Complete Works of Emile Zola (793 page)

Suddenly she threw herself on her bed. She seized the pillow with desperate hands, and bit it with her teeth to stifle her sobs. Long convulsive shivers shook her from head to heels. It was in vain that she closed her eyelids, seeking to shut out all sight; she saw just the same, and ever endured torture. Oh! what was she to do? Even if she were to tear her eyes out she would still see — see perhaps for ever.

The minutes glided on, and she was only conscious of everlasting torment. A paroxysm of fear made her spring to her feet. Some one must be in the room, for surely she had heard the sound of laughter. But she found that it was only her candle, which, having nearly burnt out, had broken the glass socket. Yet if anyone really had seen her! That imaginary laugh still coursed through her wildly. Then at last she slipped on a night-dress and hastily buried herself in bed, pulling up the clothes to her chin, and drawing her shivering body as closely together as possible. When the candle died out, she lay perfectly still, exhausted and over­come with shame for her wild conduct.

In the morning Pauline packed her trunk, but she could not summon up courage to tell Chanteau of her departure. In the evening, however, she was obliged to inform him of it, for Doctor Cazenove was to come the next day and take her to his relative’s house. When her uncle grasped the situation he was quite overcome, and stretched out his poor, weak hands with a wild gesture as though to detain her, while in broken, stammering sentences he besought her to stay with him. She could surely never really think of such a thing, he cried; she could not possibly desert him; it would be a murder, for it would certainly kill him. Then, seeing her gently resolute and divining her reasons, he confessed his wrong-doing of the previous day in eating a partridge. He already ex­perienced sharp burning pains in his joints. It was always the same old story. He had yielded once more in the struggle. He knew what the consequences would be if he ate, but he ate all the same, in a state of mingled pleasure and terror, quite certain that agony would ensue. Surely, however, Pauline would never desert him in the midst of one of his attacks.

And indeed it happened that about six o’clock in the morning Véronique came upstairs to inform Mademoiselle that she could hear her master bellowing in his bedroom. The woman was in a very bad temper, and went growling about the house that if Mademoiselle were going she would certainly be off as well, as she had grown quite tired of looking after such an unreasonable old man.

Thus Pauline was once more obliged to take up her position by her uncle’s bedside; and when the Doctor arrived to take her away with him, she showed him the sick man, who triumphed, bellowing his loudest, and crying to her to leave him, if she could find it in her heart to do so. Every­thing had to be postponed.

Every day the young girl trembled at the thought of see­ing Lazare and Louise come back. Their new room, the former guest-chamber, had been specially fitted up, and had been waiting ready for them ever since their marriage. They were lingering on at Caen, however, and Lazare wrote to say that he was making notes on the financial world before returning to Bonneville and shutting himself up there to start on a great novel, in which he should reveal the truth about company promoters and speculators. At last he arrived one morning without his wife, and unconcernedly announced that he was going to settle with her in Paris. His father-in-law, he said, had prevailed upon him to accept that post in the Insurance Company, on the ground that he would thus have a good opportunity for making his notes from actual observation. Later on, he added, he might perhaps come back and devote himself to literature.

When Lazare had filled a couple of trunks with the various articles he required, and Malivoire’s coach had come to fetch him and his luggage, Pauline went back into the house, feeling quite dazed and destitute of her former energy. Chanteau, still in great pain, turned to her and exclaimed:

‘You will stop now, I hope! Stay and see me buried!’

She was unwilling to make an immediate reply. Her trunk was still packed in her bedroom. She sat gazing at it for hours. Since the others were going to Paris, it would be wrong of her, she thought, to desert her uncle. She had but little confidence in her cousin’s resolutions, but, at any rate, if he and his wife should come back, she would then be free to take her departure. And when Cazenove angrily told her that she was throwing away a splendid position for the sake of ruining her life amongst people who had lived upon her ever since her childhood, she virtually made up her mind.

‘Be off with you!’ Chanteau now repeated. ‘If you are to gain so much money and become so happy that way, I won’t keep you here bothering about an old cripple like me. Be off with you!’

One morning, however, she replied to him:

‘No, uncle, I am going to stay with you.’

The Doctor, who was present, went off, raising his arms to heaven.

‘Ah! there is no doing anything with that child! And what a hornets’ nest she has got into! She will never get free of it — never!’

CHAPTER IX

Once more did the days glide by in the house at Bonneville. After a very cold winter there had come a rainy spring, and the sea, beaten by the downpour, looked like a huge lake of mud. Then the tardy summer had lasted into the middle of autumn, with heavy, oppressive suns, beneath whose over­whelming heat the blue immensity slumbered. And then the winter came round again, and another spring, and yet another summer, slipping away minute by minute, ever at the same speed, as the hours pursued their rhythmical march.

Pauline, as if her heart were regulated by that clock-like motion, had recovered all her old calmness. The placid same­ness of her days, which were passed in the same unvarying occupations, lulled the keenness of her sorrow. She came downstairs in the morning and kissed her uncle, said much the same things to the servant as she had said the day before, sat down twice at table, spent the afternoon in sewing, and then, early in the evening, went to bed. The next day the same programme was gone through, without ever any unexpected incident breaking the monotony of her life. Chanteau, who was becoming more and more disfigured by gout, which had puffed out his legs and warped and deformed his hands, sat silent, when he was not bellowing, quite absorbed in the delight of being free from pain. Véronique, who seemed almost to have lost her tongue, had fallen into a state of gloomy surliness. Only the Saturday dinners brought any relief. Cazenove and Abbé Horteur dined there with great regularity, and chatter was heard till ten o’clock or so, when the priest’s wooden shoes clattered away over the stones of the yard, and the Doctor’s gig started off at the slow trot of the old horse. Pauline’s gaiety — that gaiety which she had so bravely maintained during all her troubles — had assumed a subdued character. Her ringing laughter no longer echoed through the rooms and the staircase, though she still remained all kindliness and activity, and every morning displayed fresh courage and zest for life. By the end of a year her heart had fallen asleep, and she had come to believe that the days would now flow on in that peaceful monotony, without any­thing ever happening to awake her slumbering sorrow.

For some time after Lazare’s departure every letter from him had troubled the girl, though it was only for his letters that she lived, looking out for them with impatience, reading them over and over again, and even adding to them something from her own imagination beyond what they actually contained. For three months Lazare had written very regularly, sending, every fortnight, a very long letter, full of detail and breathing the liveliest hopes. Once more he was wildly enthusiastic. He had launched out into business and was dreaming of a colossal fortune in the immediate future. According to his account, the Insurance Company could not fail to return enormous profits. He was not, however, confining himself to that venture, but was engaging in all kinds of speculations. He appeared to have become quite charmed with the financial and mercantile world, which he now reproached himself for having judged so absurdly. All his literary schemes seemed quite abandoned. Then, too, he was never tired of writing about his domestic joys, and related all sorts of things about his wife — the kisses he had given her, and the life they led together — setting forth at length all his happiness by way of expressing his gratitude to her, whom he called his ‘dear sister.’ It was those details, those familiar passages, which made Pauline’s fingers tremble feverishly. The odour of love which the paper diffused, the perfume of heliotrope, Louise’s favourite scent, which clung to it, seemed to stupefy her. But the letters gradually became fewer and shorter. Lazare ceased to write about business, and in other respects con­fined himself to sending his wife’s love to Pauline. He offered no explanations, but simply ceased to tell her every­thing. Was he discontented with his position and already sick of finance? Was his domestic happiness compromised by misunderstandings? Pauline was afraid it must be so, and she was saddened by the evidence of her cousin’s weari­ness, which she thought she could detect in certain passages that seemed to have been reluctantly written. About the end of April, after a six weeks’ silence, she received a short note of four lines, in which her cousin told her that Louise was
enceinte.
Then silence fell again, and she had no further news.

May and June passed away. A heavy tide swept away one of the stockades, an incident which for a long time afforded subject for talk. All the Bonneville folk jeered and grinned, and the fishermen stole the broken timbers. Then came another scandalous affair. The Gonin girl, young as she was, had a baby. And afterwards all the old monotony returned, and the village vegetated at the foot of the cliffs as lifelessly as a tract of seaweed. In July it became necessary to repair the terrace-wall and one of the gable ends of the house. As soon as the workmen began to remove the first stones, the rest threatened to fall, and they were kept at work for an entire month, an expense of nearly ten thousand francs being incurred.

It was still Pauline who had to find the money. Thus another big hole was made in her little hoard in the chest of drawers, her little fortune being reduced to about forty thousand francs. She made the family’s few hundred francs a month go as far as possible by economical housekeeping, but she was obliged to sell some of her own stock, in order to avoid encroaching upon her uncle’s capital. The latter told his niece, as his wife had done before, that it would all be paid back to her some day. The girl would not have hesitated to part with all she had, for the gradual crumbling away of her fortune had destroyed all tendency to cupidity in her, and her only effort now was to keep a sufficient sum in hand for her charities. The thought that she might possibly be compelled to discontinue her Saturday distributions greatly distressed her, for they constituted her chief pleasure of the week. Since the previous winter she had begun to knit stockings, and all the young urchins in the neighbourhood now went about with warm feet.

One morning towards the end of July, as Véronique was sweeping up the rubbish left by the workmen, Pauline received a letter which quite upset her. It was written from Caen, and contained only a few words. In it Lazare informed her that he should arrive at Bonneville on the evening of the next day, but gave no explanation of his coming. She ran off to tell the news to her uncle. They both looked at each other. Chanteau’s eyes expressed the fear that his niece would leave him should Lazare and his wife contemplate a long stay in the house. He dare not question her on the subject, for he could read in her face her firm resolution to go. In the after­noon she even went upstairs to look over her clothes; still, she did not wish to have the air of taking flight.

It was about five o’clock, and lovely weather, when Lazare stepped out of a trap at the door of the yard. Pauline hastened to meet him, but, before even kissing him, she stopped short in astonishment.

‘What! Have you come alone?’

‘Yes,’ he replied quietly.

And then he kissed her on. both cheeks.

‘But where is Louise?’

‘At Clermont, with her sister-in-law. The doctor has recommended her to go to a mountainous neighbourhood. Her state of health has made her weak and languid.’

As he spoke he walked on to the house, casting long glances about the yard. He scrutinised his cousin, too, and his lips quivered with an emotion which he struggled to restrain. He showed great surprise as a dog rushed out of the kitchen and barked round his legs.

‘What dog is that?’ he asked.

‘Oh! that’s Loulou,’ Pauline replied. ‘He doesn’t know you yet, you see. Down! Loulou! You mustn’t bite your master.’

The dog went on growling.

‘He is dreadfully ugly, my dear. Where did you pick up such a fright?’

The dog was indeed a wretched mongrel, under-sized and mangy. And he had, too, an abominable temper, and was perpetually snarling, and melancholy like an outcast.

‘Oh! when he was given me I was told that he would grow up into a huge, magnificent animal, but he has always kept like that. It is the fifth one that we have tried to rear. All the others have died, and this is the only one that has managed to go on living.’

Loulou by this time had sulkily made up his mind to lie down in the sun, and turned his back upon Pauline and her cousin. Then Lazare thought of the old days and of the dog that was dead and of the new and ugly one that now occupied his place. He glanced round the yard once more.

‘My poor old Matthew!’ he murmured very softly.

On the steps of the house Véronique received him with a nod of her head, without ceasing to pare carrots. Then he walked straight on to the dining-room, where his father, excited by the sound of voices, was anxiously waiting. Pauline called from the threshold:

‘You know he has come by himself? Louise is at Clermont.’

Chanteau, whose anxious eyes brightened, began to question his son even before he had kissed him.

‘Are you expecting her to follow you? When will she join you here?’

‘Oh no! She’s not coming here at all,’ Lazare replied. ‘I’m going to join her at her sister-in-law’s before I return to Paris. I shall stay a fortnight with you, and then I shall be off.’