Complete Works of Emile Zola (1712 page)

Then Marc, making up his mind, gently responded: ‘I dared not tell you the cause of my sadness, darling, but if I suffer it is precisely because I find in you all that you reproach me with. You are never with me now. You spend whole days elsewhere, and when you come home you bring with you an air of unreason and death, which ravages our poor home. It is you who no longer speak to me. Your mind is always wandering, deep in some dim dream, even while you are sewing, or serving the meals, or attending to our little Louise. It is you who treat me with indulgent pity, as if I were a guilty man, perhaps one unconscious of his crime; and it is you who will soon have ceased to love me, if you refuse to open your eyes to a little reasonable truth.’

But she would not admit it; she interrupted each sentence that came from him with protests full of vehemence and stupefaction: ‘I! I! It is I whom you accuse! I tell you that you no longer love me, and you dare to assert that I am losing my love for you!’ Then, casting aside all restraint, revealing the innermost thoughts that haunted her day by day, she continued: ‘Ah! how happy are the women whose husbands share their faith! I see some in church who are always accompanied by their husbands. How delightful it must be for husband and wife to place themselves conjointly in the hands of God! Those homes are blessed, they indeed have but one soul, and there is no felicity that heaven does not shower on them!’

Marc could not restrain a slight laugh, at once very gentle and distressful. ‘So now, my poor wife,’ he said, ‘you think of trying to convert me?’

‘What harm would there be in that?’ she answered eagerly. ‘Do you imagine I do not love you enough to feel frightful grief at the thought of the deadly peril you are in? You do not believe in future punishment, you brave the wrath of heaven; but for my part I pray heaven every day to enlighten you, and I would give — ah! willingly — ten years of my life to be able to open your eyes, and save you
from the
terrible catastrophes which threaten you. Ah! if
you would only
love me, and listen to me, and follow me to
the land of
eternal delight!’

She trembled in his embrace, she glowed with such a fever of superhuman desire that he was thunderstruck, for he had not imagined the evil to be so deep. It was she who catechised him now, who tried to win him to her faith, and he felt ashamed, for was she not doing what he himself ought to have done the very first day — that is, strive to convert her to his own views? He could not help expressing his thoughts aloud, and unluckily he said: ‘It is not you yourself who is speaking; you have been given a task full of danger for the happiness of both of us.’

At this she began to lose her temper: ‘Why do you wound me like that?’ she asked. ‘Do you think I am incapable of acting for myself — from personal conviction and affection? Am I senseless, then — so stupid and docile that I can only serve as an instrument? Besides, even if people — who are worthy of all respect, and whose sacred character you disregard — do speak to me about you in a brotherly way which would surprise you — ought you not rather to be moved by it, ought you not to yield to such loving-kindness?

... God, who might strike you down, holds out His arms to you... yet when He makes use of me and my love to lead you back to Him you can only jest and treat me as if I were a foolish little girl repeating a lesson!

... Ah! we understand each other no longer, and it is that which grieves me so much!’

While she spoke he felt his fear and desolation increasing.

‘That is true,’ he repeated slowly, ‘we no longer understand one another. Words no longer have the same meaning for us, and every reproach that I address to you, you address to me. Which of us will break away from the other? Which of us loves the other and works for the other’s happiness?... Ah! I am the guilty one and I greatly fear that it is too late for me to repair my fault. I ought to have taught you where to find truth and equity.’

At these words, so suggestive of his profession, her rebellion became complete. ‘Yes, for you I am always a foolish pupil who knows nothing and whose eyes require to be opened. But it is I who know where truth and justice are to be found. You have not the right to speak those words.’

‘Not the right!’

‘No; you have plunged into that monstrous error, that ignoble Simon affair, in which your hatred of the Church
blinds you and urges you
to the worst iniquity. When a
man like you goes so far
as to override all truth and justice in order to strike and befoul the ministers of religion, it is better to believe that he has lost his senses.’

This time Marc reached the root of the quarrel which Geneviève was picking with him. The Simon case lay beneath everything else, it was that alone which had inspired all the discreet and skilful manoeuvring of which he beheld the effects. If his wife were enticed away from him at her relatives’ home, if she were employed as a weapon to strike him a deadly blow, it was especially in order that an artisan of truth, a possible justiciary, might be smitten in his person. It was necessary to suppress him, for his destruction alone could ensure the impunity of the real culprits.

His voice trembled with deep grief as he answered: ‘Ah! Geneviève, this is more serious. There will be an end to our home if we can no longer agree on so clear and so simple a question. Are you no longer on my side, then, in that painful affair?’

‘No, certainly not.’

You think poor Simon guilty?’

Why, there is no doubt of it! The reasons you give for asserting his innocence repose on no foundation whatever! I should like you to hear the persons whose purity of life you dare to suspect! And as you fall into such gross error respecting a case in which everything is so evident, a case which is settled beyond possibility of appeal, how can I place the slightest faith in your other notions, your fanciful social system, in which you begin by suppressing religion?’

He had taken her in his arms again, and was holding her in a tight embrace. Ah! she was right. Their slowly increasing rupture had originated in their divergence of views on that question of truth and justice, in reference to which others had managed to poison her understanding. ‘Listen, Geneviève,’ he said; ‘there is only one truth, one justice. You must listen to me, and our agreement will restore our peace.’

No, no!’

‘But, Geneviève, you must not remain in such darkness when I see light all around me; it would mean separation forever.’

No, no, let me be! You tire me; I won’t even listen.’

She wrenched herself from his embrace and turned her
back upon
him. He vainly sought to clasp her again, kiss
ing her and
whispering gentle words;
she would
not even answer. A chill swept down on the conjugal couch, and the room seemed black as ink, dolorously lifeless, as if the misfortune which was coming had already annihilated everything.

From that time forward Geneviève became more nervous and ill-tempered. Much less consideration was now shown for her husband at her grandmother’s house; he was attacked in her presence in an artfully graduated manner, as by degrees her affection for him was seen to decline. Little by little he became a public malefactor, one of the damned, a slayer of the God she worshipped. And the rebellion to which she was thus urged re-echoed in her home in bitter words, in an increase of discomfort and coldness. Fresh quarrels arose at intervals, usually at night, when they retired to rest, for in the daytime they saw little of each other, Marc then being busy with his boys and Geneviève being constantly absent, now at church, now at her grandmother’s. Thus their life was gradually quite spoilt. The young woman showed herself more and more aggressive, while her husband, so tolerant by nature, in his turn ended by manifesting irritation.

‘My darling, I shall want you to-morrow during afternoon lessons,’ he said one evening.

‘To-morrow? I can’t come,’ she replied; ‘Abbé Quandieu will be expecting me. Besides, you need not rely on me for anything.’

‘Won’t you help me, then?’

‘No, I detest everything you do. Damn yourself if you choose; but I have to think of my salvation.’

‘Then each is to go his own way?’

‘As you please.’

‘Oh! darling, darling, is it you who speak like that? Are they going to change your heart after fogging your mind? So now you are altogether on the side of the corrupters and poisoners?’

‘Be quiet, be quiet, you unhappy man! It is your work which is all falsehood and poison. You blaspheme; your justice and your truth are filthy; and it is the devil — yes, the devil — who teaches those wretched children of yours, whom I no longer even pity, for they must be stupid indeed to remain here!’

‘My poor darling, how is it possible that you, once so intelligent, can say such foolish things?’

‘When a man finds women foolish he leaves them to
themselves.’

Thereupon, in his turn losing his temper, Marc, indeed, left her to herself, making no effort to win her back by a loving caress as in former days. It often happened that they were unable to get to sleep; they lay in bed, side by side, with their eyes wide open in the darkness, silent and motionless, as if the little space which separated them had become an abyss.

Marc was particularly afflicted by the growing hatred which Geneviève manifested against his school, against the dear children whom he so passionately strove to teach. At each fresh dispute she expressed herself so bitterly that it seemed as if she became jealous of the little ones when she saw him treat them so affectionately, endeavour so zealously to make them sensible and peaceable. At bottom, indeed, Geneviève’s quarrel with Marc had no other cause; for she herself was but a child, one of those who needed to be taught and freed, but who rebelled and clung stubbornly to the errors of the ages. And in her estimation all the affection which her husband lavished on his boys was diverted from herself. As long as he should busy himself with them in such a fatherly fashion, she would be unable to conquer him, carry him away into the divine and rapturous stultification, in which she would fain have seen him fall asleep in her arms. The struggle at last became concentrated on that one point. Geneviève no longer passed the classroom without feeling an inclination to cross herself, like one who was utterly upset by the diabolical work accomplished there, who was irritated by her powerlessness to wrest from such impious courses the man whose bed she still shared.

Months, even years went by, and the battle between Marc and Geneviève grew fiercer. But no imprudent haste was displayed at the home of her relatives, for the Church has all eternity before her to achieve her ends. Besides, leaving on one side that vain marplot, Brother Fulgence, Father Théodose and Father Crabot were too skilled in the manipulation of souls to overlook the necessity of proceeding slowly with a woman of passionate nature, whose mind was an upright one when mysticism did not obscure and pervert it. As long as she should love her husband, as long as there should be no conjugal rupture, the work they had undertaken would not be complete. And it required a long time to uproot and extirpate a great love from a woman’s
heart and
flesh in such wise that it might never grow again.
Thus
Geneviève was left in the hands of Abbé Quandieu, so that he might gently rock her to sleep before more energetic action was attempted. Meantime, the others contented themselves with watching her. It was a masterpiece of delicate, gradual, but certain spell working.

Another affair helped to disturb Marc’s home. He took a great deal of interest in Madame Férou, who had installed herself with her three daughters in a wretched lodging at Maillebois, where she had sought work as a seamstress while awaiting a summons from her husband, the dismissed schoolmaster, who had fled to Brussels to seek employment there. But the wretched man’s endeavours had proved fruitless. He had found himself unable even to provide for his own wants; and tortured by separation, exasperated by exile, he had lost his head and returned to Maillebois with the bravado of one whom misery pursues and who can know no worse misfortune than that already befalling him. Denounced on the very next day, he was seized by the military authorities as a deserter, and Salvan had to intervene actively to save him from being incorporated at once in some disciplinary company. He was now in garrison in a little Alpine town, at the other end of France, while his wife and daughters, scarcely possessed of shelter and clothes, often found themselves without bread.

Marc also had exerted himself on Férou’s behalf at the time of his arrest. He had then seen him for a few minutes and was unable to forget him. That poor, big, haggard fellow lingered in his mind like the victim,
par excellence
, of social abomination. Doubtless he had made his retention in office impossible, even as Mauraisin said; but how many excuses there were for this shepherd’s son who had become a schoolmaster, who had been starved for years, who had been treated with so much scorn on account of his poverty, who had been cast to the most extreme views by his circumstances: he, a man of intelligence and learning, who found himself possessing nothing, knowing not one joy of life, whereas ignorant brutes possessed and enjoyed all around him. And the long iniquity had ended in brutal barrack-life far away from those who were dear to him, and who were perishing of misery.

‘Is it not enough to goad one into turning everything upside down?’ he had cried to Marc at their brief interview, his eyes flashing while he waved his long bony arms. ‘I
signed, it’s true, a ten years’
engagement which exempted
me from barrack-life if I gave
those ten years to teaching.

And it’s true also that I gave only eight years, as I was revoked for having said what I thought about the black-frocks’ revolting idolatry! But was it I who cancelled my engagement? And after casting me brutally adrift, without any means of subsistence, isn’t it monstrous to seize me and claim payment of my old debt to the army, in such wise that my wife and children must remain with nobody to earn a living for them? The eight years I spent in the university penitentiary, where a man who believes in truth is allowed neither freedom of speech nor freedom of action, were not enough for them! They insist on robbing me of two more years, on shutting me up in their gaol of blood and iron, and reducing me to that life of passive obedience which is the necessary apprenticeship for devastation and massacre, the mere thought of which exasperates me! Ah! it’s too much. I’ve given them quite enough of my life, and they will end by maddening me if they ask me for more.’