Complete Works of Emile Zola (972 page)

“He must be daft, then!” fiercely exclaimed Hyacinthe, who had been listening.

They now relapsed into silence, for Madame Charles and Elodie were drawing near with Buteau. They were speaking of the dear departed, and the young girl remarked how sad it made her that she had not been able to kiss her poor mother.

“But it seems she died so suddenly,” she added, with her innocent air, “and they were so busy in the shop—”

“Yes, making confectionery for some christening parties,” hastily interrupted Madame Charles, with a sidelong glance, full of meaning, at the others.

Not one of them smiled. They all preserved a gravely sympathetic air. The girl had bent her gaze upon a ring she was wearing, and she kissed it, with her eyes full of tears.

“This is all I have that belonged to her,” she said. “Grand­mother took it from her finger and brought it and put it on mine. She wore it for twenty years, and I shall keep it all my life.”

It was an old wedding-ring, of common make, that had once been engine-turned, but it was now so worn that nearly all the turning had disappeared. Its aspect seemed to tell that the hand on which it had grown so thin had never recoiled from any task or duty, but had been ever active and energetic, washing glasses and pots, making beds, rubbing, cleaning, dusting, and leaving no corner untouched. This ring, indeed, seemed to tell so much, and it had left particles of its gold in so many scenes of the past, that the men gazed at it with earnest eyes in silent emotion.

“When you have worn it away as much as your mother did,” said Monsieur Charles, choking with a sudden spasm of grief, “you will have really deserved a rest. If it could speak, it could tell you that money is earned by hard work and orderly habits.”

Elodie burst into tears, and pressed the ring to her lips again.

“I want you, you know, to be married with this ring when we find you a husband,” said Madame Charles.

The mention of marriage, however, was too much for the sorrowing girl, and she was so overcome with confusion that she threw herself wildly on her grandmother’s breast, and hid her face out of sight.

“Come, now, don’t be so shy and nervous, my little pet,” said Madame Charles, smiling, and trying to calm the girl. “You must get accustomed to the idea: there’s nothing dreadful about it. You may be quite sure that I wouldn’t say anything improper before you. Your cousin Buteau asked just now what we were going to do with you. Well, we shall begin by marrying you. Come, now, dear, look up, and don’t rub your face against my shawl like that. It will make your skin quite red and inflamed.”

Then she added in a low tone, speaking to the others, with an air of profound satisfaction:

“What an innocent darling she is! She is guilelessness itself!”

“Ah, if we hadn’t this dear angel,” said Monsieur Charles, “we should be quite overcome with trouble — on account of the matter I mentioned to you. By the way, with all this worry my roses and pinks have suffered this year; and I can’t tell what has gone wrong with my aviary, but all my birds are ailing. I have only found a little consolation in fishing; yesterday I caught a trout weighing three pounds. One ought to do one’s best to be happy when one is in the country, don’t you think so?”

Then they parted, Monsieur and Madame Charles renewing their promise to go and taste the new wine. Fouan, Buteau, and Hyacinthe walked on a few yards in silence, and then the old man gave utterance to what they were all three thinking.

“Well,” he exclaimed, “the youngster who gets her with the house will be a lucky fellow!”

Bécu, who with the office of rural constable combined that of public drummer, had duly beaten his instrument by way of proclaiming the commencement of the vintage; and on the Monday morning the whole country-side was in a state of ex­citement, for every inhabitant had his vines, and not a single family would on any account have missed going to the slopes of the Aigre that day. The excitement of the village had, however, been brought to a climax by the fact that the new priest — for Rognes had at last allowed itself the luxury of a priest — had arrived on the previous evening at nightfall. Owing to the darkness he had only been indistinctly seen. The tongues of the villagers were consequently wagging most energetically, and the more so as the circumstances attending the priest’s arrival were somewhat peculiar.

For some months after his quarrel with the inhabitants of Rognes, the Abbé Godard had persistently refused to set foot in the village. He only baptized, confessed, and married those who came to seek his services at Bazoches-le-Doyen. If any one had died at Rognes, they would doubtless have crumbled away waiting for him; though this point was never clearly settled, for no one took it into his head to die during this great quarrel. The priest had declared to his lordship the bishop that he would rather be dismissed than carry the blessed sacrament into such a region of abomination, where he was so badly treated by an utterly reprobate population of adulterers and drunkards, who, moreover, were sure of everlasting damnation, since they worshipped only the devil! And his lordship, ap­parently, agreed with the Abbé, for he allowed things to go on as they were till the rebellious flock showed signs of contrition. Rognes was, consequently, without a priest; there was no mass, no anything, and the place was in a perfectly heathenish condition. At first some of the villagers felt a little surprise; but, then, things went on much as usual, in spite of all this. It neither rained more nor blew more than it had done before, and the village was saving a considerable sum of money, as it had no priest to pay. Then the villagers began to ask them­selves whether it would not be as well to do without a priest altogether, as one did not really seem indispensable, and experience already proved that the crops did not suffer, and that they themselves did not die any faster owing to the absence of a pastor. Many of them professed themselves of this opinion — not only the wild scamps, like Lengaigne, but some steady, practical men of sound common-sense like Delhomme. Many others, however, on the other hand, were annoyed at not having a priest. It was not that they were more religious than the others, or more inclined to believe in the Divinity, but the fact of having no priest seemed to indicate that the village was either too poor or too miserly to pay for one. The villagers of Magnolles, only two hundred and eighty in number, ten fewer than the inhabitants of Rognes, supported a priest, and threw the fact at their neighbours’ heads in such a provokingly scorn­ful fashion that it led to blows. Then, too, the women clung to their old customs, and there was not one of them who would have consented to be married or buried without the services of a priest. The men themselves had occasionally gone to church, because every one went there. In short, there had always been a priest, and there must be one now, though they re­served to themselves perfect liberty of thought and action.

The municipal council was naturally called upon to deal with the question. Hourdequin, the mayor, who although he did not observe the practices of the faith still favoured religion as an instrument of government, made a political mistake in not taking any part in the contest, from a conciliatory desire not to show any bias in the official position which he held. The village was poor, said one party, so what was the use of burdening it with the expense — a considerable one for its small resources — which would be incurred in repairing the parson­age? Moreover, it was still hoped that the Abbé Godard would be induced to return. At last it came about that Macqueron, the assessor, who had formerly been a determined enemy of the cloth, placed himself at the head of the band of malcontents, who felt humiliated at not having a priest in the village. From that moment Macqueron must have entertained a desire to overthrow the mayor in view of taking his place. It was said, too, that he had become the agent of Monsieur Rochefontaine, the manufacturer of Châteaudun, who was again going to oppose Monsieur de Chédeville at the approach­ing elections. Hourdequin, whose farm demanded his close attention at that moment, and who was weary of his work, showed but little interest in the meetings of the council, letting his assessor take whatever steps he pleased; and the latter quickly won over the whole council to his views, and persuaded the members to vote the necessary funds for the establishment of a parish. Since Macqueron had contrived to get paid for that piece of land which had been required for the new road, and which he had formerly promised to give up gratuitously, he had been secretly called a sharper by the councillors, but in his presence they manifested great respect for him. Lengaigne alone protested against the vote, which, so he declared, would hand the village over to the Jesuits. Bécu, too, grumbled at it, for he had been turned out of the parsonage and garden, and had been housed in a tumble-down old cottage. For a month workmen had been employed renewing the plaster, putting in fresh panes of glass, and replacing the broken slates; and thus it came about that a priest had at last been able to install himself in the little house, which had been newly whitewashed for his reception.

At early dawn the carts began to start for the vineyards, each of them carrying four or five large casks called gueulebées, and having one end knocked out. The girls and women sat in the carts among the baskets, while the men accompanied them on foot, whipping the horses forward. There was a perfect pro­cession, and conversations were carried on from cart to cart amidst a general uproar of laughter and shouting.

Lengaigne’s cart followed immediately behind the Macquerons’, and, thanks to this, Flore and Cœlina, who had not spoken to each other for six months past, made friends again. Flore was accompanied by Bécu’s wife, and Cœlina by her daughter Berthe. Their conversation immediately turned upon the subject of the new priest, and, amid the tramp of the horses, a flow of words rose up into the sharp air of the early morning.

“I caught a glimpse of him as he was getting his luggage down.”

“Indeed! and what sort of a man is he?”

“Well, it was so dark I could scarcely see, but he seemed very tall and thin, and not strong; with a face as though he kept Lent perpetually. He seemed about thirty, with a very gentle expression.”

“I hear that he comes from Auvergne, from the mountains where the folks are buried in snow for two-thirds of the year.”

“How awful! Well, it will be a pleasant change for him to come here.”

“Yes, indeed! You know, I suppose, that he is called Madeleine?”

“No. Madeline?”

“Madeline, Madeleine. Well, at all events, it isn’t a man’s name.”

“I daresay he’ll come and see us in the vineyards. Macqueron promised that he would bring him.”

“Ah! Well, we must watch for him.”

The carts drew up at the foot of the hill-side, along the road that skirted the Aigre. Presently in every little vine­yard the women were busily at work amid the lines of stakes, bending down and cutting off the grapes with which they filled their baskets. The men had enough to do in emptying the women’s baskets into their own, which they carried on their backs and emptied into the open casks. When all the casks of a cart were full, the vehicle was driven off; its load was discharged into the vat, and then the casks were brought back to be filled again.

There was such a heavy dew that morning that the dresses of the women were speedily soaked through. Fortunately, however, the weather was very fine, and the sun soon dried them again. There had been no rain for three weeks, and the grapes, about which the greatest fears had been enter­tained, had suddenly ripened and sweetened. Thus they were all in high spirits that fine morning, grinning and bawling, and indulging in most indelicate jokes which made the girls wriggle.

“How conceited that Cœlina used to be about her Berthe’s delicate complexion!” said Flore to Madame Bécu, standing up and looking at Madame Macqueron in the adjoining vine­yard; “why, the girl’s face is now getting dreadfully yellow and shrunken.”

“Yes,” replied Madame Bécu, “that comes of not marrying the girl! They were wrong not to give her to the wheel­wright’s son. And they tell me, indeed, that she has done herself harm by bad habits.”

Then bending double she went on cutting off the bunches.

“All that, however,” she presently continued, “does not prevent the schoolmaster from being constantly about the place.”

“Oh, that Lequeu,” cried Flore; “he would grope with his nose in the mud if he thought he could pick up a copper or two! See, there he is coming to help them, the stupid fool!”

Then they relapsed into silence. Victor, who had returned from his regiment barely a fortnight before, was taking their baskets and emptying them into the one which Delphin carried on his back. That cunning snake, Lengaigne, had hired Delphin for the vintage, pretending that his own presence was necessary at the shop. The youngster, who had never left Rognes, gaped with amazement at sight of Victor, who had assumed a swaggering, rollicking manner; being, moreover, wonderfully altered in appearance, with his moustache and his little tuft of beard, his bumptious ways, and his forage-cap, which he still made a point of wearing. However, he was sorely mistaken if he thought that he was an object of envy to his companion; all his stories of barrack-life, and his exaggerated lying tales of merry-making, and girls, and drinking bouts, were quite thrown away. The young peasant shook his head in dazed stupefaction, and without feeling in the least attracted. To leave his nook would be paying too high a price for all those fine pleasures, he thought. He had already twice refused to go and make his fortune in a restaurant at Chartres with Nénesse.

“But when are you going to be a soldier, you whipper­snapper?” Victor asked.

“What? I a soldier! No, no! I shall draw a lucky number!”

The contemptuous Victor could not get any other answer from him. What a coward, he thought, was this big hulking fellow with the build of a Cossack! As he talked he went on emptying the women’s baskets into the one which Delphin carried, and the young peasant did not so much as bend under the load. Then Victor pointed to Berthe, and joked about her in such a way that Delphin burst out into a fit of laughter, the basket on his back being almost capsized. As he went down the hill and emptied the grapes into one of the casks, he could still be heard almost choking with merriment.