Complete Works of Emile Zola (986 page)

If ever a neighbour cried out to him: “Well, Fouan, you still manage to keep alive!” he would mumble out: “Ah, yes, dying is a wearily long business, but it isn’t the want of the will that keeps me from it.”

He only spoke the truth, with the stoicism of the peasant, who accepts death without a murmur, and even desires it when he is stripped of everything, and the soil calls him back to her.

But there was still another grief in store for him. Jules cast him off, instigated thereto by Laure. Whenever the girl saw her brother with their grandfather she seemed jealous, and with her eyes fiercely glistening she would call him angrily away. The old man was a nuisance, she said; it was much more amusing for them to play together. If her brother did not at once go off with her, she hung on to his shoulder and pulled him away. Then she made herself so agreeable that the lad forgot the little household services which he had hitherto rendered his grandfather. And by degrees Laure completely won Jules over to her side, like a real woman who has set her mind upon a conquest.

One evening Fouan had gone to wait for Jules in front of the school, feeling so tired that he wished for the lad’s hand to help him up the hill. Laure, however, came out with her brother, and when the old man’s trembling fingers sought the lad’s, she burst out into a sneering laugh.

“There he is boring you again!” said she. “Leave him to see after himself.” Then, turning to the other children, she added: “Isn’t he a sawny to let himself be plagued in this way?”

Jules blushed at the sound of his schoolfellows’ jeers, and, wishing to show what a man he was, he jumped aside, repeating his sister’s expression to the old companion of his walks:

“You plague me!”

Dismayed, and with tears filling his troubled eyes, Fouan stumbled as though the ground failed him, like the little hand that had been withdrawn. The jeering laughter increased, and Laure made Jules dance with her round the old man, singing the childish rhyme:

“He shall fall on the ground, and there he shall lie, And whoever shall help him, shall eat his bread dry!”

Fouan, half fainting, was nearly two hours in getting home, so feebly did he drag his feet along. This was the last blow. The lad ceased bringing him his soup and making his bed, the palliasse of which was now not turned once a month. Without even this urchin to talk to, the old man buried himself in absolute silence, and his isolation became com­plete. Never did he speak a word about anything to any one.

CHAPTER III

The winter ploughing had commenced, and Jean, that cold grey February afternoon, had just arrived with his plough at his big patch of ground on the plain, where he still had a good couple of hours’ work before him. It was a strip at the edge of the field that he was going to plough, intending to sow it with a new variety of Scotch wheat, a course which had been recommended by his old master, Hourdequin, who had more­over promised him several bushels of seed-corn.

Jean at once set to work, beginning at the spot where he had left off on the previous day; and, putting his plough into position and grasping hold of the arms, he started his horse, shouting in a gruff voice:

“Gee woh! Gee woh!”

Violent rains, coming after excessive heat, had so stiffened the clayey soil that it was with great difficulty that the plough­share and coulter broke off the strips of earth through which they cut. The heavy clods could be heard grating against the mould-board as the latter turned them over, burying the manure with which the field was covered. Every now and then a stone or some other obstacle gave the plough a sudden shock.

“Gee woh! Gee woh!” cried Jean, as grasping the handles with his outstretched arms he guided the plough so correctly that the furrows were as straight as if they had been traced out by rule and line. Meanwhile his horse, keeping its head down and burying its hoofs in the soil, drew the plough for­ward with a steady regular motion. Whenever the implement got clogged, Jean jerked off the earth and weeds, and then it glided on again, leaving the rich soil behind it upraised, quivering and trembling, as though alive, and with its very entrails exposed.

He reached the end of the furrow, and then turned round and commenced a new one. Presently he became affected by a sort of intoxication due to the strong odour exhaled by the disturbed soil, an odour suggestive of damp recesses where the seed would germinate. His slow monotonous gait and his fixed gaze completed his feeling of dazed abstraction. He would never succeed in becoming a genuine peasant, he thought. He was not a native of the soil, and he still retained the feelings of a town-bred workman, of a trooper who had served through the campaign in Italy; and things that the peasants could not see or feel were very visible and apparent to him — the great mournful peacefulness of the plain and the deep breathing of the soil beneath the sunshine and the showers. He had always had visions of retiring into the peace of the country, but how foolish he must have been to imagine that it was only necessary to lay down the gun and the plane and to grasp hold of the plough to satisfy his taste for tranquillity! Though the soil might be peaceful and kindly to those that loved it, the villages that clung to it like nests of vermin, full of human insects that preyed upon its flesh, sufficed to dishonour and pollute it. He could remember no sufferings in his previous life equal to those which he had endured since his arrival at La Borderie, now a long time ago.

Being obliged to raise the arms a little in order to ease the plough, a slight unevenness in the furrow annoyed him, and he began to display still greater care in guiding his horse.

“Gee woh! Gee woh!”

Yes, indeed, what troubles he had gone through during these last ten years! First, there was his long period of wait­ing for Françoise, and then his warfare with the Buteaus. Not a day had passed without some painful event or without some angry words. And now that he had got Françoise, now that they had been married for a couple of years, could he say that he was at last happy? Though he himself still loved her, he had divined that she did not love him, and that she never would love him as he wished to be loved, unreservedly, with her whole heart and soul. They lived together in peaceful har­mony, indeed, and they were prospering in their work and saving money. But that was not everything. He could feel that she was cold and reserved, and occupied by other thoughts than of himself when he held her in his arms. She was now five months gone with child, but even this fact had not brought the husband and wife into closer sympathy; and Jean felt more and more the feeling which he had first experienced on the day they had taken possession of their house, the feeling that his wife still looked upon him as a stranger, a native of another country, born no one knew where; a man whose thoughts were not those of the villagers of Rognes; who seemed to her to be even differently made, and who could never be really united with her, even though he was the father of the child she bore within her.

After her marriage, Françoise, in her exasperation against the Buteaus, had brought a piece of stamped paper from Cloves, one Saturday, with the intention of making a will and leaving everything that belonged to her to her husband, for she had been told that the house and the land would revert to her sister supposing she died without issue, and that her husband would not be able to claim anything save the furniture and cash. Subsequently, however, she seemed to have thought better of the matter, for the sheet of stamped paper still lay in a drawer quite white. This had been a source of much secret pain to Jean, not from any mercenary feeling, but because he looked upon his wife’s remissness as implying a want of affection for himself. But, indeed, it mattered nothing, now that a youngster was coming into the world! What would be the use of making a will under those circum­stances? And yet despite such reflections as these, his heart felt very heavy whenever he opened the drawer and saw the piece of stamped paper which had now become useless.

Jean stopped ploughing to give his horse a little breathing time, and the sharp, frosty wind enabled him to shake off his abstraction. He slowly let his gaze wander to the blank horizon, over the immense plain, where, far away in the distance, other ploughs were at work, looking blurred and hazy in the dull grey atmosphere. He was now surprised to perceive old Fouan, who had come from Rognes along the new road, in compliance with one of those instinctive cravings which he still experienced at times, to look once more at some field or other. On catching sight of him, Jean lowered his head, and for a moment or two concentrated his gaze upon the gap­ing furrow and the eviscerated soil at his feet. It was firm and yellow beneath the surface, the upturned clods seemingly revealing young and healthy earth, while the manure was buried in a bed of rich fecundity. As Jean gazed downwards, his thoughts grew confused and strangely intermingled. How odd it seemed that one should have to grub up the soil in this way to get bread! What a source of worry it was that he was not loved by Françoise! Then came more vague reflections about other matters, about the growth of the crops, about his little one who would soon be born, and about all the toil which folks underwent, often without being any the happier for it.

Then he grasped the arms of the plough again, and shouted his deep-toned cry:

“Gee woh! Gee woh!”

He was just finishing his ploughing when Delhomme, who was returning on foot from a neighbouring farm, stopped to call to him from the edge of the field.

“Hallo! Corporal, have you heard the news? We’re going to have war it seems.”

Jean left go of his plough and drew himself up, surprised to feel such a shock at his heart,

“War! How’s that?” he asked

“With the Prussians, so they say. It is all in the newspapers.”

With a fixed gaze Jean pictured Italy, the battles fought there, and all the carnage from which he had been fortunate enough to escape without a single wound. Then his most ardent wish had been to live a quiet life in some peaceful nook, but now these few words shouted from the roadway by a passer-by, this thought of war, had sufficed to send his blood surging hotly through his veins!

“Ah, well, if the Prussians are making game of us,” said he, “we can’t let ourselves be flouted by them!”

Delhomme, however, looked upon the matter differently. He shook his head gravely, and declared that it would be the ruination of the country districts if the Cossacks came back again, as in Napoleon’s time. Fighting did no one any good. It would be much better to try to arrange affairs peaceably.

“I say this,” he added, “in the interests of others, for I have just been depositing some money with Monsieur Baillehache, so that, whatever happens, Nénesse, who has to draw in the conscription to-morrow, won’t have to join the ranks.”

“Ah, yes, and it’s the same with me,” said Jean, who had now calmed down. “I’ve served my time, and owe them nothing further, and I’m married, too; so, whether they go to war or not, it won’t make any difference to me. Ah! so it’s to be with the Prussians this time! Well, we shall give them a good hiding, just as we did the Austrians, and then there’ll be an end of the matter.”

“Good evening, Corporal!”

“Good evening!”

Then Delhomme went on his way again. Presently he stopped to tell the news to some one else; and then, further on, he told it a third time, and so the report of the threatened approach of war quickly flew across La Beauce, through the mournful greyish atmosphere.

Jean having finished his ploughing, determined to go at once to La Borderie, to get the seed-corn which had been promised to him. He took the horse out of the plough, and sprang on to its back, leaving the plough in a corner of the field. As he was riding off, he again thought of Fouan and looked round for him, but could not see him. He thereupon concluded that the old man had taken shelter from the cold behind a rick of straw which was standing in Buteau’s field.

When Jean arrived at La Borderie, and had tethered his horse, he called without eliciting any response. Everybody appeared to be at work away from the house. However, he went into the kitchen and stamped on the floor with his feet, and presently heard Jacqueline’s voice proceeding from the cellar where the dairy was. Access to it was obtained through a trap-door opening at the foot of the staircase, and so awk­wardly placed that an accident was always being feared.

“Who’s there?” she called.

Jean had squatted down on the top step of the steep little staircase, and she recognised him from below.

“Ah! so it’s you, Corporal?”

He, too, could now see Jacqueline in the semi-darkness of the dairy, which was lighted merely by a grating in the wall. She was busily working among the bowls and the pans, from which the whey was dripping slowly into a stone trough. Her sleeves were rolled back as far as her arm-pits, and her arms were white with cream.

“Well, why don’t you come down? You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

She addressed him in the same familiar manner as of yore, and she laughed in her old enticing way. Jean, however, felt ill at ease, and did not move.

“I’ve come for the seed-corn,” he said, “that the master promised me.”

“Oh yes, I know. Wait a moment, and I’ll come up.”

When she emerged into the full light, Jean saw that she was looking very fresh and glowing; and her bare, white arms exhaled a pleasant odour of milk. She looked at him with her pretty, mischievous eyes, and ended by asking, in a bantering way:

“Well, aren’t you going to kiss me? There’s no reason that you should get stiff and unpleasant just because you’re married.”

Then he kissed her, trying to make the sounding salutes which he imprinted on both her cheeks seem mere marks of friend­ship. But her presence disturbed him, and recollections of the past sent his blood thrilling through his veins. He had never felt like this with his wife, although he loved her so much.

“Come along,” now continued Jacqueline, “and I’ll show you the seed-corn. Every one is out, even the servant-girl is away at market.”

She crossed the yard, and then, entering the barn, stepped behind a pile of sacks. The seed was lying there in a heap on some boards. Jean had followed her, feeling somewhat dis­turbed at finding himself alone with her in this dim, out-of-the-way spot. He now suddenly began to affect a deep interest in the seed-corn, which was of a fine new Scotch variety.