Madame Bastien, whose heart was beating violently, set the lamp on the
chimneypiece in the library, and said to her husband:
"What do you wish, monsieur?"
Jacques had reached that degree of drunkenness which is not madness,
which leaves the mind even quite clear, but which renders the will
implacable; he did not at first reply to the question of Marie, who said
again:
"Please, monsieur, I beg you, tell me what you wish of me."
Jacques, both hands in the pockets of his blouse, stood directly in
front of his wife; sometimes he knit his eyebrows with a sinister
expression as he stared at her, sometimes he smiled with a satirical
air.
Finally, addressing Marie with a slow and uncertain voice, for his
half-drunken condition retarded his utterance and obliged him to make
frequent pauses, he said to her:
"Madame it is about seventeen years and a half that we have been
married, is it not?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"What good have you been to me?"
"Monsieur!"
"You have not even served me as a wife."
Marie, her cheeks coloured with shame and indignation, started to go
out.
Bastien barred the passage and cried elevating his voice:
"Stop there!"
"Silence, monsieur!" said the unhappy woman, whose fears were renewed
lest David and Frederick should be awakened by the noise of an
altercation.
So, waiting for new outrages, and resigned beforehand to submit to them,
she said to Jacques, in a trembling voice:
"For pity's sake, monsieur, do not speak so loud, they will hear you. I
will listen to you, as painful as this conversation is to me."
"I tell you that you have been no good to me since we were married; a
servant hired for wages would have kept my house better than you, and
with less expense."
"Perhaps, monsieur," replied Marie, with a bitter smile, "this servant
might not, as I, have reared your son--"
"To hate his father?"
"Monsieur!"
"Enough! I saw that clearly this evening. If you had not prevented him,
that blackguard would have used abusive language to me and ranged
himself on your side. It is very plain, and he is not the only one. As
soon as I arrive here, in my own house, each one of you says, 'There is
the enemy, there is the wild boar, there is the ogre!' Ah, well, let me
be an ogre; that suits me very well."
"You are mistaken, monsieur; I have always taught your son the respect
that is due you, and this evening even--"
"Enough!" cried Hercules, interrupting his wife.
And he pursued his thought with the tenacity of the drunkard, who
concentrates upon one idea all the lucidity of mind left to him.
"I tell you again," continued he, "that since our marriage you have
served me in nothing; you have made of my son a coxcomb, who requires
preceptors and pleasure excursions to drive away his hysterics, and
who, over and above that, curses me; you have rifled my wood and my
silver, you have stolen from me!"
"Monsieur!" cried Marie, indignant.
"You have stolen from me!" repeated Hercules, in such a thundering
voice, that Marie clasped her hands, and murmured:
"Oh, for mercy's sake, monsieur, not so loud, not so loud!"
"Now then, since in these seventeen years you have done me nothing but
evil, this cannot last."
"What do you mean?"
"I have enough of it."
"But--"
"I have too much of it. I want no more of it."
"I do not understand you, monsieur."
"No? Well, then, when a person or a thing plagues me, I get rid of it,
and the quicker the better."
Notwithstanding his excitement, Madame Bastien did not for a moment
believe that her husband thought of killing her; so, trying to discover
his intention, under his mask of besotted anger, she said to him:
"If I understand you rightly, monsieur, you have decided to rid yourself
of persons who annoy you or displease you?"
"Just so! As your little puppy of a son plagues me, to-morrow I will get
rid of him."
"You will get rid of him? But, monsieur--"
"Silence! Bridou will take him; he will take him away with him to-morrow
evening, upon our return from Blemur."
"You say, monsieur, that M. Bridou will take my son; please explain to
me."
"He will take him for his board as a young clerk, and your Benjamin who
is not mine will be lodged, fed, and washed, and at eighteen years will
get six hundred francs, if Bridou is satisfied with him."
"Nobody will dispose of my son's future without my consent, monsieur."
"Eh!" replied Jacques, with a sort of hollow roar.
"Oh, monsieur, if you were to kill me on the spot, I would say the same
thing."
"Eh!" again roared the colossus, more threatening still.
"I tell you, monsieur, that my son shall not leave me. He will continue
his studies under the direction of his preceptor. I will inform you, if
you wish, of the plans I have for Frederick, and--"
"Ah! that is it, is it?" cried the colossus, furious at the resistance
of his wife. "Ah, well, to-morrow I will take this Latin spitter by the
shoulders and kick him out of my door. Another one who plagues me, and I
will get rid of. As to you--"
"What will be my fate, monsieur?"
"You shall clear the house, like the others."
"What do you say, monsieur?"
"When I have enough of a thing, or when I have too much of a thing or a
person, I get rid of it."
"So, monsieur, you intend to drive me out of your house?"
"Still stubborn, are you? For seventeen years you have been no good to
me, you have turned my son against me, you have plundered my wood,
stolen my silver,--all that plagues me, and I wish to get rid of it. But
to begin, where are your jewels?"
"My jewels?" asked Marie, astonished at this unexpected demand.
"Yes, your jewels, valued at nearly one thousand francs; go and get them
and give them to me; that will compensate me for the silver you have
robbed me of."
"I do not own these jewels any longer, monsieur."
"What!"
"I have sold them."
"What!" cried Jacques, stammering with anger, "you--you--you--"
"I have sold them, monsieur, at the same time the silver was sold, and
for the same object."
"You lie!" cried the colossus, in a formidable voice.
"Oh, speak lower, monsieur, I implore you, speak lower."
"You are hiding your jewels to keep from paying me," added Hercules,
taking a step toward his wife with his fists clenched, and his face
livid with rage; "you are twice a thief!"
"Please, monsieur, do not scream so!" cried the young woman, not
thinking of the grossness of the insults heaped upon her, but fearing
that Frederick and David might be awakened by his loud talk.
In short, furious that he could not obtain his wife's jewels as a
compensation for the loss of his silver,--the one idea which had
occupied his mind the whole evening,--Jacques, excited to frenzy by wine
and disappointed rage, cried out:
"Ah! you have hidden those jewels, have you? Well, it will not be
to-morrow that you will go out of my house, but it will be to-night,--at
once."
"Monsieur, this is a cruel jest," replied Marie, overcome by so many
bitter experiences. "I desire to go to my chamber; it is late, and I am
chilled. To-morrow we will talk seriously; you will then regain your
self-possession, and--"
"That is as much as to say I am drunk now, eh?"
"To-morrow, monsieur. Permit me to retire."
Jacques, dreadful with anger, hatred, and drunkenness, walked up to his
wife, and pointing to the dark corridor which conducted to the outside
door, said:
"Go out of my house! I order you out, you double thief!"
Marie could not believe that Jacques was speaking seriously. She had
been trying to end the painful conversation as soon as possible, to
prevent the intervention of David and her son. So she answered,
addressing her husband with the greatest sweetness, hoping thereby to
calm him:
"Monsieur, I beseech you, go to your chamber, and let me go to mine. I
repeat to you that to-morrow--"
"God's thunder!" cried Jacques, beside himself with rage, "I did not
tell you to go back to your chamber, but to go out of my house. Must I
take you by the shoulders and put you out?"
"Outside!" cried Marie, who understood from the ferocity of Bastien's
face that he was speaking seriously.
It was ferocity, it was stupidity, but what could be expected from such
a wretch, made furious by drink.
"Outside!" said Marie again, terrified. "But, monsieur, you do not mean
it; it is night, it is cold."
"What is all that to me?"
"Monsieur, I beseech you, come to yourself. My God! it is one o'clock in
the morning; where do you wish me to go?"
"I will--"
"But, monsieur--"
"Once more! will you go out, thief?"
And the colossus made a step toward his wife.
"Monsieur, one word, just one word!"
"Twice, will you go out?"
And Jacques took another step toward his wife.
"Please listen to me."
"Three times! will you go out?"
And the Hercules turned up his sleeves to take hold of his wife.
What could the unfortunate woman do?
Cry,--call for help?
Frederick and David would awaken, would run to the spot, and for Marie,
there was something more horrible than this cruel, outrageous expulsion;
it was the shame, the dreadful idea of being seen by her son fighting
against her husband, who wished to thrust her, half naked, out of his
house. Her dignity as wife and as mother revolted at this thought, and
above all, at the idea of a desperate struggle between her son and her
husband which might result in murder,--in parricide,--for Frederick
would not stop at any extremity to defend a mother driven out of the
house. Marie then submitted, and when Jacques started to seize her and
repeated:
"Three times! will you go out?"
"Ah, well, yes, yes, monsieur, I will go out," she replied, in a
trembling voice. "I am going out immediately, but no noise, I implore
you!"
Then desperate, extending her supplicating hands toward Jacques, who,
still threatening, walked up to her and pointed to the outside door,
Marie, going backwards step by step in the darkness, at last reached the
end of the corridor.
Bastien opened the door.
A puff of icy wind rushed through the entrance.
Outside, nothing but darkness and drifting snow.
"Oh, my God! what a night!" murmured Marie, terrified in spite of her
resolution, and wishing to turn back; "mercy, monsieur!"
"Good evening!" said the wretch, with a ferocious giggle, as he pushed
his wife out of the door.
Then, shutting the door again, he bolted it.
Marie, bareheaded, and with no clothing but her dressing-gown, felt her
feet sink into the thick layer of snow with which the floor of the porch
was already covered, in spite of the rustic roof.
A ray of hope remained to the poor woman; for a moment, she believed
that her husband was only perpetrating a joke as cruel as it was stupid;
but she heard Jacques walking away heavily.
Soon he had reached his chamber, as Marie discovered by the light which
shone through the window-blinds.
Frozen by the sharp, penetrating north wind, Marie's teeth began to
chatter convulsively. She tried to reach the stables situated in a
neighbouring building. Unfortunately she found the garden gate fastened,
and then she remembered that this garden, surrounded by buildings on all
sides, was enclosed by a fence, in the middle of which was a door which
she could not succeed in opening.
Three windows overlooked this garden, two belonging to the apartment of
Jacques Bastien, and the other to the dining-room, where nobody slept.
Marie had no other help to expect.
She resigned herself to her fate.
The poor creature came back to the porch, swept off the snow which
covered the threshold with her hands, and already chilled, stiffened by
the cold, seated herself on the stone step, barely sheltered by the roof
of the porch.