Complete Works of Emile Zola (978 page)

Jean still retained a great affection for her, although with time his lustful desire to possess her had greatly quieted down. But he still adhered to her, and looked upon himself as engaged to her by reason of the promises they had exchanged. He had waited patiently till she was of age, without harassing her to depart from the waiting course she had determined upon, and he had even restrained her from acting in any way against her own interests while she remained at her sister’s. As a result, there was now every reason why all honourable people should be on her side. And, although he blamed her for the tem­pestuous way in which she had left the Buteaus, he repeated that she now had the game in her hands. Whenever she chose to speak of the other matter he should be ready and willing to hear her.

Their marriage was agreed upon in this wise, one evening when he had come to meet her behind La Grande’s cowhouse. There was a rotten old gate there, opening into a court, and they were leaning against it, he outside and she inside, with the stream of liquid manure from the stable trickling between their feet.

The girl was the first to refer to the subject.

“If you’re still of the same mind, Corporal, I’m willing to consent now,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes.

He returned her look, and replied slowly:

“I’ve not said anything to you about it lately, because it would have seemed as if I wanted your property. But you are right all the same. Now’s the time.”

Then there was a pause. Jean had laid his hand upon the girl’s, which was resting upon the gate. Then he resumed: “You mustn’t let any of the neighbours’ gossip about La Cognette trouble you. It’s three years and more since I even touched her.”

“And you,” she exclaimed, “you mustn’t worry yourself about Buteau. The swine brags everywhere that he has had to do with me. Perhaps you believe it?”

“Everybody in the neighbourhood believes it,” Jean mur­mured, evading a direct reply.

Then, seeing that she was still looking at him, he continued:

“Well, yes, I did believe it. I knew the scoundrel so well, that I didn’t see how you could possibly have prevented him.”

“Oh, he tried often enough, and I suffered dreadfully at his hands; but if I swear to you that he never gained his ends, will you believe me?”

“Yes, I believe you.”

Then, in token of his pleasure, he closed his fingers round her hand, and kept it pressed in his own as he stood with his arm resting on the gate. Noticing that the dribbling stream from the stable was wetting his boots, he set his legs apart.

“You seemed to stick on there so persistently,” he con­tinued, “that it almost appeared as though you enjoyed his bufferings.”

The girl felt ill at ease, and her frank, straightforward gaze was lowered.

“And the more so,” he added, “as you wouldn’t have anything more to do with me. Well, it’s all the better now, isn’t it? That baby I so wanted still remains to come. It’s altogether more respectable, too.”

He stopped to tell her that she was standing in the dirty stream.

“Take care; you are wetting your feet.”

She took them out of the slush, and then observed:

“We are agreed about it, then?”

“Yes, we are agreed. Choose any time you like.”

They did not even kiss each other, but just shook hands across the gate like a couple of friends. Then they went off in opposite directions.

When Françoise informed her aunt that same evening of her intention to marry Jean, explaining to her her need of a husband to assist her in recovering her property, La Grande at first made no reply. She sat stiffly in her chair with her eyes widely opened, calculating the loss and gain and pleasure which she was likely to derive from the marriage, and it was only the next day that she expressed her approval of it. She had been thinking the matter over all night long as she lay on her straw mattress, for she slept very little now, and would lie with open eyes till day dawned, plotting how she might make things disagreeable for the different members of her family. This marriage seemed to her to be so pregnant with unpleasant consequences for everybody, that she longed to see it come off with quite a youthful feverishness. She could already foresee even the smallest among the numerous vexations which would arise from it, and she was scheming how she might embitter them, and render them as fatal as possible. She was so pleased, indeed, that she told her niece that she would take the whole matter upon herself for affection’s sake. She emphasised the word by a terrible shake of her stick. Since the others had cast the girl off, she would take the place of her mother, and folks would see how she managed matters.

As a first step, La Grande summoned her brother Fouan to talk to him about the accounts of the guardianship. The old man, however, could not give her any information. It wasn’t his doing, he said, that he had been appointed guardian, and as Monsieur Baillehache had managed everything, he ought to be applied to. Moreover, when he discovered that the old woman was bent upon annoying the Buteaus, he affected still greater bewilderment. Age, and the consciousness of his weakness, filled him with uneasy alarm for himself; he felt that he was at everybody’s mercy. Why should he quarrel with the Buteaus? He had twice almost made up his mind to return to them after nights of quaking fear, during which he had seen Hyacinthe and La Trouille ferretting about his room, and even thrusting their bare arms under his bolster, trying to rob him of his papers. He felt quite convinced that he would be murdered some night or other at the Château if he did not escape from it.

La Grande, being unable to glean anything from him, dismissed him in a state of great alarm, shouting out that he should be prosecuted if he had tampered with the girl’s property. Then she attacked Delhomme, as a member of the family council, and gave him such a fright that he went home ill, Fanny coming at once to tell the old woman that they would prefer paying money down to being worried with law­suits. La Grande chuckled. The game was beginning to be very amusing!

The question she now set herself to solve was whether the division of the property should be pressed forward as the next step, or whether the marriage should take place first. She pondered over it for two nights, and pronounced in favour of an immediate marriage. Françoise, married to Jean and claiming her share of the property, assisted by her husband, would anger the Buteaus extremely. She then hurried things forward, seeming to regain the nimble activity of youth, and she busied herself about obtaining the necessary documents on behalf of Françoise, and made Jean give her his. Then she made all the arrangements both for the civil and religious weddings, and her eagerness even carried her so far that she advanced the necessary money, taking care, however, to obtain in exchange for it a receipt signed by both Jean and Françoise — a receipt in which the sum advanced was doubled by way of providing for the interest. The glasses of wine which she was forced to offer to the guests during the preparations wrenched her heart-strings more than anything else, but as she was provided with her vinegary liquid, her “gnat destroyer,” folks were not pressing in this respect. She decided that there should be no wedding feast on account of the divided state of the family. After the mass they would merely just swallow a glass of the “gnat destroyer,” by way of drinking the health of the newly-married pair.

Monsieur and Madame Charles, who were invited, excused themselves on the ground that they were greatly worried on account of their son-in-law, Vaucogne. Fouan, who was in a most uneasy state of mind, went off to bed, and sent a message saying that he was ill. The only relation present was Delhomme, who consented to act as one of Françoise’s witnesses, to mark the esteem which he felt for that steady fellow, Jean. The latter, on his side, only brought his witnesses — his master, Hourdequin, and one of the farm-hands, a companion. Rognes was topsy-turvy, and at every doorway people watched for this wedding, which had been so energetically pushed forward, and which seemed likely to provoke so much quarrelling and fighting.

At the ceremony at the municipal offices Macqueron, inflated with self-importance, went through the formalities, in presence of the ex-mayor, in an exaggerated manner. At the church there was a painful incident. The Abbé Madeline fainted while he was saying mass. He was not feeling well. He re­gretted his native mountains since he had begun to live in flat La Beauce, and he was extremely distressed by the indifference of his new parishioners for religion, and so upset by the continued chattering and squabbling of the women, that he no longer dared even to threaten them with hell. They had realised that he was of a yielding disposition, and they took advantage of this to tyrannise over him even in religious matters. However, Cœlina, and Flore, and all the other women present at the ceremony, expressed extreme sorrow for his having fallen with his nose against the altar, and they declared that it was an omen of misfortune and approaching death for the bride and bridegroom.

It had been settled that Françoise should continue to live at La Grande’s till she had received her share of the property; for, with her characteristic determination, she had quite made up her mind that she would have the house. So what was the good of taking one elsewhere just for a fortnight or so? Jean, who was to retain his post as waggoner at the farm, would in the meantime join her every evening. Their wedding night was a very sad and stupid one, though they were glad to be at last together. When Jean took his wife in his arms, she began to sob so violently that she almost choked: not that he used the least roughness towards her; on the contrary, he treated her with the utmost gentleness. In reply to his questions she told him, still sobbing bitterly, that she had no complaint to make against him, but that she could not help crying, though she did not know why she was doing so. Such a wedding night as this was not calculated to make a man very ardent. Though he embraced her and held her clasped in his arms, a feeling of troubled constraint seemed to have come be­tween them. Apart from that they got on very well together, and being unable to sleep, they spent the remainder of the night in speculating as to how their affairs would progress, when they got hold of the house and land.

The next morning Françoise was anxious to demand her share of the property. But La Grande now showed no great hurry to have the matter settled. She wanted to make her spite­ful enjoyment last as long as possible, bleeding her relations by slow degrees with pin-thrusts; and then, again, she profited too much by the services of Françoise and her husband, who paid the rent of the bedroom by two hours’ work every evening, to be anxious to see them leave her and establish themselves in a house of their own.

It was necessary, however, to ask the Buteaus how they proposed to divide the property. La Grande, on behalf of her niece, claimed the house, half the arable land, and half the meadow, foregoing the half of the vineyard as a set-off against the house, estimating it as being of the same value. It was a very fair proposal, and if matters had been thus arranged in a friendly way, a recourse to the law, which always retains a good slice of everything it gets hold of, would have been avoided. Buteau, whom La Grande’s arrival had revolutionised — he was forced to be respectful with her on account of her money — dared not listen any longer, but rushed out of the room, afraid lest he might so far forget his own interests as to strike the old woman.

Lise who was left alone with her, and whose ears were red with anger, stammered out:

“The house, indeed! She wants the house, does she? this heartless hussy, this good-for-nothing who has got married without even coming to see me! Well, aunt, you can tell her from me that if ever she gets this house it will only be because I’m dead!”

La Grande remained perfectly calm.

“All right, all right, my child. There’s no occasion to get excited. You also want the house. Well, you have an equal right to it. We will see what is to be done.”

For the next three days the old woman went backwards and forwards from one sister to the other, reporting to each of them all the abuse which the other had indulged in, and exasperating them to such a degree that both of them almost took to their beds. La Grande, unwearying in her embassies, impressed upon them how great her affection for them was, and what an amount of gratitude they owed her for under­taking this unpleasant task. It was finally settled that the land should be divided between the two sisters, but that the house, the furniture, and the live stock should be sold, since they could not agree about them. Both the sisters swore that they would buy the house, even if they had to part with their last, chemise to do it.

So Grosbois came to survey the land and divide it into two lots. There were two and a half acres of meadow land, about the same amount of vineyard, and about five acres of plough land. It was this latter that Buteau, since his marriage, had been so determined to retain, for it adjoined a field of his own which he had obtained from his father, and the two plots together made up a parcel of between seven and eight acres, such as no other peasant in all Rognes possessed. He was, consequently, full of bitter wrath when he saw Grosbois setting up his square and sticking his poles into the ground. La Grande was there superintending, but Jean had thought it best not to be present, fearing that there might be a fight if he came. As it was, there was an angry discussion. Buteau wanted the line of division to be drawn parallel to the valley of the Aigre, so that his wife’s share might still adjoin his own field; while La Grande, on the other hand, insisted that the line should be drawn perpendicularly, asserting that this was the way in which the family property had always been divided for centuries past. The old woman won the day, and Buteau clenched his fists and almost choked with suppressed rage.

“Curse it! Why, if the first lot falls to me,” he blurted out, “my land will be cut up into two pieces. There will be this piece in one place, and my own field in another.”

“Well, my lad,” rejoined the old woman, “you must draw the lot that suits you best.”

For a month past Buteau had been in a state of the angriest excitement. In the first place, Françoise was escaping him. He had become quite ill with longing desire, now that he was no longer able to seize hold of the girl as he had been wont to do, and to obstinately hope on that he would succeed in effecting his purpose some day or other. And, now that she was married, the thought that another man could do as he pleased with her, ended by putting him in a perfect fever. And then this other man was now trying to get his land into his possession, too. He felt that he would as soon lose a limb. The girl he might, perhaps, have, but not the land; the land which he, Buteau, had always looked upon as his own, and with which he had sworn never to part! He began to indulge in the most bloodthirsty thoughts, and ransacked his brains for some method by which he might be able to keep the land, dreaming vaguely of murders and acts of violence, which only his terror of the gendarmes prevented him from committing.