Complete Works of Emile Zola (966 page)

Every night when she went to bed she exclaimed to Buteau:

“It’s all my sister! But if she causes me any more annoyance, I’ll have her turned out of the house!”

This course, however, would by no means have suited Buteau.

“A fine notion, indeed! Why, we should have all the country-side crying shame on us! What a plague you women are! I shall have to duck you both in the pond till you can live together in harmony.”

Two months more passed away, and Lise, who was so upset, might have sugared her coffee twice, as she said, without finding it to her palate. She divined whenever her sister had repelled some fresh onslaught of her husband’s, for she then had a further experience of his angry ill-temper, and she now lived in constant dread of these repeated repulses, feeling anxious whenever she caught sight of him creeping up slily behind Françoise’s skirts, and making sure that when he came back again he would be in a violent temper, breaking everything that came in his way, and making the whole house wretched. These were hateful days to her, and she could not forgive the obstinate wench for not restoring tranquillity.

One day matters reached a terrible pitch. Buteau, who had gone down into the cellar with Françoise to draw some cider, came up again so harshly repulsed, and in a state of such raging anger, that for the merest trifle, just because his soup was too hot, he hurled his plate against the wall, and then rushed out of the room, after knocking Lise down with a blow that would almost have killed an ox.

Crying and bleeding, she struggled on to her feet again, with her cheek sadly swollen, and at once fell foul of her sister.

“You dirty drab!” she cried, “go to bed with him, and have done with it! I’m sick to death of it all; and if you persist in being obstinate, simply to make him beat me, I’ll run away!”

Françoise listened to her, quite pale and horrified.

“As true as God hears me, I’d rather do that,” continued Lise. “Perhaps he’d leave us in peace then! “

She fell down on a chair, and began to sob spasmodically. Her fat body, which had now begun to shrink, bespoke her recklessness, her one desire for quiet happiness, even at the cost of sharing her husband with another. She would still keep a share of him herself, and would have all that was necessary. People, she thought, had foolish ideas on these matters. A husband was not like a loaf, that was consumed at each bit one ate. Ought they not to agree amongst them­selves, and live together in a friendly fashion?

“Come, now, why won’t you?” she asked.

Choked with disgust, Françoise could only cry, angrily:

“You are more disgusting than he is!”

Then she, too, went away to sob in the cow-house, where La Coliche gazed at her with her big, sad eyes. What roused her indignation was not so much the thing itself as the com­plaisant part she herself was to play — to surrender herself just for the sake of securing peace and quietness in the house. If Buteau had been her own husband, she thought she would never have consented to give up the least bit of him. Her bitter feeling against her sister turned into one of scorn and contempt, and she vowed to herself that she would be flayed alive rather than give way.

Her life now became still more embittered than before. She became the general drudge of the house, the beast of burden that came in for everybody’s kicks and buffettings. She was reduced to the level of a hired servant overburdened with work, and continually rated, and thumped, and ill-treated. Lise would not permit her a single hour’s leisure; but made her rise before daylight, and kept her up so late at night that the poor girl often fell asleep without having enough strength left her to undress herself. Buteau took a malicious pleasure in torturing her by his familiarities, slapping her on the loins, pinching her thighs, and falling upon her with all sorts of savage caresses, which left her bleeding, and with her eyes full of tears, but as obstinately silent as ever. Buteau himself laughed, and derived some little satisfaction whenever he saw the girl growing faint, and with difficulty refraining from crying out from sheer pain. Her body was sadly dis­coloured and disfigured with bruises and scratches. In her sister’s presence she especially forced herself to repress every sign of suffering, and to comport herself as though a man’s hands were not actually fingering her flesh. Sometimes, how­ever, she could not altogether control herself, but replied to Buteau’s attacks by a swinging blow. Then there would be a general engagement. Buteau would belabour Françoise; while Lise, under the pretence of separating them, would assail them both with vigorous kicks from her heavy boots. Little Laure and her big brother Jules yelled at the top of their voices, and all the dogs about the premises began to bark, arousing the pity of the neighbours for Françoise. “Ah, poor girl!” they used to say; “she must have rare pluck to remain in such a place!”

Her remaining with the Buteaus was, indeed, the standing wonder of all Rognes. Why didn’t she run away? the neigh­bours asked of each other. The knowing ones shook their heads; the girl was not of age, she still had another eighteen months to wait. To run away would be to her own disadvan­tage, for she could not take her property with her, and she showed her sense by remaining. Ah! if Fouan, her guardian, had only supported her cause? But he himself hadn’t too easy a life with his son-in-law; he had his own peace and quietness to look after, and, for the sake of his own comforts, was obliged to stand aloof. The girl, moreover, with her in­dependence and self-reliance, had forbidden him to interfere in her affairs.

Every outbreak now ended in the same way.

“Off you go at once! Clear out with you!”

“Oh, yes, that’s just what you’d like! Once I was foolish, and wanted to go away; whereas now you may kill me if you choose, but you won’t get me to go. I shall stop here, and wait for what belongs to me. I want the land and the house, and I mean to have them, too; every inch and every stone!”

For the first few months Buteau’s great fear had been that Françoise might prove to be with child. He had counted the days since he had caught her and Jean together among the corn, and he kept casting anxious, sidelong glances at the girl, for the arrival of a baby would have spoilt everything by necessitating his sister-in-law’s marriage. The girl herself was quite easy about the matter; but when she noticed the manifest interest that Buteau showed in her figure, she took a pleasure in puffing herself out, in order to deceive him. And whenever he seized hold of her, she always imagined that he was measuring her with his big fingers, the consequence of which was that she ended by saying to him, with a defiant air:

“Ah, there’s one coming, and growing fast enough!”

One day she even folded up some towels and wrapped them round her. But in the evening there was almost a massacre. A feeling of terror now seized her at the murderous glances which her brother-in-law cast at her; she felt quite sure that if she had really been with child the brutal fellow would have struck her some foul blow in the hope of killing her. So she discontinued her acting.

“Go and get yourself a baby!” said Buteau one day to her, with a leer.

“If I haven’t got one, it’s because I don’t choose,” she replied, angrily, turning pale.

This was quite true. She obstinately rejected Jean’s advances. Buteau, however, was none the less noisily trium­phant, and he now began to abuse the girl’s lover. A fine sort of a man he must be! he cried. Why, he must be rotten! He might be able to break people’s arms by cowardly tricks, but he hadn’t backbone enough about him to put a girl in the family-way! After that he began to overwhelm Françoise with sarcastic allusions to Jean, and indulged in filthy jokes about her own person.

When Jean heard of Buteau’s remarks about himself he threatened to go and break his jaw. He was constantly haunting Françoise, and beseeching her to yield again. He’d soon let them see, he said, if he couldn’t get a child, and a big one, too! His lustful desire was now heightened by anger. But the girl was always ready with some fresh reason for putting him off. She had no great dislike for him, it is true, she simply had no desire for him, that was all; and, indeed, she must have been completely free from all desire whatever not to have given way and surrendered herself when she fell into his arms behind a hedge, still flushed and angered by one of Buteau’s onslaughts. Oh, the filthy swine! She always spoke of him as a filthy swine, boiling over with passion and excite­ment; but growing suddenly cold and calm again when Jean tried to profit by the opportunity. “No, no!” she cried. She felt ashamed at the thought of it. One day, when he pressed her very closely, she told him that he must wait a little longer, till the evening of their wedding-day. This was the first time that she had said anything that could be interpreted into an engagement, for she had hitherto always avoided giving Jean a definite answer when he asked her to be his wife. After that it was taken for granted that he should marry her, but not until she was of age, and became entitled to her property, in a position to demand the rendering of accounts. This, Jean now felt, was the most prudent course: he advised the girl to be as patient as she could in the meantime, and he ceased to worry her with his importunities, except at times when the idea of a spree was strong within him. Françoise, feeling easy and tranquil at the thought of a promise which was not to be redeemed for a long time, contented herself by grasping his hands so as to make him desist, and gazing at him with her pretty, beseeching eyes, the look of which seemed to say that she did not wish to risk having a child unless its father was her husband.

Though Buteau had now satisfied himself that she was not in the family-way, he was seized with a fresh fear that she might become so if she saw anything more of Jean. He was still greatly bothered about the latter, for folks told him on all sides that Jean had vowed he would get Françoise with child. So Buteau now exercised unremitting surveillance over his sister-in-law from morning till night, forcing her to work every single minute of the day, keeping her near-by under threat of a hiding, just as though she had been some beast of burden which could not be trusted to itself for a moment. This was a great torture for the girl. Either her brother-in-law or her sister was continually behind her, and she could not so much as go to the yard without being followed by a spying eye. At night they locked her up in her bedroom; one evening, after a quarrel, she even found the shutter of her little window secured by a padlock. In spite of all their strict surveillance, however, she managed now and then to make her escape, and upon her return there were very violent scenes, the girl having to submit to the most disgusting questions, and sometimes even to examinations of her person, Buteau seizing hold of her by the shoulders while his wife partially undressed her and scrutinized her. All this brought her upon easier terms with Jean, and she made several appointments with him, taking a pleasure in thwarting her tormentors. She might even have yielded to her lover, if she had known that Buteau and Lise were hiding behind them watching. At all events, she again repeated her promise, that come what might, she would certainly be his in time; and she swore to him in the most solemn way that Buteau had lied when he boasted that he slept with both the sisters. He had said that, she continued, from mere braggartism, and in the hope of bringing about a state of affairs which did not exist. Jean, who had previously been much tormented on this score, was quite satisfied with Françoise’s explanation, and felt much easier in mind. As they parted they kissed each other affectionately; and from this time forward the girl took the young man for her confidant and adviser, trying to see him as often as possible, and doing nothing without his sanction and approbation; while he, on his side, now made no further attempts upon her, but treated her like a comrade whose interests were identical with his own.

Every time now that she ran to meet him behind a wall, the conversation was of a similar kind. The girl excitedly tore open her bodice or pulled up her sleeves.

“See!” she exclaimed; “just look where that swine has been pinching me again!”

Then Jean would look at her flesh, remaining quite calm and unimpassioned.

“He shall be made to pay for it! You must show it to the women about here. But don’t try to do anything to avenge yourself just at present. By-and-bye we will have justice, when we have got the power on our side.”

“And that sister of mine,” continued Françoise, “stands by and watches him. Only yesterday, when he sprang upon me, instead of throwing a pail of cold water over him, she never stirred.”

“Your sister will have a bad time of it yet with this scoun­drel. You needn’t be afraid. He can’t force you, so long as you refuse to let him have you, and you can get over all the rest. If we keep united, we shall beat him.”

Although old Fouan did his best to steer clear of the quarrels, he was always made to suffer from them. If he remained in the house and tried to keep silent he was straightway forced into the row; and if he went out he found himself upon his return in the midst of a scene of confusion, his mere appearance often sufficing to rekindle the flame again. So far, he had never had any real physical suffering, but there now commenced a season of privations, of scantily-doled food, and a suppression of all his little indulgences. The old man was no longer stuffed with grub, as had been the case at first; every time that he cut too thick a slice of bread he was assailed with abuse. What a bottomless pit his belly was! they cried. The less he did, the more he stuffed and swilled! Every quarter, when he went to Cloyes to receive from Monsieur Baillehache the interest on the money realised by the sale of his house, he was strictly watched, and his pockets were emptied on his return. Françoise was reduced to pilfering her sister’s coppers to buy him a little tobacco, for she herself was kept equally destitute of pocket-money. The old man also felt very uncomfortable in the damp room where he slept, now that he had broken one of the panes in the window, the aperture having merely been stuffed with straw to save the expense of a new piece of glass. Oh, those beastly children! he moaned; they were all equally barbarous! He growled and grumbled from morning till night, and bitterly regretted having left the Delhommes, sick at heart at now finding himself so much worse off than before. However, he concealed his feelings as far as possible, and it was only his involuntary exclamations that testified to their existence, for he knew that Fanny had asserted that he would return and ask her on his knees to take him back again. That remark made it impossible for him to return; it would sear his heart for ever, like a bar of iron that he could never remove. He would rather die of hunger and indignation with the Buteaus, so he told himself, than return and humble himself before the Delhommes.