "Why did you take her away from me, then ?" asked 
 Dobouziez. "I was happy and proud to see her well- 
 dressed, radiant, surrounded by things that were ex- 
 pensive, but to her taste. Oh! if I had had to pay 
 only for her clothes and her pleasures, her jewels and 
 little ornaments, monsieur, do you hear me, my funds 
 would not be as low as they are now, since I have had 
 to defray the bills of your political sport, and cover 
 your stupid and extravagant expenses with my signa- 
 ture. You had better not talk to me about what it has 
 cost me; wasters and spenders like you don't let me 
 off so cheap. They take everything away from me; 
 even my reputation ! . . ." 
 
 And Dobouziez, exhausted, let himself fall into an 
 armchair. 
 
 Bejard had been listening almost all the while, 
 tramping up and down the floor, whistling softly at 
 the most lashing truths. 
 
 Upstairs in the drawing rooms, the voice of Madame 
 Bejard, low, rich and melancholy, continued to re- 
 sound. And her voice stirred the manufacturer to the 
 depths of his heart. For though his probity and his 
 prudence as a business man suffered because he had 
 
i84 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 been so mistaken in his son-in-law's commercial fac- 
 ulty, Dobouziez was especially bitter with himself for 
 having exposed the honor and the fortune of his 
 daughter to the risks of this marriage. 
 
 Dobouziez had hoped for a divorce, but the child 
 had come, and the mother feared that it would be 
 taken away from her. In rehearsing the difficulties of 
 his own situation, the manufacturer had not exag- 
 gerated. For a long time the factory had been losing 
 money; it gave employment to but half its former 
 staff. Dobouziez had drained his resources completely 
 ten times to finance Bejard's deals. The suspension 
 of payment of the American house, of which Bejard 
 had received notice, affected him also. How would 
 he meet this new complication? He could get out of 
 the mess himself only by mortgaging the factory and 
 his property. 
 
 But could he allow his daughter's husband, the 
 father of his grandson and godson, to be declared a 
 bankrupt? 
 
 Bejard waited his answer in silence. He had let 
 him argue and vent his wrath, and now he was read- 
 ing in the old man's contracted face the conflicting 
 emotions that were struggling for mastery within 
 him. When he thought the time had come to take 
 up the subject once more, he resorted to his cloying 
 tone of a crafty Jew. 
 
 "No more of these recriminations, father-in-law," 
 he began. "And even though we throw our wrongs, 
 real or fancied, in each other's faces for hours, what 
 good is it going to do ? Let's talk little, but keep to the 
 point. It isn't so desperate, hang it all ! It will come 
 through all right if you don't persist in plunging me 
 further and further in the scrape into which I feel 
 
SON-IN-LAW AND FATHER-IN-LAW 185 
 
 myself sinking. I have figured up on this paper — 
 and you can take it away to verify my figures at your 
 leisure — that my debts and obligations will reach two 
 million francs. Please don't let's have any more elec- 
 tric shocks ... so that I may be able to explain the 
 situation to you! I have enough money myself to 
 liquidate the first four notes that mature, amounting 
 to about eight hundred thousand francs. That will 
 carry us until the first of next month. . . ." 
 
 "And then?'* 
 
 "And then I shall have to reckon upon you !'* 
 
 "Do you seriously believe that I am going to find 
 you over a million francs ?" 
 
 "I couldn't believe it any more seriously." 
 
 The same mortal and tense silence ensued, while 
 Gina, upstairs, continued singing the beautiful classic 
 German songs, accompanying herself at the piano. 
 Dobouziez put his forehead between his hands and 
 crushed it as if he wished to squeeze out his brain, 
 then relaxed suddenly, rose, clenched his fists, and 
 without letting Bejard know in any other way 
 what extreme measures he had resolved upon, he 
 said: 
 
 "Let me have two weeks to think it over . . . and 
 don't involve yourself any further between now and 
 then! . . .'' 
 
 Bejard understood that his father-in-law would save 
 him, and came toward him, his hand outstretched, 
 smothered in sweetish formulas of gratitude. 
 
 But Dobouziez drew back, swinging his hands 
 sharply behind his back. 
 
 "Useless! ... If you are really capable of some 
 gratitude, you owe it to Gina and the baby. ... If it 
 had not been for them !...*' 
 
i86 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 He did not finish, but Bejard, not lacking perspicac- 
 ity, did not persist. 
 
 They both went upstairs into the drawing rooms, 
 pretending to carry on a trifling conversation. 
 
 Dobouziez started to go home. Gina went with 
 him to the hall, helped him into his coat, and then of- 
 fered him her forehead. Dobouziez kissed it linger- 
 ingly, took her head in his hands, and looked at her 
 with pride and tenderness. 
 
 "Would you be happy, darling, to live with me 
 again?" 
 
 "How can you even ask that?" 
 
 "Very well; if you are very good, and especially if 
 you recover a little of your former gaiety, I shall ar- 
 range to come and live with you here. But keep my 
 intentions secret. Goodnight, girl. . . ." 
 
VIII 
 DAELMANS-DEYNZE 
 
 At the end of one of the riverside streets in the 
 Marche-aux-Chevaux, where great cold mansions, the 
 homes of patrician famiUes, are unwilling neighbors 
 to the offices and stores of wholesale merchants, the 
 scene of the continual passage to and fro of a pros- 
 perous crowd, — there runs a tawny wall, crumbling to 
 dust beneath the weight of two centuries, but massive 
 enough to do service for many years to come. 
 
 Midway along the wall a great carriage entrance 
 leads to a vast courtyard enclosed upon three sides by 
 buildings that date back to the time of Archduke Al- 
 bert and Isabella, but which, during the intervening 
 centuries, have undergone the rebuilding and restora- 
 tion made necessary by their modern destiny. 
 
 One of the heavy black doors bears a large brass 
 plate, conscientiously polished, upon which one may 
 read in tall letters : J. B. Daelmans-Deynze & Cie. The 
 engraver had wanted to add, "Colonial produce." But 
 why? It had long been established in Antwerp, as 
 surely as two and two are four, that Daelmans-Deynze, 
 the only Daelmans-Deynze, had been in colonial p'rod- 
 uce, father and son, since the Austrian domination, 
 perhaps even as far back as the glories of the Hansa, 
 
 187 
 
i88 NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 If one passed through the carriage entrance, as 
 dark as a tunnel in the fortifications, and came into the 
 courtyard, one first saw an alert, but stout, old man, 
 ruddy, with thin twisted legs that were buttressed more 
 than was actually necessary, but which were in constant 
 movement He was Pietje the door-keeper, Pietje de 
 kromme — the knock-kneed, as the clerks and journey- 
 men of the firm irreverently called him. But Pietje 
 took no umbrage at the name. As soon as he saw you, 
 he would take off his black cap with the lacquered peak 
 and, if you asked for the head of the firm, he would 
 say, according to the hour of the day . . . "At the 
 back, in the house, if you please, sir ;" or, "To the right, 
 in his ofiice, at your service." 
 
 The courtyard, paved with solid bluestone, was gen- 
 erally obstructed by bags, cases, casks, barrels, demi- 
 johns, and leather bottles of all colors and dimensions. 
 
 But Pietje, amused by your frank expression of 
 surprise, would tell you that all this was but a minor 
 warehouse, a stock of samples. 
 
 "At the Saint-Felix warehouse, or on the docks at 
 the Old Basins, you can see some of the merchandise 
 imported or exported by Daelmans-Deynze !" 
 
 Heavy trucks, drawn by the enormous horses of the 
 Nations, their powerful flanks glistening, waited in 
 the street to be loaded or unloaded. Van Liere, 
 the warehouse-keepeer, thin and lanky in his jacket, 
 clean-shaven, with the eye of a customs-inspector, a 
 pencil and notebook in hand, was taking notes, adding 
 figures, filling out blanks, seizing way-bills, looking 
 over invoices, occasionally jumping, with the agility of 
 a squirrel, upon a pile of merchandise, the condition 
 of which he was examining, ejaculating questions, re- 
 proving his assistants, hurrying the truckmen in a 
 
DAELMANS'DEYNZE 189 
 
 language as unintelligible as Sanskrit to one uninitiated 
 into the mysteries of colonial produce. 
 
 The dockers, huge fellows with the build of antique 
 gods, wearing leather aprons, the muscles of their 
 bare arms twisting like strands of a cable, flushed, 
 hurried, lifted the huge bales with lively cries, and, 
 having balanced the burden upon their shoulders, 
 seemed to be carrying only a load of feathers. The 
 truckman, in blue blouse, brown-ribbed corduroy trou- 
 sers, his felt hat misshapen and discolored by the rain, 
 was listening respectfully to Van Liere's observa- 
 tions. 
 
 "Minus, move a little! Let the gentleman pass," 
 said this potentate with a smile of condescension, see- 
 ing your embarrassing situation in the wink of an eye, 
 as you were striding over bags and cases, not knowing 
 how your gymnastics were to end. 
 
 One of the giants removed, as if with the back of his 
 callous hand, a tormenting barrel, and with the 
 *Thank-you" of a rescued castaway, you finally pushed 
 a door in the corner made by the street wall and the 
 right-hand building, a door on the glass pane of which 
 was the word "Offices." 
 
 But you entered only the waiting-room. 
 
 A new swarm of people. Cheer up! The leather- 
 padded door leading to the inner rooms slid silently. 
 Twenty tireless pens were grinding on the thick paper 
 of the account books, or brushing over the tissue on 
 which letters were duplicated; twenty bookkeeper's 
 desks, back to back, extended in a line down the whole 
 length of a room, lit from the court, by six tall win- 
 dows; twenty clerks perched on as many stools, their 
 sleeves protected by paper cornucopias, their noses bu- 
 ried in work, seemed not to have perceived your 
 
190 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 intrusion. You coughed, not daring a direct ques- 
 tion. 
 
 "Foreign business, sir?" "Correspondence?" 
 "Cashier?" "Corinthian goods?" "Dates?" "Prunes?" 
 "Olive Oil?" the heads of these diverse departments 
 asked you mechanically, without even looking up, until 
 you reached the end of the line. 
 
 "No!" you would answer to the least imposing of 
 this staff, a young man with the polite air of a novice, 
 the office boy, clad in trousers too short for his long 
 body, his arms doing a perpetual steeple-chase with 
 the sleeve of his jacket, beating the short-winded goods 
 by the length of a hand, a wrist, or part of a fore- 
 arm. 
 
 "No !" you said, "I would like to speak to Monsieur 
 Daelmans " 
 
 "Daelmans-Deynze," the terrified young man would 
 answer. "Monsieur Daelmans-Deynze ... the door 
 right ahead of you. Let me go first, please. He may 
 be busy. Your name, please, sir?" 
 
 Finally, the last formality having been complied 
 with, you advanced, skirting the line of desks, and 
 passing in review the twenty clerks, fat and lean, 
 chlorotic or pimpled, pale or ruddy, blond or dark, 
 varying from sixty to eighteen — the age of the dis- 
 tressed young man — but all equally busy, profoundly 
 disdainful of the profane motive that brought you, a 
 simple observer, an artist, an intermittent worker, into 
 this environment of incessant activity, one of the sanct- 
 uaries consecrated to Mercury of the winged feet. 
 
 And it was hardly worth while for Monsieur Lynen, 
 the old cashier, to raise his bald head and gold specta- 
 cles as you went by, or for Monsieur Bietermans, sec- 
 ond to him in importance, the correspondent for foreign 
 
DAELMANS-DEYNZE 191 
 
 languages, to adjust his Japanese eyeglasses on his 
 diplomatically curved nose to ogle you for a second. 
 
 But did these supernumeraries count, now that you 
 were admitted to the presence of the supreme head of 
 the firm? He had bid you enter in his sonorous 
 voice. He was there before your eyes, this man, solid 
 as a pillar, a pillar maintaining upon its shoulders one 
 of the oldest houses in Antwerp. He has looked you 
 up and down with blue-grey, clear eyes, without im- 
 pertinence; in a single glance he gauges his man as 
 quickly as he transacts a bit of business on the Ex- 
 change; his eyes contain both compass and plummet; 
 he knows what stuff you are made of, and can tell, 
 with the certainty of a touchstone, if you are pure gold 
 or but gold plate. 
 
 A terrible man for uneasy consciences, or for spec- 
 ulators, this Daelmans-Deynze ! But a judicious 
 friend, an amiable protector and a reliable support for 
 honest people, and you must be one, for he has ten- 
 dered his large hand heartily, and grasped yours. 
 
 His pen behind his ear, his mouth smiling, his face 
 frank and cordial, he listens to you, punctuating your 
 polite phrases with the kind, "Very well, thank you," 
 of a man who knows that one interests oneself only 
 in what concerns one. His health ? You inquire as to 
 his health. Could anyone carry fifty-five years more 
 lightly than he? His hair is correctly cut, and divided 
 by an irreproachable part ; it is becoming grey, but has 
 not yet deserted his fine head; later on it will be a 
 white aureole, and lend an added attraction to his sym- 
 pathetic face. His long, dark whiskers, which he keeps 
 fingering mechanically, are beginning to show a few 
 white hairs, but they are very aristocratic-looking as 
 they are. And his forehead ; can the slightest wrinkle 
 
192 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 be discovered there? Is not his rosy complexion the 
 healthiest of colors, the complexion of a man without 
 any rancor, with a well-balanced temperament as far 
 removed from consumption as it is from apoplexy? 
 Daelmans-Deynze does not even wear spectacles. A 
 little folding eyeglass is suspended from a cord worn 
 around his neck. But that is but a simple fad. It ren- 
 ders him as little service as the charms that hang from 
 his watch chain. His clothes are sober and fashion- 
 able. Very dark suits and very white linen are his 
 sole indulgence in the matter of dress. Tall, large 
 of shoulder, he holds himself as straight as a die, or 
 rather, as we have already said, as a pillar upon which 
 reposes the interests of one of the oldest houses in 
 Antwerp. 
 
 Worthy Daelmans-Deynze ! In the street, he has to 
 bow at every step. From children on their way to 
 school to factory hands, everyone doffs their hat to 
 him. Even to the old and aristocratic Baron Van der 
 Dorpen, who salutes him, often the first, with a 
 friendly, "Good morning, Monsieur Daelmans." It is 
 because his commercial escutcheon has never borne the 
 slightest stain. If you claim his acquaintance, no door 
 in the great business city, from Tete de Grue to Astru- 
 weel, will ever be closed to you. 
 
 In a matter that threatens litigation, it is with him 
 that both parties prefer to consult before seeking at- 
 torneys. How many times has not his arbitration 
 staved off ruinous lawsuits, or his intervention and 
 guarantee prevented disastrous failures! You ask 
 after his wife? . . . "She is very well, thank heaven! 
 I shall take you in to see her. You will take luncheon 
 with us, won't you? And in the meanwhile we shall 
 have a glass of sherry." 
 
DAELMANS-DEYNZE 193 
 
 He puts his great hand on your shoulder in sign of 
 possession ; you are his man, no matter what you may 
 do. Moreover, it is impossible to refuse so cordial an 
 invitation. He could take you directly from the office 
 to the house through a little secret door, but he has 
 still a few instructions to give to Messrs. Bietermans 
 and Lynen. 
 
 "A letter from our London correspondent?" asks 
 Bietermans, rising. 
 
 "Oh ! from Mordaunt-Hackey. . . . Yes, yes ! The 
 sugar business, no doubt! Please write him that we 
 abide by our conditions. Messieurs, I bid you a very 
 good day! . . . Who is going on the Exchange to- 
 day? You, Torfs? Then don't forget to speak to 
 Monsieur Barwoets. . . . Excuse me, my friend. 
 There! Now I am with you! . . ." 
 
 What an amiable man is Daelmans-Deynze ! 
 
 His orders were given in the paternal tone that made 
 his employes fanatic auxiliaries. 
 
 One of the causes of his popularity in Antwerp, 
 and that not the least cause, was that the firm em- 
 ployed only Flemish workmen, and especially natives 
 of Antwerp, while the majority of the great houses 
 gave preference to Germans. 
 
 The worthy sinjoor did not even wish to accept for- 
 eigners as volunteers. He did not shirk additional ex- 
 pense in order to give bread and butter to the young 
 men of Antwerp, the jongens van Antwerpen, as he 
 said, proud himself to be one of them. 
 
 The other merchants found this way of conducting 
 a business very eccentric. The Rhenish banker Fuch- 
 skopf shrugged his shoulders, and said to his com- 
 patriots residing in Antwerp, "Dot chap Taelmans is 
 making boetry," but the worthy Flamand did good and 
 
194 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 let others talk about it, and the Tilbaks spoke lovingly 
 of the patriotism of the millionaire at the Marche-aux- 
 Chevaux, and Vincent held this destiny before the 
 eyes of his little Pierket, a good student, "One day you 
 will enter the employment of Daelmans-Deynze." 
 
 He has led you to the end of the courtyard, and 
 into the house, the ancient facade of which is overrun 
 with ivy almost as old as the house itself. At the left, 
 opposite the offices, are the stables and coach-house. 
 You ascend four steps, and push open the great glass 
 door, canopied by a marquise. 
 
 "Josephine ! Here is a resurrected friend !" 
 
 And a hearty clap on the back from the hand of 
 your host brings you into the presence of Madame 
 Daelmans. 
 
 She has been working at a bit of crochet, but gives 
 vent to an exclamation of surprise, and goes into rap- 
 tures at the happy inspiration to which they owe your 
 visit. 
 
 If the husband is charming, and a splendid host, 
 what can be said of his wife? Pre-eminently the Ant- 
 werp housewife, she is solicitous, neat and diligent. 
 
 She is forty years old, this Madame Daelmans. 
 Strands of glossy black hair frame a merry face 
 wherein burn two dark, affectionate eyes, and whose 
 lips smile maternally. Her cheeks are plump, and the 
 color of a ripening apple. 
 
 The good lady is short, and complains that she is 
 beginning to be too stout. However, laziness is not 
 the cause of her corpulence. She rises at daybreak, 
 and is always on her feet, as active and busy as an ant. 
 She presides, so she says, over all the details of the 
 housekeeping, but what she does not tell is that she puts 
 her hand to all the work. Nothing goes quickly enough 
 
DAELMANS-DEYNZE 195 
 
 to suit her. She instructs her cook in the art of mak- 
 ing pot-au-feu repeatedly, and shows the chamber- 
 maid how the furniture must be dusted. She runs up- 
 stairs and down. She has hardly sat down and put 
 her hand upon the newspaper or the knitting that she 
 has just begun when she begins to worry about the 
 fate of the ragout simmering in the casserole, or the 
 store of pears in the cellar. Lise might have made too 
 big a fire, and Pier would forget to turn the fruit that 
 had begun to spot on one side. But she is never ill- 
 tempered; the good lady is vigilant without being a 
 meddler. She gives largely to the poor of the parish, 
 but does not tolerate the waste of the slightest crumb 
 of bread. 
 
 And how beautifully she maintains Daelmans- 
 Deynze's old house! In the great room into which 
 you have been led, you are not struck by new-fangled 
 styles, a flaming new set of furniture, paintings to 
 which the fashionable decorator has just given the last 
 hasty touch. No ; it is the substantial and simple room 
 which you imagined in seeing its owners. Their furni- 
 ture is not the companion of a day, bought in a moment 
 of caprice and to be replaced by another whim. There 
 are solid sofas and massive mahogany arm-chairs in 
 Empire style, upholstered in pistache green velour. 
 The upholstery is renewed from time to time with 
 jealous care, and the time-honored wood is conscien- 
 tiously polished; they are kept on like the old house- 
 hold servants, and will never be replaced. 
 
 The gilding of the mirrors, the picture frames and 
 the chandeliers has long ago lost its native gleam, and 
 the colors of the thick Smyrna carpet have been eaten 
 away by the sunlight, but the old family portraits gain 
 in intimacy and in a patriarchal poetry in their dulled 
 
196 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 gold frames, and the fleecy carpet has shed its shrill 
 colors; its striking bouquets have taken the tone of 
 September foliage. For many years past the huge 
 alabaster vases have filled out the four comers of the 
 vast room, the walls have been hung in the same Cor- 
 dovan leather, the round rosewood table has held the 
 center of the room, the ornamental clock with a vibrat- 
 ing and silvery tone has struck the hours from its po- 
 sition between the ten-branched bronze candelabras. 
 But these old things have an air of distinction about 
 them; they are relics of the penates. And the anti- 
 macassars and tidies, examples of Madame Daelmans* 
 diligent crochetting, hang upon the dull velour in the 
 severe and charming folds of altar-cloths. 
 
 It was to Daelmans-Deynze that William Dobouziez 
 presented himself on the morrow of Freddy Bejard's 
 political dinner. 
 
 The two men, comrades at college, had always highly 
 esteemed each other, and had seen each other fre- 
 quently for many years ; it was the too apparent lux- 
 ury, the flashy style of living, and especially the bust- 
 ling, cosmopolitan connections of the manufacturer 
 which had alienated Monsieur Daelmans from a col- 
 league whose solid knowledge, application and probity 
 he had deeply appreciated. At one time, indeed, they 
 had even seriously thought of going into partnership. 
 Daelmans had intended to invest his capital in the fac- 
 tory. But that had been at the time of Dobouziez's 
 greatest prosperity, and he had preferred to continue 
 as sole proprietor of the business. Today he came to 
 humbly propose that the merchant reconsider the prop- 
 osition. 
 
 Daelmans-Deynze had long known that the factory 
 was in jeopardy, he was no less ignorant of the sacri- 
 
DAELMANS-DE YNZE 
 
 197 
 
 fices incurred by Dobouziez in establishing his daughter 
 and helping out Bejard ; he could have exhibited a cer- 
 tain astonishment at such a proposition, and disparaged 
 the offer in order to obtain huge concessions ; but Dael- 
 mans-Deynze behaved with greater discretion and less 
 knavery. 
 
 At heart, he had no great desire to embarrass him- 
 self with a new business during a time of crisis and 
 stagnation, but he had divined, from the first words of 
 their interview, even from the measures upon which 
 Dobouziez had resolved to take, that Dobouziez was in 
 frightful difficulties, and Daelmans belonged to the 
 ever-diminishing class of business men who come to 
 each other's assistance. One may well admire the tact 
 with which Daelmans discussed the conditions of 
 the purchase. In order to set Dobouziez at his 
 ease he evinced no surprise, nor did he employ that 
 tone of compassion which would have so cruelly hurt 
 the manufacturer; he did not even insinuate that, if 
 he bought the factory, it would be only to oblige a 
 friend in need. Not a recrimination, not a reproach, 
 no air of superiority ! 
 
 What a good man was Daelmans-Deynze ! And his 
 kindheartedness did not prevent him from examining 
 and discussing the business at length. He knew how 
 to combine his interests and his generosity; he was 
 willing to oblige his friend, but upon condition of not 
 running into debt himself. What could be more equit- 
 able? It was both strictly businesslike and broadly 
 human. And they were about to finish the deal. 
 
 There remained one point which neither of them 
 wished to touch upon, although both had it at heart. 
 But Dobouziez was proud, and Daelmans, delicate. 
 Finally Daelmans resolved to take the bull by the horns. 
 
198 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "And, without being indiscreet, Monsieur Dobou- 
 ziez, what doj^ou plan to do now?" 
 
 Dobouziez hesitated to answer. He did not dare 
 express what he would have wished. 
 
 "See here," continued Daelmans, "you will re- 
 ceive my proposition as you understand it, and it is 
 agreed in advance that you will forgive me, if it ap- 
 pears to be inacceptable to you. . . . Well! If the 
 factory is to change proprietors, it would be disas- 
 trous for it to lose its director at the same time. Do 
 you understand me? I would even say that such an 
 eventuality would prevent me from buying it. Capi- 
 tal is replaced, money is made, or lost, or," he was 
 about to say "frittered away," but refrained, "is made 
 again. But what it is hard to find, and harder to re- 
 place, is a man of talent, intelligence, active, expe- 
 rienced; in short, a business man. . . . That is why 
 I am asking you. Monsieur Dobouziez, whether you 
 would find it inconvenient to remain at the head of a 
 business that you yourself built up, and that you alone 
 can maintain and improve. Do we understand one 
 another ?" 
 
 Did they understand each other! They could not 
 agree upon more favorable terms. It was precisely 
 the solution that Monsieur Dobouziez was hoping for. 
 
 Between men so honest and so upright, the salary 
 of the director was agreed upon with as great facility, 
 subject to the ratification of Saint-Fardier and the 
 minor shareholders ; a simple formality. It goes with- 
 out saying that Daelmans put the director's salary 
 at a respectably high figure. He even wished the di- 
 rector to continue his occupation of the house adjoin- 
 ing the factory. But the solitary father wished to go 
 and live with his daughter. 
 
DAELMANS'DEYNZE 199 
 
 Ah! nobody could have so completely assuaged the 
 bitterness and the humiliation which this sacrifice cost 
 Dobouziez ! Who could have believetf the merchant 
 capable of such delicacy and such fine shadings of 
 kindness ? Dobouziez was forced to admit it in the 
 bottom of his heart, so armored, proud, and inacces- 
 sible to emotions. And, as he was leaving M. Dael- 
 mans — his employer^ — as he was uttering some correct 
 formula of gratitude, he felt as if icicles were suddenly 
 melting in his breast, and thinking better of it, fell into 
 the arms of his friend, his saviour. 
 
 "Courage!" said the other, with his habitual sim- 
 plicity and heartiness. 
 
IX 
 
 THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
 
 One o'clock! The usual hour for the opening of 
 the Exchange is rung out by the clock, the last vestige 
 of the former, fire-gutted building, the diligent clock 
 which, when the flames had devoured everything 
 around it, and were pressing it most closely, persisted, 
 like a faithful servant, in dying on the field of duty 
 while giving the official time to the mercantile city.* 
 
 One o'clock! Hasten, laggards! Hurry and dis- 
 patch your lunch, take nothing but a mouthful, men 
 of affairs and of money ! Other combinations call you, 
 players of dominoes ! Finish sipping your coffee and 
 gulping down fine brandy! Put aside the news- 
 paper, concise though it may be, and printed for your 
 benefit ! Pay your checks and run, or beware the pen- 
 alty! 
 
 One o'clock! They pour in from all parts of the 
 city. The rich of today, the rich of tomorrow, and 
 the rich of yesterday, struggling against disaster, fight- 
 ing off ruin, millionaires who, having made hay while 
 the sun shone, have well stored their nests, and other 
 millionaires whose hay has flamed up like a rick 
 of straw ! 
 
 * The Antwerp Bourse burned down on the night of August 
 8, 1858. 
 
 200 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 201 
 
 Come, run, fly, miserable tools of Fortune! The 
 wheel is turning; catch at a spoke, try and control its 
 movement ! Watch them jostle and clamber over each 
 other to grip the fatal wheel, cling to it with the stub- 
 bornness of birds of prey, today on top, tomorrow 
 underneath ! The wheel turns and turns, and the axle 
 grinds and creaks. . . . And the creaking has a sin- 
 ister echo ! Crash ! 
 
 Since early in the morning brokers and hangers-on 
 have been coming and going, meeting each other in 
 the street, busy, excited, not stopping, barely exchang- 
 ing a greeting as dry as the ticking of their watches : 
 Time is money! Before evening the best friends do 
 not recognize each other. To buy or not to buy? That 
 is the question! drones the sordid Hamlet of commerce. 
 They see the universe only from the point of view of 
 "bid'' and "asked." Produce or consume; that is 
 all! 
 
 One o'clock ! Come, let the pack, avid for flesh, be 
 swallowed up by the four doors of the beautiful pal- 
 ace. With its magnificent arches bearing the emblems, 
 symbols and shields of all lands, beneath its arched 
 iron nerves, this Gothic monument, varied by Moorish 
 and Byzantine memories, half Aryan, half Semitic, 
 presents a compromise well worthy of the temple of 
 the god Commerce, the most furtive and versatile of 
 gods. 
 
 The rites have begun. The dull murmur of incan- 
 tations rises at times to an uproar. Standing up, 
 their hats on their heads as if in a synagogue, the 
 faithful are herding together and chattering. And 
 gradually the atmosphere becomes vitiated. One can 
 hardly see the metals or the coloring of the mural deco- 
 rations; the massive beams are drowned in a dense, 
 
202 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 misty fog of thick smoke! Filthy incense! Heads 
 look as though they were detached from bodies and 
 floating beneath the waves. 
 
 At first sight, as one comes upon this assemblage, 
 one thinks of conventicles and witches* sabbaths. 
 Never did a fen of thirsty frogs croak in so swelling 
 a chorus its prayer for rain. But these batracians im- 
 plore a heavy rain of gold. 
 
 Little by little one succeeds in being able to distin- 
 guish the various groups of business men and petty 
 traders. 
 
 In one corner is the place where the great whole- 
 sale merchants habitually congregate on the Exchange. 
 They transact business while affecting to talk of other 
 things, or transfer that responsibility to some assistant, 
 who, from time to time, comes up to the "boss" to re- 
 ceive orders. So does the plenipotentiary consult the 
 potentate. Here, enthroned, the billionaire magis, the 
 high-priests of finance, assert their sovereignty. 
 Themselves are pillars of commerce, as solid as the 
 columns of their temples. Philistine columns, alas, 
 over which even Samson could never prevail. Em- 
 ployes, proprietors, ship-owners, ship-brokers, bankers, 
 strut pompously, their hands in their pockets or 
 clasped behind their backs, talking little, talking of 
 gold, — actually and figuratively. Corpulent plutocrats, 
 formidable augurs, their sibylline predictions depress 
 or extend the credit of subordinate promoters. One 
 word from their lips enriches or ruins. The weather- 
 vane of chance is turned by their breath. Upon their 
 caprices depends the fluctuations of an universal mar- 
 ket. Their moons regulate these tides. With their 
 allies of other great cities, they possess the power to 
 deliver over the poor world to famine and war. 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 203 
 
 Successors to the Fuggers and Salviatis, to the super- 
 cilious members of the Hanseatic League whom a 
 richly apparelled convoy of heralds and musicians pre- 
 ceded each day to the Exchange, they traffic in em- 
 pires and peoples as simply as in rice and coffee; but, 
 should they lend money to kings, less pompous and less 
 artistic than the legendary Focker, they would not 
 throw upon a hearth fed with cinnamon-bark, the 
 bond of Caesar, their great debtor, but their honored 
 guest! In the old days they were patricians; today 
 they are but parvenus. 
 
 Bulls and bears consult as an infallible barometer 
 the wrinkles of their foreheads, the expression of 
 their lips, the color of their look. They are vicars of 
 the divinity symbolized by the five- franc note. 
 
 Thus, once when a frank talker so far forgot him- 
 self as to speak to the Rhenish Jew Fuchskopf about 
 a noble character, a genius insufficiently provided with 
 money, and to implore his aid for an unfortunate 
 whose plight would move any more or less human 
 mortal, the vile usurer, the dealer in souls, the pro- 
 vider of unsold shoes to the butchered soldiers of 
 recent wars, the insatiable shareholder whom coal 
 miners, caught by fire-damp, starved out by strikes, 
 fired upon by the troops, cursed in their agony; the 
 Jew drew from his pocketbook a shining five-franc 
 piece and, instead of consecrating it to an exceptional 
 charity, passed it two or three times beneath the nose 
 of his petitioner, pressed it lovingly between his twisted 
 fingers, moist as cupping glasses, drew it near his lips, 
 as though he were kissing a paten, and, slightly bend- 
 ing his knee, addressed this untranslatable orison to 
 the fetich: 
 
204 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "Achlieher Christ 
 Wo du nicht hist 
 1st lauter Schweinerei!" 
 
 Then, sneering, he replaced the offering in his purse 
 and enjoyed the discomfiture of the unlucky inter- 
 cessor, and the approbation of his hangers-on. 
 
 The exchange-brokers were loquacious and busy 
 after another manner than that of the high priests of 
 finance and commerce. Spruce and stylish, they 
 whirled and rushed about, wormed and crept into 
 crowds, gathering gold as they hovered. They were 
 the sacred dancers, and their pantomime was a part 
 of the ritual. 
 
 With a less dizzy locomotion, clad more soberly 
 and more stiffly, the stock brokers moved about, shufiF- 
 ling sheafs of certificates carelessly rolled in pocket- 
 books or old newspapers, and scrawling their memo- 
 randums on the back of an obliging customer. 
 
 Clad in lounging suits, merchandise-agents stored a 
 quantity of packages of samples in their pockets. One 
 made a little heap of Cheribon beans in the palm of 
 his hand so that the grocer whom he hoped to catch 
 and overreach could smell them from a distance. An- 
 other tried to persuade a customer of the superiority 
 of his tobacco, Kentucky or Maryland, and ended by 
 saddling another timid customer, who only wanted a 
 single hogshead, with the whole crop. 
 
 Each specialty, each article had its own location. 
 No one would have suspected the order lurking be- 
 neath this apparent confusion; the number of divi- 
 sions, classifications, subdivisions. Refiners, distillers, 
 importers of oil or rubber, customs-house brokers, in- 
 surance brokers occupied, from January first to Decern- 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 205 
 
 ber thirty-first, the few square feet assigned to them 
 without encroaching upon their neighbors. Anybody 
 familiar with the Exchange could play blind-man's- 
 buff in the middle of this anthill and with no difficulty 
 lay his hands upon any particular man whom he might 
 need. 
 
 The subject of the conversations, the business under 
 discussion, varied step by step. Proprietors of ships 
 discussed the clauses of a charter-party with their char- 
 terers. Bonders jabbered of schedules and warrants. 
 The air was full of barbarous and exotic phrases; 
 hundred-weights, primage, loans on bottomry. There 
 was talk of special felonies provided against by par- 
 ticular laws. A shipowner was complaining of the 
 barratry committed by his captains. Elsewhere some- 
 one was reckoning the total tax on navigation. A 
 shipper was consulting with his supercargo. Nautical 
 assessors were drawing up statements of damages. 
 
 His hat in his hand, the dean of a Nation was offer- 
 ing his services to an importer of live beef from Argen- 
 tina, and to another man who had received a cargo of 
 preserved meat from the same country. A custom- 
 officer was taxing the haes of one of the Nations with 
 fraud and irregularity, and they, in turn, were blam- 
 ing it upon the bonded merchant. 
 
 All around the ground floor, beneath the galleries, 
 there were lines of high desks from which the cal- 
 culators, figures turned men, climbed down only to 
 climb up again, as if struck with vertigo, making them- 
 selves hoarse bawling out quotations that the report- 
 ers from financial newspapers were hastily taking down 
 in their notebooks. 
 
 So many manoeuvres to arrive at a single result; 
 money ! One man had a taciturn, almost funereal air. 
 
2o6 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 and talked business with compunction; another was 
 treating Mercury lightly, and mixing into his jargon a 
 few shady stories. 
 
 Lightermen, owners of heurts and barges, their faces 
 brick-red, silver rings in their ears, stood at one side, 
 near the door, and, shifting from one foot to the other, 
 spat, chewed, played tricks on each other, and exhaled 
 a greasy odor as they waited for charterers. English 
 captains quarrelled, raising their voices as if they were 
 ordering a landing, and disagreeably annoying a 
 group of young fops and old beaus snubbed by some 
 speculators who, not far off, were whispering the lat- 
 est scandal, enumerating the instances of yesterday's 
 good luck, unveiling the secrets of the alcove and the 
 counting house, making up select pleasure parties for 
 the evening, and relieving the arid ritual of commerce 
 with stories of the boudoir and the greenroom. 
 
 "With their god-damns, they would make a saint 
 god-damn," declared the wittier of the two young 
 Saint-Fardiers, looking at the flashy sea-wolves, and 
 taking himself off as he said it. His brother left with 
 him, as radiant as if he had been responsible for the 
 joke. They were given time to withdraw some dis- 
 tance ; then the circle came together again. 
 
 "Their wives are going it a nice pace ! Til bet they 
 make their husbands 'god-damn!' Athanasius has 
 nothing to envy Gaston ; they look more alike than ever. 
 And everyone is asking which of the two is the more 
 duped. Have you heard about Cora's last escapade?" 
 
 "Our great Frederick Barbarossa ?" 
 
 "No — the robin has been jilted ! The military cap 
 has supplanted the hat !" 
 
 "A Belgian miltiary cap. . . .'' 
 
 "Or almost. . . ." 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 2^ 
 
 "That means the civic guard. . . ." 
 
 "Eureka!" 
 
 "I don't know. . . ." 
 
 "The excellent Pascal who knows no Greek. . . ." 
 
 "Van Dam, the Greek consul ? But he does not be- 
 long to the civic guard !" 
 
 "Who said anything to the contrary? O Pas- 
 cal .. . lamb ! It*s Van Frans." 
 
 "And is that all you know ?" asked a newcomer, De 
 Zater, the man who was always gloved. "What old 
 news ! Here's something really new. Lucretia, the 
 impregnable Lucretia . . ." 
 
 "Well, what about her?" 
 
 ". . . has ended up by imitating her little fool 
 friends. . . ." 
 
 "With whom? . . ." 
 
 "With her husband's new partner, the Senor Vera- 
 Pinto, a Chilian, or Terra-Fuegian, or Patagonian; I 
 don't rightly know which !" 
 
 "What! The imposter with whom Freddy Bejard 
 is undertaking the transportation of emigrants to Ar- 
 gentina, and who proposed the cartridge transaction 
 to him! Messieurs, doesn't this coincidence open up 
 new horizons to you, as they say at the Palace ?" 
 
 "You don't maintain that the husband is in con- 
 nivance with his wife, do you? They detest each other 
 too much for that !" 
 
 "Humph! Self-interest would bring them to- 
 gether. . . ." 
 
 "And their downfall is thus doubly warded off. For 
 I suppose you know that Papa Dobouziez is selling his 
 share of the factory, and even his house. . . . Hey, 
 Tolmech, what's the quotation on metals ?" 
 
 "What are you trumpeting there? Old Dobouziez, 
 
2o8 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 that rigid knave, that get yourself out as best you 
 can; sacrifice himself for some one else! For Be- 
 jardr 
 
 "So ! Perhaps you've all just come from the moon, 
 eh? There has been nothing else talked of but this 
 liquidation since early this morning, in the ofifices, on 
 the street-cars, at the harbor. . . ." 
 
 "Daelmans-Deynze is to become the proprietor of 
 the factory. Old Saint-Fardier is also quitting the 
 manufacture of candles. He is dropping the father- 
 in-law in order to become the son-in-law's silent part- 
 ner. Saint-Fardier is to replace Dupoissy, who lacks 
 'punch,' in the office of enlistment for America, and 
 he will take charge of the internal arrangements of the 
 ships. There are thousands and thousands of francs 
 waiting to be earned. They've announced the next 
 departure of the Gina with five hundred heads." 
 
 "Instead of ebony, Bejard is setting out to sell 
 ivory," concluded De Zater archly. 
 
 "By the way, De Maes, I'll take up those consols of 
 yours, whenever they're due. . . ." 
 
 "Dobouziez consented to remain as manager at the 
 salary of a cabinet minister, so the cashier at the fac- 
 tory told me. . . ." 
 
 "Two words. Monsieur De Zater, about the oils. 
 Shall I buy, or sell?" 
 
 "Sell! You are pretty green, Tobiel! Telegraph 
 without delay to Marseilles, and take on all you can 
 get hold of. . . ." 
 
 "And that deal in coffee; I'm sending two hundred 
 bales to Brand Brothers, of Hamburg, on the Feld- 
 marschall, and at the same time, I've told my broker 
 to buy leathers with the proceeds. . . ." 
 
 "Gentlemen, I hare the honor . . . De Zater, I'm at 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 209 
 
 your service. . . . You were talking about the great 
 self-denial of Dobouziez?" 
 
 "No, that's too much for me ! . . . One isn't hon- 
 est to that point." 
 
 "Honest !" sneered Brullekens, the maniac who had 
 his small change cleaned every morning; "you would 
 use another word, eh, Fuchskopf ?" 
 
 "That Taelmans-Teynze, vot a queer chap he iss! 
 An artist! Dummes Zeugl hauler Schweinerei! 
 Yes, you're lying!" 
 
 "Always explicit, these Teutons! . . . But, De 
 Zater, to come back to Lucretia and her admirer . . ." 
 
 "What is that cartridge transaction ?" 
 
 "Some highway robbery at the least !" 
 
 "Not bad, that!" 
 
 "Well, this is what it is : Bejard, the unique Bejard, 
 himself and always himself, has just bought from the 
 last Chilian dictator, and through the agency of and 
 in partnership with Senor Vera-Pinto, a balance of 
 fifty million cartridges, withdrawn from use as a con- 
 sequence of the reforms of their armament. It ap- 
 pears that the worthy pair of friends acquired these 
 refuse munitions for a song. . . . But our clever Be- 
 jard counts on selling separately the powder, fulmin- 
 ate, lead and copper that he will get out of those cart- 
 ridges, and realizing on the deal the neat profit of 
 over five hundred per cent." 
 
 "A stroke of genius!" decided all these players of 
 neat strokes, with as much admiration as envy; they 
 were constantly on the scent of an opportunity to make 
 fortunes over night, but never had such a simple means 
 occurred to them. Decidedly, Bejard might be a 
 scoundrel, but he was confoundedly clever, and could 
 teach them all a thing or two! 
 
2IO THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "Nevertheless, these difficulties remain," continued 
 Brullekens. "To bring that colossal lot of cartridges 
 here isn't all. It is necessary to declare them at the 
 customs-house, and then obtain the city's consent to 
 unload such a formidable cargo, amounting to between 
 two hundred and two hundred and fifty kilos of pow- 
 der; that is to say, enough to explode the whole of 
 Antwerp and its forts. The Regency will hesitate all 
 the more in such a litigious affair since Bergmans, 
 the vigilant agitator, Bejard's bitterest enemy, having 
 got wind of his intrigue, has not stopped intimidating 
 the Magistrate, and threatens Bejard and his marvel- 
 lous enterprise with the terrors of the anger of the 
 harbor dockers, who have not yet forgotten the affair 
 of the elevators. As unpopular as he is, Bejard has 
 offset Bergmans' fiery assaults by reminding the river- 
 side population, who are usually in want, of the easy 
 and lucrative work that his industry will procure them. 
 
 "He has promised the city administration to extract 
 a thousand kilos of powder from the cartridges every 
 day, so that the business will be finished at the end of 
 nine months. Moreover, he has bound himself to fur- 
 nish all guarantees, and to conform to whatever pre- 
 cautionary measures the authorities impose. And you'll 
 see — at heart I hope so, for the deal is too sublime — 
 that that devil of a fellow will overcome all the ob- 
 stacles raised up against him, and he will again make 
 a fool of the city, the province, the government, Berg- 
 mans' thunderbolts, and even the vox popuUT 
 
 A movement evidencing itself from group to group 
 near the west entry of the Exchange, near the corner 
 in which were located the stock brokers and specula- 
 tors, put an end to this edifying conversation. The 
 loud outbursts of a bitter argument outvoiced the usual 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 211 
 
 psalmody. The tumult and pushing became so great 
 that the wealthy Verbist, supreme admiral of a fleet 
 of twenty merchant vessels, deigned to inquire of his 
 broker the cause of the commotion. 
 
 "What is it all about, Claessens?" 
 
 "A shark whom they're calling for his margins, 
 sir. They say he's a pretty hard case !" 
 
 Verbist, his face puffed and bloated, wan as a drop- 
 sical star, smiled lugubriously, shrugged his shoulders 
 in a singular way, and, as a spectator who was ac- 
 customed to this species of execution, and who no 
 longer bothered about the bankrupts among his col- 
 leagues, did not ask the name of the hapless specula- 
 tor, but continued to pick his teeth with the greatest 
 possible comfort. 
 
 It was, however, the gentle, suave, unique Dupoissy 
 who was being so sharply taken to task. Chance had 
 willed it that he was to completely wreck himself on 
 the very day that Bejard, his master and employer, 
 was victoriously doubling the cape of ruin. 
 
 His intimacy with Bejard had given him faith in his 
 own star. And the satellite had believed himself a 
 planet. He had taken himself for an eagle, merely be- 
 cause he was volatile, had wished to fly with his own 
 wings. On the day that rumors of Bejard's imminent 
 discomfiture began to circulate, Dupoissy had dropped 
 him with the ease of a lackey. Moreover, Bejard, hav- 
 ing been apprised of the slimy creature's treason, did 
 nothing to retain him. 
 
 During Bejard's prosperity, Dupoissy had obtained 
 large commissions, and he, who had never before had 
 a penny to his name, either in his own country or else- 
 where, found himself in possession of a quite consider- 
 able capital. Instead of establishing himself, for in- 
 
212 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 stance, in the woollen or drapery business, in which 
 he claimed his competency was unrivalled, he risked 
 all he possessed in aleatory and long-winded ventures. 
 While Bejard stood over him, the gambler profited by 
 his advice and quit the game, if not without profit, at 
 least without serious losses. But, abandoned to his 
 own initiative, he allowed himself to be thoroughly 
 trimmed. Things came to such a pass that he neg- 
 lected the most elementary precautions; he hardly 
 even asked the state of the market. Persuaded of his 
 own genius, he speculated indiscriminately in foreign 
 exchange, in metals, in public funds and industrial 
 stocks. For a while he had been able to discount his 
 notes and to continue his short sales; then, one alter 
 another, the bankers had refused him credit, and, with 
 the exception of a few pigeons who were taken in 
 by his sweet and oily manner, his hypocritical talk, his 
 air of respectability, and who, taking his jeremiads for 
 truth, thought him a victim of Bejard, he had no one to 
 guarantee his signature but a few freebooters as badly 
 rated as himself. 
 
 The forbearance by which he had formerly benefited 
 was now costing him dear. 
 
 It happened that the day was one of huge liquida- 
 tion on the Exchange. The speculator, at the end of 
 his resources, had spent the morning in running from 
 ofBce to office, without finding anyone who would lend 
 him a penny. That did not at all deter him from show- 
 ing himself on the Exchange, exactly as usual, shin- 
 ing, curly, mild, greeting everyone hypocritically and 
 pretending not to notice the rebuffs and affronts that 
 he met with. Spying one of his partners whom he had 
 properly fleeced, he greeted him with his most capti- 
 vating smile, and began to converse with him, in a 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 213 
 
 sweetish voice and with enveloping gestures, about a 
 superlatively splendid (he liked those words) deal that 
 was to make them both rich. 
 
 This time he was unlucky. 
 
 "I wouldn^t ask anything better than to go in on a 
 new deal with you," the man answered; "but first, if 
 you don^t mind, we'll settle the little matter of the 
 French bonds. You know what I mean. For three 
 months you have put off paying up that little baga- 
 telle!'' 
 
 Dupoissy was still smiling as he replied: 
 
 "Why, of course ! Willingly, my dear fellow ! . . . 
 I was just about to ask you to stop in and see me this 
 evening. ... I only spoke to you about the new deal 
 because it is closely connected with the one we have 
 just finished; — so closely that we could very easily 
 combine them, I tell you. . . ." 
 
 "Excuse me," interrupted the other; "all that isn't 
 necessary. I've had enough of your continual com- 
 binations. Before I go in with you on any more deals, 
 I'd like to see the color of your money. . . ." 
 
 "Monsieur Vlarding!" exclaimed Dupoissy, giving 
 himself the air of an irreproachable man whose senti- 
 ments have been outraged. 
 
 "Tut, tut ! Don't 'Monsieur Vlarding* me ! All that 
 has nothing to do with the matter in hand. You are 
 going to pay me two thousand francs right now, in 
 exchange for this receipt !" 
 
 "But, my dear old friend, what a way to act, after 
 all these years of mutual confidence!" 
 
 "A truce to your protestations. I have but one word 
 to say to you : pagare, pagarei" 
 
 "And I repeat to you that I haven't so much money 
 about me I" muttered Dupoissy in an undertone, squeez- 
 
214 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 ing his companion's arm. "For heaven's sake, calm 
 down ... we are being overheard !" 
 
 A circle of people was, in fact, beginning to form 
 around them. To the usual idle onlooking was added 
 a malignant curiosity, the expectation of a scuffle. 
 
 And the more Dupoissy tried to wheedle Vlarding, 
 the more did Vlarding yell: 
 
 "For the last time. Monsieur Dupoissy, are you 
 ready to pay me the two thousand francs you owe me ?" 
 
 "When I have them !" let fly Dupoissy, decidedly at 
 his wits' end. 
 
 Vlarding jumped like a burned dog. 
 
 "What are you saying?" he cried in the face of the 
 insolvent debtor. 
 
 Other dupes now joined the chorus with Vlarding. 
 Each one was claiming his debt. 
 
 "Will pay! Won't pay," chanted the crowd hilar- 
 iously, stamping with fierce joy. 
 
 "Messieurs, my good sirs, let me go, I beg you! 
 I'm a French citizen, and I shall call my country's con- 
 sul. It's an indignity . . ." 
 
 "Have you finished?" jeered the young Saint-Far- 
 diers. "Shame upon the deserter! Shame upon the 
 man of Sedan! Shut your trap! To the door with 
 him!" 
 
 But the creditors were getting angry and threaten- 
 ing him with their fists, canes and umbrellas. Vlard- 
 ing has just knocked his hat off. 
 
 "No! No! No violence!" the majority of the on- 
 lookers interposed hypocritically. "Let the pleasure 
 last!" 
 
 Trembling with fear, haggard, livid, perspiration 
 and melting pommade rolling down his forehead and 
 ears, the big man did not budge. But, not having the 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 215 
 
 luck of a polecat, his odor did not keep his enemies 
 at a distance ! How should he escape from their com- 
 bined efforts? The signal had been given. They 
 would not hit him ; they confined themselves to jostling 
 him. The game had rules consecrated by many earlier 
 precedents. More than one dishonest speculator had 
 been served in the same way. Their hands plunged 
 in their pockets, the tyrants used only their elbows, 
 knees and backs. Just so do the waves roll and cast 
 about a castaway, tormenting him everywhere, and 
 pitch him from one to the other, doing him the least 
 possible injury. 
 
 Dupoissy was indeed a shipv/recked man ! 
 
 He was whirled from right to left, pitched for a 
 moment or two in one direction, then tacked about 
 fantastically. Hardly had one crowd of his torturers 
 flung him forth than another shoved him back. 
 Again, he stood motionless, torn between two cur- 
 rents of equal force, almost reduced to pulp, three- 
 quarters exhausted. Those who were nearest him took 
 the risk of sharing his fate. 
 
 "Stop! Not so hard!" they cried to their com- 
 rades. 
 
 A carnivorous joy fed upon his distress. A single 
 cruel emotion possessed these hundreds of brokers 
 venting themselves upon an unskillful gambler, as if 
 they were college boys hazing a butt. And, as is 
 usually the case, those most in debt and most suspected 
 were the leaders of the orgy. 
 
 Gouty millionaires were represented by their brok- 
 ers or heirs. 
 
 The policemen watched discreetly. As long as the 
 victim^s skin was uninjured, and they limited the sport 
 to jostling him, the policemen had no authority to in- 
 
2i6 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 terfere. Tradition allowed the assembled business 
 men to punish a defaulting speculator in this fash- 
 ion. 
 
 Between the arcades of the first floor, leaning upon 
 the balustrades of the balcony, hanging over this ver- 
 itable arena, the little messenger boys were making 
 merry, not without evincing some astonishment at the 
 sight of bearded and usually well-regulated person- 
 ages playing pranks like rogues of their own age. 
 And they were racked by a desire to go down into 
 the crowd and participate in the savory sport. But, 
 notwithstanding the fact that the placid policemen 
 would not have granted them the immunity accorded 
 to the brokers, a feeling of terror and pity found its 
 way into the hearts of the boys; they still looked on, 
 wide-eyed, but they had stopped laughing. 
 
 The rough boatmen, so prone to buffet each other, 
 were petrified with amazement at the "fashionable gen- 
 tlemen's" unchained fury, and forgot to puff at their 
 short pipes or even to chew their quids. 
 
 None of Dupoissy's former friends, none of the 
 hosts who had in other days entertained him at their 
 tables, ran to his rescue. The more tender-hearted 
 among them, seeing what a critical turn the altercation 
 between Dupoissy and his creditors had taken, had 
 prudently stolen away, either for fear of being mixed 
 up in the scandal, or to spare themselves the sight of 
 so painful a scene. 
 
 During a raging storm a fishing smack tries to thread 
 its way through the narrow mouth of the harbor. The 
 skiff vainly strives to make its way, but each time the 
 helm bears it into the drift or threatens to break it 
 against the sea-wall. The human hurricane ensnared 
 the pitiable Sedanese in just such a fashion, and drew 
 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 217 
 
 him near one of the doors of safety only to send him 
 reeling inside, and in so doing shattered him almost to 
 pieces against the columns. 
 
 When, after many vicissitudes and a prolonged 
 agony, a strong propulsion sent him flying for a twen- 
 tieth time toward the entrance, a late-comer pushed 
 open the padded door. 
 
 "Hold the door open, Bejard!" roared Saint-Far- 
 dier, senior, who had enjoyed the game as much as an 
 Oxford lad enjoys a football match, as he mopped his 
 face. 
 
 Expensively clad, buttoned into an overcoat of irre- 
 proachable cut, a flower in his buttonhole, haughtier, 
 more poised and more the leader than ever, Bejard 
 realized the situation, and, having nothing more in 
 common with his former creature, wishing above all 
 to show that he had utterly repudiated him, he cere- 
 moniously did as he had been told. 
 
 Drawing himself close up to the wall, he flung the 
 door wide to let the victim pass. His face shone with 
 a Satanic joy. Truly, he was a pretty sight, this mean 
 coward ! 
 
 On his part, Dupoissy recognized his former as- 
 sociate. To be mauled about before him was the last 
 straw, the supreme opprobrium. Frankly, he did not 
 merit this excess of ignominy. He concentrated all 
 that he had left of energy, fire and vital force in one 
 look of cruel malice, a mute imprecation. A toad, 
 crushed by a clodhopper's boot, must dart forth such 
 a look as he gave. Bejard never flinched beneath his 
 fluid vindictiveness. On the contrary, nothing could 
 have flattered him more. Just as a final push was 
 speeding Dupoissy's flight, and he swept past Deputy 
 Bejard with the speed of a projectile, the latter made 
 
2i8 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the profound bow of a notary who receives an import- 
 ant visitor. 
 
 Dupoissy rolled like a torn package into the middle 
 of the street, between the two sidewalks. Bejard saw 
 him pick himself up, dust himself, and take himself 
 off, like a slug, keeping close to the walls of the houses. 
 
 Then, slowly and accurately, without paying any 
 further attention to the derelict, the great man released 
 the swinging door, and entered the temple where he 
 was being awaited by the felicitations and the homage 
 of a mob ready to treat him as they had treated Du- 
 poissy on the day that Fortune should cease to so 
 patiently choose him as her favorite. 
 
PART III 
 LAURENT PARIDAEL 
 
THE PATRIMONY 
 
 Laurent had just attained his majority, and the 
 manager of the factory had written him a strictly po- 
 lite letter asking him to call in at the office. Laurent 
 found his guardian just as he had left him four years 
 before, at least in respect to his manner, his bearing 
 and his greeting. His smooth, impassive face was 
 slightly wrinkled, his hair had become white, and he 
 held his commanding head a little less high. On the 
 desk, which the unlucky Swiss Family Robinson had 
 disgraced years before, were placed a sheaf of bank- 
 notes and a sheet of paper covered with figures aligned 
 in columns. 
 
 The manufacturer, always the man of business, 
 hardly replied to the "Good morning, cousin!" which 
 Laurent was trying to make as respectful and affection- 
 ate as possible. 
 
 "Kindly take notice of this sheet of paper and verify 
 the exactitude of the figures. It sets forth my ac- 
 count of my stewardship; on the one hand your in- 
 come ; on the other, the expenses of your maintenance 
 and education. You will concede that I have abstained, 
 as far as possible, from making any inroads upon your 
 little capital. 'When you have examined it, if you are 
 
 221 
 
222 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 satisfied, I beg that you will sign here. . . . You may 
 have a duplicate of it. . . ." 
 
 Laurent made a movement to seize the pen and sign 
 immediately. 
 
 Monsieur Dobouziez caught his arm, and said, in 
 his even voice : "None of that ! . . . You'll only dis- 
 please me. , . . Look it through, first." 
 
 Since he felt that v^ay about it, Laurent sat down at 
 the desk and pretended to attentively look over the ac- 
 count of transactions. While waiting, his guardian 
 turned his back upon him and looked out the window, 
 strumming upon the pane. 
 
 Laurent did not dare make too short work of his 
 sham verification. He waited ^yq. minutes, then risked 
 attracting his relative's attention. 
 
 "It is absolutely perfect, cousin 1'^ 
 
 And he hastened to affix his best signature to this 
 paper, drawn up so distinctly and with such minute de- 
 tail. 
 
 Dobouziez came back to the desk, blotted the re- 
 ceipted sheet, and locked it in a drawer. 
 
 "Good ! There is due you thirty two thousand, eight 
 hundred francs. Kindly see whether this is the cor- 
 rect amount.'* 
 
 Vexed and chagrined, Laurent started to pocket the 
 bills and the gold pell-mell. 
 
 "Count it, first," said Dobouziez, stopping him. 
 
 The young man again obeyed, even counted out loud ; 
 then, choking, before he came to the end of his reckon- 
 ing, he pushed away the neatly piled bills and cash 
 with an abrupt gesture. 
 
 "What's the matter? Is there an error?" 
 
 The ferociously honest man ! 
 
 Laurent would have liked to say to him : "Keep this 
 
THE PATRIMONY 223 
 
 money, guardian. . . . Place it yourself. I don't need 
 it, and will only spend it; it will get away from me 
 because I am not used to it. While you are the man 
 to manage and make use of it as it should be 
 done. . . ." 
 
 But he was afraid that the proud Dobouziez, accus- 
 tomed to playing with millions, would accept such an 
 offer of his laughable capital, the legacy of the late 
 Paridael, that poor clerk, as an insulting familiarity. 
 
 And yet with what good will Paridael, junior, would 
 have lent, or even given, the savings of the defunct 
 clerk to this employer of yesterday, himself become, 
 in his turn, a clerk. 
 
 "Come, hurry up!" repeated Dobouziez in an icy 
 tone, after having consulted his watch. 
 
 Laurent was compelled to take his money. He still 
 delayed going to the door : "At least, cousin, allow me 
 to thank you and to ask you . . ." he mumbled, push- 
 ing his conciliation to the point of repenting his in- 
 voluntary wrongs and reproaching himself for the 
 antipathy he had inspired, in spite of himself, in the 
 sage. 
 
 "All right! All right!" 
 
 And the imperturbable gesture and expression of 
 Dobouziez continued to repeat : "I have done my duty, 
 and I don't need anyone's gratitude !" 
 
 The transaction had been exact. The inheritance 
 had been administered in an irreproachable manner. 
 The result had been foreseen. Everything was fore- 
 seen ! 
 
 But the rational Dobouziez did not expect the 
 anomalous way in which the orphan was soon to testify 
 his gratitude ! He forgot, this perfect calculator, that 
 certain problems are capable of many solutions, 
 
224 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Otherwise he would perhaps have called back the young 
 man whom he was dismissing so categorically, and 
 would have said to him : "So be it, unfortunate child ! 
 Leave me your little hoard, and above all never con- 
 sider yourself the debtor of Gina and her father, the 
 fated avenger of my daughter. . . /' 
 
 Neither did Laurent suspect, at that moment, what 
 was going to happen, but, nevertheless, he felt a dumb 
 and thick distress rising in his heart. Before coming 
 to the factory, he had rejoiced in the idea of becoming 
 his own master, of possessing a real capital, almost a 
 fortune! . . . And now that he held these bank- 
 notes and this gold, they were burning his pocket and 
 disturbing him as if they did not belong to him. 
 Really, a thief could be no more anxious than this 
 gentleman of independent means. 
 
 He had been confident and cheerful after a different 
 fashion the last time he had parted company with his 
 guardian. What illusions and what hopes had he not 
 cherished, then! With the hundred francs that he 
 drew every month he had thought himself the richest 
 of mortals, and now that his fortune was figured in 
 thousands of francs, he had never been at such an utter 
 loss to know what to do with himself, so undecided, nor 
 had his mind ever been so agitated. 
 
 Arrived in the street, the Ditch seemed to him to be 
 exhaling a prophetic miasma: the Ditch itself was 
 turning against him ! Paridael scented occult menaces 
 in these emanations, but without being able to decipher 
 their vague presage. While waiting, his ill-humor re- 
 bounded upon the manufacturer. 
 
 "What an iceberg!" he murmured, feeling a shock 
 in every affectionate fibre. "He received me as if I 
 were the vilest of criminals. At the end, if I had not 
 
THE PATRIMONY 225 
 
 contained myself, I should have thrown the dirty 
 money in his face ... the dirty money !'* 
 
 And feeling very lonely, very much abandoned, 
 afraid of himself and dreading his first tete-a-tete with 
 his heavy fortune, the idea came to him to visit the 
 Tilbaks, so that he might dispel his black thoughts. 
 
 The other time, too, he had gone to them immedi- 
 ately after leaving the factory. Immediately regain- 
 ing his self-possession, his serenity half recovered, he 
 hurried along. As he walked he conjured up the vivi- 
 fying and salubrious environment in which he was 
 going to gain renewed vigor. 
 
 For some time past he had been neglecting his good 
 friends. Honorable scruples were the cause of this 
 apparent indifference. Henriette was no longer the 
 same toward him; not that her affection for him had 
 grown less, — quite to the contrary — but there was 
 something febrile and constrained in her manner that 
 made him think, without being in the least fatuous, that 
 he was the object of a more vibrant feeling than mere 
 fraternal friendship. But, incapable of forgetting the 
 superb Gina, Laurent feared to nourish this passion, 
 for which he could see no hope, for he would have 
 killed himself rather than abuse the confidence which 
 Siska and Vincent placed in him. 
 
 But today, as he wended his way toward The Cocoa- 
 nut and his spirit succumbed to a gracious reaction, 
 the image of Henriette appeared sweeter and more 
 touching than ever, and, at this evocation, he expe- 
 rienced, or at least encouraged himself to experience, 
 an inclination toward her less quiet and less platonic 
 than in the past. Why had he wandered for so long? 
 He held happiness in his hand. He could inaugurate 
 his new life and break with his old associations in no 
 
226 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 better way than by marrying the upright and whole- 
 some daughter of the Tilbaks. 
 
 The state of mind into which his interview with 
 Dobouziez had plunged him contributed to accelerate 
 this resolution. Nothing seemed to him more reason- 
 able and more realizable. Her parents' consent he 
 had in advance. They would publish the banns im- 
 mediately. 
 
 Caressing these matrimonial perspectives, he came 
 to The Cocoanut, and, crossing the shop, entered di- 
 rectly, like a familiar friend, into the room at the 
 back. He found all the members of the family to- 
 gether, but was struck by their melancholy erpressions. 
 Before he had time to ask for an explanation, Vincent 
 drew him into the front room, and after a fit of ner- 
 vous coughing, said in a throaty voice: 
 
 "It's decided. Monsieur Lorki! We are going to 
 emigrate ; we are leaving for Buenos Aires." 
 
 Laurent thought he would drop. 
 
 "But, my good Vincent, you're losing your wits!" 
 
 "Not a bit of it ! It's a very serious matter. I took 
 passage this morning at Monsieur Bejard's, on the 
 quai Sainte-Aldegonde. We're going to sail. For 
 months the idea has been running around in my head. 
 There is nothing left for us to attempt here. The 
 shop doesn't pay any longer. Bread is rare with us 
 now! 
 
 "The business has been spoiled. What with the 
 runners who seize upon the sailors at the mouth of 
 the Scheldt and drag him, drunk and besotted, to their 
 dark cellars where they skin him and fleece him to the 
 marrow, the little shopkeeper has to give up the strug- 
 gle. . . . Unless he wants to consort with them, use 
 their methods and fi^ht with them over the prey with 
 
THE PATRIMONY 227 
 
 fists and knives ! I'd as lief join a band of downright 
 thieves ! 
 
 "And then, too, the invention of steam lighters has 
 forced me to sell my boat for kindling wood. And, to 
 finish the matter, here are our sons who can no longer 
 find positions. The heads of the big firms here en- 
 gage only Germans. The best disposed toward their 
 poor fellow-citizens, for example, Daelmans-Deynze 
 and Bergmans, are besieged with demands and 
 have already taken on more than twice as many 
 employees as they need ! As a special favor they have 
 been willing to take on our Felix. And they are talk- 
 ing of sending him to their Hamburg branch. We 
 should have to wait until a place became vacant for 
 Pierket. But between now and then we have plenty 
 of time to starve. . . . You can see that if s the end. 
 Antwerp doesn't want us any more. So we have made 
 up our minds to leave — all of us ! And, if we must die, 
 at least we shall have struggled valiantly until the last 
 effort to live ! . . ." 
 
 And Vincent forced back, with a frightful oath, the 
 emotion that was strangling him. 
 
 "No, no !" cried Laurent, clapping him on the Back 
 to comfort him. "You shall not go, my brave old Vin- 
 cent ! And I doubly bless the inspiration that brought 
 me here ! Since this morning I have become rich, my 
 dear man ! I have more than enough to help you and 
 yours. I have more than thirty thousand francs at 
 your command, dear friend. You never suspected me 
 of it, I suppose. Very well, then ! Come, come, cease 
 your lamenting. . . . But before going back to Siska 
 and the children, let me complete the project. The 
 money which it would be repugnant to you to accept 
 at the hands of a friend, you will be forced to take 
 
228 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 from a son, yes, from a son — ^has not Siska always 
 considered me as her eldest? — or, if it pleases you bet- 
 ter, from a son-in-law. . . . Vincent, give me the 
 hand of your daughter Henriette !" 
 
 Tilbak put his hands upon Laurent's shoulders and 
 looked deeply into his eyes : 
 
 "Thank you. Monsieur Laurent! Your generous 
 offer touches us no less profoundly than your request, 
 but we cannot grant it. . . . For a long time past 
 my wife has read our daughter's heart and struggled 
 against the unreasonable feeling that is concealed there. 
 To hide nothing from you, that love is itself one of 
 the reasons for our departure. All of us, here, need 
 a change of air. . . . 
 
 "I tell you, also. Monsieur Laurent, that this mar- 
 riage is impossible. Even were I to consent to it, my 
 wife would oppose it with all her strength. You don't 
 yet know our Siska! Her ideas of duty are perhaps 
 very singular, but very fixed. When once she has said 
 that this is white and that is black, you can preach to 
 her in vain, you cannot make her retract it. . . . Do 
 you know that she would think she were lacking in re- 
 spect for the memory of your dear parents if she ever 
 were to consent to an alliance between her family and 
 yours? You are young, Monsieur Laurent, you have 
 a nice little capital, you have had a good education, 
 rich relatives may leave you their fortunes . . . and 
 you will make a match worthy of that fortune, of your 
 education and your name ; a match in accordance with 
 the hopes that your poor, dear, dead parents cherished 
 for your future. Can you not see that your wealthy 
 family would reproach Siska for having harnessed 
 you to her daughter, would consider her an intriguer, 
 a wretched intruder? . . ." 
 
THE PATRIMONY 229 
 
 "Vincent !'* cried Laurent, putting his hand over Vin- 
 cent's mouth. "Be sensible, Vincent. I disregard my 
 good family entirely ! It would be very foolish of me 
 to refrain for the sake of the few remaining. You will 
 finish by making me hate them in talking to me this 
 way ! It's a pity you were not present to see the wel- 
 come I received from that Dobouziez! Old age and 
 disappointments have made him colder and fishier than 
 ever ! I am no longer one of them ! I wonder whether 
 I ever was ! I owe them nothing. Our last links have 
 been broken. And it is to those relatives who deny me, 
 that you would have me sacrifice my affections ? Come, 
 come ! Your refusal isn't serious. . . . Siska will be 
 more sensible than you." 
 
 "Useless, Monsieur Laurent! If my wife had fore- 
 seen this love affair, she would never have allowed you 
 here ! Spare her the pain of having to emphasize my 
 refusal. . . ." 
 
 "So be it!" said Laurent. "But if my visits are a 
 nuisance to you, if a false honor, — ^yes, I say it advis- 
 edly, and so much the worse for you if you take it 
 amiss — prevents your accepting me as a son-in-law, — I 
 who had hop^d to make your Henriette so happy — ^at 
 least nothing can prevent you from accepting me as a 
 creditor, and then it will be unnecessary to emigrate !" 
 
 "Thank you again. Monsieur Laurent, but we do 
 not need it. To make all plain to you, Jean Vingerhout, 
 the haes of the America, and your friend, is coming 
 with us. He has realized his last cent and is going to 
 try his luck in a new America. . . ." 
 
 "Ah ! I see it clearly, now ! You are going to give 
 Henriette to him I . . ." 
 
 "Well, yes ! . . . Jean is a good chap in our sphere 
 whom you appreciated from the first. And I must ask 
 
230 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 you a favor, Monsieur Laurent. Our friend has never 
 for a moment suspected Henriette's love for you. . . . 
 Please let him always remain ignorant of her extrava- 
 gant whim !" 
 
 "That is too much!" Laurent interrupted. "Do I 
 have to enter your plans to the extent of making your 
 daughter hate me ?" 
 
 And within, he was saying to himsef : "Too poor for 
 Gina ; too rich for Henriette !" Then, giving free rein 
 to his bitterness : 
 
 "Really, my dear Tilbak, you are all the same here 
 in Antwerp ! You reduce everything to a question of 
 greasy pennies. My worthy cousin Dobouziez would 
 unreservedly approve of you. The ties of the heart 
 and emotions have no weight. Everything is wiped 
 out by business considerations. Gold alone joins and 
 sunders. You all have money-tills instead of hearts. 
 There! Even you, the Tilbaks, whom I have always 
 considered as my own, are no better than the rest! 
 And I am destined to live always alone and misunder- 
 stood. . . . Eternally declassed, a creature of ex- 
 ception, I shall never anywhere find my equals, people 
 of the same temperament as myself ! . . ." 
 
 And, in the clutches of a nervous crisis that had been 
 smouldering since that morning, his body shaking from 
 these reiterated emotions, he threw himself into a chair 
 and burst into tears like a child. 
 
 Siska, however, having been attracted by the sound 
 of their voices, had half opened the door and heard 
 the end of the conversation. She came to the young 
 fellow and tried to calm him with her motherly words. 
 
 "You naughty child ! What a way to talk about us ! 
 Listen to me, my dear Laurent, and don't be angry. 
 We'll talk this all over again before our departure, but 
 
THE PATRIMONY 231 
 
 not today. You are too excited. Who knows ? Per- 
 haps I can open your eyes to your own feelings !" 
 
 A bit intimidated by the solemn tone in which the 
 good woman had said these few words, Laurent 
 restrained himself, and after a desultory conversation, 
 went into the back room and took leave of the family. 
 
 A few days later Paridael came back to the Til- 
 baks*. Siska was valiantly busying herself with the 
 preparations for their departure. Laurent having 
 asked her for the promised explanation, she interrupted 
 her work, and piercing him with an inquisitorial look : 
 
 "What I have to say to you, Laurent," she said, "is 
 simply that you have never loved Henriette." 
 
 Laurent tried to protest, but while the clear, steady 
 eyes of the worthy woman continued to look into his 
 he would only blush and hang his head. 
 
 "And that because you are in love with another!" 
 pursued Siska. "I can even tell you who she is : your 
 cousin Gin% become Madame Bejard. You need not 
 deny it ! Did you think you could hide that secret from 
 me ? Your troubled air when anyone talked of Madame 
 Bejard; your own affectation never to talk of her, 
 would have revealed it to diviners less adroit than my- 
 self. Yes, even Henriette knew in which direction 
 your real love was tending. Surely, you are fond of 
 our daughter. Under the impulse of your generous 
 feelings you are even ready to marry her. But, at bot- 
 tom, you would have continued to prefer the other one. 
 The memory of her would have come between Hen- 
 riette and yourself. And neither you nor your wife 
 would have met with the happiness you both deserve. 
 As soon as my child suspected your passion for Mad- 
 ame Bejard, I succeeded in completely opening her 
 eyes, and cured her of her love for you. . . . Ah! it 
 
232 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 was necessary ! I should lie were I to say the cure was 
 easy. . . . Laurent, if you swear to me that you 
 really love Henriette, and that she is the chosen of 
 your flesh and of your spirit, I am still ready to give 
 her to you! In doing otherwise, I should be twice a 
 bad mother. . . ." 
 
 For his sole response, the boy threw his arms aljout 
 his clairvoyant friend and confessed to her at length 
 his contradictory desires and griefs. 
 
II 
 
 THE EMIGRANTS 
 
 B^jARD, Saint-Fardier and Vera-Pinto had well 
 chosen the moment to begin their traffic in white flesh, 
 or, as De Zater called it, ivory. Much money was to be 
 made in this filthy commerce. In their narrow offices 
 a continual procession was constantly marching by. 
 Saint-Fardier was in command, and made the hordes 
 and tribes of poor devils run the gauntlet. It was he 
 who sent out recruiters to beat the woods and drain the 
 land. 
 
 Originating in Ireland, emigration swept over Rus- 
 sia, Germany, and then the north of France. Thou- 
 sands of foreigners had already expatriated themselves 
 before the Belgians were inoculated with the fever. 
 The contagion first spread among the laborers of the 
 Borinage and the district about Charleroi, coal-miners 
 whose merciless subterranean slavery was unrelieved 
 by death, fallen cyclops, torn between the intolerance 
 of labor-leaders and the harshness of the capitalists, 
 worn out by strikes and enforced idleness, and, when 
 spared by the fire-damp, dispatched by a soldier's bul- 
 let. 
 
 And, after having depopulated the Walloon, the 
 fever of expatriation consumed Flanders. Weavers 
 of Ghent, their lungs clogged by the fine flues of thread, 
 
 233 
 
234 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 packed off to America as, centuries before, their an- 
 cestors had gone to England. 
 
 Finally, the impulse spread to the district about Ant- 
 werp. 
 
 For a long time past the dockers, working on the 
 very banks of the river from which heavy cargoes of 
 exiles, penned up like sheep, were constantly depart- 
 ing, resisted the general enthusiasm. Suspicious and 
 skeptical, they had no desire to fatten with their car- 
 casses the land of the celebrated guano, after having 
 given up their last farthing to the emigration agents, 
 whom they saw swelling and prospering all around 
 them, leeches fattening upon the blood of fools. 
 
 Previously, the departure of a peasant or of a la- 
 borer would have stupefied the whole quarter or the 
 whole parish. Such a thing would have been consid- 
 ered an act of desperation, an apostasy, the deed of 
 an unnatural being. The only people capable of such 
 an act were occasional unskilled laborers, farm-hands 
 who had been dismissed everywhere, riff-raff who, no 
 longer knowing to which baes to hire out, ended, under 
 the influence of a last debauch, by selling themselves 
 to the crimp who enlisted volunteers for the Dutch 
 army in the East Indies. 
 
 But now expatriation began to enter into the cus- 
 toms of respectable people. By the hundreds, urban 
 and rural folk, from the banks of the Scheldt, from 
 the waste dunes of the Campine, navvies from the 
 Polder, brush-trussers of Bruyere, fled the land as if 
 pursued by the surge of an occult inundation. 
 
 A restlessness beneath the ancestral roof, a distrust 
 of the good will of the native land, a nomadic impa- 
 tience, an instinctive need for change penetrated and 
 consumed the most distant and lonely localities. 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 235 
 
 The same pioneers who never, never would have 
 changed their labor, no matter how fruitless and pain- 
 ful, for a lucrative position in the city, suffered over- 
 night the vertigo of exodus and exiled themselves in 
 masses. 
 
 How many, however, of these inveterate dwellers 
 on the land, their bodies bent almost double over the 
 bare earth, more obdurate at home than anywhere 
 else, undergoing with fanatical voluptuousness the 
 crafty effects of atmosphere and climate, their plump 
 hovels sticking to plowed fields as tawny as their 
 breeches, had formerly suffered from a sharp nostalgia 
 when conscription had brutally transplanted them into 
 the tumultuous and turbulent city, deprived them of 
 their laborer's garb to harness them in military livery, 
 detained them in putrid barracks far from their bal- 
 samic native fields, or spewed them forth, on certain 
 days, confused and dreary, into the snare-ridden 
 street? What desolation; what desires for the 
 wretched homeland ! How many hours there were in 
 which to ruminate trifling memories ! 
 
 Ah! the stealthy homecoming of the soldier; the 
 minutes exactly calculated, the road travelled at a 
 fugitive's pace ! 
 
 The day-long furlough, the short respite employed 
 to pass one hour, but one brief hour, at the natal 
 hearth ; the unexpected apparitions conjured up on the 
 hasty trip, breathless and panting like a hunted tramp ; 
 only time enough to go and come, to put foot upon 
 the delicious home fields, to embrace the old folk and 
 the loved one, to again breathe the odor of the land 
 in the emollient humidity of twilight ! 
 
 And now these same hardened rustics, seeing them- 
 selves confronted by a sinister dilemma, filled with 
 
236 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 a poignant and sullen resolution, consented to cut 
 themselves off forever from their native land. 
 
 For a long time their faithful hearts had resisted. 
 As long as they had succeeded in being able to di- 
 vide among them a crust of black bread and a por- 
 ringer full of potatoes they had been inflexible, stint- 
 ing themselves, as strong in their attachment to the 
 land as Christians are in the faith ; but v^hen the day 
 came when the women and even the children had noth- 
 ing to eat, their heroism had given away, and one 
 morning they had resolved upon exile as if they were 
 resigning themselves to suicide. 
 
 It is all over. The household leaves the ancestral 
 farm; its head gives up the leased land, sells the cat- 
 tle, horses, the wagons, the agricultural tools ! . . . 
 
 The defeat of the most tenacious partisans of the 
 land, of the best among the peasantry, excited the rest 
 of the population and set them in motion; the panic 
 propagated itself from village to village. 
 
 Farmers who could have held out for a few years 
 more and withstood the crisis took fright, and sent 
 off their laborers and poor, half -starved wretches. 
 They remembered so many of their richer neighbors, 
 who had always been hoping, who had moved heaven 
 and hell against repeated proof, against chronic dis- 
 tress, until the insufficiency of the crops, aggravated 
 by the competition of transatlantic granaries, reduced 
 them in their old age to taking service on the farms 
 of which they had formerly been the masters. 
 
 The far-sighted took their tools and the beasts of 
 burden with them. They went bravely to the fertile 
 fields, the promised lands and eldorados, the kingdoms 
 of Cockaigne ruled over by Prester John, America 
 bursting with grain and fruit, the produce of which, fat 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 237 
 
 beef, tasty meat, prolific wheat, was inundating, from 
 over the sea, the markets of Europe, submerging the 
 ridiculous flora and fauna torn from our pasturage 
 and fallow fields. No ! rather than wait for the coup- 
 de-grace, the harvesters of decadent Europe were leav- 
 ing for the plethoric continent. 
 
 And, to complete the defeat and transform into 
 nomads the hitherto underacinated peasants, recruiters 
 with the gift of the gab, adroit and insinuating, went 
 from market town to market town, visited the inns on 
 the days of fairs and sales, and took advantage of the 
 poor fellows' after-taste and lassitude on Sunday even- 
 ings, or on the mornings following a kermess, to excite 
 their minds with troubling mirages of prosperity. In 
 order the better to hearken to the honeyed voiced temp- 
 ter and his glittering gabble, cowherds and haymakers, 
 horny and innocent, their mouths wide open, their eyes 
 ecstatic, allowed their clay pipes to go out. The elec- 
 tricity of wonder played upon their tanned and shiny 
 skins, tickled their ingenuous feelings to the marrow, 
 stupefied their cunning senses, and held them breath- 
 less, hanging upon the lips of the rascal from which 
 fell, like fireworks, descriptions more dazzling and 
 more fiery than the chromos on a mercer's bale or bal- 
 lad-monger's screen. 
 
 A swarm of these jobbers recruited from among the 
 lowest class of procurers had pounced upon the coun- 
 try like jackals upon a battlefield. They had the sus- 
 picious manner, the air of familiarity, the gawky move- 
 ments of cheap peddlers which would have set less 
 simple minds against them. 
 
 Thus, they examined the sturdiest of the laborers, 
 inspected them from head to foot with an almost em- 
 barassing persistence, going so far as to pass their 
 
23B THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 hands over the legs and thighs, feeling and testing them 
 as they would test cattle or poultry on market days, 
 taking their chins as if it were a question of telling a 
 foal's age by its mouth. A little more and they would 
 have asked the unsuspecting rustics to undress in order 
 to examine and auscultate them more easily. Slave 
 dealers behaved hardly any differently with the ne- 
 groes at the slave markets. They operated especially 
 among young, vigorous men, gaining their confidence, 
 jesting, bantering paternally, as free in their pleasantry 
 as military surgeons presiding at a board of appeal. 
 
 These crimps, fugitives from the country or emaci- 
 ated denizens of the slums, broken to unclean business, 
 knew well how to beget eager desires in these primitive 
 but complex hearts ; they stirred up the vague need for 
 enjoyment that slumbers in the hearts of brutes ; they 
 enticed these illiterates, warmed them up, worked them 
 up morally, as they did physically. 
 
 Deceived and ravished as if in a dream, our rustics 
 inhaled the honeyed discourse, lent themselves to in- 
 sidious caresses; never had so much attention been 
 paid them, never had such flattering opinions so highly 
 extolled them to themselves, the louts ! They became 
 slack, became the lieges of their magnetisers, and no 
 longer moved, fearing lest the lethargy and long ener- 
 vation should cease ! And presently, the crimp would 
 but have to pull the string in order to catch a plentiful 
 and flourishing haul. 
 
 Ah! they were not squeamish, these emigration 
 agents ! After having operated throughout the rest of 
 Europe, draining prolific but degenerate races, here 
 they were casting their spell upon the best blood of 
 Flanders, choosing strong and well-built fellows as 
 patient and hard-working as their dogs. "We must 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 1^39 
 
 have a hundred thousand Belgians, and we shall have 
 them in six months!" had declared Bejard, Saint- 
 Fardier and Vera-Pinto. And their hired crimps set 
 to work with a will. Go it, impostors ! To the prey, 
 vampires! The commission is worth taking some 
 trouble for. It is fifteen to twenty francs, according 
 to quality, for each Flemish head turned over to the 
 shipper of human flesh. 
 
 But the beaters and their subaltern trackers were 
 carefully silent about their profits. To listen to them, 
 they were the most disinterested of apostles, purely 
 philanthropic, particularly devoted to the peasantry. 
 
 Their clap-trap speeches gushed with gold and sun- 
 shine. The brokers in lies led their hearers through 
 the promised land, gardens of paradise and palaces of 
 faery. The warmth and the brilliant sun of the trop- 
 ics kindled and illumined the melancholy horizons of 
 these visionaries ; it was as if a magic fire-screen had 
 appeared in a dark room. Ripe corn, crowned with 
 ears as large as their golden wigs, lifted its sheaves to 
 the height of the roofs; trees were bent beneath the 
 weight of gourds that were apples. The sands yielded 
 tobacco; rivulets of milk irrigated the newly-opened 
 land; the chimney smoke rose gently toward a sky 
 more blue than the garb of the holy Daughters of 
 Mary ; and that purple, suddenly burnished and scintil- 
 lant, which clothes the hill-sides until they are lost to 
 view, is not that of your heather, oh, stout drinkers of 
 beer, but the purple of your vines, oh, future bruisers 
 of grapes! 
 
 From time to time the charmer interrupted himself, 
 as much to catch his breath as to give the simple folk, 
 whom he was heaping with promises, time to sniff and 
 to taste the perfumed visions he had conjured up. 
 
240 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Then he vaunted the good temperature, the clement 
 climate, the eternally smiling seasons. There were no 
 visitors, no tempests to disconcert the foresight of 
 the farmer and ruin his crops. 
 
 There, work was a diversion; there were no land- 
 lords, no masters, no cares ; no servitude and no rent. 
 
 Alternately tender and sportive, the impostor abso- 
 lutely intoxicated his audience. To the pomp of a 
 florid description, to the hyperboles of a dentist, the 
 instrument of the dealers in souls added the wit of the 
 street-corner; he spiced his eloquence with the gross 
 jests of the peasantry; he flattered the weaknesses, 
 kindled the brutal sensuality, fed the carnal desires of 
 these shameless lovers, conjured up willing subjects 
 for a frenzied passion excited by prolonged continence. 
 The bumpkins were tempted, as they listened, dry- 
 throated, quivering, to the smutty visions, harassed 
 and quickened by the subtle viciousness and perverse 
 ribaldry of this rogue, as scaly as any siren. 
 
 Finally, as a last resort, the procurer proposed to 
 read letters from those adventurers who had tried and 
 gained fortune in the promised land : 
 
 "Ah! they are as authentic as the Evangel, these 
 epistles ! Look them over yourself, schoolmaster ; you 
 can read ! See the postmark on the letter. . . . And 
 these stamps, these "little heads," as you call them, do 
 not bear the features of our king 'LiapolT Why 
 don*t you read them, schoolmaster? Fm not trying 
 to force you into believing them! Here is what Tve 
 told you, in black and white!" 
 
 The letters flowed with coarse eulogy, dictated in 
 Europe or elaborated in the facendas of the purveyors 
 across the sea. The collusion would have undeceived 
 more lettered listeners. 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 241 
 
 "Yes, boys, Vm going back myself in a few days. 
 As sure as there is a God I shall never again be able 
 to live in our little Europe !" 
 
 And the jolly fellow wheedled them, urged them, 
 and took them all in. Sometimes, in order to em- 
 phasize his talk, he would roll, with pretended careless- 
 ness, a handful of gold upon the table, sticky with the 
 slops of many glasses. They were foreign, enormous 
 coins. Over there one paid only in goldpieces as large 
 as our wretched five francs silver coins. At the clink- 
 ing of the gold, the little cowherd's eyes would sparkle ; 
 he already saw himself a conquistador ; his mistress 
 would order about hundreds of servants, clothe her- 
 self only in laces, and sprawl upon a bed of down. 
 
 When they reached home, the young fellows rumi- 
 nated these visions; if they slept, they found them 
 again in their dreams. Husbands talked it over in bed 
 with their wives; at first grumbling and refractory, 
 their wives allowed themselves to be convinced and 
 fascinated. 
 
 In the fields, beneath a sullen sky, in the midst of 
 flat, broken fields, while they disembowelled the earth 
 that seemed more recalcitrant than ever, the mirage 
 returned to haunt them and, sluggish at their work, 
 their elbows and chins resting on the handle of the 
 hoe, or idly whistling their oxen, the laborers recalled 
 the fabulous lands, and dreamed of the crimp's prom- 
 ises. 
 
 And the gold that he toyed with ! One of those yel- 
 low disks alone represented triple the value of the 
 white coins that they earned from their haes. . . . 
 
 And that is why, on this January morning, the 
 bowels of The Gina — that big craft, once so rakish, 
 but long since painted the uniform black of a poor 
 
242 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 man's coffin — should have been elastic to accommodate 
 all the human flesh that was being stowed therein, all 
 those pariahs for whom wily thaumaturges evoked, 
 out of the leaden fogs of the Scheldt, the gleaming, 
 distant Pactolus. 
 
 However, two huge trucks of the American Nation, 
 requisitioned by Jean Vingerhout, drove down to the 
 quay. Out of honor to him, two pairs of Furnes horses, 
 enormous, epic palfreys, stately, slow-paced workers, 
 whose equal and solemn step bettered the trot of a 
 racer, had been harnessed to them. The proud beasts 
 had never drawn such light and pitiable merchandise ; 
 the baggage piled up, but was not heavy. So very 
 little that in order not to humiliate the powerful 
 horses, the emigrants themselves rode on the drays. 
 
 In the midst of the confusion, the disorder of white 
 cases tightly nailed and roped, of opened sacks, of 
 shabby outfits tied up in checked cotton scarfs, there 
 lounged about groups of young emigrants from Lille, 
 Brasschaet, Santvliet, Pulderbosch and Viersel. 
 
 A few were boisterously laughing, noisily skipping 
 about, questioning the curious onlookers, seeming to 
 exult. In reality they were forcing themselves to 
 self-deception, to renounce the fixed idea that was 
 gnawing them as keenly as remorse. Under the pre- 
 text of heartening their less cheerful and exuberant 
 companions, they clapped them stoutly on the back. 
 Among these villagers there were at most one or two 
 whose immoderate and demonstrative joy was sincere. 
 The others were trying to excite themselves. But, now 
 that the gamble had been taken, and they could neither 
 change their minds nor extricate themselves, as the 
 xnist of illusion began to dissipate, and their con- 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 243 
 
 sciences began to awake, they drank huge bumpers of 
 alcohol as on the day when military lots were drawn. 
 
 Wide-eyed and flushed, dressed in their best, but dis- 
 hevelled, they would, at first sight, have been taken 
 for those young servants and farm-hands who, on the 
 feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, were trundled 
 about from dawn until night in carts covered with 
 flowers and green leaves. 
 
 The majority were silent and apathetic, lost in medi- 
 tation. If, perchance, they were won over by their 
 neighbors* frenzy to bawl out a kermess-song, the 
 "Nous irons au pays des roses/' of the Rozenlands of 
 Saint Peter and Paul, or the "Nous arrivons de Tord- 
 le-Cou" of the mardigras Gansrijders, the notes were 
 quickly strangled in their throats, and they fell back 
 into reflection. 
 
 Before their journey began, their thoughts were 
 already soaring through the boundless space of cloud 
 and tide to the distant shores where new lands awaited 
 them ; or their spirit was travelling back to their native 
 villages, left but the night before, to the slate belfry 
 of the church, whose melancholy voice would never 
 again exhort them to resignation. Oh, those chimes 
 that in former days had awakened a guerilla cavalry 
 to arms against the regicide foreigner, and whose toc- 
 sin was no longer sufficiently eloquent to stave off the 
 invasion of Hunger! In memory the already repent- 
 ant fugitives returned to their precarious heritages, 
 among their little crops, pitifully rotated and won only 
 after a struggle with the wild heather (adorable enemy, 
 so cursed, and already so regretted!); or again, to 
 the banks of the vennes and meers, where they fished 
 with worms while watching their thin cows ; or around 
 the scaddes, or bonfires, fighting off the marshy mois- 
 
244 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 ture of October evenings with its resinous per- 
 fume. 
 
 Oh, the fair hamlet in which they would never again 
 set foot, where they could not even go to sleep their 
 last and best sleep in earth twice sanctified, beside the 
 rebellious folk of the past ! 
 
 Laurent plumbed their mental reservations. His 
 compassion for the Tilbaks extended to their com- 
 panions. Among many touching episodes, one espe- 
 cially stirred him forever and seemed to be the quint- 
 essence of the distress and heart-breaking grief of 
 this prologue of exile. 
 
 At least thirty households from Willeghem, a strag- 
 gling little village on the f artherest northern frontier, 
 had agreed to leave their wretched land all together. 
 They had not taken their places on the trucks, but a 
 little after the arrival of the bulk of the Flemish emi- 
 grants, they presented themselves in good order, as 
 if in a holiday procession. They were anxious to 
 make a good showing, to distinguish themselves from 
 the mob, hoping that after their departure people would 
 exclaim, "The bravest showing was made by Willeg- 
 hem r 
 
 First came the young men, then the women with 
 their children, then the young girls, and last of all the 
 old people. Some of the mothers were still suckling 
 their last-born. How many old folk, leaning upon 
 crutches, and hoping for a mysterious renewal of 
 youth, were destined to die upon the way and, having 
 been sewn in bags ballasted with sand, would be rolled 
 off a board as food for the fishes ? Men with navvies' 
 outfits, clad in heavy curduroy, were carrying pick- 
 axes and hoes on their shoulders, and wallets and 
 flasks at their hips. Tilers and brickmakers were get- 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 245 
 
 ting under way for lands where tiles and bricks were 
 unknown. 
 
 A young girl, with the air of a simpleton, her face 
 bloated and beaming, was carrying off a tarin in a 
 cage. 
 
 At the head of the line marched the village band, 
 with banner flying. 
 
 The band and the flag were also emigrating. The 
 musicians could boldly carry off their instruments 
 and their flag, for there was no one left in Willeghem 
 to employ the band. 
 
 Laurent spied a white-haired ecclesiastic, the village 
 priest, marching next to the flag-bearer. Despite his 
 advanced age, the pastor had insisted in accompany- 
 ing his parishioners to the dock just as he had ac- 
 companied them each year upon the pilgrimage to 
 Montaigu, for the many past years during which the 
 famine had lasted! Why, oh, mistress of the Cam- 
 pine and of Hageland, were you deaf to their cry of 
 distress? Instead of ascending, as in legendary times, 
 the turbid streams of the land, in barks without crew 
 or pilot, to disembark on shores chosen by their di- 
 vine fancy and have miraculous sanctuaries builded 
 there, the madonnas were now deserting their time- 
 honored resting places and had travelled back over the 
 same rivers that formerly had brought them, unknown 
 saints, to the heart of Flanders. Nevertheless, the 
 simple folk of the Flemish plains had built you a 
 basilica on one of the only mountains in their land, 
 as much so that the resplendent starry cupola of your 
 temple of compassion might be seen from the far dis- 
 tance so as to bring you nearer to your Heaven. Fickle 
 Virgin, did you give the example of emigration to all 
 the homesick folk from the moors of the Scheldt? , , . 
 
246 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 But that evening, after having seen the ship disap- 
 pear behind a bend in the river, and the spirals of 
 smoke become indistinguishable in the mist lying 
 over the polders, the good pastor would journey back 
 slowly to his fold, as sad as a shepherd who has just 
 delivered to the formidable unknown the half of a 
 flock branded with a red cross by the drover. 
 
 If, however, the aristocratic and noble landowners, 
 county-squires and baronets, had consented to reduce 
 the rents, these lovers of the land would not have had 
 to depart. They would be in a pretty pickle, when 
 there were no longer any hands to clear their wide 
 lands ! 
 
 Some of the emigrants from Willeghem wore a 
 sprig of heather in their caps ; others had tied an arm- 
 ful of the symbolic flowers to the ends of their sticks, 
 to the handles of their implements, and the most fer- 
 vent among them were carrying off, with touching 
 childishness, a handful of the native sand tied in a little 
 box, or sewn in a bag, as an amulet. 
 
 Ingenuously, not to recriminate against the unnat- 
 ural antipathy of their mother country, but to render 
 her a last filial honor, these peasants flaunted their 
 national costumes, the most local and characteristic 
 attire; the men, their high and puffy caps of silk, 
 coarse breeches, smocks of a peculiar cut and color, 
 of dark blue bordering upon the slate grey of their 
 sky, so that one might differentiate by their blouses 
 the peasants of the North from those of the Midi ; — 
 the women wearing large winged lace caps tied to their 
 chignons by a flowered ribbon, and those bizarre hats, 
 shaped like a truncated cone, that have no like in any 
 other country on earth. 
 
 At the moment of finally deserting their native land, 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 247 
 
 it seemed as if they hoped to extol her and anoint 
 themselves with her in an indelible fashion. So they 
 talked loudly, rolling out the fat and sticky syllables 
 of their dialect with a certain ostentation; they in- 
 sisted upon making the diphthongs reverberate in the 
 atmosphere of their origin. 
 
 And they found still another means of accentuating 
 the tender and unconscious irony of their demonstra- 
 tions. 
 
 When they came under the shed, before walking 
 down the gangplank of the boat, steaming up for de- 
 parture, those at the head of the line halted and faced 
 about, turning toward the tower of Antwerp, and 
 putting the brasses to their lips, their flag hoisted high, 
 they began, not without false notes, the supreme na- 
 tional song, the "Ou pent on etre mieux'' of the Lieg- 
 eois Gretry, the simple and gentle melody of which 
 brought together, in the accents of the noblest lan- 
 guage, Flamands and Walloons, sons of the same Bel- 
 gium, differing in temperament, but not enemies, in 
 spite of what politicians say. And so the colliers of the 
 Borinage were stretching out their hands to the Fla- 
 mands. 
 
 In just such a way two orphans might embrace and 
 become reconciled at their mother's deathbed! 
 
 The pathetic implications of this final aubade to the 
 fatherland brought a rush of thoughts to Laurent's 
 mind. He heard in that tender hymn, scanned and 
 modulated in so beautifully barbarous a fashion by 
 these loving exiles, the hoarse cry of all the repressed 
 emotions and disillusions of his life. The scene be- 
 fore him rendered the world of the downtrodden and 
 misunderstood dearer than ever to him. 
 
 How far he was already from that carefree day of 
 
248 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the excursion to Hemixem, and how far, too, from the 
 day of his return to Antwerp and his long contem- 
 plation of the banks of the well-loved river ! 
 
 On that Sunday of sunshine the air had rang with 
 music, but none of the peasant phalanxes had left the 
 shore never to see it again ! 
 
 The arrival of the Tilbaks and of Jean Vingerhout 
 carried Laurent's excitement to its paroxysm. He tot- 
 tered like a sleep-walker when the master-docker 
 touched his shoulder. His heart was too full for ut- 
 terance, but the convulsed expression of his face told 
 them better than words the world of sorrow that he 
 was undergoing. 
 
 He embraced Siska and Vincent, hesitated a mo- 
 ment, then consulting brave Jean Vingerhout with a 
 look, pressed a long fraternal kiss upon Henriette's 
 forehead, crushed the former haes of the America Na- 
 tion against his breast, and, taking Henriette's hands, 
 put them in those of her husband and clasped them 
 both in his, as if to unite them in an almost sacra- 
 mental clasp. 
 
 Then, feeling the emotion choking his throat, he 
 could only turn to Lusse and Pierket, who were stretch- 
 ing him their hands and lips. And, beneath the tears 
 that Laurent could no longer withold, Pierket, who 
 adored his big friend, burst into tears and clung to his 
 neck as though he wanted to carry Laurent off be- 
 yond the seas. 
 
 The lugubrious and ironic coincidence that brought 
 about the departure of Henriette and her family upon 
 The Gina had wrung Laurent's heart far too much. 
 He recognized in it the evil genius of Bejard and his 
 wife. This Gina was ravishing him of Henriette 
 and of all whom he loved I 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 249 
 
 Other bizarre and unsuspected correlations also pre- 
 sented themselves. The village of Willeghem, emi- 
 grating in a body, was precisely the one of Vincent's 
 and Siska's origin. As they had left it as children, 
 they knew nobody. But in asking the crowd, they dis- 
 covered a few names, distinguished some family fea- 
 tures among the mass of faces and ended by discover- 
 ing some cousins. These acquaintances had the one 
 good quality of astonishing and diverting the emi- 
 grants. Jean Vingerhout said laughingly : 
 
 "Willeghem will be full over there! And we shall 
 found a new colony and give it the name of the dear 
 village ! Vive New- Willeghem !" 
 
 And all echoed him. 
 
 But other comrades than the peasants monopolized 
 the Tilbaks* attention. The America Nation in a body ; 
 deans, haes, comrades, wagoners, measurers, steve- 
 dores, stable-watchmen, loaders, carters and many of 
 the chiefs of other corporations had made an escort 
 for the worthy Jean, the best liked of the chiefs and 
 colleagues. How many efforts they had made to re- 
 tain him ! For, when he offered as protests his hatred 
 of the business, his wish to see other lands, hard times, 
 the more perspicacious of them knew that the worthy 
 fellow, having been the ringleader of the last troubles, 
 feared, by remaining at their head, to draw down upon 
 them the ire of the wealthy folk, and so do the union 
 a disservice. 
 
 Among the mob of dockers could be found loiterers 
 from the Coin de Pasesseux, athletic do-nothings, as 
 proud as they were indolent, who so often had dis- 
 armed Jean Vingerhout by their superb phlegm, when 
 they did not make him furious by their inertia and 
 desertion from work. These triflers were jostling each 
 
250 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 other to grasp heartily the hands of the emigrants, 
 and for once quitting their habit of pure acting, they 
 even helped put the baggage on board. 
 
 The shopkeepers in the neighborhood of the Cocoa- 
 nut likewise crowded about the Tilbaks. The mari- 
 time and working population of the harbor and the 
 basins joined as a body in this manifestation of re- 
 gret and sympathy. In the crowd Laurent thought 
 that he even recognized a few young runners who were 
 perhaps not as black as they had been painted, and who 
 were determined to show their sympathy for these 
 poor folk. 
 
 These demonstrations brought a happy diversion to 
 the farewells by stupefying those in whose honor they 
 were made. The workers on the docks, healthy and 
 joyous fellows, the blackest thing about whom was 
 their quid of tobacco, affected a rather forced gaiety, 
 exaggerated their frank humour, tortured their spirit 
 to find mirth-provoking sallies; but more than one of 
 them blew his nose too frequently, or wiped his face 
 with his sleeve when there was not a sign of sweat to 
 dry away. 
 
 Nor would Jean Vingerhout allow his spirits to lag; 
 clever in his answers, he succeeded in telling the big- 
 gest fibs, and faithful to his reputation of being the 
 life and soul of the Nations, delivered a debauch of 
 aphorisms and stupefying monologues in which 
 cropped up the spirit of Pere Cats and Uilenspiegel. 
 
 He absolutely had to drink a few more glasses with 
 his comrades in the nearest cafe. Nor could Paridael 
 refuse the hospitality of his worthy employers and 
 fellow- workers. And in front of the bar, where round 
 after round was drunk, amidst the hot fire of their 
 jokes and volleys of oaths and blows upon the table, 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 251 
 
 Laurent could not help but imagine himself back at 
 the "local," after work, on the evenings when accounts 
 were turned in. Several of the dockers had brought 
 gifts to "their Jean," this one a pipe, that one a plug 
 of tobacco. One of the good fellows had hit upon the 
 idea of giving Vingerhout a box of paper in three col- 
 ors. They had to provide against interception by the 
 facenderos. If Jean wrote on white paper, it would 
 be a sign that things were going well ; the rose-colored 
 paper would signify precarious, but supportable condi- 
 tions ; the green, profound distress. And that in spite 
 of the fact that the letter would contain only opti- 
 mistic and reassuring news. 
 
 The hour was at hand. Laurent disappeared from 
 view to install the women between decks with Tilbak. 
 At first some difficulty was made about Laurent*s go- 
 ing on board. Access to the emigrants* quarters was 
 strictly forbidden to the curious, and for good reason. 
 Once on board the boat, the travellers were forbidden 
 to return on shore, under penalty of losing their places 
 and the price of their tickets. Nevertheless, thanks to 
 the assistance of a sailor with whom Tilbak had for- 
 merly sailed, Paridael was allowed to inspect the new 
 domicile of his friends. 
 
 The Gina contained over six hundred camp-beds, 
 or rather, badly joined frames that folded up, coupled 
 and piled one above the other in groups of a dozen. 
 The bedding of these hammocks consisted of a bag 
 crammed with fetid straw upon which a hog would 
 have refused to stretch, a true receptacle for vermin. 
 
 In spite of the long airing, the corridors reeked with 
 the indefinable smell of a badly kept hospital, a mix- 
 ture of bottles and of rank stench. What was it go- 
 ing to be later, after all these stray mortals had piled 
 
252 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 within, their bodies and their rags exuding as evil 
 an odor as a swarm of deer ; especially in bad weather, 
 when the port-holes were battened down. 
 
 The rules prescribed the separation of sexes and the 
 separation of small children from adults. But Bejard 
 and his partners were not men to be bound by prescrip- 
 tions ; they were to be observed only while in the har- 
 bor. 
 
 Before even gaining the open sea all these arrange- 
 ments were overturned ; promiscuity was not hindered, 
 an increase of passengers brought from the shore in 
 smugglers* boats during the night was fraudulently 
 received on board. Runners and smugglers had no 
 better customer than Bejard and Company. 
 
 The store-rooms were furnished with lard, smoked 
 beef, ship's biscuits, beer, coffee and tea "in quantity 
 more than enough for twice the duration of the voy- 
 age," set forth the prospectus, the last literary work 
 of Dupoissy. In truth the fresh water alone could 
 hardly last the trip! The wretched passengers were 
 rationed as though they were a besieged garrison. 
 Each of them received a little iron bowl like those given 
 to soldiers. Eatables and drinkables were distributed 
 twice daily; the former measured by the pound, the 
 latter in tots, a special measure used on boats. Nat- 
 urally a piercing cold reigned incessantly below decks ; 
 the draught coming through the chinks brought on 
 colds without ever sweeping out the inveterate odor. 
 
 And this was where his good Siska and dear Hen- 
 riette were to Ke ! 
 
 "Damn!" said Tilbak, seeing Laurent's uneasy ex- 
 pression, "the voyage isn't long. And Fve seen many 
 others!" 
 
 Jhey went up on deck again, Laurent remarked 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 253 
 
 some wooden stalls containing eleven draught-horses, 
 the stable of some wealthy farmer who had been fright- 
 ened by the panic and was emigrating before ruin 
 came. Looking at the provision made for them, it 
 seemed that he might just as well have thrown his 
 horses into the Scheldt. Their owner must have been 
 very unsophisticated to think that they would endure 
 a voyage under such conditions. The exploiters had 
 arranged to transport them very cheaply. The main- 
 tenance of the horses would cost their owner heavily, 
 and in the end he would barely realize the price of 
 their hides. Above the summary stables, without the 
 least shelter, wooden boxes held straw, hay and 
 oats. 
 
 The ivory, however, was crowding on board hastily. 
 The deck had the look of a bivouac of tramps, of a 
 gypsy encampment. In jostling these pariahs from 
 every country, carrying heaven knows what special 
 color and odor in their belongings, Laurent noticed 
 that they were very lightly clad, and that already there 
 were many whose teeth chattered and who were tremb- 
 ling with fever. One of Bejard's agents was passing 
 among them, and to comfort them was telling that the 
 cold would last but for a few days. Once past the 
 gulf of Gascony, perpetual summer would begin. The 
 agent did not add that between Africa and the shores 
 of Brazil they would bake so that they could not come 
 on deck, and that calenture and furious delirium would 
 carry off some of those who could have borne the 
 marsh-fever. He especially concealed from them the 
 horrors of the crossing; the despotism and brutality 
 that awaited them upon landing, and the numerous 
 miseries not to be endured in such incompatible sur- 
 roundings. 
 
2S4 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 "It is time to take in the gang-plank, for we're off, 
 comrade !" the sailor said to Paridael. 
 
 The strident whistle alternated with the noise of the 
 engine. Laurent tore himself away from the embraces 
 of his friends and regained the dock. 
 
 As if there had not already been enough distress and 
 horror, a lamentable incident came up at the last mo- 
 ment. 
 
 A tattered wretch, yellow and livid at the same time, 
 his eyes haggard, his hair in disorder, under the do- 
 minion of a violent alcoholic excitation, was forcing 
 toward the gangway of the boat a poor woman with a 
 kindly face, but no less stricken, thin and illy-clad than 
 himself, who was struggling, shrieking, resisting him 
 with all her might, two wretched brats clinging to her 
 knees. Without doubt the unfortunate mother did not 
 intend to follow her drunkard husband to America, 
 regarding as worse than the famine endured in her 
 native land exile far away from all friends, from all 
 familiar faces and things, in lands where nothing 
 would console her for the disgrace and the debauchery 
 of her husband. 
 
 Sickened by this scene, Laurent and several of the 
 haes and comrades of the Nations quickly delivered 
 the mother and children. While some led the poor 
 woman, almost dead from exhaustion, to a nearby 
 cafe, the others led the scamp toward The Gina and 
 put him on board more quickly than he would have 
 wished, throwing him across the gang-plank at the 
 risk of plunging him into the water. 
 
 The drunkard, completely besotted, seemed to re- 
 sign himself to this unlooked for divorce; besides, 
 communication with shore had just been cut off. 
 Without worrying further about his family, he came 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 255 
 
 near the rail, and the lookers-on saw him take a half- 
 full bottle of gin from the pocket of his overcoat. 
 
 "See here," he stuttered, as he reeled about brandish- 
 ing the bottle above his head, "here's all that I have 
 left; the last money I had was drowned in this bot- 
 tle .. . and I drink this in farewell to Bel- 
 gium! . . ." 
 
 And putting the bottle to his lips, he emptied it at one 
 gulp; then he threw it with all his force against the 
 side of the dock, shattering it into splinters in the 
 water. And with a vacant laugh, he yelled : 
 
 "Ewiva America !" 
 
 However, the sailors drew in and rolled up the haw- 
 sers unloosed from the dock, the screws commenced 
 to churn the water ; on his bridge the captain was hurl- 
 ing repeated orders to aft and stern, and talking 
 through a tube with the men in the engine room ; and 
 beneath the touch of the helmsman, the boat turned 
 slowly from the bank, and seething little waves licked 
 the sides of The Gina. 
 
 At the shock of the start, the drunkard collapsed 
 at the feet of his fellow-travellers. 
 
 Laurent turned his eyes toward more sympathetic 
 people. 
 
 The Willeghem band waved its velvet flag, embroid- 
 ered and tasselled with gold, and again took up the 
 "Ow peut-on etre mieux" which both Borains and 
 Campinois shouted in chorus. 
 
 Among the mass of ruddy or wan faces, Laurent 
 ended by seeing only the Tilbak group. Until the 
 last minute he had thought of taking passage, without 
 telling them, on board The Gina, to share their des- 
 tiny and face the unknown with them ; only the fear of 
 displeasing Vincent and Siska, of opening up a 
 
256 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 freshly cauterized wound in their daughter's heart, 
 of awakening suspicion in the heart of honest Vinger-^ 
 hout, of being an object of constraint and annoyance 
 to them had retained him in Antwerp. 
 
 Then, too, a vague magnet prevented him from say- 
 ing farewell to his city; he had a presentiment of a 
 fatal duty that had to be fulfilled, of a role necessary 
 for him to play. He did not know what they were. 
 But without worrying about the future destiny had 
 in store for him, he was awaiting his hour. 
 
 On The Gina, shouts, cheers, a scuffle and a tumult 
 of yells drowned the sound of the band. They were 
 answering, with heart and lungs no less dilated, from 
 the mob banked on the dock. Boat and shore answered 
 each other, contending in bluster, verve and vigor. 
 Caps flew in the air, colored handkerchiefs waved like 
 the variegated banners at naval parades. 
 
 Women who looked as if they were crying and 
 laughing at the same moment held their children up 
 in their arms. And the further off the boat drew, the 
 more frantic became the gestures. It seemed as if 
 arms were extending themselves to clasp each other 
 again across the intervening water. 
 
 Because of the great amount of water it drew and 
 because of its more than full cargo, the boat remained 
 for a long while within view of the onlookers. Lau- 
 rent profited by this to run a little further toward the 
 end of the Tete de Grue, to the beginning of the basins, 
 that he might follow the boat until it turned. Hen- 
 riette had already gone down to the cabin with Jean 
 Vingerhout. Siska and Pierket continued to throw 
 him kisses ; he heard the strong male voice of Vincent 
 throwing him a last injunction with all the force of his 
 soul. 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 257 
 
 But with each turn of the screw Laurent felt him- 
 self losing a little of his security and confidence. The 
 *'0u pent on etre mieux" receded, died away in the dis- 
 tance like a murmur. 
 
 It was the same promontory from which Laurent 
 had watched the faery sunset on the Scheldt some 
 years before. Today it was gray, foggy, overcast; 
 instead of jewels, the river was rolling in slime; the 
 embankments of the Polder sent down yellowed grass ; 
 the sadness of the season harmonized with that of the 
 people. The carillon seemed heavier to him, and the 
 seagulls of former days, the hieratic and welcoming 
 priestesses, shrieked and cried Hke sybils of misfor- 
 tune. 
 
 When the hulk of the boat has disappeared behind a 
 bend in the Flanders shore, Laurent continued to watch 
 the smoke-stack, a travelling landmark above the dikes ; 
 then, gradually, it became only a black line, and finally 
 the last banner of smoke was lost in the desolation of 
 a January fog. 
 
 When an insidious and glacial fine rain awoke 
 the young man from this coma, he noticed that he 
 was not the only observer at the end of the 
 promontory. 
 
 The cure of Willeghem was still looking for the 
 track and the backwater of The Gina. Two big 
 tears fell slowly down his cheeks and he traced in the 
 air the sign of the cross. But the scattering flight of 
 the seamews, their shrieks of hailing scorceresses 
 seemed to parody that gentle professional gesture in 
 the four corners of the heavens. Unnerved by this 
 final sarcasm, Laurent turned back toward the city. 
 The noise of pickaxes and of crumbling blended with 
 the grumbling of the harbor cranes, with the rumble 
 
258 THE NEW^ CARTHAGE 
 
 of merchandise being thrown into the bottom of holds, 
 with the continual fall of calkers' picks. 
 
 In order to enlarge the docks, the demolition of the 
 old quarters had been ordered, and the wrecking had 
 begun. Already large pieces of wall were lying 
 crumbled into plaster at the corners of streets ; tumble- 
 down houses, disembowelled, cut away from their 
 gables, showed their carcasses of bleeding brick from 
 which hung, like strips of flesh and skin, sad, flapping 
 decorations. They looked like carcasses hung up in 
 butchers' stalls. 
 
 Here and there breaches had been made in the 
 blocks of buildings dating back to before the Spanish 
 dominion, in these decaying and unsteady old houses 
 that swayed toward each other like cold old women, 
 brought to light still older constructions, unmasked 
 vestiges of mediaeval donjons, unearthed the Roman 
 forts of the first ages of the city. 
 
 On a part of the line of the quays that had to be re- 
 paired the trees beneath which the two Paridaels had 
 so often walked had already disappeared. 
 
 Not only was the glorious Carthage rejecting her 
 surplus population, exiling her people, but, not con- 
 tent with having turned loose her pariahs, she was de- 
 molishing and undermining their hovels. She was be- 
 having like a parvenue who rebuilds, and transforms 
 from cellar to roof a noble and ancestral lordly home ; 
 discarding or destroying all the relics and vestiges of 
 a glorious past, and replacing picturesque and blue- 
 blooded ornaments by a flashy new garb, a showy new 
 luxury and an improvised elegance. 
 
 The news of the crimes and vandalism to which the 
 imbecile Rich had delivered over his natal city had 
 chagrined Laurent to the point of making him move 
 
THE EMIGRANTS 259 
 
 away from the theater of demolitions, the progress of 
 which would have afflicted him too keenly. 
 
 Chance had willed it that he should witness this 
 devastation on the very day when he had just attended 
 the departure of his friends. The contrast between the, 
 activity of the docks and the ruin that was beginnmg 
 to border the river was not of a nature to console him. 
 
 At the moment when the tumbrils were carrying 
 away the plaster, the broken stone and the materials of 
 the house to take them to far distant dumps. The Gina 
 was also carrying away as much refuse material, good- 
 for-nothings, cumbersome parasites, workers without 
 work, peasants without land, the broke, the down and 
 out, poor devils from the land and business. 
 
 For many of the people and of the Antwerpians of 
 the old school, it was as if the proud Scheldt was re- 
 pudiating his first wife. He was replacing old Ant- 
 werp by a harsh stepmother bringing new unreason- 
 ableness and customs, a foreign language favorable to 
 the breeding of other customs. She was gradually re- 
 pudiating the children of the first marriage-bed, brut- 
 ally proscribing the descendents of the primitive stock, 
 in order to draw near her arrogant bastards, to sub- 
 stitute in the paternal favor a population of mongrels 
 and foreigners. 
 
 There had even been talk, in the meetings of the 
 Regency, of tearing down the Steen, the old castle, 
 just as they had already torn down the Tour-Bleue and 
 the Port Saint-Georges. In truth, they had damaged 
 the admirable arch of triumph in spite of themselves. 
 Had not these good idiots made up their minds to tear 
 down the gate in numbering the quarters, block by 
 block, as in a game of patience? But our eagles did 
 not reckon with the work of centuries, and at this 
 
26o THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 game of architects in their second childhood, what was 
 their consternation when they saw the ashlar crumble 
 away to dust in their profane fingers ! 
 
 Ah! it was high time for the Tilbaks to expatriate 
 themselves. It was as good to go as to remain for 
 the havoc and depredation. Those who might ever 
 return ran the risk of not knowing their land. 
 
 The wreckers had already torn down the first houses 
 in the savory quartier des Bateliers. Navvys were al- 
 ready beginning to fill in the old canal Saint-Pierre. 
 
 Laurent dived further and further into the city, 
 wandering with filial devotion through the threatened 
 streets, according to the agonized walls a little of the 
 sympathy and clemency that he felt for the expelled. 
 
 And, beneath their hollowed gables, the sorrowful 
 facades possessed the emotions of human faces, of 
 faces solemn with approaching death, and the cross- 
 barred windows, the dusty panes of glass, cried like 
 blind eyes, and here and there, in the far-off and dis- 
 cordant music of some hovel, wailed the last "Ou pent 
 on etre mieux?" of the Willeghem band. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE RIET-DIJK 
 
 Among the many quarters on the point of disap- 
 pearing was the Riet-Dijk: a narrow alley throttling 
 itself behind the curb of the houses on the quai de 
 I'Escaut, meeting at one end a canal, a wet-dock and 
 storing place for boats, at the other, a wider and 
 longer artery, the Fosse-du-Bourg. 
 
 In the Riet-Dijk and the Fosse-du-Bourg, agglomer- 
 ated the houses of ill-fame. It was the "corner of 
 joy,** the Blijden-Hoek of ancient chronicles. In the 
 alley were high-priced houses; in the main street less 
 costly ones for modest purses. There were, in this 
 district, brothels consistent with every class and caste 
 of customers ; rich men, naval officers, sailors, soldiers. 
 
 In the evening, harps, accordions and violins vied 
 with each other, scraping and screeching in this su- 
 preme beguinage of hospitalers, and intrigued and al- 
 lured from a distance the stray passerby or traveller. 
 Hurried melodies, rhythms of the rabble, in which were 
 blended, like strokes of the lash or the rope*s-end, the 
 crash of brass bands and fifes: street-walkers' music. 
 
 On the street, the whole length of illuminated 
 ground-floor windows, there was a kermesse-like oscil- 
 lation ; street-walkers slouching along, loungers loiter- 
 ing about. 
 
 261 
 
262 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Until eleven o'clock the girls from these brothels 
 had permission to roam the streets in turn in the quar- 
 ter itself and even to go and dance at the Waux-Hall 
 and Frascati, two dance-halls in the Fosse-du-Bourg. 
 
 After that hour, a partial curfew, only serious 
 habitues wandered there, upon whom, little by little, 
 the dives finally closed their doors. The screeching of 
 fiddles was hushed. Soon one could hear only the la- 
 mentation of the river at full-tide, the plashing of the 
 water against the piles of the docks, the intermittent 
 grumble of a boat being fired up in anticipation of its 
 early morning departure. 
 
 It was the hour of stealthy parties, of concealed ob- 
 scenity. Noctambulists, their collars turned up, their 
 hats pushed down over their eyes, slid along the yel- 
 low houses and tapped masonic signals on the secret 
 doors of byways. 
 
 All banquets and celebrations terminated in a pil- 
 grimage to the Riet-Dijk. Strangers had themselves 
 taken there at night after having visited, during the 
 day, the printing house of Plantin-Moretus and the 
 Rubens* in the Cathedral. Orators at banquets took 
 their last toasts there. 
 
 The ups and downs of this peculiar quarter coincided 
 with the fluctuations of commerce in the metropolis. 
 The period of the Franco-Prussian war was the golden 
 age, the apogee of the Riet-Dijk. Never had so many 
 fortunes been suddenly made, nor had parvenus ever 
 sprung up in so great a hurry to enjoy them. 
 
 Their contemporaries told over and over again, while 
 waiting until legend should have immortalized them, 
 of the lupercalia celebrated in these temples by crafty 
 and sedate looking nabobs. On certain days of record 
 the habitues would requisition all the staff, after the 
 
THE RIET-DIJK 263 
 
 fashion of speculators who had cornered the market. 
 
 Bejard, the slave-dealer, and Saint-Fardier, the 
 Pasha organized, in the multicolored little salons of 
 Madame Schmidt, especially in the red room, celebrated 
 for its Boule bed with groove and sliding piece, a true 
 state bed, orgies in which both Phoenician pranks and 
 Roman exuberance were resuscitated. 
 
 On these occasions Dupoissy, the jack-of-all-trades, 
 fulfilled the platonic functions of manager. It was he 
 who conferred with Madame Adele, the housekeeper, 
 prepared the program and paid the bill. While the 
 ever headier allegories of these "masques," worthy of 
 a Ben Jonson struck with satyriasis, unrolled, the 
 smooth factotum sat at the piano and strummed circus 
 jigs. At each pause the actresses, nude or clad in long 
 stockings and black velvet masks, begged the approba- 
 tion of their disordered masters, and, crouching like 
 kittens, rubbed their moist and rice-powdered flesh 
 against the funereal dress-suits. 
 
 Such was the bewildering renown of these brothels 
 that, during the days of carnival, the chaste wives of 
 regular customers came masked to these diligent hives 
 — during free hours, let it be said — and, escorted by 
 the patron and the patronne, inspected the delicately 
 tufted little cells, gilded like reliquaries, the beds con- 
 trived, even to the erotic pictures, to fold up like altar 
 pieces. 
 
 And, were one to believe the scandal spread by their 
 little friends, the Mesdames Saint-Fardier had not been 
 the last to put the docility and amiability of their hus- 
 bands to so extravagant a test. 
 
 At the Riet-Dijk the interloping compounds pro- 
 duced by the gamy civilization of New Carthage af- 
 forded him pessimistic subjects for observation. After 
 
264 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 white nights, he watched these girls at their toilette, 
 saw them go through their paces, surprised their in- 
 stinctive terror at the imminent visit of the doctor; 
 he noted, in return, their easy air of familiarity, al- 
 most that of woman to woman, with the androgynal 
 hairdresser. 
 
 More than any other familiar or purveyor to these 
 places, Gay the Dalmatian interested him. This in- 
 dustrious celibate, clerk at one hundred and fifty francs 
 a month in the office of a ship-broker, drew annually 
 fifteen to twenty thousand francs in commissions from 
 the chief houses in the Riet-Dijk. He brought to the 
 better houses the captains to whom his employers, the 
 brokers, had attached him as guide during their stay 
 in Antwerp. Gay spoke all languages, even the dia- 
 lects and idiom of minor countries and the slang of 
 the most distant peopk. Gay brought to these delicate 
 transactions a probity that was highly appreciated. 
 There were never any errors in his bookkeeping. 
 When he came, every three months, to collect his com- 
 missions, the procurers paid their intelligent and wide- 
 awake recruiter unhesitatingly. On these occasions 
 Gay would accept a glass of wine or a liqueur, to drink 
 the health of Madame, Monsieur, and their boarders. 
 
 Gay's discretion was proverbial. With his little red 
 mustache, his broad grin, his neat appearance and his 
 affable manner. Gay had no enemies among his col- 
 leagues. To him they respectfully applied the English 
 adage: The right man in the right place; the man 
 worthy of his place, the place worthy of the man. 
 
 One month after the departure of the emigrants, 
 Paridael was accosted one morning on the Plaine 
 Falcon by Gay, who, rushed and out of breath, threw 
 this terrible news full in his face : 
 
THE RIET-DIJK . 26s 
 
 "The Gina has sunk with all on board, off the 
 coast of Brazil ! . . . It's posted at Lloyds 1" 
 
 And the Dalmatian passed on without turning, 
 anxious to inform as many people as he could of the 
 sinister news, never for a moment suspecting the blow 
 that he had just dealt Paridael. 
 
 Laurent reeled, closed his eyes, and ended by col- 
 lapsing on a doorstep, his legs refusing to support him 
 any longer. The syllables of the fatal words tolled a 
 knell in his ears. When he came to his senses again 
 he said to himself : 
 
 "The blood has gone to my head! Apoplexy is 
 giving me a warning. Tve had a moment of delirium, 
 and thought I heard somebody tell me that . . . hor- 
 ror. But things like that don't happen!" But he 
 found himself remembering all too clearly Gay's voice 
 and exotic accent, and blinking his eyes and gazing 
 down the Docks, did he not see the Dalmatian hurry- 
 off into the distance ? 
 
 Laurent dragged himself to the quai Sainte Alde- 
 gonde, where the offices of Bejard, Saint Fardier and 
 Company were. In turning the Coin des Paresseux 
 he found that even the ineradicable and carefree loaf- 
 ers had moved farther on to obtain the news. Worthy 
 Jean Vingerhout was popular even with this phleg- 
 matic tribe. And they knew him to be on board the 
 ill-fated Gina, 
 
 The air of sorrowful commiseration among these 
 rebellious loafers who were crowding upon the quay 
 and joining the mob in front of the emigration office 
 prepared Laurent for the worst. A feeble ray of hope, 
 however, continued to tremble among the sudden shad- 
 ows in his soul. It would not have been the first time 
 
266 THE NEW. CARTHAGE 
 
 that ships given up as lost had returned to the port 
 where they were being mourned ! 
 
 Laurent broke through the mob of dockers, sailors 
 and tearful women whom a common grief had brought 
 together, a mob made even more tragic by the presence 
 of many wretched looking families of emigrants, desig- 
 nated for the next sailing, perhaps marked for the 
 next wreck! Lamentations and sobs arose at inter- 
 vals above the black and suffocating silence. 
 
 Laurent succeeded in worming himself through the 
 crowd as far as the counter in the office. 
 
 "Is it true, Monsieur, what they are saying in the 
 city? . . ." 
 
 He stammered each word and affected a doubtful 
 infonation. 
 
 "Oh, yes ! . . . How many times do I have to re- 
 peat it to you? Long enough to die of hunger, at 
 least ! . . . Get out, now, and leave us some peace, and 
 be hanged to you !" 
 
 At these abominable words that only a Saint-Far- 
 dier could be capable of pronouncing, Paridael hurled 
 himself against the partition between himself and the 
 inner offices. 
 
 The door burst inward. 
 
 Laurent followed it and struck the individual who 
 had just spoken to him, and who was none other than 
 the former partner of Cousin William, full in the 
 face, with the fury of a mad bull. 
 
 The Pasha had always had the soul of a convict- 
 warden or a slave-driver, and the ex-slave-dealer Be- 
 jard had found in him the implacable brute whom he 
 required to plan and expedite his traffic in souls. 
 
 Had it not been for the intervention of his clerks, 
 who tore him away from his aggressor, the miserable 
 
THE RIET-DIJK 267 
 
 man would have been killed on the spot. Laurent had 
 half strangled him, and in both of his clenched fists 
 he clutched Saint-Fardier's pepper and salt whiskers. 
 
 While several of the employes were overpowering 
 Laurent, whose rage had not been satisfied, some of 
 their comrades had hurried the wounded man, mad 
 with fear, into Bejard's private office, where he did 
 not stop moaning and calling the police. 
 
 The provoking and unnatural words of Saint-Far- 
 dier had been heard by others beside Laurent, and, 
 learning what was taking place, the crowd outside par- 
 took of his indignation and would have torn to shreds 
 the policeman who dared try and arrest him. It 
 threatened even to drag the partners from the retreat 
 and execute immediate justice upon them. So that 
 Bejard, hearing the thunder of hoots and calls from 
 the crowd, thought it prudent to push Laurent into the 
 street and return him to his terrible friends. Then, 
 in the excitement produced by the reappearance of the 
 hostage, Bejard quickly shut the door behind him. 
 Dismissing his men for the rest of the day, he dragged 
 the pitiable Saint-Fardier through a back door into a 
 little deserted alley bordered by shops and warehouses, 
 from which they regained, not without tacking about 
 to avoid the quays and too frequented streets, their 
 residences in the new city. 
 
 "We shall catch that loafer again!" said Bejard 
 to Saint-Fardier, who was rubbing his bleeding cheeks 
 with his handkerchief, as they hurried along. "We 
 can't think of locking him up. We can't even think 
 of it for a long time to come, old fellow, for this 
 little accident has afready made too much noise, and 
 it wouldn't be good to have the law prying too closely 
 into our business. Wait till these dogs have finished 
 
268 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 howling! If they continue barking the way they have 
 been this morning, they'll be hoarse by tonight ! And 
 then we shall settle our account with Master Laurent !" 
 
 "After all, the affair isn't so bad for us . . . (here 
 the execrable trafficker forgot himself so far as to rub 
 his hands). . . . The ship wouldn't have lasted so 
 much longer. The rats had already left it because so 
 much water leaked into the hold. An old wooden 
 shoe, the insurance on which will net us double what 
 it was worth! And if we lose the bounties paid in 
 advance to some of the vigorous and flourishing emi- 
 grants, like that Vingerhout — you remember, Berg- 
 mans* tool, the leader of the elevator riot. And now 
 he's with his fathers! — after all, we collect the in- 
 surance on those of the crew who were drowned. 
 There's some compensation in that!" 
 
 The ship-owner came in for dinner as if nothing 
 had happened. Gine thought his expression bestially 
 jovial and crafty. At dessert, as he meticulously cut 
 a succulent melon and poured himself a glass of old 
 Bordeaux with the ceremony of a taster, he announced 
 in a hardly detailed fashion the shocking and complete 
 loss of the ship which she had baptized. 
 
 Without noticing the sudden pallor that overspread 
 his wife's face, he entered into, details and figured up 
 the number of victims. She begged him to stop ; he 
 insisted, and pushed his sarcasm to the point of con- 
 juring up to her that launching at the Fulton Dock- 
 yards. Then, utterly sick, she left the room and took 
 refuge in her own suite, where she thought of the evil 
 presage which certain onlookers had found in her hesi- 
 tation and maladroitness when the boat was to have 
 been cut loose upon the ways. 
 
 Laurent, after having escaped from the hands of 
 
THE RIET-DIJK 269 
 
 the crowd thar questioned him about the affair, ran 
 bareheaded — he had forgotten to pick up his cap after 
 the flight — without seeing or hearing anything, to his 
 garret, and, tumbling upon his bed as he used to do at 
 the Dobouziez's, shed the tears that his fury had driven 
 back into his bosom. He paused in his crying only 
 to repeat these names: "Jean! . . . Vincent! . . . 
 Siska! . . .^ Henriette! . . . Pierket! . . ." 
 ' Afterward, no day went by that did not find him 
 murderously humming to himself, as though inoculat- 
 ing himself with a sweet, but very powerful poison, 
 the "Ou peut-on etre mieuxf" of the Willeghem band. 
 
 Without suspecting the transformation that his 
 haughty cousin was undergoing, Laurent henceforth 
 confused the two Ginas, the woman and the boat; it 
 was Madame Bejard who, in order to kill his good and 
 sainted Henriette, had dedicated the ship, her godson, 
 to shipwreck. And to think that he had for one mo- 
 ment been in love with that Regina, on the night of 
 Bejard's election ! At present, he flattered himself that 
 he would always curse her ! 
 
 His devotion to the dear dead soon became con- 
 fused, in his hatred of the oligarchic society, not only 
 with his love for the simple working-people, but with 
 an extreme sympathy for the poorest and the most dis- 
 graced, even for those wretches who had fallen to the 
 very dregs of society. Finally he gave himself up to 
 that need for anarchy which had fermented within him 
 since his earliest infancy, which rent his heart and en- 
 tered into his deepest spirit. 
 
 It was toward the condemned of earth that his vast 
 desire for communion and tenderness oriented itself. 
 
IV 
 CONTUMACY 
 
 Laurent began by procuring lodgings at the farthest 
 end of Borgerhout, near a railroad cut, not far from a 
 siding used only for baggage cars. It was a comer 
 of the suggestive region that he had formerly observed 
 from the Dobouziez's garret. The urban agglomera- 
 tion here degenerated into a suburb of doubtful char- 
 acter, sparsely sown with houses, as if the blocks had 
 broken ranks, pot-houses of all kinds, pounds, the 
 workshops of marble-cutters, figurists and knackers. 
 Soot on the walls, grass between the cobblestones. 
 For monuments: a gasometer whose huge iron bell 
 moved up and down in its masonry cage, equipped 
 with jointed arms : an abattoir towards which drovers 
 led their unsuspicious flocks, and a despotic barracks 
 that swallowed up no less passive victims ; all dirty red 
 buildings, of a blood-tinged color. 
 
 From hour to hour the whistle of locomotives, the 
 horn of the crossing-guard and the factory clock 
 echoed each other, or the bugles of pitiable conscripts 
 were wedded with the death rattle of flocks of sheep. 
 Out to the ramparts of the fortifications empty lots 
 alternated with yards in which itchy dogs were rooting ; 
 embryonic gardens adjoined insipid cottages strayed 
 
 270 
 
CONTUMACY 271 
 
 into this harsh neighborhood like a sunny disposition 
 amongst grouches. 
 
 Little rag-pickers had long ago picked the tar away 
 from the boards of fences, or broken them down. 
 Armed with deep burlap bags, they scaled the fence, 
 after having explored the abandoned enclosure with 
 their eyes. Searching about with their sticks and their 
 feet, they rejoiced when they found the skin of a 
 carrion. They fought over their find as if it were a 
 gold nugget, or tore it away from the puppies who 
 were gnawing it growlingly. 
 
 The vicissitudes of this gang were for a long time 
 the only distraction of Paridael's mornings. Later he 
 discovered more abstract subjects for study. 
 
 Near the gatekeeper's, a tall, well-set man, dark 
 and husky, whose straightforward face stood out in 
 relief against the grimace and convulsions of the dis- 
 trict and of its knavish natives, had been paying court 
 to a plump blonde girl, as radiant as a field of corn, the 
 rose of whose flesh was slightly streaked with russet, 
 with delicate red lips and coaxing eyes. Her fresh 
 clothes betokened her a lady's maid, and her pretty 
 white cap and spotless apron told Paridael immedi- 
 ately that she was a stranger to the quarter. Without 
 doubt, it was on a chance stroll that she had passed 
 this way and remarked the handsome youth. She 
 was not the first to be attracted by the black eyes, 
 the curly mop and the serious, but not sullen, manner 
 of the gatekeeper. He had, besides, a military manner 
 of wearing his cap that was simply irresistible, and his 
 velvet jacket set off his figure like a hussar's pelisse! 
 The girls of the neighborhood, and not only those who 
 lived nearby, passed by regretfully as they ogled 
 the busy worker. The more daring made advances to 
 
^y'z THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 him, did not refrain from telling him their whim, all 
 the while pretending to joke, and barbing with a covet- 
 ous glance the joke that they cast at him. 
 
 The line being unimportant, he filled the offices of 
 crossing-keeper and switchman. The upkeep of his 
 little station kept him as busy as though he were a 
 simple workman in a gang. The flighty girls invari- 
 ably found him busy. Deaf to their lures, perhaps a 
 little proud, and judging them to be too free and too 
 trivial, he worked harder than ever, and when he had 
 finished blowing his horn, presenting, unfurling and 
 planting his flag, opening and closing the crossing- 
 gate, he hurried to fill his wheelbarrow with sand, 
 reballast the tracks, and oil his switch. 
 
 The white-capped lady's maid did not allow herself 
 to be rebuffed by his disdainful and bizarre manner. 
 Prettier and of a better type than the girls of the quar- 
 ter, at the same time more discreet and more alluring, 
 she gently tamed the savage. He began to straighten 
 up when he was bending over, working on the tracks, 
 and slowly lifting his cap in answer to her greeting; the 
 following week he came over to her, blushing and 
 somewhat foolish, to talk about the rain; the next 
 time, leaning upon the gate, he told her cock-and-bull 
 stories, which she swallowed as though they were 
 words of the gospel. One would have said that in 
 order to plague them the blustering trains ran by in 
 greater numbers on that day. But she waited until the 
 young man had finished his many drudging tasks, 
 followed his movements, won by his graceful 
 carriage, and they took up the interrupted conversa- 
 tion. . . . 
 
 The gradual union of these two simple people 
 greatly amused Laurent Paridael, conquered as he had 
 
CONTUMACY 273 
 
 been by their tempting blonde and dark beauty, so har- 
 moniously different. 
 
 A while before he had become acquainted with the 
 guard ; in off-hours he offered him cigars and treated 
 him to an occasional drink, and had him explain the 
 details of his work. He complimented the guard upon 
 his conquest, and when he found them together, in- 
 quired with a quick look about the progress of their 
 affair, and the slightly embarrassed laugh and lively 
 look of the guard answered him eloquently. As for 
 the girl, she was so busy making sheep's eyes at her 
 gallant that she never saw the signals of intelligence 
 and interest that Paridael brought to their love. This 
 happiness of others, this idyll of two young and 
 handsome people both beautified and tortured the 
 whimsical Paridael, the unacknowledged lover of 
 Gina. 
 
 However, they could no longer restrain their desire 
 for each other. She finished by joining him in his 
 little wooden hut on the nights when he was on duty. 
 One winter night of snow and gale Laurent saw them, 
 through the half -opened door, crouching coldly in a 
 corner, the girl on the fellow's knees. There was no 
 light, but the red glow of the cast-iron stove betrayed 
 the union of their silhouettes. 
 
 A spree on the other side of the city separated Lau- 
 rent from his friends. Upon returning from it he was 
 surprised to find that the young man was neither in 
 his little house, nor on the tracks. If Laurent remem- 
 bered rightly, this was the week during which the boy 
 was on day service. Was he ill? Had they replaced 
 him ? Paridael worried about his unaccustomed absence 
 as though the poor devil had been bound to his heart 
 by the ties of long friendship. It was worse when, at 
 
274 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 nightfall, another than the waited-for person came to 
 relieve the day-watchman. Giving in once again to his 
 timidity, to the bashfulness that entered his slightest 
 sympathies, Laurent did not dare inquire for the de- 
 serter. Moreover, Laurent did not know his name. 
 He would have had to describe him, enter into ex- 
 planations, and he imagined that his overtures would 
 seem strange. He went home again, but the thought 
 of the absent one tortured him all night, and the horn, 
 blown by another, seemed to call for help and sound 
 an alarm. 
 
 The next day, the guard was not at his post. Lau- 
 rent decided to speak to his substitute. 
 
 Then he heard a dismal epilogue. 
 
 In flagrant disobedience to all rules, under threat 
 of fine and discharge, at the risk of being found by 
 the travelling inspector, the lover had not quit his mis- 
 tress. But, one night, they were so tightly enmeshed, 
 so absolutely lost, lips against lips, that he had neither 
 the strength nor the presence of mind to signal a train 
 and bar the crossing. Perhaps he, too, counted upon 
 the utter solitude and loneliness of the road at that 
 late hour ! A frightful rattle of distress, followed by 
 a volley of oaths, aroused him from his ecstacy. When 
 he had rushed to the gate, he found that a train had 
 just stopped a few meters away from his post after 
 having crushed an old couple to jelly. 
 
 Certain of having to pay dearly for his negligence, 
 the guilty man had not awaited the result of the in- 
 quest, but had disappeared while the police and de- 
 tectives were looking for him. He had so much the 
 more reason for fearing the severities of the law since 
 the two old people killed during that night of love 
 were very rich and very miserly, and their hypocritical 
 
CONTUMACY 275 
 
 heirs owed it to their memory to relentlessly pursue 
 the agent of their massacre, although at the bottom of 
 their hearts the heirs doubtlessly were blessing the in- 
 teresting homicide. 
 
 The unlucky girl disappeared at the same time as 
 her lover, and no one knew where they were hiding. 
 Laurent never saw them again. But, after that fatal 
 adventure, each time he heard the hoarse cry of a 
 crossing-keeper's horn or saw the black tank of a 
 gasometer overhanging a surly suburban district, there 
 rose before his eyes the two young people leaning 
 against the crossing-gate; he, swarthy as a faun, clad 
 in a reddish-brown smock, his brass horn hung over 
 his shoulder by a red woolen band ; she, blonde, rose, 
 ready to swoon, and, with her white cap and apron, 
 as appetizing as the cloth at a banquet. 
 
 To shake off his sorrow, Laurent instantly changed 
 his lodgings, and travelled about exploring the Ant- 
 werpian country made dear to him by the peasant emi- 
 grants. Willeghem became, even for him, the object 
 of a pilgrimage. 
 
 Without leaving his country, without ceasing to 
 bathe in its sunshine and breath its atmosphere, Lau- 
 rent experienced the deadly devotion, the voluptuous 
 martyrdom of an exile. He saw and perceived the 
 smallest objects of the land with a sensuous intensity 
 known only by those who return after a long absence, 
 or who are leaving forever ; those who are resuscitated 
 or who are dying. It is only on native shores that the 
 three kingdoms of nature are adorned with this fresh- 
 ness, this youth, this eternal resurrection. 
 
 His fervent piety extended from the overworked 
 beings and the eccentric quarters of the city to the 
 sloppy or arid country, to the hallucinating sky, to the 
 
276 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 taciturn peasants, to those plains of the Campine which 
 the tourist avoids as he would remorse. 
 
 Braving hurricanes and tempests, he was out in all 
 weathers. 
 
 In the full autumn drizzle he often stood watching 
 a peasant pacing the fields with long steps, and sowing 
 with a full and rhythmic gesture. In summer, a 
 reaper gravely sharpening his scythe on the grindstone 
 held him fast, like one of the faithful watching a sym- 
 bolic episode of the divine office. He wandered about 
 all the villages near Willeghem, where he had seen 
 that vision, often returned to the same place, but al- 
 ways suffering from the same vague shame, did not 
 dare approach the sculptural peasant. 
 
 He was deeply moved, too, by the slight odor of 
 manure, that April evening when a peasant walked 
 about with his pail sprinkling his tardy soil with ladle- 
 fulls. The contempt of this rustic for the tender, deli- 
 cate spring, the phlegm of this large-breeched, tanned, 
 tow-headed peasant busying himself with his inelegant, 
 but useful job, the violent contrast between the sub- 
 stantial lout and the ambient archness of the season 
 conquered Laurent Paridael there and then, and in 
 the same minute, the view that he had been enjoying 
 seemed insipid and sophisticated. He could but look 
 at the young farmer. This same rustic, accosted by 
 Laurent, stopped mixing his compound and stimulating 
 the soil, and brightening up, spoke to Laurent quite 
 simply as he scratched his ear : 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur, four of us, all like me, made our 
 first communion the same day that we were drawn for 
 service !" 
 
 And this coincidence of the holy sacrament with 
 the brutal conscription never left Laurent's brain, and 
 
CONTUMACY 277 
 
 was inseparable from a mixture of paschal incense and 
 of filthy mixture, like the odor of day upon which this 
 remarkable fact had been told him. 
 
 With this impression was closely linked that of a 
 morning spent in the pasture with a crowd of cow- 
 herds and milkmaids. A large hoydenish girl com- 
 manded the tattered band and supervised the cooking 
 of the frog's legs, for the dressing of which she had 
 requisitioned all the butter in the group. Alert little 
 hands heaped up under the pot faggots and dead wood 
 as though in a camp. The roasting of the stew seemed 
 an artificial murmur of the leaves. 
 
 Paridael frisked that day like a savage ; he had even 
 forgotten his mourning and his rancor, but this rare 
 gaiety fell away in less than an instant. One of the 
 children, glutted with gin by a waggoner, slept against 
 the hedgerow ; in vain they shook him, he only snored, 
 slobbering and besotted as an alcoholic ; shaggy cater- 
 pillars produced a little quiver beneath his red skin, 
 and raging, moist gad-flies that, a little way off, were 
 making a troop of chickens sneeze and squawk, drew 
 from time to time a little drop of blood, the color of 
 crushed mulberry, from the sleeper, or a squeal that 
 cried to heaven for vengeance. 
 
 Many times Paridael ascended or descended the 
 long, straight Flemish canals on canal-boats. He lived 
 the life of the lightermen, partook of their meals and 
 slept in their cabins, small and neat as a dolFs boudoir, 
 lent a hand to his hosts, but spent the greater part of 
 his time doing absolutely nothing, tasting the joy of 
 wasting time and of gliding with the stream without 
 moving and of being, in his turn, the immobile, passive, 
 irresponsible thing before which filed the willows, 
 bowed the osier beds, trooped the villages and belfrys. 
 
278 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 And the manoeuvres, always the same, repeated at dif- 
 ferent stops, in lock-chambers constructed all on the 
 one model, the halts while waiting for lockage, the 
 trade boats lining up, touching each other in the wait- 
 ing place, while the lock-keeper worked the sluice and 
 the boats descended on the lowering water! And the 
 same jocular conversations were begun from bridge 
 to bridge, by the lock-keepers and the boatmen. 
 
 Sometimes an unforeseen modulation intruded it- 
 self into the doleful flourish. 
 
 As soon as the boats had found their places in line, 
 one of the men profited by the delay to jump to the 
 shore, root up a clump of turf with his pocket-knife, 
 and, regaining the boat, busied himself with putting 
 the live earth into the cage of the inevitable lark. Sen- 
 sible of this attention, the lovable captive welcomed 
 the feast with a deafening trill. But at this unseason- 
 able joy, the old boss, who, never being able to finish 
 a job, had been scolding and storming at his helper, 
 spied him at the stern of the boat and called him down 
 at the very moment when he was hurriedly closing 
 the cage. Ah! the do-nothing! For him that taunt 
 and that blow ! The quitter pocketed the scolding and 
 took the blow, reeled stoically without a complaint or a 
 retort. His large mouth trembled nervously, he red- 
 dened beneath his tan, but his great eyes did not tear. 
 He was disarmed less by the joy of the bird than by 
 the affectionate and pitying look cast him by the boss's 
 wife. Ah! to win that dear woman, he would will- 
 ingly undergo the boss's brutality. He cared as little 
 for the husband's rage as for the barking of a 
 dog. 
 
 And without bitterness, he went on with his work. 
 He went on, too, with his song. Brave boy! The 
 
CONTUMACY 279 
 
 locks opened again, the tow-boat again fished up its 
 endless hawser, and from one boat to the other the 
 sailors bent over their oars. 
 
 The boat began moving, taking up the line again. 
 Slowly, straight on toward Rupel the file descended. 
 
 Laurent also wandered by stage-coach through the 
 far-away and, nevertheless, near-by districts. Between 
 Beveren and Calloo in the Waes district he saw the 
 rhythmic fall of the flail threshing wheat. A girl, her 
 dress unfastened at the bosom, shining as the apple of 
 the district, ran up and climbed on the bank to the 
 roadway, just in time to catch the package flung her 
 'by the driver. With a quick movement she broke the 
 seal, hesitated a moment before unfolding the letter, 
 then decided to look it through. 
 
 Not a muscle of her face moved; but Laurent 
 thought he heard the panting of her heart. And the 
 motionless threshers — two bronzes rose-tinged in the 
 half-light of the barn, bathed in a sweat more volatile 
 than liquid — ^the threshers waited for the news with 
 a certain solemnity. A letter from "our Jan," her 
 brother, the "son of the house," or "my Frans," the 
 betrothed, a soldier at Antwerp? Had he had an un- 
 lucky hand in a scuffle, was he languishing in the mili- 
 tary hospital, did the letter come from the prison of 
 Vilvorde? Laurent posed all these questions to him- 
 self. He burned to ask the young girl. She entered 
 the farmhouse. He would have always to wait for 
 the answer. The diligence pursued its course. The 
 little bells tinkled laughingly on the collars of the 
 horses, the whip cracked without shame; it was tedi- 
 ously hot, one of those noonday heats that make us 
 curse the sun and lament winter. The clock of Calloo 
 rang out its melancholy midday, the most tedious hour 
 
28o THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 of all to peal, it seemed to say. . . . The crickets 
 were rasping their wing-shells ragingly. And Lau- 
 rent would always see, tomorrow, afterward, fatally, 
 the unique farm of the trip, the crushed peasant-girl, 
 the two half -nude bronze-colored boys. . . . For his 
 second look had told him that the news was bad news. 
 He would have liked to retrace his road, console the 
 beautiful girl; he felt himself capable of watching, 
 with them, the shade of the dead. But it was over. 
 Far, far back already; he would never come over this 
 road again in his life. But he had one memory the 
 more to weigh down his heart during the suffocating 
 heat of the dog-days. The tolling of a village bell, 
 the rapture of the flies in the sunlight, the grinding of 
 crickets* wings would always reproach him with the 
 vision of folk whom he could have pitied and 
 loved. . . . 
 
 Thus, a quantity of scenes, to which the crowd and 
 professional observers would have been indifferent, a 
 face barely glimpsed, a passerby jostled, a look inter- 
 cepted, a typical manner, left ineradicable impressions 
 upon his life. He sorrowed over the loss of compan- 
 ions of a short journey, over meetings without a se- 
 quel; inconsolable for the bifurcation of roads which 
 destiny imposes upon the best matched travellers. 
 
 Continual nostalgias plagued him. He was seized 
 with a shooting desire to conjure up, at no matter what 
 cost, these fleeting visions ; he craved for these beloved 
 apparitions, and time, far from effacing them from 
 his memory, only improved them and gave them new 
 strength, like noble wine. 
 
 A handsome and noble face of the people, a tall, 
 swarthy lad with deep, inquiring eyes, leaning upon 
 the door of a third-class railway coach, in a train 
 
CONTUMACY 281 
 
 which passed his. And no more was needed for Lau- 
 rent to link to him this being whom he would never 
 see again. For eternity he would relish that too rapid 
 minute; not one jot of its atmosphere would be lost: 
 it was near a viaduct, and in the air undulated an odor 
 of stagnant water and the song of a track-walker. A 
 foul effluence and a sad melopoeia framed the supreme 
 nobility of attitude and great affective eyes of the un- 
 known. . . . 
 
 Such incidents became for Laurent powerful pic- 
 tures, of a magnetic color, of a highly conceived re- 
 lief, but with, in addition, perfume, music and symbol, 
 and the indefinable that differentiated from all others 
 the chosen object or person. What masterpieces, he 
 thought, if anyone could succeed in rendering these 
 pictures as he himself reviewed them and ruminated 
 them, with closed eyes ! 
 
 This one also ! 
 
 A farm-hand was taking back to the stable his un- 
 yoked, but not yet unharnessed horses. The fore-parts 
 of the team had already disappeared into the darkness ; 
 only their rumps shone in 'the half-light within the 
 barn-door. Outside, the pole clenched in his fist, the 
 farm-hand, a hardy fellow, wide of shoulder, in shirt 
 sleeves, seen from the back, was bending over slightly 
 toward the right, in the action of holding back his too 
 impatient animals. One could have heard his "hiuho !" 
 or the chatter of his coaxing words, or his imperative 
 oath, but one remembered, abpve all, the pattern of 
 his gesture so unique, harmonious and almost sub- 
 limated, and inseparable from the man himself was 
 that muscular pose. 
 
 With the mental image of this gesture, Laurent re- 
 created the scene in all its accessory details. In truth. 
 
282 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 it wholly resided in the movement which he had tried 
 to illustrate to Marbol. 
 
 Despairing of making himself understood, he 
 dragged the painter by force to the farm where the 
 capital pose had manifested itself. They stood lying 
 in wait toward evening, but after having vainly 
 watched for the model, Laurent inquired for him f rdm 
 the farm people. 
 
 They could hardly recognize their equal, or at least 
 one of themselves, from the exalted portrait that he 
 drew of the fellow. 
 
 "Oh, yes ! It's 'Curly,' " said one of the women 
 with an hypocritical indifference, — for she must have 
 closely known and admired her fellow-workman. "The 
 master dismissed him a week ago, and we don't know 
 where he has hired himself out." 
 
 "To have such a mime under one's eyes and dis- 
 charge him!" cried Laurent with an indignation of 
 which the materialistic laborers understood noth- 
 ing. 
 
 Marbol tried to persuade his friend that they would 
 again find the same attitude, the same practised play 
 of muscles in other subjects of the same type as the 
 unique discharged hand. And, in order to acquiesce 
 in Paridael's mania and compensate him for the de- 
 plorable loss, they watched the return of many gangs 
 of workmen. But, at the awaited moment, their ap- 
 pearance, their pose and their awkward gestures were 
 but a parody, a pale counterfeit, an almost stupid and 
 pitiful symbol of the posture of "Curly." Marbol 
 would have been satisfied with them and even took his 
 pad from his pocket in order to note down this char- 
 acteristic moment of farm-labor, but Laurent would 
 not let him begin the sketch, and, when Marbol teased 
 
CONTUMACY 283 
 
 him about his exclusiveness, he replied with convic- 
 tion: 
 
 "Laugh all you want, my friend. But I*d have you 
 know that in order to secure for my eyes the volup- 
 tuousness and the caress of that young blackguard's 
 gesture of the other day, I'd willingly become a farmer 
 myself, in order to hire that helot. Perhaps he is a 
 bad lot, an intractable character, a dishonest servant, 
 but, though he were a drunkard, a thief and a rake, 
 I'd pardon his vices as little peccadilloes because of his 
 superior plasticity. He and the others whom we have 
 been watching do not lack grace, and I agree with you 
 that their movements are identical. Briefly, it*s the 
 same receipt, the same broth; only the marrow-bone 
 is lacking." 
 
 "Well, it's a good thing you don't know in what 
 kitchen this marrow-bone, as you call him, has gone 
 to give a relish to the soup 1" 
 
 "Yes, because I should be capable of engaging him 
 at once." 
 
 And, as Marbol began to laugh harder than ever: 
 
 "Oh! keep quiet," begged his friend. "If you were 
 really an artist, you would understand that !" 
 
 And in returning, downcast and sullen, he did not 
 again open his lips the whole way. 
 
 Little by little the poise, the good sense, the whole- 
 some mind of Bergmans displeased him. He began 
 to weary of his friends. He now went so far as to 
 find his inseparable triumvirate too indifferent, too 
 prudent. He reproached the painter with the thickness 
 and the opacity of his pictures, his lack of curiosity and 
 comprehension. The wholesomeness, the luxuriance, 
 the glad optimism of Vyveloy's genius no longer pro- 
 cured him the joy of former days. 
 
284 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 His outbursts greatly amused his little circle. They 
 treated their censor like a spoiled child and cared for 
 him as though he were a dear convalescent. Their 
 protective kindness and forbearance, far from calming 
 Laurent, only put him beside himself, and, not suc- 
 ceeding in damaging their serenity, blasted their civil- 
 ity, only to return to them within a few days. They 
 cherished no bitterness toward him, and forgave his 
 thoughtless insults and passionate harangues as being 
 the paradoxes and sophisms of a large heart. 
 
 But, haunted by his outlandish ideas, Laurent 
 dreamed of conforming his conduct to them. The mo- 
 ment was coming when he would strip himself of his 
 last prejudices and violate social conventions. His 
 eccentric habits finally wearied the tolerance of his 
 intimates, and, as people who had a reputation to sus- 
 tain in the world, they hazarded a few observations. 
 One day they had met him accompanied by a couple 
 of picturesque fellows, prowlers on the quays, bad 
 laborers, well modelled, but of a much too excessive 
 originality, to whom, nevertheless, with the best faith 
 in the world, he expected to present them. Having 
 freed themselves in haste from this compromising ac- 
 quaintance, they were severely taxed with philistinism. 
 
 This time Bergmans replied sharply. Paridael was 
 asking too much of them. His jokes were turning 
 sour. To interest himself in folk who worked and 
 suffered; nothing could be finer. But to take a deep 
 interest in blackguards, to rub elbows with criminals 
 and with the riff-raff ; that was to behave eccentrically, 
 to say the least ! Then, softening, Bergmans tried to 
 show the stray sheep the abyss toward which he was 
 slipping; he reproached him with being out of work, 
 with his solitary life, his dreams, offered him a posi- 
 
CONTUMACY 285 
 
 tion in his offices, or a place with Daelmans-Deynze. 
 
 Paridael refused point blank. The slightest depend- 
 ence, the least control was as repugnant to him as a 
 chain. 
 
 Sometimes, affected by a friendly word, he prom- 
 ised to take to regular habits ; he would make an effort 
 to content himself with the commonplace existence of 
 sedate and more sober people; but these good reso- 
 lutions left him at the first vexation which bourgeois 
 platitudes and self-sufficiency caused him. 
 
 The prognostications of Cousin Dobouziez weighed 
 upon him like a malediction; that positive and clear- 
 sighted man had fathomed the future of his exceptional 
 relative. 
 
 Laurent began to wish himself irresponsible, to envy 
 the shut-away, criminal or insane, who were not tor- 
 mented with the worry about daily bread and the strug- 
 gle for existence. His almost saintly goodness of 
 heart, an hysterical excellence like that of the Francis- 
 cans of Assisi, unbridled him and pushed him to the 
 ultimate consequences of fatalism. He believed him- 
 self predestined; without will, without faith, without 
 object, he wished to die and sink himself again into 
 the great all, like a defaced coin which the minter puts 
 back into the crucible. After his atoms had been scat- 
 tered and his elements dispersed, the eternal chemist 
 would again combine them with more profit to crea- 
 tion. 
 
 The visit which Laurent paid, at the height of this 
 crisis, to a penitentiary, aggravated his deleterious 
 desires. 
 
 "Sick, irresponsible, unfortunate people!'* he 
 pleaded, on his return from this excursion, before the 
 politician, the painter and the musician. "People who 
 
286 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 stare, who are bewildered, dazzled and aghast with 
 great visionary eyes that understand nothing of life, 
 law or morality, — ^the weak, the hopeless, lambs that 
 are always shorn, passive instruments, dupes who have 
 jostled every infamy, and remain as candid as children ; 
 easy-going folk who would never have killed a fly had 
 not ruffians taken them in ; vitiated but not vicious, as 
 greatly torn by life as they are wreckers of life. . . ." 
 
 "Are you speaking for yourself ?" interrupted Mar- 
 Sol. 
 
 "You an artist !" sneered Paridael, without answer- 
 ing his question. "What have you suffered for your 
 art ; what have you sacrificed to it ? It was there that 
 I met a true artist! And a sincere one, mind you! 
 After having led me from workshop to workshop, the 
 director took me into a model smithy. Imagine three 
 tiers of anvils, as many bellows beating out, with their 
 Aeolian breath, the rhythm of the red dance of the 
 flames ; a hundred men, their chests and stomachs pro- 
 tected by leather aprons as inflexible as armor, hairy, 
 bearded, black, strong, their arms bare to the bulging 
 muscles, quickly tapping hammers ; the thunder and 
 the temperature of a crater in eruption; a maddening 
 whirl of filings in human sweat ; the flash of tests al- 
 ternating with bursts of flame ; and, splashed in sparks, 
 torsos comparable to that in the Vatican. 
 
 "Apart from its huge dimensions and more com- 
 plex apparatus, nothing distinguished this smithy from 
 any other; the magnificent and robust smiths looked 
 like all the other blacksmiths in the world. The activ- 
 ity and the fever of emulation that pervaded this im- 
 mense hall were neither more nor less edifying than 
 those of a workshop full of free workers, and many 
 a criminologist, versed in the science of Gall and La- 
 
CONTUMACY 2S7 
 
 vater, would have been shocked by the faults and the 
 divergences of these almost superhuman athletes. 
 
 "Passing between the files of anvils, one of the ham- 
 merers especially interested me; a hoary, strapping 
 fellow with a gentle and wistful face, at the most 
 thirty years of age. The director had shown me, in 
 his rooms, admirable pieces of wrought iron, recalling, 
 or rather perpetuating the exquisite ironwork of the 
 Middle Ages and the Renaissance. 
 
 "Here," he said to me, "is the maker of those 
 pieces!" and to the hammerman who did not stop 
 puddling the flaming iron : "Karel, this gentleman has 
 been good enough to find some merit in your slight 
 work." "Not some merit, but the greatest .merit," I 
 hurriedly corrected. "Those window-grilles, that fire- 
 gate, the candelabra, the banister are superb, and I 
 heartily congratulate you upon them!" At my con- 
 vinced tone, and the explicit expression of my praise, 
 his serious face lit up with a pale smile, his tempes- 
 tuous eyes radiated; he thanked me in a gentle and 
 moved voice; but smile, intonation and look were so 
 poignant that, had I persisted, and touched the same 
 chord, his expression of gratitude would have become 
 a burst of tears. I, too, felt myself as much over- 
 wrought as he, and after having furtively touched his 
 callous hands, I moved away quickly, a lump in my 
 throat and a mist before my eyes. 
 
 " 'And to think,' the director said to me, when we 
 had left the room and I had turned away to hide my 
 emotion, 'that I have placed that hardhitter very nicely 
 with the village farrier. He earned a good salary, and 
 his employer treated him well. Moreover, I had been 
 able to recommend him very highly. He had under- 
 gone infinite affliction ; the death of his family, carried 
 
288 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 off during the last epidemic of typhoid, brought him 
 to desperation, drunkenness, misery and stranded him 
 upon our doorstep. I prided myself upon having 
 reconciled him to life and society. However, didn^t 
 he get the notion to suddenly leave his employers and 
 return to our door? Called before me, he begged me 
 to take him back. You cannot imagine under v^hat 
 pretext. That original thought it beneath his dignity 
 to hire out his arms to the village blacksmith, who em- 
 ployed them in rough work, and he believed himself 
 happier in working here as a prisoner at work of his 
 choice, at the craftsmanship undertaken here. 
 
 " 'Naturally, I refused to lend myself to such a sin- 
 gular whim, and thinking that I had demonstrated the 
 absurdity of his proposition, I sent him away, promis- 
 ing him that I would find a workshop more worthy 
 of his talent. He did not once object to my reasons, 
 seemed to submit, but he said goodbye to me in a sar- 
 castic tone quite contrary to his nature. 
 
 " *Two months after this interview he returned to 
 me, this time escorted by gendarmes in the coach-load 
 of prisoners sent us daily by the judicial authorities : he 
 had had himself admitted not by favor, but by law, 
 well furnished, as a letter of introduction, with a com- 
 mittment as an incorrigible vagrant. And when he 
 had done his time I consented to keep him on, in order 
 to spare him a second offence. Only don't repeat this 
 story, for if it came to the ears of the Minister, my 
 kindness might be severely judged ! What means did I 
 have of treating that devil of an aristocrat differently?' 
 
 "Would you believe it, far from blaming him, I 
 sincerely congratulated the official and thanked him 
 for his kindness to one of the only complete artists, 
 of the only true aristocrats — that was my word — ^that 
 
CONTUMACY 289 
 
 I had ever met with. ... Oh ! sit down again, Mar- 
 bol, and you, too, Bergmans; I haven^t finished. . . . 
 Our walk ended in a long silence of thought. 
 
 "I reproached myself for my pusillanimity in regard 
 to the man whom we left behind in the smithy. I 
 should have embraced that victim of social stupidity 
 and cried to him: *I understand you, proud wretch. 
 How greatly plausible is your so-called aberration ! I 
 share your predilection for this refuge where you can 
 give yourself up to the creative impulse without hin- 
 drance, where the person who pays you does not set 
 your conscience and your liberty by the ears. How 
 many artists are pigmies compared to you ! Then, also, 
 my good fellow, I divine in you a character too im- 
 pressionable for you to repatriate yourself among geo- 
 metrical humanity. A slight swerving would put you 
 without the ban of ostensibly virtuous people. A false 
 step would alienate you forever from those austere 
 equilibrists. You prefer to this hypocritical and recti- 
 linear society your strange equals, your comrades of 
 the hulks. You live without mortification ; you create 
 according to your own fancy. That bread which you 
 eat ; no competitor will tear away from you, and you 
 still less will steal from your brother in distress. No 
 more struggle for existence, that struggle which fin- 
 ishes by taking all the color out of the artist's soul. 
 No dealers, no exhibitions, no public. Around you 
 poor beings who, without necessarily understanding 
 your work better than acknowledged connoisseurs, ex- 
 cuse and respect your art, your vice, your rare vice, 
 because you, on your part, do not think of wronging 
 their subversive originality.' " 
 
 After this vindication of the defaulting and the 
 downtrodden, a fierce argument arose between Lau- 
 
290 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 rent and his companions, although the latter did all 
 they could to call off the dogs. These scenes repeated 
 themselves, tearing away each time a shred of their 
 former intimacy, and Laurent ended by no longer see- 
 ing his former faithful friends. 
 
 He once more plunged himself deeper and deeper 
 into the extreme quarters exemplified by the loves of the 
 crossing-keeper, frequented the haunts of the city 
 boundaries, the cut-throat dives of Looibroek and 
 Doelhof, the slanting streets of the Stone Mill and 
 of Zurenborg, the sight of which had touched his heart, 
 when he was a child, and inspired him with a curiosity 
 blended with anguish and an unhealthy pity; that ec- 
 centric district to the east of the city, actual vestibules 
 of the reformatories, waiting room of the prisons, 
 swarming with moral lepers. 
 
 He loafed also about the immense region of the 
 Basins, beginning at the former Palais des Hanseates, 
 stripped of its campanile and imperial eagle, and pre- 
 senting an uninterrupted succession of quadrangular 
 reservoirs, enormous and solid as the arenas inundated 
 for the naumachies of the Caesars. However, some- 
 times the boats flocked together in such compact masses 
 that Paridael crossed the docks, dry-footed, as if it 
 were the deck of a boat. Others were being built, 
 larger, deeper, without any delay. Hardly opened, 
 they were already insufficient for the merchant fleets 
 that met there from the four corners of the earth, and 
 anew the metropolis, glorious Messaline of commerce, 
 insatiable and unsatiated, enlarged her bosom to re- 
 ceive these arks of abundance, and, always spurred 
 forward, contested in expansion and in vigor with her 
 copious tributaries. 
 
 And navvies from the Polder incessantly struggled 
 
CONTUMACY 291 
 
 to dig a bed that would fit her lovers, for the queen of 
 the Scheldt. 
 
 But, though they were exacting, at least these loves 
 were fecund. 
 
 Around each basin, the whole length of the quays, 
 cranes and hoists driven by water power and steam, 
 and tended by gangs of Herculean dockers stretched 
 far and wide. As alarming as the ballistic engines and 
 siege machines invented long ago by Gianibelli, the 
 Antwerpian Archimedes, to shatter to bits and sink 
 the galleons of Farnese, their immoderate arms bran- 
 dishing a perpetual threat toward heaven, they no 
 longer tore ships from their element, but, after having 
 plunged their hooks, like hands armed with forceps, 
 into the depths of the hold, they hoisted out, without 
 too much grinding of chains or teeth, the cargoes 
 stowed away in these wombs perpetually in travail. 
 
 Communicating with the docks and the roadstead by 
 means of powerful locks provided with gang-planks 
 and revolving bridges, were lined the dry-docks, like 
 convalescent homes next to maternity hospitals. There 
 all sick and wounded ships were recruited. A swarm 
 of operators, calkers and painters, took charge of the 
 damaged boat, skinned it, repaired it, plated it, paved it, 
 painted it freshly ; and the reverberations of hammers, 
 mallets and picks drowned the wailing of the cranes, 
 and the whistle of sirens and the crash of cartage. 
 
 Then, beyond the hospital, the pound and the 
 morgue. Waste fields where carcasses of ships, lying 
 upon their sides, eaten up with sea-wrack, cracked, with 
 the air of incurable or stranded whales, waited for the 
 wrecker, or finished by rotting like carrion among the 
 refuse and minor wrecks. 
 
 Then he pushed his exploration farther on. He 
 
292 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 came to the warehouses for inflammable substances. 
 Storehouses of petroleum and naphtha immerged like 
 islets in marshy flats. Here the industry of the great 
 city had halted for the time being. Barring the en- 
 trance to the country toward Austruweel rose the glacis 
 of the old Citadelle du Nord, a discarded fortress, a 
 bulky and antiquated rampart, a decayed bugbear, a 
 wretched poultry-yard of which the utilitarian city had 
 obtained the cession and which she was hurrying to 
 sap in order to convert it, like her other annexations, 
 into docks, basins, dry-docks and warehouses. Ah! 
 why could she not do the same with all the other ram- 
 parts and intrenchments with which they persisted in 
 surrounding her ! For the city, essentially mercantile, 
 reluctantly suffered her role of fortified town, although 
 she had been predestined to it from her origin, by the 
 Roman fort, her cradle, of which vestiges can still be 
 seen today and whose despoiled and travestied poetry 
 awaits its cavalier, as in the early days Elsa of Bra- 
 bant, countess of Antwerp, conjured up the apparition 
 of Lohengrin, her champion, from the dazzling track 
 of the fatal swan. 
 
 Having in her heart a last filial scruple, instead of 
 tearing down the ancient donjon, Antwerp contented 
 itself with scofling at it by flanking it with two galler- 
 ies as shabby as the practicable bridges in a comic 
 opera. 
 
 But she did not manifest even such debatable atten- 
 tions to more recent fortresses. 
 
 She cursed as a detestable slavery the belt of forti- 
 fications which her princes consented to demolish from 
 century to century only to transport them further out 
 and make them inexpugnable. 
 
 The maid of Antwerp, more haughty than belli- 
 
CONTUMACY 293 
 
 cose, would gladly trample beneath her feet the crene- 
 lated crown that she had been forced to wear. 
 
 History does not hesitate to justify the repugnance 
 of the metropolis for this martial garb. Instead of 
 preserving her, these walls and ramparts had always 
 attracted the worst scourges toward her. Besieged for 
 months, bombarded, then forced, invaded, pillaged, 
 sacked, put to fire and sword, devastated from cellar 
 to roof by foreign soldiery, notably during the Span- 
 ish Fury, so well named, she was nigh to never again 
 recovering from it, to never rising from her ashes, 
 but to disappearing with her fortune. But, thanks to 
 her faithful Scheldt, which for her took the place of 
 Pactolus and the fountain of youth, she was reborn 
 each time more beautiful, more desirable, and recov- 
 ered her ravished fortune tenfold. As she grew richer, 
 however, she grew more surly and more selfish. Did 
 she have a presentiment of fresh disasters? She 
 spread out so insolent a luxury, and so much misery 
 surrounded it! And the more her commerce flour- 
 ished, the more inveterate became her hatred of these 
 inauspicious fortifications, which not only thwarted 
 her growth, but destined her, in case of war, to be the 
 theater of desperate struggles and supreme disasters. 
 
 Her ramparts charged with cannon and her bar- 
 racks crammed with soldiers continually evoked the 
 spectre of ruin and death before these Croesuses, as in- 
 solent as they were cowardly. And the city came to 
 envelop in the same animadversion the bastions that 
 strangled her and the idle, parasitic garrison that 
 seemed to insult her activity, and with whom she vied 
 even in patriotic courage. In the same way Carthage 
 used to detest her mercenaries. 
 
 The manner in which the army was recruited did not 
 
294 THE NEW^ CARTHAGE 
 
 contribute to elevating it in the eyes of the oligarchs. 
 It was composed, for the major part, only of poor 
 devils and vagabonds; of conscripts and paid volun- 
 teers. But millionaires brought up in the cult of money 
 recognized no difference between poverty and vaga- 
 bondage. The army had good reason to think the gar- 
 rison of Antwerp the most inhospitable. Soldiers sent 
 into these unsympathetic surroundings soon presented 
 a constrained expression. In the street they instinc- 
 tively effaced themselves and ceded the right of way 
 to the bourgeiosie. They wore, not the uniform of 
 warriors, but the livery of pariahs. Instead of repre- 
 senting an army, of emanating from the patriotism of 
 a people and incarnating the best of its blood and 
 youth, they were conscious of their position of pen- 
 sioners. 
 
 The people of Antwerp confused these soldiers of a 
 neutral country with indigents succored by public char- 
 ity, with the inhabitants of orphan asylums and alms- 
 houses. 
 
 And, by a strange anomaly, the prejudice of the 
 bourgeoisie of Antwerp against the soldier blinded the 
 common people, even those who intended serving or 
 had served, and fathers whose sons were or were to 
 become soldiers. 
 
 It was no longer a question of class hatred, but of 
 a true incompatability of habits, of an historic hatred 
 that Antwerpians imbibe, as if from a tradition inher- 
 ent in the air they breathed, or the milk with which 
 they were suckled. 
 
 In roadside inns, working women often refused to 
 dance with soldiers. In other lands, in the eyes of 
 the women military uniform lends an irresistible smart- 
 ness to any gallant; here it is a blot upon the most 
 
CONTUMACY 295 
 
 attractive cavalier. When they knew themselves to be 
 in the majority, the rebuffed soldiers did not swallow 
 the insult, but, touched to the quick, raised their voices, 
 took the offensive, turned the ball topsy-turvy, took 
 the first weapons that came to hand and revenged them- 
 selves upon the men for their doxies* scorn. Nearly 
 every week a brawl broke out between civilians and 
 soldiers, especially in the ill-famed blocks of houses 
 bordering the barracks of Berchem and Borgerhout. 
 This antagonism between civilian and soldier raged 
 even outside the belt of fortifications, in the country 
 about Antwerp. Unfortunate was the stranger who 
 travelled back alone in the evening to one of the outly- 
 ing forts. Ambushed peasants fell upon him, peppered 
 him with blows, beat him unmercifully and dragged 
 him along the road. This ambuscade called forth a 
 frightful reprisal. On the next furlough, the victim's 
 brothers in arms descended in force upon the village, 
 and if they could not succeed in laying hands upon the 
 guilty, invaded the first cabaret in their path, broke 
 up the furniture, smashed the glasses, battered in the 
 heads of casks, slashed the drinkers and abused the 
 women. It came to pass that whole streets of Berchem 
 were delivered up to the excesses of these madmen. 
 At their approach the inhabitants immured themselves 
 under lock and key. Drunk with rage and liquor, the 
 madmen buried their swords in doors and shutters and 
 did not leave a single window unbroken. 
 
 The next day the colonel vainly consigned the regi- 
 ment to barracks, and forbid them thenceforth the 
 privilege of entering the dives of the neighborhood; 
 after these night attacks the hatred continued to 
 smoulder, latent and dull, and at the next opporttmity 
 would break out in fresh and murderous brawls. 
 
296 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Naturally, Laurent, in the majority of cases, took 
 sides with the soldiers, provoked beyond endur- 
 ance by the butchers and slaughterers of the Stone 
 Mill. 
 
 He made friends, above all, with the newcomers, the 
 novices, those who were most rebuffed and out of their 
 element. For they suffered not only the affronts of the 
 bourgeosie, but also served as butts for their seniors 
 in service. Butts for butts, they were, for the most 
 part, unsophisticated and massive peasant literally up- 
 rooted from their villages in the Campine. 
 
 Laurent followed the poor conscripts from those 
 grey afternoons when lots were drawn and the militia- 
 board met, when, muddied up to their loins, they fidg- 
 eted and bellowed in the mud and the mist of the 
 streets, their caps decorated with red ribbons and col- 
 ored papers, with the falsely foppish air of cattle, their 
 eyes humid and vacant, arm in arm, beating out ex- 
 travagant quadrilles. 
 
 Then he saw before his eyes these falsely joyous 
 fellows during the first few days in barracks ; instruc- 
 tors chosen from among the substitutes abused and 
 molested these peasants, bewildered to the point of 
 no longer being able to tell their name or that of their 
 village. And the tortures to which they were put in 
 the dormitories! Then their walks in the street, in 
 their new uniforms, in coteries made up of men from 
 the same district, coming together like chicks from the 
 same litter; their admiring halts in front of shop- 
 windows ; their rocking gait, their rustic awkwardness ; 
 their vaguely troubled and begging air of lost dogs; 
 the puerile travesty of a soldier accommodating him- 
 self badly to the handling of his weapons and stress- 
 
CONTUMACY 297 
 
 ing the contrast between his muscular body and his 
 placid, frank face. 
 
 Perhaps, real Samaritan that he was, Laurent 
 would have preferred, to the passive and submissive 
 soldier, deserters, the refractory, even the disgraced 
 who were driven from the army and punished with 
 the yellow badge. 
 
 In memory of the poignant enigma between Beveren 
 and Calloo he harbored and concealed for a week, 
 time enough to throw the gendarmes off the scent, and 
 procure him enough money to leave the country, a 
 deserter who had escaped punishment, an inoffensive 
 and bewildered conscript who had been condemned, 
 for a trifle, to stagnate in a fort in the marshes, and 
 young and brave as he was, to endure the despotism of 
 a disgraced officer. At the hour for fatigue duty he 
 had upset his wheelbarrow, pitched away his mattock, 
 and taken to flight under the eyes of the guard who 
 aimed at him. He even told Laurent that he hoped less 
 for freedom than for death. And as all the muskets 
 discharged without touching him, he thought the clum- 
 siness of the sentinels, his brother peasants, had been 
 in the nature of mercy. 
 
THE RUNNERS 
 
 Laurent even began to make friends with the river- 
 pirates, fresh water sharks, the blackguards or run- 
 ners whom honest Tilbak had held at a distance, mod- 
 els whom the painter Marbol repudiated as too tainted. 
 
 A peculiarly local breed, the majority of whom first 
 saw the light of day, or whatever took its place, in lit- 
 tle waterside alleys, at the back of some fish-factor*s 
 shop, or beneath the roof of some cosmopolitan 
 herberge. Blind alleys and culs-de-sac in which these 
 brats swarmed and multiplied to such an extent that 
 one would have thought the dealers in eels and mussels 
 as prolific as their merchandise. Marsh fever and 
 contagious diseases swept away whole litters of these 
 urchins, the heavy trucks of the Nations ran over at 
 least a couple of them each week ; but the next day they 
 again swarmed in crowds as compact as those of the 
 day before. Legitimate unions between fishermen and 
 fishwives did not always sufifice to foul the floors of 
 these hovels with this human seaweed. Loves as fleet- 
 ing and as capricious as those of plants presided over 
 the propagation of the species. The sons of a blonde 
 servant like the blonde Germanic inherited their lemon- 
 colored complexions and black eyelashes from their 
 father, an Italian helmsman stranded overnight in the 
 
 298 
 
THE RUNNERS 299 
 
 house of the German lodgings-keeper, the baes of that 
 Gretchen. These fat, dumpy children of an appar- 
 ently northern complexion sprang from the furtive 
 crossing of a Dutch harbor-pilot and a boarder in a 
 Spanish posada. 
 
 The feverish, mercenary atmosphere of the harbor 
 emancipated this progeny of sailors and girls at an 
 early age. They would avenge themselves upon their 
 three dozen fathers by fleecing the poor devils of 
 sailors as best they might. 
 
 The suspicious nature of their business complicated 
 their indeterminate origin. Their lives flowed with 
 the tide of the river. By dint of filling their eyes with 
 lubricating visions, the water communcated its power, 
 its untoward magnetism, to their eyes. Muscular, but 
 graceful, sly, but daring, adroit as Florentine hravi, 
 they were like nixies with alluring voices, greedy fangs 
 and sharp talons. They spoke, as if intuitively, a 
 dozen languages and as many dialects, each one with 
 the local accent, heightening it with a popular raciness, 
 with a slangy timbre with which they, spiced their own 
 patois and by which they could be distinguished from 
 their comrades of other great ports. 
 
 Sprung from all races, their disparities harmonized 
 and amalgamated in such a way as to create an autoch- 
 thonous physiognomy, to brand them with a trade- 
 mark without analogue, with an indelible and vigorous 
 seal of the land. 
 
 Laurent highly valued their feline elegance, their 
 affected indolence. This species of the Antwerpian 
 people quintessentialized the vices and even the per- 
 fections of the great city. 
 
 Finally, Paridael contracted their mannerisms, their 
 twisting walk, their habit of stretching, their stuffed 
 
300 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 and slow locution. The raciness of this underworld 
 of the flourishing metropolis seasoned his life, for so 
 long past merely insipid. He adapted himself to his 
 surroundings. On certain days he clad himself in old 
 leather breeches and mangy coat, opened his old wide- 
 skirted overcoat above his short docker's blouse, 
 donned a sailor's cap with a saucy peak, or the pear- 
 shaped silk balloon dear to rural corn-chandlers, or a 
 picaresque wide-brimmed felt, or a comically shaped 
 straw. 
 
 Clad in this topical rig he lounged about, disordered, 
 untidy, shuffling his feet along, knocking one shoe 
 against the other. Leaning against the wall of some 
 warehouse, his cheek swollen with a quid, his arms 
 bare, he caressed his biceps with the air of an itinerant 
 tumbler, or, with his hand on the flap of his trousers, 
 pulled up his perpetually falling socks with a cynical 
 gesture, or, looking for some blackguardism, mused 
 and gazed for hours at the stream of passers-by. 
 
 Fights were no longer distasteful to him ; he scuffled 
 in the streets with a comrade, suffered and distributed 
 blows at random, he provoked and continued scraps 
 that ended in tumbles head over heels. When he came 
 out of these tourneys one would have taken him for the 
 muddy carter whom he had just been rolling about in 
 the gutter. 
 
 During the day the runners usually went their own 
 ways. Stretched out upon a pile of bales, upon a light 
 truck, upon a heap of boards or in the bottom of a 
 launch, they slept with one eye open. Toward dusk 
 the decks were suddenly cleared for action, and they 
 came together, as if by scent or instinct, at the same 
 gathering places. Squatting down, looking like a crop 
 of mushrooms sprouting on a misty and dark night, 
 
THE RUNNERS 301 
 
 they held veritable sabbaths, discussed some plunder, 
 made up maraudering parties, made brutal wagers, 
 concocted crimes, frightened by their loose talk and 
 their evasions the wenches that tacked about in their 
 seas. 
 
 A swarm of bad flies, of invisible insects seemed to 
 simultaneously sting the whole licentious tribe, and 
 then, the whole length of the river and the canals, 
 under the warehouses, amidst the piles of merchandise, 
 there were furious races, pillages like those of the 
 guerilleros, formidable filibusters that excited the po- 
 lice and threw them into consternation. 
 
 If he did not pass the night in the open air, Laurent 
 lay with criminals of all species, in the dives at Schel- 
 leke of Coude Tortu, of the Impasse de Glaive or of 
 the Montague d'Or. Here he had to pay for his night's 
 lodging in advance. 
 
 He stumbled, at the mercy of a worm-eaten and 
 blistering staircase, into an attic hung with filthy bed- 
 ding suspended like hammocks. The frequenters of 
 the place threw themselves down with little ceremony, 
 haphazard, often completely dressed, without bother- 
 ing about their neighbors, ages and sexes confused, 
 back to back, stomach to stomach, top to bottom, 
 swarming with vermin, incontinent. This promiscuity 
 determined almost unconscious and somnabulistic copu- 
 lations, amourous mistakes, often, also, possessions 
 spiced with carnage, scenes of jealousy and rivalry 
 prolonging themselves until cock-crow. And, on these 
 nights charged with ozone, desires crackled like will- 
 o'-the-wisps above a peat-bog. Laurent could hear 
 the rustle and the murmur of panting lips. Bargains 
 were being struck around him, fatal initiations were 
 consummated by the favor of the darkness. Where 
 
302 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 did reality commence, and nightmare end? The noc- 
 tambulists turned each other upside down, fighting 
 with arms and legs, picked themselves up in positions 
 like those of the Last Judgment or Fall of the Angels, 
 until, when the tempest of unforgettable shrieking was 
 at its height, a more frightful and more strident clamor 
 than any of the others tore the room full of accomplices 
 with a single jump from their anticipated hell. 
 
 Every night the police patrolled these cloacas, the 
 atmosphere of which would have choked a sewer 
 cleaner. From time to time they made a haul, but 
 every night managed a partial pruning. 
 
 Preceded by the haes, the policeman shoved the 
 light of the dark lantern beneath the noses of the sleep- 
 ers. His choice having been made, he shook the sec- 
 ond offender, invited him almost cordially to rise, 
 dress and leave. The man obeyed, dully, grumbling 
 like a gagged bear. This formality was renewed so 
 frequently that the others hardly opened their eyes, or, 
 after having bidden their comrade and his officer a 
 joking "Pleasant trip!" fell back asleep without ac- 
 cording the scoop any further attention. Tomorrow 
 it would be their turn. And then, there were dead 
 seasons for their business, just like any other. And, 
 when they were out of work, they might just as well 
 pass their days in the workhouse or in the free hotel 
 of the Rue des Beguines. . . . 
 
 At daybreak, the lodging-house keeper came to the 
 door of the dormitory, and having gargarized with a 
 cough and a spit, he called out in the professional and 
 somewhat nasal voice of an auctioneer carrying on a 
 sale: 
 
 "Up with you, boys! One . . . two . . . three!" 
 
 Then, without further warning, he took down the 
 
THE RUNNERS 303 
 
 straps that held up their pallets, and, at the risk of 
 breaking up the mouldy boards of the floor, tumbled 
 the mass of sleepers brutally out on the floor. 
 
 Accustomed to listening to cases in the police-court, 
 whiling away hours with second-offenders and appren- 
 tice-criminals who allured him with tales of the ex- 
 ploits of their comrades, delighting in contact with 
 rubbish impregnated with the odor of adventure, Pari- 
 dael owed it to a miracle that he was not implicated 
 in some affair or other carried off by these footpads 
 who terrorized the district. 
 
 He knew more than one member of the celebrated 
 bands established in the blind alleys of populous sub- 
 urbs; at Stuivenberg, at Doelhof, at Roggeveld and 
 Kerkeveld. The police watched him and took him for 
 an eccentric, a cracked, inoffensive idiot. They 
 watched him more carefully than had been their wont 
 because of his shameless friendship with the cream of 
 old offenders; the Herring, Tailless, Flower o* the 
 Sewer. 
 
 He also had had a nickname bestowed upon him. 
 It was not the first ; formerly, in his own set, Bejard, 
 Saint-Fardier, Felicite and even Regina had affected 
 to see nothing but the too rosy color of his cheeks, and 
 had called him the Peasant. The people among whom 
 he now lived, on the other hand, noticed the whiteness 
 and the smallness of his hands, the arch of his femi- 
 nine foot, the fineness of his build; and for the full- 
 breasted receivers of stolen goods, for the big-fisted 
 and solidly built rogues, he was the Jonker, the 
 Squireen. 
 
 How had he been able to make himself loved by all 
 these apaches, instead of being found one morning 
 stabbed and gutted in some back yard, or dragged out 
 
304 ^HE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 of the silt of the Basins, his stomach already swarm- 
 ing with eels ? 
 
 He excited, on the contrary, among this rabble a 
 sort of superstitious respect and deferential sympathy. 
 They had, moreover, tried him out, and he had come 
 through because of his discretion. The spirit of con- 
 tumacy brought together the declassed youth and those 
 without the pale of the law. 
 
 To flatter and tickle their instinct of combativeness, 
 to justify their life on the fringe of society in their 
 own eyes, to stretch their riotous feelings, to excite 
 their red-blooded bodies to rape, pillage and murder- 
 ous frenzy, he told them about his reading, during 
 calm hours, transposed Shakespeare for their under- 
 standing; Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, but especially 
 the perpetual homicides of the Wars of the Roses, 
 kings and queens of sinful days, stags with horns al- 
 ways gory, spotted with heroism. 
 
 More than once, leaving one of these readings, awak- 
 ened by the vehement acclamation, the quivering of 
 their gladitorial bodies, the fluid of these souls as ir- 
 responsible as nature herself, it seemed to him that his 
 dream had just poured itself into reality. 
 
 It was among the young runners that the pigeon 
 breeders recruited their youths on the Sundays when 
 races were held. It befell Laurent to enter these re- 
 lays and, clutching between his teeth the corner of the 
 bag that held the winning dove, to run barefoot, his 
 limbs as elastic as those of a hero of the palaestra. 
 
 He discovered the photographer charged by the 
 courts with perpetuating the images of criminals at 
 the issue of their trials, and procured for himself 
 proofs of the entire collection. He became absorbed, 
 with a bitter joy, in the contemplation of that gallery 
 
THE RUNNERS 305 
 
 of well known "trouble-bourgeoises" and compared 
 them, without prejudice, with bronze, marble and even 
 with august folk in the flesh. In default of the golden 
 letters illustrating the monuments of civic gratitude, 
 the name of the prisoner gleamed in white letters on 
 the breast of each portrait. This inscription seemed to 
 pillory and tattoo with a red-hot iron even the poor 
 effigy of the subject. On the back of the card figured 
 the description, the sobriquet, the place of birth, the 
 number of the record, and the term of commit- 
 ment. 
 
 Laurent was amused at the decoys and the decep- 
 tions in these faces. Certain of the satyr-like masks 
 would have been equally becoming to the most vener- 
 ated of magistrates and to the chastest of chaste 
 youths. 
 
 Following an attack upon a young farm-girl by six 
 peasants from Pouderlee, he frequently went to the 
 commonplace cabaret from which the scamps had 
 rushed to gratify their lust. He was fond of the di- 
 lapidated road with its radish-beds, its mangy woods, 
 its hillocks, its border of slender trees barked and 
 notched, without doubt by the same Jacks-of -all-trades 
 who occasionally set upon a less passive victim. 
 
 Thanks to his album of patibulary celebrities he 
 recognized one of the heroes of this escapade in a 
 young farmhand of eighteen, condemned by the Court 
 of Assizes, but later freed by the royal pardon. If 
 the excellent likeness of the photograph of this jail- 
 bird, one of those to which Paridael determinedly re- 
 turned, had disconcerted him by the almost seraphic 
 candor of its features, how much more inoffensive did 
 he appear in flesh and bone! There was nothing sin- 
 ister or even suspicious in the symbol of his soul. A 
 
3o6 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 little peasant, rosy and neat, brawny, with a free and 
 easy figure, great, pale, limpid, blue eyes, his cheeks 
 sprinkled with a light down, a fairly large nose with 
 refined nostrils, a wilful mouth, fine blond hair parted 
 at one side, — a rebellious tuft bristling above the ear; 
 — dressed in a coat and breeches of reddish corduroy, 
 shod in cowherd's boots, a red silk kerchief knotted 
 like a cord around his neck; the awkward manner of 
 a choir-boy surprised while stealing apples. 
 
 Laurent bought him a drink and made him tell the 
 details of the crime, relishing the contrast between the 
 horrible adventure and the candid air of the ravisher. 
 That sorrowful, sweet voice of a penitent at confes- 
 sion gave him gooseflesh. The curious fellow entered 
 upon the most bestial details without a pang, without 
 a single contraction in his throat, as if he were recit- 
 ing the plaint of some one else, and not himself, and 
 concluded thus : 
 
 "The strangest thing was that, the affair being over, 
 we did not dare leave each other, my comrades and I. 
 And, nevertheless, their voices made me ill. Willeki 
 having proposed to return there and finish the wretched 
 girl off, so as to close her mouth for good, I scam- 
 pered away at full tilt. ... A dog was howling to 
 wake the dead. Tt's Lamme Taplaar's Spitz,* I said 
 to myself. In the distance, between the trees and 
 above the moor, the city lights outlined the immense 
 dome of a church, luminous against the black sky. 
 And this thought of the too close city did not bring 
 to my mind any fear of the police. A fine drizzle was 
 falling. My head was on fire, my temples throbbing; 
 I kept in my nose, in my clothes, beneath my nails an 
 odor of flesh and of butchery that drove me sick as 
 does the smell of food after a gorge. I slept excel- 
 
THE RUNNERS 307 
 
 lently that night, and dreamed of the great white 
 church against the sky. . . ." 
 
 The chances of birth, education, and of manners, as 
 well as the inconsistency of nature offered Paridael 
 many comparisons for his discouraging philosophy. 
 
 Before a building under construction he became in- 
 dignant at seeing plastic and decorative youths break- 
 ing their backs and wearing themselves out as 
 plasterers and mason's assistants in order to erect a 
 palace for some gouty old reprobate. The owner con- 
 ferred phlegmatically with the architect and the obse- 
 quious builder, without according the slightest atten- 
 tion to the workmen who were barely able to carry 
 their loads. But as much as the rich man reeked with 
 self-sufficiency, showed himself to be grotesque and 
 vulgar, so much did these artisans, trampled down and 
 oppressed though they were, display a simplicity and 
 courage, carrying their coarse clothes with fine 
 grace. 
 
 And Laurent imagined the mason's assistant brought 
 up after the fashion of rich people, dressed like an 
 English "swell" or "masher," hurried into the whole- 
 some and eurythmic fatigue of sports, and his superi- 
 ority, thus transformed, over the young Saint-Fardiers 
 and the weak, undersized striplings of their group. 
 Often the whim seized him to empty his purse into the 
 hands of an apprentice and say: "Here, you fool, 
 save your strength, preserve your youth, and fresh 
 face, laze, dream, love, abandon yourself !" 
 
 From his youth, at the house of the Dobouziez', he 
 had condemned unhealthy arts, too heavy and too ex- 
 clusive labor, work that brought only one side of the 
 body into play, operations depending upon an un- 
 changeable motion of the back or shoulder, the im- 
 
3o8 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 placably repeated effort of the same muscular agents. 
 He cursed the workshops that were creating monsters, 
 the manufactories, the blast furnaces, the coal mines in 
 which hordes of young men were defaced, injured, 
 spoiled. And he cherished the idea of an Utopia, 
 dreamed of a new and frankly pagan rebirth in which 
 the cult of the nude, free and absolute, would flower 
 again, the adoration of expressive bodies and unveiled 
 flesh. Why could he not surround himself with those 
 who had been freed from labor, with a court of plastic 
 human figures? Instead of statues and pictures, he 
 would have collected, or rather selected, human mas- 
 terpieces. And in his enthusiasm for physical beauty, 
 he blasphemed these words of Genesis : "In the sweat 
 of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Moral leprosy and 
 physical deformity had no other origin. The law of 
 Darwin was confirming that of Jehovah. 
 
 Then, by a strange contradiction, he began to ac- 
 knowledge the imperious and tragic charm of these 
 days. His contemporaries offered a beauty that was 
 characteristic and psychic, and, if not as regular, at 
 least more infinitely picturesque and less sculptural 
 than that of bygone generations. He reconciled the 
 two kinds of beauty, associated the nude of the past 
 and the costume of the present, modernized the antique, 
 created Antinous in the knitted vest of a bargeman, 
 Venuses togged out like cigar-girls, Bacchantes as cof- 
 fee-sorters and crossing-sweepers, Hercules' as butch- 
 er*s boys and market-porters. Mercury incarnated 
 himself in a runner with a finely formed back and 
 tapering calves like those of the bronze statue of Gio- 
 vanni da Bologna; Apollo put on the uniform of a 
 fugleman ; Bacchus the giver of wine had as his double 
 an incorrigible drinker. A gang of navvies at work, a 
 
THE RUNNERS 309 
 
 crew of pavers, plump and bending over their toil, on 
 the curb of a street, reminded him of companies of dis- 
 cus throwers exercising in the palaestra, and since his 
 return from the banks of the Scheldt, he could imagine 
 no bas-relief with a more perfect rhythm than that 
 of the movement of a brigade of the Nations. 
 
 On Sundays and Mondays Paridael danced, until 
 break of day, in the dives of the quarters made dra- 
 matic by riots between soldiers and people, or in the 
 music OS of the Quartier des Bateliers, where runners 
 and sea- faring folk gathered. 
 
 And what dances they were! What loures, what 
 bourees, what dizzy shindys accompanied by a triangle, 
 a clarinet and an accordeon! The vulgar debauchery 
 of these sprightly fellows; their figured contortions, 
 their swift, sudden leaps into the air, the dull twistings 
 of their bodies, the firing and galvanic knitting of 
 their muscles ! 
 
 A hole in the bellows of the accordion brought about 
 a lamentable flight of melody, and at each pressure 
 upon the punctured note, the sound escaped in a mori- 
 bund wail. 
 
 During the pause between two dances, while the 
 couples walked about and paid into the hands of the 
 "tenancier" their money for these dances, the water- 
 ing pot of one of the waiters laid the dust by drawing 
 wet festoons upon the floor. 
 
 Then the clarinets started up again, the dancers re- 
 turned to the floor, and boots and slippers again began 
 to stamp. 
 
 Middle-aged street-walkers, their cheeks fiery with 
 paint, condescended to skip about with calker*s ap- 
 prentices shining with white resin and pitch, their 
 breeches stuffed into their stockings, who jostled eag- 
 
3IO THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 erly against these matrons clad in percaline or plaid 
 satin evening dresses. 
 
 In the promenade around the dancing floor good- 
 humored old sea-dogs, sprightly cabin-boys, fishermen 
 smelling of sea- weed and fish-gall, sat at tables, tip- 
 pling and making the women who straggled about 
 drink out of their glasses, calling them and despotic- 
 ally drawing them down on their laps. 
 
 Sea-folk were meeting lightermen, the bosses of 
 beurts and their cabin-boys, less sunburnt, less chapped, 
 rosier, immature, their ears projecting and pierced 
 with silver rings. 
 
 In the swirl of dust, of sweat and tobacco as acrid 
 and as black as peat, the forms of the dancers dark- 
 ened or emerged in fragments. Hats, caps, suroits or 
 tarred zuidwesters, curly heads came to the surface of 
 the heavy cloud. 
 
 By the aid of a gleam of light, when the entrance 
 or the exit of a couple wafted a momentary draft 
 through the hall, one could see blue jerseys as close- 
 fitting as tights, oil-skins with large collars, bare, full- 
 breasted bosoms, tight-fitting breeches, a herding of 
 haunches and hips, a blowing about of short skirts, 
 fishing boots, tight stockings showing through their 
 light meshes the rose of a more or less firm thigh. It 
 was a skirmish of heads close together; lips meeting 
 avidly ; eyes darting baiting gleams ; sighs of languor, 
 ticking laughs, embraces, insinuating movements of the 
 knee, bursts of passion badly restrained. . . . 
 
 On the morning after these wild nights, Paridael, 
 greedy for air that could be breathed, hurried to meet 
 at Doel his gang of comrades, the river-pirates. 
 
 Quarantine was held at Doel. The service-launch 
 met all the boats coming up the Scheldt, the doctor 
 
THE RUNNERS 31 x 
 
 looked over clearance papers and health-billets, and 
 boats coming from the Orient or from Spain, where 
 cholera reigned like a King of Dahomey, were forced 
 to anchor there for a week, the old Fort Fred- 
 eric. 
 
 Already five boats were stationed there, motionless, 
 sullen Leviathans, their fires out, their steam cut off, 
 their smokestacks despoiled of their long banners of 
 smoke. They flew the sinister yellow flag which cut 
 them off, temporarily, from society, the only one which 
 kept at a distance even the runners, who, however, 
 were difficult to discourage. 
 
 But the pleasure was only deferred ; it would be suf- 
 ficient for the infected boats or those only under obser- 
 vation to finish their term of quarantine and draw in 
 the sulphurous flag, for the swarm of ruffians who 
 had been lying in wait for them, as a cat watches a 
 bird upon which he cannot get his claws, and who had 
 been made more avid for the prey by their long v/ait, 
 to fall upon them with the inevitable despotism of a 
 new scourge. 
 
 Until then, in order to keep themselves upon the 
 alert, the runners had cast their choice upon The 
 Dolphin, a great Australian three-master just in from 
 the Dutch East Indies and Indo-China. A pilot-boat, 
 profiting by the high tide, had been towing her up 
 from Flushing to Antwerp and she was due to pass 
 Doel at three in the afternoon. 
 
 While waiting for the promised ship to rise, from 
 the direction of Bats, above the Polders, our scoundrels 
 flung themselves down upon the grassy dike, behind 
 and below which sank the placid village which they 
 terrorized, like a descent of the Normans in the year 
 one thousand. 
 
312 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Their presence at Doel added a further unwholesome 
 charm to the lazaretto-like atmosphere that for the 
 last month had been hovering above these stolid boat- 
 men, proof against all epidemics. Oh, the cemetery 
 of fishermen and castaways in which they had recently 
 interred four victims of cholera 1 
 
 The deans of the worthy brotherhood, old stagers 
 and dreadful, hairy fellows, mingled with their worthy 
 apprentices. Under the large peaks of their caps the 
 latter showed crop-eared or curly heads, mischievous, 
 strangely prepossessing, but vicious, deflowered by 
 blows of the lash and by debauchery. Runaway sail- 
 ors, pseudo-pilots, several of them not yet over the 
 effects of a night of debauchery, were dozing, their 
 haunches in the air, their hands clasped under their 
 necks. Others were lying on their backs, their weight 
 upon their elbows, their chins in their hands, in the 
 pose of ambushed sphynxes or malevolent, lurking 
 rocks. 
 
 Winking and blinking their eyes, they gazed at the 
 horizon and seemed to charm the yellow-flagged boats 
 into immobility. 
 
 From time to time, to ease their impatience, the run- 
 ners would jump to their feet, yawn, stretch, shake 
 their legs, regretfully and slowly practice a few wrest- 
 ler's grips, run a few steps, then fall back little by lit- 
 tle into their expectant immobility. 
 
 There were a few restless ones among them who, 
 like wasps, teased and set upon the sleepers, or paddled 
 about barefoot in the mud and came out shod with a 
 black cothurnus. 
 
 But one of the lookouts had spied the schooner ! A 
 truce to all laziness and gaping ! At the sight of their 
 prey they thought of nothing but their game, they 
 
THE RUNNERS 313 
 
 kicked the sleepers, ran to the Httle creek where they 
 had stored their canoes, threw in their decoys and pro- 
 visions, bent to the oars and set about making for the 
 river. A critical operation, for the creek was narrow, 
 the boats touched each other, and in their stormy sel- 
 fishness each one wanted to push out before the others. 
 All of them bustled and struggled at the same time, 
 each determined not to cede the path to his neighbor 
 and rival. 
 
 Then, a brawl, invectives, a scuffle. To arrive there 
 first, a runner would throw aside not only a comrade's 
 boat, but the comrade himself. Moreover, it was no 
 longer a question of friendship; the instinct of greed 
 came to the fore, and friends who had just been eating 
 from the same plate and drinking from the same bot- 
 tle glared at each other as though they wished to tear 
 each other to pieces. 
 
 But profiting by this squabble, which was threaten- 
 ing to turn into a naval engagement, one boat, then 
 another, then a third, manned by more watchful lads, 
 gently squirmed between the antagonists and were 
 craftily making for the open river. 
 
 At this sight, the quarrellers suspended hostilities, 
 and the bulk of the fleet detached itself from the shore. 
 
 The laggards spurted every oar, silent, worried, 
 swallowing their envious spite, bent upon surpassing 
 their competitors at all costs, meditating windfalls and 
 treacherous blows. 
 
 They manoeuvred so well that they overtook their 
 forerunners. 
 
 And now they played a waiting game ; an equal force 
 and energy seemed to animate all of them; no single 
 crew was gaining noticeably on the others. Their 
 panting breathing kept time with the rhythm of their 
 
314 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 rowing; they bent backward and forward spasmodic- 
 ally, the tholes moaned at each stroke of the oars, and 
 the water dropping from the blades dragged over the 
 surface of the water a trail of carbuncles. 
 
 From the vessel, the point aimed at by this passion- 
 ate regatta, they had seen the coming of this flotilla 
 which, from a distance, looked like a bank of migratory 
 fish, so compact and close-formed was it. A crowd 
 hurried to the deck. The captain and the crew sus- 
 pected and smelled in these devilish rowers emissaries 
 from the shopkeepers and purveyors of the port. 
 
 The captain, for whom this was not a first en- 
 counter with these landsharks, changed color and com- 
 menced to swear like a devil. The sailors, although 
 they had plenty of ground for bitterness against the 
 race, pretended anger, but only grumbled with their 
 lips; they were intrigued by the idea of the pleasures, 
 paid for at usurious rates, but so copious and so in- 
 tense withal, procured for them by these middlemen. 
 
 At a cable's length from the boat the first canoes 
 hailed the captain, who greeted their overtures with a 
 recrudescence of oaths and even threatened, if they did 
 not decamp quickly, to shoot them like a flock of wild 
 ducks. But the runners, incomparable dodgers, pos- 
 sessed their maritime code. They avoided its penalties 
 as adroitly as they shunned the rapids and shoals of 
 the Scheldt. The commands of the Englishman were 
 pure rhodomontade ! He would take care not to get 
 into a nasty scrape. No Belgian law protected him 
 from having his boat invested by victualer*s clerks. 
 
 Thus, strong in the connivance of the law, the ras- 
 cals pretended a wheedling conciliation in proportion 
 as the raging man hurled them, in default of other 
 shot, the largest projectiles from his arsenal of oaths. 
 
THE RUNNERS 315 
 
 While this was going on, other crews, dropping their 
 oars to use grappHng-hooks, grappled the stern of the 
 ship, climbed hand over hand to the deck, and crowded 
 there before the captain had come to the end of his 
 chaplet of imprecations. 
 
 The crew no longer struggled, or only paid slight 
 attention to their orders. In truth, the sailors cove- 
 nanted with the invaders. The approach to port had 
 softened these hardy fellows, discipline had been re- 
 laxed; they were as puerile and distracted as school- 
 boys on the eve of vacation. From the mouth of the 
 Scheldt, in the less biting wind that blew from the land, 
 these prisoners had sniffed the bouquet of future liber- 
 ties and noisily sniffed the odor of the hospitable 
 brothel. 
 
 Far from bearing a grudge against these wily pilots 
 who flung themselves at their necks only to fleece them 
 anew by exploiting the sudden pangs of their passions, 
 the good-natured fellows welcomed them as heralds of 
 approaching blow-outs and relaxations. 
 
 No less than thirty boats, each one manned by two 
 or three runners, clung to the carcass of The Dolphin 
 with the ineluctable stubbornness of an octopus. While 
 the sailors organized a show of resistance, pushing the 
 invaders lightly off to the larboard, the latter were 
 boarding them from the starboard. Pushed back from 
 the stem, the rascals threw themselves aft, where, 
 massing together for a single stroke, they began 
 mounting upon each other's shoulders. 
 
 One climbed upon the shoulders or sat upon the 
 head of another, who balanced all his weight upon the 
 shoulder-blades of a third. The bottom man supported 
 the weight of another comrade, upon whom a fifth 
 had just perched, and so it kept up. The men at the 
 
3i6 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 bottom whined, panted, snorted, begged them to hurry, 
 exhausted themselves; the men on top romped and 
 joked; heels threatened to beat in jaw-bones, hands 
 knotted themselves into the hair, sweaters tore with a 
 sharp rip, eyes were blinded by thighs and hips, and 
 thus agglutinated, tumbling over each other, they 
 called to mind the free, fine fellows of the kermesses, 
 who climbed one atop the other until the highest man 
 could fetch down, for the glory of all, the prizes on an 
 inaccessible greasy mast. At each oscillation of the 
 boat, which was continuing to plunge along, the human 
 pyramid threatened to crumble into the river ; the frail 
 canoe upon which the whole structure rested risked 
 capsizing with its whole cargo. 
 
 The temerity of the runners stupefied the captain 
 himself, and his contempt for this riff-raff changed 
 into the inexpressible admiration that every Anglo- 
 Saxon has for dare-devil exploits. 
 
 Courage ! One more effort and they are masters of 
 the place ! 
 
 After boarding her the first thing to do was to 
 share the spoils. A delicate partition, for a hundred 
 birds of prey could be counted for every twenty or 
 thirty souls manning the schooner. Harassed, pulled 
 from every quarter, called in all languages and from 
 all sides at the same time, the sailors did not know who 
 to listen to. The deck took on the appearance of a 
 stock-exchange. From group to group the value rep- 
 resented by each head of the crew was being debated. 
 The veterans intimidated the weak and the novices; 
 crafty ones forced the booby s to give place. Some of 
 the runners began to retreat. But the majority quar- 
 relled vigorously and bitterly; the talk grew livelier 
 and became diatribe. Teeth were shown, fists clenched. 
 
THE RUNNERS 3^7 
 
 foxes became wolves. The altercations of the shore 
 began all over again; more envenomed by reason of 
 having been deferred, they were now being decided for 
 good. A single hand-to-hand scuffle was enough to 
 commence a general brawl. They cuffed each other, 
 took each other by the throat, knocked each other 
 down, snatched at each other like mastiffs, fought 
 tooth and nail, and, if they thought themselves worsted, 
 resorted to underhand blows. 
 
 The sailors were careful not to interfere in these 
 passages at arms of which they represented the ob- 
 ject. Moreover, they were too crafty to thwart this 
 settlement of accounts. They made a circle about the 
 fighters, passive, scared, judging the outcome. Their 
 booty would belong to the victors. These ferocious 
 struggles unloosed by the petty tradesmen flattered, 
 perhaps, the great prodigals who were bound to melt 
 their last yellow-boys in some furnace or other. A 
 black eye, a cut lip, a tooth knocked out, a few cuts 
 and contusions decided the victory. Sprawled out, 
 the victor's knee resting heavily upon their chests, a 
 few gave up the struggle before being utterly worsted. 
 They pitifully rushed back into their boats and beat 
 toward Doel, but followed The Dolphin from a dis- 
 tance and pursued their lucky competitors with 
 jeers. 
 
 Now these latter were cooling off, stanching the 
 blood from their wounds, repairing the ruins and the 
 breeches in their accoutrement and beneath the bucca- 
 neer, heroic in his hour, there appeared the sordid traf- 
 ficker, the cash-box trickster. 
 
 They fell back upon the sailors just as, after a 
 decisive battle between two troops of ants, the victors 
 
3i8 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 hurry to carry off the largest green-flies of the con- 
 quered. 
 
 Baskets of food, packages of tobacco, boxes of ci- 
 gars, plugs of cavendish, and above all casks of liquor, 
 beer, wine, whisky, gaseous imitation champagne, Bor- 
 deaux more or less adulterated and doctored with 
 alcohol, spiced and peppered so as to take the jaw-bone 
 off a bull, emerged and bubbled up as if by magic 
 from the mysterious hiding places where the fighters 
 had concealed them. The battle-field became a market- 
 place, and the carnage a bivouac. Corks leaped up 
 and bung-holes perforated the casks. Case after case 
 was tapped, mugs and glasses refilled, and the sailors 
 began to respond to the advances of their insinuating 
 captors. The foul-mouthed ruffians became demure 
 and almost mincing. 
 
 The officers contented themselves with supervising 
 the execution of the necessary manoeuvres, and to be 
 certain, put their own hands to the job. And grad- 
 ually the ambient languor won them. 
 
 "Oh! lefs hurry and finish the dull and changeless 
 work as quickly as we can, and strip off our duties 
 with our uniforms ; humanize ourselves, yes, even make 
 ourselves animals! And while we are waiting, why 
 not taste the refreshments that these ruffians have 
 brought us ? For the last three weeks, under the pre- 
 text that it was brandy, the steward has been serving 
 us only slops, and our stomachs reject sea-biscuit, and 
 salted and preserved meat !" 
 
 Thus monologued the officers, as they paced the 
 deck. The austere captain himself felt weaker and 
 more indulgent than was his wont. 
 
 A runner divined this feeling, for he approached the 
 captain, and with a coaxing gesture, poured him out a 
 
THE RUNNERS 319 
 
 bumper of the sparkling mixture : "A glass of chamr 
 pagne, Captain !" The sea-wolf looked the brazen fel- 
 low through and through, ready to box his ears, but 
 the irritated oath expired between the wisps of his 
 grey mustache, ventured a supercilious grin, and, tan- 
 talized, accepted the glass, drained it at a single 
 gulp, smacked his lips, and tendered it to the cup- 
 bearer that he might fill it up again. 
 
 The shrewd, strange fellow who had just led him 
 into temptation so successfully, did not cease intriguing 
 the captain, a straight-laced Presbyterian who was also 
 somewhat of a Puritan. Like the majority of his fel- 
 lows, this runner had disguised himself as a midship- 
 man. He had the build of a cabin-boy, the face of a 
 girl, and fuller hips and a more finely molded body 
 than the other ruffians of his crew. 
 
 "Where the devil did that band of downright ban- 
 dits ever find such nice recruits?" muttered the re- 
 spectable captain, and, more bothered by the wheedling 
 expression of the cup-bearer than he was willing to 
 admit, he was about to walk away when the pretended 
 midshipman threw his arms about the captain's neck, 
 and thus revealed his double disguise. 
 
 "Damnation!" yelled the captain, seeing stars. 
 "They'll finish by bringing the whole of their cursed 
 brothel on board !" 
 
 "At your service, Captain!" 
 
 And laughingly she pointed out the lieutenants 
 pestered by runners, in whom, being good connoisseurs, 
 they had not delayed sharing the agreeable surprise of 
 their captain! 
 
 But The Dolphin was now entering the roadstead. 
 
 After a last turn in the river, the panorama of Ant- 
 werp stretched out in all its majestic and grandiose 
 
320 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 splendor. For more than a league's length the city of- 
 fered to the eyes of the newcomers an imposing view 
 of warehouses, markets, gables, towers and belfries, 
 dominated by the pile of Notre Dame. This lighthouse 
 of good advice warned the travellers against the wiles 
 and the ambushes of perdition stretched at the foot 
 of the cathedral as the serpent curled in the shade of 
 the tree of life. Twilight was coloring the admirable 
 monument with rose, glistening in the lacy stone-work, 
 and at the same time the belfry was giving full flight 
 to the notes of its carillon. . . . 
 
 But the sailors on The Dolphin no longer raised 
 their eyes to that height, nor heard the voices of the 
 vesperal chimes. Why had the high pile not been 
 visible from the mouth of the Scheldt, and the great 
 bell had not been audible from Doel ? The emissaries 
 of the devil had beaten the messengers of heaven. 
 Even when they found themselves in the presence of 
 these good spirits they had ears only for the promises 
 of the brokers of pleasure, and eyes only for the nar- 
 row alleys whose windows were red like signals of 
 warning. 
 
 As soon as the sailor set foot on short the runners 
 led him off without protest to the clandestine dispen- 
 saries where the lodging-house keeper was in partner- 
 ship with the prostitute to detain him and fleece him. 
 The one attacked his vigor, the other busied himself 
 with his goods. The girl having worn him out, the 
 pimp would pluck him without difficulty. 
 
 In order to deliver him bound hand and foot to their 
 masters, the runners advanced him a part of his wages, 
 and then made him turn over to his hosts the hand full 
 of gold amassed at the price of a labor as painful as 
 
THE RUNNERS 321 
 
 torture. From thenceforth the poor devil no longer 
 belonged to himself. 
 
 He tore himself from the arms of the street- walker 
 only to get drunk with the ruffian. 
 
 He was saddled with all sorts of junk at exorbitant 
 prices. He paid ten and twenty times their value in 
 order to present them to friends, to those who had just 
 loaded him with a bottle of outrageous perfume, with 
 loud knick-knacks, with shell mirrors, with English 
 cutlery, with imitation jewelry, claptrap and glass beads 
 with which civilizers could no longer fascinate Kaffirs 
 or Sioux. He was never allowed out alone, nor per- 
 mitted to leave the confines of the district. 
 
 All day long he leaned against the bar of the public 
 room. The walls were hung with placards : advertise- 
 ments of Old Tom gin, the red triangles of pale ale, 
 the brown squares of stout. Chromolithographs from 
 Christmas Numbers alternated with epileptic pictures 
 from the Police News, just as on the sideboard the 
 sirups and elixirs tasting like pommade stood next to 
 the corrosive liquors. 
 
 In order to obtain the right to perpetually gaze at 
 the creature chosen for his affection, he swallowed all 
 the poisons displayed. Little by little, under the in- 
 fluence of these libations, she seemed to take on the 
 appearance of a madonna throned in a sanctuary: the 
 smoke of his pipe became incense, the sideboard was 
 reredos, the liquors composed the subjects of stained- 
 glass windows, and spouting oraisons did not free him 
 from the fervor of his stupidity. Then a mocking 
 laugh would bring him back to the feeling of the place 
 in which he foimd himself, and the goddess whom he 
 invoked. 
 
 If his drunkenness turned into frenzy, if he made a 
 
322 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 racket and struggled a bit, these accesses lasted only 
 a few moments. 
 
 She was even ordered to provoke them by her 
 coquetry, for not only was his jealousy unprofitable, but 
 in order to be forgiven his whims, he would be more 
 pliable and easy-going than ever. To again conquer 
 his sullen mistress there was no folly that he would 
 not commit, no expensive whim he would not grat- 
 ify. 
 
 Each morning the lodging-house keeper gave him a 
 louis from his little hoard, and every night he had 
 conscientiously spent his tiny sum. He paid on the 
 spot as if he possessed the purse of Fortunatus. 
 
 And his astonishment on the day when the boss gave 
 him a bill showing that he owed almost the double of 
 what he thought he had. This time the pigeon kicked 
 over the traces and wanted to leave for good, but in 
 anticipation of a scuffle, the lodging-house keeper had 
 paid his usual satellites, and they overpowered the re- 
 calcitrant boarder. He was also threatened with the 
 naval police, a mysterious power unknown to this sim- 
 ple soul, and which he imagined as severe as the In- 
 quisition. A great dejection followed his will to re- 
 volt. Rather than go to prison, he would sell his 
 carcass. 
 
 And here began the most sorrowful phase of the 
 transaction. 
 
 The Merchant of Venice took only a pound of flesh 
 from his insolvent debtor; the Shylocks of Antwerp 
 morally hacked to pieces their poor debtor in raising 
 up a series of tribulations for him ; they forced him to 
 desert, procured him a new berth, took the advance 
 pay he received, forced him to sign another contract, 
 took his pay again, and kept up this game until the 
 
THE RUNNERS 323 
 
 consular authorities got wind of it and prepared to 
 act. 
 
 They had squeezed him dry like an orange. But to 
 believe them he had not yet paid his debts. But he 
 had become compromising, and it became necessary to 
 get rid of him. For fear that he would speak and 
 have them caught they hid him in a hovel outside the 
 fortifications. 
 
 Finally they bartered the poor human merchandise, 
 so greatly wronged, for a last time, to an unscrupulous 
 captain, and, under cover of a dark night, a runner, al- 
 ways ready for risky jobs, the same runner who had 
 cajoled and intoxicated him on board the Dolphin, 
 loaded the poor rebel on a skiff and quietly conducted 
 him on board the smuggler. 
 
 Hardly returned to his element, to his rude labor, 
 the sailor no longer thought of the vicissitudes of his 
 last harbor. The memory of recent humiliations was 
 drowned by the wind of the open sea. 
 
 So thoroughly that after a prolonged trip the poor 
 devil, all ready to begin his disastrous experience all 
 over again, would give himself body and soul to the 
 evil Tritons of the banks of the Scheldt. 
 
 In short, there was no one but these pressers to offer 
 him absolute refreshment ! 
 
 At the ports of call in the Antipodes, in those ve- 
 hement climates, in those fiery lands peopled by beings 
 with lemonish flesh, reptilian women and effeminate 
 men, among populations as yellow and as feline as their 
 fevers, Europeans hold their lust in leash, or lend 
 themselves to vice only with the repugnance of an 
 apoplectic who has a pallet of blood drawn from him. 
 
 Or they go to the brothel as a danger, drunkenly, 
 with an air of bravado, and urged to stay there, de- 
 
324 'THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 bauch themselves furiously in the opium-smoking dens. 
 An intoxicating flower, spices, poisons and the odor- 
 ous atmosphere whip them and pack them off headlong 
 to an exquisite voluptuousness followed by stupor and 
 remorse. . . . 
 
 Child-like and mystic souls, tasting the pleasure only 
 when accompanied by an undercurrent of intimacy and 
 fervor, they associate with their loves the fresh, steady, 
 set breezes of northern seas, the lenifying temperatures 
 of occidental shores, the virile gusts, even the crabbed 
 cordiality of the squalls, the sharp shifting of the wind 
 after the enervating caress of the trade-winds; the 
 tender smile of the north, the friendly curtains of 
 clouds drawn over the implacable glare, and the al- 
 most lustral kiss of the first fog. . . . 
 
 In return, they reproached themselves for their com- 
 merce with pagan women as if it had been a sacre- 
 ligious rite. 
 
 And they never looked back upon these crimes with- 
 out there also rising up before them the nightmare of 
 the anguish of typhoons and cyclones during which the 
 occult priestesses of Siva, with the winding and the 
 blowing of trumpets, seemed to pump boiling oil from 
 the sea, only to substitute for it the tellurian lava 
 and the fusing metals of the firmament. . . . 
 
VI 
 THE CARNIVAL 
 
 Obviously, Laurent's relations with the dangerous 
 and poorer strata of the population did not proceed 
 without an unbridled prodigality. One would have 
 said that, in order to more closely resemble the people 
 around him, he longed not to have a cent to bless him- 
 self with. The vague disgust, mingled with terror, 
 that he had conceived for the money even on the day 
 of his majority, when he had barely come into pos- 
 session of his little hoard, had only augmented since 
 his discussion with the Tilbaks. 
 
 As in Das Rheingold, in the Wagnerian tetralogy, he 
 attributed a malignant virtue to capital, the cause of 
 all human calamities, and to it he also ascribed his 
 personal afflictions. Had not the money separated him 
 from both Regina and Henriette ? That money which 
 had not even been powerful enough to do him the great 
 service of keeping in Antwerp his dear friends of the 
 Cocoanut ! 
 
 However, at the rate at which he had been abusing 
 his property, it would hardly last for a year. 
 
 After the departure of the emigrants and his break 
 with Bergmans there had been no check and no more 
 exhortation to stop him. He tasted the delight of 
 
 325 
 
326 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 ridding himself of his abhorred gold, rolling it in the 
 gutter or scattering it in starved surroundings where 
 it rarely consented to glisten. He paraded as much 
 contempt for this lever of the modern world as the 
 traders dedicated respect and idolatry to it. 
 
 He invented any number of extravagances in order 
 to scandalize an essentially timorous and bashful bour- 
 geoisie, until his visible dissipation outraged, as a sac- 
 rilege and a blasphemy, hoarders and systematic peo- 
 ple. He would have been pardoned his other eccen- 
 tricities, his degradation of body and soul, his open 
 struggle against society, but his savage squandering 
 procured him only the anathema of even the most tol- 
 erant spirits. 
 
 Had he not taken it into his head, after having dined 
 too well, to walk in broad daylight with his hardly 
 respectable friends, the assistant riding-master and the 
 stud-groom of a bankrupt riding school, who were no 
 less intoxicated than himself, through the most 
 crowded streets in order to meet the business men on 
 their way to the Exchange? As an excess of provo- 
 cation the restaurant porter walked a few feet in front 
 of the edifying trio, carrying on each arm, as a banner, 
 a bottle of the best champagne. And with this pomp 
 the three gay dogs undertook the ascension of the 
 Haute tour and, when they came to the highest balcony, 
 above the carillon and the bell chamber, they gloriously 
 sipped the sparkling liquor, and then threw the bot- 
 tles down into the square at the risk of stoning the 
 cabbies stationed at the foot of the monimient. 
 
 He often paid for rounds of liquor for all the dock- 
 ers working on the quays. On the watch at the bar, 
 Paridael prevented the bartender from accepting pay- 
 ment from the drinkers as fast as they stood on line, in 
 
THE CARNIVAL 327 
 
 whole gangs, each telling the other of the good fortune 
 that awaited them. 
 
 And many a time there were interminable sprees 
 with whole crews or companies of troopers, tip- 
 pling from dive to dive, pilgrimages to the sanctu- 
 aries of love, the whole stressed by brawls and scuffles 
 with the police. 
 
 But one could have discovered a noble motive at the 
 bottom of his greatest excesses ; a need for expansion, 
 protection of the weak, disguised charity, a limitless 
 compassion, the happiness of procuring some little 
 pleasure and some moments of peace for the down- 
 trodden. It seemed as if, in indulging himself in so 
 fantastic a slaughter of coins and banknotes, the spend- 
 thrift wanted to put at their ease the beggars whom he 
 was helping, and justify their eventual forget fulness. 
 By holding at such a small value that which he was 
 scattering about him, he absolved the recipients of all 
 gratitude. To the poor devils who melted into thanks 
 he would say : "Take it ; take all you can get. Pocket 
 it all, and a truce to your thanks. ... As well as 
 someone else. ... I would have none of the money 
 by tonight, anyway !" 
 
 His charities appeared to be as untimely and as im- 
 moderate as his pranks. Not only had he aided the 
 flight and the desertion of a prisoner, but he bought 
 back many sailors from their vampires, repatriated 
 emigrants, and harbored liberated convicts. 
 
 All during a winter, a terrible winter when the 
 Scheldt was ice-bound, he visited the homes of day- 
 laborers and mechanics. He gave himself out for an 
 anonymous delegate from the charities, emptied his 
 pockets onto the table or mantlepiece, and before the 
 starving people had time to discover the importance of 
 
328 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 his offering, ran down the stairs as if he had robbed 
 and pillaged these paupers. 
 
 He never forgot, among all the calls in his errands 
 of mercy, the garret in which a brood of children rang- 
 ing from one to five years old were crying in a pack- 
 ing case stuffed with shavings, a litter too fetid even 
 for a hutch. It seemed, as he listened to their crying 
 and saw their convulsions, that hunger herself was 
 bending over them and that her nails, scraping their 
 wasted bodies, were skinning them as the rake of a 
 greedy gleaner scrapes fallow-land that has already 
 been reaped. 
 
 Leaning backward in a comer, at the other end of 
 the garret, as far away as possible from their agony, 
 the father, a widower, a powerful and muscular calker 
 from the Basins, whose flesh and blood misery had not 
 yet succeeded in exhausting, was without doubt medi- 
 tating the prompt and violent destruction of his use- 
 less strength. 
 
 With a roar and a vivid gesture that would bear 
 no reply, the wretched man commanded the intruder 
 to relieve him of his presence, but the increasing piti- 
 ableness of the children's wailing was as imperious as 
 the father's comminatory attitude, and, spurred on, 
 though almost sure of being killed, but not wishing 
 to survive these innocents, Laurent walked toward the 
 despairing man and offered him a twenty franc 
 piece. 
 
 It was more blinding than the sunshine, for the 
 giant could not bear the gleam of it, and turned to- 
 ward the wall, like a sulky, shame-stricken child, rais- 
 ing his hands to eyes, tormented to the point of tears ! 
 And it was so heavy that, when Laurent had slipped it 
 into his other hand, his huge fingers let it drop ! 
 
THE CARNIVAL 329 
 
 The gold rang like an angelus, a message from 
 Providence, for the abominable reaper abandoned this 
 meager rake- full of human grain, and the wailing sub- 
 sided. 
 
 And suddenly, like a madman, the man threw his 
 arms around Paridaers neck, and hid his good plebian 
 head on the shoulder of the declassed man. And Pari- 
 dael, bruised against that great and sobbing breast, be- 
 dewed with the warm tears of gratitude, no less mad 
 than the workingman himself, swooned in the bosom 
 of infinite beatitudes and thought the hour of the as- 
 sumption promised to the elect of the Saviour had 
 already arrived ! And never had he lived with a more 
 intense life, nor found himself nearer death! 
 
 That did not prevent him, upon leaving this pathetic 
 meeting, from consecrating a part of his money, that 
 very evening, to his debauchery, and from throwing 
 himself body and soul into bestiality. 
 
 He particularly distinguished himself during the car- 
 nival of that same calamitous winter. Never in the 
 memory of Antwerp had Shrovetide unloosed so much 
 license nor been celebrated with such gusto. The gen- 
 eral misery and distress were taken as a pretext to mul- 
 tiply the celebrations for the benefit of the poor. The 
 people themselves were swept by giddiness, took* a 
 double holiday, sought in a fleeting drunkenness and 
 brutishness a refuge from the sinister reality, cele- 
 brated like a ragged Decameron this exceptional car- 
 nival which, instead of preceding Lent, fell in a season 
 of absolute abstinence unforeseen by the Church, 
 which the Curia would have never dared impose even 
 in its severest mandates. 
 
 Not being any longer able to procure food, the poor 
 devils found means to get enough to drink. Besides 
 
330 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 being cheaper than bread, alcohol deceived their sudden 
 pangs of hunger and deadened the twinges of their 
 stomachs. A wretched man spends more time in sleep- 
 ing off the effects of bitter gin than in digesting a 
 ridiculous mouthful of bread. And the fumes of the 
 liquor, heavy and dense as the splenetic fogs of the 
 country, passed away the more slowly lest the new 
 blood again become cold in their veins. They procured 
 a bizarre and brutal drunkenness during which the 
 stupefied organs demanded no food and the instincts 
 slept like reptiles in torpor. 
 
 For three nights the Theatre des Varietes, uniting 
 in a single immense hall its suite of four huge rooms, 
 swarmed with a rutilant mob, blazed with lights, re- 
 sounded with savage music and furious stamping. 
 Within, there reigned a hubbub and a confusion of all 
 castes almost as great as in the street. Ladies and 
 lorettes, foreladies and shop-girls, grisettes and prosti- 
 tutes fluttered about in the same quadrilles. Silk and 
 satin dominos rubbed against horrible hired cloaks. 
 During intermissions, while young swells in full dress 
 were leading a mistress for whose sake they had de- 
 serted their fiancees into the little withdrawing room, 
 and treating her to the classic dozen of "Zeeland" 
 sprinkled with Roederer, the vaults beneath the danc- 
 ing floor, converted into a Gargantuan cook-shop, 
 claimed the less fashionable couples and groups who 
 were cramming themselves, in the midst of the strong 
 exhalations of pipes, with boiled sausage, and were 
 flooding themselves with a sparkling, white Louvain 
 beer, the popular champagne, which was not at 
 all heady, but which cleansed out their bladders 
 without having any other effect upon their organ- 
 isms. 
 
THE CARNIVAL 331 
 
 Towards morning, the hour of the last cancans, 
 these crypts of the temple of Momus presented the lu- 
 gubrious appearance of a community of troglodytes 
 exhausted by too strenuous incantations. 
 
 During the length of the carnival Laurent made it a 
 point of honor never to see his bed, nor quit his tattered 
 Pierrot domino. 
 
 The street carnival intrigued him no less than the 
 nocturnal dissipations. Loafing in the streets that had 
 been turned over to the maskers, he was wherever the 
 sport was at its giddiest, the crowd most effervescent. 
 The din of horns and rattles reverberated from street 
 to street, and pig-bladders blown up and brandished 
 like clubs beat down with an ill thud upon the backs of 
 wayfarers. Maskers, false sinners, aggravated the 
 crush, and were thrusting forth like fishhooks at the 
 end of lines small loaves of bread smeared with mo- 
 lasses which gamins as frisky and as voracious as ab- 
 lests were struggling to snatch, though they were only 
 succeeding in smudging their faces. 
 
 But Paridael was especially fond of the war of 
 pepernotes, the true originality of Antwerp carnivals. 
 He converted a great part of his last coins into bags 
 of these "pepper nuts," northern confetti, large, cubic 
 hailstones as hard as rocks, which were sold by the 
 butchers, and with which, from afternoon to twilight, 
 hot battles were fought between the ladies crowded in 
 windows or balconies, and the gallants stationed in the 
 streets, or between the riders upon the floats and the 
 pedestrians who passed them in review. 
 
 On the afternoon of Shrove-Tuesday Laurent recog- 
 nized in the recess of a window in the Hotel Saint-An- 
 toine, rented at an enormous tariff for the occasion, 
 
332 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Mesdames Bejard, Falk, Lesly and both the little Saint- 
 Fardiers. 
 
 He had not seen his cousin since the sacking of the 
 Bejard mansion, and he was astonished at feeling, at 
 the sight of his so idolized Gina, only spite and a sort 
 of bitterness. He grudged her, so to speak, his love 
 for her. His stormy Hfe and the desolation of the 
 pariahs with whom he had come into contact were not 
 foreign to this sudden change. 
 
 But the catastrophe of The Gina had complicated 
 this antipathy with a superstitious terror and aversion. 
 The nymph of the drain, the evil genius of the Dobou- 
 ziez manufactory, was now exercising her evil influence 
 over the whole city. She was poisoning the Scheldt 
 and contaminating the ocean. 
 
 The vague sadness which her face reflected, the in- 
 dolent part which she took in the battle of pepernotes, 
 the nonchalance with which she defended herself would 
 without doubt at any other time have disarmed and 
 softened the heart of the worshipping Paridael. 
 
 It cannot be said that at any other time he would 
 not have again found something of his early religion 
 for the lofty idol, but he was in one of his days, now 
 ever more frequent, of ill-humor and of biting irasci- 
 bility, in one of those states of mind in which, gorged 
 and saturated with rancor, he had a desire to smash 
 some precious bibelot, to damage some work whose 
 symmetry and immutable serenity seemed an insult 
 to the general distress; a critical juncture in which 
 one is capable of tormenting and hurting in every way 
 the most beloved person. 
 
 He found it piquant to join the batallion of young 
 fops who, stationed on the sidewalk in front of the 
 hotel, that they might be easily seen, were paying horn- 
 
THE CARNIVAL 333 
 
 age to the young ladies by languidly letting fly, from 
 the tips of their gloved fingers, one pep emote at a 
 time. Among these handsome gentlemen were the two 
 Saint-Fardiers, von Frans, the dapper captain of the 
 civic horse-guards, Ditmayr, the rich woollen-mer- 
 chant, and a swarthy, exotic-looking man, wearing a 
 red tie and dogskin gloves, whom Laurent saw for the 
 first time. 
 
 Irritated by the phlegm and the blase air of Madame 
 Bejard as much as by the ostentation and delicate airs 
 of the fops, he resolved not to spare her, even prom- 
 ised himself to lose his patience, to pelt her, to force 
 her to withdraw from the scene. Rummaging in his 
 deep pockets, he set himself to hurl handfulls of peper- 
 notes at the impassive beauty. It was a continual 
 volley of shrapnel. The projectiles, thrown with in- 
 creasing force, were always aimed at Madame Bejard 
 and especially at her face. 
 
 After a furtive examination of the dishevelled Pier- 
 rot, she affected to pay no more attention to him for 
 a long while. Then, in the face of the impetuosity and 
 the tenacity of his aggression, she let fall, at two or 
 three repetitions, a disdainful look upon the fellow, 
 and proceeded to chatter away to her companions in 
 the most detached manner. 
 
 This air only enraged Laurent. He no longer ob- 
 served the slightest restraint. She would notice him, 
 or leave her place. At present he was throwing like 
 a madman. 
 
 He was looked at askance from the beginning by the 
 fashionable clique to whom he was lending such fur- 
 ious reinforcement, and the gentlemen, having become 
 more and more annoyed by the reveller, left the game, 
 repudiating and disavowing so ragged a partner. 
 
334 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 Those around them, on the contrary, were hugely 
 enjoying the cruel ballistics. The people were ready 
 to take the part of the intruder, whose looks and ap- 
 parel proclaimed him to be one of them, against the 
 gallants. It was a little to their servility and to their 
 collective objection that the patrician lady was oppos- 
 ing her ever more irritating disdain. 
 
 A few drops of blood fell from a slight wound on 
 Gina's cheek made by the hail of Paridael's ammuni- 
 tion. She barely turned her head away, made a little 
 face of disgust, and far from honoring her discour- 
 teous adversary with a retort, she mechanically threw 
 a handfull of pepernotes toward the other side of the 
 square. 
 
 "Enough!" cried the fops, looking as though they 
 were about to interfere. "Enough, you cad !" 
 
 But some rough-looking comrades wedged in be- 
 tween Paridael and those who were threatening him, 
 crying: "Well aimed, old boy! Go it! Let him 
 alone. . . . If s carnival time ! . . . Free play! Free 
 play!" 
 
 Paridael heard neither the one nor the other. Made 
 feverish by the exercise, like a sportsman breaking 
 some record, he had neither eyes nor attention for 
 anyone but Regina. He lashed her and riddled her with 
 real animosity. His wiry arm performed the function 
 of a sling with as much violence as precision. 
 
 In the heat of the firing, each volley brought him 
 nearer to her, the force of his throw carried him along 
 with his shot, and it seemed to him as if his fingers 
 had lengthened until they touched her cheeks, and that 
 he was tearing her skin with his nails ! 
 
 Gina, no less stubborn, persisted in serving as a 
 
THE CARNIVAL '335 
 
 target for him, unflinchingly continued to laugh, did 
 not even deign to protect her face with her hands. 
 
 She had not recognized Laurent, but she took pleas- 
 ure in exasperating this truculent ragamuffin and in 
 driving him to extremities, firmly resolved not to al- 
 low her force of character to flag beneath the hostile 
 gaze of the populace. 
 
 Laurent had come to that point of blind rage in 
 which a scuffle began as a joke, degenerates into a mas- 
 sacre. In default of other ammunition, he would Have 
 thrown pebbles and stoned her. The bonbons seemed 
 to grow hard in the pressure of his sinewy hands, and 
 such was the anxious silence of the crowd that they 
 could be heard beating against the panes of glass, the 
 walls and even Gina's face. 
 
 Finally, her face was covered with blood. Angela 
 and Cora made Regina return into the room and closed 
 the shutters after her. 
 
 With a final handfuU of pepernotes, Laurent cracked 
 the window behind which the courageous woman had 
 appeared. 
 
 Then panting, weary as though from drudgery, as 
 careless of the growling and the murmur of reproba- 
 tion which his brutality drew from the well-dressed 
 folk as he was of the amused laugh of the populace, he 
 lost himself in the crowd, hastily gained a cross street 
 away from the tumult and the swarm; and there, 
 seized with shame and remorse, his former idolatry 
 suddenly reacting against his sacreligious outburst, he 
 burst into tears that smeared his makeup and made him 
 look like the "little savage" daubed by Gina, twenty 
 years before, in the garden of the factory. 
 
 A crowd which imperceptibly formed about this cry- 
 ing Pierrot brought him back so sharply to his role of 
 
336 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 brazen and bragging reveller that the onlookers could 
 have imagined that he was crying from laughter. 
 
 Toward evening he joined several poor devils of 
 dancers from an insolvent theater, whom he was taking 
 to dine at Casti's, the fashionable restaurant. It was 
 to be his last feast ! No matter what he did to forget 
 his thoughts, he found himself lacking in spirit. In- 
 stead of enlivening him, the wine only made him more 
 sorrowful. Moreover, he was exhausted with fa- 
 tigue. He grew drowsy in the middle of the re- 
 past while around him the others gorged and drank in 
 silence. 
 
 Partly in dream, partly in revery, certain landscapes 
 came back to him like a sweet vexation. His past, his 
 lost life whispered in gusts loaded with moldiness, with 
 rancid perfume, with a sickening roar, and, in this 
 retrospective and intermittent breeze, there tumbled 
 the rough flourishes heard every evening in low caba- 
 rets. The uselessness of his days defiled before Lau- 
 rent like a macabre procession, a trail of clowns and 
 slick Pierrots, trifling, lisping cold and plaintive, 
 whom salacious paroxysms electrified, and who 
 twisted and mingled in dances as lascivious as the spasm 
 itself. . . . 
 
 As he was finally falling asleep, indifferent to the 
 grateful and almost canine caresses of a girl, he 
 jumped up suddenly at a lively explanation at the bot- 
 tom of the stairs, followed by footsteps upon the stair- 
 way, then in the hall, that drew near the room in which 
 Laurent was dining, but which stopped before the next 
 door. 
 
 "Open! In the name of the law!" commanded a 
 grave voice, with the brutally professional intonation 
 of a superintendent of police. 
 
THE CARNIVAL 337 
 
 Laurent, having come to his senses in a minute, com- 
 manded his companions to be silent, and at the same 
 time put his ear to the partition separating the two 
 rooms. 
 
 Cries, confusion, the sound of breakage, a window 
 being opened, but no reply. Then the crash of the 
 door being broken in. 
 
 Insurgent by instinct against all authority, ready 
 to take the part of the f casters against the police, Lau- 
 rent flew outside, and above the shoulders of the super- 
 intendent of police who had stopped at the sill of the 
 door, above those of Bejard, of Athanasius and Gas- 
 ton, he saw, to his consternation, Angele and Cora 
 crouching each one in a corner of the room and forc- 
 ing themselves to disguise in the folds of the window- 
 curtain the pagan simplicity of their toilette. Not far 
 from them, seeking to put on a face, a dignified and 
 resolute air, incompatable, however, with a state of 
 attire as makeshift as that of their fair ladies, stood 
 the elegant von Frans and the tall Ditmayr and — easily 
 recognizable, although he was no longer wearing his 
 red tie and dogskin gloves — the swarthy pimp whom 
 Laurent had that afternoon taught how to throw peper- 
 notes. 
 
 The husbands were perhaps even more astounded 
 and more overwhelmed than the gallants; this was 
 the case, at least, with the young Saint-Fardiers. The 
 superintendent of police himself lost assurance, and 
 became confused in his procedure. 
 
 But the humorous side of this modernist scene did 
 not in the least strike Laurent ; he could only consider 
 and figure out the consequence of the crash. 
 
 The presence of Bejard, moreover, would have been 
 sufficient to remove any desire to laugh. Alone among 
 
338 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 them the ugly hypocrite seemed at his ease. One would 
 have even thought that the scandal rejoiced him. In 
 any case he was the man to have first fomented it and 
 brought it to its consummation. Who could say with 
 what black infamy he would complicate the deplor- 
 able scandal ? 
 
 He alone had gone into the room. He went from 
 the table to the window, handled the dishes and the 
 tablecloth, ferreted into the corners, showed an ap- 
 palling presence of mind, directed the investigation, 
 pointed out to the superintendent the pieces of evi- 
 dence, pushed his impudence to the point of crumpling 
 and rummaging the garments strewn about the furni- 
 ture, and, without worrying about the presence of the 
 wretched adulteresses, even found the spirit to 
 joke. 
 
 "There were six places set ! One of the male birds, 
 no, one of the female birds has taken flight by the win- 
 dow, helping herself with a curtain, torn down, as you 
 see. ... It was even worse than a party of two 
 couples; a cubic party. . . . What a pity! I should 
 like to have seen the fugitive! I'll bet she was the 
 prettiest of all!'* 
 
 He put so treacherous a meaning into these last 
 words, he allowed such a devilish double meaning to 
 pierce this reticence that a sinister light penetrated 
 Laurent's spirit and he threw himself forward toward 
 Bejard to treat him like a coward. 
 
 Bejard contented himself with surveying this im- 
 pertinent reveller from head to foot and immediately 
 going on with his investigations, but the violent en- 
 trance of Paridael recalled the superintendent to his 
 role. 
 
 "Hey, you, Pierrot? . . , Get out, quickly! This 
 
THE CARNIVAL 339 
 
 is none of your business !" he said, taking Laurent by 
 the arm and pushing him out ; then turning to Bejard 
 and the two husbands: "I think the facts have been 
 sufficiently established, Monsieur Bejard, and that it is 
 superfluous to prolong this delicate situation. We can 
 therefore retire." 
 
 After coughing, he added in a constrained tone, as 
 if modesty prevented him from speaking directly to 
 the lightly clad culprits : "These gentlemen and ladies 
 will have the kindness to join us at the commissariat 
 for the little formalities that we still have to go 
 through!" 
 
 Laurent, contrary to his usual habit, thought it use- 
 less to resist. He would find the superintendent of 
 police again. Bejard would lose nothing by waiting! 
 
 For the moment another duty was incumbent upon 
 Laurent. 
 
 Guilty or not, Gina had to be warned of what had 
 just taken place and of the manner in which Bejard 
 had spoken of her. . . . Laurent rushed to the street 
 like a madman, hailed a cabby, jumped into the fiacre : 
 
 "ToBejard^s!" 
 
 He tore at the bell, jostled the footman, entered an 
 illuminated room like a housebreaker. 
 
 Gina screamed loudly, first at recognizing her Pier- 
 rot of that afternoon, and then, beneath his disordered 
 costume and the remainder of his makeup, her cousin 
 Laurent Paridael. 
 
 He snatched her brutally by the hand : "A yes or no, 
 Gina; were you at Casti's restaurant this evening?" 
 
 "I ! From what asylum have you escaped ?" 
 
 He told her, in one breath, the scandal whicH he 
 had just attended. 
 
 "The wretch !" she cried, as she heard the role played 
 
340 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 by Bejard in the vile performance. "I have not Keen 
 out of the house this evening. Is not my word enough 
 for you? Here, the postmarks on this registered let- 
 ter prove that it was delivered to me about an hour 
 ago. I was just finishing my reply to it when you 
 burst in, and you will admit that it would take easily 
 an hour to fill these four pages with a handwriting as 
 close as mine." 
 
 In order to be satisfied Laurent had no need of an 
 irrefutable proof; everything about Gina proclaimed 
 her innocence ; her air of repose, her house-gown, her 
 coiffure, arranged for the night, the sound of her voice, 
 the honest look in her eyes, even the cool and calm per- 
 fume that she herself exhaled. 
 
 "Forgive me, cousin, for having doubted you for a 
 moment. . . . Forgive me, above all, my conduct of 
 this afternoon. . . ." 
 
 "I have already forgotten that nonsense. ... Ah ! 
 Laurent, it is rather I who should ask your pardon! 
 Have I not been cruel toward everyone, but especially 
 toward you, my poor Laurent! ... Be merciful to 
 me. Just now I need to be spared! I am expiating 
 my coquetry! 
 
 "For a long time you have hated Bejard, haven't 
 you? You will never hate him enough! He is the 
 enemy of us all, the malignant beast par excellence 
 lence. . . . You know about the shipwreck of The 
 Gina! Well, it is a horrible thing to say, but I am 
 convinced that the wretch anticipated the disaster, that 
 it even entered into his calculations. Yes, he knew 
 that the boat wouldn't hold water very much longer !" 
 
 "No! Oh, no! Don't say that! Bejard was an 
 angel two minutes ago! Bejard was as good as 
 Jesus ! . . . He knew that; he wanted that shipwreck ! 
 
THE CARNIVAL 341 
 
 God! God! God! Oh, no! . . ." cried Laurent, bury- 
 ing his head in his hand, and stopping up his ears. 
 
 "Yes, I would take an oath upon my soul that he 
 knew about it. He distrusted me. He knew that I 
 divined it ; he feared me. He is afraid that I may talk. 
 I know that he planned, with old Saint-Fardier, to 
 have you shut up as a lunatic. And had it not been 
 for my father, they would have done it. Crazy ! Any- 
 one would go crazy in such surroundings. It is a 
 miracle that I have preserved my sanity. I would 
 swear that this evening's plot was brewed by him, with 
 Vera-Pinto, the Chilian whom you noticed in the street 
 this afternoon, and saw again at Casti's this evening." 
 
 And Gina told Laurent that, since his arrival in Ant- 
 werp, the foreigner had pursued her with his atten- 
 tions. She had dismissed him many times, but he al- 
 ways came back to the onset, encouraged, unbelievable 
 as it seemed, by Bejard, with whom he had taken Du- 
 poissy's place. He had, for sure, a lower and a blacker 
 mind than the Sedanese, and Gina did not augur any 
 good from the fact that the two partners went about 
 together under the pretext of business. 
 
 Bejard hoped to regain his liberty to marry another 
 heiress. After having ruined her, Gina was but an 
 obstacle to his fortunes. Not daring to rid himself of 
 his second wife as he had been able to rid himself of 
 his first, across the sea, he was trying to persuade Gina 
 to consent to a divorce. The interest of her child, and 
 respect for her own reputation had prevented Gina 
 from listening to his advances, otherwise she would 
 have been the first to break their abominable union. In 
 the face of her refusal, Bejard had had recourse to 
 threats, and then, since his wife continued unsub- 
 missive to his will, he had beaten her without pity. 
 
342 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 However, one day when he again raised his hand to 
 her, Gina had armed herself with a knife and threat- 
 ened to plunge it into his breast. As cowardly as he 
 was vicious, he took her at her word. But, in order 
 to break down his wife's resistance, he took other 
 abominable means. He tried to throw her into the 
 arms of the Chilian. She avoided these pitfalls, and 
 the charlatan was out of pocket for his gallantry. Fi- 
 nally, in despair of getting a case, not having succeeded 
 in inducing his wife to adultery, Bejard had resolved 
 upon having her condemned and stigmatized as though 
 she had been guilty. With the connivance of Vera- 
 Pinto he had not hesitated, in order to attack her, to 
 ruin the two little Saint-Fardiers. 
 
 And thus, mused Gina, she was the warp and woof 
 of the plot : 
 
 "After having warned Bejard of the party arranged 
 for the evening, the Chilian went to it with one or the 
 other of his conquests. 
 
 "They are not lacking, I give you my word," she 
 continued, "even in what is called good society, for 
 my equals do not all share my aversion for that sus- 
 picious half-breed. It makes no difference who they 
 are. Luckier than Angele and Cora, the third lady 
 mixed up in the escapade found a way, at least, of 
 fleeing in time. She does not suspect that she owes 
 her good fortune to the hatred which Bejard, in his 
 damned soul, bears me. It was necessary for them to 
 have her out of the way before the arrival of the police 
 in order to implicate me in the affair. Was I not seen, 
 this very afternoon, with my unfortunate friends? 
 And were not von Frans, Ditmayr and Vera-Pinto 
 planted beneath our balcony the whole time? The 
 scene at Casti's represents the epilogue of an intrigue 
 
THE CARNIVAL 343 
 
 begun at the Hotel Saint- Antoine, and tomorrow there 
 will not be one person in the whole of Antwerp, with 
 the exception of my father and yourself, who is not 
 persuaded of my relations with that Chilian! Ah! 
 Laurent! To think that Bergmans himself will be- 
 lieve my traducers! And it is from my memory of 
 him that I have drawn the strength to remain vir- 
 tuous ! 
 
 "It was he whom I loved ; it was he whom I should 
 have married! I discouraged him by my vanity, and 
 when he had gone away, my conceit still got the better 
 of my love, and I consented to the most disastrous of 
 marriages. To irritate the one whom I loved, I made 
 myself eternally unhappy !" 
 
 In vain had Paridael tried to wear out his passion, 
 to make it more and more absurd by multiplying, with 
 deliberate intention, the obstacles and barriers that sep- 
 arated him from his cousin ; in vain had he descended 
 so low that he could never raise himself up to her 
 again. 
 
 He thought himself cured, but he had only brought 
 his trouble to the boiling point once more. We know 
 how, a few hours before, his animosity had been 
 aroused against her. 
 
 The accidents, the intimacies, the promiscuities of 
 his vagabond life, his commerce with the rebellious 
 and the refractory fellows who were not ashamed of 
 their nature, who were initiated in every form of turpi- 
 tude, had stripped him, also, of all prejudice, had 
 made him more daring and more expeditious. 
 
 While she was denouncing Bejard's brutalities to 
 him, Paridael was strangely torn; one part of his be- 
 ing sympathized, from the depths of his soul, with so 
 great a misfortune, and was revolted by so monstrous 
 
344 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 a villainy, and the other part burned to leap upon the 
 weeping woman, to beat her in his turn, to treat her 
 with more barbarity than he had, just a little while 
 before, at the carnival. Never had the extremes of 
 his nature so contradicted each other. His feelings 
 clashed with each other like contrary winds in a tem- 
 pest. 
 
 The nudity of the two blonde adulteresses, surprised 
 at Casti's restaurant, still trembled before his eyes and 
 inflamed his blood. 
 
 "Why do you not quickly strip this quivering 
 woman? Would you be less brave than the httle vio- 
 lator of Pouderlee?" suggested the material side of 
 his nature. "I shall find enough nobility of soul to 
 love her better than Bergmans himself!" the other 
 phase of his nature promised him. And he cherished 
 no less generous and extravagant an idea than that of 
 sacrificing himself in order to assure her of happiness 
 by ridding both her and Antwerp of the damnable de- 
 spoiler. 
 
 It was under the influence of this quixotic thought 
 that he said to Gina, after a long silence during which 
 he held her hands in his : 
 
 "You still love Bergmans, then ?" 
 
 The accent of his voice betrayed so much sadness 
 and affection that Gina looked at him. But she was 
 amazed to find in his eyes the strange, wrecked expres- 
 sion she had already seen, one eventful day, in the 
 orangery, and as he gripped her hands more tightly: 
 
 "Laurent !" she cried, trying to push him away, and 
 not answering his question. 
 
 He, however, continued in his weak and breaking 
 voice : 
 
 "Fear nothing from me, Gina. Think anything you 
 
THE CARNIVAL 345 
 
 want about me, overwhelm me with contempt, but 
 know that there is nothing I would not do for your 
 happiness !" 
 
 It was the sincere expression of his feelings, but 
 wherefore, while offering Gina this respectful devo- 
 tion, did the rough pressure of his fingers, and the wild 
 light of his eyes give the lie to his speech? 
 
 "If Bejard were to disappear, it would be Berg- 
 mans that you would marry?" 
 
 His voice seemed to come from the other world, 
 like that of one who dreams out loud. 
 
 "Do you want me to kill him, that husband of yours ? 
 You have only to speak the word ! Come, answer me ! 
 Answer me, I say !" 
 
 His murderous look did not threaten only the per- 
 son who had defined it with such intensity and con- 
 centrated fire. Gina had just read in it something 
 other than murderous fury, a more direct plea, an 
 imminent danger. . . . 
 
 "Before I assure your happiness and that of Berg- 
 mans forever, be good to me just for one instant, 
 Gina . . . the instant that it takes to give a sister's 
 kiss. Then I shall leave to accomplish my mission. 
 And you shall never see me again. . . . Quick! the 
 farewell kiss, my Regina. . . ." 
 
 His voice changed, became hoarse and threatening; 
 his plea sounded false; he dragged her by force 
 to him, twisting her wrists as he did it. 
 
 "Laurent! Stop! YouVe hurting me! . , ." 
 
 Instead of obeying her, he stroked the flesh of her 
 arm ; he even put his hands to her corsage, and, at the 
 thrill of her bosom, beneath the thin material of her 
 tea-gown, he pressed his lips greedily to hers. Al- 
 most thrown back, and on the point of belonging to 
 
346 THE NEW. CARTHAGE 
 
 him, she succeeded in releasing herself, and bounded 
 to the other side of the table : 
 
 "All my compliments, master cheat! And to think 
 that I was accusing Vera-Pinto! It is you who are 
 the tool of Bejard! I follow it, now. After having 
 paid you for maltreating me this afternoon, he counted 
 upon surprising me with you, you hideous clown! 
 Your ugliness and your beastliness would have made 
 the enormity of my fault even greater !" 
 
 Whipped by this violent attack, as blinded as though 
 she had dashed a bottle of vitriol in his face, Laurent 
 did not even try to justify himself. Appearances over- 
 whelmed him ; the best thing he could do would be to 
 take himself off at once. The arrival of Bejard might 
 convert her slanderous hypothesis into a reality at any 
 moment. 
 
 Laurent took to flight, not without stumbling many 
 times, ready to fall. 
 
 Gina ! His dearly beloved Gina ! To think him ca- 
 pable of such deceit ! Never could Laurent rise beyond 
 it again. He would be right forever more to wallow in 
 all mire to add ignominies to ignominies: his worst 
 actions would seem good beside the one of which she 
 had impeached him, and the severest penalties, the 
 most infernal expiation that a list of unimaginable 
 iniquities would yield him would seem gentle and clem- 
 ent to him when compared with the rigor and the 
 cruelty of her accusation. 
 
 Gina herself could never retrieve her error nor re- 
 pare her injustice. It was indelible. Any rehabilita- 
 tion or forgiveness would come too late. 
 
VII 
 THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 
 
 That day in May the fogs of an exceptionally stub- 
 bom winter had scattered, to leave floating in the air 
 only a diaphanous evaporation through which the 
 azure tendered the interesting pallor of convalescence, 
 and which became irridescent, in the radiant sunlight, 
 like a mist of fine pearls. 
 
 After a long illness contracted on the morrow of 
 his stormy Mardi Gras, Laurent, as convalescent as the 
 season, left, for the first time, the hospital where the 
 practitioners had saved him in spite of himself and less, 
 without doubt, for interest in him than in order to 
 triumph over one of the most stubborn and most com- 
 plex cases of typhoid that had ever been met with in 
 the establishment. 
 
 Put back upon his feet, returned to the life of the 
 outside world, he seemed to have come back from a 
 long and perilous voyage, as if pardoned from an exile 
 that had lasted for years. And so never before, even 
 on the day of his return to Antwerp, had the metrop- 
 olis appeared to him with this aspect of power, splen- 
 dor and serenity. 
 
 At the harbor, the activity was feeling the effects of 
 the spring-like temperature. The recent famine caused 
 by the blocking of the Scheldt had not persisted after 
 
 347 
 
348 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the break-up of the ice. The roadstead and the docks 
 were swallowing up more ships than ever and a mighty 
 recrudescence was succeeding the long lull in traffic. 
 
 The workingmen were laboring without suffering, 
 happy to spend their strength, considering the drudg- 
 ery, often so painful, as an exercise giving elasticity 
 to their long relaxed muscles. 
 
 Even the emigrants, stationed at the doors of the 
 consulates, seemed to Paridael less pitiful and more 
 resigned than usual. 
 
 Passing the Coin des Paresseux, he noticed that all 
 its habitues were absent. 
 
 Their king, a perpetual loafer, who never worked 
 even when the most downright lazy among them al- 
 lowed themselves to be hired out, had exceptionally 
 recanted his laziness. This humiliated Laurent not a 
 little. He remained the only drone in the busy hive. 
 He was impatient to regenerate himself in work. 
 
 To this end he stopped several brigades of dockers 
 and asked for any employment from their haes, but 
 the latter, after carefully looking him over, seemed 
 not at all anxious to saddle himself with as ridiculous 
 a laborer as the fellow before him, wasted with two 
 months of fever, asked him to come back the next day, 
 alleging that the day was already too far gone. 
 
 Drawing trucks, there passed with a slow and ma- 
 jestic gait the great horses of the Nations. On their 
 large collars gilded nails set forth the name or the 
 monogram of the corporation to which they belonged. 
 The drivers of these drays employed for reins only 
 a hempen rope drawn through one of the rings of the 
 collar. Whether they stood up on their empty wagons, 
 like antique coachmen, or whether they walked placidly 
 and apparently unconcerned, by the side of their loaded 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 349 
 
 drays, their dexterity, their watchfulness and the in- 
 telligence of their horses were such that the trucks 
 passed each other and rubbed against each other with- 
 out ever becoming tangled. 
 
 Laurent could not help admiring the strong horses 
 and their magnificent drivers; he even stopped still in 
 the middle of the road and would have been run over 
 had not an imperative crack of the whip or a guttural 
 onomatapoeia not warned him to watch out. t 
 
 Drunken with the springtide, he splashed about with 
 delight in the thick mud, the black and permanent sweat 
 of a pavement constantly trampled down by the heavy 
 rolling of traffic ; he trespassed upon the railroad 
 tracks; mooring-ropes caused him to stumble, bales 
 thrown in flight from hand to hand like simple jug- 
 gler's balls by Herculean jugglers, threatened to upset 
 him, and the gang whose rhythmic, cadenced work he 
 interfered with rated him in a patois as enormous and 
 crusty as their bodies. 
 
 Nothing could alter, today, Laurent's good humor; 
 he took pleasure in being hardly used by the world he 
 preferred, enjoyed the extreme familiarity with which 
 he was treated by these dockers, as robust as they were 
 placid. 
 
 He lounged about the great Kattendyck basin. His 
 heart beat more rapidly at the sight of comrades from 
 the America, the Nation of which he himself had been 
 a part, unloading grain. The sacks snatched by the 
 hooks of the crane at the bottom of the hold were 
 hoisted to the height of the masts and funnel, then the 
 mighty lever, describing an horizontal quarter-circle, 
 carried its load to a truck waiting on the quay. 
 
 Standing on the truck, bare-headed and bare-armed, 
 a tall fellow, his loins girded like a wrestler, with a 
 
350 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 sort of pruning-hook in his hand, grappled the bags 
 as they hung above his head, loosened them from their 
 slings, and, by the same stroke, gave its liberty of 
 movement back to the machine, which turned to con- 
 tinue its looting. 
 
 Other comrades, wearing hoods, came up in a single 
 file to load upon another truck the load which the bare- 
 headed man caught up and fastened upon their backs. 
 All around sweepers were gathering in scoops the grain 
 which was spilled, at every trip of the machine, from 
 the fissures in the grappled and torn bags. 
 
 As he came nearer, Laurent recognized in the prin- 
 cipal actor of the scene, in which he alone, perhaps, 
 among his contemporaries, experienced the sovereign 
 beauty that would have intrigued Michael Angelo and 
 sent Benvenuto Cellini into transports of lyricism, the 
 docker whom he had aided in the garret, and thought 
 himself recompensed for any terrestrial or divine per- 
 spective by the emotion which he felt at the sight of 
 this noble creature restored to life and beauty. For an 
 instant, Laurent thought of hailing him, but did not; 
 the good chap might think, seeing his benefactor so 
 shabby and worn looking, that a brutal appeal was 
 being made to his gratitude. Paridael even hastened 
 to keep on his way, fearful of being recognized, con- 
 gratulating himself for having had this scruple, but 
 sending a warm wave of emotion toward his debtor. 
 
 He passed through the drydocks, crossed many 
 bridges and gang-planks, and came to the warehouses 
 for inflammable matter, the storehouses of naphtha 
 immerged in marshy hollows, the petroleum tanks, 
 great vats like gasometers, all objects whose character- 
 istic appearance contributed to the demarcation of this 
 commercial landscape. 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 351 
 
 Here stopped, after its last wanderings, the monopo- 
 lizing and voracious industry of the metropolis. 
 
 Therefore he was not a little surprised to find, be- 
 yond the petroleum reservoirs, towards the village of 
 Austruweel — a pitiful bit of a village separated by 
 strategic necessity from its parish and added to the 
 urban region — an agglomeration of flimsy and provi- 
 sional buildings, whose appearance was so troubled, so 
 forbidding, so infernal, that Laurent was not far 
 wrong in attributing a diabolic origin to claim his 
 property, or as if he exercised an unavowable profes- 
 sion. The hovels must have shot up there like mush- 
 rooms growing in a single night in a damp spot, pro- 
 pitious also to the hatching of toads. 
 
 As a whole, it looked like a lazaretto, a dispensary, 
 a horse-pound, a warehouse for contraband goods, or 
 a clandestine still relegated to a district outside the 
 zone of normal industries. 
 
 Disagreeably surprised, Laurent Paridael stopped in 
 spite of himself before these interloping buildings, con- 
 sisting of five bodies of buildings without floors, built 
 of wreckage, loam, coarse plaster, of agglutinated ma- 
 terials, like a temporary thing of which only an ephe- 
 meral consistency was demanded. 
 
 Surrounded by a dilapidated wall of rotted hand- 
 rails, it threw a discordant note into the grandiose and 
 loyal harmony, into the impression of honest founda- 
 tions produced upon him today by the panorama of 
 Antwerp. These hovels, lacking any apparent purpose, 
 intrigued Paridael more than he would have wished. 
 
 He was distracted from his examination by a dozen 
 apprentices, boys and girls, who, hurrying along and 
 chatting joyously, were going into precisely those sus- 
 picious sheds. 
 
352 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 He stopped them with the nervousness of a rescuer 
 who jumps into the water or throws himself at the 
 bridle of a runaway horse, and asked them what the 
 installations were. 
 
 "Those? But that's the Bejard Cartridge Plant/' 
 they answered him, looking at him as if he had fallen 
 from the moon. 
 
 At this answer he must have had an even more be- 
 wildered look. How was it that he had not foreseen 
 this correlation? An establishment with such a re- 
 pulsive expression and such a malignant exterior could 
 serve only Bejard. 
 
 Laurent Paridael remembered that someone had told 
 him of this last operation of the former slaver. With- 
 out becoming reconciled to Bergmans, he had ap- 
 plauded the vehement campaign which the tribune had 
 conducted against the threatening works of the dealer 
 in human flesh, and if he had not been more actively 
 concerned in this opposition, it was only because he 
 thought the Council incapable of tolerating such ma- 
 nipulations in the interior of the city. And now Pari- 
 dael was finding that his anticipations had been given 
 the lie, and that the public safety had been imperilled 
 despite Bergmans' phillipics, adjurations, and cries of 
 alarm. 
 
 Bejard, the evil alchemist, had succeeded in estab- 
 lishing his laboratory where it best suited him. 
 
 It was in these dangerous workshops, almost open 
 to all the winds, built rather to attract bats than to 
 shelter human beings, that his dreadful operations were 
 taking place ! 
 
 It was in close proximity to the most combustible 
 materials that the presence of the most withering pro- 
 ducers of fire was tolerated ! 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 353 
 
 It was to children, fatally rattle-brained and flighty 
 babies, belonging essentially to the most turbulent and 
 the most reckless class of the Antwerp proletariat, that 
 they turned over work for which sufficiently careful 
 and steady manipulators could not be found ! 
 
 And so that nothing would be lacking to the stakes, 
 so that the challenge would cry the louder to God or 
 rather, to Hell, these little hands, unskilled and clumsy, 
 were provided with cumbersome and rudimentary 
 tools. 
 
 Finally, as a supreme provocation, a steam engine 
 and its fire-box were accommodated next to the gun- 
 powder-maker; quite literally, the powder was being 
 treated in the fire ! 
 
 Considering only the little difficulty required by the 
 work itself, "regular child's play," as the greedy capi- 
 talist said with a chuckle, he had carried off two hun- 
 dred of the very young blackguards swarming in the 
 Quartier des Bateliers and the Quartier de la Minque, 
 offspring of drunkards, women peddlers, pilots, smug- 
 glers and runners, hopeless vagrants to whom he paid 
 a few cents a day, Bejard worried as little about the 
 safety of the poor children as he had about that of 
 the emigrants. Laurent even imagined that he recog- 
 nized, among the moss-grown and tarry boards, the 
 wreckage oi The Gina, and, going even further back, he 
 thought of the boats whose construction was helped, 
 in the time of Bejard, senior, by the children tor- 
 tured to amuse Bejard, junior. 
 
 The eldest of the boys, to whom Laurent had just 
 spoken, was but sixteen years old, and Laurent learned 
 from him that the majority of his companions had 
 not yet reached that age. 
 
 In questioning them, Paridael took a hitherto un* 
 
354 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 felt interest in their welfare, felt there and then an 
 imperious and almost piercing solicitude, the most in- 
 tense, the most jealous that any human being had ever 
 aroused in his veins, taxed his ingenuity to prolong the 
 conversation in order to hold them back, there, near 
 him, and delay their entrance into the factory from 
 minute to minute. 
 
 He racked his brain in order to divert them from 
 their work, to disband this deleterious workshop. He 
 had never before nourished such a desire to dispute a 
 factory its workingmen; to debauch, to liberate, to 
 emancipate the apprentices yoked to a homicidal trade. 
 All his former loves revived and condensed into that 
 supreme attachment. 
 
 "In that building there, in front of your nose, is the 
 workroom where the boys empty the cartridges. Back 
 of the shed, the customshouse. In the middle, that 
 species of fort surrounded by bare earth is the powder- 
 house, where we case the powder coming from the 
 broken cartridges. On the other side of the powder- 
 house, the girls' workroom. It's there that my girl 
 works, the red-haired one who is hiding behind the 
 other one. Like they used to do at school, they sepa- 
 rate the breeches from the skirts. I don't say that they 
 are altogether wrong ... the more because we make 
 amends for it when we come out, don't we. Car- 
 rot? Finally, that shed there contains the oven in 
 which we melt in separate ingots the copper and the 
 lead. 
 
 "The same shed contains the steam engine which 
 crushes the empty and burned shells. I work at the 
 oven. It is I, Frans Verwinkel, who explode the ful- 
 minate of the percussion-caps after having emptied 
 the shells. It is very amusing, and no more difficult 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 355 
 
 than thumping him, here! Vlan! I do it like tliat! 
 And the thing is finished ! Don't get angry, Pitiet, it's 
 only to explain the trick to Monsieur !" 
 
 In proportion as the eldest gave him, without any 
 recrimination, even in a bragging tone strongly im- 
 pregnated with racy local slang, these details and oth- 
 ers of the place, the materials and the workers, Lau- 
 rent's affinities for this crew of sturdy fellows and 
 buxom girls increased to its paroxysm of commisera- 
 tion. 
 
 They had well-modelled flesh, their faces were 
 healthy, although they had lost something of their vel- 
 vety quality, their expressions were sprightly, their 
 movements quick, their eyes flashing, their lips mobile, 
 they had the tan complexion, the red cheeks, the dark 
 coloring of the harbor folk, the type whom Laurent 
 prized so highly that it made him sympathetic to even 
 the runners and other land-sharks. 
 
 As he looked at them, how did it come to pass that 
 he suddenly reflected that the first victims of Bejard 
 and his shipyards, the little crucified children of the 
 Fulton shipyards, must have been of their age, must 
 have had their grace, their beauty, their bluster? 
 Truly, they must have been congeners of those proud 
 youths whom, as the newspapers of the time said, had 
 been tortured and made martyrs of without drawing 
 information from them. 
 
 "And don't you do yourselves any harm? Does no 
 one do you any harm in there ? Are you sure ? That 
 man, Bejard; doesn't he take pleasure in drawing 
 blood from you? Are you not lending yourselves to 
 his amusements ; doesn't he burn you and mangle you, 
 the tyrant? Don't deny it! I know him! Be care- 
 ful! . . ." 
 
356 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 They looked at each other and burst out laughing, 
 not understanding anything of this reveller*s divaga- 
 tions. 
 
 The presentiment of a hidden danger that menaced 
 them worried Paridael cruelly, sorrowed, to employ 
 the word of the sublime Saviour, his soul unto death. 
 A train of torments and torture was lying in wait for 
 this adolescent flesh. He would have liked to ransom 
 these poor children at the price of his own blood, from 
 he did not know what vivisectors. 
 
 One moment he thought that he had found a means 
 to ward off their destiny. 
 
 After having mentally calculated how much he still 
 possessed, he proposed point blank to the whole troop 
 to take them to the country, beyond Austruweel, where 
 he would have regaled them with rice, with "Corinth 
 bread," and with sugared coffee, just as Jesus treats 
 his elect in Paradise. 
 
 But, while he was searching his pockets for his last 
 money, he examined himself for bandages, lint and 
 salve. His clothes had been fumigated at the hospi- 
 tal, but an abominable odor of phenol, laudanum and 
 cauterized flesh outraged his nostrils. 
 
 Dressed in one of those picaresque rigs to the com- 
 position of which he brought a true dandyism, his 
 cheeks sunken, his face ravaged by his illness and made 
 more haggard and more distorted by his present worry, 
 his ridiculous and incoherent vaporing coinciding with 
 the unfavorable impression of his looks, Laurent Pari- 
 dael was so little the person from whom one could ex- 
 pect liberality that, when they heard him propose such 
 a wonderful treat in the country, the gamins believed 
 themselves to be absolutely in the presence of an in- 
 sane man, an opium smoker, or a drunkard incapable 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 357 
 
 of doing what he offered, and endeavored to stun him 
 with their ridiculous answers. 
 
 "Say, Jan Slim, have you finished humbugging your 
 set? Tell us your tailor's address? Hey, rare bird, 
 since you are in the mood to preach, why not recite the 
 ten commandments for us ? Surely, we'll go with you, 
 little father, and right off, but can you take us to the 
 Hotel Saint-Antoine or to Casti's for dinner? We 
 don't want to hurt your feelings, but we think youVe 
 broken out from the Rue des Beguines or that you are 
 a pilgrim to Merxplas ! Is it with stolen money that 
 you are going to cram our bellies ?'* 
 
 Far from taking offence at these jokes, Laurent pro- 
 foundly regretted that he could no longer find a single 
 hundred franc note to distribute among them, and pay 
 their ransom to fate. He was himself at the end of 
 his resources, and should he not be able to hire out his 
 enfeebled arms on the morrow, he would in point of 
 fact have to begin a pilgrimage to Merxplas, to the 
 hospitable prison for tramps and vagrants, where he 
 would meet Karl the Blacksmith and so many other 
 worthy pariahs. 
 
 Warned of an ever more imminent trouble, Laurent 
 persisted in trying to take the young folks far from 
 this neighborhood; he begged them almost with his 
 tears to hire themselves out elsewhere as hodmen, 
 navvies, coffee-sorters, herring-peddlers, or at least 
 to take a holiday today, only one afternoon, to 
 play the truant from the factory for the rest of the 
 day. 
 
 But thinking that this mystification was becoming 
 a bore, their chief scamp with large eyes the color 
 of a ripe chestnut, with a teasing expression, with a 
 willful, dimpled chin, a difficult rogue to handle, the 
 
358 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 same Frans Verwinkel who said his job was to explode 
 the fulminate, lifted his cap respectfully to Paridael, 
 and, bowing his black, curly head, harangued him in 
 these terms : 
 
 "It isn't, old brother, that your company is particu- 
 larly disagreeable to us, or that your conversation lacks 
 relish, but if you will believe me, you will be first in the 
 field and wait for us at Wilmarsdonck. . . . It*s over 
 an hour ago that the clock struck, and, without alto- 
 gether being the bugbear that you say he is, Bejard 
 would not hesitate to fine us, or put us all out, sure as 
 he is of always being able to catch enough artists of 
 our genius to keep his shop going. 
 
 "And so, in this case, it is not you, our uncle, who 
 butters our bread, or lodges us in the henhouse, or 
 offers himself up to take a whipping as paternal as it 
 is burning, we bid you good day, friend. Good luck, 
 and a good wind behind you !" 
 
 Laurent tried to bar his passage, to hold him by the 
 arm, to grip him by the hands : 
 
 "Come, hop, friend ! Down with your paws I Get 
 out, do you understand !" 
 
 The frisky apprentice released himself, and Laurent 
 vainly clung desperately to blouses and skirts ; they all 
 passed him, following their leader, not without molest- 
 ing him a little. And with hisses and catcalls, with any 
 amount of derisive gestures, they were all swallowed 
 up by the cartridge plant, more brazen and more blus- 
 tering than a flock of crows scorning a scarecrow. 
 
 Paridael stood there for a long time after the door 
 had shut upon the last of the laggards. The sonorous 
 laugh, their vibrant voice still rang in his ears ; he saw 
 the great chestnut eyes of the eldest sparkle and glisten 
 once more, recalled the relish of his gesture when he 
 
XHE CARTRIDGE PLANT 359 
 
 had raised his cap to heaven like a quarrelsome tit- 
 mouse bristling its tuft. 
 
 Paridael's heart bled more and more sorrowfully 
 in his bosom. And that because of some young scoun- 
 drels who were absolute strangers to him. 
 
 "There are hundreds, even thousands of these louts, 
 all cast in the same mold, between Merxem and Kiel !" 
 the judicious and moderate Marbol had told told him. 
 
 Did not they themselves realize that Bejard would 
 not have found it difficult to raise more than one re- 
 serve of conscripts of the same kidney ! 
 
 The prolific city threw them upon the streets, neg- 
 lectfully, exposing them to accidents, abandoning them 
 to their own industry, to their good or evil instincts, 
 destining nearly all of them to helotism, squandering 
 them upon the racy atmosphere of the streets and the 
 waterfront. 
 
 If they did not serve for food for the fishes, they 
 would, one day, be stretched out upon the slabs in the 
 morgue, or contribute to the instruction of medical 
 students. Did they possess the supreme and unique 
 character with which Laurent endowed them? In- 
 contestably. Were he the only one to see them in this 
 warm light and in so bold a relief, it would be because 
 they were created and existed so. 
 
 On the point of joining the apprentices in their 
 workshop in order to suspend the malignant labor wifh 
 which they were charged, and disputing them with 
 Bejard himself, the same odor as before, but stronger, 
 the stifling heat of a slaughter-house, blended with the 
 mustiness of an infirmary and puffs of the odor of 
 burning pounced upon him. As though he had been 
 made to breathe a powerful anesthetic, he became 
 dizzy, and things reeled before his eyes. 
 
36o THE NEWi CARTHAGE 
 
 The wall surrounding the cartridge plant was swept 
 away, the masonry crumbled to pieces, the walls of the 
 buildings cracked and parted like scenery, or as if a 
 sudden torrent of water had burst forth, and, in a 
 green Bengal light with the color of a glaucous and 
 phosphorescent sea, unwonted human forms whirled 
 about before his eyes, more rapid and more fleeting 
 than a luminous bank of fishes, or than the thousand 
 candles quivering before the pupil of an apoplectic^s 
 eye. In the horrible bustling of these apparitions, 
 Laurent distinguished trunks without members, hands 
 and feet amputated from bodies, and what dismayed 
 him the most was the imploring or terrified expression 
 in the gleaming eyes of those bloodless heads, the same 
 youthful roguish eyes that he had seen a few seconds 
 before, and the grin, the convulsion, the grimace of 
 horrible suffering upon these mouths, the same mouths 
 that only just now had been so willful and so banter- 
 ing, and the frank, courageous beauty of these children, 
 now twisted in he knew not what convulsion. 
 
 Was he watching a shipwreck or a fire? He saw 
 again, but together, the martyrized children of the Ful- 
 ton shipyards, and the emigrants who had gone down 
 on The Gina. And one of these faces, that of young 
 Frans Verwinkel, extraordinarily resembled that of 
 his dear Pierket, Henriette's youngest brother and her 
 living image, but a stubborn and determined version 
 of that pensive image. 
 
 This phantasmagoria lasted but one brief second, 
 after which the green light died down, the walls closed 
 up, the fence rose once more, and the hideous factory 
 took on its sullen, but normal aspect. 
 
 "What now !'' said Paridael to himself. "Am I go- 
 ing mad ?" 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 361 
 
 And blushing at this morbid seizure, which he at- 
 tributed to an hyperesthesia caused by his illness, to 
 the heady effect of the air after a long claustration, he 
 finally resolved to turn his back upon these hallucinat- 
 ing objects, and make his way toward the river. 
 
 Two or three times, however, he looked back at the 
 factory, turned in his path for a moment as if he had 
 forgotten something, or as though some dearly be- 
 loved person had called him back to repeat their fare- 
 well. 
 
 Gradually the spell ceased to operate. The normal 
 and reassuring appearance of the other buildings in the 
 light and warmth of this first fine day soothed him. 
 Not a single cloud darkened the azured opal of the 
 sky. Imperceptible wavelets skimming the surface of 
 the sun-drenched river reminded him of the little shiver 
 of comfort rippling the flank of a horse that is being 
 stroked by its master. 
 
 Laurent could no longer distinguish the rigging or 
 the cordage of distant ships, so that their white sails, 
 whiter than the sheets of his numbered bed in the hos- 
 pital, or the covers of stretchers, seemed to float un- 
 shackled in space, and suggested the wings of angels 
 sent to meet the souls who were shortly expected 
 above ! 
 
 When he reached the embankment, the same place 
 from which he had watched the disappearance of the 
 ship that bore away the Tilbaks, Paridael lovingly and 
 jealously embraced the panorama of his native city. 
 His look travelled over the outlines and the contour 
 of monuments, it completed a delineation as exact and 
 minute as that of a diagram, while his enthusiasm 
 livened the tints, multiplied and chromatized the 
 nuances of this familiar architecture. He inhaled with 
 
362 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 the avidity of one asphyxiated and restored to life the 
 briny air, the aroma of the open, the perfume of odor- 
 iferous spices, and even the smell of fetid organic 
 matters loaded on the merchant fleet. The haunting 
 odor of the hospital dissolved in this superior aroma. 
 
 Laurent was aware of diligent crews, discovered 
 choral manoeuvres in the great gestures of elevators 
 and cranes, recorded the calls, the signals and the or- 
 ders. He confused in an immense transport of affec- 
 tion the native horizon and all whose sight is circum- 
 scribed. A profound and total beatitude invaded him ; 
 a sort of Nirvana, of voluptuous stupor. While he 
 was tasting and relishing the ambient and tangible 
 reality, he no longer felt himself part of the city. 
 For it took on the proportions and the character of a 
 sublime work of art. Would he never again participate 
 in creation, or had he been dissolved and melted into 
 the essences and the principles of which it was com- 
 posed ? 
 
 It was the first day that he had appreciated it, that 
 he had thus assimilated it through all his pores. In 
 what strange life was he living? If such delights as 
 these constituted the day without a tomorrow, he would 
 never tire of the eternity ! 
 
 A melody from the carillon preluded the stroke 
 of three o'clock. 
 
 Before the first chime, Paridael felt the sensation 
 of cold of a sleeper who awakes in the open air; at 
 the same time, it seemed that he was being pulled 
 fiercely by the sleeve, and that the last human voices 
 he had heard, those of Bejard's young workers, were 
 hailing him from the far distance. He turned toward 
 the buildings of the cartridge plant. There was no liv- 
 ing soul beneath the buildings and the river, and an- 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 363 
 
 noyed at this recall, Laurent turned toward the road- 
 stead. 
 
 At the moment when the clock struck the first stroke 
 of the hour, he heard a series of little detonations go 
 off with ever increasing rapidity at the cartridge plant, 
 and as he gave up trying to count them, a shock plowed 
 through his legs, the soil bent and unbent beneath his 
 feet like a spring-board and threw him, with an in- 
 voluntary force, a few feet away. 
 
 A thunder comparable to that of all the cannons in 
 all the forts united in a single battery broke his iympa- 
 num and made the blood gush from his ears. At the 
 same moment a part of the cartridge plant — alas, the 
 workrooms of the children: — shook and was rent 
 asunder like a house of cards, and, huddled and thrown 
 together in a white spout, leaped and liquified toward 
 heaven. 
 
 It mounted in a single jet, quickly, the upright stem 
 of a vegetation, and at the tip of this white, cottony 
 unending stem, there formed the immense bulbous 
 mass of a red and black tulip blowing, like the fabu- 
 lous aloe, in the crash of lightning; a still born flower 
 shedding its petals in ominous fireworks. 
 
 At the second stroke of three, during the thousandth 
 of a second in which this pyrotechnic flower had its 
 life, Laurent, who was gazing at the petals, distin- 
 guished arms, legs, trunks, and entire human silhou- 
 ettes, gesticulating horribly like disjointed puppets. 
 He recalled analogous gestures and contortions in the 
 canvases of visionary painters, evocators or scorcerers 
 repairing to their sabbaths. And these parts of the 
 red and black tulip, bloody and charred, rained, rained, 
 rained in innumerable ruins to the accompaniment of 
 untranslatable outcries and the continuous cannonade. 
 
364 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 The howls of human beings being burnt alive! Nero- 
 nian pyrotechnics ! 
 
 While Laurent was thinking that he had already 
 heard these voices, a few lumps and a hail of shot 
 tumbled down about him, and he had a hurried vision 
 of a trunk to which a bit of chest was still hanging, 
 of a child's foot still lodged in its little boot, of a mus- 
 cular leg breeched in velveteen, and he remembered 
 the curve of that body, the rumple of the breeches, the 
 sprightly noise of the boots running about their work, 
 and the handsome impudence of a bright face beneath 
 a saucy cap. 
 
 "It's I, Frans Verwinkel, who explode the fulminate ! 
 You should see me at work ! I have only to hit it thus, 
 and the thing is over !" 
 
 Perhaps the poor thing had only hit it thus. ... 
 
 No, it was impossible! Laurent could not believe 
 his senses. The mirage had come on again, stronger 
 than before. To convince himself of his own state of 
 hallucination, he laughed out loud, but he heard him- 
 self laugh, and the nightmare persisted. 
 
 Toward the extremity of the urban belt, where less 
 than a second ago there had been a block of houses of 
 the village of Austruweel, not one of the twenty hovels 
 remained with the exception of the tap-room In den 
 Spanjaard, contemporaneous with the Spanish domi- 
 nation, and flourishing in the year 1560. Through the 
 raging gap one could see the country, the grass-covered 
 slopes of the fortifications, the curtain of budding trees, 
 and the placid church-steeple of Austruweel, above 
 which the lark was singing its first song. The sentry 
 box of a sentinel was lying at the bottom of a ram- 
 part. 
 
 Capricious as lightning, the explosion had preserved 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 365 
 
 some shaky, nearby hovels that a breath could have 
 swept away, and even spared a part of the cartridge 
 plant, while it had overturned and pulverized buildings 
 several kilometers off, reduced to jelly torpedo-proof 
 masonry, broken like a wisp of straw the piles and the 
 joists of docks, converted iron into filings, and rum- 
 pled like a piece of silk the galvanized sheet-iron roofs 
 of the warehouses. 
 
 Ruins leaned in an unstable state of equilibrium and 
 slashed themselves into fabulous profiles and unheard 
 of styles of architecture. 
 
 Before the third stroke of three rang out, from be- 
 hind the cartridge plant, hissing and howling like a 
 host of snakes, there surged a flaming geyser whose 
 waves rolled a surface of ten hectares ; all the stock of 
 petroleum, fifty thousand barrels, burst into flame, like 
 a simple match. 
 
 And such was the progress of the conflagration, such 
 was the fury of this incendiary tide that it seemed 
 about to submerge the metropolis and swallow its river 
 at one gulp. 
 
 Through an illusion of perspective, the enormous red 
 tongues, immoderately elongated, all darting in the 
 same direction, were licking the buttresses of the ca- 
 thedral. In spite of the broad daylight, the towering 
 pile reflected a sunset. And the ships in the basins, 
 alternately masked and uncovered as the flaming waves 
 scattered away from them or drew near to them, 
 seemed the playtoys of these devouring billows, to 
 pitch upon an ocean in eruption. 
 
 The apocalyptic splendor of the spectacle ended by 
 drowning Laurent's horror and pity in a monstrous 
 trance. But the bitumen and sulpher were not rain- 
 ing from the skies. Never had so pure and so sweet 
 
366 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 an ether filled space, never had so blue and caressing a 
 sky enticed mortals. Contrary to prophecy, the stars 
 were not dashing to pieces, the spring day continued to 
 smile indifferently, and the thick, black smoke, unfurl- 
 ing its hurried scrolls from far off, the black foam of 
 this tempest of flames, did not succeed in troubling the 
 unruffled and serene majesty of the sun. 
 
 However, after the helplessness and consternation 
 of the first moment, a wave of terror swept the popu- 
 lation of the southern districts and sent flying from 
 their homes, under a hail of plaster and breaking glass, 
 the inhabitants of quarters furthest distant from the 
 cartridge plants. Workmen who had escaped from 
 death; calkers, dockers, sorters, women with their 
 babies on their arms, young girls almost nude, sailors, 
 customs-officials, lock-keepers, haggard, horribly out 
 of breath, their eyes more distended than by bella- 
 donna, their mouths cloven and widened by a pro- 
 longed cry, their hair and clothing burned, sometimes 
 even their flesh, living torches whose speed was 
 stimulated by the race crowded to the banks of 
 the river and even tried to throw themselves into the 
 Scheldt. 
 
 One of these fugitives ran against Laurent and al- 
 most knocked him over. Laurent recognized Bejard, 
 and, torn sharply out of his trance, his hate restoring 
 him his lucidity, persuaded that this extermination was 
 the work of his enemy, the crown of his iniquities, he 
 grappled him as he passed. 
 
 In this hypercritical moment, he retrieved his lost 
 forces. He was going to stick to his word: avenge 
 Regina, avenge Antwerp, avenge the emigrants who 
 had deliberately been thrown to the fishes, avenge, 
 finally, the children in the cartridge plant. 
 
THE CARTRIDGE PLANT 367 
 
 Ah! these, then, were the ends for which destiny 
 had saved him ! 
 
 Bejard fought, yelled for help, but completely occu- 
 pied with their own distress, the fugitives pursued 
 their course without bothering about this struggle. 
 
 Laurent overpowered Bejard, clasped him in an im- 
 placable grip like that of a bulldog's jaws, of a vulture's 
 claw, of a spider's tentacle, or of the sucker of an 
 octopus. 
 
 Ah! he had flattered himself, the exactor, the ex- 
 tortioner, the dealer in souls, that he would survive 
 this hecatomb of children! He had just reached 
 safety, the scourge seemed to have spared him, when 
 one more violent and more implacable than the flames 
 was luckily on hand to supplement their blind clemency 
 and restore to them the prey which they had allowed 
 to escape. 
 
 As implacable as death itself, a final justiciary, Lau- 
 rent dragged his culprit back to the Gehenna. In all 
 Antwerp he was the only person who cold-bloodedly 
 was going back to this hearth of horror. He intended 
 to stay there with his condemned criminal. The idea 
 of death had no terrors for him. Had he not felt him- 
 self go off deliciously a few minutes ago ? 
 
 Bejard, guessing the horrible purpose of his execu- 
 tioner, screamed, bit, used all his strength, despair in- 
 creasing his normal vigor tenfold. 
 
 From time to time he put up such resistance that 
 Laurent could not succeed in advancing, and they 
 fought in the one place. But the advantage always re- 
 mained with Paridael and he kept victoriously push- 
 ing his captive before him, through all, over the slimy 
 mass, flabby, charred matter in which one could hardly 
 recognize human remains. 
 
368 THE NEW CARTHAGE 
 
 He even jostled the wounded, the idea of vengeance 
 made him deaf to their death rattle. Cartridges were 
 constantly exploding beneath his feet, shots whistled 
 in his ears, he could have thought himself upon the 
 battlefield during the decisive fusillade. 
 
 The heat was becoming intolerable. The flaming 
 naphtha was asphyxiating him. In this extremity he 
 addressed but one prayer to God, not to die until he 
 had killed Bejard. 
 
 God granted his prayer. 
 
 At the moment when, at the end of his strength, 
 Paridael was about to give up the struggle, what re- 
 mained of the cartridges blew up in a mass, in one su- 
 preme explosion. The last vestiges of the Bejard fac- 
 tory leaped into the air. Another red and black tulip 
 brightened in a flash of light. 
 
 Two shades tightly entwined fought in the midst of 
 a lake of fire. 
 
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