Complete Works of Emile Zola (1842 page)

But one night their eyes fell on the gigantic disc of the moon, glaring upon them with her yellow face. Out at sea a train of fire glittered, as if some enormous fish, some serpent from the depths, were trailing endless folds of golden scales; and then the glitter of Marseilles and the outlines of the gulf were obscured. As the moon rose the light increased, the shadows became more sharply defined. That heavenly witness was unwelcome to them. They feared they might be surprised if they remained so near La Blancarde. So when they next met they left the spot and walked into the shadowy open country. They found a meeting-place in a deserted tile-field; a ruined shed there concealed a pit in which two kilns remained still open. But the hovel saddened them; they preferred to have the open sky above their heads. So they explored the clay-pits, they discovered delightful nooks, perfect little deserts, whence they could hear nothing but the barking of watch-dogs. They prolonged their walks, wandering along the rocky coast in the direction of Niolon, following the course of the narrow gorges in search of distant grottoes and crevasses. For a fortnight they thus spent their nights. The moon had now disappeared, the sky had become dark again; but it seemed to them as if La Blancarde were too small to hold their love, as if they needed all the limitless expanse beyond it.

One night, as they were following a path above L’Estaque in order to gain the gorges of La Nerthe, they fancied they could hear a muffled step keeping pace with their own behind a plantation of pines stretching beside the road. They stopped in alarm.

‘Do you hear that?’ asked Frédéric.

‘Yes; some stray dog,’ whispered Naïs.

And they continued on their way. But, at the first bend in the road, after leaving the pines, they distinctly saw a dark object glide behind the rocks. It was certainly a human being, curiously shaped, looking indeed as if it were humpbacked. Naïs uttered an exclamation.

‘Wait here,’ she said quickly.

And then she darted in pursuit of the shadow. Presently Frédéric heard the sound of rapid whispering. She returned composed, but rather pale.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ she replied.

Then after a moment’s silence she continued: ‘If you hear any steps, don’t be alarmed. It’s Toine — you know the hunchback. He wants to keep watch over us.’

And in fact Frédéric was occasionally conscious of somebody following them in the darkness. It was as if a protecting arm were stretched over them. More than once Naïs tried to drive Toine away; but the poor fellow merely asked to be her dog: he would not be seen, he would not be heard, why should he not be allowed to do as he pleased? From that time forward, if the lovers had listened attentively as they kissed in the lonely gorges, they would have caught the sound of smothered sobs behind them. It was Toine, their watch-dog, weeping in his horny hands.

But at last those walks no longer sufficed them. They grew emboldened and took advantage of other opportunities to meet. Madame Rostand, who saw nothing, still blamed her son for being over-rough towards his old playmate. Yet one day she almost surprised them kissing.

After dinner, when the evening was cool, Madame Rostand often liked to go for a walk. She then took her son’s arm and went down to L’Estaque, telling Naïs to bring her shawl as a measure of precaution. They went all three of them to see the sardine-fishers come in. Out at sea the lanterns danced, and soon the dark silhouettes of the boats could be discerned, nearing the beach, amid a muffled sound of oars. On good days joyous voices would ring out, and the women would hurry down, laden with baskets; while the three men who manned each boat set to work to empty the net, which, as it lay under the thwarts, looked like a broad dark ribbon dotted with flashes of silver. The sardines, hanging by the gills to the meshes, still struggled and threw out a metallic lustre. Then they fell into the baskets, like a shower of crown pieces, amid the pale light of the lanterns. Madame Rostand would often leave her son’s arm to Falk to the fishermen standing near a boat, interested by the sight, whilst Frédéric, standing at Naïs’s side, outside the radius of light, clasped the girl’s hands in a burst of passion. Meantime old Micoulin preserved stubborn silence. He went out fishing and came home to do a day’s work, with ever the same deep look on his face. But at last his little grey eyes assumed an uneasy expression. He threw side glances at Naïs without saying a word. She seemed to him changed, there was something about her that he could not quite understand. One day she ventured to argue with him, and he thereupon gave her a blow which cut her lip.

That evening, when Frédéric saw her mouth swollen he questioned her anxiously.

‘It’s nothing; only a blow my father gave me,’ she said.

Her tone was gloomy. And as the young man became angry and declared that he would see into it, ‘No, never mind,’ she said, ‘it’s my business. There’ll soon be an end to it.’

She never told him of the beatings which she received. Only on the days when her father had treated her cruelly she kissed her lover with more ardour, as if to avenge herself on the old man.

Naïs had at first taken the most minute precautions in going to meet Frédéric; but at last rashness seized hold of her. Then, imagining from her father’s manner that he suspected something, her prudence returned. She missed two appointments, as her mother told her that Micoulin did not sleep at night, but got up and went about from one door to another. However, on the third day, seeing Frédéric’s distress, the girl once more forgot all prudence. She went out at about eleven o’clock, resolving that she would not remain more than an hour absent; and she was in hopes that her father, being in his first sleep, would not hear her.

Frédéric was waiting for her under the olive-trees. Without telling her fears, she refused to go farther. They sat down in their usual place, looking at the sea and the glow of Marseilles. The Planier light was beaming. As Naïs watched it she fell asleep on Frédéric’s shoulder. He did not move, and, gradually yielding to fatigue himself, his own eyes closed.

No sound; only the chirrup of the grasshopper. The sea slept like the lovers. But suddenly a dark form came forth from the gloom and approached them. It was Micoulin, who, awakened by the creaking of a window, had missed Naïs from her room. He had left the house, taking a small hatchet with him. When he saw a dark mass under the olive-tree he grasped the handle of the implement. But the children did not stir, he was able to walk up to them, bend down, and look in their faces. A slight exclamation escaped him as he recognised his young master. No, no, he could not kill him thus: the blood spilt on the ground would leave traces behind it, and would cost him too dear. A peasant does not openly murder his master, for the master, even when he lies under the ground, is always the stronger. As Micoulin stood there, however, a look of savage determination came over his tanned face. At last he shook his head and went off stealthily, leaving the lovers asleep.

When Naïs returned to her room shortly before daybreak, much alarmed at having stayed away so long, she found her window just as she had left it. At breakfast Micoulin calmly watched her eat her bread. She felt safe, her father certainly knew nothing.

IV

‘AREN’T you coming out fishing any more, Monsieur Frédéric?’ asked Micoulin one evening.

Madame Rostand was sitting on the terrace in the shade of the pines, embroidering a handkerchief, whilst her son, lying at her feet, was amusing himself by throwing pebbles.

‘Not I,’ replied the young man. ‘I’m getting lazy.’

‘You are wrong,’ continued Micoulin. ‘The traps were full of fish yesterday. You can catch as many as you like just now. You’d like it. Come with me tomorrow morning.’

He said this so good-humouredly that Frédéric, who thought of Naïs, and did not want to fall out with the father, finally exclaimed: ‘Very well, then. But you’ll have to call me. I shall still be sound asleep at five o’clock.’

Madame Rostand, feeling rather uneasy, had ceased working.

‘Mind you are careful,’ she said. ‘I am always anxious when you are on the water.’

Next morning Micoulin shouted to Frédéric in vain; the young man’s window remained closed. Upon this he said to his daughter, with a savage irony which she did not detect: ‘You go. He’ll hear you, perhaps.’

Thus it was Naïs who woke Frédéric that morning. Ten minutes later the young man appeared, clad from head to foot in grey canvas. Old Micoulin was sitting on the parapet of the terrace, patiently waiting for him.

‘It’s cool, you’d better take a wrapper,’ he said.

Naïs went to fetch one, and afterwards the two men descended the steep steps which led to the sea, whilst the girl, standing above, followed them with her eyes. At the bottom old Micoulin raised his head and looked at Naïs; there were deep creases at the corners of his mouth.

For the last five days the north-east wind, the mistral, had been blowing. On the previous day it had fallen at evening, but when the sun rose it returned, at first rather gently. At that early hour the sea, lashed by the sudden gusts, was of a deep mottled blue; and the white-crested waves, illumined by the first slanting rays, chased one another over the bosom of the deep. The sky was almost white, and clear as crystal. In the distance Marseilles stood out with a distinctness which enabled one to count the windows in the fronts of the houses, whilst the rocks in the gulf were bathed in a delicate rosy haze.

‘We shall have our work cut out to get back again,’ said Frédéric.

‘Very likely,’ replied Micoulin.

He plied his oars silently, without turning his head. The young man looked for a moment at his bent back, noting his sunburnt neck and his red ears, from which little rings of gold were hanging. Then he leant over the side of the boat, gazing into the depths. The sea became rougher, and big shadowy weeds floated by, looking like tufts of some drowned man’s hair. This saddened and even alarmed Frédéric a little.

‘I say, Micoulin,’ he remarked, after a long silence, ‘the wind’s getting stronger. Be careful; you know that I swim like a lump of lead.’

‘Yes, yes; I know,’ replied the old man, in a dry voice.

Still he continued rowing, in mechanical fashion. Then the boat began to pitch, the white foam on the crests of the waves turned into clouds of spray, which flew before the wind. Frédéric did not want to exhibit his alarm, but he felt very uncomfortable, and would have given a great deal to have been on land again. At last he grew angry, and exclaimed: ‘Where the devil have you stuck your traps? Are we bound for Algiers?’

But old Micoulin, without seeming to trouble himself, again replied: ‘We’re all right; we’re all right.’

All at once he let go the oars, stood up in the boat, and looked toward the shore, as if for certain guiding marks; there was still some five minutes’ rowing to be accomplished before getting among the cork buoys which showed where the traps were placed. Once there, while Micoulin was drawing up the baskets, he remained for a few seconds with his face turned towards La Blancarde. Frédéric, following the direction of his eyes, distinctly saw a white form under the pines. It was Naïs, still leaning on the parapet.

‘How many traps have you?’ asked Frédéric.

‘Thirty-five; and we mustn’t stop here any longer than we can help,’ said Micoulin.

He laid hold of the buoy nearest to him, and drew the first basket in. The depth was enormous, there was no end to the rope. At last the trap appeared, with the large stone which had kept it at the bottom, and as soon as it left the water three fish began to leap about like birds in a cage. It seemed as if one could hear the beating of wings. In the second basket there was nothing; but in the third was found a somewhat rare capture — a small lobster, which flourished its tail violently. Frédéric was all attention now, forgetting his fears, leaning over the side of the boat, and awaiting the baskets with beating heart. Whenever he heard a sound as of wings, he felt like a sportsman who has just brought down his game. One by one, however, the baskets were drawn into the boat, the water meantime streaming around; and soon the whole thirty-five were secured. There were at least fifteen pounds of fish — a splendid catch for the Gulf of Marseilles, which from several causes, especially the extremely fine mesh of the nets which are used, has been yielding less and less fish for many years past.

‘That’s the lot,’ said Micoulin. ‘Now we can make for home.’

He had carefully arranged his baskets in the stern; but when Frédéric saw him prepare to set the sail, he remarked that, with such a wind blowing, it would be more prudent to row. The old man shrugged his shoulders. He knew what he was about. And, before hoisting the sail, he cast a last look in the direction of La Blancarde. Naïs’s white dress was still there.

Then came the catastrophe, as sudden as a thunderbolt. Afterwards, when Frédéric tried to think over what had happened, he remembered that all at once a gust had caught the sail, and that all had then overturned. He could not call anything else to mind, save a feeling of intense cold and bitter agony. He owed his life to a miracle; he had fallen on the sail, which kept him afloat. Some fishermen, having seen the accident, hastened to his help, and picked him up, as well as old Micoulin, who was already swimming towards the shore.

Madame Rostand was still asleep, and they concealed from her the danger which her son had incurred. At the foot of the terrace, Frédéric and Micoulin, dripping with water, found Naïs, who had witnessed the scene.

‘Devil take it!’ cried the old man. ‘We’d taken up the traps and were coming home. Bad luck to it all!’

Naïs, who was deadly pale, looked fixedly at her father.

‘Yes,’ she muttered, ‘it’s bad luck. But when you sail in a wind like that, you know what to expect.’

Micoulin flew into a rage.

‘What’s that to do with you, lazybones? Can’t you see Monsieur Frédéric’s shivering? Help me to get him indoors.’

The young man escaped with a day in bed, and told his mother that he had a headache. The next day he found Naïs very dispirited. She refused to meet him out of doors again, though one evening, in the passage, she kissed him passionately. She never told him of her suspicions, but from that day forward she watched over him. Then, at the end of a week, her fears began to diminish. Her father went about as usual; he even seemed kinder, and beat her less often.