Penguin Island

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Caroline asked the question:

"Do you think that men were happy formerly?"

Her companion answered:

"They suffered less when they were younger. They acted like that little
boy: they played; they played at arts, at virtues, at vices, at heroism,
at beliefs, at pleasures; they had illusions which entertained them;
they made a noise; they amused themselves. But now. . . ."

He interrupted himself, and looked again at his watch.

The child, who was running, struck his foot against the little girl's
pail, and fell his full length on the gravel. He remained a moment
stretched out motionless, then raised himself up on the palms of his
hands. His forehead puckered, his mouth opened, and he burst into tears.
His mother ran up, but Caroline had lifted him from the ground and was
wiping his eyes and mouth with her handkerchief.

The child kept on sobbing and Clair took him in his arms.

"Come, don't cry, my little man! I am going to tell you a story.

"A fisherman once threw his net into the sea and drew out a little,
sealed, copper pot, which he opened with his knife. Smoke came out
of it, and as it mounted up to the clouds the smoke grew thicker and
thicker and became a giant who gave such a terrible yawn that the whole
world was blown to dust."

Clair stopped himself, gave a dry laugh, and handed the child back to
his mother. Then he took out his watch again, and kneeling on the bench
with his elbows resting on its back he gazed at the town. As far as
the eye could reach, the multitude of houses stood out in their tiny
immensity.

Caroline turned her eyes in the same direction.

"What splendid weather it is!" said she. "The sun's rays change the
smoke on the horizon into gold. The worst thing about civilization is
that it deprives one of the light of day."

We did not answer; his looks remained fixed on a place in the town.

After some seconds of silence they saw about half a mile away, in the
richer district on the other side of the river, a sort of tragic fog
rearing itself upwards. A moment afterwards an explosion was heard even
where they were sitting, and an immense tree of smoke mounted towards
the pure sky. Little by little the air was filled with an imperceptible
murmur caused by the shouts of thousands of men. Cries burst forth quite
close to the square.

"What has been blown up?"

The bewilderment was great, for although accidents were common, such
a violent explosion as this one had never been seen, and everybody
perceived that something terribly strange had happened.

Attempts were made to locate the place of the accident; districts,
streets, different buildings, clubs, theatres, and shops were mentioned.
Information gradually became more precise and at last the truth was
known.

"The Steel Trust has just been blown up."

Clair put his watch back into his pocket.

Caroline looked at him closely and her eyes filled with astonishment.

At last she whispered in his ear:

"Did you know it? Were you expecting it? Was it you . . . ?"

He answered very calmly:

"That town ought to be destroyed."

She replied in a gentle and thoughtful tone:

"I think so too."

And both of them returned quietly to their work.


S. 3

From that day onward, anarchist attempts followed one another every week
without interruption. The victims were numerous, and almost all of them
belonged to the poorer classes. These crimes roused public resentment.
It was among domestic servants, hotel-keepers, and the employees of such
small shops as the Trusts still allowed to exist, that indignation
burst forth most vehemently. In popular districts women might be heard
demanding unusual punishments for the dynamitards. (They were called
by this old name, although it was hardly appropriate to them, since, to
these unknown chemists, dynamite was an innocent material only fit to
destroy ant-hills, and they considered it mere child's play to explode
nitro-glycerine with a cartridge made of fulminate of mercury.) Business
ceased suddenly, and those who were least rich were the first to feel
the effects. They spoke of doing justice themselves to the anarchists.
In the mean time the factory workers remained hostile or indifferent
to violent action. They were threatened, as a result of the decline of
business, with a likelihood of losing their work, or even a lock-out
in all the factories. The Federation of Trade Unions proposed a general
strike as the most powerful means of influencing the employers, and the
best aid that could be given to the revolutionists, but all the trades
with the exception of the gliders refused to cease work.

The police made numerous arrests. Troops summoned from all parts of the
National Federation protected the offices of the Trusts, the houses of
the multi-millionaires, the public halls, the banks, and the big shops.
A fortnight passed without a single explosion, and it was concluded that
the dynamitards, in all probability but a handful of persons, perhaps
even Still fewer, had all been killed or captured, or that they were in
hiding, or had taken flight. Confidence returned; it returned at first
among the poorer classes. Two or three hundred thousand soldiers, who
bad been lodged in the most closely populated districts, stimulated
trade, and people began to cry out: "Hurrah for the army!"

The rich, who had not been so quick to take alarm, were reassured more
slowly. But at the Stock Exchange a group of "bulls" spread optimistic
rumours and by a powerful effort put a brake upon the fall in prices.
Business improved. Newspapers with big circulations supported the
movement. With patriotic eloquence they depicted capital as laughing in
its impregnable position at the assaults of a few dastardly criminals,
and public wealth maintaining its serene ascendency in spite of the vain
threats made against it. They were sincere in their attitude, though at
the same time they found it benefited them. Outrages were forgotten or
their occurrence denied. On Sundays, at the race-meetings, the stands
were adorned by women covered with pearls and diamonds. It was observed
with joy that the capitalists had not suffered. Cheers were given for
the multi-millionaires in the saddling rooms.

On the following day the Southern Railway Station, the Petroleum Trust,
and the huge church built at the expense of Thomas Morcellet were all
blown up. Thirty houses were in flames, and the beginning of a fire
was discovered at the docks. The firemen showed amazing intrepidity and
zeal. They managed their tall fire-escapes with automatic precision,
and climbed as high as thirty storeys to rescue the luckless inhabitants
from the flames. The soldiers performed their duties with spirit, and
were given a double ration of coffee. But these fresh casualties started
a panic. Millions of people, who wanted to take their money with them
and leave the town at once, crowded the great banking houses. These
establishments, after paying out money for three days, closed their
doors amid mutterings of a riot. A crowd of fugitives, laden with their
baggage, besieged the railway stations and took the town by storm. Many
who were anxious to lay in a stock of provisions and take refuge in
the cellars, attacked the grocery stores, although they were guarded by
soldiers with fixed bayonets. The public authorities displayed energy.
Numerous arrests were made and thousands of warrants issued against
suspected persons.

During the three weeks that followed no outrage was committed. There was
a rumour that bombs had been found in the Opera House, in the cellars of
the Town Hall, and beside one of the Pillars of the Stock Exchange. But
it was soon known that these were boxes of sweets that had been put in
those places by practical jokers or lunatics. One of the accused, when
questioned by a magistrate, declared that he was the chief author of
the explosions, and said that all his accomplices had lost their
lives. These confessions were published by the newspapers and helped
to reassure public opinion. It was only towards the close of the
examination that the magistrates saw they had to deal with a pretender
who was in no way connected with any of the crimes.

The experts chosen by the courts discovered nothing that enabled them to
determine the engine employed in the work of destruction. According to
their conjectures the new explosive emanated from a gas which radium
evolves, and it was supposed that electric waves, produced by a special
type of oscillator, were propagated through space and thus caused the
explosion. But even the ablest chemist could say nothing precise or
certain. At last two policemen, who were passing in front of the Hotel
Meyer, found on the pavement, close to a ventilator, an egg made of
white metal and provided with a capsule at each end. They picked it
up carefully, and, on the orders of their chief, carried it to the
municipal laboratory. Scarcely had the experts assembled to examine it,
than the egg burst and blew up the amphitheatre and the dome. All the
experts perished, and with them Collin, the General of Artillery, and
the famous Professor Tigre.

The capitalist society did not allow itself to be daunted by this fresh
disaster. The great banks re-opened their doors, declaring that
they would meet demands partly in bullion and partly in paper money
guaranteed by the State: The Stock Exchange and the Trade Exchange,
in spite of the complete cessation of business, decided not to suspend
their sittings.

In the mean time the magisterial investigation into the case of those
who had been first accused had come to an end. Perhaps the evidence
brought against them might have appeared insufficient under other
circumstances, but the zeal both of the magistrates and the public made
up for this insufficiency. On the eve of the day fixed for the trial the
Courts of justice were blown up and eight hundred people were killed,
the greater number of them being judges and lawyers. A furious crowd
broke into the prison and lynched the prisoners. The troops sent to
restore order were received with showers of stones and revolver shots;
several soldiers being dragged from their horses and trampled underfoot.
The soldiers fired on the mob and many persons were killed. At last the
public authorities succeeded in establishing tranquillity. Next day the
Bank was blown up.

From that time onwards unheard-of things took place. The factory
workers, who had refused to strike, rushed in crowds into the town and
set fire to the houses. Entire regiments, led by their officers, joined
the workmen, went with them through the town singing revolutionary
hymns, and took barrels of petroleum from the docks with which to feed
the fires. Explosions were continual. One morning a monstrous tree of
smoke, like the ghost of a huge palm tree half a mile in height, rose
above the giant Telegraph Hall which suddenly fell into a complete ruin.

Whilst half the town was in flames, the other half pursued its
accustomed life. In the mornings, milk pails could be heard jingling
in the dairy carts. In a deserted avenue some old navvy might be seen
seated against a wall slowly eating hunks of bread with perhaps a little
meat. Almost all the presidents of the trusts remained at their posts.
Some of them performed their duty with heroic simplicity. Raphael
Box, the son of a martyred multi-millionaire, was blown up as he was
presiding at the general meeting of the Sugar Trust. He was given a
magnificent funeral and the procession on its way to the cemetery had
to climb six times over piles of ruins or cross upon planks over the
uprooted roads.

The ordinary helpers of the rich, the clerks, employees, brokers, and
agents, preserved an unshaken fidelity. The surviving clerks of the Bank
that had been blown up, made their way along the ruined streets through
the midst of smoking houses to hand in their bills of exchange, and
several were swallowed up in the flames while endeavouring to present
their receipts.

Nevertheless, any illusion concerning the state of affairs was
impossible. The enemy was master of the town. Instead of silence the
noise of explosions was now continuous and produced an insurmountable
feeling of horror. The lighting apparatus having been destroyed, the
city was plunged in darkness all through the night, and appalling crimes
were committed. The populous districts alone, having suffered the least,
still preserved measures of protection. The were paraded by patrols of
volunteers who shot the robbers, and at every street corner one stumbled
over a body lying in a pool of blood, the hands bound behind the back, a
handkerchief over the face, and a placard pinned upon the breast.

It became impossible to clear away the ruins or to bury the dead. Soon
the stench from the corpses became intolerable. Epidemics raged and
caused innumerable deaths, while they also rendered the survivors feeble
and listless. Famine carried off almost all who were left. A hundred
and one days after the first outrage, whilst six army corps with field
artillery and siege artillery were marching, at night, into the poorest
quarter of the city, Caroline and Clair, holding each other's hands,
were watching from the roof a lofty house, the only one still left
standing, but now surrounded by smoke and flame, joyous songs ascended
from the street, where the crowd was dancing in delirium.

"To-morrow it will be ended," said the man, "and it will be better."

The young woman, her hair loosened and her face shining with the
reflection of the flames, gazed with a pious joy at the circle of fire
that was growing closer around them.

"It will be better," said she also.

And throwing herself into the destroyer's arms she pressed a passionate
kiss upon his lips.

S. 4

The other towns of the federation also suffered from disturbances and
outbreaks, and then order was restored. Reforms were introduced into
institutions and great changes took place in habits and customs, but the
country never recovered the loss of its capital, and never regained its
former prosperity. Commerce and industry dwindled away, and civilization
abandoned those countries which for so long it bad preferred to all
others. They became insalubrious and sterile; the territory that had
supported so many millions of men became nothing more than a desert. On
the hill of Fort St. Michel wild horses cropped the coarse grass.

Days flowed by like water from the fountains, and the centuries passed
like drops falling from the ends of stalactites. Hunters came to chase
the bears upon the hills that covered the forgotten city; shepherds led
their flocks upon them; labourers turned up the soil with their ploughs;
gardeners cultivated their lettuces and grafted their pear trees. They
were not rich, and they had no arts. The walls of their cabins were
covered with old vines and roses, A goat-skin clothed their tanned
limbs, while their wives dressed themselves with the wool that they
themselves had spun. The goat-herds moulded little figures of men and
animals out of clay, or sang songs about the young girl who follows her
lover through woods or among the browsing goats while the pine trees
whisper together and the water utters its murmuring sound. The master of
the house grew angry with the beetles who devoured his figs; he planned
snares to protect his fowls from the velvet-tailed fox, and he poured
out wine for his neighbours saying:

"Drink! The flies have not spoilt my vintage; the vines were dry before
they came."

Then in the course of ages the wealth of the villages and the corn
that filled the fields were pillaged by barbarian invaders. The country
changed its masters several times. The conquerors built castles upon the
hills; cultivation increased; mills, forges, tanneries, and looms were
established; roads were opened through the woods and over the marshes;
the river was covered with boats. The hamlets became large villages and
joining together formed a town which protected itself by deep trenches
and lofty walls. Later, becoming the capital of a great State, it found
itself straitened within its now useless ramparts and it converted them
into grass-covered walks.

It grew very rich and large beyond measure. The houses were never high
enough to satisfy the people; they kept on making them still higher
and built them of thirty or forty storeys, with offices, shops, banks,
societies one above another; they dug cellars and tunnels ever deeper
downwards. Fifteen millions of men laboured in the giant town.