Complete Works of Emile Zola (996 page)

“There, take your filthy things! They stink so vilely that they’d have given us all some disease if they’d stayed any longer in the house!”

Jean picked them up and went off. However, when he got out of the yard, and once more found himself on the high-road, he turned round and shook his fists at the house, shouting out a single word which reverberated in the surrounding silence: “Murderers!”

Then he disappeared in the black darkness.

Buteau was standing in a state of terrified consternation, for he had heard what old Fouan had growled out, and Jean’s word had penetrated his heart like a bullet. What was in store for him? Would the gendarmes be down upon him, now when he had just fancied that the secret of Françoise’s death would be buried for ever with her in her coffin? When he had seen her lowered into her grave in the morning he had begun to breathe freely again, and yet now it was evident that the old fellow knew everything! Was it possible that he had been shamming idiocy for the sake of playing the spy upon them? This last thought completed Buteau’s terrified alarm, and he was so completely upset when he went back into the house that he left half of his plateful of soup untouched. Lise, to whom he had told what had happened, shivered and trembled, and could eat no more than he did.

They had looked forward to keeping high festival upon this their first night in the reconquered house, but it was a night of abominable unhappiness. They had put Laure and Jules to bed on a mattress in front of the chest of drawers, pending an opportunity to arrange other accommodation; and the children were still wide awake when they themselves got into bed, after blowing out the candle. But they could not sleep, they tossed about as though they were on a red-hot gridiron. At last they began to talk to each other in muttered tones. Oh, what a burden the old man had become, now that he had fallen into his dotage! It was really more than they could bear, such an expense he was! No one could believe the quantity of bread he swallowed! And then, too, he was so greedy, seizing the meat in his fingers, and spilling the wine on his beard, and making such a dirty mess of himself that one felt ill merely on looking at him. Besides all that, he was con­stantly going about with his trousers disarranged; a sad end­ing for a man who had once been as cleanly and as respectable as any of his fellows. Really, since he seemed determined not to go off of his own accord, it made one feel inclined to make an end of him with a pick-axe.

“When one thinks that a breath would blow him over!” muttered Buteau. “Ah! I really believe that he sticks on just for the sake of annoying us! Those gibbering old idiots, the less good they are the more closely they hug on to life! I don’t believe he will ever die, ever!”

Then Lise, lying on her back, replied:

“It’s a pity he came here. He’ll feel too comfortable, and be inclined to take a fresh lease of life. If I had been a praying woman I should have prayed that he might not be allowed to pass a single night in the house.”

Neither of them spoke of the real source of their anxiety, of the old man’s knowledge of their secret, and the possibility of his betraying them, even without meaning to do so. That was the bother. Although he was an expense and a nuisance, and prevented them from enjoying the dividends of the stolen scrip at their ease, they had still put up with his presence for a long time. But now that a word from him might endanger their necks, all limits of toleration were past. Something definite would have to de done.

“I’ll go and see if he’s asleep,” said Lise abruptly.

She lighted the candle, and then, making sure that Laure and Jules were soundly slumbering, she glided in her night-dress into the room where the beet-root was stored, and where the old man’s iron bed had again been placed. When she came back she was shivering with cold, her feet half frozen by passing over the tiled floor. She buried herself beneath the bed­clothes, and pressed closely against her husband, who clasped her in his arms to warm her.

“Well?”

“Yes, he’s asleep; but his breath’s very faint, and his mouth is gaping open like a fish’s.”

They now both remained quiet for a time, but, in spite of their silence, they could read each other’s thoughts. The old man seemed constantly on the point of choking, so it would be an easy matter to suffocate him altogether. A handkerchief, or even a hand, held over his mouth, and then they would be freed from him. And really it would be a kindness to the old man him­self. He would be better off quietly asleep in the graveyard, than living on, a source of pain and discomfort to himself as well as others.

Buteau’s and Lise’s blood was flowing hotly, as though some burning desire had just thrilled them. Suddenly the former sprang out of the bed on to the tiled floor.

“I’ll go and have a look at him, too,” he said.

He then went off with the candle, which had been left standing on the edge of the chest of drawers, while Lise held her breath and listened, her eyes staring widely open in the dark. The minutes glided by, and no sound came from the adjoining room. After a time, however, she heard Buteau’s feet pattering gently back again; he had left the light in the old man’s room, and was so overcome with excitement that he could not prevent himself from panting. He stepped up to the bed, felt about in the dark for his wife, and then whispered in her ear:

“You come too! I daren’t do it alone!”

Lise got up and followed her husband; both of them grop­ing their way forwards with their hands to avoid coming into collision with anything. They no longer felt cold; even their night-dresses were too hot for them. The candle was standing on the floor, in a corner of the old man’s room, but it afforded sufficient light for them to see him lying on his back. His head had fallen off the pillow, and he was lying there so rigidly, and looked so emaciated with age, that one might have thought he was already dead, had it not been for the struggling, painful breathing from his gaping mouth. His teeth had all gone, and his lips were turned inwards, round what merely looked like a black hole, a hole over which the husband and wife now stooped, as though they were trying to ascertain how much life still remained at the bottom of it. For a long time they stood looking at it, side by side, with their hips touching one another. Their arms felt limp and nerveless. It was such an easy and yet such a perilous matter to take something and stop up that black hole with it. They went away, and then came back again. Their parched tongues could not have pronounced a single word; it was only their eyes that spoke. Lise pointed out the pillow to her husband with a glance. That would do. What was he waiting for? But Buteau’s eyes blinked nervously, and he thrust his wife into his place. Then Lise, in her impatient irritation, suddenly seized the pillow, and clapped it down on the old man’s face.

“You miserable coward! Must you always leave every­thing for your wife to do?” she gasped.

Buteau now sprang forward and pressed upon the pillow with the whole weight of his body, while Lise, mounting on to the bed, sat on it, forcing down her huge swollen buttocks. They were both pressing and sprawling over Fouan’s body, crushing it beneath their fists and shoulders and legs. At first the old man had started violently, and when his legs were flattened down there came a sound like that of the snapping of springs. Now he was wriggling about like a fish on dry land; but all this was soon over. As they pressed him down they could feel his struggles ceasing and his life ebbing away. Eventually there came a prolonged quiver, then the last spasm, and finally it was all over; he lay there as inert as a log as limp as an old rag.

“There, I think we’ve done it now,” muttered Buteau, quite out of breath.

Lise, who was still squatting all of a heap on the bed, ceased pressing, and remained quite still to ascertain if the old man stirred.

“Yes, it’s done,” she soon said. “There isn’t a sign of life about him.”

Then she slipped off the bed and removed the pillow. But at the sight presented to their view they both broke out into a groan of terror.

“God in heaven! he’s quite black! We shall be found out!”

It would, indeed, be impossible to assert that the old man had put himself into such a condition. In their impetuosity the Buteaus had pressed so violently that his nose was jammed into his mouth, and his face was as black as a negro’s. At this sight it seemed to them as if the ground were giving way beneath them, and they already fancied they could hear the foot-falls of the gendarmes, the clanking of manacles, and the descent of the blade of the guillotine. They were filled with terrible regret as they gazed upon their clumsy piece of work. What could be done? It was of no use washing the old man’s face; that would not whiten it. Presently the terror with which his sooty appearance inspired them gave them an idea.

“Suppose we set him alight,” murmured Lise.

Buteau felt relieved at this suggestion, and drew a heavy breath.

“Capital! and we’ll say he did it himself.”

Then, as the thought of the scrip flashed through his mind, he clapped his hands, and his face brightened up with a triumphant smile.

“God in heaven!” he cried, “we’ll make them believe that he burnt the papers as well as himself, and then we shan’t have to give any account of them.”

He now turned to take up the candle; but Lise, who was afraid of incurring too much danger, would not let him set the bed on fire with it. There were some straw-bands behind some beet-root in a corner of the room, and she took one of these, lighted it, and then applied it to the old man’s long white hair and beard. There was a strong smell and sputtering like that of burning grease. Suddenly Lise and Buteau re­coiled in terrified stupefaction, as though some cold, ghostly hand had seized them by the hair. Tortured into life by the frightful agony of burning, the old man, who had not been effectually suffocated, had just opened his eyes; and now, as he lay there with his hideous blackened face, his great nose battered and broken, and his hair and beard burnt away, he gazed at them with a fearful look of mingled pain and hatred. Then all his face seemed to fall into utter blankness, and he died.

Quite wild with terror, Buteau had just burst out into an awful groan when he heard some screams at the door. They came from the two children, Laure and Jules, who had been awakened by the noise. Attracted by the light of the burn­ing straw, they had hurried along in their night-dresses to the open door, whence they had seen all. They shrieked with terror.

“You cursed little vermin!” roared Buteau, dashing at them; “if you say a word to anybody, I’ll murder you! Take that to remind you of what I say.”

With these words he gave them each such a violent cuff that they rolled over on the floor. They picked themselves up, however, without shedding a tear, and rushed off to their mattress, where they remained without daring to move.

Buteau, who was determined to make an end of the matter, now set fire to the palliasse in spite of his wife’s protes­tations. Fortunately the room was so damp that the straw burnt very slowly, giving out, however, such a dense and copious smoke, that they were nearly suffocated, and had to open the window. Then the flames shot up higher and licked the ceiling. The old man’s body began to crackle amid the blaze, and the room was filled with an intolerable stench of burning flesh. The old house would certainly have taken fire, and burnt away like a stack, if the straw had not begun to smoke again owing to the melting of the body. Nothing now remained on the cross-ribs of the iron bedstead save the half-calcined, disfigured, unrecognisable corpse. Only a small corner of the palliasse had remained unburnt, and a mere scrap of sheeting hung over the edge of the bed.

“Let us be off!” said Lise, who had begun to shiver again, despite the excessive heat.

“Wait a moment,” replied Buteau; “we must arrange things properly.”

He then placed a chair by the bedside, and upset the old man’s candlestick at the foot of it, to make it appear as though it had fallen upon the palliasse. Then he was crafty enough to throw some scraps of lighted paper on the floor. When the ashes were discovered, he intended to say that the old man had found his papers again on the previous evening, and had secured possession of them.

“There, that will do!” repeated Lise. “Now let us go to bed.”

They then hurried away, jostling each other in their haste, and plunged into their bed, which was now quite cold. Day­light began to dawn, but still they lay awake, unable to get to sleep. They did not speak to each other, but kept starting and quivering, and could hear their hearts beating wildly. They had left the door of the adjoining room open, and the thought of it disturbed them greatly; however, the idea of getting up and shutting it was still more distasteful and dis­quieting. At last they dozed off, still clinging closely to each other.

A few hours later the neighbours rushed up on hearing Buteau’s wild calls. La Frimat and the other woman noticed the fallen candle, the charred remains of the palliasse, and the ashes of the scraps of paper. Then they all exclaimed that they had always felt sure that this would happen some day or other. They declared they had prophesied a score of times that the old man would do it in his dotage! The Buteaus might be very thankful that the whole house hadn’t been burnt down at the same time!

CHAPTER VI

Two days afterwards, on the very morning on which old Fouan was to be buried, Jean, tired from having remained in bed for hours without being able to sleep, woke up very late in the little room which he occupied at Lengaigne’s. He had not yet been to Châteaudun to initiate proceedings against the Buteaus, though his intention to do so was the only thing that still kept him at Rognes. Each evening, however, he deferred the matter till the next day, feeling increasing hesitation about it, as his anger gradually calmed down. It was a prolonged mental struggle which had just kept him awake half the night, tossing feverishly about in his bed, and full of doubt as to what course he had best take.

Oh! those Buteaus, he thought, what murderous brutes, what abominable assassins they were! Some honest man ought to have their heads lopped off. As soon as he heard of old Fouan’s death, he guessed how it had been brought about. The villains, he felt sure of it, had burnt the old man alive to prevent him from blabbing. Françoise! Fouan! the murder of the one had forced them to murder the other. Whose turn would it be next? Most likely his own, he thought; for they knew that he possessed their secret, and they would certainly send a bullet into him from some quiet corner of the road if he persisted in remaining in the neigh­bourhood. Had he not better denounce them at once? He made up his mind that he would. He would lay an informa­tion against them as soon as he got up. Then he began to hesitate again, feeling considerable timidity as to embarking upon a serious proceeding like this. He would be called as a witness, and he felt afraid lest he might be made to suffer as much as the very criminals themselves. Why should he create fresh troubles and anxieties for himself? This, as he acknow­ledged, was a cowardly way of looking at matters, but he found an excuse for his silence in the reflection that by hold­ing his tongue he would be obeying Françoise’s last wishes. A score of times that night he came to a decision, and then a score of times he cast that decision aside, till he felt quite ill from thinking of this duty from which he recoiled.