Complete Works of Emile Zola (1612 page)

Luc had known the Jordans, both brother and sister, ever since he had met them at the Boisgelins’ house in Paris, where they had spent one winter in order that Jordan might carry on certain studies. A strong sympathy had quickly sprung up between them, based in Luc’s case upon a lively admiration for the brother, whose scientific genius seemed to him of the highest order, and a deep regard, mingled with esteem, for the sister, who appeared to him as a figure of divine goodness. He himself was then working with the celebrated chemist, Bourdin, having undertaken an investigation of iron ores containing an excess of sulphides and phosphides which he hoped to render available for use; and Sœurette, careful as she always was in the conduct of their personal affairs, now recalled certain details in regard to this subject that he had given her brother in the course of an evening’s conversation, and which had remained strongly impressed upon her mind. It was now more than ten years since the mine discovered by their grandfather, Aurélian Jordan, on the plateau in the Monts Bleuses, had been abandoned, because some very bad lodes had finally been struck, where sulphur and phosphorus were in such excess that the ore when it came to the melting-pot did not yield enough to pay for the expense of its extraction. The exploitation of the galleries had therefore been stopped, and the blast-furnace of La Crêcherie was now supplied by the mines at Granval, near Brias; the ore from thence, which was excellent, was brought by a little railroad right up to the platform for charging, and the coal was brought in the same way from the neighboring coal-mines. But all this was a great expense, and Sœurette had often thought of those chemical methods mentioned by Luc, which might, perhaps, enable them to resume the working of their own mine; and her desire to consult him before her brother came to a decision was increased by her feeling the necessity of at least knowing what they would really make over to Delaveau if a sale took place between La Crêcherie and the Pit.

The Jordans were expected by the six o’clock train, after twelve full hours’ journey, and Luc, availing himself of the carriage sent for them, went to the station to meet them. Jordan, small and delicate, with a gentle, oval face of somewhat dreamy expression, framed by hair and beard of a very light brown, descended from the railway carriage enveloped in an immense cloak, although the September day was warm. His black eyes, in which all the vitality of his being seemed to be concentrated, were very lively and very penetrating, and it was he who first perceived the young man.

“Ah, my good friend, how kind you are to have waited for us!... We had no idea of such a disaster as this poor cousin’s death all alone down there, and we were obliged to go to the funeral, although I have a horror of travelling!... However, it is over; here we are.”

“In good health, nevertheless, and without too much fatigue?” asked Luc.

“Not too much. I was able to sleep, happily.” Sœurette, having assured herself that none of the wraps, which she carried from precaution, had been forgotten, now arrived in her turn. She was not pretty; she also was small and pale, and she had the insignificant look of a woman who had resigned herself to the role of manager and sick-nurse. Nevertheless, a tender smile of infinite charm lighted up her quiet face, although it had no beauty but her passionate eyes, in the depths of which burned all the capacity for affection that was pent up within her, of which she herself was in ignorance. She had as yet loved no one but her brother, and she loved him as a cloistered nun loves the God to whom she sacrifices the world. She suddenly exclaimed, even before addressing Luc:

“Martial, pay attention to me. You must put on your muffler.”

Then, turning towards the young man, she showed how charming she could be, and displayed all her ready sympathy with him.

“We have so many excuses to make to you, Monsieur Froment. What must you have thought of us when you found that we were not here upon your arrival? At least, I hope you were comfortable at our home — that they showed you every attention.”

“Most admirably. I have lived like a prince.”

“Ah, you are joking! Before we left I took every care to give all the necessary orders in order that nothing should be wanting to your comfort. Even if I was not on the spot I could care for that, and you will not believe the annoyance I felt at the idea of having abandoned you in such a manner in our poor, empty house.”

They got into the carriage, and the conversation continued. Luc succeeded in reassuring them, swearing to them that he had passed two most interesting days which pleased them. When they reached La Crêcherie, Jordan looked all around him, in spite of the fact that it was after nightfall, so delighted to resume his habitual existence that he could not repress a cry of pleasure. It seemed to him as if he was returning after an absence of several weeks. How could any one find pleasure in rushing about in different directions, when all human happiness was contained in one narrow corner of the earth, where one thought and where one worked, relieved from the cares of life by the ease of habit? And while Sœurette was giving her attention to the serving of dinner, he hastened to bathe in warm water, and he absolutely insisted on dragging Luc into the laboratory, saying, with his light laugh, that he was burning with desire to return to it himself, and that he could not eat his dinner with an easy mind if he did not breathe first for a moment the air of the apartment in which his life was passed.

“My good friend, it is the most delightful to me of all odors....
Ma foi,
yes, of all odors that which I love best is the odor of the room where I work.... It delights me and inspires my ideas.”

The laboratory was a wide hall, very high, built of iron and brick, and looking out by large bay-windows on the verdure of the park. The middle of the room was occupied by an immense table covered with apparatus, while the walls were adorned with a complicated equipment, with models, rough draughts of projects and reductions of electrical furnaces in all the corners. A net-work of cables and wires extending from one end of the room to the other conveyed power from the neighboring shed where the motor was set up, and distributed it to the machinery, the apparatus, and the ovens for experimental purposes. In the midst of all these scientific appurtenances, which in themselves were a little rude, a corner in one of the bay-windows was set apart for intimate personal use; it was a pleasant, warm retreat, furnished with low bookcases, deep arm-chairs, a divan, where the brother at certain hours was accustomed to doze and a little table, where the sister sat watching over him and working with him as his faithful secretary.

Jordan touched a button, and the entire room was illuminated with electric light.

“Here I am, then, and decidedly I am only comfortable when I am among my own surroundings. .. Do you know that the accident which obliged me to leave three days ago happened exactly at the moment when I was conducting an experiment of passionate interest. I shall take it up again at once...
Mon Dieu!
how well I feel when I am here!”

He continued in this laughing manner, looking much better and more animated than usual. He half reclined on the divan in a dreamy attitude which was habitual to him, and obliged Luc to sit down as well.

“Tell me, my good friend — we have plenty of time, have we not, to talk of the things that have made me so anxious to see you that I ventured to send for you? But we must have Sœurette with us, for she is an excellent counsellor; and, therefore, if it is agreeable to you, we will wait until after dinner, and it shall be for our dessert.... Ah, how delighted I am to have you here with me in the mean time, and to tell you of my research-work! It does not go on very quickly, but I work steadily, and you know it is a 1 great business, and one may conquer the whole world by working a couple of hours a day.”

Then the habitually silent man began to talk, and to describe his experiments, which, as a rule, he confided only to the trees in his own park, as he himself sometimes said in jest. The electrical furnace for the melting of metals had already been devised; the next thing was to make a practical application of it to the melting of iron ore. In Switzerland, where the motor force of the streams is such as to allow of cheap installations, he had seen furnaces which melted aluminum under excellent conditions. Why should one not melt iron in the same way? If one wished to solve this problem, nothing more was needed than to apply the same principles to a given case. The present blast-furnaces produce scarcely more than sixteen hundred degrees of heat, while with electrical furnaces it ought to be possible to obtain two thousand degrees, which would cause immediate and complete fusion with perfect regularity. He had thought out without difficulty the kind of furnace which he believed was wanted, a simple cube of bricks, about two yards square on all its sides, of which the interior, the active centre, and the crucible should be of magnesium, that being the most refractory material known. He had also calculated and determined the volume of the electrodes, which were to be two large carbon cylinders, and his first real discovery had been in working out a method of conveying the carbon necessary for deoxidizing the ore in such a manner that the operation of melting would be exceedingly simplified, and leave hardly any scoriae. But although the furnace was now an accomplished thing — that is to say, had reached the stage of a completed model — he did not yet see how to put it in operation in such a manner that it would act in a practical and constant fashion so as to meet the needs of industrial uses.

“There,” said he, pointing to a model in the corner of the laboratory
—”
there is my electrical furnace. I admit that it requires further improvement, that it is defective in several points, and that there are difficulties in regard to it which I have not yet solved. Nevertheless, such as it is, it has given me some excellent castings, and I estimate that a battery of ten such furnaces, working ten hours a day, would do as much work as three blast-furnaces such as mine, which are going day and night. And this work would be of the easiest description, which a child could control simply by pressing a button. But I must confess that my iron castings have cost me as much as if they were silver ingots. The problem, as it now presents itself, then, is that my furnace is as yet simply a plaything for the laboratory, and it will come into existence for industrial use only when I shall be able to supply it with electricity in abundance at a cost sufficiently low to render the fusion of iron ore by these means remunerative.”

He then explained that six months previously he had laid aside his furnace, in order to devote himself entirely to the study of the transmission of electrical power. Would it not be an economy to burn coal as soon as it came out of the mine, and then to send the electric power by cables to the distant works where it was needed? This was the very problem which a great many scientific men had been trying to solve for several years, and they all split on the same rock — namely, the actual loss of considerable power.

“The experiments that will solve this problem are yet to be made,” said Luc, with an incredulous air. “I myself am very sure that there is no such economy possible.”

Jordan smiled with a gentle obstinacy born of that invincible faith which he preserved in all his researches during the months and months that it sometimes cost him to establish the smallest truth.

“No
one should ever believe, in the absence of certainty.... Already I have good results, and I am sure that some day electric power will be stored up and that it will be distributed by cables without any loss whatever. And if it takes me twenty years, well! I will spend twenty years. It is a very simple matter: one gets up every morning to one’s work; one begins over again at whatever one has not proved. What should I occupy myself with if I did not begin over again?”’

He said this with an air of such naïve dignity that Luc was seized with a feeling of admiration as though he were in the presence of some heroic action. He looked at this man, so frail, so delicate, with his feeble, uncertain health; he watched him coughing convulsively under his shawls and mufflers in the midst of that immense room crowded with gigantic apparatus; and as his glance fell on the network of wires that animated all this, and which were set in motion every day in order to carry on the labors of this fragile being who went to and fro among it all absorbed in his struggle for success, the latter seemed to him like an insect toiling in the dust of the earth. Where did this man find not only the intellectual energy but the physical vigor to undertake and to carry on the most exhaustive labors, which would seem to require the lives of several strong and healthy men? He moved feebly, he breathed with difficulty, and yet he sustained an entire little world with his slender hands, as fragile as those of a sick child.

At this moment Sœurette appeared, crying gayly:

“What is the matter that you do not come to dinner?

 — .. My dear Martial, if you are not more sensible, I will put the laboratory under lock and key.”

Both the dining-room and the salon were small rooms, warm and dainty, as nests always are which are dear to a woman’s heart. They looked out over the open country, commanding a wide view of fields and cultivated lands extending as far as the distant borders of Roumagne. At this hour of the night, however, the curtains were drawn, although the evening was mild; and Luc was struck anew with the minute care that the sister lavished on the brother. He was obliged to follow a troublesome
régime,
which allowed only certain articles of food, a particular kind of bread, and even a special kind of water that was slightly warmed for him. He did not eat any more than a bird, and he got up and went to bed with the chickens, who, after all, are very sensible. During the day he was obliged to take short walks and
siestas
between the intervals of labor. To
those
persons who expressed surprise at the prodigious labor that he accomplished, and who insisted that he must be bent upon self-destruction, by working from morning till night, he answered that he worked scarcely three hours a day, two in the morning and one in the afternoon; and even more, he divided the morning
séance
into two parts by a little recreation, for he was unable to fix his attention on any subject for more than an hour at a time without vertigo. He had never been able to do more than this, and he was successful only by reason of his force of will, his tenacity, and the passion for his work, from which sprang all the intellectual energy which had been fostered by the years of repose during which it had been conceived.