Complete Works of Emile Zola (1570 page)

“Where can that little gadabout have got to?” La Lepailleur continued shouting. “One can no sooner take one’s eyes off her than she runs away.”

Antonin, however, having peeped behind the booth containing the china ornaments, lurched back again, still with his hands in his pockets, and said with his vicious sneer: “Just look there, you’ll see something.”

And indeed, behind the booth, his mother again found Therese and Gregoire together. The lad was holding his bicycle with one hand and explaining some of the mechanism of it, while the girl, full of admiration and covetousness, looked on with glowing eyes. Indeed she could not resist her inclination, but laughingly let Gregoire raise her in order to seat her for a moment on the saddle, when all at once her mother’s terrible voice burst forth: “You wicked hussy! what are you up to there again? Just come back at once, or I’ll settle your business for you.”

Then Mathieu also, catching sight of the scene, sternly summoned Gregoire: “Please to place your wheel with the others. You know what I have already said to you, so don’t begin again.”

It was war. Lepailleur impudently growled ignoble threats, which fortunately were lost amid the strains of a barrel organ. And the two families separated, going off in different directions through the growing holiday-making crowd.

“Won’t that train ever come, then?” resumed Rose, who with joyous impatience was at every moment turning to glance at the clock of the little railway station on the other side of the square. “We have still ten minutes to wait: whatever shall we do?”

As it happened she had stopped in front of a hawker who stood on the footway with a basketful of crawfish, crawling, pell-mell, at his feet. They had certainly come from the sources of the Yeuse, three leagues away. They were not large, but they were very tasty, for Rose herself had occasionally caught some in the stream. And thus a greedy but also playful fancy came to her.

“Oh, mamma!” she cried, “let us buy the whole basketful. It will be for the feast of welcome, you see; it will be our present to the royal couple we are awaiting. People won’t say that Our Majesties neglect to do things properly when they are expecting other Majesties. And I will cook them when we get back, and you’ll see how well I shall succeed.”

At this the others began to poke fun at her, but her parents ended by doing as she asked, big child as she was, who in the fulness of her happiness hardly knew what amusement to seek. However, as by way of pastime she obstinately sought to count the crawfish, quite an affair ensued: some of them pinched her, and she dropped them with a little shriek; and, amid it all, the basket fell over and then the crawfish hurriedly crawled away. The boys and girls darted in pursuit of them, there was quite a hunt, in which even the serious members of the family at last took part. And what with the laughter and eagerness of one and all, the big as well as the little, the whole happy brood, the sight was so droll and gay that the folks of Janville again drew near and good-naturedly took their share of the amusement.

All at once, however, arose a distant rumble of wheels and an engine whistled.

“Ah, good Heavens! here they are!” cried Rose, quite scared; “quick, quick, or the reception will be missed.”

A scramble ensued, the owner of the crawfish was paid, and there was just time to shut the basket and carry it to the wagon. The whole family was already running off, invading the little station, and ranging itself in good order along the arrival platform.

“No, no, not like that,” Rose repeated. “You don’t observe the right order of precedence. The queen mother must be with the king her husband, and then the princes according to their height. Frederic must place himself on my right. And it’s for me, you know, to make the speech of welcome.”

The train stopped. When Ambroise and Andree alighted they were at first much surprised to find that everybody had come to meet them, drawn up in a row with solemn mien. When Rose, however began to deliver a pompous little speech, treating her brother’s betrothed like some foreign princess, whom she had orders to welcome in the name of the king, her father, the young couple began to laugh, and even prolonged the joke by responding in the same style. The railway men looked on and listened, gaping. It was a fine farce, and the Froments were delighted at showing themselves so playful on that warm May morning.

But Marianne suddenly raised an exclamation of surprise: “What! has not Madame Seguin come with you? She gave me so many promises that she would.”

In the rear of Ambroise and Andree Celeste the maid had alone alighted from the train. And she undertook to explain things: “Madame charged me,” said she, “to say that she was really most grieved. Yesterday she still hoped that she would be able to keep her promise. Only in the evening she received a visit from Monsieur de Navarede, who is presiding to-day, Sunday, at a meeting of his Society, and of course Madame could not do otherwise than attend it. So she requested me to accompany the young people, and everything is satisfactory, for here they are, you see.”

As a matter of fact nobody regretted the absence of Valentine, who always moped when she came into the country. And Mathieu expressed the general opinion in a few words of polite regret: “Well, you must tell her how much we shall miss her. And now let us be off.”

Celeste, however, intervened once more. “Excuse me, monsieur, but I cannot remain with you. No. Madame particularly told me to go back to her at once, as she will need me to dress her. And, besides, she is always bored when she is alone. There is a train for Paris at a quarter past ten, is there not? I will go back by it. Then I will be here at eight o’clock this evening to take Mademoiselle home. We settled all that in looking through a time-table. Till this evening, monsieur.”

“Till this evening, then, it’s understood.”

Thereupon, leaving the maid in the deserted little station, all the others returned to the village square, where the wagon and the bicycles were waiting.

“Now we are all assembled,” exclaimed Rose, “and the real fete is about to begin. Let me organize the procession for our triumphal return to the castle of our ancestors.”

“I am very much afraid that your procession will be soaked,” said Marianne. “Just look at the rain approaching!”

During the last few moments there had appeared in the hitherto spotless sky a huge, livid cloud, rising from the west and urged along by a sudden squall. It presaged a return of the violent stormy showers of the previous night.

“Rain! Oh, we don’t care about that,” the girl responded with an air of superb defiance. “It will never dare to come down before we get home.”

Then, with a comical semblance of authority, she disposed her people in the order which she had planned in her mind a week previously. And the procession set off through the admiring village, amid the smiles of all the good women hastening to their doorsteps, and then spread out along the white road between the fertile fields, where bands of startled larks took wing, carrying their clear song to the heavens. It was really magnificent.

At the head of the party were Rose and Frederic, side by side on their bicycles, opening the nuptial march with majestic amplitude. Behind them followed the three maids of honor, the younger sisters, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the tallest first, the shortest last, and each on a wheel proportioned to her growth. And with berets* on their heads, and their hair down their backs, waving in the breeze, they looked adorable, suggesting a flight of messenger swallows skimming over the ground and bearing good tidings onward. As for Gregoire the page, restive and always ready to bolt, he did not behave very well; for he actually tried to pass the royal couple at the head of the procession, a proceeding which brought him various severe admonitions until he fell back, as duty demanded, to his deferential and modest post. On the other hand, as the three maids of honor began to sing the ballad of Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming, the royal couple condescendingly declared that the song was appropriate and of pleasing effect, whatever might be the requirements of etiquette. Indeed, Rose, Frederic, and Gregoire also ended by singing the ballad, which rang out amid the serene, far-spreading countryside like the finest music in the world.

 * The beret is the Pyreneean tam-o’-shanter.

Then, at a short distance in the rear, came the chariot, the good old family wagon, which was now crowded. According to the prearranged programme it was Gervais who held the ribbons, with Claire beside him. The two strong horses trotted on in their usual leisurely fashion, in spite of all the gay whip-cracking of their driver, who also wished to contribute to the music. Inside there were now seven people for six places, for if the three children were small, they were at the same time so restless that they fully took up their share of room. First, face to face, there were Ambroise and Andree, the betrothed couple who were being honored by this glorious welcome. Then, also face to face, there were the high and mighty rulers of the region, Mathieu and Marianne, the latter of whom kept little Nicolas, the last prince of the line, on her knees, he braying the while like a little donkey, because he felt so pleased. Then the last places were occupied by the rulers’ granddaughter and grandson, Mademoiselle Berthe and Monsieur Christophe, who were as yet unable to walk long distances. And the chariot rolled on with much majesty, albeit that for fear of the rain the curtains of stout white linen had already been half-drawn, thus giving the vehicle, at a distance, somewhat of the aspect of a miller’s van.

Further back yet, as a sort of rear-guard, was a group on foot, composed of Blaise, Denis, Madame Desvignes, and her daughters Charlotte and Marthe. They had absolutely refused to take a fly, finding it more pleasant to walk the mile and a half which separated Chantebled from Janville. If the rain should fall, they would manage to find shelter somewhere. Besides, Rose had declared that a suite on foot was absolutely necessary to give the procession its full significance. Those five last comers would represent the multitude, the great concourse of people which follows sovereigns and acclaims them. Or else they might be the necessary guard, the men-at-arms, who watched for the purpose of foiling a possible attack from some felon neighbor. At the same time it unfortunately happened that worthy Madame Desvignes could not walk very fast, so that the rear-guard was soon distanced, to such a degree indeed that it became merely a little lost group, far away.

Still this did not disconcert Rose, but rather made her laugh the more. At the first bend of the road she turned her head, and when she saw her rear-guard more than three hundred yards away she raised cries of admiration. “Oh! just look, Frederic! What an interminable procession! What a deal of room we take up! The cortege is becoming longer and longer, and the road won’t be long enough for it very soon.”

Then, as the three maids of honor and the page began to jeer impertinently, “just try to be respectful,” she said. “Count a little. There are six of us forming the vanguard. In the chariot there are nine, and six and nine make fifteen. Add to them the five of the rear-guard, and we have twenty. Wherever else is such a family seen? Why, the rabbits who watch us pass are mute with stupor and humiliation.”

Then came another laugh, and once more they all took up the song of Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming.

It was at the bridge over the Yeuse that the first drops of rain, big drops they were, began to fall. The big livid cloud, urged on by a terrible wind, was galloping across the sky, filling it with the clamor of a tempest. And almost immediately afterwards the rain-drops increased in volume and in number, lashed by so violent a squall that the water poured down as if by the bucketful, or as if some huge sluice-gate had suddenly burst asunder overhead. One could no longer see twenty yards before one. In two minutes the road was running with water like the bed of a torrent.

Then there was a
sauve-qui-peut
among the procession. It was learnt later on that the people of the rear-guard had luckily been surprised near a peasant’s cottage, in which they had quietly sought refuge. Then the folks in the wagon simply drew their curtains, and halted beneath the shelter of a wayside tree for fear lest the horses should take fright under such a downpour. They called to the bicyclists ahead of them to stop also, instead of obstinately remaining in such a deluge. But their words were lost amid the rush of water. However, the little girls and the page took a proper course in crouching beside a thick hedge, though the betrothed couple wildly continued on their way.

Frederic, the more reasonable of the two, certainly had sense enough to say: “This isn’t prudent on our part. Let us stop like the others, I beg you.”

But from Rose, all excitement, transported by her blissful fever, and insensible, so it seemed, to the pelting of the rain, he only drew this answer: “Pooh! what does it matter, now that we are soaking? It is by stopping that we might do ourselves harm. Let us make haste, all haste. In three minutes we shall be at home and able to make fine sport of those laggards when they arrive in another quarter of an hour.”

They had just crossed the Yeuse bridge, and they swept on side by side, although the road was far from easy, being a continual ascent for a thousand yards or so between rows of lofty poplars.

“I assure you that we are doing wrong,” the young man repeated. “They will blame me, and they will be right.”

“Oh! well,” cried she, “I’m amusing myself. This bicycle bath is quite funny. Leave me, then, if you don’t love me enough to follow me.”

He followed her, however, pressed close beside her, and sought to shelter her a little from the slanting rain. And it was a wild, mad race on the part of that young couple, almost linked together, their elbows touching as they sped on and on, as if lifted from the ground, carried off by all that rushing, howling water which poured down so ragefully. It was as though a thunder-blast bore them along. But at the very moment when they sprang from their bicycles in the yard of the farm the rain ceased, and the sky became blue once more.