Complete Works of Emile Zola (993 page)

The Buteaus had reckoned upon the respect due to the presence of a dead body in the house, and they took advantage of it to install themselves in their old home once more. They made no actual profession of taking possession of the place, but still they did take possession of it, in a quiet easy way, and as though it were quite a matter of course that, as Françoise was no longer there, they themselves should return. True, her body was there, but it was packed ready for its final departure, and was really of no more account than a piece of furniture. Lise, after sitting down for some time with the others, so far forgot all sense of decency as to get up and examine the drawers and cupboards to satisfy herself that their contents had not been removed during her absence. Buteau had gone off to look at the stable and cowhouse, as though he were already quite at home, and were just giving a glance round to see that everything was all right. By evening they both appeared quite settled again on the premises, and the only thing that caused them any inconvenience was the coffin, which still blocked up the bedroom. However, there was merely another night to wait; the room would be quite at their disposal early the next day.

Jean kept wandering restlessly up and down, looking dazed and confused, and seemingly quite at a loss as to what to do with himself. At first the house, and the furniture, and Françoise’s body had seemed to belong to him; but, as the time glided by, they appeared to sever their connection with him and to pass away to others. By the time night closed in, every one had ceased to speak to him, and his presence in the place was merely just tolerated. Never before had he felt so painfully conscious of being a stranger in the village, of being quite alone, of not having a single kindred fellow-creature among all these folks, who were related to each other and fully agreed on the question of his own expulsion. Even his poor dead wife no longer seemed to belong to him; in fact, Fanny sent him away from the bedroom, where he wished to stay and watch over the body, saying that there were quite sufficient people for that purpose already. He had for some time refused to go, and finally, annoyed at Fanny’s persistence, he had resolved to take possession of the money in the drawer — the hundred and twenty-seven francs — so as to make sure that they wouldn’t fly away. Lise had seen them on opening the drawer, together with the sheet of stamped paper which had never been used, and the sight of the latter had led to her hold­ing a whispered conversation with La Grande. The result of this chat had been to make her feel quite easy in mind, for she had definitely learnt that there was no will, and that the house was really her own again. Jean, however, had made up his mind that, at any rate, she should not have the money; amid his vague apprehensions as regards the morrow, he determined that he would at least keep that for himself; and after taking possession of it, he passed the night on a chair.

The funeral took place on the following morning, at nine o’clock. The Abbé Madeline, who was leaving Rognes that same evening, was just able to say the mass and accompany the body to the grave; but when he reached it he fainted, and they were obliged to carry him away. Monsieur and Madame Charles were present, together with Delhomme and Nénesse. It was a very respectable funeral, though nothing out of the way. Jean shed tears, and Buteau also wiped his eyes, but they were quite dry. At the last moment Lise had declared that her legs felt as though they were giving way beneath her, and that she was too weak to accompany her sister’s body to the grave. She had consequently remained alone in the house, while La Grande, Fanny, La Frimat, Madame Bécu, and other female friends attended the funeral. On returning from the graveyard all the company lingered in the open square in front of the church, in anticipation of a scene which they had been expecting since the previous evening.

So far the two men, Jean and Buteau, had avoided even glancing at each other, fearing lest some violent outbreak might ensue in presence of the corpse ere it was barely cold. They, however, now both directed their steps towards the house with the same resolute gait; and they kept glancing aside at each other. Jean had at once understood why Lise had not come to the funeral. She had stayed away in order to get her effects into the house again — in a rough sort of fashion, at any rate. An hour had sufficed for the purpose, for she had been hard at work tossing her bundles over La Frimat’s wall, and wheeling round anything that was breakable. Finally, she had dragged Laure and Jules into the yard, administering a cuff a-piece to them, and there they were already fighting, while old Fouan, whom she had also hustled inside, sat panting on the stone bench. The house was reconquered.

“Where are you going?” Buteau suddenly asked, stopping Jean in front of the gate.

“I’m going home.”

“Home! home, indeed! Where is your home? It certainly isn’t here! This is my house.”

Lise had rushed up, and resting her hands upon her hips, she now began to yell, exhibiting even more offensive insolence than her husband.

“Eh? what? What does he want, the rotten blackguard? He’s been poisoning my poor sister long enough; that’s quite clear, or she would never have died of her accident. And she showed pretty plainly what she thought of him by not leaving him anything. Knock him over, Buteau! Don’t let him come inside, or he’ll give us all some beastly illness!”

Jean, although he was boiling over with indignation at this virulent attack, still attempted to reason with her.

“I know very well,” he said, “that the house and land revert to you; but half of the furniture and live stock belong to me.”

“Half, indeed! You’ve got a lot of cheek, you have!” cried Lise, interrupting him. “You foul stink-pot, how dare you claim half of anything, you who didn’t even bring a broken comb into the place? You merely came here with the shirt on your back! So you want to fatten yourself and get rich by preying on women, eh? That’s a dirty, swinish game.”

Buteau backed her up, and, with a sweeping gesture across the threshold, he cried out:

“She’s telling the truth! Look sharp! You came with your jacket and breeches, and you’ve got them on, so take yourself off with ‘em! Nobody wants to deprive you of them!”

The other members of the family, especially the women, Fanny and La Grande, who were standing in a group some thirty yards away, seemed by their silence to approve of Buteau’s conduct. Jean, turning pale at the insults which were offered him, and stung to the quick by the accusation of mercenary scheming, now broke out into an angry retort:

“Very well, so you are bent upon making a disturbance, eh? I insist upon entering, for I have still the right of posses­sion, as the formal partition has not yet been made. Then I shall at once go and fetch Monsieur Baillehache, who will put everything under seal, and appoint me guardian. The house is mine for the present, and it is for you to take yourselves off.”

He now stepped up to Lise with such a threatening air that she retreated from the door-way. Buteau, however, rushed upon him, and a struggle ensued, the two men reeling into the middle of the kitchen. There another violent discussion followed as to which of the two parties should be ejected — the husband, or the sister and brother-in-law.

“Show me the document which makes the house yours!” cried Jean.

“Documents, indeed! It’s quite sufficient that we have the right to it!”

“Very well, then, if you’ve the right to it, why don’t you come and enforce your right with the bailiff and the gendarmes, as we did?”

“We want no bailiffs and gendarmes! It’s only swindling scoundrels who have to go to them for help. An honest man can manage his affairs for himself.”

Jean was bending over the table and clinging to it. He had resolved not to leave, bent on proving that he was the stronger of the two, and determined not to part with the house where his wife had just died, and where, it seemed to him, the only happy part of his life had been spent. Buteau, at the other side of the table, was also determined not to give up the house which he had just reconquered, and he resolved to bring the matter to a speedy issue.

“The long and the short of it,” he cried, “is that we’ve had enough of you.”

Then he rushed round the table at Jean, but the latter, catching hold of a chair and hurling it at his adversary’s legs, tripped him up; then, as he was about to take refuge in the adjoining room, meaning to barricade himself inside it, Lise suddenly bethought herself of the money, the hundred and twenty-seven francs which she had observed in the drawer. Fancying that Jean was hastening to secure them, she rushed on before him and pulled the drawer open. At once she burst into a howl of angry disappointment.

“The money’s gone! The cursed scamp has stolen the money during the night!”

It was all over with Jean now that the onslaught was directed against his pockets. He cried out that the money be­longed to him, and that he would go into a full account of every­thing, and that they would owe him money in addition to this cash. But the Buteaus would not listen to him, and Lise rushed upon him, pummelling him even more violently than her husband. He was dislodged from the room by a furious onset, and hustled back into the kitchen, round which the three of them wildly revolved, writhing and struggling together in confusion, and dashing against the furniture in their gyrations. By dint of kicking, Jean managed to rid himself of Lise. She soon fell upon him again, however, and dug her nails into his neck, while Buteau, making a vigorous spring, threw him flat on the road outside. Then blocking up the door, the husband and wife bellowed out:

“You thief! you’ve stolen our money! You thief! you thief!”

Jean picked himself up, and stammering from pain and anger replied:

“All right, I shall go to the magistrate at Châteaudun, and he will see that I am reinstated in my home. And I shall bring an action against you for damages. You’ll see me again soon!”

With a parting gesture of menace, he then took himself off, mounting the hill towards the plain. When the other members of the family had seen that matters were coming to blows, they had prudently retired, feeling a wholesome fear of possible legal proceedings.

The Buteaus now broke out into a wild yell of victory. At last they had succeeded in flinging the usurping alien into the street! And they had regained possession of the house! Ah, they had often said that they would have it back, and now they had got it again! The thought that they were once more in possession of the old patrimonial dwelling-place, built so long ago by an ancestor, filled them with such mad delight that they rushed wildly through the rooms, yelling for the mere pleasure of doing so. The children, Laure and Jules, rushed up, and began tapping an old frying-pan. Old Fouan alone remained quiet; he was still sitting on the stone bench, whence he gravely watched the others, with troubled, mournful eyes.

However, Buteau suddenly checked his display of delight and exclaimed:

“God in heaven! he’s sloped off up the hill! He may have gone to wreak his spite on the land!”

It was an idiotic fear, but it quite upset him. The thought of the soil returned to him; a sensation of uneasiness mingling with the consciousness of ownership. The soil! Ah, his love for it was more deeply rooted in his vitals even than his love of the house! That strip of land on the hill would fill up the gap between his two mutilated plots; and he would again have his field of seven acres, that fine stretch of land, of which even Delhomme did not possess the equal! Buteau trembled with emotion from head to foot. It was as though he had just regained some dearly beloved mistress whom he had thought lost for ever. With a mad fear that Jean might somehow have carried the land off, wondering whether it might not have already disappeared, seized, too, with an eager desire to view it again, he lost his head and set off running, muttering that he could never feel easy till he knew for certain.

Jean had indeed gone up the hill in order to avoid passing through the village, and on reaching the plateau he had instinc­tively followed the road towards La Borderie. When Buteau caught sight of him, he was just passing the plot of plough-land, but he did not stop, he merely gave it a glance of mingled sadness and distrust, as though he were mentally accusing it of having brought him into misfortune; for a memory of the past, of the day when he had first spoken to Françoise, had just brought the tears to his eyes. Was it not here, while she was still a romping girl, that La Coliche had dragged her into the lucern? He strode on with downcast head and slackened steps, and Buteau, who was anxiously watching him, suspect­ing that he was bent upon some malicious piece of revenge, now walked up to the field. For a long time he stood gazing at it. Yes, it was still there, and it seemed just the same as usual, quite unharmed. His heart heaved wildly, and yearned towards it in the delight he felt at again possessing it — this time for ever. He squatted down on his knees, and took up a clod in his hands, crushing it, sniffing it, and then letting it filter through his fingers. Yes, it was his own now! Then he turned homewards again, singing, as though the scent of the soil had intoxicated him.

Jean still tramped on with downcast eyes, without being conscious as to whether his feet were carrying him. His first impulse had been to run to Cloyes to see Monsieur Baillehache, and take steps for getting reinstated in the house. Then his feeling of anger had calmed down. Even if he went back to-day, he would have to leave again to-morrow; so why shouldn’t he make up his mind to swallow his wrathful grief and acquiesce in the inevitable? Those wretches, too, had really spoken the truth. He had gone to the house as a poor man, and as a poor man he was leaving it. But what sent a pang through his heart more than aught else, and finally decided him to submit, was the reflection that Françoise’s last wish must have been to let things follow this course, since she had not bequeathed her property to him. So he abandoned the idea of taking immediate steps; and by-and-bye as he walked on, whenever his anger rekindled afresh, he merely swore to himself that he would drag the Buteaus into court to recover his half-share of the personal property to which he was entitled as the dead woman’s husband. They should see that he wouldn’t let himself be fleeced like a sheep!