Complete Works of Emile Zola (987 page)

“How big the grains are!” said he.

Jacqueline, however, began to speak in her cooing tones, and quickly brought him to a subject which had greater interest for her.

“Your wife is in the family-way, eh? Tell me, now, does she make herself as pleasant with you as I did?”

Jean turned very red, and Jacqueline took a malicious delight in seeing him thus disturbed. Presently some sudden reflection cast a gloom over her face.

“I’ve had a good many troubles, you know,” she continued, “but, happily, they are all over now, and they have ended to my advantage.”

The fact was that Hourdequin’s son, Léon, the captain, who had not been seen at La Borderie for years past, had one day suddenly arrived there. He had observed, that same night, that Jacqueline occupied his mother’s bed-room, and this had led him to make inquiries, whereupon he speedily learnt exactly how matters stood. For a little while Jacqueline trembled with uneasy alarm, for she had formed the ambitious design of marrying Hourdequin, and thus securing the reversion of the farm. The captain, however, played his cards too clumsily. He wanted to extricate his father from Jacqueline’s meshes by letting himself be surprised in bed with the young woman. But he showed his hand too openly, and Jacqueline affected airs of the nicest virtue, screaming, weeping, and declaring to Hourdequin that she would leave the house at once, since she was no longer treated with respect in it. Then there was a terrible scene between the two men. The son tried to open his father’s eyes, but this only made matters worse; and two hours later the captain left the house again, exclaiming, as he crossed the threshold, that he would rather lose everything than acquiesce in the present state of affairs, and that if he ever returned, it would only be to kick the hussy out of doors.

Jacqueline, in her triumph, now made the mistake of imagining that she merely had to ask for her own terms. She declared to Hourdequin that after such treatment, with which, indeed, the whole country-side was ringing, she would be compelled to leave him unless he made her his wife. She even began to pack her boxes. The farmer, however, upset by his quarrel with his son, rendered all the more angry by a secret consciousness that he was in the wrong, and a feeling of sor­rowing regret for all that had occurred, gave her a couple of such vigorous cuffs as almost shook the life out of her. And then she said nothing more about going away, realising that she had been in too great a hurry. Still, she was now absolute mistress of the house, openly sleeping in the conjugal bed­room, taking her meals alone with Hourdequin, giving orders to the servants, regulating the expenses, keeping the keys of the safe, and behaving so despotically that the farmer always consulted her before taking any step. He was failing and ageing quickly, and Jacqueline trusted that she would be able to overcome his last scruples and induce him to marry her when she had quite exhausted his remaining manhood. In the meantime, as he had sworn to disinherit his son, she used all her wiles to induce him to make a will in her favour; and she already looked upon herself as the owner of the farm, for she had succeeded in wringing a promise from Hourdequin that he would leave it to her.

“If I’ve been knocking myself up for years past,” she said to Jean, “it certainly hasn’t been out of love for his good looks.”

Jean could not restrain a laugh. While speaking Jacqueline had been plunging her bare arms again and again into the heap of corn, covering her skin with a soft floury powder. Jean looked at her, and suddenly gave utterance to a question which he speedily regretted.

“And are you as thick as ever with Tron?”

Jacqueline gave no sign of being offended. She spoke quite frankly, as to an old friend.

“Oh, I’m very fond of him, the great stupid fellow; but he’s really very unreasonable. He’s so dreadfully jealous, and we have terrible scenes together sometimes. The master’s the only one he’ll tolerate, and I really believe that he comes sometimes at nights and listens at the door, to find out whether we are sleeping or not.”

Jean laughed again; but Jacqueline seemed to consider it no laughing matter. She felt a vague fear of that big fellow Tron, who was cunning and treacherous, like all the men of Le Perche, she said. He had threatened to strangle her if she proved unfaithful to him; and consequently she now consorted with him in fear and trembling, despite the charm that his huge limbs had for her. She herself was so slim that this big fellow could have crushed her between his thumb and fingers.

At last, shrugging her shoulders with a pretty air, as much as to say that she had conquered others quite as difficult to manage, she continued:

“We used to get on better with one another than that, eh, Corporal?”

Still keeping her merry eyes fixed upon him, she began to pound the corn again; while Jean fell a victim to her charms once more, forgetting all about his departure from La Borderie, his marriage, and the child that was soon to be born to him. He seized hold of her wrists under the corn, and then slipped his hands up her arms, all velvety with flour, till they reached her white child-like breast, to which her habits of debauchery seemed to have imparted a firmer plumpness. This was what she had been wishing to bring about ever since she had caught sight of him at the mouth of the trap-door; and she felt an additional malicious joy in taking him from another woman, and that woman his lawful wife, and proving that it was still herself that he loved best. He had already seized her in his arms and thrown her down, panting and cooing, upon the heap of corn, when the shepherd Soulas, with his tall fleshless figure, emerged from behind the sacks, coughing loudly and spitting. Jacqueline hastily sprang to her feet, while Jean panted and stammered out:

“Oh, this is it, is it? Well, I’ll come back presently and take fifteen bushels of it. What splendid stuff it is, isn’t it?”

Jacqueline, bursting with anger, fixed her eyes on the shep­herd, who showed no signs of going away.

“It is really past all bearing!” she muttered between her clenched teeth. “Whenever I think I am alone, he always contrives to turn up and haunt me! But I’ll have him sent off about his business!”

Jean, who had now recovered his calmness, hastily left the barn, and went to unfasten his horse, without paying any attention to the signs of Jacqueline, who would have concealed him in the conjugal bed-chamber itself rather than have fore­gone her desire. Anxious to make his escape, Jean said that he would return the next day, and he was setting off on foot, leading his horse by the bridle, when Soulas, who had gone outside to wait for him, intercepted him at the gate.

“So she’s got even you back into her meshes again! Well, at any rate just tell her to keep her tongue quiet, if she doesn’t want to set mine wagging. Ah, there will be a pretty business, by-and-by, you’ll see!”

Jean, however, passed on his way with a rough gesture, refusing to mix himself up any further in the matter. He was full of shame; annoyed at the thought of what he had so nearly done. He had believed that he really loved Françoise, and yet he had never felt one of these impetuous thrills of desire for her! Could it be that he really loved Jacqueline more than his wife? Had a passion for the hussy been smouldering within him all this time? All the past woke up within him into fresh life, and he was angered at himself to feel that he would certainly return to Jacqueline in spite of all his desire to the contrary. Then he excitedly sprang on to his horse and galloped off, so as to get back to Rognes as soon as possible.

That same afternoon it happened that Françoise had gone to cut a bundle of lucern for her cows. It was generally her task to do this, and she settled to do it on that particular afternoon as she relied on finding her husband in the field, ploughing. She did not care to trust herself there alone, for fear she might come across the Buteaus, who, in their anger at no longer having the whole field to themselves, were perpetually seeking any excuse for a violent quarrel. She took a scythe with her, and counted upon the horse for bringing back the bundle of lucern. As she neared the field, she was surprised not to see her husband there, though she had not warned him of her intention to come. The plough was still there, but where could Jean have gone? She felt still more nervous when she observed Buteau and Lise standing at the edge of the field, shaking their arms with a show of anger. She fancied that they had just stopped for a moment on their way back from some neighbouring village, for they were wearing their Sunday clothes, and had no appearance of being engaged in work. For a moment she felt inclined to turn back and make her escape. Then she felt indignant at her own alarm; surely she was not going to be afraid of cutting lucern on her own land! So she continued to walk forward at the same pace, and carrying the scythe on her shoulder.

As a matter of fact, whenever Françoise met Buteau, and especially when he was alone, she was always overcome with nervous confusion. For two years she had not spoken a single word to him, but she never could see him without her whole body being thrilled with emotion. This emotion might be caused by anger, or it might be the result of some very-different feeling. Several times she had seen him in front of her on this same road when she had been going up to her plot of lucern; and he would turn his head round two or three times and glance at her with his yellow-streaked grey eyes. Then she would feel a slight thrill pass through her body, and would quicken her steps in spite of all her efforts not to do so; while Buteau, on the other hand, would slacken his pace, and so she would find herself compelled to pass him, and, as she did so, their eyes would meet just for a second. Then she was troubled with the disturbing but pleasant consciousness that he was just behind her; and she felt enervated and scarcely able to con­tinue walking. The last time they had met in this way, she had been so overcome that she had fallen down at full length in an attempt to jump from the road into her patch of lucern; and Buteau had nearly burst with laughter at the sight.

That evening, when Buteau maliciously told his wife of her sister’s tumble, they glanced at each other with gleaming eyes in which the same thought was expressed. If the hussy had killed herself and her unborn child her husband would take nothing, and the land and house would return to themselves! They had learnt from La Grande the story of the postponed will, which had now become unnecessary on account of Françoise’s condition. But they never had any luck! There was no chance of fortune putting both mother and child out of their way at a single stroke! They returned to the subject as they went to bed, and talked about the death of Françoise and her unborn baby merely for the sake of talking. Talking of folks’ death doesn’t kill them; still, if Françoise, now, really died without an heir, what a stroke of luck it would be! What a heavenly retribution! In the bitterness of her hate, Lise actually swore that her sister was no longer her sister, and that she would willingly hold her head on the block if that was all that was wanted to enable them to return to their own house, from which the wicked drab had so treacherously evicted them.

Buteau was not quite so vindictive, and he declared, that he would be sufficiently pleased for the present if the youngster were to perish before it was born. Françoise’s condition was a source of much irritation to him, for the birth of a child would destroy all his obstinately entertained hopes, and definitely deprive him of the property. As the husband and wife got into bed together, and Lise blew out the candle, she broke out into a peculiar little laugh, and said that, so long as a youngster had not actually come into the world, it could easily be pre­vented from making its appearance. After lying silent for some time in the darkness, Buteau asked his wife what she meant. Then cuddling close up to his side, and holding her mouth to his ear, she made a very singular confession. Last month, she said, she had been troubled to find herself in the family way again, and so, without saying anything about it to him, she had gone off to consult La Sapin, an old woman living at Magnolles, who had the reputation of being a witch. A pretty reception he’d have given her if she had told him how matters stood. La Sapin, however, had quickly put everything right. It was a very simple affair.

Buteau listened to his wife without showing either approval or disapproval, and his satisfaction at what had occurred could only be gathered from the joking way in which he observed that Lise should have brought the prescription away with her for Françoise’s advantage. Lise, too, seemed merry, and, grasping her husband closely in her arms, she whispered to him that La Sapin had taught her something else, oh, such a funny trick! What was it? asked Buteau. Well, a man could undo what a man had done, replied Lise. He had only got to make the sign of the cross on a woman three times and say an Ave backwards, and if there were a little one, it would dis­appear immediately. Buteau began to laugh, and they both affected incredulity, but they still retained so much of the ancient superstition of their race, that they were privately in­clined to believe what they pretended to disbelieve. Indeed, everybody knew that the old witch of Magnolles had turned a cow into a weasel, and had brought a dead man to life again. Surely it must be true if she said it was! The idea made Buteau grin. Would it really be effectual? Stay, now, why shouldn’t he really try it on Françoise, suggested Lise, he and she knew all about each other? Buteau, however, now protested against this allegation, as his wife, showing signs of jealousy, began to pinch and thump him; and they presently fell asleep in one another’s arms.

Ever since that night they had been haunted by the thought of the child that was coming into the world to deprive them of the house and land for ever; and they never met the younger sister without immediately glancing at her con­dition. Thus as they now saw her coming up the road, on this afternoon when she wanted to cut some lucern, they took her measure with their eyes, and were quite startled to notice how swiftly matters were advancing, and how little time there was left in which to take any steps.

“The devil take him,” cried Buteau, going forward to examine the furrows , “the blackguard has filched off a good foot of our land! It’s as plain as possible; see, there’s the boundary-stone!”