Complete Works of Emile Zola (951 page)

The men — Buteau, Jean who had been the former’s “best-man,” old Fouan, Delhomme and his son Nénesse — all in frock-coats, black trousers, and tall silk hats, that nothing would induce them to part with, were playing at pitch and toss in the yard. Monsieur Charles came by himself, having on the day before conducted Elodie to her boarding school at Châteaudun; and, without joining in the game, he took an interest in it and made some judicious suggestions.

At six o’clock, when all was ready, Jacqueline had to be waited for. The women now let down their skirts, which they had pinned up, so that the stove might not soil them. Lise was in blue, Françoise in pink; hard-coloured, old-fashioned silks which Lambourdieu had sold to them at double their value, passing them off as the latest Parisian novelty. Old Madame Fouan had looked out the violet poplin which she had paraded for forty years at all the country weddings, and Fanny, dressed in green, wore all her jewels; her watch and chain, a brooch, rings in her ears and on her fingers. Every minute one of the women would go out on to the road and run as far as the church corner to see whether the lady from the farm was not in sight. The sauces were burning, and the soup, which had unfortunately been served, was getting cold in the plates. At length there was a shout:

“There she is! There she is!”

The gig appeared, and Jacqueline leapt lightly out. She looked charming, having had the good taste to set off her attractions by a simple white cretonne dress with red spots. There were no jewels about her bare skin, save some little brilliants in her ears: a present from Hourdequin, which had set the neighbouring farms in a ferment. They were surprised that she did not dismiss the farm-hand who had brought her, when they had helped him to stable the vehicle. He was a kind of giant, named Tron, with white skin, red hair, and a child-like look. He came from Le Perche, and had been at La Borderie for a fortnight as yard-helper.

“Tron remains, you know,” said she gaily. “He’ll see me home.”

In La Beauce, people are not partial to the Percherons, whom they accuse of being false and sly. Glances were ex­changed. This, then, was La Cognette’s last fancy, this big brute! However, Buteau, who had been very agreeable and jocular since the morning, replied:

“Certainly he can stop! It’s enough that he comes with you.”

Lise having given the word to begin, they sat down to table, with a deal of bustle and noisy talk. There were three chairs short, so they ran and fetched two stools, with their straw seats worn through, and laid a plank across them. Spoons were already briskly rattling against the plates. The soup was cold, and covered with congealed bubbles of fat. They didn’t mind that, however. Old Fouan made the remark that it would get warm in their bellies, an idea which provoked tempestuous laughter. From that moment the scene was one of gluttonous massacre: the chickens, rabbits, meats appeared and vanished in succession, amid a gruesome sound of munching. Although very temperate at their own homes, they stuffed till they almost burst when visiting. La Grande did not speak, in order to eat the more, and she kept at it with never-resting jaws; it was indeed frightful to see how much her lean, shrivelled, octogenarian stomach could engulf, with­out so much as swelling. It had been settled that, for the look of the thing, Françoise and Fanny should see to the guests, so that the bride might not have to get up; but she could not keep still; she left her chair every instant, tucking up her sleeves, and giving her best attention to the pouring out of a sauce, or the dishing of a joint. In a short time, however, the whole table took a share in the waiting, and some one was always on his legs, cutting bread or trying to get hold of a dish. Buteau, who had taken charge of the wine, no longer sufficed as butler, though to save himself the trouble of corking and uncorking bottles he had simply put a cask on tap. How­ever he could not get any time to eat, and at last Jean had to relieve him and replenish the pitchers. Delhomme, seated at his ease, declared in his sagacious way that there must be plenty of liquor if one didn’t want to be stifled. When the pie, which was as broad as a cart wheel, was served there was a thrill, the force-meat balls making a deep impression. Monsieur Charles carried his politeness so far as to swear upon his honour that he had never seen a finer one at Chartres. At this point, old Fouan, in high feather, sparkled once more.

“I say,” he remarked, “if a fellow had any chaps on his buttocks, he could cure them by sticking that on behind.”

On hearing this the table went into fits, especially Jacque­line, who laughed till she cried. She stuttered out some emendatory remarks, which were lost amid her laughter. The bridal pair faced each other, Buteau being between his mother and La Grande, and Lise between old Fouan and Monsieur Charles. The other guests were disposed according to their own fancy; Jacqueline beside Tron, who watched her with his soft, stupid eyes; Jean near Françoise, and only separated from her by little Jules, upon whom both of them had engaged to keep an eye. However, on the appearance of the pie, the child displayed such strong symptoms of indigestion that the bride had to go and put him to bed. Then Jean and Françoise were brought side by side. She was very lively, deeply flushed by the heat of the large fire on the hearth, and over-excited, albeit tired to death. He was attentive, and wished to get up and help her; but she broke away, having moreover to hold her own against Buteau, who, being much given to teasing when in a pleasant mood, had made a set at her from the beginning of the feast. He pinched her whenever she went by, whereupon she retorted with a furious slap; and then she would get up again on some pretext or other, as if fascinated and anxious to be pinched again and to slap him in return. She complained that her hips were black and blue.

“Stop where you are, then!” repeated Jean.

“Oh, no!” cried she, “he mustn’t think he’s my master too, simply because he’s married Lise.”

They had lighted six tallow candles as soon as it was dark, and the meal had been in progress for three hours, when at length, towards ten o’clock, an onslaught was made on the dessert. From that point, coffee was drunk; not one or two cups, but large bowlfuls of it, without stopping. The fun grew more pointed. Coffee gave one vigour, it was said, and was excellent for the men who took too much sleep. Every time a married guest swallowed a spoonful the others split their sides laughing.

“You’ve very good cause to take some,” said Fanny to Delhomme. She was very merry, that evening, the feast having drawn her out of her habitual reserve.

Her husband reddened, and to excuse himself roundly declared that it was due to over-work; whereupon their son Nénesse laughed from ear to ear, amid the burst of shouts and the thigh-slapping provoked by this conjugal revelation. However, the lad had eaten so much that he seemed to be bursting. Soon he vanished, and he was not seen again till the party broke up, when he was found slumbering in company with the two cows.

La Grande was the one who held out the longest. At mid­night she was hard at work on the tartlets, in mute despair at being unable to finish them. The bowls of cream had been cleaned out, the crumbs of the cake swept up; with the freedom of increasing tipsiness, with bodices unhooked and trouser buttons undone, they split up into little knots, and chatted round the table, which was greasy with sauce, and stained with spilt wine. Songs had been started, but had come to nothing; except that old Rose, with a maudlin expression of counte­nance, went on humming some past century ribaldry, a remini­scence of her young days, to which she kept time by nodding her head. They were also too few to dance. Besides the men preferred to tipple brandy and smoke their pipes, the ashes of which they shook out over the table-cloth. In a corner, Fanny and Delhomme, with Jean and Tron before them, were reckoning up, within a halfpenny, the pecuniary position and expectations of the bride and bridegroom. This went on interminably. Every square inch was appraised. They knew every fortune in Rognes, even to the value of the linen possessed by each household. At the other end of the table, Jacqueline had buttonholed Monsieur Charles, whom she was contemplating with a winning smile, her pretty, wicked eyes aflame with curiosity. She questioned him.

“So Chartres is a queer place, eh? There’s a gay life to be led there?”

He answered her by praising the town circuit: a line of promenades planted with old trees, which encompass Chartres with shade. In the lower part especially, along the banks of the Eure, the boulevards were very cool in summer. Then there was the cathedral. He expiated on this edifice, being a well-informed man with great respect for religion. Yes, it was one of the finest buildings; but it had become too vast for the present times of weak Christianity, and was almost always empty, in the midst of its deserted square, which the devout alone crossed on week-days. He had realised the desolation of the place one Sunday when he had gone in casually while the vesper service was taking place. You shivered with the cold inside, and you could hardly see on account of the stained glass; so that all he could eventually descry were two little girls’ schools, lost in the space like a handful of ants, and singing under the vaulted roof in shrill, fife-like voices. It was truly heartrending that the churches should be thus abandoned for the drinking-shops.

Jacqueline, who was astonished to hear him say all this, continued to stare at him steadily, with the same smile. At last to attain her object, she had to murmur:

“But tell me now, the Chartres women—”

He understood, and grew very grave, but he unbosomed himself, under the expansive influence of the general intoxica­tion. She, flushed and tittering, rubbed up against him as if to penetrate that mystery of a rush of men, night after night. But it was not what she imagined. He told her about the hard work of it, for, in his cups, he was wont to be melancholy and paternal. Then he grew more animated, when she told him that she had amused herself one day by taking a look at the front of the Châteaudun night-house, at the corner of the Rue Dairgnon and the Rue Loiseau: a little dilapidated house it was, with its shutters closed and rotting. Behind, in a neglected garden, there was a large silvered globe of glass reflecting the house; while, in front of the dormer-window of the topmost floor, turned into a pigeon-house, some pigeons were flying and cooing in the sunshine. On that day, too, some children were playing on the door-step, and she had heard the words of command resounding over the wall of the adjacent cavalry barracks. He, interrupting her, grew angry. Yes, yes! He knew the place: two disgusting used-up women, and not even any mirrors down-stairs. It was these dens that brought disgrace on the profession.

“But what can you expect in a sub-prefecture?” he added at length, calming down, with the philosophical tolerance of a superior person.

It was now one in the morning, and it was suggested that they should go to bed. When people had had a baby, there wasn’t much use (was there?) in making a fuss about getting under the blankets together. It was the same with the old practical jokes — unpinning the bedstead, and popping scratch­ing hair, or toys that squeaked when they were squeezed between the sheets, and so on. All that, in this case, would have come the day after the fair. The best thing to do was to drink a parting cup, and then say good-night.

At that moment, however, Lise and Fanny shrieked. Through the open window a liberal shower of cow’s dung had just been thrown, and both women’s dresses were splashed from top to bottom, and ruined. What swine had done that? They ran out and looked over the square, along the road, and behind the hedge. Nobody. However, they all agreed that this was Hyacinthe’s revenge for not having been invited.

The Fouans and Delhomme set out, and Monsieur Charles too. La Grande made a tour of the table, to see whether there was anything left; and finally made up her mind to go, after observing to Jean that the Buteaus would die in a ditch. Her firm, sharp step, and the measured tap of her stick, were heard down the road in the distance; while the others, all very tipsy, went staggering over the stones.

As Tron was putting the horse to the gig for Madame Jacqueline, she, already with one foot on the step, turned round and asked:

“You’re not going back with us, are you, Jean? “

The young fellow, who was preparing to get in, changed his mind, glad enough to leave her to Tron, since she seemed to wish it. He watched her cuddling up against the tall figure of her new gallant, and could not help laughing when the vehicle was out of sight. He would walk back, he thought. But first, pending the departure of the others, he went and sat down for an instant on the stone bench in the yard, near Françoise, who had installed herself there, being overcome with both the heat and fatigue. The Buteaus were already in their room, and she had promised to fasten everything up before going to bed herself.

“Ah! it’s pleasant here,” she sighed, after five long minutes of silence.

Then quietude fell again, calm and majestic. The cool, delicious night was spangled with stars. The scent of the hay was borne so strong from the meadows of the Aigre that its balmy fragrance seemed like the perfume of flowers.

“Ah, yes! it’s pleasant,” repeated Jean, at length. “It does the heart good.”

She made no reply, however, and he saw that she was asleep. She slid down, resting upon his shoulder, and then he stopped there an hour longer, meditating in a confused manner. Evil thoughts came to him, but died away. She was too young. It seemed to him that, by waiting, she alone would become older and get to be nearer his age.

“I say, Françoise, we’d better go to bed!” he exclaimed at last. “We might catch something out here.”

She started out of her sleep.

“Dear, yes! we shall be better abed. Till we meet again, Jean!”

“Till we meet again, Françoise!”

PART III

CHAPTER I

So at last Buteau had got his share, that land he had so ardently coveted, and yet refused during more than two years and a half, in a fury compounded of longing, rancour, and obstinacy. He himself did not know why he had been so stubborn, yearning at heart to sign the deed, fearing he might be tricked, and unable to console himself for not having secured the whole inheritance, the nineteen acres now mutilated and scattered. Since his acceptance, however, a great passion had been satisfied, the brutal joy of possession; and that joy was doubled by the thought that his sister and brother were now the swindled parties, that his holding was worth more since the new road ran by his field. He never met them without a sly chuckle, and winks that said: