Complete Works of Emile Zola (1039 page)

What a multitude! The crowd again, the crowd without end, amidst the rolling of the carriages, the whistling of the locomotives, the tinkling of the telegraph, the ringing of bells! It was like a huge body, a gigantic being stretched across the earth, the head at Paris, the vertebrae all along the line, the limbs expanding with the embranchments, the feet and hands at Havre and at the other termini. And it passed, passed, mechanically, triumphant, advancing to the future with mathematical precision, careless as to what remained of man on either side of it, who, although concealed, was still replete with life, the embodiment of eternal passion and eternal love.

Flore came in first, and lit the lamp, a small petroleum lamp without a shade, and laid the table. Not a word did they exchange. She barely threw a glance at Jacques, who stood before the window with his back turned. A
soupe-aux-choux
was being kept warm on the stove. When Misard made his appearance she was serving it. He showed no surprise to find the young man there. Perhaps he had seen him arrive. He displayed no curiosity to know what had brought him there, and asked no questions. A pressure of the hand, three brief words, and nothing more. Jacques had to take the initiative of repeating the tale about the broken connecting-rod, and how he had then thought of running over to kiss his aunt. Misard was content to gently toss his head, as if to say he considered this quite proper, and they sat down, eating slowly, and, at first, in silence.

Aunt Phasie, who since the morning had not taken her eyes from the pot where the
soupe-aux-choux
was simmering, accepted a plateful. But her husband having risen to give her the iron-water forgotten by Flore, a decanter in which a few nails were rusting, she did not touch it He, humble, puny, coughing with a nasty little cough, did not seem to remark the anxious look with which she followed his slightest movement. When she asked for salt, there being none on the table, he told her she would repent of eating so much, that it was this that made her ill; and he rose to take some, bringing her a pinch in a spoon, which she accepted without distrust, salt purifying everything, as she said. Then they spoke of the really mild weather that had prevailed for some days, and of a train that had run off the rails at Maromme. Jacques began to think that his godmother must suffer from nightmare while wide awake, for he could see nothing suspicious about this bit of a man, who was so civil, and had such expressionless eyes. They remained more than an hour at table. Twice Flore disappeared, for a few moments, at the signal of the horn. The trains went by, making the glasses ring on the table; but no one paid the least attention.

Another blare of the horn, and Flore, who had just cleared the cloth, withdrew and did not return. She left her mother and the two men seated at table before a bottle of cider brandy. All three remained thus another half hour. Then Misard, whose ferreting eyes had been resting for a minute or two on a corner of the room, took his cap and went out, with a simple good-night. He was in the habit of poaching in the little neighbouring brooks, which harboured superb eels, and never went to bed without examining his lines.

As soon as he had gone, Aunt Phasie looked fixedly at her godson, and exclaimed:

“Eh! What do you think of that? Did you see him searching over there with his eyes in that corner? He has got an idea that I have hidden my hoard behind the butter-jar. Ah! I know him, I am certain he will move the jar to-night to have a look.”

But she began perspiring, and trembling from head to foot.

“You see, there it is again! He must have drugged me. My mouth is as bitter as if I had been swallowing old sous, though God knows I have taken nothing from his hand! It’s enough to make one drown oneself. I can’t sit up any longer to-night. It’s better for me to go to bed. So goodbye, my lad, because if you leave at 7.26 it will be too early for me. And come again, won’t you? And let’s hope I shall still be here.”

He had to assist her to her room, where she got into bed, and went off to sleep, exhausted. Left by himself, he hesitated, thinking whether it would not be as well if he were to retire for the night also, and stretch himself out on the hay awaiting him upstairs in the loft. But it was only ten minutes to eight; he had plenty of time for sleep. And so, he too went out, leaving the little petroleum lamp alight in the empty, slumbering house, shaken ever and anon by the abrupt thunder of a train.

Jacques was surprised at the mildness of the air outside. No doubt it would rain again. A uniform milky cloud had spread over the sky, and the full moon, concealed behind it, lit up the whole vault of heaven with a reddish reflex. He could clearly distinguish the country. The land around him, the hills, the trees stood out in black against this equal, deadened light, soft as that of a night lamp. He walked round the little kitchen garden. Then he thought of going towards Doinville, as the road in that direction was not so steep as the other way. But the sight of the solitary house planted aslant on the opposite side of the line having caught his attention, he crossed the metals, passing by the side gate, the big one being already closed for the night.

He knew this house very well. He gazed at it on each of his journeys, amid the roar and jolting of his engine. It haunted him, without him being able to understand why, save for a confused sensation that it had something to do with his existence. Each time he went up and down the line, he first of all experienced a sort of dread lest he should find it no longer there, then he felt a kind of uneasiness when he perceived it still in the same place. He had never seen either the doors or windows open. All he had learnt about it was that it belonged to President Grandmorin, and on this particular night he was beset by an irresistible desire to wander round about it, so as to ascertain something more.

Jacques remained a long time on the road, facing the iron railings. He stepped back, raised himself on his toes, endeavouring to form some idea of the place. The railway, in cutting through the garden, had only left a small plot enclosed by walls in front of the house; while behind was a rather large piece of ground, simply surrounded by a quickset hedge. The dwelling, with its distressful-looking appearance, had an air of lugubrious sadness in the red reflex of this fumy night; and Jacques was about to leave it, with a shiver running over his skin, when he noticed a hole in the hedge. The idea that it would be cowardly not to go in, made him push through. His heart was beating; but, immediately, as he passed beside a greenhouse in ruins, he stopped at the sight of something dark, in a heap at the door.

“What! Is that you?” he exclaimed, astonished, recognising Flore. “What are you doing here?”

She also started with surprise. Then she answered tranquilly:

“You can see; I’m taking cords. They have left a heap there, that are rotting, without being used by anybody, and as I am always in need of them, I run over and take them.”

And, indeed, seated on the ground, with a stout pair of scissors in her hand, she was undoing the bits of cord, cutting the knots, when she failed to get them apart.

“Doesn’t the owner come here any more, then?” inquired the young man.

She began laughing.

“Oh! since that affair of Louisette,” she replied, “there’s no fear of the President risking the tip of his nose at La Croix-de-Maufras. I can pick up his cords without fear.”

He remained silent for a moment, and seemed troubled by the thought of the tragic adventure she alluded to.

“And do you believe what Louisette said?” he asked. Ceasing to laugh, she suddenly became violent, and exclaimed:

“Louisette never lied, nor did Cabuche. He is my friend.”

“Perhaps your sweetheart?” suggested Jacques.

“He, indeed!” she replied. “No, no; he is my friend. I have no sweetheart, and I don’t want one.”

She raised her powerful head, with its thick yellow mane curling very low on the forehead, and from all her massive, supple body, burst a savage energy of will. Already a legend was growing up about her in the neighbourhood. Stories were related of heroic deeds of salvage: a cart torn with a mighty jerk from before a train; a railway carriage stopped while descending the declivity at Barentin alone, like some furious beast bounding along to encounter an express. Then there was the tale of her adventure with a pointsman at the Dieppe embranchment, at the other end of the tunnel, a certain Ozil, a man about thirty, whom she seemed to have encouraged for a short time, but who having been so ill-advised as to attempt to take a liberty, had almost met his death from a blow she dealt him with a club. Virgin and warlike, she disdained the male, which finally convinced people that she certainly had something wrong with her head.

Jacques, hearing her declare that she did not want a sweetheart, continued his fun:

“Then your marriage with Ozil can’t be in a good way? Yet I’ve heard it said that you run to meet him every day through the tunnel.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Ah! To Jericho, my marriage!” she retorted. “What you say about the tunnel makes me laugh. Two miles to gallop over in the darkness, with the thought that you may get cut in two by a train if you don’t keep your eyes open. You should hear them snorting in there! But Ozil worried me. He’s not the one I want.”

“Then you want someone else?”

“Ah! I don’t know. Ah! faith, no!”

She had burst into a laugh again, while a slight embarrassment made her give her attention to a knot in the cords which she could not manage to undo. Then, without raising her head, as if very much absorbed by her occupation, she said: “And you, have you no sweetheart?”

Jacques, in his turn, became serious. He avoided looking at her, his eyes moved restlessly from side to side, and were at last fixed on space in the night. Abruptly he answered:

“No.”

“Just so,” she continued; “they told me you held women in abomination. And, besides, I’ve known you for a very long time, and you have never said anything nice. Why? Tell me.”

As he gave no answer, she made up her mind to leave the knot, and look at him.

“Do you only love your engine?” she inquired. “People joke about it, you know. They pretend you are always polishing, and making it shine, as though you had caresses for nothing else. If I tell you this, it is because I am your friend.”

He looked at her, now, in the pale light of the fumy sky. And he remembered her when she was a child. Even then, she was violent and self-willed, but she sprang to his neck, as soon as he entered the house, with all the passionate impulse of a madcap. Later on, having frequently lost sight of her, he had found her grown taller each time he saw her. She continued to put her arms round his neck, troubling him, more and more, by the flame of her great light eyes.

She was now a superb woman, and no doubt she had loved him a long time — from childhood. His heart began to beat. A sudden sensation told him that he was the one she awaited. He felt a swimming in the head, his first impulse, in the anguish he experienced, was to flee. Love had always made him mad, and he felt bent on murder.

“What are you doing there, on your feet?” she resumed. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Again he hesitated. Then, his legs suddenly becoming very tired, and himself vanquished by the desire to try love once more, he sank down beside her on the heap of cords. But he said nothing; his throat was quite dry. It was she, now, the proud, the silent one, who chattered merrily until she lost breath, deafening herself with her own verbosity.

“You see, the mistake mamma made was to marry Misard.” she began. “He’ll play her a nasty trick. I don’t care a fig, because one has quite enough to do with one’s own business. Don’t you think so? And, besides, mamma sends me off to bed as soon as I want to cut in. So she must do the best she can by herself! I pass my time outside the house, I do. I am thinking of things for later on. Ah! you know, I saw you go by this morning, on your engine. Look! over there, from those bushes, where I was seated. But you, you never look — I’ll tell you the things I’m thinking of, but not now, later, when we have quite become good friends.”

She had let the scissors slip away from her, and he, still silent, had caught hold of her two hands. Delighted, she abandoned them to him. But when he carried them to his burning lips, she gave an affrighted start. The warrior woman awoke, prepared, and warlike.

“No, no! Leave me alone!” she exclaimed. “I won’t have it. Keep quiet. Let’s talk.”

Without heeding her, without hearing what she said, he grasped her brutally in his arms, crushing her lips beneath his own. She uttered a feeble cry, which was more like a moan, so deep, so sweet, that it revealed the tenderness she had so long concealed; Then, as he, breathless, ceased his kisses and looked at her, he was all at once seized with frenzy, with such frightful ferocity, that he glanced round about him in search of a weapon, a stone, something, in fact, to kill her with. His eyes fell upon the scissors, shining among the bits of cord. At a bound, he secured them, and he would have buried them in her bosom had not an icy chill brought him suddenly to his senses. Casting the scissors from him, he fled, distracted, while she imagined he had left her because she had resisted his caress.

Jacques fled in the melancholy night. He ascended at full speed a path on the hillside, which brought him down to a little dale. The stones he scattered beneath his feet, alarmed him, and he tore off to the left among the bushes, there he bent round to the right, and came to a bare plateau. Abruptly descending from the high ground, he fell into the hedge bordering the line; a train flew along, roaring and flaming. At first he failed to understand what it could be, and felt terrified. Ah! yes, all this multitude that was passing, the continual flood, while he stood there in anguish!

He started off once more, climbing the hill and descending again. He now constantly encountered the railway line, either at the bottom of deep cuttings, resembling unfathomable depths, or else on embankments that shut out the horizon with gigantic barricades. This desert country, broken up into hillocks, was like a labyrinth without issue, where he, in his folly, wheeled round and round in the mournful desolation of the fallow land. And he had been beating up and down the inclines a long time, when before him he perceived the round opening, the black jaw of the tunnel. An up-train plunged into it, howling and whistling, leaving behind, when it had disappeared, absorbed by the earth, a prolonged concussion that made the ground quake.