IV
In the curve that the Seine describes level with Mantes, opposite Vétheuil, at Fraicourt, factories had grown apace, like a crop. In the course of the work, the young inventor had certainly encountered ill will, stupidity and even knavery from time to time, but his faith in his definitive success was so robust that he had supported these minor hitches lightly.
Convinced that Paris would rapidly expand over thirty or forty kilometers around, in great spaces of verdure and stone, he had proposed that they install themselves right away beyond the reach of the future city. Then again, he was pleased to be on the waterway, on the great stream that ran toward the sea and the New World.
In accordance with the custom established since the development of aerial transport, the inscription Sidereal Energy was raised in large white letters on the vermilion of the tiled roofs. Henceforth, the ground would be “read” as maps had once been read. The architect had even risked an objection: in case of conflict, the factory would be marked out as an enemy target—but François had replied, laughing, that aerial warfare would soon be impossible, for the infinite energy that would be disposable would make it possible to prohibit the sky to any aircraft whatsoever.
Chérance had strongly advised the inventor, when he published his discovery, only to point out the immediate and practical effects, and not to indicate the distant repercussions—those that he called “the philosophical consequences.”
The financier had given him that advice one day when they were both traveling by car toward Fraicourt in order to visit the factory site. Francois, in a surge of confidence, had confessed to him the supreme hope that he founded on his invention: the possibility of being able, when the time came—doubtless millions of years in the future—to move the Earth out of its orbit and incorporate it into another solar system, and then another, thus to ensure, in a voyage toward infinity, a literally eternal life. For him, that glimpse of possibility truly crowned his work. It opened limitless perspectives to human destiny. He repeated that such a vast hope had never been given to the Earth.”
The financier, however, had put a hand on his sleeve and raised the other index finger.
“Beware of being misunderstood. Incomprehension is the great reef. It’s necessary to avoid it. The man in the street can’t grasp these long range views. They surpass him and frighten him. He’d prefer to doubt your lucidity than his own intelligence. Count yourself lucky if he understands and appreciates the tangible benefits that you’re bringing him.”
François, thoroughly conquered by Chérance, was glad to take him as a guide. He therefore followed the financier’s advice when he drafted a report of his invention for the Académie des Sciences, and abstained from listing “the philosophical consequences.”
Chérance had similarly recommended that he refrain from publishing his discovery until the factory was finished. On that point too his advice was taken. François asked his boss, Thuilier, who was a member of the Institut, to read his communication to the Académie des Sciences. The director of the Center accepted enthusiastically; it was a presentation that would attract the attention of the worldwide elite to the establishment at Bellevue and himself.
In spite of his authority, and the number and importance of his titles, his reading did not meet with unanimous assent. Thuilier encountered resistance. Some members of his scientific audience remained incredulous, reserved or skeptical. François was not surprised by that. He had expected it. A curious spirit of hierarchy, caste and tradition, a mistrustful humor and the fear of being duped rendered official science particularly suspicious of any novelty. But all those obstinate individuals, in François’ view, would quickly be obliged to yield to the evidence.
The day after the communication, the majority of the newspapers reproduced it or summarized it, contrary to Laronce’s prediction. To be sure, they did not give it the privileged place that was then reserved for major crimes, sporting exploits and scandals. They even abstained from commenting on it or discussing it. The news did not explode. It diffused, discreetly.
That is because science does not interest the crowd—or, rather, does not excite it. People are untouched by science; it does not speak to their hearts. They profit from it, but are not moved by it. While certain sanctuaries disappear beneath ex-votos, no mother ever decorates a statue of Pasteur with flowers.
Certainly, François was not expecting the idolatrous fervor that was then afforded to the heroes of tennis or boxing. Nor was he expecting the drawing-room glory founded on audacious advertising and human respect, which socialites lavish most willingly on those they understand the least. The day after Thuilier’s lecture, however, he knew the signs of petty notoriety.
Photographers asked him to pose before their lenses. In order that his face would clear at the moment the snap was taken, one of them told him: “I admire your discovery.” That was his method. He said to painters or writers, “I admire your paintings” or “I admire your books.” Another, having been told that Francois Thibault was a father, asked him at the same time, with the same intention, the names of his children.
Other photographers presented themselves at Bellevue, at the Center, in order to take picture of the Starter for the illustrated papers. The majority were received by Thuilier, who employed himself with indefatigable zeal in demonstrations of the apparatus.
The deputy director, Lavolige, still disorganized and fluttering had tried to lend him a hand, but the impish little fellow was so distracted that he always feared that he might forget some detail of the set-up and function. He had been obliged to renounce supporting his superior.
Journalists begged the young inventor for interviews. Some, encouraged by his good manners, confided to him that they were not suited to that profession, and told him their troubles and their hopes rather than interrogating him about his discovery. Others, treating his home as if it were their own, were stiff, surly and demanding, as if they were doing him a great favor.
All these articles appeared without difficulty. Contrary to his prophecies, Laronce was able to celebrate his childhood friend in the Bonjour at his ease. The journalist was simultaneously delighted and disappointed by that, because he loved and envied François at the same time. The article, well-nourished, was both agreeable and lively, for the bitter man was overflowing with talent.
Laronce was the son of a Briolle cooper. The Thibaults, his neighbors, had opened their house freely to the preciously intelligent red-haired boy that their François had adopted as a companion. It was, therefore, sufficient for the journalist to draw upon his memories in order to depict François, his happy, healthy and pampered childhood, his adolescence rich in enthusiasm and scientific projects, and also his simple cheerfulness and seductive tenderness.
He related the future inventor’s first experiments, the time when he had autopsied all his electric toys, when he had blown all the fuses in the house. Discreetly, he evoked François Thibault, married to the daughter of the great Pierre Contal, his loving household, his two lovely children. Then Laronce wrote about his visit to Bellevue and the miracle of the rose petal. He concluded by showing his friend animated since his early childhood by an optimistic confidence in better times, for knowledge and for human beings, by virtue of a robust faith that never ceased to fortify him and expand within him, which sustained him like the framework of his life.
That article delighted François. Laronce was decidedly an exquisite friend, when bile did not drown his heart. He hastened to the Bonjour to give him the accolade.
“I can’t tell you how much pleasure you’ve given me, old chap. Words fail me.”
The journalist, however, had recovered his habitual bitterness. “Yes, I hurried to sing your praises while we’re still permitted to do so—for it won’t last. Anyway, you’re happy?”
“I think so.”
“Well, that’s the main thing.”
Certainly he was happy. For seven years he had lived huddled over his research and its results. Now, he was enter
ing a new phase, He was about to distribute his discovery and its benefits. He embarked upon that crusade cheerfully.
He would have liked to get carried away, to collect approval frankly. When a popular science magazine asked him to write an article about his discovery, when a radio company asked him to explain it before the microphone, he experienced a sort of disappointment in addressing himself to unknown readers and invisible listeners. He would have liked to communicate directly with all of them, to have them before him and lean toward them, to convince them by means of all the force of his presence.
He only savored that full satisfaction at his lecture at the Sorbonne under the auspices of the Center. It was organized and chaired by Thuilier. For François, it was a revelation. He discovered that he had a gift for public speaking, a necessary condition of the apostolate. He was astonished to feel quite at ease, mentally free and sure of himself. While speaking, he could make out the detail of every face. Impishly, he was tempted to wake a member of the audience whose eyelids were dropping. On the other hand, all the attentive and fervent gazes sustained him. And in his great need for sympathy and approval, he would have preferred, at the end of the lecture, that the gentle applause might ring more loudly, and never end.
In sum, Laronce’s blackest predictions were unrealized.
François thought that it was necessary, contrary to his custom, to observe the good as well as the bad. He therefore congratulated himself in Chérance’s presence for the broad welcome of the newspapers. All doors were opening before him.
The financier replied, with a wry smile beneath his small moustache: “They’ve been greased.”
In fact, the publicity campaign was beginning. It was conducted by the commercial director of the Company, Dutrait, a young protégé of Chérance’s. Very spirited and very capable, he admired the financier so much that he had taken him for a model. He imitated his brisk elegance, his casual courtesy, his prompt decisiveness and his imperious bearing. On one point alone he did not succeed in resembling him. While Chérance always observed a regal punctuality, Dutrait always arrived late. Impotent to correct his vice, he spent most of his time repairing its deplorable effects.
Dutrait had employed a powerful agency to distribute photographs and information that were to imprint the name and merits of Sidereal Energy in all articles. The initial success was rapid. The example was provided by the electricity supply companies that still used coal to produce light and power, and which resolutely adopted the Starter. They were imitated by two rail networks that had been planning to use hydroelectric power for their electrification and were thus able to install the costly installation works. A few electrochemical and electrometallurgical factories followed suit.
The directors of the Company were delighted with these early results, full of promise. They met at the headquarters of Sidereal Energy in the Avenue Victor Hugo. Chérance, who had accepted the chairmanship of the board, directed them with a light but firm hand, giving them a free rein, and was able in that role to savor the sportive joys that the drivers of mail-coaches once had.
At board meetings, François never succeeded in remembering the names of his associates. He got them confused. To be sure, they differed in appearance and mannerisms. Thus, in session, some remained silent, smiling at some pleasant dream or filling their blotters with complicated and puerile drawings. Others, by contrast, spoke with voluptuous abundance, sucking their words like boiled sweets. And yet, there was a family atmosphere about them; they had the ease that habit confers.
They were all, in fact, hardened in the profession. Each of them sat on several boards. It was always the same men that one found around all the green tables. In the country, one tiny phalanx administered the work of everyone else.
With François they were courteous, benevolent and protective. They consented to assure him of the success of his invention. Far from taking offense at their attitude, he was glad of it. He observed the feudal lords that fate had given him as allies in his crusade—the society of money, the customs and people of which were new to him—with a keen curiosity.
In the evenings, he gave Marianne amusing sketches of his day, as well as reporting the first signs of success. They continued to live in the small detached house at Bellevue what was annexed to the Center for Studies in Physics. Already, they could have moved to a larger dwelling, for Chérance had kept his word; François’ own situation followed the successful trajectory of Sidereal Energy—but the sudden surge of fortune did not intoxicate either of them.
Perhaps because his needs were not great, perhaps because, thanks to his family, he had never known hardship, François was not subject to the fetishism of money. He knew, of course, that in his era, money was a form of power, that it played the role in society that blood plays in the living body, that it brought ease and security to life, but he denied forcefully that only money counts and that anything can be bought.
He had always thought that if, one day, he had a veritable superfluity at his disposal, he would first of all offer himself the pleasure of giving pleasure: of making those around him happy, fulfilling desires, effacing worries, realizing dreams, paying delicate and tender attentions, seeing faces light up with joy, and even with gratitude; in brief, plucking the charming flower of the egotism that is known as altruism. Already, his wish had been granted.
If François was happy to offer his silent darling those beginnings of success, he was perhaps even happier to bring them to the house of his childhood, in his rapid escapes to Briolle. Oh, it was then that Maman straightened up, as powerful and placid as an allegorical statue. Of course, had she not always said that her son would succeed? And it was then too that Papa, in order to straighten his face and hide his emotion, bit his fingernails and blinked.
He owed his father so much; he had lived in close proximity with him until he was sixteen. The former mariner returned to the land had seen a great deal and meditated a great deal. François had inherited his humane morality from him, his faith in better times, whose advent his discovery was about to hasten and whose perspectives it would extend endlessly.
It is necessary to admit that a discordant voice sometimes mingled with the concert of familial praise. When François went to his little house in Clos-Mussy, Marianne told her father in a few prudent but proud words about the launching of Sidereal Energy. Then, Pierre Contal raised his eyes to the ceiling, shook his head, clicked his tongue against his teeth and murmured: “It will all end badly.”
François was untroubled, however. He repeated to himself that a great law of equilibrium guides the universe, that good and bad, eulogy and criticism, compensate one another. Those somber prophecies, whether they came from the obscure Laronce or the illustrious Pierre Contal, were the inevitable ransom of his radiant hope.
And it was, in fact, in his visits to his childhood home that he felt most warmly enveloped, comforted by that human sympathy, that approval, for which he had a liking, and perhaps a need.
As the warm days of summer were returning, it amused him to imagine that the garden itself, as a friend of his past youth, was celebrating on his behalf. The trees extended their braches toward him, the leaves applauded like tiny hands, and the flowers bloomed for him like fireworks, saluting him with their silent explosions.
V
At Fraicourt, on the threshold of the factory, François was watching out for Dutrait’s airplane. He had to show he commercial director the results of his latest experiments. The driver of an electric car would have no more need to carry a source of power, piles or accumulators; it would be sufficient for him to capture a radiation, like the users of radiophony. The problem, resolved long ago in theory, could be solved in practice now that there was a profusion, a superabundance of energy available. Soon, in a vehicle, one would no longer have to do anything but “pick up” a wave, as one had, for many centuries, picked up the wind aboard a boat.
Dutrait had encouraged him strongly to pursue that research. Now that it was concluded, radio-propul
sion companies would doubtless spring up, just as radio broadcasting companies had. Naturally, they would employ the Starter, thus giving a further boost to Sidereal Energy.
According to Dutrait, that boost was needed. The hopes authorized by the initial successes had not been realized. At recent board meetings, François thought he had detected a discreet reproach in the limited welcome of his associates. They were resentful of his disappointment of their impatience. Still courteous and polite, however, they avoided insisting on that weakening of success and openly seeking its causes.
On the contrary, Dutrait, in his conversations with François, formally put the blame on the change of attitude by the press. As commercial director, he kept close track of it. The doors that had initially opened had closed. Newspapers that had graciously accepted favorable articles to begin with now refused even paid insertions. Evidently, a few magnates had commanded the measure. They were, after all, defending their skins. Some had already been wounded. Shares in coal-mining had fallen noticeably since the launch of the Starter, and many other enterprises must be sensing that they were under threat.
The information that Dutrait gave him only served to confirm what Laronce had said—for the journalist, for his part, had not failed to alert his friend as soon as he caught wind of the conspiracy. His predictions were realized. The famous conspiracy of silence was being woven around the discovery.
A singular fellow, Laronce; after the publication of his charming article about François, he had disappeared. He had stopped visiting the house in Bellevue during the enchanted months when everything seemed to be smiling on the young invention. The sight of the happiness of others rendered him truly unhappy. He had only reappeared to tell his friend, with a sincere indignation and a secret jubilation, the names of the first papers whose publicity was closed to Sidereal Energy.
The Eternal Flame Page 4