do you imagine I'm going to pamper brutes that do nothing? Those who
like meat ought to earn it, you miserable old greedy-guts! You ought
to be ashamed of yourself for going in for dissipation at your time of
life!"
Though Fouan's obstinate pride had prevented him returning to the
Delhommes', for he brooded unforgetfully over his daughter's stinging
remark, he tolerated every indignity from the Buteaus, their cutting
speeches, and even their blows. He no longer thought about his other
children, but surrendered himself in utter weariness, without any idea
of making his escape from it all. He would be no better off anywhere
else, so what was the good of troubling himself to move? When Fanny met
him she passed by stiffly, having sworn that she would not be the first
to speak. Hyacinthe, who was more good-natured, though he had borne
his father a grudge for some time on account of the shabby fashion in
which he had left the Château, amused himself one evening by making the
old man abominably drunk at Macqueron's, and then leaving him in this
condition outside Buteau's door. There was a dreadful scene; the house
was upset; Lise was obliged to wash the kitchen out, and Buteau swore
that if such a thing occurred again he would make his father sleep on
the dung-heap, so that the old man got afraid, and became so suspicious
of his elder son that he no longer dared to accept his offers of
refreshments. He often saw La Trouille with her geese while he was
sitting out of doors at the road side. The girl would stop and examine
him with her little eyes, and even talk to him for a moment or two,
while her geese waited behind her, standing on one leg and poking out
their necks. One morning, however, the old man discovered that she had
stolen his handkerchief, and from that time forth whenever he caught
sight of her in the distance he shook his sticks at her threateningly,
as if to drive her away. She made sport of him and amused herself by
setting her geese at him, only going off when some passer-by threatened
to cuff her if she did not leave her grandfather in peace.
So far Fouan had been able to walk, and this had been a source of much
consolation to him, for he still took an interest in the soil, and
constantly re-visited his old property, just as some worn-out old rakes
haunt the presence of their former mistresses. He wandered slowly along
the roads with his crazy old gait, and remained standing for hours
at the edge of a field, supporting himself on his two sticks. Then
he would drag himself to another field, and again become absorbed in
motionless contemplation, looking like some gnarled old tree growing
there, and withered by age. His dim eyes were no longer capable of
distinguishing clearly between oats and wheat and rye. Everything
seemed blurred and fogged to him, and even his recollections of the
past were dim and confused. This field, he fancied, had yielded so many
bushels in such a year, but he kept confounding dates and figures. He
was constantly possessed by one bitter, haunting thought. The soil
which he had so yearned for, and which he had won and possessed, the
soil to which for sixty long years he had devoted everything--his
limbs, his heart, his very life--this ungrateful soil had passed into
the arms of another lover, for whom it now brought forth plentifully
without reserving aught for him. A deep sadness overwhelmed him at the
thought that it knew him no longer, that he retained not a particle
of it, nothing even of what it had produced, neither a copper nor a
mouthful of bread. And now he would soon have to die and rot away
beneath it, beneath that fickle indifferent soil which would drain
fresh youth from his old bones! It had really not been worth his while
to wear himself out with hard toil and labour when this was the end of
it all--utter penury and infirmity! Whenever he had thus made the round
of his old fields, he returned home and threw himself on his bed, so
overwhelmed that he could not even be heard breathing.
He was deprived of this last interest he took in life when he lost
the use of his legs. It soon became so painful to him to walk about
that he scarcely went beyond the village. There were three favourite
spots where he was fond of sitting on fine days--the logs in front of
Clou's farriery, the bridge over the Aigre, and a stone bench near the
school. He tottered slowly from one to another of these halting-places,
taking nearly an hour to go a couple of hundred yards, and dragging
his wooden shoes after him as though they were heavy carts, as he
shambled painfully along in the crazy wreck of his frame. Wrapt in
oblivious abstraction, he frequently sat on the end of a log for a
whole afternoon, huddled up, and feasting on the sunshine. His eyes
were open, but he remained motionless in a kind of drowsy stupefaction.
Passers-by no longer took any notice of him, for he had ceased to be
a living creature, he was merely a thing. Even his pipe had become a
burden to him, and he had almost ceased to smoke. The pressure of the
stem upon his gums pained him, and the labour of filling and lighting
quite exhausted him. His one desire was to sit perfectly motionless,
for as soon as he stirred, even in the full warmth of the noon-day sun,
he felt frozen and began to shiver. His power of will and his authority
had already perished, and he was now in the last stage of decrepitude,
leading a mere animal life, like some old brute suffering amid
abandonment from the fact of having once led the life of a human being.
However, he made no complaints, realising that a foundered horse,
though it may once have worked well, is sent to the knacker's as soon
as it makes no return for the oats it consumes. Old folk, in a like
way, are good for nothing, and are only a source of expense, so the
sooner they are out of the way the better. He himself had wished for
his father's death; and now if his children, in their turn, impatiently
awaited his own, it neither surprised nor hurt him. It was natural that
this should be the case.
If ever a neighbour cried out to him: "Well, Fouan, you still manage
to keep alive!" he would mumble out: "Ah, yes, dying is a wearily long
business, but it isn't the want of the will that keeps me from it."
He only spoke the truth, with the stoicism of the peasant, who accepts
death without a murmur, and even desires it when he is stripped of
everything, and the soil calls him back to her.
But there was still another grief in store for him. Jules cast him
off, instigated thereto by Laure. Whenever the girl saw her brother
with their grandfather she seemed jealous, and with her eyes fiercely
glistening she would call him angrily away. The old man was a nuisance,
she said; it was much more amusing for them to play together. If her
brother did not at once go off with her, she hung on to his shoulder
and pulled him away. Then she made herself so agreeable that the lad
forgot the little household services which he had hitherto rendered his
grandfather. And by degrees Laure completely won Jules over to her
side, like a real woman who has set her mind upon a conquest.
One evening Fouan had gone to wait for Jules in front of the school,
feeling so tired that he wished for the lad's hand to help him up the
hill. Laure, however, came out with her brother, and when the old man's
trembling fingers sought the lad's, she burst out into a sneering laugh.
"There he is boring you again!" said she. "Leave him to see after
himself." Then, turning to the other children, she added: "Isn't he a
sawny to let himself be plagued in this way?"
Jules blushed at the sound of his schoolfellows' jeers, and, wishing
to show what a man he was, he jumped aside, repeating his sister's
expression to the old companion of his walks:
"You plague me!"
Dismayed, and with tears filling his troubled eyes, Fouan stumbled
as though the ground failed him, like the little hand that had been
withdrawn. The jeering laughter increased, and Laure made Jules dance
with her round the old man, singing the childish rhyme:
"He shall fall on the ground, and there he shall lie,
And whoever shall help him, shall eat his bread dry!"
Fouan, half fainting, was nearly two hours in getting home, so feebly
did he drag his feet along. This was the last blow. The lad ceased
bringing him his soup and making his bed, the palliasse of which was
now not turned once a month. Without even this urchin to talk to, the
old man buried himself in absolute silence, and his isolation became
complete. Never did he speak a word about anything to any one.
CHAPTER III.
The winter ploughing had commenced, and Jean, that cold grey February
afternoon, had just arrived with his plough at his big patch of ground
on the plain, where he still had a good couple of hours' work before
him. It was a strip at the edge of the field that he was going to
plough, intending to sow it with a new variety of Scotch wheat, a
course which had been recommended by his old master, Hourdequin, who
had moreover promised him several bushels of seed-corn.
Jean at once set to work, beginning at the spot where he had left off
on the previous day; and, putting his plough into position and grasping
hold of the arms, he started his horse, shouting in a gruff voice:
"Gee woh! Gee woh!"
Violent rains, coming after excessive heat, had so stiffened the clayey
soil that it was with great difficulty that the plough-share and
coulter broke off the strips of earth through which they cut. The heavy
clods could be heard grating against the mould-board as the latter
turned them over, burying the manure with which the field was covered.
Every now and then a stone or some other obstacle gave the plough a
sudden shock.
"Gee woh! Gee woh!" cried Jean, as grasping the handles with his
outstretched arms he guided the plough so correctly that the furrows
were as straight as if they had been traced out by rule and line.
Meanwhile his horse, keeping its head down and burying its hoofs in the
soil, drew the plough forward with a steady regular motion. Whenever
the implement got clogged, Jean jerked off the earth and weeds, and
then it glided on again, leaving the rich soil behind it upraised,
quivering and trembling, as though alive, and with its very entrails
exposed.
He reached the end of the furrow, and then turned round and commenced a
new one. Presently he became affected by a sort of intoxication due to
the strong odour exhaled by the disturbed soil, an odour suggestive of
damp recesses where the seed would germinate. His slow monotonous gait
and his fixed gaze completed his feeling of dazed abstraction. He would
never succeed in becoming a genuine peasant, he thought. He was not a
native of the soil, and he still retained the feelings of a town-bred
workman, of a trooper who had served through the campaign in Italy; and
things that the peasants could not see or feel were very visible and
apparent to him--the great mournful peacefulness of the plain and the
deep breathing of the soil beneath the sunshine and the showers. He had
always had visions of retiring into the peace of the country, but how
foolish he must have been to imagine that it was only necessary to lay
down the gun and the plane and to grasp hold of the plough to satisfy
his taste for tranquillity! Though the soil might be peaceful and
kindly to those that loved it, the villages that clung to it like nests
of vermin, full of human insects that preyed upon its flesh, sufficed
to dishonour and pollute it. He could remember no sufferings in his
previous life equal to those which he had endured since his arrival at
La Borderie, now a long time ago.
Being obliged to raise the arms a little in order to ease the plough,
a slight unevenness in the furrow annoyed him, and he began to display
still greater care in guiding his horse.
"Gee woh! Gee woh!"
Yes, indeed, what troubles he had gone through during these last ten
years! First, there was his long period of waiting for Françoise, and
then his warfare with the Buteaus. Not a day had passed without some
painful event or without some angry words. And now that he had got
Françoise, now that they had been married for a couple of years, could
he say that he was at last happy? Though he himself still loved her, he
had divined that she did not love him, and that she never would love
him as he wished to be loved, unreservedly, with her whole heart and
soul. They lived together in peaceful harmony, indeed, and they were
prospering in their work and saving money. But that was not everything.
He could feel that she was cold and reserved, and occupied by other
thoughts than of himself when he held her in his arms. She was now five
months gone with child, but even this fact had not brought the husband
and wife into closer sympathy; and Jean felt more and more the feeling
which he had first experienced on the day they had taken possession
of their house, the feeling that his wife still looked upon him as a
stranger, a native of another country, born no one knew where; a man
whose thoughts were not those of the villagers of Rognes; who seemed to
her to be even differently made, and who could never be really united
with her, even though he was the father of the child she bore within
her.
After her marriage, Françoise, in her exasperation against the Buteaus,
had brought a piece of stamped paper from Cloyes, one Saturday, with
the intention of making a will and leaving everything that belonged to
her to her husband, for she had been told that the house and the land
would revert to her sister supposing she died without issue, and that
her husband would not be able to claim anything save the furniture and
cash. Subsequently, however, she seemed to have thought better of the
matter, for the sheet of stamped paper still lay in a drawer quite
white. This had been a source of much secret pain to Jean, not from any
mercenary feeling, but because he looked upon his wife's remissness
as implying a want of affection for himself. But, indeed, it mattered
nothing, now that a youngster was coming into the world! What would be
the use of making a will under those circumstances? And yet despite
such reflections as these, his heart felt very heavy whenever he opened
the drawer and saw the piece of stamped paper which had now become
useless.
Jean stopped ploughing to give his horse a little breathing-time,
and the sharp, frosty wind enabled him to shake off his abstraction.
He slowly let his gaze wander to the blank horizon, over the immense
plain, where, far away in the distance, other ploughs were at work,
looking blurred and hazy in the dull grey atmosphere. He was now
surprised to perceive old Fouan, who had come from Rognes along the new
road, in compliance with one of those instinctive cravings which he
still experienced at times, to look once more at some field or other.
On catching sight of him, Jean lowered his head, and for a moment or
two concentrated his gaze upon the gaping furrow and the eviscerated
soil at his feet. It was firm and yellow beneath the surface, the
upturned clods seemingly revealing young and healthy earth, while
the manure was buried in a bed of rich fecundity. As Jean gazed
downwards, his thoughts grew confused and strangely intermingled. How
odd it seemed that one should have to grub up the soil in this way
to get bread! What a source of worry it was that he was not loved by
Françoise! Then came more vague reflections about other matters, about
the growth of the crops, about his little one who would soon be born,
and about all the toil which folks underwent, often without being any
the happier for it.
Then he grasped the arms of the plough again, and shouted his
deep-toned cry:
"Gee woh! Gee woh!"
He was just finishing his ploughing when Delhomme, who was returning
on foot from a neighbouring farm, stopped to call to him from the edge
of the field.
"Hallo! Corporal, have you heard the news? We're going to have war it
seems."
Jean left go of his plough and drew himself up, surprised to feel such
a shock at his heart.
"War! How's that?" he asked.
"With the Prussians, so they say. It is all in the newspapers."
With a fixed gaze Jean pictured Italy, the battles fought there, and
all the carnage from which he had been fortunate enough to escape
without a single wound. Then his most ardent wish had been to live a
quiet life in some peaceful nook, but now these few words shouted from
the roadway by a passer-by, this thought of war, had sufficed to send
his blood surging hotly through his veins!
"Ah, well, if the Prussians are making game of us," said he, "we can't
let ourselves be flouted by them!"
Delhomme, however, looked upon the matter differently. He shook his
head gravely, and declared that it would be the ruination of the
country districts if the Cossacks came back again, as in Napoleon's
time. Fighting did no one any good. It would be much better to try to
arrange affairs peaceably.
"I say this," he added, "in the interests of others, for I have just
been depositing some money with Monsieur Baillehache, so that, whatever
happens, Nénesse, who has to draw in the conscription to-morrow, won't
have to join the ranks."
"Ah, yes, and it's the same with me," said Jean, who had now calmed
down. "I've served my time, and owe them nothing further, and I'm
married, too; so, whether they go to war or not, it won't make any
difference to me. Ah! so it's to be with the Prussians this time! Well,
we shall give them a good hiding, just as we did the Austrians, and
then there'll be an end of the matter."
"Good evening, Corporal!"
"Good evening!"
Then Delhomme went on his way again. Presently he stopped to tell the
news to some one else; and then, further on, he told it a third time,
and so the report of the threatened approach of war quickly flew across
La Beauce, through the mournful greyish atmosphere.
Jean having finished his ploughing, determined to go at once to La
Borderie, to get the seed-corn which had been promised to him. He took
the horse out of the plough, and sprang on to its back, leaving the
plough in a corner of the field. As he was riding off, he again thought
of Fouan and looked round for him, but could not see him. He thereupon
concluded that the old man had taken shelter from the cold behind a
rick of straw which was standing in Buteau's field.
When Jean arrived at La Borderie, and had tethered his horse, he called
without eliciting any response. Everybody appeared to be at work away
from the house. However, he went into the kitchen and stamped on the
floor with his feet, and presently heard Jacqueline's voice proceeding
from the cellar where the dairy was. Access to it was obtained through
a trap-door opening at the foot of the staircase, and so awkwardly
placed that an accident was always being feared.
"Who's there?" she called.
Jean had squatted down on the top step of the steep little staircase,
and she recognised him from below.
"Ah! so it's you, Corporal?"
He, too, could now see Jacqueline in the semi-darkness of the dairy,
which was lighted merely by a grating in the wall. She was busily
working among the bowls and the pans, from which the whey was dripping
slowly into a stone trough. Her sleeves were rolled back as far as her
arm-pits, and her arms were white with cream.
"Well, why don't you come down? You're not afraid of me, are you?"
She addressed him in the same familiar manner as of yore, and she
laughed in her old enticing way. Jean, however, felt ill at ease, and
did not move.
"I've come for the seed-corn," he said, "that the master promised me."
"Oh yes, I know. Wait a moment, and I'll come up."
When she emerged into the full light, Jean saw that she was looking
very fresh and glowing; and her bare, white arms exhaled a pleasant
odour of milk. She looked at him with her pretty, mischievous eyes, and
ended by asking, in a bantering way:
"Well, aren't you going to kiss me? There's no reason that you should
get stiff and unpleasant just because you're married."
Then he kissed her, trying to make the sounding salutes which he
imprinted on both her cheeks seem mere marks of friendship. But her
presence disturbed him, and recollections of the past sent his blood
thrilling through his veins. He had never felt like this with his wife,
although he loved her so much.
"Come along," now continued Jacqueline, "and I'll show you the
seed-corn. Every one is out, even the servant-girl is away at market."
She crossed the yard, and then, entering the barn, stepped behind a
pile of sacks. The seed was lying there in a heap on some boards. Jean
had followed her, feeling somewhat disturbed at finding himself alone
with her in this dim, out-of-the-way spot. He now suddenly began to
affect a deep interest in the seed-corn, which was of a fine new Scotch
variety.
"How big the grains are!" said he.
Jacqueline, however, began to speak in her cooing tones, and quickly
brought him to a subject which had greater interest for her.
"Your wife is in the family-way, eh? Tell me, now, does she make
herself as pleasant with you as I did?"
Jean turned very red, and Jacqueline took a malicious delight in seeing
him thus disturbed. Presently some sudden reflection cast a gloom over
her face.
"I've had a good many troubles, you know," she continued, "but,
happily, they are all over now, and they have ended to my advantage."
The fact was that Hourdequin's son, Léon, the captain, who had not been
seen at La Borderie for years past, had one day suddenly arrived there.
He had observed, that same night, that Jacqueline occupied his mother's
bedroom, and this had led him to make inquiries, whereupon he speedily
learnt exactly how matters stood. For a little while Jacqueline
trembled with uneasy alarm, for she had formed the ambitious design of
marrying Hourdequin, and thus securing the reversion of the farm. The
captain, however, played his cards too clumsily. He wanted to extricate
his father from Jacqueline's meshes by letting himself be surprised
in bed with the young woman. But he showed his hand too openly, and
Jacqueline affected airs of the nicest virtue, screaming, weeping, and
declaring to Hourdequin that she would leave the house at once, since
she was no longer treated with respect in it. Then there was a terrible
scene between the two men. The son tried to open his father's eyes, but
this only made matters worse; and two hours later the captain left the
house again, exclaiming, as he crossed the threshold, that he would
rather lose everything than acquiesce in the present state of affairs,
and that if he ever returned, it would only be to kick the hussy out of
doors.
Jacqueline, in her triumph, now made the mistake of imagining that
she merely had to ask for her own terms. She declared to Hourdequin
that after such treatment, with which, indeed, the whole country-side
was ringing, she would be compelled to leave him unless he made her
his wife. She even began to pack her boxes. The farmer, however,
upset by his quarrel with his son, rendered all the more angry by
a secret consciousness that he was in the wrong, and a feeling of
sorrowing regret for all that had occurred, gave her a couple of such
vigorous cuffs as almost shook the life out of her. And then she said
nothing more about going away, realising that she had been in too
great a hurry. Still, she was now absolute mistress of the house,
openly sleeping in the conjugal bedroom, taking her meals alone with
Hourdequin, giving orders to the servants, regulating the expenses,
keeping the keys of the safe, and behaving so despotically that the
farmer always consulted her before taking any step. He was failing
and ageing quickly, and Jacqueline trusted that she would be able to
overcome his last scruples and induce him to marry her when she had
quite exhausted his remaining manhood. In the meantime, as he had sworn
to disinherit his son, she used all her wiles to induce him to make a
will in her favour; and she already looked upon herself as the owner of
the farm, for she had succeeded in wringing a promise from Hourdequin
that he would leave it to her.
"If I've been knocking myself up for years past," she said to Jean, "it
certainly hasn't been out of love for his good looks."
Jean could not restrain a laugh. While speaking Jacqueline had been
plunging her bare arms again and again into the heap of corn, covering
her skin with a soft floury powder. Jean looked at her, and suddenly
gave utterance to a question which he speedily regretted.
"And are you as thick as ever with Tron?"
Jacqueline gave no sign of being offended. She spoke quite frankly, as
to an old friend.
"Oh, I'm very fond of him, the great stupid fellow; but he's really
very unreasonable. He's so dreadfully jealous, and we have terrible
scenes together sometimes. The master's the only one he'll tolerate,
and I really believe that he comes sometimes at nights and listens at
the door, to find out whether we are sleeping or not."
Jean laughed again; but Jacqueline seemed to consider it no laughing
matter. She felt a vague fear of that big fellow Tron, who was cunning
and treacherous, like all the men of Le Perche, she said. He had
threatened to strangle her if she proved unfaithful to him; and
consequently she now consorted with him in fear and trembling, despite
the charm that his huge limbs had for her. She herself was so slim that
this big fellow could have crushed her between his thumb and fingers.
At last, shrugging her shoulders with a pretty air, as much as to
say that she had conquered others quite as difficult to manage, she
continued:
"We used to get on better with one another than that, eh, Corporal?"
Still keeping her merry eyes fixed upon him, she began to pound
the corn again; while Jean fell a victim to her charms once more,
forgetting all about his departure from La Borderie, his marriage, and
the child that was soon to be born to him. He seized hold of her wrists
under the corn, and then slipped his hands up her arms, all velvety
with flour, till they reached her white child-like breast, to which her
habits of debauchery seemed to have imparted a firmer plumpness. This
was what she had been wishing to bring about ever since she had caught
sight of him at the mouth of the trap-door; and she felt an additional
malicious joy in taking him from another woman, and that woman his
lawful wife, and proving that it was still herself that he loved best.
He had already seized her in his arms and thrown her down, panting and
cooing, upon the heap of corn, when the shepherd Soulas, with his tall
fleshless figure, emerged from behind the sacks, coughing loudly and
spitting. Jacqueline hastily sprang to her feet, while Jean panted and
stammered out:
"Oh, this is it, is it? Well, I'll come back presently and take fifteen
bushels of it. What splendid stuff it is, isn't it?"
Jacqueline, bursting with anger, fixed her eyes on the shepherd, who
showed no signs of going away.
"It is really past all bearing!" she muttered between her clenched
teeth. "Whenever I think I am alone, he always contrives to turn up and
haunt me! But I'll have him sent off about his business!"
Jean, who had now recovered his calmness, hastily left the barn, and
went to unfasten his horse, without paying any attention to the signs
of Jacqueline, who would have concealed him in the conjugal bed-chamber
itself rather than have foregone her desire. Anxious to make his
escape, Jean said that he would return the next day, and he was setting
off on foot, leading his horse by the bridle, when Soulas, who had gone
outside to wait for him, intercepted him at the gate.
"So she's got even you back into her meshes again! Well, at any rate
just tell her to keep her tongue quiet, if she doesn't want to set mine
wagging. Ah, there will be a pretty business, by-and-bye, you'll see!"
Jean, however, passed on his way with a rough gesture, refusing to mix
himself up any further in the matter. He was full of shame; annoyed
at the thought of what he had so nearly done. He had believed that
he really loved Françoise, and yet he had never felt one of these
impetuous thrills of desire for her! Could it be that he really loved
Jacqueline more than his wife? Had a passion for the hussy been
smouldering within him all this time? All the past woke up within him
into fresh life, and he was angered at himself to feel that he would
certainly return to Jacqueline in spite of all his desire to the
contrary. Then he excitedly sprang on to his horse and galloped off, so
as to get back to Rognes as soon as possible.
That same afternoon it happened that Françoise had gone to cut a
bundle of lucern for her cows. It was generally her task to do this,
and she settled to do it on that particular afternoon as she relied
on finding her husband in the field, ploughing. She did not care to
trust herself there alone, for fear she might come across the Buteaus,
who, in their anger at no longer having the whole field to themselves,
were perpetually seeking any excuse for a violent quarrel. She took
a scythe with her, and counted upon the horse for bringing back the
bundle of lucern. As she neared the field, she was surprised not to
see her husband there, though she had not warned him of her intention
to come. The plough was still there, but where could Jean have gone?
She felt still more nervous when she observed Buteau and Lise standing
at the edge of the field, shaking their arms with a show of anger. She
fancied that they had just stopped for a moment on their way back from
some neighbouring village, for they were wearing their Sunday clothes,
and had no appearance of being engaged in work. For a moment she felt
inclined to turn back and make her escape. Then she felt indignant at
her own alarm; surely she was not going to be afraid of cutting lucern
on her own land! So she continued to walk forward at the same pace, and
carrying the scythe on her shoulder.
As a matter of fact, whenever Françoise met Buteau, and especially
when he was alone, she was always overcome with nervous confusion.
For two years she had not spoken a single word to him, but she never
could see him without her whole body being thrilled with emotion. This
emotion might be caused by anger, or it might be the result of some
very different feeling. Several times she had seen him in front of her
on this same road when she had been going up to her plot of lucern;
and he would turn his head round two or three times and glance at her
with his yellow-streaked grey eyes. Then she would feel a slight thrill
pass through her body, and would quicken her steps in spite of all her
efforts not to do so; while Buteau, on the other hand, would slacken
his pace, and so she would find herself compelled to pass him, and,
as she did so, their eyes would meet just for a second. Then she was
troubled with the disturbing but pleasant consciousness that he was
just behind her; and she felt enervated and scarcely able to continue
walking. The last time they had met in this way, she had been so
overcome that she had fallen down at full length in an attempt to jump
from the road into her patch of lucern; and Buteau had nearly burst
with laughter at the sight.
That evening, when Buteau maliciously told his wife of her sister's
tumble, they glanced at each other with gleaming eyes in which the
same thought was expressed. If the hussy had killed herself and her
unborn child her husband would take nothing, and the land and house
would return to themselves! They had learnt from La Grande the story
of the postponed will, which had now become unnecessary on account
of Françoise's condition. But they never had any luck! There was no
chance of fortune putting both mother and child out of their way at a
single stroke! They returned to the subject as they went to bed, and
talked about the death of Françoise and her unborn baby merely for the
sake of talking. Talking of folks' death doesn't kill them; still, if
Françoise, now, really died without an heir, what a stroke of luck it
would be! What a heavenly retribution! In the bitterness of her hate,
Lise actually swore that her sister was no longer her sister, and that
she would willingly hold her head on the block if that was all that
was wanted to enable them to return to their own house, from which the
wicked drab had so treacherously evicted them.
Buteau was not quite so vindictive, and he declared, that he would
be sufficiently pleased for the present if the youngster were to
perish before it was born. Françoise's condition was a source of
much irritation to him, for the birth of a child would destroy all
his obstinately entertained hopes, and definitely deprive him of the
property. As the husband and wife got into bed together, and Lise blew
out the candle, she broke out into a peculiar little laugh, and said
that, so long as a youngster had not actually come into the world,
it could easily be prevented from making its appearance. After lying
silent for some time in the darkness, Buteau asked his wife what she
meant. Then cuddling close up to his side, and holding her mouth to his
ear, she made a very singular confession. Last month, she said, she had
been troubled to find herself in the family way again, and so, without
saying anything about it to him, she had gone off to consult La Sapin,
an old woman living at Magnolles, who had the reputation of being a
witch. A pretty reception he'd have given her if she had told him how
matters stood. La Sapin, however, had quickly put everything right. It
was a very simple affair.
Buteau listened to his wife without showing either approval or
disapproval, and his satisfaction at what had occurred could only be
gathered from the joking way in which he observed that Lise should
have brought the prescription away with her for Françoise's advantage.
Lise, too, seemed merry, and, grasping her husband closely in her arms,
she whispered to him that La Sapin had taught her something else, oh,
such a funny trick! What was it? asked Buteau. Well, a man could undo
what a man had done, replied Lise. He had only got to make the sign
of the cross on a woman three times and say an _Ave_ backwards, and
if there were a little one, it would disappear immediately. Buteau
began to laugh, and they both affected incredulity, but they still
retained so much of the ancient superstition of their race, that they
were privately inclined to believe what they pretended to disbelieve.
Indeed, everybody knew that the old witch of Magnolles had turned a cow
into a weasel, and had brought a dead man to life again. Surely it must
be true if she said it was! The idea made Buteau grin. Would it really
be effectual? Stay, now, why shouldn't he really try it on Françoise,
suggested Lise, he and she knew all about each other? Buteau, however,
now protested against this allegation, as his wife, showing signs of
jealousy, began to pinch and thump him; and they presently fell asleep
in one another's arms.
Ever since that night they had been haunted by the thought of the child
that was coming into the world to deprive them of the house and land
for ever; and they never met the younger sister without immediately
glancing at her condition. Thus as they now saw her coming up the road,
on this afternoon when she wanted to cut some lucern, they took her
measure with their eyes, and were quite startled to notice how swiftly
matters were advancing, and how little time there was left in which to
take any steps.
"The devil take him," cried Buteau, going forward to examine the
furrows; "the blackguard has filched off a good foot of our land! It's
as plain as possible; see, there's the boundary-stone!"
Françoise had continued to approach with leisurely, easy steps,
concealing her feeling of uneasy alarm. She now understood the cause
of the Buteaus' angry gestures. Jean's plough must have sliced off a
strip of their land. Disputes were continually arising on this score,
and not a month passed without some quarrel taking place as to the
boundary-line. Blows and litigation seemed likely to be the inevitable
result.
"You are trespassing on our land," cried Buteau, raising his voice,
"and I shall prosecute you!"
The young woman, however, stepped up to her patch of lucern, without
even turning her head.
"Don't you hear us?" now screamed Lise, in a towering rage. "Come and
look at the boundary-stone for yourself, if you think we're liars!
You'll have to make good the damage!"
Her sister's persistent silence and contemptuous air now so thoroughly
enraged her that she lost all control over herself, and rushed up to
her, clenching her fists.
"So you think you can flout us as you please, do you, hussy? I am your
elder sister, and I'll teach you to treat me with proper respect; and
I'll make you go down on your knees and beg my pardon for all your
impertinence to me!"
She was now standing in front of Françoise, mad with hate and anger,
hesitating whether she should kill her sister with her fists, or
whether she should kick her to death or knock out her brains with a
stone.
"Down on your knees, hussy, down on your knees!"
Still persisting in her silence, Françoise now spat in her sister's
face, just as she had done on the evening of the ejectment. Lise then
broke out into a roar, but Buteau immediately interposed, and thrust
her violently aside.
"Get away!" he said; "this is my business."
Ah, yes, she would gladly get away, and leave him to settle the matter.
He was at perfect liberty to wring her sister's neck or break her back;
he might cut her up and give her flesh to the dogs, or he might make
her his drab; and, so far from trying to prevent him, she would do all
she could to help him. She now braced herself up and glanced round her,
keeping watch so that no one should come and interfere with whatever
her husband chose to do. The vast grey plain stretched out beneath the
gloomy sky, and not a single human being was in view.
"Now's the time! There's no one in sight!"
Buteau then stepped up to Françoise; and, as the young woman saw him
advancing with stern-set face and stiff-braced arms, she thought he
was going to thrash her. She still held her scythe, but she began
to tremble, and Buteau seizing hold of the implement by the handle,
tore it from her and tossed it into the lucern. Her only means of
escaping him was by stepping backwards. She continued doing so till she
reached the adjoining field, making for the rick which stood there,
as though she hoped to use it in some way as a protecting rampart.
Buteau followed her up quite leisurely; and he, on his part, seemed
to be wishing to drive her towards the rick. His arms were slightly
extended, and his face was broadened by a silent grin which disclosed
his gums. Suddenly it flashed upon Françoise that he did not mean to
thrash her. No, it was something very different that he meant; that
something which she had so long refused him. She now began to tremble
still more violently, and she felt as though all her strength were
failing her; she who had always so valiantly resisted and belaboured
him, and sworn that he should never gain his ends! But she was no
longer the high-spirited girl she had been; she had just completed her
twenty-third year, on Saint Martin's Day, and she was now a woman, with
the fresh bloom already taken off her by hard work, though her lips
were still red and her eyes as big as crown-pieces. She felt such a
sensation of flushed languor that her limbs seemed quite enervated and
lifeless.
Buteau, still continuing to force her backwards, at last spoke in a
deep, excited voice.
"You know very well that all is not over between us. This time I mean
to succeed!"
He had now managed to bring her to a stand against the rick; and
he abruptly took her by the shoulders and threw her upon her back.
Dazed and enervated though she was, for a moment or two she began to
struggle and fight, instinctively prompted thereto by her old habits of
resistance. Buteau, however, dodged her kicks.
"What difference can it make to you, you silly idiot?" said he. "You
needn't be afraid!"
Françoise now burst into tears, and seemed taken with a sort of
fit. Though she made no further effort to defend herself, she was so
violently shaken by nervous contortions that Buteau could not succeed
in his purpose. His anger at being thus foiled maddened him, and,
turning towards his wife, he cried out:
"You damned helpless idiot, what are you standing staring there for.
Come and help me!"
Lise had remained standing bolt upright some ten yards away, without
ever stirring; now scanning the distance to see if any one was coming,
and now glancing at Françoise and Buteau, without any sign of feeling
on her face. When her husband called her, she did not evince the
slightest hesitation, but strode up to him, and seizing hold of her
sister, she sat down upon her as heavily as if she wanted to crush her.
Finally Buteau proved victorious. He was just rising when old Fouan
popped out his head from behind the rick, where he had sought shelter
from the cold. The old man had seen all, and it evidently frightened
him, for he at once concealed himself behind the straw again.
Buteau having risen to his feet, Lise looked at him keenly. In his
eagerness he had forgotten all about the three signs of the cross,
and the _Ave_ repeated backwards. His wife stood frenzied with wild
indignation. It was merely for his own pleasure that he done the deed!
Françoise, however, left him no time for explanations. For a moment she
had remained lying motionless on the ground, as though she had fainted
beneath a sensation such as she had never before experienced. The truth
had suddenly dawned upon her. She loved Buteau! She never had, and
never would, love any other. This discovery filled her with shame, and
she was angered against herself at finding how false she was to her
own ingrained ideas of justice. A man who did not belong to her! A man
who belonged to that sister whom she now so hated! The only man in the
world whom she could not possess without being false to her own oath!
Springing wildly to her feet, with her hair dishevelled and her clothes
all disarranged, she spat out the anger that was raging within her in
spasmodic bursts of abuse.
"You filthy swine! Yes, both of you! you're both filthy swine! You have
ruined and destroyed me! People have been guillotined for doing less
than you've done! I will tell Jean, you filthy swine, and he'll settle
your accounts for you!"
Buteau shrugged his shoulders, and smiled his leering smile. He felt
immensely satisfied, now that he had at last succeeded in gaining his
ends.
"Nonsense, my dear! You were dying for it!"
This bantering speech had the effect of completing Lise's exasperation,
and she vented all her rising anger against her husband upon her sister.
"It's quite true, you drab; I saw you!" she shouted. "I always said
that all my troubles came from you! Will you dare to say now that you
didn't debauch my husband, yes, debauch him directly after we were
married, when you were only a child whom I still whipped?"
She now manifested the most violent jealousy, a jealousy which appeared
somewhat singular after all the complacence she had recently shown. If
Françoise had never been born, she thought, she herself would never
have had to share either property or husband! She hated her sister for
being younger and fresher and more attractive than herself.
"You're a liar!" cried Françoise, wild with anger. "You know that you
are lying!"
"A liar, am I? You'll tell me, I suppose, that you didn't pursue him
even into the cellar?"
"I! indeed! I'd a deal to do with it, hadn't I? You cow! you helped
him! Yes, and you'd have broken my back, if you could! You must either
be a filthy pimp, or else you wanted to murder me, you dirty drab!"
Lise replied by a violent blow, which so maddened Françoise that she
threw herself wildly upon her sister. Buteau stood sniggering with
his hands in his pockets, and made no attempt to interfere, like a
self-satisfied cock watching a couple of hens quarrelling for him.
The two women continued fighting savagely, tearing each other's caps
off, their faces clawed and bleeding, and their hands eagerly seeking
any spot where they might tear and rend. In scuffling and wrestling
they returned to the patch of lucern, and Lise suddenly broke out
into a loud roar, for Françoise had driven her nails deeply into her
neck Then, losing all self-control, the idea of murdering her sister
occurred to her. She had caught sight of the scythe lying on her left
hand. The handle had fallen across a clump of thistles, and the blade
was sticking point upwards in the air. Like a flash of lightning she
hurled Françoise on to the gleaming steel with all her force. The
unfortunate young woman tottered and fell, uttering a terrible shriek.
The blade of the scythe had pierced her side.
"Good God! good God!" stammered Buteau.
It was all over. A single second had settled it all; the irreparable
had been accomplished. Lise, dazed at seeing her wish so quickly
realised, stood watching her sister's severed dress as it reddened with
a stream of blood. Had the blade penetrated deeply enough to cut the
little one, that the blood flowed so plentifully? she wondered.
Old Fouan's pale face again peeped forth from behind the rick. He had
seen everything, and was perfectly stupefied.
Françoise lay quite still, and Buteau, who had stepped up to her, dared
not touch her. A gust of wind now darted over the field, and filled him
with a wild terror.
"She is dead! In God's name, let us bolt!"
He seized hold of Lise's hand, and they flew along the deserted road
as though they were possessed. The low, gloomy sky seemed as though it
was about to fall down upon their heads, and behind them the sound of
their galloping feet raised echoes which sounded as though a crowd of
people were in hot pursuit of them. They both ran wildly on over the
cropped and naked plain; Buteau, with his blouse swelling about him in
the wind, and Lise, with her hair all loose and dishevelled, carrying
her cap in her hand. And as they ran they both kept repeating the same
words, panting like hunted animals:
"She is dead! In God's name, let us bolt!"
Their strides grew longer, and soon they could not articulate
distinctly; still, as they fled wildly on, they gave vent to panting
exclamations which kept time, as it were, with their bounds:
"Dead! good God! Dead! good God! Dead! good God!"
Then they disappeared from sight.
Some minutes later, when Jean trotted up on his horse, he was filled
with terrible consternation.
"What--what has happened?" he cried.
Françoise had opened her eyes, but still lay rigidly motionless. She
gazed at Jean for a long time with her great troubled eyes, but she
said nothing. Her mind seemed to be far away, absorbed in thought.
"You are wounded! You are bleeding! Speak to me, I beseech you!"
Then he turned to old Fouan, who had at length ventured to approach.
"You were here? Tell me what has happened!"
Then Françoise spoke, but very slowly, as though she were thinking of
what she should say.
"I came to cut some grass--I fell on to my scythe--it went into me
here. Oh, it's all over with me!"
Her eyes sought those of Fouan, telling him, and him alone, other
things--things that only her own family should know. Dazed as was the
old man, he seemed to comprehend her meaning.
"Yes, that is what happened," he said; "she fell and wounded herself. I
was there, and saw it."
Jean galloped off to Rognes for a stretcher to carry his wife home. She
lost consciousness again on the journey, and they never expected to get
her to the house alive.
CHAPTER IV.
It happened that on the following day, Sunday, the young men of Rognes
were to go to Cloyes for the conscription-ballot; and as La Grande and
La Frimat, who had hurried up to the house in the dusk, were undressing
Françoise and putting her to bed with the utmost care, the roll of the
drum could be heard on the road below, sounding to the poor folks like
a knell amid the mournful gloom.
Jean, who was quite off his head with troubled anxiety, had just
set off to fetch Doctor Finet, when near the church he met Patoir,
the veterinary surgeon, on his way to attend old Saucisse's cow. He
forcibly dragged him into the house to see the ailing woman, in spite
of his unwillingness to go. But when Patoir saw the hideous wound, he
point-blank refused to interfere in the case. What good could he do?
Death was plainly written there! Two hours later, when Jean came back
with Monsieur Finet, the surgeon made a gesture of hopeless despair.
Nothing could be done beyond administering anæsthetics for the sake of
deadening the pain. The five months' pregnancy seriously complicated
the case; and the unborn child could be felt moving within its mother's
wounded body, dying indeed of its mother's death. Before the doctor
went away, he dressed the wound as best he could, and, although he
promised to return in the morning, he warned Jean that his wife would
most probably pass away during the night. She lived through it,
however, and she was still lingering on, when, towards nine o'clock in
the morning, the drum began to beat again, summoning the young men to
meet in front of the municipal offices.
All through the night the flood-gates of heaven had been open, and
Jean had listened to a pouring deluge of rain as he sat watching in
his wife's room, stupefied with troubled grief, and with his eyes full
of big tears. The roll of the drum sounded as though it were muffled
as he heard it in the close, damp air of the morning. The rain had now
ceased, but the sky was still of a leaden grey.
For a long time the drum-beating continued. The drummer was a new one,
a nephew of Macqueron's, who had just left the service, and he beat
his drum as though he were leading a regiment into action. All Rognes
was in a state of anxiety, for the rumours of approaching war, that
had lately been circulated, had greatly increased the emotion which
always attended the conscription-balloting. The prospect of being at
once marched off to be shot by the Prussians was not an alluring one.
There were nine young men of the neighbourhood to ballot upon this
occasion, probably a larger number than had ever before been known.
Among them were Nénesse and Delphin, once so inseparable, but severed
of late owing to the former having taken a situation in a restaurant
at Chartres. On the previous evening Nénesse had gone to sleep at his
father's farm. When Delphin saw him he scarcely knew him, he was so
changed; dressed quite like a gentleman, with a cane and a silk hat,
and a blue scarf clasped by a ring. He now had his clothes made to
order by a tailor, and cracked jokes about Lambourdieu's ready-made
suits. His neck was still scrawny and long, and absolutely devoid of
hair on the nape. Delphin, on the other hand, had grown massive and
sturdy; his limbs were heavy, like his movements, and his face was
tanned and baked by the sun. He had grown up like some vigorous plant
in that beloved soil to which he was so firmly rooted. However, he and
Nénesse immediately renewed their broken chumship, and were as good
comrades as ever. After spending a part of the night with each other,
they appeared arm-in-arm the next morning in front of the municipal
offices, in obedience to the persistent summons of the drum.
A number of the relations of the nine young men were gathered there.
Delhomme and Fanny, proud of their son's distinguished appearance,
wished to be present to see him off, though they felt no anxiety, as
they had provided for his exemption. Bécu, wearing his constabular
badge of office, threatened to cuff his wife because she began to cry.
What was she blubbering for? he asked. Wasn't Delphin fit to serve
his country with credit? The lad, however, would be sure to escape,
and draw a lucky number. When at last the nine young fellows were all
got together, a feat which it took a good hour to accomplish, Lequeu
handed them the banner. Then they began to discuss who should carry it.
The general rule was to choose the tallest and most vigorous of the
number, and so it was agreed that Delphin should carry it. He seemed
very nervous and timid, in spite of his big fists, shy at finding
himself mixed up in matters which he did not understand. He seemed to
find the long pole awkward to manage, and then it might conduct him to
misfortune, he reflected sorrowfully.
At the two corners of the street, Flore and Cœlina were giving a final
sweep to their respective public parlours, in view of being ready for
the evening. Macqueron was looking out of his door with a sorrowful
countenance; then Lengaigne appeared at his, with a sniggering grin on
his face. He was in a very triumphant frame of mind just then, for the
excise-officers had recently seized four casks of wine which they had
found concealed beneath one of his rival's wood-stacks. Macqueron, it
was said, would be dismissed from his mayoralty in consequence, and
every one felt quite sure that the anonymous letter which had led to
the wine being discovered had emanated from Lengaigne. To make matters
worse, Macqueron had another trouble on his shoulders. His daughter
Berthe had so compromised herself with the wheelwright's son, whom he
had previously refused as a son-in-law, that he was now constrained to
let him have her. For the last week the gossips at the fountain had
talked of nothing save the daughter's marriage and the prosecution of
the father. It was certain that the latter would at least be fined; and
it was by no means unlikely that he would be sent to gaol. And so the
mayor, seeing his neighbour's insulting grin, retired again, feeling
painfully conscious that every one else was also sniggering at him.
Delphin had now grasped the banner, and the drum sounded the march.
Nénesse fell into position, and the other seven took up their places
behind him. They formed quite a little troop as they filed along
over the level road. A swarm of children ran forward with them, and
Delhomme, Fanny, Bécu, and several other relatives accompanied them
to the end of the village. Freed of her husband, Madame Bécu hurried
away and slipped furtively into the church. Then, glancing around and
finding that she was quite alone, she fell down on her knees, though,
as a rule, she was by no means addicted to displays of devotion, and
burst into tears, while beseeching the good God to grant her son a
lucky number. She remained for more than an hour stammering out this
heartfelt prayer. Far away, towards Cloyes, the banner was gradually
fading from sight in the distance, and the rolling of the drum was lost
in space.
It was nearly ten o'clock when Doctor Finet made his appearance again,
and he seemed surprised to find Françoise still alive. He had quite
expected that he would merely have to give the certificate for her
burial. He shook his head as he examined the wound. Ever since the
previous evening, not having an idea of the real facts, he had been
pondering over the story that had been told to him in connection with
the wound. He now desired to have the whole narrative repeated to
him; and he could not yet understand how the unfortunate young woman
had managed to fall in such a disastrous fashion. He finally took his
leave, indignant at Françoise's culpable clumsiness, and annoyed at
having to pay yet another visit to certify the death.
Jean still remained in a state of mournful gloom, watching intently
over Françoise, who closed her eyes in persistent muteness as soon as
she ever caught her husband's questioning glance. He divined that some
lie or other had been told him, and that his wife was hiding something
from him. In the early morning he had escaped for a little time, and
had run up to the lucern field to see if he could discover anything.
But he could learn nothing definite from his inspection. The footmarks
had been nearly effaced by the heavy rain which had fallen during the
night, but he discovered a corner where the lucern seemed to have been
beaten down, and he concluded that this was the spot where Françoise
had fallen. After the surgeon had gone away, Jean again sat down by the
side of the dying woman's bed. He was now quite alone with her, for La
Frimat had gone off to breakfast, and La Grande had been obliged to
return home for a moment to see that things were not going wrong in her
absence.
"Are you in pain?" Jean asked his wife.
Françoise closed her eyes tightly, and made no reply.
"Tell me, now, aren't you concealing something from me?"
If it had not been for her weak and painful breathing one might
have supposed that Françoise was already dead. Ever since the
previous evening she had been lying on her back, silent and in the
same position, as though incapable of either motion or speech. She
was burning with fever, but all her power of will seemed to offer
a determined resistance to the approach of delirium, so acute was
her fear of letting anything escape her. She had always possessed a
strongly-marked character, full of obstinate determination; doing
nothing like other people, and giving utterance to ideas which filled
everybody who heard her with amazement. Loyalty to her family was
probably actuating her now, a loyalty which over-rode all feeling of
hatred and craving for vengeance. What good would vengeance do her,
now that she was dying? There were matters which were best buried with
one's self, shut up in the spot where they had been born; matters which
must never, no never, be disclosed for a stranger's enlightenment; and
Jean was a stranger, whom she had never been really able to love with
genuine love. It was perhaps in punishment for having given him her
hand that she was never to bring into the world the undeveloped child
quickening within her.
Ever since Jean had seen his wife brought home in a dying condition,
his thoughts had been harping on the unmade will. All through the night
he had kept thinking that, if she died intestate, he would be entitled
to nothing, save half of the furniture and the money--a hundred and
twenty-seven francs locked up in the drawer. He loved Françoise dearly,
and he would have made any sacrifice to keep her; but the thought that,
together with his wife, he would also lose the house and land, still
further increased his grief. As yet, he had not dared to say a word on
the subject: it seemed so hard-hearted, and then there had always been
other people in the room. But at last, seeing that he would never be
able to glean any further information as to the manner in which the
accident had happened, he determined to tackle this other matter.
"Are there any arrangements that you would like to make?" he asked.
It did not seem as though Françoise heard him. Her eyes were closed,
and her face was quite expressionless.
"If anything happened to you, you know, your sister would take
everything. The paper is still there in the drawer."
He brought the sheet of stamped paper to her, and then continued, in a
voice that grew more and more embarrassed:
"Would you like me to help you? Are you strong enough to write, do
you think? I'm not thinking about myself; but I only fancied that
you wouldn't like those folks who have treated you so badly to have
anything you left behind."
Françoise's eyelids trembled slightly, proving to Jean that she had
heard him. So she must still be averse to making a will! He was quite
astounded; he could not understand it at all. Probably Françoise,
herself, could not have explained why she persisted in thus lying like
a corpse, before the time had come for her to be boxed-up within four
boards. But the land and the house did not belong to this man, who had
come athwart her life like some mere passer-by. She owed him nothing;
the child would go away with herself. By what right should the
property be taken away from the family? Her obstinate, childish ideas
of justice protested against such a thing. This is mine, that is yours;
let us each take our own and say good-bye! However, other thoughts
besides these were vaguely floating through her mind. Her sister Lise
seemed far away from her--lost in the distance--and it was Buteau alone
who seemed really present to her; Buteau whom, in spite of all his
ill-treatment, she pardoned and loved and longed for.
Jean was getting vexed. The desire for the soil was now gaining hold
of him, too, and embittering his mind. He raised Françoise in bed, and
attempted to get her into a sitting position and to put a pen between
her fingers.
"Come now," he said, "see if you can't manage it. You can't like those
scamps better than me, and want them to have everything!"
Then Françoise at last opened her eyes, and the look that she turned
upon Jean quite stupefied him. She knew that she was going to die, and
her big, widely-opened eyes were full of hopeless despair. Why was he
torturing her like this? they seemed to say. She could not, and she
would not! Besides, it was her own affair. A low moan of pain was the
only sound that escaped her lips. Then she fell back again, her eyelids
closed, and her head lay rigid and motionless on the pillow.
Ashamed of his unkind persistence, Jean now felt so miserable and
confused that he was still standing there with the sheet of stamped
paper in his hand when La Grande came back into the room. She saw
it, and knew what it meant; and at once took Jean aside to inquire
if Françoise had made a will. He stammered out that he had just been
going to conceal the paper to prevent any one bothering his wife about
it, a course which La Grande seemed to approve of, for she was on the
Buteaus' side, foreseeing all kinds of rows and abominable scenes if
they succeeded in inheriting the property. Then, seating herself in
front of the table, and recommencing her knitting, she continued:
"Well, no one will find himself wronged by me, I'm sure, when I'm taken
away. My will has been made long ago. Every one is remembered, and I
should think I was acting very wrongly if I showed an unfair preference
for any one. None of my children are forgotten, as they will see for
themselves one of these days."
She recited this formula daily to one or another member of her
family, and she made a point of repeating it by the death-bed of her
relatives. Every time she delivered herself of it, she chuckled in
secret at the thought of that famous will of hers which would set the
whole family by the ears when she was gone. She had been careful that
it should not contain a single clause that was not pregnant with a
law-suit.
"What a pity it is," she added, "that one can't take one's property
with one! But, since one can't, others must needs have the enjoyment of
it."
La Frimat now returned, sat down at the other side of the table,
opposite to La Grande, and also began to knit. So the afternoon glided
away. The two old women sat quietly gossipping with each other, while
Jean, who could not settle in any one place, kept walking up and down,
perpetually leaving the room and then returning in a state of feverish
restlessness. The doctor' had said that there was nothing to be done,
and so they did nothing.
At last, La Frimat began expressing her regret that Sourdeau, the
bone-setter at Bazoches, who was equally expert in the treatment of
wounds, had not been sent for. He just said a few words and then
breathed over his patients, and then the wounds closed up at once.
"Oh, he's a splendid fellow!" exclaimed La Grande in a respectful way.
"It was he who put the Lorillon's breast-bone right. Old Lorillon's
breast-bone, you know, fell out of its place, and hung down and pressed
so heavily on his stomach that he almost died from exhaustion. Then,
to make matters worse, the old woman caught the dreadful complaint as
well: for, as you know, it is contagious. Presently they all had it,
the daughter, the son-in-law, and their three children. They would
certainly all have died of it if they had not sent for Sourdeau,
who put everything right again by just rubbing their bellies with a
tortoise-shell comb."
The other old woman confirmed every detail of this story with a wag of
the head. It was all well known, and there was no doubt about it. Then
she herself adduced another fact in support of Sourdeau's skill.
"It was Sourdeau, too, who cured the Budin's little girl of fever by
just cutting a live pigeon in two and applying it to her head."
Then she turned to Jean, who was standing quite dazed by the bedside.
"If I were you," she said, "I should send for him. It's perhaps not too
late, even now."
Jean, however, answered merely with an angry gesture. His
town-breeding prevented him from believing such stories. The two women
then went on gossipping together for a long time, telling each other of
various quaint remedies, such as placing parsley beneath one's bed to
cure lumbago, or keeping three acorns in one's pocket in the case of
inflammation, or drinking a glass of water which had been exposed to
the moon in view of getting rid of wind.
"Well, if you're not going to send for Sourdeau," La Frimat abruptly
exclaimed, "at any rate you'd better send for his reverence the priest."
Jean again replied by an angry gesture, and La Grande compressed her
lips tightly.
"What good would his reverence do?"
"What good would he do? Why, he would bring the blessed sacrament, and
there's some comfort in that, sometimes."
La Grande shrugged her shoulders, as though to express that now-a-days
no one believed in such old-fashioned ideas.
"Besides," she added, after a pause, "the priest wouldn't come. He is
ill. Madame Bécu told me just now that he is going away in a carriage
on Wednesday, as the doctor says that he will certainly die if he
remains in Rognes."
As a matter of fact, the Abbé Madeline's health had gradually been
getting worse during the two years and a-half that he had been
stationed at Rognes. A feeling of home-sickness, a broken-hearted
longing for his native mountains of Auvergne had been preying upon him
with increasing severity every day he had spent in that flat land of
La Beauce, where the sight of the far-spreading boundless plain filled
his heart with despondent melancholy. Not a tree nor a rock was to be
seen; and instead of rushing cascades of foaming water, there were
only stagnant pools. The priest's eyes lost their brightness, and he
grew more fleshless than ever, till people said that he was going off
in a consumption. Yet he might still have been reconciled to remaining
there if he could have derived any consolation from the women of his
parish. But it was just the other way. Coming, as he did, from a pious
and faithful flock, his timid soul was overwhelmed with grief and
consternation at finding himself in so irreligious a parish, where only
the merest outward forms of the faith were complied with. The women
deafened and dazed him with their screaming and quarrelling, and so
abused his yielding nature that they practically took the religious
direction of the place into their own hands: while he, a man full of
scrupulous sensitiveness, and constantly afraid of involuntarily
falling into sin, stood by in silent consternation. But there was a
final blow in store for him. On Christmas day, one of the hand-maidens
of the Virgin had been seized with the pangs of labour while in church.
Since then the priest had been getting worse and worse, and now he was
going to be carried back, in a dying condition, to Auvergne.
"So, then, we're without a priest again?" exclaimed La Frimat. "I
wonder if the Abbé Godard would come back to us."
"Ah, the surly fellow!" cried La Grande; "he would burst with spite if
he had to come!"
The sudden arrival of Fanny made them silent. She was the only member
of her family who had come to see Françoise on the previous evening,
and she had now returned to ascertain how she was getting on. Jean
pointed to his wife with his trembling hand. The room was hushed
in sympathetic silence, and Fanny lowered her voice to inquire if
the dying woman had asked for her sister. No, they said, she had
never opened her mouth on the subject; it was just as if Lise had
not existed. Forsooth, it was very strange, for death is death, all
previous quarrelling notwithstanding; and when should peace be made if
not ere the final departure?
La Grande now expressed the opinion that Françoise should be questioned
on the subject. She got up from her seat, and stooped over the dying
woman.
"Tell me, my dear," she said, "wouldn't you like to see Lise?"
But Françoise lay perfectly still; she gave no other sign than a
scarcely perceptible quiver of her closed eyelids.
"She is perhaps expecting us to bring her. I'll go for her."
Then, still keeping her eyes closed, and turning her head on the
pillow, Françoise softly said "No." Jean desired that her wishes should
be respected, and the three women sat down again. They now began to
feel astonished that Lise did not come of her own accord; but there
was often a great amount of obstinate feeling shown in families, they
reflected.
"What endless troubles one has!" Fanny now exclaimed with a sigh.
"Ever since this morning, I've been nearly worried to death over this
balloting; and yet really I've no cause for worry, since I know very
well that Nénesse won't be taken from us."
"Ah! yes, indeed," murmured La Frimat; "but one can't help feeling
anxious and excited, all the same."
Once again the dying woman was entirely forgotten, and the gossips
began to talk about luck and chance, about the young men who would
be marched off, and about those who would remain. It was now three
o'clock, and although the party was not expected back till five o'clock
at the earliest, reports of what had happened were already circulating
in the village, wafted over from Cloyes, no one knew how, by that
species of serial telegraphy which flies from village to village. The
Briquets' son had drawn No. 13, so there was no chance of his escaping!
The Couillots' son, on the other hand, had drawn No. 106, and that was
certainly a safe number! However, nothing positive seemed to be known
about the others. There was only a lot of contradictory reports, which
tended to increase the excitement. Nobody appeared to know how Delphin
and Nénesse had fared.
"My heart is palpitating dreadfully," exclaimed Fanny. "How stupid of
me!"
Then they called out to Madame Bécu, who happened to be passing. She
had been to the church again, and was now wandering backwards and
forwards like a disembodied spirit. Her trouble was so great that she
did not even stop to talk.
"I can't contain myself any longer; I'm going to meet them!" said she.
Jean was standing in front of the window, gazing vaguely out of it,
and paying no attention to the women's talk. Several times since
the morning he had seen old Fouan prowling round the house with his
dragging gait. He now suddenly caught sight of him again, pressing his
face against one of the panes of glass, and trying to make out what was
going on inside the room. Jean thereupon opened the window, and the
old man, looking quite stupefied, began to ask in stammering tones how
Françoise was. Very bad, Jean told him; in fact, it was all over with
her. Then Fouan thrust his head in at the open window, and stood gazing
at Françoise for such a long time that it almost seemed as though he
were unable to go away. When Fanny and La Grande saw him, they returned
to their previous idea of sending for Lise. But when they tried to
get the old fellow to fetch her, he shivered with alarm and made his
escape. He muttered and repeated over and over again:
"No, no; impossible, impossible!"
Jean seemed struck by the old man's appearance of terror; however,
the women let the matter drop. After all, it only concerned the two
sisters, and it was no business of theirs to force them to see and
kiss each other. At this moment a sound was heard, feeble at first, and
like the droning of a big fly; then it grew louder and louder, rolling
along like a gust of wind breaking among trees.
Fanny leaped up excitedly.
"The drum!" she cried. "Here they come! Good evening!"
And thereupon she hurried away, without even giving her cousin a last
kiss.
La Grande and La Frimat also left the room and went to look out at the
door. Only Françoise and Jean were left: the wife still persisting
in her obstinate silence and rigidity, hearing, perhaps, everything
that was said, but wishing to die, like some wild animal earthed-up at
the bottom of its burrow; the husband standing in front of the open
window, racked by uncertainty, and overwhelmed by a troubled grief to
which everything seemed to contribute. Ah, that drum! how the sound of
it vibrated and echoed through his whole being. And as its roll broke
ceaselessly through the air, with his grief of to-day there mingled
recollections of the past, of barracks and battles, and of the dog's
life led by poor wretches who had neither wife nor child to love them!
As soon as the banner came into sight, far away in the distance, on
the flat level road looking grey and dingy in the fading light of the
evening, a swarm of children scampered off to meet the conscripts, and
a group of relatives posted themselves just at the entrance to the
village. The nine young men and the drummer were already very drunk,
and as they came along in the mournful evening light, decorated with
tri-coloured ribbons, and the greater part of them having numbers
pinned upon their hats, they bellowed out a warlike chorus. As they
approached the village, they roared out the words of their song louder
than ever, and by way of brag, marched forward with a swaggering air.
Delphin was still carrying the banner; but he was holding it on his
shoulder, as though it were some troublesome rag of which he could not
conceive the use. He came along wearily, with a gloomy expression on
his face, and did not join in the singing of the others. There was no
number pinned on his cap. As soon as Madame Bécu caught sight of him,
she rushed forward in a tremble, at the risk of being overturned by the
advancing band of conscripts.
"Well?" she cried.
But Delphin angrily thrust her aside without slackening his pace.
"Get out of the way, and don't bother me!"
Bécu himself had also stepped forward, as full of anxiety as his
wife; but when he heard his son's surly words, he did not dare to say
anything; and, as his wife broke out sobbing, it was all he could do to
restrain his own tears, despite all his patriotic enthusiasm.
"It's of no use talking about it! He's been drawn!"
They now both lagged behind on the deserted road, and slowly and sadly
returned to the village--the husband thinking of the hard life he had
endured in the past as a soldier, and the wife swelling with wrath
against the God to whom she had twice prayed, and who had not hearkened
to her.
Nénesse was wearing a magnificent number "214" on his cap, daubed in
red and blue paint. This was one of the highest numbers, and the young
fellow was triumphing in his luck, brandishing his cane and keeping
the time as he led the wild chorus of his comrades. When Fanny saw
the number, instead of rejoicing, she broke out into a cry of deep
regret. Ah! if they could only have foreseen this they would never
have invested those thousand francs in Monsieur Baillehache's lottery
to ensure their son's exemption! Still, although the young man was
thus ensured against being taken from them, his mother and father both
embraced him as if he had just escaped from some great peril. But he
hastily exclaimed:
"Do leave me alone! and don't worry me in this way!"
The little troop continued on its tipsy, riotous march through the
wildly excited village. The young men's relations dared not venture
upon any further questions or demonstrations, as it was clear that they
would only meet with an angry repulse. All the young fellows seemed to
have come back in the same surly frame of mind, both those who had been
taken and those who had escaped. But, anyway, they would not have been
able to give a clear account of what had happened, for their eyes were
projecting wildly from their heads, and they were as drunk and noisy
as though they had all been at some uproarious merry-making. While one
little fellow who had been taken, was facetiously trumpeting with his
nose, two others who would almost certainly escape came along with pale
faces and downcast eyes. Still, if the wildly excited drummer at their
head had led them down into the depths of the Aigre, they would all
have followed impetuously in his train.
When they at length halted in front of the municipal offices, Delphin
gave up the banner.
"There, thank heaven; I've had enough of that damned thing which has
brought me nothing but ill-luck!" he said.
Then he seized hold of Nénesse's arm, and dragged him off with him,
while the rest of the party invaded Lengaigne's tavern, where they
were joined by their relations and friends, who at last succeeded in
learning what had happened. Macqueron meanwhile looked out from his
door, heart-sore at the brisk business his rival was doing.
"Come along," said Delphin to Nénesse in a sharp, curt way, as though
he were forming some determined resolution. "I want to show you
something."
Nénesse allowed himself to be taken off. They would have time to come
back and drink afterwards. The noisy drum had ceased to din their
ears, and they felt a sensation of pleasant quiet and repose, as they
strolled off together along the now deserted road which was growing
grey in the falling darkness. As Delphin walked on in silence, buried
in reflections which could scarcely be pleasant ones, Nénesse began to
talk to him about a very important matter. A couple of days previously,
at Chartres, having obtained a few hours' liberty from his employer, he
had gone up to the Rue aux Juifs, and had there learnt that Vaucogne,
Monsieur Charles's son-in-law, wanted to dispose of his business. He
was too unsteady to be able to make it pay, and he was robbed right
and left by the women. But what a business it might become, and what
profits might be reaped if it were in the hands of an energetic,
steady-going young fellow, with a shrewd head and strong willing arms,
and already with some experience of the trade! His idea was to frighten
Monsieur and Madame Charles into the belief that Number 19 was in great
danger of being suppressed by the police in consequence of the immoral
proceedings that habitually took place there, and thus prevail upon
them to let him have the place for a mere song. Ah, that would be much
better than grubbing the soil! Why, he could be a gentlemen at once!
Delphin was listening in a very absent-minded fashion; in fact, he was
busy with his own thoughts, from which he woke up with a start, as his
companion gave him a sly poke in the ribs.
"Some folks are born to be lucky," he murmured. "You were sent into the
world to be a pride to your mother."
Then he relapsed into silence again, and Nénesse, as though he
had quite settled matters in his own mind, began to explain the
improvements he would make at Number 19, if his parents would advance
him the necessary money. He was perhaps a little young, he allowed,
but he felt a genuine vocation for the business.
He now caught sight of La Trouille gliding up towards them along the
gloomy road, on her way, probably, to some amatory assignation or
other; and wishing to show his easy manner with women, he gave her a
smart slap as she went past. La Trouille at once returned it, but then
recognising the two young men, she exclaimed:
"Hallo, is it you? How you have grown!"
She laughed merrily, at thought, no doubt, of their sprees in earlier
days. Of the three, she had changed the least; and, despite her one and
twenty years, she still looked a mere chit of a girl, being as slight
and supple as a poplar shoot, with a bosom as undeveloped as a child's.
The meeting seemed to please her, and she kissed the two young men one
after the other; she would even have been quite willing to proceed
to further lengths if they had suggested it, by way of marking her
pleasure at seeing them again, just as men clink glasses together when
they meet after a separation.
"I've got something to tell you," said Nénesse jokingly. "I'm very
likely going to take Charles's shop. Will you come and have a situation
there?"
Then the girl abruptly ceased laughing, and was overcome with emotion,
bursting into tears. The surrounding darkness seemed to lay hold of
her, and she disappeared from sight, sobbing out like a broken-hearted
child:
"Oh, how beastly! how beastly! I sha'n't love you any more!"
Delphin had remained silent, and with an abstracted air he now resumed
his course.
"But where is it you are taking me?" Nénesse finally asked. "What is
this strange thing you want to show me?"
"Come along, and you will see by-and-bye."
He then hastened his steps, and left the high-road to make a short cut
through the vines to the house in which the rural constable had been
lodged by the authorities since the parsonage had been given up to the
priest! He lived there with his father; and he at once conducted his
companion into the kitchen, where he lighted a candle, seeming pleased
to find that his parents had not yet returned home.
"We'll have a glass together," he exclaimed, placing a bottle and a
couple of glasses on the table.
When he had swallowed some of the wine, he smacked his tongue, and then
continued:
"I want to tell you that if these fools think they are going to keep
me, simply because I have drawn a bad number, they are mightily
mistaken. When uncle Michel died, I was obliged to go and stay three
days at Orleans, and it nearly killed me, I was so miserable at being
away from home. I daresay you think it very foolish of me, but I can't
help it. The feeling is stronger than I am; and away from home I am
like a tree torn up by the roots. And now they want to take me off and
send me to the devil, to all sorts of places that I've never even heard
the name of! Ah, well, they'll find out their mistake presently!"
Nénesse, who had often heard him prate in this strain before, shrugged
his shoulders, and replied:
"It is very easy to talk, but you'll have to go, all the same. The
gendarmes would soon march you off, you know."
Without making any reply, Delphin turned aside, and with his left hand
took hold of a small hatchet hanging against the wall, and used for
chopping firewood. Then, without any hesitation he calmly laid the
fore-finger of his right hand upon the edge of the table, and, with a
smart blow of the hatchet, completely severed it.
"There, that's what I wanted to show you!" he said. "I want you to be
able to tell the others that I have done what a coward would scarcely
do."
"You maniac!" cried Nénesse, quite overcome with the sight of what
Delphin had done. "You have crippled yourself for life!"
"I scoff at them all! Let the gendarmes come as soon as they like! I'm
quite certain now that I sha'n't be forced away!"
Then he picked up the severed finger and tossed it into the wood fire.
After shaking his bleeding hand, he roughly wrapped his handkerchief
round it, fastening it tightly with a piece of string so as to stop the
flow of blood.
"Well, this needn't prevent us finishing the bottle before we join the
others," said he. "Here's to your health!"
"And here's to yours!"
By this time there was so much noise and so much tobacco-smoke in
Lengaigne's public-room that it was impossible to see one another or
to hear even one's-self speak. Besides the young fellows who had just
returned from balloting, there was a crowd of idlers. Hyacinthe and his
friend Canon were there, busily engaged in making old Fouan drunk, the
three of them sitting round a bottle of brandy. Bécu, whom his son's
bad luck, combined with the large amount of drink he had swallowed,
had quite overcome, was snoring noisily, with his head on one of the
tables. Delhomme and Clou were there, too, playing a game of piquet,
and also sat there Lequeu, with his nose buried in a book which he was
pretending to read in spite of all the surrounding uproar.
A fight among the women had served to increase the general excitement.
It had occurred in this way: Flore having gone to the fountain to fill
her pitcher with water, there met Cœlina who, bursting with hatred and
jealousy, threw herself upon her, clawing her furiously with her nails,
and accusing her of being bribed by the excise officers to betray her
neighbours. Macqueron and Lengaigne, who had rushed up, very nearly
came to blows themselves; the former swearing that he would contrive to
have the latter caught while he was damping his tobacco, and the latter
sarcastically asking the former when they might expect to hear of his
resignation. A crowd gathered, everybody mingling in the quarrel for
the mere pleasure of shaking their fists and hearing themselves shout;
and a general murderous engagement seemed at one time inevitable. This
was averted, however, and the incident ended, but not without leaving a
feeling of unsatisfied anger, and a longing to come to blows.
A passage between Victor, Lengaigne's son, and the conscripts almost
brought about an explosion. The former having served his time in the
army was swaggering before all the young fellows, shouting louder
than the loudest of them, and goading them on into making all sorts
of idiotic wagers; such as emptying a bottle of wine by holding it in
the air and pouring its contents down their throats, or sucking the
contents of a glass up through their nostrils, without touching it with
their mouths. Suddenly, as some reference was made to the Macquerons,
and the approaching marriage of their daughter Berthe, young Couillot
began to snigger and titter out the old jokes about the girl. They
would be able now, he said, to ask the husband all about her, on the
day after the wedding. They had heard such a deal about her, that it
would really be satisfactory to get at the truth!
Victor thereupon caused intense surprise by a show of angry warmth.
Hitherto he had been one of those who most persistently attacked the
girl, whereas now he shouted out:
"There, we've heard quite enough about it now. She has everything that
the others have. She has!"
This assertion provoked a loud clamour. Victor had seen, then? She
had been his mistress, eh? While vigorously denying the truth of this
accusation, and striking his breast with his fists, he adhered to
his recent statement, whereupon young Couillot, who was very drunk,
violently contradicted him, though he knew absolutely nothing about
the matter. In point of fact, he was simply actuated by pig-headed
perversity. Victor bellowed out that he had once said the same as
Couillot, and that, if he now said differently, it certainly wasn't for
love of the Macquerons! It was because the truth is the truth! And then
he fell upon the conscript, whose friends were obliged to drag him from
his grasp.
"Say as I say, damn you, or I'll wring your neck!"
In spite of Victor's violence, however, several of the company still
retained their doubts on the subject. No one could understand his hot
outburst of anger, for he generally showed himself very hard towards
women, and he had publicly repudiated his sister, whom her impure
amours, so it was said, had now landed in an hospital. That foul
Suzanne! Ah! she did well to keep her tainted carcase away from them!
Flore now brought up fresh supplies of wine, but glasses were chinked
in vain; the atmosphere was still heavy with a brooding storm of
angry abuse and violence. No one had any idea of going off to dine.
Drinking keeps folk from getting hungry. The conscripts at last began
to troll out a patriotic song, accompanying it with such heavy blows
upon the tables that the flames of the three petroleum lamps flickered
wildly, and emitted puffs of acrid smoke. The atmosphere was getting
unbearable, and Delhomme and Clou opened the window behind them. Just
at that moment Buteau entered the room and glided into a corner. His
face did not wear its usual air of braggart self-assertion. Indeed
there was a look of uneasy anxiety in his little eyes, and he glanced
at the company one after another, as though he were trying to read
their thoughts. He had doubtless come to listen to the gossip, in
view of discovering whether any of his neighbours entertained any
suspicion of him. He had felt quite unable to stay any longer at
home, where he had shut himself up since the previous evening without
stirring out. The presence of Hyacinthe and Canon seemed to produce
a deep effect upon him; so much so, indeed, that he refrained from
quarrelling with them for making old Fouan drunk. For a long time he
sat gazing earnestly at Delhomme. But it was Bécu, sleeping on amid all
the surrounding uproar, who more than any one else seemed to exercise
his thoughts. Was the rural constable really asleep, or was he only
artfully pretending to be so? Buteau nudged him with his elbow, and
felt somewhat relieved on discovering that he was slobbering all over
his sleeve. He then concentrated his attention upon the schoolmaster,
upon whose face he fancied he could detect a most extraordinary
expression. Why was he looking so different from what he usually did?
As a matter of fact, Lequeu, although pretending to be absorbed in his
book, was shaken by sudden starts, with his features contracted by
a rising fit of anger. The conscripts, with their songs and idiotic
merriment, seemed to be completely upsetting him.
"The infernal brutes!" he muttered, still managing to restrain himself.
For some months past his position in the village had been growing very
uncomfortable. He had always been rough and harsh with the children,
and he was given to sending them off home to the paternal dung-heap
with a box on the ears. But latterly he had grown still more violent,
and there had been a nasty business about a little girl's ear which he
had slit with a blow from a ruler. Several of the children's parents
had then written, asking that he might be removed. Now, too, Berthe
Macqueron's approaching marriage destroyed a long-standing hope of his,
annihilating the edifice he had been mentally constructing for years
past. It came upon him like a thunderbolt. Oh, those hateful peasants!
a foul brood that denied him its daughters, and was about to get him
turned adrift merely on account of a little hussy's ear!
He now suddenly tapped the book he was holding, just as though he were
in his class-room, and cried out to the conscripts:
"For goodness' sake, let us have a little less noise! You seem to
think it would be very amusing to have your brains blown out by the
Prussians!"
The company turned their eyes upon him in amazement. Amusing? No there
was certainly nothing amusing in that idea! Delhomme observed, however,
that every one was bound to defend his own homestead and soil, and
that if ever the Prussians came to La Beauce they would find that the
Beaucerons were no cowards. But as to being sent off to fight for other
folks' fields! No, there was certainly nothing amusing about that!
Just then Delphin now made his appearance, accompanied by Nénesse. His
face was greatly flushed, and his eyes were glistening feverishly. He
had heard Delhomme's remark, and, as he seated himself at one of the
tables with the conscripts, he shouted out:
"Yes, if the Prussians show their faces here, we'll make mince-meat of
them pretty sharp!"
The handkerchief secured round his hand attracted attention, and
inquiries were made as to what was the matter. Oh, nothing at all! he
said; he had merely cut himself. Then, bringing down his other fist
with such violence as to make the table rattle, he ordered a bottle of
wine.
Canon and Hyacinthe were looking at the young fellows, not with any
show of anger, but rather with an air of condescending pity. To be
so happy, the conscripts must certainly be very young and idiotic.
By-and-bye, Canon, who was now very drunk, grew maudlin over his
theories for the reorganisation of future happiness. Resting his chin
on his hands, he spoke as follows:
"War, confound it! Ah! it's time we became the masters! You all know my
scheme; no more military service, no more taxes; everybody's appetites
and desires completely satisfied with the least possible amount of
work. You approved of the plan yourselves, and declared that a man must
be his own enemy not to approve of it. And it will soon be realised;
the day is fast approaching when you will be able to retain your money
and your children, providing you only rally to our side."
Hyacinthe was just nodding his approval, when Lequeu, quite unable to
restrain himself any longer, burst out violently:
"Shut up, you infernal buffoon, with your earthly paradise and
your precious schemes of forcing every one to be happy in spite of
themselves! It's all a preposterous lie! Could such a state of affairs
possibly exist among us? We are too rotten and polluted. Before such
things could happen, some wild, savage crew--Cossacks or Chinese--would
have to come and make a clean sweep of us."
This outburst on the part of the schoolmaster created such a feeling of
amazement that every voice was hushed, and complete silence reigned in
the room. What next? This cold-blooded, sneaking fellow, who had never
allowed any one to have the least inkling of his private opinions, had
at last spoken out! They all listened to him attentively, especially
Buteau, who anxiously waited for the rest of his discourse, as though
what he was going to say might have some sort of connection with the
subject that was uppermost in his mind.
The smoke had cleared off, thanks to the open window, and the soft,
damp, evening air had streamed into the room, reminding one of the
peacefulness of the slumbering country outside. The schoolmaster,
bursting the bonds of timid reserve which had restrained him for ten
years, no longer caring for anything, cast all decorum of speech to
the winds, smarting under the blow that had wrecked his means of
livelihood, and letting off all the accumulated hatred which was
choking him.
"Do you think that the people about here are bigger fools than their
own calves, that you come telling them that roasted larks will fall
from the sky into their mouths? Before any such scheme as yours becomes
practicable, the earth itself will have been annihilated."
Canon, who had never yet come across his match, visibly quailed before
the schoolmaster's violent onslaught. He made an attempt to fall back
upon his stories about his friends in Paris, repeating their theories
of all the land reverting to the State, which would organise enormous
farms, conducted on strictly scientific principles. However, Lequeu cut
him short.
"Yes, I know all about that nonsense! But, long before you get a chance
of trying your fine system of agriculture, all our French soil will
have disappeared, submerged beneath a deluge of corn from America.
Listen now for a moment: this little book that I have been reading
again supplies a lot of particulars on the subject which will entirely
bear me out. I said so, once before. Yes, indeed, our peasants may take
themselves off to bed, for the candle is burnt out."
Then, in the tone of voice in which he was wont to give a lesson to his
pupils, he proceeded to speak about the corn supplies of America. There
were mighty plains over there, he told them, as large as kingdoms, in
the midst of which La Beauce would be quite lost, like a mere clod
of earth. The soil, too, was so fertile that, instead of having to
manure it, it was necessary to drain off its exuberant richness by a
preliminary crop; but, in spite of that, two full crops were harvested
every year. There were farms of seventy thousand acres in extent,
divided into sections, which were again cut up into sub-sections,
each section being under the supervision of a steward, and each
sub-section under the direction of a foreman. They were provided with
houses for the men, stables for the cattle, sheds for the tools, and
other buildings where all the cooking was carried on. There were
whole battalions of farm-servants, who were hired at spring-time, and
organised just like campaigning armies--boarded, lodged, and physicked,
and then paid off in the autumn. The furrows ploughed and sown there
were miles in length, and there were spreading seas of ripening corn,
the limits of which extended far out of sight. Men were merely employed
there as supervisors, all the actual work being done by machinery.
There were double-ploughs, furnished with deep-cutting discs;
sowing-machines, weeding-machines, reaping-machines, and locomotive
threshing-machines, that also stacked the straw. There were ploughmen
who were skilful engineers, and squads of workmen who followed every
machine on horseback, always ready to dismount and tighten a screw, or
change a bolt, or hammer a bar. The soil was, in fact, like a sort of
bank, managed by financiers. It was treated systematically, and cropped
smooth and close to the very surface, yielding to impersonal and
mechanical science ten times as much as it offered to men's loving arms.
"And can you hope to carry on the struggle," he continued, "with your
twopenny-halfpenny tools?--you who are so ignorant, so entirely without
ambition, and who are quite contented to go grubbing on in the same old
way as your forefathers? Ah! you are already sunk up to your bellies
in the corn from over the sea, and it is still rising about you, for
the ships are ever bringing larger quantities of it over. Wait a little
longer and you will find it up to your shoulders; then it will reach
your mouths, and then the flood will close over your heads! A flood!
aye, a torrent--a wild deluge that will sweep you all away!"
The peasants opened their eyes widely, quite panic-stricken by the
thought of this inundation of foreign corn. They were already suffering
distress; were they really going to be altogether drowned and swept
away, as the schoolmaster said? They took his metaphors very literally.
Would Rognes, their fields, and the whole of La Beauce be swallowed up?
"No, never!" cried Delhomme, choking with emotion. "The Government will
protect us."
"A pretty protector, indeed, the Government will be!" Lequeu resumed,
contemptuously. "It will need all its time to protect itself! You
behaved most ridiculously in electing Monsieur Rochefontaine. The
master of La Borderie, at any rate, behaved consistently in supporting
Monsieur de Chédeville. However, after all, whether you have the one
or the other, it is only putting the same plaster on a wooden leg. No
Chamber would ever dare to impose a duty high enough. Protection cannot
save you; you are doomed beyond all redemption!"
There was now a noisy outbreak, and all the peasants began to speak
at once. Couldn't something be done to stop the disastrous influx of
this foreign corn? They would sink the ships in the docks, and shoot
the fellows who brought the corn over! Their voices quivered with
emotion, and they almost seemed inclined to burst into tears, and
stretch out their hands and pray that they might be saved from all this
abundance--from this cheap bread which threatened to ruin the country.
The schoolmaster grinned with malicious satisfaction, and told them
that nobody had ever heard of such ideas as now possessed them. Their
previous fears had always been of famine--that they would not have corn
enough; and surely it must now be all u.p. with them since they felt
afraid of having too much! He was growing quite intoxicated with his
own eloquence, and he shouted above the furious cries of protest:
"You are a perishing and worn-out race. Your imbecile love of the soil
has eaten you up. Yes, you are each the slave of a patch of ground,
which has so narrowed your minds that, for the sake of it, you would
murder your fellows! For centuries past you have been wedded to the
soil, and it has always betrayed you! Look at America! There the
agriculturist is master of the soil. He isn't bound to it by any family
ties, any sentimental considerations; as soon as one plot is exhausted,
he goes further on and takes another. If he hears that more fertile
plains have been discovered some three hundred leagues away, he moves
his tent and goes off there. Thanks to his machines, he has only to
will and do. He is free, and he's growing rich; while you are slaves,
and are dying of starvation!"
Buteau's face had grown pale, for Lequeu had looked at him when
speaking of murder. He tried to appear quite unconcerned, however.
"Well, we are as we are," he said. "What is the good of our troubling
ourselves, since you yourself say that it will be all to no purpose?"
Delhomme signified his approval of this, and every one began to
laugh: Lengaigne, Clou, Fouan, even Delphin and the conscripts, who
derived a certain amount of amusement from what was going on, as they
hoped it would lead to blows. Canon and Hyacinthe, annoyed at seeing
"inky fingers," as they called the schoolmaster, shout louder than
themselves, also affected to snigger merrily. They were even inclined
to side with the peasants.
"It's folly to quarrel," said Canon, shrugging his shoulders. "What is
wanted is organisation."
Lequeu made a gesture of hot anger.
"I've no patience to hear such folly talked! I am for making a clean
sweep of everything!"
His face was quite livid, and he flung these words in their faces as
though he wished to knock them down with them.
"You pitiful cowards!" he cried. "Yes, you're all of you cowards, you
peasants! To think you are more numerous and stronger, and yet that
you let yourselves be devoured by the middle-class townsfolk and the
workmen! I've but one regret, and that is that my father and mother
were peasants. Perhaps that is the reason why you fill me with such
disgust. There is nothing to prevent you becoming the masters. But you
won't combine together. You keep yourselves isolated from each other,
full of suspicion and ignorance, and you exhaust all your knavery in
preying upon one another. What is it that you are concealing beneath
the surface of your stagnant water? for you are like stagnant pools
which men believe to be deep, though they would not drown a cat! To
think that you should be such a mighty, undeveloped force, a force
which might mould the future, and yet you lie about as inert as logs
of wood! And what makes it all the more exasperating is that you have
ceased to believe in what the priests tell you. If there be no God,
what is it that holds you back? As long as you stood in fear of hell,
one could understand that you continued to grovel on your bellies;
but now, rush forward! pillage everything! burn everything! As a
commencement, it will perhaps be simpler for you to go on strike. You
have all got some savings, and you could hold out as long as would be
necessary. Cultivate the ground for yourselves, don't carry anything to
market, not a single sack of corn, not a single bushel of potatoes! Let
Paris starve! That's the way to set to work."
A gust of cold air, wafted from the distant blackness of the night,
had rushed in through the open window. The flames of the lamps were
shooting up very high. No one now attempted to interrupt the excited
speaker, despite the abuse that he lavished upon everybody.
He now banged his book down on a table, making the glasses jingle, and
proceeded to finish his oration:
"I have told you all that; but still I am quite easy about the future.
Cowards you may be now, but when the proper time comes I know that
you will be the fellows to make a clean sweep of everything. It has
been so more than once before, and it will be so once again. Wait till
misery and hunger send you rushing down upon the towns like so many
wolves! Very likely the occasion will arise anent this corn which is
being brought from over the sea. When there has been too much of it
there won't be enough of it, and then there will be scarcity and famine
again. It is always for the sake of corn that men rise up in rebellion
and slay each other! Yes, let the towns be burned down and razed to the
ground, the villages deserted, the fields uncultivated, over-run with
brambles, and watered with streams of blood; then perhaps they will
hereafter bring forth bread for those who are born into the world when
we are gone!"
Lequeu now violently tore the door open and disappeared. A yell from
the stupefied peasants followed him. The scoundrel! He wanted bleeding!
A man who had always been so pacific and quiet! Surely he must be going
mad! Delhomme, who had quite lost his habitual placidity, declared his
intention of writing to the prefect, and the others pressed him to do
so. However, it was Hyacinthe, with his '89 and his humanitarian motto
of "Liberty, equality, and fraternity," and Canon, with his schemes for
the compulsory and scientific reorganisation of society, who appeared
the most indignant. They sat there with pale faces, exasperated at not
having been able to find a word to say in reply, and now expressing
themselves in much stronger terms than the peasants did; bellowing out,
in fact, that a fellow of that sort ought to be guillotined. Buteau,
upon hearing the orator demand so much blood--flowing streams of
blood to which he seemed to point with his finger--had risen from his
seat in trembling alarm, his head wagging involuntarily from nervous
excitement, just as though he were signifying approval of what was
being said. Then he glided along the wall, casting furtive glances to
make sure that he was not being followed, and on reaching the door, he,
too, disappeared.
The conscripts now reverted to their uproarious merriment again. They
were bellowing loudly, and insisting upon Flore cooking them some
sausages, when Nénesse suddenly hustled them aside and sprang over
a bench to reach Delphin, who had just fainted away, with his face
lying on the table. The poor fellow was as white as a sheet. His
handkerchief, which had slipped off his wounded hand, was covered
with crimson stains. The conscripts yelled into Bécu's ear, for he
was still hard asleep; but at last he awoke, and gazed at his son's
mutilated hand. He knew what it meant, for, seizing hold of a bottle,
he brandished it as if anxious to kill the lad. Then, as he led him,
tottering, away, he could be heard indulging in noisy oaths, amid which
he burst into tears.
Hourdequin, having heard of Françoise's accident while he was dining,
repaired to Rognes that evening, prompted by his kindly feeling for
Jean, to inquire how the young woman was getting on. Setting out on
foot, he smoked his pipe as he walked along through the black darkness,
brooding over his troubles and vexations amid the unbroken silence of
the night. Feeling at last somewhat calmer, and wishing to prolong his
walk, he went down the hill before calling at his old servant's house.
When he reached the foot of the declivity, the sound of Lequeu's voice,
which streamed forth from the open window of the tavern, penetrating
the darkness of the surrounding country, made him halt, and he remained
listening for a long time, standing motionless in the gloom. When he
at length began to ascend the hill again, the schoolmaster's voice
followed him, and even when he reached Jean's house, he could still
hear it, sounding weaker, and seemingly shriller in the distance, but
still as sharply incisive as the keen edge of a knife.
Jean was standing at his door, leaning against the wall. He had
not been able to remain any longer at Françoise's bedside. He felt
suffocated there, and altogether too miserable.
"Well, my poor fellow," Hourdequin now asked, "how is your wife?"
The unhappy man broke into a gesture of despair.
"Ah, sir, she's dying!"
Then neither of them said another word; and the deep silence around
them was only broken by the distant sound of Lequeu's voice, which
still persistently rang out.
The farmer could not help listening, despite himself, and presently he
angrily exclaimed:
"Do you hear that fellow ranting? How awful such talk as that sounds
when one's in trouble!"