Complete Works of Emile Zola (1012 page)

In fact, she had been taken with one of her fits of charity, which made her give all she owned that she might overwhelm those who had nothing. At the idea of suffering, her whole soul melted into a pitiful fraternity. She went often to the
pere
Mascart’s, a blind paralytic on the Rue Basse, whom she was obliged to feed herself the broth she carried him; then to the Chouteaux, a man and his wife, each one over ninety years of age, who lived in a little hut on the Rue Magloire, which she had furnished for them with articles taken from the attic of her parents. Then there were others and others still whom she saw among the wretched populace of the quarter, and whom she helped to support from things that were about her, happy in being able to surprise them and to see them brighten up for a little while. But now, strange to say, wherever she went she encountered Felicien! Never before had she seen so much of him; she who had avoided going to her window for fear that he might be near. Her trouble increased, and at last she was very angry.

But the worst of all in this matter was that Angelique soon despaired of her charity. This young man spoilt all her pleasure of giving. In other days he might perhaps have been equally generous, but it was not among the same people, not her own particular poor, of that she was sure. And he must have watched her and followed her very closely to know them all and to take them so regularly one after the other.

Now, go when she might with a little basket of provisions to the Chouteaux, there was always money on the table. One day, when she went to
pere
Mascart, who was constantly complaining that he had no tobacco, she found him very rich, with a shining new louis d’or on his table. Strangest of all, once when visiting
mere
Gabet, the latter gave her a hundred franc note to change, and with it she was enabled to buy some high-priced medicines, of which the poor woman had long been in need, but which she never hoped to obtain, for where could she find money to pay for them?

Angelique herself could not distribute much money, as she had none. It was heart-breaking to her to realise her powerlessness, when he could so easily empty his purse. She was, of course, happy that such a windfall had come to the poor, but she felt as if she were greatly diminished in her former self-estimation. She no longer had the same happiness in giving, but was disturbed and sad that she had so little to distribute, while he had so much.

The young man, not understanding her feelings, thinking to conquer her esteem by an increase of gifts, redoubled his charity, and thus daily made hers seem less.

Was not it exasperating to run against this fellow everywhere; to see him give an ox wherever she offered an egg? In addition to all this, she was obliged to hear his praises sung by all the needy whom he visited: “a young man so good, so kind, and so well brought up.” She was a mere nothing now. They talked only of him, spreading out his gifts as if to shame hers. Notwithstanding her firm determination to forget him, she could not refrain from questioning them about him. What had he left? What had he said? He was very handsome, was he not? Tender and diffident as a woman! Perhaps he might even have spoken of her! Ah, yes indeed! That was true, for he always talked of her. Then she was very angry; yes, she certainly hated him, for at last she realised that he weighed on her breast too heavily.

But matters could not continue in this way for ever, a change must take place; and one May evening, at a wondrously beautiful nightfall, it came. It was at the home of the Lemballeuse, the family who lived in the ruins of the mill. There were only women there; the old grandmother, seamed with wrinkles but still active, her daughter, and her grandchildren. Of the latter, Tiennette, the elder, was a large, wild-looking girl, twenty years of age, and her two little sisters, Rose and Jeanne, had already bold, fearless eyes, under their unkempt mops of red hair. They all begged during the day on the highway and along the moat, coming back at night, their feet worn out from fatigue in their old shoes fastened with bits of string. Indeed, that very evening Tiennette had been obliged to leave hers among the stones, and had returned wounded and with bleeding ankles. Seated before their door, in the midst of the high grass of the Clos-Marie, she drew out the thorns from her flesh, whilst her mother and the two children surrounded her and uttered lamentations.

Just then Angelique arrived, hiding under her apron the bread which she had brought them, as she did once every week. She had entered the field by the little garden-gate, which she had left open behind her, as she intended to go back as quickly as possible. But she stopped on seeing all the family in tears.

“What is the matter? Why are you in such distress?”

“Ah, my good lady!” whined the mother Lemballeuse, “do not you see in what a terrible state this great foolish girl has put herself? To-morrow she will not be able to walk, so that will be a whole day lost. She must have some shoes!”

Rose and Jeanne, with their eyes snapping from under their tangled hair, redoubled their sobs, as they cried out loudly —

“Yes, yes! She must have some shoes! She must have some shoes!”

Tiennette, half lifting up her thin, dark face, looked round furtively. Then, fiercely, without a word, she made one of her feet bleed still more, maddened over a long splinter which she had just drawn out by the aid of a pin, and which must have pained her intensely.

Angelique, quite touched by the scene, offered her the gift.

“See! Here at least is some bread.”

“Oh, bread!” said the mother. “No doubt it is necessary to eat. But it is not with bread that she will be able to walk again, of that I am certain! And we were to go to the fair at Bligny, a fair where, every year, she makes at least two francs. Oh, good heavens! What will become of us if she cannot go there?”

Pity and embarrassment rendered Angelique mute. She had exactly five sous in her pocket. It surely was not with five sous that one could buy a pair of shoes, even at an auction sale. As it had often done before, her want of money now paralysed her. And that which exasperated her still more and made her lose her self-control was that at this moment, as she looked behind her, she saw Felicien, standing a few feet from her in the darkening shadow. Without doubt he had heard all that had been said; perhaps even he had been there for a great while, for he always appeared to her in this way when least expected without her ever knowing whence he came or whither he was going.

She thought to herself, “He will give the shoes.”

Indeed, he had already come forward. The first stars were appearing in the pale sky. A sweet, gentle quiet seemed to fall down from on high, soothing to sleep the Clos-Marie, whose willows were lost in the dusk. The Cathedral itself was only a great black bar in the West.

“Yes, certainly, now he will offer to give the shoes.”

And at this probability she was really quite discouraged. Was he always, then, to give everything? Could she never, even once, conquer him? Never! Her heart beat so rapidly that it pained her. She wished that she might be very rich, to show him that she, too, could make others happy.

But the Lemballeuse had seen the good gentleman. The mother had rushed forward; the two little sisters moaned as they held out their hands for alms, whilst the elder one, letting go of her wounded ankles, looked at the new-comer inquiringly with her wild eyes.

“Listen, my noisy children,” said Felicien. Then, addressing the mother, he continued, “You may go to the Grand Rue, at the corner of the Rue Basse—”

Angelique had understood immediately, for the shoemaker had his shop there. She interrupted him quickly, and was so agitated that she stammered her words at random.

“But that is a useless thing to do! What would be the good of it? It is much more simple—”

Yet she could not find in her own mind the more simple thing she desired. What could she do? What could she invent, so to be before him in giving her charity? Never had it seemed to her possible she could detest him as she did now.

“You will say from me, that it is I who have sent you,” continued Felicien. “You will ask—”

Again she interrupted him. The contest lasted a moment longer. She repeated in an anxious way:

“It is, indeed, much more simple; it is much easier—”

Suddenly she was calm. She seated herself upon a stone, thoughtfully examined her shoes, took them off, and then drew off her stockings, saying:

“Look! This is the best thing to do, after all! Why should you have any trouble about the matter?”

“Oh, my good young lady! God will reward you!” exclaimed the mother Lemballeuse, as she turned over the shoes and found they were not only excellent and strong, but almost new. “I will cut them a trifle on the top, to make them a little larger — Tiennette, why do you not thank her, stupid creature?”

Tiennette snatched from the hands of Rose and Jeanne the stockings they were coveting. She did not open her lips; she only gave one long, fixed, hard look.

But now Angelique realised that her feet were bare, and that Felicien saw them. She blushed deeply, and knew not what to do. She dared not move, for, were she to rise to get up, he would only see them all the more. Then, frightened, she rose quickly, and without realising what she was doing, began to run. In the grass her flying feet were very white and small. The darkness of the evening had increased, and the Clos-Marie was a lake of shadow between the great trees on one side and the Cathedral on the other. And on the ground the only visible light came from those same little feet, white and satiny as the wing of a dove.

Startled and afraid of the water, Angelique followed the bank of the Chevrotte, that she might cross it on a plank which served as a bridge. But Felicien had gone a shorter way through the brambles and brushwood. Until now he had always been overcome by his timidity, and he had turned redder than she as he saw her bare feet, pure and chaste as herself. Now, in the overflow of his ignorant youth, passionately fond of beauty and desirous for love, he was impatient to cry out and tell her of the feeling which had entirely taken possession of him since he had first seen her. But yet, when she brushed by him in her flight, he could only stammer, with a trembling voice, the acknowledgment so long delayed and which burnt his lips:

“I love you.”

She stopped in surprise. For an instant she stood still, and, slightly trembling, looked at him. Her anger and the hate she thought she had for him all vanished at once, and melted into a most delicious sentiment of astonishment. What had he said, what was the word he had just pronounced, that she should be so overcome by it? She knew that he loved her; yet when he said so, the sound of it in her ear overwhelmed her with an inexplicable joy. It resounded so deeply through her whole being, that her fears came back and were enlarged. She never would dare reply to him; it was really more than she could bear; she was oppressed.

He, grown more bold, his heart touched and drawn nearer to hers by their united deeds of charity, repeated:

“I love you.”

And she, fearing the lover, began to run. That was surely the only way to escape such a danger; yet it was also a happiness, it was all so strange. The Chevrotte was gaily singing, and she plunged into it like a startled fawn. Among its pebbles her feet still ran on, under the chill of icy water. The garden-gate was at last reached, it closed, and she disappeared.

CHAPTER VII

For two days Angelique was conscience-smitten. As soon as she was alone, she sobbed as if she had done something wrong. And this question, which she could not answer, came constantly to her mind: Had she sinned in listening to this young man? Was she lost, like the dreadful women in the Legend, who, having been tempted, had yielded to the Devil? Was life to-day as it was centuries ago? The words, so softly uttered, “I love you,” still resounded with such a tumult in her ears, and she was confused, yet pleased by them to such a degree, that they must certainly have come from some terrible power hidden in the depth of the invisible. But she knew not — in fact, how could she have known anything in the ignorance and solitude in which she had grown up? Her anguish was redoubled by this mysterious and inexplicable struggle within her.

Had she sinned in making the acquaintance of Felicien, and then in keeping it a secret? She recalled to her mind, one by one, all the details of her daily experience during the past few weeks; she argued with her innocent scruples.

What was sin, in short? Was it simply to meet — to talk — and afterwards to tell a falsehood to one’s parents? But that could not be the extent of the evil. Then why was she so oppressed? Why, if not guilty, did she suddenly seem to have become quite another person — as agitated as if a new soul had been given her? Perhaps it was sin that had made her so weak and uncomfortable. Her heart was full of vague, undefined longings — so strange a medley of words, and also of acts, in the future, that she was frightened by them, without in the least understanding them. The blood mounted to her face, and exquisitely coloured her cheeks, as she heard again the sweet, yet appalling words, “I love you”; and she reasoned no longer, but sobbed again, doubting evident facts, fearing the commission of a fault in the beyond — in that which had neither name nor form.

But that which especially distressed her now was that she had not made a
confidante
of Hubertine. Could she only have asked her what she wished to know, no doubt the latter with a word would have explained the whole mystery to her. Then it seemed to her as if the mere fact of speaking to someone of her trouble would have cured her. But the secret had become too weighty; to reveal it would be more than she could bear, for the shame would be too great. She became quite artful for the moment, affected an air of calmness, when in the depths of her soul a tempest was raging. If asked why she was so pre-occupied, she lifted her eyes with a look of surprise as she replied that she was thinking of something. Seated before the working-frame, her hands mechanically drawing the needle back and forth, very quiet to all outward appearance, she was, from morning till evening, distracted by one thought. To be loved! To be loved! And for herself, on her side, was she in love? This was still an obscure question, to which, in her inexperience, she found no answer. She repeated it so constantly that at last it made her giddy, the words lost all their usual meaning, and everything seemed to be in a whirl, which carried her away. With an effort she recovered herself, and realised that, with needle in hand, she was still embroidering with her accustomed application, although mechanically, as if in a half-dream. Perhaps these strange symptoms were a sign that she was about to have a severe illness. One evening she had such an attack of shivering when she went to bed that she thought she would never be able to recover from it. That idea was at the same time both cruel and sweet. She suffered from it as if it were too great a joy. Even the next day her heart beat as if it would break, and her ears were filled with a singing sound, like the ringing of a distant bell. What could it mean? Was she in love, or was she about to die? Thinking thus, she smiled sweetly at Hubertine, who, in the act of waxing her thread, was looking at her anxiously.