ch. Another
step forward is ever taken, a little more of the earth is conquered, a
little more life is brought into play. The law seems to lie in a
double phenomenon; fruitfulness creating civilization, and civilization
restraining fruitfulness. And equilibrium will come from it all on the
day when the earth, being entirely inhabited, cleared, and utilized,
shall at last have accomplished its destiny. And the divine dream, the
generous utopian thought soars into the heavens; families blended into
nations, nations blended into mankind, one sole brotherly people making
of the world one sole city of peace and truth and justice! Ah! may
eternal fruitfulness ever expand, may the seed of humanity be carried
over the frontiers, peopling the untilled deserts afar, and increasing
mankind through the coming centuries until dawns the reign of sovereign
life, mistress at last both of time and of space!

And after the departure of Benjamin, whom Dominique took with him,
Mathieu and Marianne recovered the joyful serenity and peace born of the
work which they had so prodigally accomplished. Nothing more was theirs;
nothing save the happiness of having given all to life. The "Never
more" of separation became the "Still more" of life--life incessantly
increasing, expanding beyond the limitless horizon. Candid and
smiling, those all but centenarian heroes triumphed in the overflowing
florescence of their race. The milk had streamed even athwart the
seas--from the old land of France to the immensity of virgin Africa, the
young and giant France of to-morrow. After the foundation of Chantebled,
on a disdained, neglected spot of the national patrimony, another
Chantebled was rising and becoming a kingdom in the vast deserted
tracts which life yet had to fertilize. And this was the exodus, human
expansion throughout the world, mankind upon the march towards the
Infinite.

England.--August 1898-May 1899.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fruitfulness, by Emile Zola

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