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Title: The girl in scarlet
or, The loves of Silvère and Miette.
Author: Émile Zola
Translator: Mary Neal Sherwood
Release date: November 9, 2026 [eBook #79959]
Language: English
Original publication: Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Brothers, 1882
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79959
Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, Laura Natal and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL IN SCARLET ***
[Illustration]
THE GIRL IN SCARLET;
OR, THE
LOVES OF SILVÈRE AND MIETTE.
(LA FORTUNE DES ROUGON.)
BY ÉMILE ZOLA.
AUTHOR OF “NANA,” “L’ASSOMMOIR,” “CLAUDE’S CONFESSION,” “HELENE,”
“THERESE RAQUIN,” “THE MYSTERIES OF MARSEILLES,” “POT-BOUILLE,”
“MAGDALEN FERAT,” “A MAD LOVE; OR, THE ABBÉ AND HIS COURT,”
“THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON,”
“LA BELLE LISA; OR, THE PARIS MARKET GIRLS,”
“ALBINE; OR, THE ABBÉ’S TEMPTATION,” ETC.
TRANSLATED BY JOHN STIRLING.
“THE GIRL IN SCARLET; OR, THE LOVES OF SILVÈRE AND MIETTE,” has its
foundation in a love affair as pure as it is enchanting. The quaint but
highly poetic courtship of the very youthful lovers is replete with
childish innocence and candor from the first shy meeting at the well
to the final tragedy amid the provincial rising in opposition to Louis
Napoleon’s coup d’état. The scenes at the well, in which the children
gazed with delight at their own images, are so beautiful that they
will attract the attention of and win enthusiastic praise from all.
The meetings in the old cemetery, the strolls into the country and the
swimming lesson are particularly delicate and forcible touches, while
the description of the march of the insurrectionary army, with Miette
clad in scarlet, carrying the flag, and Silvère marching by her side
full of enthusiasm for the republic, is as vivid as anything Zola has
ever written. The subordinate plot deals mainly with the Rougons, and
those prominent characters of “L’Assommoir,” Gervaise and Lantier, are
shown at the commencement of their career. “THE GIRL IN SCARLET” is as
interesting as it is beautiful, and no one should miss the opportunity
now afforded to read it.
PHILADELPHIA:
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
306 CHESTNUT STREET.
COPYRIGHT:
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS.
1882.
[Illustration]
LIST OF ÉMILE ZOLA’S GREAT REALISTIC WORKS.
Translated from the French by John Stirling.
=Nana. The Sequel to “L’Assommoir.”= _By Émile Zola_, author of
“Pot-Bouille,” “L’Assommoir,” etc. With a portrait of “Nana” on the
cover.
=L’Assommoir.= _By Émile Zola_, author of “Nana,” “Pot-Bouille,”
“Albine,” “Helene,” etc. With a portrait of “Gervaise,” the mother
of “Nana,” on the cover.
=Pot-Bouille.= _By Émile Zola_, author of “Nana,” “L’Assommoir,”
“Helene,” “A Mad Love,” “The Girl in Scarlet,” “La Belle Lisa,”
etc. With an Illustrated Cover.
=Claude’s Confession.= _By Émile Zola_, author of “Nana,”
“L’Assommoir,” “Pot-Bouille,” “The Girl in Scarlet,” “La Belle
Lisa,” “Helene,” “A Mad Love,” etc.
=The Mysteries of the Court of Louis Napoleon.= _By Émile Zola_,
author of “Nana,” “L’Assommoir,” “Pot-Bouille,” “Helene,” “A Mad
Love,” etc.
=The Mysteries of Marseilles.= _By Émile Zola_, author of
“L’Assommoir,” “Nana,” “Pot-Bouille,” “The Girl in Scarlet,” “La
Belle Lisa,” “Helene,” etc.
=The Girl in Scarlet; or, The Loves of Silvère and Miette.= _By
Émile Zola_, author of “Nana,” “L’Assommoir,” “Pot-Bouille,”
“Albine,” etc.
=Albine; or, The Abbé’s Temptation.= _By Émile Zola_, author of
“Nana,” “L’Assommoir,” “The Girl in Scarlet,” etc. With a portrait
of “Albine” on cover.
=A Mad Love; or, The Abbé and His Court.= _By Émile Zola_, author
of “Nana,” “L’Assommoir,” “Pot-Bouille,” “The Girl in Scarlet,”
“Helene,” etc.
=Helene, a Love Episode; or, Une Page D’Amour.= _By Émile Zola_,
author of “Nana,” “Pot-Bouille,” etc. With a portrait of “Helene”
on the cover.
=La Belle Lisa; or, The Paris Market Girls.= _By Émile Zola_,
author of “Nana,” “L’Assommoir,” “Pot-Bouille,” “The Girl in
Scarlet,” “Albine,” etc.
=Magdalen Ferat.= _By Émile Zola_, author of “Nana,” “L’Assommoir,”
“Pot-Bouille,” “The Girl in Scarlet,” “La Belle Lisa,” “Helene,”
“Albine,” etc.
=Therese Raquin.= A Novel. _By Émile Zola_, author of “Nana,”
“L’Assommoir,” “Pot-Bouille,” “The Girl in Scarlet,” “La Belle
Lisa,” “Helene,” “Albine,” etc.
=Nana’s Daughter.= Sequel to “Zola’s Nana.” =Nana’s Daughter.= With
an Illustrated Cover with Portraits of the Heroines in the work.
CONTENTS.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY 21
II. THE THREE BROTHERS 57
III. PLASSANS AND POLITICS 100
IV. INSULTS AND WOUNDS 141
V. “THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS” 197
VI. SHREWDNESS AND COURAGE 253
VII. THE OLD CEMETERY 342
THE GIRL IN SCARLET;
OR, THE
LOVES OF SILVÈRE AND MIETTE.
BY ÉMILE ZOLA.
AUTHOR OF “NANA,” “L’ASSOMMOIR,” “HELENE,” “CLAUDE’S CONFESSION,”
“THE MYSTERIES OF MARSEILLES,” “MAGDALEN FERAT” “POT-BOUILLE,” “THE
MYSTERIES OF THE COURT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON,” “THERESE RAQUIN,” “ALBINE,”
“LA BELLE LISA; OR, THE PARIS MARKET GIRLS,” “A MAD LOVE; OR, THE ABBÉ
AND HIS COURT,” ETC., ETC.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY.
LEAVING Plassans by the Roman gate on the south of the town, after
passing the scattered houses of the Faubourg, one finds one’s self on
the road to Nice, and on the right a vacant space, known by the people
under the name of Saint-Mittre.
Saint-Mittre is an elongated square, separated from the highway merely
by a strip of worn turf. On one side is a lane which terminates in
a cul-de-sac, and is bordered by a row of dilapidated huts. At the
left and rear it is shut in by two moss-grown walls, over which
wave branches of the tall mulberry trees on the great estate of
Jas-Meiffren, which has its entrance lower down in the Faubourg.
Thus shut in on three sides, Saint-Mittre is like a square which leads
nowhere, and which is only crossed by pedestrians.
Formerly this spot was a Cemetery under the protection of
Saint-Mittre--a Provençal Saint much honored in the country about. The
old inhabitants of Plassans, in 1851, talked of having seen the walls
of this Cemetery standing for years. For a century this spot had been
used for interments, until finally the authorities of the town were
compelled to open a new Cemetery on the other side of the town, so full
had this one become, and Saint-Mittre was abandoned and overgrown with
crisp dark grass and weeds. The soil--which could never be upheaved
by shovel or pickaxe without bringing to the surface some human
remains--was appallingly fertile.
From the highway, after May rains and June suns, the herbage was seen
overtopping the walls; while within it was like a sea of dark green
with dashes of strangely brilliant flowers, while the damp earth
smelled of the decaying humanity which nourished this rank vegetation.
One of the curiosities of this old burial-ground was a huge pear tree
with gnarled and twisted branches, laden yearly with enormous fruit
which no housewife in Plassans would touch.
Everybody spoke of this gigantic fruit with disgust, except the
school-boys of the Faubourg, who were troubled with no such scruples of
delicacy, and climbed the walls at twilight to steal these pears long
before they were ripe.
The glowing life of these trees and this herbage had long since
devoured all the dead bodies in the old Cemetery of Saint-Mittre;
and now as one passed along by the wall, only the penetrating odor
of the wall-flowers was to be perceived, and this had been the case
for several summers. About this time the town awoke to the fact that
this property was lying idle, and they wished to utilize it. They tore
down the walls, rooted up the grass, and cut down the pear trees.
Then they proceeded to move the Cemetery. The bones they dug up were
heaped in one corner, and for a month the children alternately grieved
over the loss of their pear tree, and played ball with skulls, and
some of the older lads went so far as to be guilty of the very poor
jest, of one night hanging tibias and femurs on all the door-bells in
the town. There was a constant repetition of this scandal, of which
Plassans still preserved the tradition, until the bones were thrown all
together, in a great ditch in the new Cemetery.
But in the provinces such labors are executed with strange slowness,
and the inhabitants for many days were regaled with the sight of a huge
cart, transporting human remains as if they had been loads of plaster.
This cart traversed the length of Plassans, and the wretched
cobble-stones of the streets jostled out bits of bone and handfuls of
rich earth all along the road. Not the smallest religious ceremony took
place. It was merely a slow and brutal cartage through an insensible
town.
For many years this ancient Cemetery was looked upon with horror.
Open to all comers on the side of a great highway, it was soon again
overgrown with wild flowers and grass. The town had expected to sell
it and to see houses erected upon it, but they found themselves
mistaken--the remembrance of the carts laden with human bones weighed
like a nightmare on the people; or it may have been simply the
indolence of the provincials, and the reluctance they always feel in
undertaking new enterprises. At all events, the town kept the land,
and, after a time, seemed to lose the desire to sell it.
The authorities did not even fence it in. Any one entered it who
pleased, and by degrees all the inhabitants of Plassans became
accustomed to this empty corner--wore narrow paths across it, and sat
on the grassy banks. When the paths were well defined, and the beaten
earth was gray and hard, the old cemetery looked like a public square
badly cared for and neglected.
For more than thirty years Saint-Mittre has had a most peculiar
appearance. The town, too indifferent and sleepy, finally let the land
for an absurdly small rental as a lumber yard. At this very day huge
beams lie here and there on the ground like broken columns, and are a
perpetual joy to the children, who clamber over them with unwearying
activity, and play there the livelong day; mirthful shouts are varied
by shrieks of pain, as they fall from the planks where they sit in rows
balancing themselves by the hour together.
Thus for a quarter of a century has Saint-Mittre been the playground of
all the children in the vicinity.
Another thing which gives to this spot a character of its own is--that
all birds of passage--all wandering Bohemians--establish themselves
there. As soon as one of those mansions on wheels, containing an entire
tribe, reaches Plassans, they settle themselves on the area of ground
known as Saint-Mittre.
The place is rarely empty: there is always some band of wild,
fantastic-looking people--tawny men, withered women, and beautiful
children, living a strange out-of-door life--boiling their pots in
the open air, eating nameless things, washing and drying their ragged
garments, sleeping, quarrelling and fighting--dirty and poor.
The old burial-ground, where once the bees buzzed around the gaudy
flowers in the glaring sunlight, has thus become a noisy spot,
resounding with the sharp voices of children and the quarrels of the
wandering Bohemians.
A saw-mill of primitive construction in a sheltered corner served as
bass to the sharper tones, and for hours two men worked it with the
regularity of machines. The wood they cut was piled against the rear
wall in the most methodical manner.
The old mill-stones lying there from season to season, eaten with rust,
and half overgrown with weeds, were an especial charm of Saint-Mittre.
They indicated mysterious paths, narrow and discreet, which led to a
wider alley close under the wall, draped with moss, while under-foot
the ground looked as if covered with a green carpet--around which
something of the rank vegetation and chilly silence of the old Cemetery
still lingered.
From the old tombs, warmed by the hot suns, rose damp odors, and in
all the country about Plassans there was not a place, so quiet, so
peaceful, and so solitary.
When the Cemetery was emptied, the bones must have been piled up in
this corner; for it is by no means rare even now, as one walks through
the damp grass, to discover part of a human skull.
No one nowadays thinks of the dead who have slept under this turf. Only
children find their way to this especial spot when they are playing
hide-and-go-seek; to all others the green alley is an unknown territory.
In the afternoon, when the sun is warm--while the children are playing
noisily among the wood--and the Bohemians are lighting the fire under
the kettle, the saw-mill rises clear against the sky, keeping up its
regular movements as if it were the pendulum which regulated all the
busy life which has invaded this ancient place of eternal rest.
It was only the old people, seated on the beams, basking in the setting
sun, who talked among themselves of the bones they had formerly seen
carted through the streets of Plassans.
When night fell, Saint-Mittre was emptied and looked like a great black
hole, except that at the very back was the dying light of the fire
kindled by the Bohemians, past which an occasional shadow silently
flitted. In winter especially, the place assumed a most sinister aspect.
One Sunday evening about seven o’clock, a young man passed, entered
Saint-Mittre, keeping close to the wall, and emerged near the saw-mill.
It was early in December, 1851, and excessively cold. The moon was
at the full, and had the excessive brilliancy peculiar to winter; the
saw-mill lay silent and motionless, flooded in this white light.
The young man stood still for a few moments, and looked about him
doubtfully. He held, half-hidden by his overcoat, a musket, whose
muzzle, turned toward the ground, glittered in the rays of the moon.
He pressed the musket close to his breast, while he intently examined
one after the other the black shadows projected by the piles of timber.
They were almost like a checker-board in their regularity.
In the centre, on a bit of bare and level ground, stood the saw-mill,
like some monstrous geometrical figure roughly drawn with ink on paper.
The beams and logs in this wintry moon--in this frozen stillness--had
more than a vague suggestion of the dead in the old Cemetery.
The young man looked about him. Not a human being was to be seen.
The solitude appeared absolute. Several dark shadows in the distance
disturbed him, however; but after another investigation he hastily
crossed the lumber yard and reached the alley running along the wall.
There his feet made no sound as they trod the frozen grass. He seemed
more at ease, and no longer appeared to fear any danger. He ceased to
conceal his musket. The moon shining between piles of boards lay in
strips of light at his feet. All--light and shadow alike--was buried in
profound slumber--sweet and sad.
Nothing could be imagined more peaceful than this path. The young man
traversed its whole length. At the extreme end, where the walls of
Jas-Meiffren make an angle, he stood still and listened, as if for
some sound from the next grounds.
Then hearing nothing he stooped, thrust aside a board, and hid his
gun amid the pile of timber. In this corner an old tomb that had
been forgotten in the days when the Cemetery had been moved made a
comfortable seat. Rain had worn away the edges, and moss and lichens
were slowly invading it; but in the moonlight the remains of an epitaph
engraven on the face of the tomb were to be seen--
“Cy--gist--Marie--morte--”
Time had effaced all else.
When he had concealed his gun, the young man, listening again and still
bearing nothing, stepped up on the tomb. The wall was low and he stood
leaning upon it; beyond the row of mulberries he saw only a plain of
light. The Jas-Meiffren estate, flat and treeless, extended under the
moon like a huge web of unbleached linen, while a couple of hundred
yards away, the house and its outbuildings lay in silent whiteness.
The young man fixed his eyes on this last with evident anxiety. The
village clock struck seven slowly and solemnly. He counted each stroke,
and stepped down from the stone with an air of mingled surprise and
relief, and took his seat with the air of a man resigned to a long
period of waiting. He did not seem to feel the cold. For a half hour he
sat motionless, with eyes fixed as if dreaming. He had taken his seat
in a dark corner, but as the moon rose higher it touched his head, and
brought out each feature of his face.
He was not more than seventeen, and wonderfully handsome, of vigorous
build, with an expressive mouth, and the delicate skin and coloring
of his years. His face was thin and long, and chiselled as by some
powerful sculptor. The high forehead, the arch of the eyebrows, the
aquiline nose, the well-moulded chin, gave to the whole head a singular
vigor, which as years went on might become too pronounced; but at this
hour of puberty the sharpness of outline was softened by the down on
cheek and chin, and by a vague childishness of expression. The eyes
were velvety black, and very gentle in expression, imparting sweetness
to this energetic physiognomy. All women might not be attracted by this
youth, for he was far from what is usually called a handsome fellow;
but his face was so full of energy, so sympathetic and strong, that the
girls of his Province--those warm-blooded Southern girls--dreamed of
him whenever they had seen him pass their door on July evenings.
He sat, musing, on the tombstone, unheeding the moonlight now shining
full upon him. He was of medium height, and somewhat squarely built.
His arms were muscular, and his hands were those of a working-man
already hardened by labor. His feet, encased in stout leather shoes,
looked large and strong. All these members, and even his listless
manner of sitting, indicated that he belonged to the people; but the
carriage of his head, the flash in his eyes, told a clever observer
that he revolted against the stultifying manual labor which was already
beginning to round his shoulders. His mind was quick and intelligent,
but weighed down by his race and his class; one of those exquisitely
tender natures that suffer, in not being able to cast aside their outer
husk. Thus, in spite of his real strength of character, he seemed timid
and uneasy--ashamed of his own incompleteness, but not knowing in what
way to finish himself, if we may be allowed the expression.
He was a brave fellow--ignorant and enthusiastic--a manly heart guided
by boyish reasoning abilities--self-sacrificing as a woman, and
courageous as a hero.
He was dressed in pantaloons and jacket of ribbed velveteen. A soft
felt hat, pulled down a little in front, threw a light shadow over his
brow.
When the half hour struck from the neighboring clock he started.
Discovering that he was bathed in the full light of the moon, he looked
anxiously about him, and with a sudden movement retreated into the
shadow; but his train of thought was hopelessly lost; he realized that
his feet and hands were like ice, and became impatient. Again he stood
upon the tombstone and scrutinized the Jas-Meiffren estate, where all
was silent and vacant. Then not knowing what to do to kill time, he
descended, took up his gun once more from amid the pile of boards where
he had concealed it, and amused himself with that.
This gun was a long and heavy carabine, which had doubtless belonged to
some smuggler. By the thickness of the butt end, and the dimensions of
the barrel, it was easy to see that it had once carried stones, and had
since been altered by some country blacksmith.
The youth ran his hand up and down his gun caressingly, put his finger
into the barrel and examined it carefully; by degrees becoming fired
with youthful enthusiasm, in which there was a touch of childishness,
he shouldered his gun and stood like a newly enlisted conscript going
through his first drill.
The clock was on the stroke of eight. He stood thus for several
minutes, when all at once a voice, soft and low as a sigh, came from
Jas-Meiffren--
“Are you there, Silvère?” asked the voice.
Silvère dropped his gun, and leaped once more upon the flat tomb.
“Yes” he replied, in a voice that was equally low. “Wait a moment; I
will help you.”
A young girl’s head appeared above the wall. The child, with singular
agility, had climbed like a cat into the trunk of a mulberry tree. By
the rapidity and ease of her movements it was easy to see that this
strange path was not new to her.
In the twinkling of an eye she was seated on the edge of the wall. Then
Silvère lifted her in his arms, and placed her on the turf; but she
resisted--
“Let me be!” she said, with the air of a child playing some romping
game; “let me be! I can get down perfectly well by myself.”
Then, when she stood fairly on her feet, she continued: “You have been
waiting for me a long time, have you not? I ran so fast that I am
entirely out of breath.”
Silvère did not reply; he seemed in no laughing mood. He took his seat
by her side, saying gravely: “I wanted to see you, Miette, and would
have waited all night for you. I leave to-morrow morning at daybreak.”
Miette saw the gun lying on the frozen grass. She, in her turn, grew
very grave, and murmured: “Ah! you have decided then; and there is your
gun.”
Then came a long silence.
“Yes,” answered Silvère, in a trembling voice; “that’s my gun. I
preferred to leave the house to-night. To-morrow morning Aunt Dide
might have seen me take it, and that would have worried her. I intend
to hide it somewhere here, and come for it just as we start.”
As Miette seemed unable to take her eyes from this gun which he had so
foolishly left full in sight, he took it up, and slipped it again among
the boards.
“We learned this morning,” he said, as he seated himself again, “that
the insurgents of La Palud and of Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx were on the
march, and that they spent last night at Amboise. It has been decided
that we shall join them there. This afternoon a band of workmen from
Plassans left the town; to-morrow all the others will go to join their
brothers.”
He uttered this word “brothers” with boyish emphasis. Then, with
increasing animation, he continued:
“The conflict is inevitable; but Right is on our side, and we shall
triumph.”
Miette listened to Silvère, looking before her with wide-opened,
unseeing eyes. When he ceased speaking, she said slowly:
“It is well.”
And at the end of a moment she added:
“You told me so; but I hoped--I could not but hope. But now it is
decided.”
They could say no more. This quiet spot breathed the most intense
melancholy. The only moving things were the shadows thrown by the
swaying branches of the mulberry trees over the moonlight which flooded
the grass. The group formed by the two young persons on the tombstone
was as if sculptured from marble.
Silvère has slipped his arm around Miette’s waist, and she leaned
against his shoulder. They exchanged no kisses. She gently submitted to
his brotherly embrace.
Miette was wrapped in an ample brown cloak with a hood. This garment
fell to her feet, and enveloped her entirely, so that only her head and
hands emerged.
The women of the people--peasants and work-women--still wear in
Provence these large mantles, which they call pelisses, and the fashion
of which dates from time immemorial.
Miette had thrown her hood back. She lived out of doors, and never
wore a hat or cap. Her well-shaped head stood out against the wall,
whitened by the moon. She was a child, but a child who was soon to
become a woman. She was just at that charming hour of indecision when
the frolicsome child is transformed into the girl.
At that time there is always with all adolescents the delicacy of an
opening bud--the full, voluptuous lines of womanhood are indicated in
the slender, childish form. Some girls at this period develop too
hastily; they grow tall and thin, like weeds or unhealthy plants.
But for Miette--for all those who are rich in blood and who live an
out-of-door life--it is an hour of grace and sweetness which is never
theirs again. Miette was thirteen, and though tall and well grown, no
one would have thought her older, so radiant was her face with childish
gayety.
Thanks to the climate and to the healthy life she led she was rapidly
becoming a woman. She was almost as tall as Silvère, and like him would
not have been called beautiful by the majority of people. No one could
have thought her ugly; but she was odd in her appearance, and totally
unlike most young girls.
Her black hair was superb, growing in heavy masses over her brow, and
falling in rippling waves upon her shoulders. It was so thick that she
did not know what to do with it. She twisted it in several coils, each
as large as a child’s arm, and massed these coils at the back of her
head.
She had little time to think of her coiffure, and it often happened
that this enormous chignon, hastily made without a mirror, had a
certain classic grace.
Seeing her with this mass of hair, and the short curls on her
forehead and on her neck, it was easy to see why she always went
bareheaded--unheeding rain and cold.
Her low forehead, her large, somewhat prominent eyes, her short nose,
with wide, expanded nostrils, the somewhat full but scarlet lips,
might have seemed defects taken one by one. But in the pretty round
face, each detail formed an ensemble of remarkable beauty. When Miette
laughed, throwing her head back, and leaning a little toward the
right, she resembled an antique Bacchante, with her firm, full throat,
her cheeks rounded like a child’s, her beautiful white teeth and her
massive hair, while her face, bronzed by the sun, had on certain days
and in certain lights, almost a soft amber tint.
A fine black down gave a light shadow to her upper lip. Manual toil
had begun to deform her little hands, which would have been, had they
remained idle, adorable and dimpled.
Miette and Silvère sat for a long time in silence. They contemplated
the unknown Future, and in their fear and dread of the morrow, they
pressed closer to each other. Both fully realized the uselessness and
cruelty of any audible complaint, but the girl was the first to speak,
and in one phrase revealed their mutual and paramount anxiety.
“You will come back?” she murmured, with her arms around Silvère’s neck.
Silvère, not daring to reply lest he should weep with her, kissed
her on her cheek in a brotherly sort of way. They then relapsed into
silence.
Miette shivered. She was no longer leaning against Silvère’s shoulders,
and felt excessively cold--colder than ever before in this deserted
spot, where she and her friend had spent so many peaceful hours.
“I am cold,” she said, drawing up the hood of her pelisse.
“Shall we walk?” asked the young man. “It is not yet nine o’clock.”
Miette remembered, with a pang, that this was the last of the evenings
for which she lived through long weary days.
“Yes; let us walk,” she replied. “Let us go as far as the mill; I can
stay with you to-night as long as you choose.”
They left their seat, and stood in the shadow of a pile of boards.
Miette opened her pelisse, which was quilted in small squares, and
lined with scarlet cotton, and threw one end of this full warm mantle
over Silvère’s shoulders, wrapping him as well as herself in the same
garment. They each passed an arm around the other. When they were thus
confounded, as it were, and had drawn the pelisse around them so that
they were one shapeless mass, they began to walk slowly toward the
road, no longer afraid of being recognized in the clear moonlight.
Miette had wrapped Silvère in her cloak, and he had submitted to her
doing so--in a matter-of-course way as if the pelisse had often before
rendered them the same service.
The road from Nice, on the two sides of which extended the Faubourg,
was bordered in 1851 with century-old elms--huge giants, half decayed,
but too full of vigor to be then replaced, as was the case by the city
authorities not long since--by small plane trees.
When Silvère and Miette reached these trees--the shadow of whose
monstrous branches was thrown all along the sidewalk--they met several
black figures moving silently in the shadow of the houses. These were
lovers wrapped in one mantle like themselves.
This fashion of walking is peculiar to these towns in the South. The
young men and girls, belonging to the people--those who intend to marry
each other some day--and who wish to see each other, and exchange a few
kisses previously, are often at a loss how to do so. Were they to meet
in a room they would soon be the talk of the town. Nor have they time
in the evening to fly to the solitude of the country.
They have, therefore, adopted a third plan--they wander through the
Faubourg, the vacant lots, the winding lanes--all the places where
there are few people to be met; and as all the inhabitants know them,
it is considered advisable to make themselves unrecognizable, and so
wear those huge mantles which will shelter an entire family. Parents
make no objection to these walks; the rigid morals of the Provinces do
not seem to be alarmed by them, for it is distinctly understood that
the lovers never seat themselves, nor linger in any of the corners.
Nothing can be more charming than these lovers’ walks, nor more
characteristic of the South. They are absolute masquerades full of
expedients within the reach of the poorest. The girl has but to open
her mantle, which is an ever-ready asylum and concealment for her
lover. She hides him next her heart, as the little bourgeoise hides
her gallant under her bed or in her wardrobe. Forbidden fruit has
here an especially delicious flavor: it is eaten in the open air
amid indifferent spectators. The certainty of being able to embrace
each other with impunity before the world, to spend whole evenings in
each other’s arms without any risk of being recognized, or of having
the finger of scorn pointed at them, is especially precious. One
couple is a brown mass precisely like the next, without the smallest
individuality. To the belated passer-by who catches a fleeting glimpse
of these moving shadows, it is simply Love that passes--nothing more.
Love without a name! Love that one guesses at, rather than sees.
The lovers feel themselves, as it were, at home. They talk in lowered
voices, and oftener walk for hours in silence, happy in being wrapped
in the same folds of cloth.
This is at once voluptuous and innocent. The climate is the only guilty
party, for it invites lovers to an out-of-door life. On lovely summer
evenings no one can walk through Plassans without discovering in each
sequestered alley or sheltered corner a hooded couple. Certain places,
Saint-Mittre especially, are peopled with dark dominos, loitering
slowly along in the sweet dewy silence. They are like the guests of
some mysterious ball given by the stars. When it is too warm for
pelisses, the girls turn their upper skirts over their heads, while in
winter they laugh at frosts and chills. And Miette and Silvère walked
on the road to Nice without remembering that it was December.
The young people crossed the sleeping Faubourg without exchanging a
word. They were absorbed in the charm of their proximity to each other.
Their hearts were very heavy, for their parting was near at hand, and
the present moments were at once bitter and sweet.
Very soon the houses became more scattered; they had reached the end
of the Faubourg, on which opened the avenue of Jas-Meiffren, protected
by a huge gate, between the bars of which could be seen a long row of
mulberry trees.
As they passed, Silvère and Miette involuntarily glanced within.
After leaving Jas-Meiffren, the highway descends gently to the valley,
which serves as a bed for a little river--the Viorne--which is a brook
in summer and a torrent in winter. The two rows of old elms were in
existence at this time, and made a superb avenue, both sides of which
were planted with wheat and grape vines.
On this December night, the land, freshly turned over, lay gray and
dark in the moonlight, while the rush of the Viorne was all the sound
that disturbed the great peace of the country.
Miette’s thoughts returned to Jas-Meiffren, which they had just passed.
“I had great difficulty in making my escape to-night,” she said. “My
uncle was shut up in his cellar, where I think he was burying his
silver, for he seemed terribly frightened this morning at what he
heard.”
Silvère held the girl with a firmer grasp.
“Keep up your courage,” he said; “the day will come when we can see
each other at all times and seasons.”
“Ah!” murmured the girl, sadly, “you are more courageous than I. Some
days I am very sad. It is not that I am dismayed by the hard work that
is imposed upon me. On the contrary, I am sometimes glad that my uncle
is so stern. He was right to bring me up as a peasant girl. Sometimes
I believe myself to be accursed, and then I wish I were dead. I think
of--you know what I think of.”
The child’s voice broke here, and she sobbed convulsively. Silvère
interrupted her hastily--almost harshly.
“Hush!” he said, “you promised never to think of that. It was not your
crime.”
Then he added in a gentler tone: “We love each other, do we not? When
we are married you will never be unhappy again.”
“I know,” murmured Miette, “that you are good, and that you will help
me. But I am afraid, and at times even rebellious. It seems to me that
a great wrong has been committed toward myself, and then I feel wicked.
I can speak openly and frankly to you. Each time that my father’s
name is uttered, I feel myself grow hot all over. When I pass the
children in the street, and they call out after me, ‘There goes the
Chantegreil!’ I am furious, and would like to beat them.”
She relapsed into gloomy silence, which she broke with these words:
“You are a man--you own a gun and can use it! You ought to be very
thankful.”
Silvère allowed her to speak without interruption, and then said, in a
sad voice:
“You are wrong, Miette; your anger is unworthy of you. You should not
rebel against justice. I am going to fight, it is true, but I have no
private vengeance to gratify.”
“No matter,” continued the young girl, “I wish I were a man and could
use a gun. It seems to me that it would do me good.”
And as Silvère did not speak, she realised that she had displeased him.
Her excitement abated. She stammered in a pleading voice:
“It is your departure which disturbs me and puts these ideas into my
head. I know you are right--I know I should be humble--”
And she began to weep. Silvère took her hands tenderly in his.
“You fly from anger to tears just like a child. Be reasonable; I am not
scolding you. I only wish to see you happier, and that depends entirely
on yourself.”
The tragedy whose memory had been so sadly evoked by Miette saddened
the lovers for some minutes. They continued to walk with lowered heads,
absorbed in thought. At the end of a moment Silvère said:
“Do you think I am any happier than yourself? If my grandmother had
not brought me up, what would have become of me? With the exception of
Uncle Antoine, who is a working-man like myself, and from whom I have
learned to love the Republic, all my other relatives act as if I were a
disgrace to them, and look away when I pass them.”
He became excited as he spoke; he stood still in the middle of the
highway.
“God is my witness,” he continued, “that I neither envy nor hate a
human being. But, if we triumph, it may come to pass that I shall have
some truths to tell to these fine gentlemen. Uncle Antoine knows all.
You will see when we return. We will then live free and happy!”
Miette drew him gently on. They resumed their walk.
“You love your Republic very dearly,” said the child, with a pitiful
effort at a jest; “do you love me as much?”
She laughed, but with some little bitterness. Perhaps she thought that
Silvère found it too easy to leave her.
The youth replied, gravely:
“You are my wife. I have given you my whole heart. I love the
Republic--you see--because I love you. When we are married it will
bring us much happiness, and it is to secure this happiness that I am
going away to-morrow. You do not advise me to stay at home, do you?”
“By no means,” answered the girl, eagerly; “a man should be
courageous--courage is a splendid thing. Forgive me for being jealous.
Would that I were as strong as you; you would love me more then, I am
sure!”
She was silent for a moment, and then added, with artless innocence:
“Ah! how gladly--how eagerly will I embrace you when you return!”
These words touched Silvère profoundly. He took Miette in his arms and
kissed her cheek. The girl struggled a little, with a faint laugh, but
tears were in her eyes. The country was spread before them, cold and
cheerless. On the left, upon a slight elevation, stood the ruins of a
wind-mill. This was the point which the young people had fixed on as
the limits of their walk. They had moved on, with hardly a glance to
the right or the left. But when Silvère had kissed Miette, he looked
around and saw the wind-mill.
“I had no idea we had come so far,” he said. “It must be half-past
nine; we must return.”
Miette made a wry face.
“Let us go a little further,” she urged. “Only a few steps. Come--”
Silvère put his arm around her waist with a smile, and they moved
slowly on. They no longer feared observation, for, since passing the
last houses, they had not met a living soul; nevertheless, they were
still enveloped in the pelisse. This pelisse seemed their natural
nest--it had sheltered and hidden them for so many happy evenings.
The soft folds reassured them, and narrowed the horizon at which they
looked, relieving them from that sensation of isolation which weighs
down human nature so often when a wide extent of field and sky is seen.
It seemed to them that they carried their house with them, enjoying the
landscape as through a window.
They ceased to talk; they held each other’s hands, and uttered an
occasional exclamation. Silvère forgot his Republican enthusiasm.
Miette thought of nothing except that her lover was to leave her in
an hour, for a long time--perhaps forever. They still moved on, and
reached the little path which led from the highway to a village on
the banks of the Viorne. They did not stop, although this was the spot
where they had determined to turn back. They pretended not to see this
path, and it was several minutes before Silvère said:
“It is late, and you must be very tired.”
“No, I am not tired. I could walk leagues with you in this way,”
answered the girl; and then, in a coaxing voice, she added: “Can we not
go down to Sainte-Claire? Then we will certainly turn.”
Silvère, lulled by their measured pace, slept with his eyes open, and
made no objection. They walked on at a slower pace than before, putting
off the evil moment when they must turn their faces homeward; for
this was the signal of their cruel separation. The slope of the road
was very gradual. The valley is an extent of meadow land, running to
the Viorne along low hills. These meadows, divided by hedges from the
highway, are called the Sainte-Claire meadows.
“We will go as far as the bridge,” now said Silvère, in his turn.
Miette laughed gayly, and threw her arms around her lover’s neck with a
hearty kiss.
The long avenue of trees led just where the hedge begins, and two
enormous elms stood a little apart from the others. From this point
to the bridge was less than four hundred yards, but the lovers took
more than fifteen minutes to walk this distance. In spite, however, of
all their tardy movements, the bridge was reached at last. There they
stopped.
Before them, the road to Nice wound up the hill, but they soon lost it
as it made a sharp turn between two wooded slopes. The road by which
they had just come looked like a long ribbon of silver, while the
upheaved land on the sides was gray in the moonlight. Lights yet shone
from some of the windows of the houses in the Faubourg. Miette and
Silvère had walked a good league.
They looked down as they leaned over the bridge. The Viorne, swollen by
the recent rains, ran swiftly past with a dull, continuous roar. Up and
down the banks they could see the black lines of trees. Here and there
a ripple caught the moonlight, and looked like the glittering scales of
some monstrous fish.
The young lovers knew this place well, for on warm July evenings they
had often come there in search of cool breezes, and had spent hour
after hour among the willows on the left bank. They remembered every
turn, and every stone on which they crossed the Viorne, which, at
midsummer, was as slender as a thread.
Miette looked longingly toward the opposite shore. “If it were only
warmer,” she said, “we could rest there a while.”
Then, with her eyes still fixed on the place she had learned to love so
well, she added: “Do you see that dark spot, Silvère? That is the place
where we sat on last Corpus Christi.”
“Yes; I remember,” answered Silvère, in a low voice.
It was there he first ventured to kiss her on her cheek, and this
remembrance awakened by the young girl, gave them both pain and
pleasure.
They saw, as by a flash of lightning, the happy evenings they had spent
together, and more especially the one of Corpus Christi, of which they
recalled the smallest details--the soft air, the cool freshness of the
willows on the banks of the Viorne, the very words they had uttered to
each other.
And even as they dwelt on the Past, they thought of the unknown Future;
they saw themselves walking side by side through life as they had
walked on the highway--wrapped in the folds of the same pelisse.
Then, eyes looking into eyes, they smiled.
Suddenly Silvère lifted his head, and throwing back the pelisse he
listened intently. Miette, much surprised, imitated him, without
understanding why he drew away from her with so decided a gesture.
They heard a confused noise among the hills amid which wound the road
to Nice. It was like the rattle of many wheels and wagons. The roar
of the river drowned this noise for a time. But it soon grew more
distinct, and the heavy tread of a body of troops was distinguished,
and then a strange and measured sound, which it was almost impossible
to define, smothered as it was by the hills. Suddenly a black mass
emerged from among them, and the Marseillaise burst forth, sung with
inconceivable and formidable fury.
“It is they!” cried Silvère, enthusiastically.
He began to run, dragging Miette with him, until he reached a slight
eminence crowned by a clump of young oaks, upon which the two climbed,
that they might not be swept away by the advancing crowd.
The young girl, when they were safe in this spot, looked sadly down
on these men, whose distant voices had been enough to tear her lover,
from her arms. It seemed to her as if the whole body of troops was now
between her and him. They were so happy only a few moments before--so
closely united--so alone in the soft moonlight; and now Silvère did
not even seem to know that she was there, and had eyes only for these
unknown, whom he called brothers.
The band swept on. Nothing could be imagined more superb than this
irruption of this mass of men on the dead and frozen peace of the
scene. The highway was a living, rolling torrent, that seemed
exhaustless, and the air was full of the voices of this human tempest.
When the last battalions appeared, the Marseillaise filled the sky and
echoed through the valley. The whole country shivered, as it were, and
repeated the notes of the National hymn. The very trees and bushes
joined in the chorus, and the wide valley seemed peopled with invisible
crowds who joined in the chorus of the insurgents--all along the
Viorne, in every mysterious shadow, hidden voices caught up the refrain
with indignant anger. The whole country clamored for Vengeance and
Liberty!
While the little army descended the hill side, they continued to sing
until the very stones under their feet reverberated.
Silvère, pale with emotion, listened and looked.
“I thought,” murmured Miette, “that they would not go through Plassans.”
“The plan has been changed,” answered Silvère. “We were to have
marched by the Toulon road, leaving Plassans and Orchères on the left.
They left Alboise this afternoon, and must have passed Tulettes in the
evening.”
The head of the column had by this time reached the young people, and
the small army was characterized by more order than one would expect in
a band of undisciplined men. The quotas from each town formed distinct
battalions, and must have numbered all together some three thousand men.
As they defiled past Miette, she instinctively drew closer to Silvère
and leaned her head against his shoulder. Her face, framed by the hood
of her pelisse, was very pale, and her eyes were fixed on this rapidly
moving crowd and on the strange faces transfigured by enthusiasm, whose
wide open mouths were filled with the avenging cry of the Marseillaise.
Silvère, feeling her tremble at his side, leaned over her and whispered
in her ear the names of the various contingents as they presented
themselves.
The column marched in lines of eight. In front came tall fellows with
square heads, who looked as strong as Hercules. The Republic had in
them blind and intrepid advocates. They carried over their shoulders
huge axes freshly sharpened, whose steel glittered in the moonlight.
“Those are the wood-cutters from the forests of La Seille,” said
Silvère. “They have formed themselves into a body of sappers. Upon a
sign from their chiefs, these men will hew down the gates of every town
between here and Paris, just as they would the old cork trees on the
mountain sides.” The young man spoke proudly of the strong arms of his
brothers.
Behind the wood-cutters came a band of workmen, with heavy beards
browned by the sun. “The contingents from La Palud, which was the first
Bourg to rise,” whispered Silvère. “Those in the velvet jackets are the
charcoal-burners from the mountain gorges. Those huntsmen there knew
your father, Miette. They have good arms, which they know how to use.
Ah! if all had as good; but the workmen you see have only clubs.”
Miette did not reply. When Silvère spoke of her father, her cheeks
flushed angrily, and she watched the men with a feeling of strange
sympathy. From this moment she seemed feverishly excited by the words
and music sung by the insurgents.
The column swept on as if blown by the mistral. To the people from
Palud had succeeded more workmen in blouses, among whom many bourgeois
in coats were to be seen.
“Those are the men from Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx,” resumed Silvère. “That
Bourg was the next to rise after La Palud. The masters joined their
workmen. They are rich men, Miette--men who could live comfortably at
home, and who yet risk their lives in the defence of Liberty. Look,
Miette! those men who have a red scarf tied around their left arms are
the chiefs.
“And here come the insurgents from Alboise and Tulettes! I see Burgat,
the blacksmith. How fast they go!”
Miette leaned forward, choked with emotion. At this moment a battalion
better drilled and better disciplined than the others came in sight.
There was a suggestion of a uniform in their blue blouses and red
scarfs around their waist. In the centre was a man on horseback, having
a sabre at his side. The greater number of these soldiers had guns or
old muskets, once belonging to the National Guard.
“I do not know who those are,” said Silvère. “The man on horseback must
be the chief of whom I have heard, and he has gathered up his men from
various places.”
Behind this battalion came groups of ten or twenty--all wearing the
short jackets of the peasants. They brandished pitchforks and scythes
as they sang; some even carried shovels. Each hamlet had sent its men.
Silvère, who knew them all, named them with feverish excitement.
“The contingents from Chavanoz,” he said. “There are only a few of
them, but they are strong fellows. Uncle Antoine has told me all about
them. And look! there is the Curé. I heard he was a good Republican!”
“Look, Miette,” he continued, in feverish haste, “Rosan!
Vernoux--Corbière--Saint-Eutrope--ah! child, the whole country is with
us! Look at those men. Look at their arms; they are as hard and black
as iron! Here come the smugglers from Roches-Noires! More scythes and
pitchforks--more men from the country! Sainte-Anne--! Castel-le-Vieux!
Estourmel! Murdaran!”
His voice was strangled in his throat by emotion. His form seemed to
expand, as with eager face and nervous gesture he pointed out these
people to Miette, who still clung to his neck as she leaned over the
road. This mass of wild faces, these boys and old men in their strange
garbs and stranger weapons, affected the girl like an impetuous
mountain torrent. It seemed to her sometimes as if they no longer
moved--as if they had been run over by the Marseillaise itself, by that
hoarse melody with its formidable echoes. She could not distinguish the
words; she heard only the continuous roar, the vibrating notes, sharp
as arrows, that seemed to pierce her very flesh.
This tumult of revolt--this appeal to Conquest and Death, with its
bursts of anger--its burning longing for Liberty, its marvellous
mixture of massacres and enthusiasm--woke strange echoes in her heart,
which swelled with the voluptuous anguish of a virgin martyr who smiles
under the lash.
Miette was a mere child. She had turned pale at the approach of the
multitude, and wept at its coming between her and her lover. But she
was courageous and of an ardent nature, easily fired into enthusiasm.
She was quite ready now to snatch a gun and follow the insurgents. Her
white teeth looked longer and sharper between her red lips, suggesting
the fangs and the eagerness of a young wolf.
As she heard Silvère hurriedly name the contingents, it seemed to her
that they moved more rapidly with each word he uttered. She grew dizzy
as she watched this crowd, swept on as it were by a tempest. She closed
her eyes, and hot tears rolled down her cheeks.
Tears also stood in Silvère’s eyes.
“I do not see one of the men who left Plassans this afternoon,” he
murmured.
He turned to find the end of the column, still in the shadow. Suddenly
he cried out, with triumphant joy:
“There they are! They have the flag! The flag has been intrusted to
them!”
He seemed eager to join the insurgents, but at this moment the troops
stopped. Orders ran along the column. The Marseillaise died away, and
only the confused murmur of the crowd was heard. Silvère understood
the orders, which summoned the Plassans men to the head of the band.
As each battalion drew up at the side of the road to allow the flag to
pass, the young man drew Miette on.
“Come,” he cried, “we must reach the other end of the bridge before
they do.”
They ran quickly toward a mill where there was a dam. They crossed the
Viorne on boards which the millers had thrown there. They then passed
through the Sainte-Claire meadows, still holding each other by the hand
and running fast, without speaking a word to each other. The troops
stood in a heavy mass on the highway, which Silvère and Miette finally
attained through a gap in the hedge.
Notwithstanding the détour they had made, they reached this place
at the same moment with the people from Plassans. Silvère exchanged
a shake of the hand with some who thought he had come to join them.
Miette, whose face was hidden in her hood, was looked at with some
curiosity.
“Why! It is La Chantegreil!” said a man from the Faubourg; “Rebufat’s
niece--Jas-Meiffren’s girl!”
Silvère, in his enthusiasm, totally forgot the singularity of his
sweetheart’s appearance at this hour, and the certainty of the rough
jokes she would be called on to endure. Miette, in great confusion,
turned to her lover for aid. But, before he could open his lips, a
voice was heard, and these brutal words:
“Her father is a convict--we will not have with us the daughter of a
robber and an assassin.”
Miette turned deadly pale.
“You are lying,” she said, slowly; “if my father killed a man he never
robbed any one.”
And as Silvère grasped her wrist, paler and more agitated than herself,
she pushed him aside.
“Let me alone!” she said, “this is my affair.”
And turning toward the men, who were crowding around her, she repeated,
with growing excitement.
“You lie! You lie! He never took one sou from any one You know that
perfectly well. Why do you insult him when he is not here to answer for
himself?”
She threw back her head haughtily. She was superb in her anger. Her
half-savage nature seemed to accept calmly the accusation of murder,
but the accusation of robbery exasperated her. These men knew this very
well, and this was why they said it, merely to incense her.
The man who had called her father a robber, to be sure, merely
repeated what he had heard for years, and he and his companions simply
sneered at the child’s violence. Silvère clenched his fist and the
scene might have had a disastrous termination, if a chasseur from La
Seille, who was sitting on a pile of stones at the edge of the road,
had not come to the assistance of the young girl.
“The child is right,” he said; “Chantegreil belonged to us--I knew
him. No one ever understood the affair. But I for one believed in the
truth of his declarations before the judges. The gendarme he shot was
just going to bring him down, and he merely defended himself, you
understand. Chantegreil was an honest man. Chantegreil never stole.”
As always happens in such cases, the support of this man was sufficient
to turn the scale, and Miette had plenty of defenders. Many of the
workmen seemed to have known Chantegreil.
“You are right!” they cried. “He was not a robber. There are at
Plassans plenty of scamps who ought to have been sent in his place.
Chantegreil was our brother. Don’t be troubled, little girl; it is all
right.”
Never before had Miette heard a kind word said of her father. He was
spoken of always before her as a rascal, and now she had at last met
kind souls who declared him to be an honest man. She burst into tears,
and felt again the choking emotion which the Marseillaise had before
aroused, and tried to thank these men. She longed to grasp their hands
as if she were a man too, but a happier inspiration came to her. At her
side stood the flag-bearer. She put out her hand and touched the flag
as she said, in a supplicating tone.
“Give it to me. Let me carry it.” This was her only thanks.
The simple-natured workmen understood her.
“That is it!” they cried. “Let La Chantegreil carry the flag.”
A wood-cutter remarked that she would soon be very tired if she went
far.
“Oh! I am strong,” she said proudly, rolling up her sleeves as she
spoke, and showing her pretty round arms, as full already as those of a
woman.
And as they held the flag toward her she cried--
“Wait a moment!”
She took off her pelisse, which she put on again after turning out the
red lining. Then she appeared in the moonlight draped in this full
scarlet mantle, which fell from her throat to her heels.
The folds of the hood adapted themselves to her chignon almost in the
shape of a Phrygian cap. She took the flag and pressed the staff to her
bosom, standing erect with the folds of this sanguinary banner floating
behind her. Her beautiful head with its heavy masses of hair; her large
liquid eyes; her lips half parted with a smile; her expression of
haughty energy--all gave her the air of a Virgin Goddess of Liberty.
The insurgents burst into tumultuous applause. These Southerners, with
their vivid imaginations, were carried off their feet by the sudden
apparition of this girl in the scarlet drapery, holding their flag
against her breast.
Shouts and cries were heard.
“Bravo, La Chantegreil! Long live La Chantegreil! She shall stay with
us! She will bring us happiness!”
The order for forming into marching order was given. Miette pressed
Silvère’s hand, and whispered in his ear:
“You hear? I shall stay with you. Are you glad?”
Silvère returned the pressure silently. He accepted the position,
and was as enthusiastic as his companions. Miette appeared to him so
beautiful and so saintly. All along the road he kept his eyes upon her.
She and his other mistress--the Republic--were now one and the same. He
wished he had come with his gun on his shoulder.
In the meantime the insurgents moved slowly on, making as little noise
as possible. The column advanced between the two rows of elms, winding
like a gigantic serpent. The December night had regained its silence,
and the roar of the Viorne was again heard. When they reached the first
houses of the Faubourg, Silvère ran forward to seek his gun, which he
had left at Saint-Mittre, and which he found peacefully reposing in the
moonlight.
When he rejoined the insurgents, they were at the Roman gate.
Miette leaned toward him, and said with her childlike smile:
“It seems to me that I am in the Corpus Christi procession, and that I
am carrying the Virgin’s banner.”
CHAPTER II.
THE THREE BROTHERS.
PLASSANS is a town of ten thousand inhabitants.
Built on a plateau which overlooks the Viorne, sheltered on the north
by the last ramifications of the Alps--the Garrigue hills--the town is,
as it were, situated at the bottom of a cul-de-sac.
In 1851 it had but two roads communicating with the outside world--the
Nice road, which is at the east, and the road to Lyons on the west--the
one being almost a continuation of the other. But since this date a
railroad has been constructed which passes a little south of the town
at the foot of a hill, and to-day when one leaves the Station, on the
right shore of the river, one sees the first houses of Plassans with
their terraced gardens. To reach these houses an up-hill walk of some
fifteen minutes’ duration is required.
For twenty years--owing probably to its lack of communication with
other cities--this town had more entirely preserved its peculiar and
aristocratic character than any other of the Provençale towns. It had
then and still has a very superb Quartier, whose hotels are superb,
built under Louis XIV. and Louis XV.--a dozen or more churches, Jesuit
and Capuchin monasteries and a considerable number of convents. The
distinction of classes is governed by the division of Quartiers.
Plassans numbers three, each of which is a Bourg in itself, having its
own churches, promenades and customs.
The Quartier of the nobles, called the Quartier Saint-Marc, is a
miniature Versailles, with straight streets, overgrown with grass,
whose huge square mansions conceal large gardens, while others have a
double row of terraces commanding a view of the Viorne.
The old Quartier--the ancient town--spreads out on the northwest its
narrow and winding streets--there stands the Mayoralty, the Courts,
the Market, and the police-stations. This, the most densely populated
portion of Plassans--is mostly occupied by workmen and poor people. The
new town forms a sort of long square on the northeast. The Bourgeoisie,
those who have amassed a fortune, sou upon sou, and those who exercise
a liberal profession, live there in straight lines of houses of an
invariable yellow hue. Here stands also the Sous-Préfecture--an ugly
building of ornamented stucco. The streets of this Quartier in 1851
were few in number, for it was then of recent construction, built since
the railroad. The town is surrounded by a belt of ancient ramparts,
which serve to make it only more dingy and confined. As fortifications,
these ramparts are simply ridiculous--worn away, as they are, by
clambering ivy and wall-flowers. They are pierced by numerous openings,
of which the two most important are the Roman gate, opening on the
road to Nice, and the Grand Gate, on the road to Lyons. Up to 1855
these entrances were guarded by enormous wooden gates, opening in the
middle, and strengthened by iron bars.
At eleven o’clock in summer, at ten in winter, these doors were locked;
and the town--having like a timid girl seen the bolts pushed--retired,
and slept calmly.
A guard, who inhabited a tiny house situated within one of the angles,
had orders to open the gates for belated travellers. But he never did
this without a lengthy argument, nor did he ever allow any one to enter
without lighting his lantern and examining each face, and if these
happened to displease him, ten to one, the unfortunate possessors were
kept outside.
The population of Plassans was divided into three groups, so to speak.
All the official personages were strangers, little loved, and much
envied. The true inhabitants--those who were born there, and who firmly
intended to live and die there--respected themselves too much not to be
very exclusive.
The nobles cloister themselves hermetically. Since the fall of Charles
X. they hardly go out at all, and entrench themselves in their great,
silent Hotels, moving about as cautiously as if in the land of an
enemy. They go nowhere and receive no one, not even among themselves.
Their salons are opened only to priests. In summer they go to their
Châteaux in the neighborhood. In winter they remain at their firesides,
utterly weary of life. Their Quartier is as calm and quiet as a
Cemetery. Doors and windows are cautiously barricaded, and the houses
look like rows of convents. An occasional abbé passes down the street,
and disappears like a shadow through some half-open door.
The Bourgeoisie--retired merchants, lawyers, and notaries--all the
middle-class world in fact, try to give a little animation to Plassans.
They go to the fêtes given by the Prefect, and dream of others
precisely like them, which they wish to give in return. They make
earnest efforts for popularity, speak of the working-man as a “good
fellow,” talk about the crops to the peasants, read the papers, and
walk out on Sundays with their wives. These are the advanced minds
of the place--the only ones who venture to laugh as they talk of the
ramparts. They have even gone so far as to advise the demolition of
these old walls--“relics of the dark ages,” they call them.
Most of them are thrilled with joy when they receive an indifferent bow
from a Marquis or a Count. Their dream is to be received in a Salon
of the Quartier Saint-Marc. They know very well that there is not a
shadow of a hope that this dream will ever be realized, and this is
what makes them free-thinkers; but free-thinkers who are ready to rush
to the arms of the authorities for protection, at the least movement of
dissatisfaction among the people.
The class which toils and vegetates in the old Quartier is not as
clearly defined. The working classes are there in the majority; but
there are also quite a number of petty tradespeople, and even some few
merchants of importance.
Plassans is far from being a centre of commerce. There is only traffic
enough there to dispose of the productions of the vicinity--oil, wine
and almonds. As to mechanical industries, there are none, except three
or four tanneries in one street of the old Quartier--a manufactory of
felt hats--and a soap-boiling factory exiled to a distant corner. This
small commercial world lives surrounded by workmen, with whom they are
united by common interests into one family. On Sundays the masters wash
their hands of it all, and depart.
Once in each week in summer the three Quartiers of Plassans meet
face to face. All the town go to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after
vespers--the nobles as well as the others. But on this Boulevard,
planted with a double row of trees, three distinct currents are
established. For more than a century the nobility have promenaded at
the southern extremity in front of the large hotels--the people have
contented themselves with the northern end, where are the Cafés and
tobacco shops; and all the afternoon the nobles and the working classes
pace up and down, without either dreaming of infringing on the other.
Separated by a few yards, they are in reality leagues apart. Even in
the days of the Revolution each kept to his own path. This is the
Sunday walk, which occurs as regularly as the day returns. It was in
this dull atmosphere that in 1848 vegetated an obscure family whose
head, Pierre Rougon, played in after days an important rôle.
Pierre Rougon was a peasant’s son. The family of his mother, the
Fonques, as they were named, owned, at the end of the last century, a
large tract of land in the Faubourg, in the rear of the old Cemetery
Saint-Mittre. This land, later on, was added to Jas-Meiffren. The
Fonques were the wealthiest market gardeners in the country, and
furnished vegetables to half Plassans.
The name of the family was extinguished some years before the
Revolution. One girl only remained--Adelaide, born in 1768, who became
an orphan at eighteen. This child, whose father had died mad, was a
tall creature, pale and thin, with timid eyes and a manner so singular
that it could only be overlooked while she was a child. As she grew
older she became more and more singular, and the story ran that she was
as crazy as her father.
She had been her own mistress about six months, when she suddenly
married a gardener named Rougon--a rough peasant from the Alps.
This Rougon, after the death of the last of the Fonques, whose servant
he had been, remained in the employment of the daughter of his deceased
master, and was soon promoted to the position of her husband.
This marriage was a perpetual astonishment to the people about, none
of whom could understand why Adelaide preferred this dull, heavy,
uncultivated fellow, who could hardly speak a word of French, to such
and such young fellows--sons of rich farmers in the vicinity, who had
been attentive to her for some time, and, as in the country nothing is
allowed to rest without explanation, it was asserted that there was a
mystery in the affair, and that the marriage had become a necessity.
But facts gave the lie to this scandal. It was a full year before
Adelaide’s child was born. This put her neighbors out of temper, as
they were unwilling to admit that they had been in error, and they
continued to keep a vigilant eye on the Rougon household. They soon had
ample food for talk. Rougon died very suddenly fifteen months after
his marriage, from a sunstroke he received one day while weeding his
carrots.
A year had not elapsed when the young widow was known to have a lover.
In fact she made no attempt to conceal it. Several persons professed to
have heard her address poor Rougon’s successor in terms of endearment.
A year of widowhood only and a lover! Such a disregard of propriety was
unheard of, and only to be excused on the ground of a disordered mind.
Adelaide’s strange choice made the affair still more conspicuous.
At the end of Saint-Mittre there resided at this time, in a house
whose rear windows overlooked the Fonque estate, a man of a very bad
reputation, who was called by every one “that scamp of a Macquart.”
This man had a way of disappearing altogether for entire weeks, then he
would be seen again some fine evening with his hands in his pockets,
calmly lounging about and whistling, with as much easy indifference as
if he had just returned from a little stroll, and the women seated on
their door-steps would say to their neighbors:
“Look at that scamp of a Macquart! He has hidden his gun among the
rocks on the shore of the Viorne.”
It was certain that Macquart did no business and had no income, but he
eat and drank with an easy countenance; sitting alone at a table in
a cabaret, he night after night would drink himself tipsy in solemn
silence, and when the doors of the establishments were closed, would
depart with a firm tread and with his head held high.
“Macquart walks very straight,” people would say; “he is dead drunk.”
Generally, or when he had not been drinking, his figure was slightly
bowed, as if he wished to escape the looks of curiosity which were
levelled upon him.
Since the death of his father, a tanner, who had bequeathed to his
son as his sole inheritance, the house in Saint-Mittre, he seemed to
have neither friends nor family. The proximity of the frontiers, and
the vicinity of the forests of La Seille, had made a smuggler of this
singular fellow.
His appearance was far from attractive, and the people who saw him
often said, “I should not like to meet him at midnight in a lonely path
in the woods!”
Tall and heavily bearded, with a sharp, thin face, Macquart was the
terror of the Faubourg. The women accused him of eating children, and
of many other crimes. Although hardly thirty, he seemed to be fifty.
Under his thick beard and long hair, which fell over his forehead like
that of a poodle-dog, the glitter of his brown eyes was to be seen.
They peered out with the uneasy furtive glance of a man with vagabond
instincts--one who has been perverted by wine and the life of a pariah.
Although no one could point with certainty to any crime committed by
him, there was not a robbery, not a murder in the country roundabout,
that he was not the first man suspected.
And it was this ogre, this brigand, this “scamp of a Macquart,” whom
Adelaide had chosen! She had two children in twenty months--a boy and
a girl; but of marriage there was no talk. Never had the Faubourg been
so confounded. The stupefaction was so great at the idea that Macquart
could find a mistress both young and beautiful, that the gossips were
really very gentle in their dealings with Adelaide. “Poor thing! she
must have become absolutely mad,” they said. “If she had any family
they would certainly shut her up.”
And as the true history of this strange affair was buried in obscurity,
it was “this scamp of a Macquart” who was accused of taking advantage
of Adelaide’s feeble intellect to rob her of both honor and fortune.
The legitimate son, Pierre Rougon, grew up with the other children,
“the young whelps,” as they were called by the gossips. Adelaide
treated them all three with equal kindness, seeming to recognize no
difference between Ursule and Antoine, the children of Macquart,
and her husband’s. She did not appear to understand that these poor
creatures had a different position from her elder son. They were
all her children, and that was enough for her. She would take them
out walking, holding Pierre by one hand and Antoine by the other,
unconscious of the very different manner in which the two children were
regarded.
It was a most singular household. For twenty years children and mother
lived in their own way, acknowledging no law except their own whims.
Adelaide was still the childish creature whom half the persons who
knew her, believed to be mad--not that she was so, but there was a
certain lack of equilibrium between the blood and the nerves--a certain
derangement of brain and of heart which made her very different from
other people.
She was very natural--very logical with herself; only her logic became
pure lunacy in her neighbors’ eyes. She seemed perfectly willing to be
conspicuous in all ways, and made not the smallest attempt to stand
against temptation.
For some time she had been subject to nervous attacks, which at times
threw her into violent convulsions. These recurred every two or three
months. The physicians when consulted replied they could do nothing;
that age would calm this excitement. They put her on a simple diet,
and gave her tonics. These repeated attacks unsettled her mind still
further. She lived the life of a child or of an animal, guided only by
her instincts. When Macquart was away, she passed her days in dreamy
indolence, occupying herself with her children, only to the extent
of caressing and playing with them. As soon as her lover was at home
again, she would disappear. Behind the Macquart house there was a
little court divided by a wall from the Fonque estate. One morning the
neighbors were surprised to see this wall pierced by a door which was
not there the night before. Within an hour the entire Faubourg had
passed by and examined the place. The lovers must have worked all night
to arrange this door, which would in future allow them to pass easily
to and fro. All the old gossip was again renewed, and Adelaide was
spoken of less charitably. She was openly denounced as a disgrace to
the Faubourg. This door, with its frank and brutal avowal of her life,
was worse even than the existence of her two children.
“The least she can do is to have some regard for appearances,” said the
most tolerant of the women in the neighborhood.
But to “appearances” Adelaide paid little heed; on the contrary, she
was quite proud of her door. With her own hands she had assisted
Macquart in pulling the stones out of the wall. She herself had mixed
the plaster to hasten the task; and when, the next day, the gossips,
peering from their windows, saw her quietly contemplating the still
fresh masonry, they were horrified at what they called her audacity.
So little was Adelaide seen after this, that it was supposed she had
taken up her abode at the Macquart house.
The smuggler’s comings and goings were very irregular, and no one ever
knew just when he was in town. It was said that he had got possession
of all Adelaide’s money, and yet his way of living and his manner of
dress had in no degree changed or improved. Perhaps Adelaide loved him
all the better on account of his long absences. Perhaps he felt the
need of an adventurous life, and resisted all her entreaties to remain
quietly with her. A thousand fanciful fables were invented, but no
adequate explanation of this _liaison_ was offered. The house in
Saint-Mittre remained hermetically sealed, and kept its secret. It
was surmised that Macquart beat Adelaide, merely because she sometimes
appeared with a bruised face and disordered hair; but she did not seem
unhappy, or even sad, nor did she show any desire to hide her bruises,
but smiled and appeared very happy. This existence lasted for fifteen
years.
Adelaide seemed to be utterly without practical common sense. The
relative value of things, the necessity of order, seemed to escape her
entirely. She allowed her children to grow up like the wild prune trees
that one sees along the highway, growing up as the wind and the sun
choose, bearing their natural fruit, ungrafted and untrimmed. Never had
Nature been so little thwarted, never had children grown up with more
liberty, or guided so entirely by their instincts. They lived in the
open air, and did pretty much as they chose. They pillaged the house
of all the provisions in it; they were like little wild creatures--the
demons of this strange house.
When their mother disappeared for days together, the uproar became so
intolerable that the neighbors threatened them with a whipping--not
that Adelaide ever frightened or controlled them; but when she was
there, they were less unendurable to others, because they took her for
a victim. She never was angry with them, but lived placidly amid the
tumult. It may be that the noise they made filled the vacancy in her
brain.
Her indifference to her property was as great as that she showed toward
her children. The Fonque estate during all these years had become a
charming as well as valuable spot. Adelaide had confided it to the care
of a skilful gardener, who, cultivating it at the halves, robbed her
with impudent boldness, but she suspected nothing of this.
Warned by a secret instinct, or because he saw that he was received
by people in a very different way from that in which his brother and
sister were greeted, Pierre, the legitimate son, lorded it over the
others. In all their quarrels, in spite of the fact that he was much
less strong than Antoine, he always beat him.
As to Ursule, a poor, frail little creature, she was hit by both the
others. The three children, in fact, up to the age of fifteen or
sixteen, exchanged blows without realizing their vague hatred and
without understanding why they were, so to speak, strangers.
At sixteen Antoine was a tall fellow in whom both Macquart’s and
Adelaide’s faults showed themselves. Macquart’s characteristics were
dominant--his wandering habits, his tendency to intoxication, his
brutal tastes. But under Adelaide’s nervous influence, these vices,
which in the father were frankly apparent, were in the son concealed in
a cowardly, treacherous sort of way. Antoine was like his mother in his
absolute indifference to all but his personal comfort. He was indolent
to a degree. The people about said of him:
“What a scamp! He has not even Macquart’s courage! If he should ever
assassinate any one, it would be with pin-pricks!”
As to physique, Antoine inherited from Adelaide only her red lips. His
other features were those of the smuggler, softened down.
In Ursule the mother predominated. This child was born when Adelaide’s
love had outlived that of Macquart, and seemed to have received with
her sex a larger proportion of her mother’s nature.
Ursule, fantastic and capricious, was at times causelessly sad; then,
all at once, would burst into a sudden nervous laugh. Her eyes were
clear as crystal, like those of young kittens. By the side of these
two children Pierre seemed like a stranger, so totally different was
he from them. He was the _juste milieu_ of his parents--the
peasant Rougon and the nervous Adelaide. He was only a peasant, but
a peasant with a less rough skin, with a brighter face and a more
intelligent mind. His father and his mother were both corrected; so to
speak, in him--the one by the other. Adelaide’s nature, refined by the
over-excitement of her nerves, had lightened the sanguine dulness of
Rougon’s, which in its turn prevented the development in the child of
his mother’s disordered fancies. Pierre knew nothing of the transports
of passion nor the dreams of Macquart’s children, who were badly enough
brought up, to be sure, but who possessed a fund of sense which would
prevent them from ever committing any irretrievable folly.
Pierre’s faults were not like Antoine’s, nor did he make any attempt to
conceal them. In his figure, which was of medium height, in his long,
pale face, where his father’s were softened by certain suggestions
of Adelaide’s, a clever observer could already detect unscrupulous
ambition as well as the heartlessness and envy of a peasant’s son, whom
the fortune and the nerves of his mother had elevated to the middle
classes.
When at seventeen Pierre learned and understood the life led by his
mother, and the position of Antoine and Ursule, he was neither saddened
nor shocked; he was simply absorbed by the decision as to what course
it would be most to his interest to take. He was the only one of the
three children who felt any interest in his studies. A peasant who
begins to feel the necessity of instruction often becomes a keen
calculator.
It was at school that his comrades, by their sneers and the insulting
fashion in which they treated his brother, gave him the first
suspicions.
Later, he understood their hints rather than their words. He saw the
house given over to pillage, and from that moment he regarded Antoine
and Ursule as shameless parasites--as mouths which devoured his means.
Of his mother he thought much, as did all the neighbors--that she ought
to be shut up and prevented from wasting her money--and the youth
was gradually transformed into an avaricious fellow--hardened and
exasperated by the things which went on about him.
It was to him that the vegetables belonged that his mother’s gardener
sold to such advantage. The wine that was drunk and the bread that was
eaten by Ursule and Antoine belonged in reality to him. The house and
the income were really his. In his pitiless peasant logic, he, as the
only legitimate child, was the heir, and as he saw his mother’s means
slowly melting away, he determined to find some way of getting rid of
all these people--mother, brother, sister, and servants--and of coming
himself at once to the throne.
The contest was a bitter one. The young man understood that he must
first strike at his mother. He carried into execution a plan whose
every detail he had carefully ripened.
His tactics were to be to Adelaide a living reproach--not that he ever
became angry, or addressed to her any words of bitterness in regard to
her conduct--but he had a certain way of looking at her silently, which
terrified her out of her senses. When she came in, after having been at
Macquart’s, she could not look at her son without a shiver. She felt
his eyes, cold and keen as steel, piercing her through and through.
This severe, reproachful silence on the part of Pierre--the child of
the husband whom she had so soon forgotten--strangely troubled her
poor, sick brain. She felt as if Rougon himself had come to life again.
Each week now she suffered from one of those nervous attacks which had
so long troubled her, and each one left her with less strength. She
wept and sobbed half the night, sometimes accepting Pierre’s conduct as
the blows of an avenging God; at other times she rebelled, and could
hardly bring herself to believe that this stolid fellow, whose calmness
added to her fever, could be her child. She would ten thousand times
rather have been beaten than looked at in this way.
Those pitiless eyes affected her finally to such a degree, that she
absolutely came to the decision never to see her lover again, but as
soon as Macquart arrived she forgot this determination, and rushed to
see him, and again did the silent and terrible contest begin on her
return. At the end of some months she belonged to her son. When with
him she was like a little girl who is not quite sure that she has been
good, and who feels that she is to be whipped.
Pierre, without opening his lips, had tied her, feet and hands. There
had been no difficult nor compromising explanations.
When Rougon felt that his mother was his slave, he began to turn to
his own interest all her peculiarities, as well as the mad terror with
which a mere glance from him thrilled her.
His first care was to dismiss the gardener and replace him by a
creature of his own. He assumed the entire control of the house,
selling and buying, and holding the purse-strings. He made no attempt
to control his mother, or to correct Antoine and Ursule’s indolent
habits, for he intended to rid himself of them all shortly.
Circumstances served him wonderfully. He escaped conscription as the
eldest son of a widow, and two months later Antoine was drawn. This did
not disturb the youth, however, as he supposed his mother would, of
course, buy him off. Adelaide would, in fact, have done so, but Pierre
opposed it, as this forced departure of his brother’s suited his plans
only too well.
When his mother therefore murmured a word or two of entreaty, he looked
at her in such a way that her lips were sealed. She abandoned Antoine
in the most cowardly manner, feeling that she must pay that price for
peace and liberty.
Pierre, therefore, rejoiced at being able to put his brother out of
doors without a quarrel, applied himself at once to playing the part
of a man at his wit’s ends for money. The year had been bad, he said;
he should be compelled to sell some land to buy a substitute, which
would be the beginning of ruin. He gave a promise to Antoine however,
that he would buy him off the next year; and Antoine departed--deceived
and half pleased. Pierre got rid of Ursule in a fashion equally
unexpected. A hatter in the Faubourg, named Mouret, fell in love with
the girl, whom he admired for her frail delicacy, and married her for
love. Ursule accepted him merely to escape from a house which she was
beginning to find intolerable. Her mother was perfectly indifferent; or
if she felt anything, it was pleasure, that Pierre would now have no
reason for discontent, but would let her live in peace.
As soon as the young people were married, Mouret saw that he must leave
Plassans, if he wished to avoid hearing disagreeable remarks made on
his wife and his wife’s mother. He took Ursule to Marseilles, where
he established himself in business. He received no dowry with Ursule;
and when Pierre--surprised at his disinterestedness--made some vague
explanation, he closed his lips by saying that he preferred to support
his wife himself. Rougon was somewhat disturbed by this peculiar
conduct, which it seemed to him must conceal some snare. Adelaide still
remained; Pierre had no intention of living with her. She compromised
him, but he hardly knew what to do with her. To keep her with him was
like tying a cannonball to his feet, which would prevent him from
soaring to the ambitious heights of which he dreamed. To drive her
away was to stigmatize himself as a bad son, which was anything but
the reputation he desired. There was, therefore, but one course open
for him, and that was to induce Adelaide to go of herself. To this
end Pierre now turned all his energies. He held himself to be excused
for all his harshness by his mother’s conduct. He punished her as one
punishes a child; and under this lifted rod the poor woman bowed her
head. She was only forty-two, and yet she had the appearance and manner
of second childhood. Her son eyed her with silent contempt, hoping that
the day would come when she would flee.
The poor creature suffered horribly, and there were nights when she
would have thrown herself into the Viorne: if her feeble flesh had not
shrunk in chill horror from death.
She thought of flight, and dreamed of joining her lover on the
frontier; but she was kept under her own roof, and endured her son’s
brutality, merely because she did not know where and how to go. Pierre
realized this after a time, and had decided to hire a small apartment
for her, when an accident, upon which he had not dared to count,
hastened the realization of his wishes. The intelligence arrived that
Macquart had been killed on the frontier by a custom-house officer,
just as he was coming into France with a cargo of watches from Geneva.
The tale was true. The body of the smuggler was not brought back to
Plassans, but was interred in the Cemetery of a small village among
the hills. Adelaide was stupefied by grief. Her son, who watched her
curiously, did not see her shed a tear. Macquart had made a will and
left all he had to her. She inherited the house in Saint-Mittre and the
dead man’s musket, which was brought to her by one of the smuggler’s
companions. The very next day she retired to the little house; she hung
the gun over the chimney, and lived there in silence and solitude. At
last Pierre Rougon was master. The Fonque estate belonged to him in
reality, if not legally. He did not think, however, of establishing
himself there. The field was too circumscribed for his ambition. He had
no idea of spending his life watching vegetables grow. He wished to be
something more than a peasant, and he longed for some of the enjoyments
of life. He had planned out his future. He wished to sell his property:
the amount he received would permit him to marry the daughter of some
merchant, who would receive him as a partner.
The wars of the Empire had so thinned the ranks of marriageable young
men, that parents were less difficult to please than they had been, and
Pierre meant to pose as a victim--as a good fellow--who suffers from
the faults and vices of his family, deploring them without excusing
them.
For several months he had had his eyes on an oil merchant’s daughter,
Félicité Puech. The firm _Puech and Lecamp_ was not regarded as
especially prosperous, and there were even rumors that it was on the
brink of failure.
These sinister reports were precisely why Rougon turned his attention
in this direction. No prosperous merchant would have given him his
daughter. Pierre meant to appear before old Puech, when his affairs
were at the lowest ebb, buy Félicité, and bring the house up by his
intelligence and energy. This was a skilful way of climbing the social
ladder. He was especially anxious to escape from the Faubourg where his
family had resided, and to make others as well as herself forget the
degradation of his history.
The darkest, dirtiest streets in the old Quartier seemed to him an
absolute Paradise.
The auspicious moment was near at hand. The Puech and Lecamp firm was
at the last gasp. The young man arranged his marriage with great skill
and prudence. He was welcomed, if not as a Saviour, at least as an
acceptable expedient.
Then came the question of selling his property. The owner of
Jas-Meiffren, desiring to add to his estate, had already made him
several offers. A low wall alone separated the two properties. Pierre
speculated on his neighbor’s wishes, who, being a rich man, could
afford to gratify a caprice, and purchase the land for fifteen
thousand francs, which was twice its value.
Pierre, with peasant cunning, shook his head at this offer, declaring
that he did not care to sell; that his mother would never consent to
part with a piece of property where her ancestors had lived for nearly
two centuries.
The fact was that in his heart Pierre was a little uneasy. According
to his own brutal logic the land was his, and his was the right to
dispose of it, and yet he had a vague fear of the law. He determined to
consult an attorney, who informed him, to his great disgust, that he
was absolutely powerless: his mother alone had the right to sell this
property. He had feared this, but he had not feared that which he now
learned, that Ursule and Antoine, his mother’s illegitimate children,
had also their rights in this property. Could this be possible? Could
these creatures rob him--him, the child born in lawful wedlock?
The attorney’s explanations were clear and precise. Adelaide had, it
is true, married Rougon under the “regime of communion,” but all the
property consisting of real estate, the young woman, according to
law, had come into its possession on the death of her husband. On the
other side, Macquart and Adelaide had recognized their children, who
consequently could inherit from their mother. As his only consolation,
Pierre learned that the law reduced the share of the illegitimate
children in favor of the legitimate. This was small consolation, since
he was absolutely unwilling to share one sou with Ursule and Antoine.
These developments in regard to the law opened new horizons to the
young man, who saw at once that a skilful man should always have the
law on his own side.
Without consulting any one, not even the lawyer, he induced his mother
to go with him one morning to a notary, and there place her signature
to a document. Adelaide would have signed anything and everything,
provided she was left undisturbed in her nest at Saint-Mittre. Pierre
promised her an annuity of six hundred francs, and swore that he would
look out for both brother and sister.
The poor woman was satisfied, and recited to the notary the lesson her
son had taught her. The next day the young man made her sign a receipt
in which she admitted having received fifty thousand francs in payment
for the land. This was a master-stroke on Pierre’s part. He told his
mother, who was astonished at having to sign such a receipt, when she
had not seen a sou of these fifty thousand francs, that her signature
was a mere formality, and the matter not of the slightest importance.
As he slipped this paper in his pocket, he said to himself, with a grim
smile:
“Now let these whelps ask for their share. I will show them this
receipt and tell them that the old woman has wasted the money. They
will never dare to go to law about it!”
Eight days later the dividing wall was gone; the plough had gone over
the vegetable garden, and the Fonque property, according to young
Rougon’s desire, had become a thing of the past, and a few months
later the new owner, the proprietor of Jas-Meiffren, pulled down the
old house.
When Pierre had his fifty thousand francs in his hands, he married
Félicité Puech with as little delay as possible.
Félicité was a small, dark woman, such as we see so often in Provence,
reminding one of those grasshoppers, dry, brown, and noisy, which
are found among the almond trees. Thin, hollow-chested, with pointed
shoulders, and sharp features, it was difficult to decide on her age.
She might have been fifteen or thirty, but she was in reality just
nineteen, four years younger than her husband. There was a cat-like
cunning in her black eyes, which were narrow and sharp as gimlets.
Her low, rounded forehead--her nose, slightly flattened at the
extremity, with dilated nostrils, her lips like a scarlet thread, her
chin prominent, and her cheek-bones high, gave all the features the
look of a cunning dwarf, and veiled the most intolerant ambition, and
capabilities for intrigue.
In spite of her positive ugliness, Félicité had a grace of her own, a
peculiar fascination. It was said of her that she was plain or pretty
at will. This was due, perhaps, to the manner in which she dressed
her hair, which was superb, but still more, to the triumphant smile
which illuminated her whole dusky face, when she believed herself to
have got the better of some one. She considered herself to have been
especially ill-treated by Fate--and submitted by fits and starts to be
considered insignificant and plain--but would soon arouse herself from
this temporary defeat and vow that the day should come when the whole
town should die with envy of her happiness and luxury. And had she been
able to act out her life on a broader stage, where her mind could have
developed, she would unquestionably have promptly realized this dream.
She was far superior in intelligence to the girls of her own class,
whose advantages had been the same as her own.
Gossips said that her mother, who died only a few years after her
birth, had been too intimate with the Marquis de Camavant--a young
nobleman in the Quartier Saint-Marc. The truth was that Félicité had
the hands and feet of a Marquise, which seemed in no way to belong to
the race of plebeians from which she descended.
The whole Quartier was astonished for at least a month at her marriage
to Pierre Rougon--this almost peasant--this man whose family was
certainly not in the odor of sanctity! Félicité let them talk, and
received with an odd sort of smile the constrained congratulations of
her friends. Her plans were all made. She chose Rougon as an accomplice
rather than as a husband. Her father accepted the young man because he
saw no other way of obtaining money which might save him from failure.
The daughter, however, had better eyes, and looked far into the future,
feeling that the day was not far off when she should need the support
of a strong man, even if he were a little of a boor, behind whom she
could hide, and whose arms and legs she could employ as she pleased.
She hated all the petty officials whom she encountered--notaries’
clerks, students-at-law, and the like. Without a dowry there was no
prospect of her marrying the son of a rich merchant, and she therefore
preferred a peasant whom she could employ as a passive instrument to
some person who would crush her from his lofty heights of learning.
She thought that a wife could make her husband what she would--and she
felt that she had the ability to make a minister out of a cowherd. She
found a certain attraction in Rougon’s square shoulders, which she
thought could carry the world of intrigues she intended to place upon
them. She appreciated the strength and the health of her husband, and
also divined the acuteness of his intellect, but was still far from
comprehending its full extent.
A few days after her marriage she discovered in his secretary the
receipt for fifty thousand francs, signed by Adelaide. She understood
it at once and was terrified, but in her terror there was no small
admiration, and her respect for Rougon at once increased. The new
establishment went boldly to work to conquer Fortune. The firm was
less involved than had been feared. It was only ready money that was
lacking. In the country, trade is managed with certain prudence which
often prevents great disasters. Puech and Lecamp were very wise and
cautious. The amount of their debts, consequently, was comparatively
small, and the fifty thousand francs brought by Pierre were sufficient
to pay off the most pressing obligations and start them fairly once
more.
They were prosperous from the beginning. The olive harvest for three
consecutive years had been abundant. Félicité had the boldness to
induce the firm to buy a quantity of oil and store it. In two years
after this, just as the young woman had prophesied, the harvest failed
and the firm made a large profit. Puech and Lecamp soon after this
retired, and Pierre Rougon carried on the business alone, and believed
himself to be on the highway to fortune.
“You have done away with my ill-luck,” said Félicité to her husband.
One of the rare weaknesses of this energetic nature was to think
herself a victim to Fate. She declared that up to this time nothing
had ever succeeded with her father or herself. With her Southern
superstition, she fought against Destiny as one fights against an enemy
in the flesh, who wishes to strangle you.
Facts justified her apprehensions. The ill-luck returned. Each year
a new disaster shook the Rougon house. Through a bankrupt debtor
thousands were lost. All their calculations made on the olive crop
were rendered futile by the most unexpected circumstances. The most
promising speculations turned out badly. The whole lookout was most
discouraging.
“You see that I was right,” said Félicité, bitterly. “I was certainly
born under a bad star.”
And she was desperate at the idea that she, who had been clever enough
to scent out this first brilliant speculation, could now give her
husband no good advice or suggestions.
Pierre, less obstinate than his wife, would have lain down discouraged
but for her. She was determined to be rich. She understood that her
ambition could have no other foundation than money. Were they to be
wealthy they would rule the town, her husband would fill some important
position, and she would govern him. All she wanted to carry out her
plan was the entering wedge, a few thousand crowns to start with. She
felt herself capable of managing men and gaining honors, but she felt
a bitter sort of rage in the face of this cold silver and gold which
her clever, intriguing mind could not command, and which she could not
obtain.
For thirty long years did this battle last, and when Puech died there
was another blow, for Félicité, who had anticipated some fourteen
thousand francs at least, discovered that her father had sunk his
fortune in an annuity. This made her ill. She grew thinner and darker,
and fluttered about all day long among the jars of oil like a restless
fly. Her husband, on the contrary, thrived on his ill-luck, and grew
stouter and more indolent. These thirty years of struggle did not lead
them to ruin: on the contrary they made both ends meet each year: if
they lost in one six months they repaired this loss in the next season.
It was this that exasperated Félicité, who would have preferred a good
stout failure.
The early years of their married life brought them many children. In
five years she had three sons, and in the succeeding four years two
daughters, who, as they had no dowry, were far from welcome.
Before Félicité’s sons were ten years old, their mother had mapped out
their future. They should gratify her ambition--they would give her
that position and that fortune which she had so long vainly pursued.
It seemed to her impossible if her three sons should live to grow
up, that there should not be one of them superior enough to enrich
the whole. She felt this and said it. She guarded the children with
the tender care of a mother, and with the watchful solicitude of a
moneylender, who guards his capital and sees it grow.
“Be careful!” cried Pierre. “Children are ungrateful. You will spoil
them, and ruin us.”
When Félicité spoke of sending the boys to college he lost his
temper. Latin was a foolish luxury, and they could go to the little
day-school round the corner. But the mother carried her point. She
was sufficiently cultivated herself to recognize the importance of
cultivation, and knew that her sons could never be superior men if
they were as illiterate as their father. When Félicité heard her boys
conjugate a Latin verb, and speak familiarly to the sons of the Mayor
and the Prefect, she was thrilled with joy and pride.
The maintenance of these three boys at college was a heavy tax for
several years; and when they had received their diplomas, Félicité
induced her husband to send them all to Paris. Two studied law; the
third, medicine; and now began the disappointment of the poor parents,
who were at the end of their resources, for the three young men in no
way gratified the ambition of Rougon and his wife.
One day, when Félicité spoke with some bitterness to her eldest son of
the enormous sums expended on his education, he replied, sharply:
“I will pay it all back to you some day, I hope. But, as you had no
fortune, it strikes me that it would have been better to have made
something else of us than lawyers and doctors. We are really greatly
to be pitied, inasmuch as we suffer more than you, for we belong to no
class whatever.”
Félicité understood the deep meaning of these words, ceased to reproach
her children, and turned her anger against Fate. When Rougon said to
her, “Your sons are lazy fellows!” she would reply: “I trust that I may
yet have money to leave them. If they vegetate, it is because they are
penniless!”
In 1848, on the eve of the Revolution of February, the three Rougon
sons were in Plassans. They were singularly dissimilar, although born
of the same parents.
The Rougon race had been purified by its women. Adelaide had made
of Pierre something more than an ordinary nature with certain low
ambitions. Félicité had given to her sons a broader intelligence, and
characters capable of great vices and great virtues.
At this time, the elder, Eugène, was more than forty, slightly bald,
and growing stout. He had his father’s face--long, with large features.
If there was something of the peasant in the square and massive head,
the look vanished and the face was transfigured when the heavy eyelids
were lifted.
Through one of those caprices of nature, wherein science now begins to
distinguish laws, Eugène’s mental resemblance to his mother was quite
as remarkable as his physical likeness to his father. He had strong
ambition, instincts of command, and a singular contempt for narrow
fortunes and economical ways. He was the living proof that Plassans had
not erred when it gave to Félicité a little noble blood in her veins.
The love of pleasure, which was a characteristic with the Rougons,
assumed in him a more elevated form: pleasure to him meant simply a
thirst for domination. Such a man was not likely to succeed in the
provinces. He lived there fifteen years, with his eyes and thoughts
turned toward Paris, waiting and watching. On his return to the
village, in order not to be dependent on his parents, he had inscribed
his name as a lawyer. He appeared in court sometimes, and managed to
earn his bread without in any way rising above honest mediocrity. At
Plassans his voice was considered a drawl; his gestures heavy. It was
rarely that he won a cause for a client. He had a way, people said, of
wandering from a subject. One day, it was asserted, he so far forgot
himself, that he, in a question of damages, offered some political
opinions, and was cut short by the judge. He sat down at once, with
his singular smile. His client was condemned to pay a considerable sum
in consequence of this digression. Eugène, in fact, seemed to consider
these pleadings as mere practice which would serve him later.
This his mother could not understand.
She wished to see her son take a high position at the Plassans bar,
and finally formed rather a low estimate of the abilities of her eldest
son, who, in her opinion, was not the one who was to make the fortune
of the family. Pierre, on the contrary, had the most entire confidence
in Eugène; not that his eyes were more penetrating than those of his
wife, but because his personal vanity was gratified by believing in the
genius and capability of a son who was so marvellously like himself
in appearance. A little before those stormy February days Eugène grew
very restless. The very stones of Plassans burned his feet; he wandered
about like a perturbed spirit, and finally started off for Paris with
less than five hundred francs in his pocket.
Aristide, the youngest of the Rougon sons, was as opposite to Eugène as
the North Pole is opposite to the South. He had his mother’s face and a
certain amount of cunning, with an aptitude for vulgar intrigues, when
his father’s nature appeared. Small and insignificant in appearance,
Aristide was always prying in every direction, eager for information
and amusement. He loved money as his elder brother loved power. While
Eugène dreamed of bending a nation to his will, Aristide saw himself a
millionnaire, lodged in a princely palace--eating and drinking of the
best--enjoying life with every sense and every organ of his body.
The Rougon race--the grasping peasant stock with the appetites of a
brute--had ripened too fast in Aristide, who in spite of his delicate
feminine instincts was his mother’s favorite. She made every excuse
for the follies and indolence of her youngest son, saying that he was
the clever man of the family, and that such men had the right to live
irregular lives until the day when their abilities make themselves
known and felt. Aristide put her indulgence to the test. At Paris his
life was simply disgraceful; he was one of those students who make
themselves conspicuous in the beer gardens of the Quartier Latin. He
was there only two years, for, as he did not pass a single examination,
his father ordered him home, and talked of finding a wife for him, in
the hope that he would settle down calmly. Life in the country did not
displease Aristide, nor did the idea of matrimony. His father consented
to the newly married pair living at home, on the condition that the
young man should be active in the business. From this moment Aristide
lived much in accordance with his tastes, spending half the nights at
the club, and most of his days gambling with a few gold pieces which
his mother gave him in secret. One must have lived in just such a
country place to understand the stultifying life led by this young man
for four years. In every small town a number of individuals are to be
found living on their parents in just this way--pretending to work, but
in reality utterly indolent and helpless.
Aristide was the type of these incorrigible loungers whom one sees
living the vacant life of these country towns. For four years he
played écarté. While he lived at the club, his wife--a gentle, dull
blonde--assisted in the ruin of the Rougon family by a most extravagant
taste for startling toilettes, and by a most formidable appetite, which
was especially remarkable in so frail a looking creature.
Angèle adored blue ribbons and roast beef. She was the daughter of a
retired Captain who went by the name of Commandant Sicardot, and who
had given to his child all his savings--a dowry of ten thousand francs.
This dowry was like a paving stone round the neck of poor Pierre
Rougon, for his son handed it over to him, saying: “We need nothing.
You support us, my wife and me, and we will settle up later.”
Pierre agreed to this, though he was a little disturbed by his son’s
apparent disinterestedness. Aristide was a clever rascal, and said to
himself, that it would be a long time before his father would have ten
thousand francs to hand over to him, and that during all that time they
could continue to live at the expense of his parents. It was really
a splendid investment for his money. When it was too late the oil
merchant saw the mistake he had made, but he could not rid himself of
Aristide, for Angèle’s dowry had been lost in speculations which turned
out badly.
He was compelled to keep his son and his son’s wife under his roof,
although disgusted and horrified at the indolence of the one and the
appetite of the other.
Twenty times he would have put out of the door the vermin that sucked
his blood, to use his own energetic expression. Félicité interfered,
however. The young man, who had penetrated her ambitious dreams, had
each evening a new plan of making his fortune to lay before her. By an
accident, which is certainly far from common, she was on the best of
terms with her daughter-in-law. We must here take occasion to say that
Angèle was absolutely without a will of her own.
Pierre lost his temper when his wife spoke of the future success of
their youngest son, and declared he was far more likely to be their
ruin. He went into daily rages during the four years that his son lived
with him, but never once did Aristide and Angèle lose their smiling
calm.
Finally one day Pierre had a stroke of luck. He was able to return the
ten thousand francs to his son. When he wished to settle their accounts
Aristide had so many objections to make and so many arguments, that
his father allowed them to depart without keeping a sou to cover the
expenses of their food and lodging.
The young people established themselves not far off on a little
square--Place Saint Louis. The ten thousand francs quickly disappeared.
But Aristide in no way changed his mode of life so long as there
was money in the house; but when he had reached his last hundred
franc-note, he became nervous. He wandered about the town with a
careworn look. He took nothing at the club. He looked on at the
card-tables, but did not play himself. He had one child in 1840, named
Maxime, whom his mother sent to school, which was one mouth less at
Aristide’s; but poor Angèle was dying of hunger, and it was necessary
for her husband to find a place of some kind. In this search, he at
last succeeded, and kept it for ten years with a salary of eighteen
hundred francs, which seemed to him an irony of fortune. His mother was
not sorry to see him kick against the pricks, for she hoped that his
ambition might prove too strong for his indolence.
Aristide was always on the watch for some freak of fortune, and when
his brother, in 1848, left for Paris, he was sorely tempted to follow
him, but it was not so easy to carry his wife. To do this required a
large sum of ready money. Eugène was unmarried: it was easy for him to
make a change. Aristide therefore waited in momentary expectation of
some catastrophe, of which he could take advantage.
Pascal, the other Rougon son, was like no other member of the family.
It was one of those frequent cases which disturb the laws of hereditary
resemblance. Nothing in the physique or character of Pascal recalled
the Rougons. Tall, with a calm, severe face, he had an honesty of
purpose, a passionate love of study, and an excessive modesty which
contrasted strangely with the ambitious fever and the somewhat
unscrupulous notions of his family. After having finished his medical
studies with credit to himself, he returned to Plassans because he
liked the place, and preferred the calm and quiet life of the country.
He made no effort to obtain a large practice, but contented himself
with those persons who came to him by chance. All his luxury consisted
in the fresh, pretty house in which he shut himself up, and busied
himself with his studies in Natural History. He had an especial passion
for Physiology. It was known to the town that he bought subjects for
dissection from the Hospital, and for this reason was looked upon with
horror by certain delicate ladies, and cowardly bourgeois, who did
not go so far as to treat him as a sorcerer, but who called him “an
original,” with the air of meaning much more than they said.
The Mayor’s wife was heard to say one day: “I should rather die than
call in that man. He smells of death!”
Pascal was quite undisturbed by this foolish fear with which he
inspired these people. The fewer patients he had, the more time would
be his to occupy himself with his dear sciences. But as he had placed
his prices at a low figure the common people were faithful to him.
He made just enough to live on, and lived happily amid his books and
studies, and occasionally sent a paper to the Academy of Sciences.
Plassans did not know that “this original,”--this man who smelled of
death--was well known and highly respected in the scientific world.
When he was seen starting forth on an excursion among the hills, with
a botany box hung at his neck, and a geologist’s hammer in his hand,
they shrugged their shoulders and compared him to another doctor of the
town, always so well dressed, who was such a favorite of the ladies,
and who always had about him such a delicious odor of violets.
Nor was Pascal understood by his parents. His mother overwhelmed him
with reproaches, when she saw the strange life he led. She, who endured
with equanimity the indolence of Aristide, could not behold without
anger, Pascal’s calm contentment, his humility, and his contempt for
riches.
“No one would ever suppose you belonged to us,” she would say,
impatiently. “Look at your brothers: they try to make a figure in the
world, and so recompense us for the sacrifices we have made. But you
are absolutely simple.”
Pascal, who preferred to laugh rather than lose his temper, answered,
with fine irony.
“You need not complain. I will not make you absolutely bankrupt. I will
take care of you all for nothing when you are ill.”
He lived entirely apart from his family--not from any repugnance to
them, but because he was absorbed in his studies. For several years he
had occupied himself with the great problem of hereditary transmission,
comparing the animal kingdom with the human race; and he was intensely
interested in the curious results that he obtained. The observations he
made on himself and his family were his starting-point of these studies.
The people understood, with their wonderful intuition, that he differed
from the Rougons, and called him always “Dr. Pascal” without adding the
surname.
About three years before the Revolution of 1848, Pierre and Félicité
gave up their business. They were both over fifty, and weary of the
contest. They were so imbued with a sense of their ill-luck that they
thought it safer to retire while they had a few francs. Their sons had
been a great disappointment to them, and they had lost all hope of
being enriched by them, and were anxious to secure a loaf of bread for
their old age.
They retired with forty thousand francs, the income of which allowed
them to live the economical life of the provinces. Fortunately there
were only themselves, as Marthe and Sidonie were married, one living at
Marseilles, the other in Paris.
They would have liked to reside in the New Quartier among the retired
merchants, but as they did not dare to attempt this with their
restricted means, as a sort of compromise they hired rooms in La Rue
de la Baune, the street which separates the New Quartier from the old;
they were thus on the threshold of the promised land.
Their lodgings were on the second story and consisted of three large
rooms--dining-room, bed-room and salon. On the first floor lived the
proprietor, a cane and umbrella maker, whose shop was in the Rez de
Chaussée. The house was narrow and deep and had only two stories. When
Félicité moved, it was with a heavy heart. To live with others in
provincial towns is an avowal of poverty. Each well-to-do family in
Plassans has its own house and furniture. Pierre held the purse-strings
tightly and would not hear of any embellishments. The old furniture,
worn and faded, must do duty in their new quarters without even being
repaired. Félicité toiled hard to give a brighter aspect to these goods
and chattels, and rubbed and varnished the tables and chairs until they
shone.
The dining-room, which was back of all the others, remained nearly
empty--a table and a dozen chairs were literally lost in the large
room whose window opened on the gray wall of a house in the rear. As
no stranger ever entered the bed-room, Félicité gathered together
there all the wrecks which she could not make up her mind to utterly
discard--a wardrobe, two cradles, a buffet with only one door, and a
bookcase which was totally empty.
She lavished all her cares on the salon, of which she succeeded in
making quite a habitable spot. The furniture was yellow velvet with
satin flowers; a table stood in the centre and at either end a console
with mirrors. There was even a square of carpet, and a chandelier
covered with a netting. On the walls were six lithographs, representing
Napoleon’s great battles. All these ornaments dated from the first
days of the Empire. By dint of much coaxing Félicité had obtained
a paper for her walls--orange, with huge branches. Thus the salon
had a strange, tawny light, suggestive of the sunlight; everything
was yellow: furniture, paper, curtains, and even the marbles of the
guéridon and console. When the curtains were drawn the tints were
really soft and harmonious. But Félicité had quite other dreams of
luxury. She contemplated with a feeling of utter despair this poorly
concealed poverty. Her one amusement in which she found both pain
and pleasure, was to station herself at one of the windows of this
room looking out on La Rue de la Baune and across to La Place de la
Sous-Préfecture. That was the Paradise of which she had dreamed. The
houses so carefully kept, so neat and fresh, seemed to her an Eden.
She would have given ten years of her life to possess one of these
dwellings. One house in particular filled her with envy. She watched it
with curiosity and longing. Sometimes when the windows were open, she
caught a glimpse of red furniture which stirred her blood with their
suggestions of luxury.
At this time the Rougons were passing through a curious crisis in their
lives. They regarded themselves as victims of Fate, but they made no
profession of being resigned to this, but on the contrary, declared
they had not given up the hope of dying wealthy, nevertheless each day
of poverty weighed more and more heavily upon them. They shivered as
they recounted to each other their thirty years of useless struggles,
and their disappointment in their children. They were filled with rage
as they looked around this yellow salon whose curtains must be drawn to
hide its ugliness.
Then, to console themselves, they made all sorts of plans for the
acquisition of a colossal fortune. Félicité dreamed that she had won in
a lottery the grand prize of 100,000 francs; Pierre imagined that he
had achieved some marvellous invention.
They had but one idea, to make a fortune--to be rich and to enjoy their
riches, if it were only for a year, and continued with that selfishness
peculiar to parents who cannot become accustomed to the idea of having
educated their children without deriving some personal advantage, to
look forward vaguely to being enriched through their sons.
Félicité showed no mark of age; she was the same little dark woman, as
restless and active as a grasshopper. A stranger seeing her walking
in front of him would have taken her for a girl of sixteen, from
her slender figure and active step. Her face had, to be sure, a few
more wrinkles--it was like that of a child gradually hardening into
parchment.
Pierre Rougon had grown stout. His pasty pale face and pompous air
indicated wealth. He heard some one say one day in reply to a question:
“No, I do not know his name, but he is some rich fellow who has no need
to worry as to where his dinner is coming from!”
These words went to his heart, for to remain poor and look like a
millionnaire struck him as a bitter mockery. When he shaved himself on
Sunday before a tiny mirror that cost five sous, he thought himself far
more dignified in appearance than the mayor, or in fact than any of the
officials of Plassans.
This peasant’s son, pale with the cares of commerce, stout from his
sedentary life, hiding his malevolent passions under the natural
placidity of his countenance, had in fact an air of solemnity befitting
a man who had passed his life in official salons.
It was said that his wife led him by the nose, but this was not so; he
was brutally obstinate, and by no means easily managed. Félicité was
shrewd enough--when she wished to gain anything from her husband--or
to induce him to take the path she believed to be the best, to flutter
about him, attack him on all sides with pin-pricks, and keep up the
assault until he yielded almost without perceiving it. He felt that she
was keener than himself, and therefore submitted to her advice; husband
and wife never disagreed except on the old question of the education of
their children.
The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougon family on the _qui
vive_, exasperated by their incessant bad luck, and disposed to
grasp at Fortune with rough hands should they ever encounter it.
They were like a family of banditti, ready for anything. Eugène watched
Paris; Aristide dreamed of pillaging Plassans, while the father and
mother waited in hopes of profiting by their sons’ success.
Pascal was the only one indifferent to the outer world. He spent his
life in quiet seclusion in his pretty little house in the new part of
the city.
CHAPTER III.
PLASSANS AND POLITICS.
AT Plassans--a town in which the division of classes was very clearly
defined in 1848, the effect of political events was very strongly
marked. The voice of the people is, to-day, well-nigh stifled. The
middle classes are prudent, the nobility despondent, and the clergy
cunning. Kings may ascend a throne, or Republics may be founded, and
Plassans sleeps while Paris fights.
The surface may be smooth, but below a turmoil is going on, curious
enough to study. The streets are calm enough, but an intriguing spirit
pervades the salons of the Quartier Saint-Marc.
Until 1850 the people were of no account. The clergy, the bourgeoisie
and the nobility were all. The priests gave the tone to the politics
of the place--they were like subterranean mines, underlying the whole
upper strata, and their timid tactics did not permit a step to be
taken, either forward or back, in ten years. These secret struggles of
men who wish, above all things, to avoid any noise, demand a peculiar
finesse, an aptitude in trifles, and incalculable patience. And thus
it is that the provincial slowness at which Parisians laugh, is really
made up of treacheries--of defeats and hidden victories. These men,
when their interests demand it, bring down their victims within the
houses by successive blows, as Parisians kill theirs in the public
squares by salvos of artillery.
The political history of Plassans, as well as that of all the small
towns of Provence, offers one curious peculiarity. Until 1850 the
inhabitants were Catholics and Royalists. The people swore by God
and by His legitimate kings. Then a strange change took place. All
religious faith disappeared, and the people, deserting the cause of
Legitimacy, gave themselves by degrees to the great Democratic movement
of the day.
When the Revolution of 1848 burst out, the Nobility and the Clergy
stood alone in their work of aiding the triumph of Henri V. They
had long regarded the accession of the Orleans as a ridiculous
experiment, which would eventually restore the Bourbons. Their hopes
were disappointed but they did not give up the contest, although much
scandalized at the defection of the faithful. The Quartier Saint-Marc
was all astir. Among the Bourgeoisie and the people the enthusiasm was
great. The new Republicans were in haste to display their Revolutionary
fever. But among the residents of the new part of the town this
beautiful fire had the brilliancy and the duration of a fire of straw.
The retired merchants and petty shop-keepers, who had slept comfortably
with the assurance that their fortunes were quietly growing under the
monarchy, were soon seized with a panic. The Republic with its chances
made them tremble for their money-boxes. Thus, when the clerical
reaction of ’49 sat in, all the Bourgeoisie of Plassans passed over to
the Conservative party, and were received with open arms.
Never before had the nobles of Saint-Marc been on such terms of
familiarity with merchants and attorneys, and this was quite enough to
excite the enthusiasm of the new recruits. To obtain these results the
clergy had worked with incredible patience.
The nobility of Plassans were in a lethargy apparently. They kept
their religious faith, which showed itself in no acts; and when the
catastrophe of 1848 should have thrilled them with hope for the return
of the Bourbons, it found them indifferent and dull. They uttered a
few vague words of throwing themselves into the mêlée, and did not
leave their firesides. The clergy combated unceasingly with this
feeling of powerlessness and resignation, for a priest only struggles
more energetically when he despairs. The whole policy of the church
is to struggle on, even if the results of these struggles must be
indefinitely postponed--postponed for centuries, if it must be. They
are not idle meanwhile, but push on continually to the front.
It was the clergy at Plassans who led the reaction, and the ground
was certainly well prepared for them. This old Royalist town, this
population of peaceful Bourgeoisie, would sooner or later range
themselves on the side of order. The great question now was to strangle
the Republic, and the Republic was in its death-throes. There were not
more than a thousand out of the ten thousand mechanics, who formerly
saluted the tree of liberty planted in the middle of the square, who
still bowed before it.
The shrewdest politicians in Plassans--those who directed the
Revolutionary movement--did not scent the Empire until later. The
popularity of Prince Louis Napoleon seemed to them a mere passing
caprice of the people, nor were they inspired by any admiration of
the Prince personally. They regarded him as a nonentity, incapable
of ruling France with a steady hand. In their eyes he was a mere
instrument of which they could make use, and of whom they could rid
themselves when the hour came, or when the true Pretendant should
appear.
But as months passed away they became anxious, and also vaguely
conscious that they had been duped. They had, however, no time to act,
for the Coup d’état burst over their heads, and the Clergy and Nobility
were forced to applaud,--to accept it as a partial triumph--and to
postpone until a later date the realization of their hopes--revenging
their mistakes by uniting with the Bonapartists to crush the
Republicans.
These events made the fortunes of the Rougon family, who grew like
weeds on the ruins of Liberty.
Félicité, whose nose was the most delicate among them, quickly
comprehended that they were on a good scent. She buzzed restlessly
about her husband to stir him up. He was terrified at the first rumors
of the Revolution, but when his wife pointed out to him that he had
much to gain and little to lose by the change, he was quickly converted
to her opinion.
“I do not know what you can do,” said Félicité, “but it seems to me
that there is something. Did not Monsieur de Carnavant say the other
day that he would be rich if Henri V. should ever return, and that
this king would well reward all those who had worked for his return? It
may be that our fortune lies in that direction.”
The Marquis de Carnavant was the Noble who, according to the gossip of
the town, had been the lover of Félicité’s mother. He came occasionally
to call on the Rougons. He was a small man, thin, active, and about
seventy-five. It was said that he had wasted on women all that remained
of the small fortune which his father, an émigré, had bequeathed to
him. He admitted his poverty with the best grace in the world. He
resided with one of his relatives, the Comte de Valqueyras, eating at
his table, and occupying a tiny room in the attic.
“Little one,” he said, tapping Félicité on the cheek, “if ever Henri V.
gives me back my fortune, I will make you my heir.”
Félicité was fifty, and yet he never called her anything but “little
one,” or “child.” It was of these familiar taps and these vague
promises that Madame Rougon thought, when she urged her husband to
enter into politics, and when she pointed out her reasons to Pierre, he
was quite ready to follow her bidding.
The Marquis was, in the early days of the Republic, the active agent
of the Reactionary movement. This little man, who had all to gain by
the return of the legitimate sovereigns, occupied himself eagerly with
the triumph of their cause. While the rich noblesse of the Quartier
Saint-Marc slumbered in mute despair--fearing by any rash step to
compromise themselves and be again condemned to exile--he busied
himself in making new converts and bringing back the old. His visits to
the Rougons were daily, for a centre of operations was needed by him.
His host, the Comte Valqueyras, had forbidden him to introduce one of
his political associates under his roof, and he was rejoiced to make
use of Félicité’s yellow salon. Pierre, too, he found extremely useful,
as he could not very well go himself and preach the cause of Legitimacy
to the workmen in the old Quartier, he would have been hissed; but
Pierre, on the contrary, had lived among these people, spoke their
language, knew their needs and ways, and catechised them adroitly. He
became indispensable to the Marquis, and in less than a fortnight the
Rougons were more Royalists than the king himself. The Marquis, seeing
Pierre’s zeal, took shelter behind him. What was the good of being
seen himself when a man with such broad shoulders could bear the whole
responsibility? He let Pierre swell with pomposity, and talk as if he
ruled everything, while he himself pushed him on, or held him back as
he pleased, or considered necessary.
The old oil merchant was soon an important person. Félicité would say
to him when they were alone:
“Go on boldly; fear nothing. We are on a good road and we shall be
rich--have a salon, and can give soirées.”
And in this way did a circle of conspirators gather together every
night in the yellow salon to plan the downfall of the Republic.
There were three or four retired merchants who trembled for their
fortunes, and who demanded a strong and steady government. There was
a certain Rondier, with an insinuating countenance, who talked with
passionate vehemence of the disarrangement of all his plans caused by
the fall of Louis Phillippe. The Revolution had killed all his hopes,
but his fortune and his former connection with the Tuileries gave
him a certain prestige; for when a man has made money in Paris, and
condescends to spend it in the country, he always acquires there an
enormous influence, people listening to him as if he were an oracle.
But the strongest mind in the salon was the Commandant Secardot, the
father-in-law of Aristide. He was a perfect Hercules appearance, and
his red face and gray whiskers gave him a very soldier-like air. He had
much to say of his campaigns, recalling with pride Napoleon’s great
reign, and commenting with bitter scorn on the barricades and street
skirmishes which had taken place in February.
At the Rougons was also to be seen a person with cold, clammy hands
and furtive glances--Vuillet by name, a man who furnished all sorts of
holy images, relics and beads, to the devout of the town. He was the
librarian also of a classical as well as a religious library. He was a
rigid Catholic, which assured him a large custom among the converts.
He, by a stroke of genius, added to his business the publication
of a semi-weekly journal--the _Gazette de Plassans_--devoted
exclusively to the interests of the Clergy. This journal was by no
means a pecuniary success, but it made him the champion of the church.
This illiterate man, whose orthography was more than doubtful,
himself corrected the articles of the _Gazette_ with humility
and fidelity, which took the place of talent. The Marquis saw this,
and was struck by the advantages he might gain from this dull-looking
person and from his interested pen. From that time the _Gazette_
improved. The Marquis corrected the proof. The yellow salon presented
a very odd appearance every evening now. The most contrary opinions
elbowed each other, but all were against the Republic. The Marquis
soothed each little quarrel as fast as it rose; he wielded a strong
influence, for every one was at heart deeply flattered by the pressure
of the hand with which the Marquis greeted them when he entered the
room. Rondier alone, as a free-thinker, laughed at the airs and graces
of the Marquis, saying that he had not a sou. The old nobleman saw
this, but was apparently blind. He was the soul of the group. He
commanded in the name of unknown persons.
“They desire this and they object to that,” he said. When the Marquis
pronounced the mysterious “They,” the whole assembly was thrilled.
Félicité was intensely happy, she gloried in her salon and its guests.
She was a little ashamed of her shabby furniture, but consoled herself
with the thought of the magnificence by which she should be surrounded
as soon as the good cause triumphed. The Rougons had taken their
Royalism very seriously. Félicité went so far as to say, that if they
had failed to make their fortune, it was on account of the Revolution
of July. This was by way of giving a political coloring to their
poverty.
This salon soon became, owing to the influence of the clergy, the
centre of Plassans politics. In April, 1849, Eugène left Paris and
passed a couple of weeks with his father. The real end and aim of this
visit no one ever knew, but it was believed that he came to feel the
pulse of the public, and see if he had any chance of being sent to
the National Assembly from his native town. He was too wise to risk a
defeat, and probably public opinion struck him as being unfavorable,
for he abstained from any attempt in that direction.
When he appeared, however, at Plassans, they sought to make him talk,
he feigned utter ignorance, however, and made others open their lips
instead, listening intently to all that was said in the yellow salon.
He took his seat on the arrival of the first guest, as far as possible
from the light, and sat with impassive countenance. When his opinion
was asked, he answered politely, agreeing with the majority. Nothing
seemed to exhaust his patience: neither the visionary utterances of the
Marquis, who talked of the Bourbons as if it were thirty years earlier,
nor the effusive moans of Rondier, who grew very plaintive as he told
how many pair of socks he had once been in the habit of furnishing to
the Citizen King.
Eugène’s eyes sometimes laughed, but his lips never lost their gravity.
His courteous way of listening conciliated every one. Vuillet alone
looked at him doubtfully. This librarian, a combination of a sacristan
and a journalist, said little, but saw much. He noticed that the
newcomer talked a great deal apart with the Commandant Secardot, but
he could never catch a word uttered by either, for Eugène silenced
Secardot by a look as soon as any one approached. Secardot about this
time began to speak of Napoleon with a mysterious smile.
Two days before his return to Paris, Eugène was consulted by his
brother Aristide, who was in great perplexity. He had for some little
time affected the keenest admiration for the new government. His
intelligence, quickened by his two years in Paris, saw further than the
duller brains of Plassans. He saw the powerlessness of both Legitimists
and Orleanists, but could not clearly discern the third robber who had
come to steal the Republic. He meant, however, at all costs, to be on
the side of victory.
He had broken with his father, speaking of him in public as an old
imbecile, bejuggled by the influence of the nobles, who were making a
tool of him for their own purposes.
“My mother is an intelligent woman,” he said, “and I would never
have imagined her capable of urging her husband to indulge in such
chimerical hopes. They will end by losing every sou they have in the
world. But women never ought to meddle with politics.”
Aristide intended to sell himself as dearly as possible; but,
unfortunately, he was groping in the dark, for in the country, away
from Paris, he felt himself utterly lost. While waiting for the course
of events to be more clearly defined, he retained the position he had
first assumed of an enthusiastic Republican, and in this manner not
only retained his office, but had even succeeded in having his salary
raised.
Impelled, however, to play some rôle, he had written some articles
of so incendiary a character that he shivered when he looked them
over. These were printed in a Democratic journal, published by a
friend. He was especially severe in his allusions to those persons who
most frequented his father’s salon, for the wealth of some of them
exasperated him to such a degree that he lost all prudence. He had
thus made several bitter enemies, for the author of these attacks was
more than suspected. It was just at this time that Eugène arrived at
Plassans. To this elder brother, Aristide had always accorded great
ability. In his opinion, Eugène slept with one eye open, like a cat
watching at a mouse-hole; and when he heard of the cordiality shown
by him toward the habitués of the yellow salon, and of his especial
deference to the Marquis, he asked himself, anxiously, what he could
believe? Had he been mistaken? Had the Legitimists a chance of success?
This idea filled him with terror.
The evening before he met Eugène he had published an article reflecting
on the clergy, in reply to a statement made by Vuillet, who was his
bête noir. Never a week passed that the two men did not exchange
personalities.
Aristide, who did not wish to show his anxiety, said, carelessly:
“Did you read my article yesterday? What did you think of it?”
Eugène shrugged his shoulders.
“You are a simpleton,” he replied, quietly.
“Then,” cried his brother, “you think Vuillet in the right?”
Eugène was about to reply that he thought Vuillet as great a simpleton
as himself, when catching the gleam of anxiety in his brother’s eyes,
he checked himself.
“Vuillet is not altogether wrong,” he said, calmly.
Aristide, on leaving his brother, was really more perplexed than
before. But he made up his mind to be wary, and not to tie his hands in
such a way that he could not use them to aid in strangling the Republic.
The morning of his departure, Eugène took his father aside and had a
long conversation with him. In vain did Félicité try to hear what was
said. The two men talked very low, as if they feared a word should
be overheard. When they entered her presence, both seemed unusually
animated, and her son, who usually spoke in a slow, soft voice, said
quickly to his father:
“You understand me, sir, I trust. That is our road to fortune. In that
direction must we work with all our strength. Be sure that I am right.”
“I will follow your instructions to the letter,” answered Rougon; “but
you must not forget the recompense for my labors which I have asked.”
“If we succeed, you will have no reason for dissatisfaction--that I
promise you. I will write and keep you informed. But you must obey me
quietly and blindly.”
“What are you plotting?” asked Félicité, curiously.
“My dear mother,” replied Eugène, with a smile, “you have so little
confidence in me that I cannot confide all my hopes to you, for as yet
they have small foundation. Faith is needed to comprehend me. Besides,
my father will instruct you when the hour comes.”
And, as Félicité looked deeply offended, he whispered in her ear:
“I have confidence in you, although you doubt me. But too much
intelligence will do us harm just now. When the crisis arrives, you
will be the one on whom I shall lean.”
He went away, but turned back to say:
“Be very guarded with Aristide; he is a blunderhead, who will spoil
everything. But I have studied him enough to know that he will always
fall on his feet. If we make our fortunes, he will know how to steal
his share.”
When Eugène had gone, his mother did her best to discover the secret
of his conversation with Pierre. She knew her husband too well to
interrogate him openly. He would have answered her angrily that it
was none of her affairs. But notwithstanding all the marvellous tact
and ingenuity she displayed, she learned absolutely nothing. Eugène
had selected his confidant well; for Pierre, much flattered by his
son’s choice, was more impassible and apparently obtuse than ever.
When Félicité fully comprehended that she could never elicit a word of
information, she ceased to try. But she was intensely curious as to the
meaning of the one sentence she had heard.
The two men had spoken of a price stipulated upon by Pierre. What
was this price? Félicité cared little for the political side of the
question, but this part of it touched her more nearly, and she burned
to know the nature of the bargain.
One evening, when her husband was in an especially good humor, she led
the conversation toward the annoyances entailed by their poverty.
“It is about time that this should end,” she said. “We are ruining
ourselves in wood and oil since these gentlemen have been frequenting
our salon in this way. Who will pay our bills? No one, apparently.”
Her husband fell into the snare. He smiled in a lofty manner.
“Patience,” he said; “have a little patience.”
Then he added with a cunning air, looking his wife full in the eyes:
“Would you like to be the wife of a Receiver-general?”
Félicité colored with joy.
“At Plassans do you mean?”
Pierre nodded. He enjoyed his wife’s surprise.
“But,” she said, “enormous securities would be required. I heard that
our neighbor Monsieur Pierotte was obliged to deposit eighty thousand
francs in the Treasury.”
“I dare say; but that is not my concern. Eugène will attend to all that
through a Parisian banker. At first Eugène objected, but I was firm,
and he yielded. To be a Receiver one does not need either Greek or
Latin.”
Félicité listened in a paroxysm of delight.
“Our dear son,” continued Pierre, “thought we had best go to some other
town, but I wished to remain here.”
“To be sure,” said the old lady. “We have suffered here, and here we
will triumph. I will crush them all with envy--all those ladies who
have looked so contemptuously at my woollen dresses. But I did not
think of your being Receiver. I thought you would prefer to be Mayor.”
“Mayor! That is absurd. Eugène said something about that, but I said
instantly, ‘No, not unless you assure me a salary of fifteen thousand
francs.’”
This conversation filled Félicité with enthusiasm. She murmured over
the words “fifteen thousand francs,” and then in a solemn tone said:
“Let us make a calculation. How much do you suppose you will have?”
“About three thousand francs, I presume, and a certain percentage on
the receipts, which at Plassans would bring up the amount to some
fifteen thousand. That is what Pierotte has. But that is not all.
Pierotte has a private banking-house. It is permitted. It is a risky
business, but I shall venture it, I think.”
“Let us call it twenty thousand, then,” said Félicité, with a gasp. “We
shall be as rich as any of these gentlemen. Are the Marquis and any of
these people to divide the cake with you?”
“No, indeed; it will all be ours.”
And as she urged him still further, Pierre frowned, thinking she would
tear his secret from him.
“We have talked enough,” he said. “It is late; let us sleep. A thousand
things may happen to prevent my having the place. Take care what you do
and what you say.”
The lamp was put out, but Félicité could not sleep. She closed her
eyes and built the most marvellous castles in the air. She selected
the furniture for her new apartment, and dreamed of superb toilettes.
She would be able to revenge herself on these gentlemen who entered
her salon as if it were a café, merely to learn the news of the day.
She had been intensely annoyed at the cavalier fashion in which
these people came to her. Even the Marquis, with his ironical smile,
displeased her. Therefore the prospect of triumphing over all these
persons was very sweet to her, and she gloated over it all night. The
next day, opening her blinds, she smiled as she saw the ample damask
curtains hanging over Monsieur Pierotte’s windows.
Like all women, Félicité loved a bit of mystery, but she was
excessively curious to know what was expected of Pierre. Suppose he
made a mistake! Suppose Eugène were to draw him into some entanglement
from which he could escape only by the sacrifice of the little property
he had!
Yet she was not without faith. Eugène had such an air of authority
that she could not but believe in him. Pierre spoke of the persons
high in authority whom her son knew in Paris. She knew nothing of his
associates or habits of life, while it was impossible for her to close
her eyes on the follies committed by Aristide at Plassans.
In her own salon he was commented upon with severity. Granoux called
him brigand between his teeth, while Rondier said, more than once:
“Your son is too clever by half. Yesterday he attacked our friend
Vuillet in the most revolting manner.”
All the salon agreed in chorus. Pierre formally repudiated his son,
while the poor mother dropped her head, and silently devoured her
tears. She with difficulty restrained herself from crying out to
Rondier that her dear child, with all his faults, was far above him
and all the others. But she was in fetters; she dared not compromise a
position so laboriously acquired.
The next day she saw her son secretly, and entreated him not to
irritate the habitués of the yellow salon. Aristide told her that it
was she who was to blame, for allowing her husband to be the tool of
the Marquis. Félicité was so overwhelmed by this accusation that she
determined, in the event of Eugène’s success, to share the results with
Aristide, who was still her favorite son.
After the departure of Eugène, Pierre Rougon fell back into his old
life. Nothing seemed in the smallest degree changed in that yellow
salon. The same faces appeared there each successive evening to make
the same propaganda in favor of a Monarchy, and the master of the
house listened to them with the same approval as before. Eugène had
left Plassans on the 1st of May, and a few days later there was a
grand excitement in the yellow salon. A violent discussion took place
in regard to the letter written by the President of the Republic to
General Oudinot, in which the siege of Rome was decided upon.
This letter was regarded as a brilliant victory, due to the firm stand
taken by the Reactionary party. Since 1848 the Chambers had discussed
the Roman question; it was reserved to a Bonaparte to stifle a new-born
Republic, by an intervention of which France, when free, would never
have been capable.
One evening, a month later, the Commandant entered the salon, and
announced that the French army were fighting under the walls of Rome.
As he said this he pressed Pierre’s hand in a significant fashion, and
as soon as he was seated, began to eulogize the President, who, he
said, was the only man who could save France from anarchy.
“Let him save her at once,” said the Marquis; “or let him do his duty
and hand her over to her lawful masters.”
Pierre seemed to approve of this reply. Having done this, he ventured
to say that his sympathies were with Louis Bonaparte in this matter.
This remark was followed by an interchange of phrases between himself
and the Commandant in praise of the President, which seemed to have
been prepared for the occasion. For the first time Bonapartism seemed
to have entered the yellow salon, where, to be sure, since the election
of December, the Prince had been treated with a certain gentleness;
but to-night Pierre’s and the Commandant’s eulogies were accepted with
enthusiasm.
The Marquis stood leaning against the mantel, with his eyes fixed on a
faded rose on the carpet at his feet. When he finally lifted his head,
Pierre, who had been watching him stealthily, saw him smile slightly.
Vuillet said, in his sharp voice:
“I should rather see your Bonaparte in London than Paris. Our affairs
would get on better.”
The oil merchant turned very pale.
“I do not know what you mean by ‘my’ Bonaparte; I only intend to say
that this expedition to Rome is a good thing.”
Félicité followed this scene with curiosity and astonishment. The smile
of the Marquis gave her much to think of.
From this day Rougon never lost an opportunity of saying a word in
favor of the President of the Republic, and the Commandant Secardot was
sure to reply in the same key.
It was not until the following year that the triumph of the Rougon
party in Plassans was decisive. The new part of the town made them
an absolute ovation the day that the Tree of Liberty was torn up.
This tree, a young poplar brought from the banks of the Viorne, was
gradually withering away, to the great despair of the workmen, who came
every Sunday to watch the progress of the calamity, without being able
to comprehend the cause of this slow decay. A hatter declared that
he had seen a woman come from the Rougon house, and pour a bucket of
poisoned water at the foot of the tree. The story was then circulated
that Félicité herself watered the tree every night with vitriol. The
tree was dead at all events, and the Municipality declared that the
dignity of the Republic demanded that it should be carried away. As
they feared that the discontent of the people would express itself, a
late hour of the evening was selected for this task. The Conservatives
of the Ville Neuve made a little fête of the occasion. They came in a
body to the Square to see the Tree of Liberty laid low. The habitués
of the yellow salon stationed themselves at the windows. When the tree
swayed, and finally fell with the stiffness of a hero, struck by Death,
Félicité waved a white handkerchief. Then the crowd applauded, and
the spectators waved their handkerchiefs also. A group came under the
window, and cried out:
“We will bury it--we will bury it deep!”
They spoke of course of the Republic. This was a glorious evening for
Madame Rougon.
The Marquis smiled mysteriously as he watched her. This old gentleman
was too keen-sighted not to see where France was drifting. He was one
of the first to anticipate the Empire, and only a little later admitted
frankly that his cause was lost. Vuillet felt only that Henri V. had
become detestable; but he did not care; he could only obey his masters,
the priests. All his politics amounted to, was to sell as many rosaries
and holy images as possible.
As to Rondier and Granoux they were--so to speak--dumb and blind. They
did not seem to have an opinion: they merely wished to eat and sleep in
peace.
The Marquis, though with nothing further to hope for, came no less
regularly to the Rougons. They amused him. He, with malicious pleasure,
retained in his own heart the conviction which he felt that the
hour of the Bourbons had not come. He obeyed the orders given by the
clergy with even more than his customary docility. He had long since
penetrated Pierre’s new tactics, and he supposed Félicité to be his
accomplice.
One evening he found her alone in the salon when he entered.
“Ah, well, my dear child,” he said, with smiling familiarity. “How are
your affairs progressing? What is the use of deceiving me?”
“I do not understand you,” answered Félicité.
“It is foolish to attempt to deceive an old fox like me,” he continued.
“Treat me like a friend, my child. I am always ready to aid you
secretly; only be frank with me.”
Félicité had a brilliant idea. She had nothing to tell, but she could
learn from him, if she only knew how to hold her tongue.
“I was sure you were behind your husband, for he is not sharp enough to
invent the pretty little treason which you have prepared. I wish with
all my heart that the Bonapartes may give you all that I hoped to have
obtained for you from the Bourbons.”
This simple phrase confirmed all Madame Rougon’s suspicions.
“Then Prince Louis has all the chances?” she said, eagerly.
“Will you betray me, if I tell you what I think?” asked the Marquis,
with a smile. “I am an old man now, and I am only working for you.
But as you have found a prosperous path without my assistance, I
will accept my own defeat, and rejoice in your triumph. But have no
concealments from me, for I am always ready to help you.”
At this moment several of the habitués appeared.
“Here they come,” said the Marquis. “Remember that the great art in
politics consists in having two sharp eyes when other people are blind.
You have all the good cards in your hand.”
The next day Félicité determined to gain a certainty. It was then
early in 1851. For eighteen months Rougon had received every two weeks
regularly, a letter from his son Eugène. He always locked himself into
his bed-room to read these letters, which he then put into an old
secretary, the key of which he kept in his vest pocket. When his wife
questioned him, he said simply:
“Oh! Eugène is well enough!”
For a long time Félicité had been watching her chance to lay her hands
on these letters from her son. The next morning, while Pierre was
asleep, she rose and went on tip-toe for the key of the commode, which
she substituted for the key in the vest pocket. As soon as her husband
had gone out, she opened the drawer and read the letters with feverish
curiosity.
She found full confirmation of her suspicions: there were at least
forty letters in which she could follow the movements of the
Bonapartists. It was almost a journal which lay before her, giving
the events of the days as they elapsed, and drawing from each, hopes
and counsel. Eugène had faith. He spoke of Louis Bonaparte as of the
man who alone could disentangle the situation. He had believed in him
even before his return to France, when Bonapartism was treated as a
ridiculous chimera. Félicité understood that her son, since 1848, had
been an active agent. Although he did not explain his position very
clearly, it was evident that he was working for the Empire under the
orders of the persons whom he named familiarly.
He also told his father precisely what he ought to do at Plassans,
which explained to Félicité certain things her husband had done, which
at the time had puzzled her greatly. Pierre obeyed his son, and obeyed
him blindly. When the old lady finished these letters, all was clear
to her. Eugène intended to make his fortune and to recompense his
parents for all they had done for him at the same time. His letters
contained repeated cautions, and Félicité experienced a certain feeling
of gratitude. She read again certain passages which spoke of the final
catastrophe. This catastrophe, of which she literally knew nothing,
became to her like the end of the world--“God would place the Elect on
one side of the Great White Throne;” among these she stood, while on
the other were poor lost souls.
She succeeded in returning the key, but she also promised herself to
see each letter as it came, and also to appear as ignorant as before.
These tactics succeeded perfectly, as she thus aided her husband
constantly without his knowledge. She constantly led the conversation
in the desired direction at the decisive moment. She suffered acutely
from Eugène’s distrust, and wished to say to him when success was
insured:
“I knew all, and, far from spoiling things, I have assisted in the
triumph.”
Never did a confidante make so little noise and do such inestimable
services. The Marquis, to whom she had told the whole story, was quite
wonderstruck at her conduct.
She was much disturbed by the rash acts of her dear Aristide. She
wished to convert this ardent Republican to the Napoleonic ideas,
but she did not know how to do it in a sufficiently prudent way. She
remembered how earnestly Eugène had bade them beware of Aristide. The
Marquis agreed with her entirely.
“Let Aristide alone,” he said; “he does not seem to me to be of the
kind who will long continue to play the rôle of a martyr.”
In her desire to indoctrinate all about her, Félicité approached her
son Pascal, who, with the selfishness of a savant absorbed in his
researches, cared nothing for politics. Empires might crumble, and he
would not be disturbed from his experiments. His mother entreated him:
“Come,” she said, “and pass your evenings occasionally with us. You
will make acquaintances there which will be of use to you, and who may
employ you as their physician. All your present patients are poor, and
pay you nothing.”
The idea of succeeding, of seeing all her family rich, had become a
monomania with Félicité. Pascal therefore--to oblige her--appeared
in the yellow salon occasionally, and found it less tiresome than he
supposed. The people there seemed to him like curious animals which
hitherto had escaped his observation. He listened to their empty
gabble as if it had been the mewing of a cat or the barking of a dog.
In fact, he regarded this salon as a menagerie. The Marquis reminded
him of a large green grasshopper, while Vuillet struck him as like a
toad, and Rondier as a fat sheep. The old Commandant was a toothless
shepherd dog, and he wondered how it was that Granoux, who looked so
like a calf, did not leave the room on four legs, instead of two.
“Why do you not talk to these people?” said Madame Rougon.
“Because I am not a veterinary surgeon,” was the reply.
Félicité took him aside one evening and tried to catechise him. She
cherished the secret hope of seeing him the fashionable physician at
Plassans, but she wished that he should start fair as a warm partisan
of the régime which should succeed the Republic.
“My dear boy,” she said, “why can you not be reasonable? You must think
of your future. You are called a Republican because you take care of
all those people in the lower town without pay. Tell me, what are your
political opinions?”
Pascal opened his eyes wide.
“My opinions,” he repeated, with a smile, “I hardly know. You say I am
supposed to be a Republican. Well, I do not know that I care. I am one,
if to be a Republican means that I wish everybody to be happy.”
“But you will never be anything,” answered his mother, with a sigh.
“Look at your brothers--they will make their fortunes.”
Pascal laughed half-sadly, for he saw that his mother simply reproached
him for not being shrewd enough to speculate in the political
situation. He turned the conversation then, but Félicité was never able
to induce him to evince any interest or take any decided position.
Eighteen hundred and fifty-one was a year of great anxiety in the
political world of Plassans. The most contradictory news arrived from
Paris. Sometimes the Republicans were in the ascendency, and in the
next breath it was the Conservative party.
The echoes of the quarrels which convulsed the Legislative Assembly
reached the Provinces one morning, grew to alarming proportions before
night, and the next day faded away. The general feeling was, however,
that the dénouement was near at hand. The people were so sick with
suspense and uncertainty that they would have thrown themselves into
the arms of the Grand Turk, if the Grand Turk could have saved France
from anarchy.
The Marquis smiled still. One night he leaned over Félicité’s chair and
whispered:
“Little one, the fruit is ripe; now is your time to be useful.”
Félicité, who read Eugène’s letters regularly, understood him at once;
but what was she to do to be useful? She asked the Marquis:
“All depends on events,” he replied. “If the Department remains calm,
if some insurrection does not disturb Plassans, there will be nothing
especial for you to do. If, on the contrary, the people rise, there
will be a magnificent rôle all ready for you. Your husband is a little
dull--”
“Oh!” interrupted Félicité, “I will undertake to quicken his faculties.
But do you think the Department will revolt?”
“Undoubtedly it will! Plassans will not move; but the neighboring towns
have been mined and counter-mined by secret societies, and belong to
the advanced Republicans. If a coup d’état takes place, the tocsin will
be heard throughout the whole district.”
Félicité reflected a moment.
“Do you mean,” she asked, “that you consider an insurrection necessary
to assure our fortunes?”
“That is just what I think,” answered the Marquis, with a sarcastic
smile. “A new dynasty is not founded except in an uproar. Blood is
a capital fertilizer. Besides, the Rougons, like other illustrious
families, ought to date from a massacre!”
These words, accompanied by a sneer, caused a cold shiver to run down
his hearer’s back. But she had considerable brains, and the superb
curtains in Monsieur Pierotte’s windows, at which she religiously gazed
each morning, sustained her courage. When she felt it waver, she went
to the window and contemplated the Receiver’s house. She made up her
mind to the most desperate acts rather than be checked on the threshold
of the land of which she had so long dreamed.
The conversation with the Marquis was followed by the reading of a
letter from Eugène, who also seemed to be looking forward to an
insurrection. The dénouement was indeed near at hand. In November it
was rumored that the Prince President wished to be called Emperor.
“We will call him whatever he pleases,” cried Granoux, “provided he has
these rascally Republicans shot!”
This exclamation from Granoux, who was supposed to be asleep, excited
much emotion. The Marquis pretended not to hear it, but the others all
applauded.
Rondier now declared himself, and while watching the Marquis out of the
corners of his eye, said that France ought to be governed with a strong
hand, and that it was of little consequence whose the hand might be.
The Marquis did not speak; but Commandant Secardot rose.
“My friends,” he said, “only a Napoleon can protect the persons and the
property which to-day are menaced. Do not be troubled. I have taken all
necessary precautions that order shall reign here.”
The Commandant had, in fact, assisted by Rougon, concealed in a stable
near the ramparts a supply of arms, and was assured of the fidelity
of the National Guards. His words produced a happy effect, and that
evening, when the yellow salon broke up, there was much jaunty talk of
massacring the Reds if they dared to lift a finger.
On December 1st, Pierre received a letter from Eugène, which, as usual,
he read in private. From its perusal he emerged with an agitated face.
Félicité saw this and could hardly wait for night and her husband to be
asleep.
At last she was able to take the key from his pocket, and had the
letter in her hands. Eugène wrote that the hour had come when he had
best inform his mother of the impending crisis.
Félicité waited all the next day for a conference which did not come.
She dared not show any curiosity, and continued to feign ignorance,
though inwardly raging against the silly distrust of her husband, who
apparently thought her as foolish as the majority of women. Pierre,
with that marital pride which imparts to a man the belief in his own
superiority, had come to believe that his wife was altogether to blame
for all the ill-luck that had been theirs. He fancied he was conducting
the present affair all by himself, and that therefore, all was going
smoothly. He therefore decided to confide nothing to his wife,
notwithstanding his son’s advice.
Félicité was excessively angry, and determined on some quiet revenge.
“If he would only commit some great folly,” she thought, “and come to
me for advice. Then I should triumph indeed!”
She was much disturbed at the idea that should Pierre succeed without
her aid, he would always claim to be her superior. She had married this
peasant’s son, in preference to some notary’s clerk, with the intention
of using him like a puppet, pulling the strings as seemed to her good.
And now the puppet, heavy and blind, dreamed of walking alone! This
the little old lady protested against with every fibre of her active
little body. She knew Pierre to be obstinate and brutal; she knew of
the receipt he had compelled his mother to sign; but she nevertheless
felt that the present circumstances were most critical, and asked for
something more than decision.
The official intelligence of the coup d’état reached Plassans on the
afternoon of December 5th. The yellow salon was crowded that night.
Although the crisis had been impatiently anticipated, every face
betrayed great uneasiness. Pierre himself was very pale as he attempted
to excuse the conduct of Prince Louis before the Legitimists and
Orleanists assembled.
“There is some talk of an appeal to the people,” he said, “and the
nation will be free to choose the government which is most acceptable
to them. The President will withdraw before our legitimate masters.”
The Marquis smiled lightly. Rondier cried out roughly--
“This is no time for talking. We must act, and at once organize our
plans to maintain order.”
These good people all stood in terrible fear of the Republicans.
The bulletins from Paris had been affixed to the door of the
Sous-Préfecture, and almost immediately the rumor ran through the crowd
that several hundred men had left their work and were organizing.
About nine o’clock Granoux arrived, hot from a Municipal council
hurriedly convoked. In a voice choked by emotion, he said that the
Mayor had decided on the most energetic measures to preserve order.
But this intelligence was of minor consequence to that which he next
gave, namely, that the Sub-Prefect had been removed. This functionary
had absolutely refused to communicate to the inhabitants of Plassans
the despatches from the Minister of the Interior. He was the only
Sub-Prefect in all France who had the courage to express these
Democratic opinions.
The Rougon faction chuckled over the defeat of the Sub-Prefect, which
left them greater liberty of action than they had ventured to hope for.
It was promptly decided that the yellow salon should accept the coup
d’état, and declare themselves in favor of the _faits accomplis_.
Vuillet was bidden to write an article to this effect at once, which
should be published in the Gazette the next day. Neither he nor
the Marquis made any objection. They had probably received their
instructions from the mysterious persons to whom they so often made
allusion. The clergy and nobility united with the conquerors to crush
their common enemy, the Republic.
Aristide, this same evening, was in a state of breathless anxiety
similar to that felt by a gambler, who risks his last louis at cards.
The dismissal of his chief that day had given him time for reflection.
He wrote an article in the meantime, and then went out to walk, hoping
to cool the fever of his brain.
He glanced up at the Rougon windows, and found them brilliantly lighted.
“What are they plotting there?” he said to himself, burning with
curiosity to know what the yellow salon thought of recent events. He
did not, as a general thing, attach much importance to the opinion
of these people, but he was now in a state of mind when he would have
taken the advice of a child four years old. He did not dare appear in
his father’s rooms just then, and yet he quietly mounted the stairs,
wondering at the same time what would be thought of him if by any
chance he should be surprised.
He reached the door and heard a confused murmur of voices.
“I am a perfect fool,” he said; and turned to go down. But at that
moment he heard his mother’s voice--she was showing some one out. He
had only time to turn into a recess where a narrow flight of stairs ran
to the roof.
The door opened; the Marquis appeared.
“Ah! my child,” he said, as the two stood for a moment. “These people
are more cowardly than I supposed. With such men as these, poor France
will be always at the mercy of whomsoever dares to take her!”
He added, bitterly, as if talking to himself.
“Monarchy is decidedly too honest for modern times. Its day is over.”
“Eugène forewarned his father,” Félicité answered. “The triumph of
Prince Louis is certain.”
“Oh, you can move boldly now,” replied the Marquis, as he went down the
stairs. “In two or three days France will be strangled. Good-night,
little one!”
Félicité closed the door. Aristide was stunned. He rushed down the
street to the printing office. He felt that he was the dupe of
his family, wilfully kept in the dark by them. He was especially
exasperated against his father whom he believed to be a Legitimist, and
who turned out a Bonapartist at the right moment.
“They have allowed me to commit a goodly amount of follies,” he
muttered.
He rushed into the newspaper office and demanded his article. It was
in type. He broke up the form, and was not satisfied until he had
rattled the letters altogether, as if they had been dominos. The editor
looked at him in amazement, but in his heart he was overjoyed at this
incident, as the article struck him as being dangerous. But he was out
of matter.
“You must give me something else,” he said.
“Of course,” answered Aristide, snatching up a pen. He wrote a warm
panegyric of the coup d’état, and in the first line declared that
Prince Louis had come to save the Republic. After writing a page he
held his pen uplifted. His sharp face was much disturbed.
“I must go home first,” he exclaimed. “I will send this article to you
in an hour. You need not issue the paper quite so early as usual; it
will make no especial difference.”
He walked slowly home, deep in thought. He was again a prey to
indecision. Eugène was clever, to be sure, but had not his mother
exaggerated some simple phrase of his? Would it not be better to wait a
while?
An hour elapsed. Angèle rushed into the editor’s office.
“My husband has just been terribly hurt,” she cried. “His fingers have
been crushed in a door, and he was only able to dictate this little
paragraph, which he begs you to publish in to-morrow’s paper.”
The next day the _Independent_ appeared with the following lines
at the head of the first column:
“A most unfortunate accident to our valued contributor, Monsieur
Aristide Rougon, will deprive us, we fear, of his articles for some
little time. The gravity of existing circumstances makes this silence
on his part peculiarly difficult for him and for ourselves. But no one
of our readers will doubt for a moment that his patriotism desires only
the happiness of France.”
This unintelligible nonsense had been most carefully studied. The last
phrase each party could read according to its wishes. The next day
Aristide showed himself with his arm in a sling.
His mother, startled by the card in the journal, rushed to his house.
He refused to show her his hand, and spoke with a bitterness that
enlightened the old lady.
“It will be nothing,” she said, quite reassured, and concealing a
smile. “You only need repose.”
It was undoubtedly on account of this pretended accident and the
departure of the Sub-Prefect, that the _Independent_ was not
molested, like most, or indeed all of the Democratic journals in the
Department.
The following day was comparatively quiet. Toward evening there was a
popular manifestation, quickly dispersed by the police. Some workmen
came to ask the Mayor for the despatches from Paris; their application
was refused haughtily. As they departed they cried out: “Vive la
République! Vive la Constitution!” but this was all, and the yellow
salon smiled complacently.
But the 5th and 6th were more disturbed. The news came of insurrections
in all the neighboring towns, and the yellow salon was not quite so
comfortable. They began to think that even if Plassans did not break
out into open revolt, it could be isolated from all communication
with the outside world, and some one said that blood had been shed in
Marseilles, and another that a terrible revolution had burst out in
Paris.
On the 7th the yellow salon was in a state of great excitement, its
inmates were white with terror, who talked in low voices, as if in a
chamber of Death. Intelligence had come that three thousand rebels
had assembled at Amboise, not more than three leagues off. A band of
Republicans in Plassans had gone to join them, and had marched out of
the Roman gate singing La Marseillaise, and breaking windows as they
went.
The Commandant had despatched his valet to discover the exact route
taken by the insurgents, and the yellow salon was impatiently awaiting
the return of this man. The circle was complete; every one of the
habitués of the Rougon Salon was there. Rondier and Granoux lay back in
their chairs, groaning and sighing.
Vuillet, quite calm to all appearance, was deliberating as to what
he had best do in order to preserve his property and his life. He
hesitated between his barn and his cellar, but rather inclined to
the cellar. Pierre and the Commandant marched up and down the room,
occasionally exchanging a word or two. The Marquis, as carefully
dressed and as smiling as ever, talked in a corner with Félicité, and
seemed in the best of spirits.
There was a ring at the door-bell. These gentlemen started as if they
had heard a discharge of musketry. While Félicité went to open the
door, a profound silence reigned in the room.
The Commandant’s servant presently appeared all out of breath, and
said, hastily, to his master:
“Sir, the Insurgents will be here in an hour.”
This was a thunder-clap; every one started to his feet. They each and
all plied the man with questions.
“Zounds!” cried the Commandant, “do have more sense, and keep quiet.”
The messenger went on to say that he had seen the column at Tulettes,
and had turned back as quickly as possible.
“There are three thousand at the very least; they march like soldiers
in battalions, and I think I saw prisoners among them.”
“Prisoners!” exclaimed his hearers, sick with terror.
“Of course,” interrupted the Marquis, in his flute-like tones. “I was
told that the Insurgents arrested persons known for their conservative
opinions.”
This was too much for the yellow salon, some of whose inmates arose and
stealthily gained the door, evidently with the idea that they had no
time to lose in gaining a place of concealment.
Félicité took the Marquis aside.
“What do these men do with the people they arrest?” she asked.
“They regard them as hostages,” was the reply.
Félicité made no reply, but watched the panic in her room with a faint
smile. One by one the bourgeois departed.
“Coward!” muttered the Commandant between his teeth. “For two mortal
years these poltroons have talked of shooting down the Republicans, and
to-day they would not dare pull the trigger of a child’s toy.” He took
up his hat.
“Come, Rougon,” he said, “there is no time to lose.”
Félicité seemed to have been waiting for this moment. She threw herself
between her husband and the door, and implored him not to follow this
terrible Commandant.
“You shall not leave me!” she cried; “these wretches will kill you!”
and she feigned the most overwhelming despair.
The Commandant began to swear.
“Upon my life, this is a little too much!” he cried. “Come on, Rougon.”
“No! no!” exclaimed the old lady, “he shall not go with you.”
The Marquis looked at Félicité with considerable curiosity. What was
the meaning of this farce she was playing? Was this the woman who had
just been talking so gayly with him?
Pierre, whose arm was held by his wife, struggled slightly.
“You shall not go!” repeated Félicité, turning to the Commandant:
“How can you think of resistance?” she cried. “They are three thousand
strong, and you can’t get together one hundred men. You are throwing
your lives away.”
“What of that!” answered the Commandant, impatiently. “It is our duty
all the same.”
Félicité burst into wild sobs. “If they do not kill him,” she said with
her eyes fixed on her husband, “they will take him prisoner, and what
will become of me?”
“But do you imagine,” answered the Commandant, “that he runs no risk if
the Insurgents are permitted to enter the town quietly? In less than
an hour the Mayor, all the officials, and your husband, too, would be
lodged in prison!”
The Marquis detected a faint smile on Félicité’s lips.
“Do you really believe that?” she asked.
“I do, indeed. The Republicans are not quite so dull as to leave
their enemies behind them. To-morrow Plassans’ officials and her best
citizens will be no longer here.”
At these words which she had so skilfully elicited, Félicité dropped
her husband’s arm. Pierre had apparently relinquished all idea of going
out. Thanks to his wife, whose able tactics he did not grasp, and
whose secret complicity he did not suspect, he saw his line of conduct
clearly marked out before him.
“My wife is right,” he said; “we are forgetting our families.”
The Commandant banged his hat down upon his head, and said in a most
decided tone:
“Right or wrong, I am Commandant of the National Guard. I ought to be
at the Mayor’s office. Acknowledge that you are afraid, and I will say
good-night to you.”
He turned the handle of the door. Rougon held his arm.
“Listen to me, Secardot,” he said, and he drew the Commandant aside,
and explained to him in a low voice, that in his opinion, some
energetic men should be left in the town to preserve order, and offered
to put himself at the head of the reserve.
“Give me,” said Rougon, “the key of the room where the arms and
munitions are stored, and tell fifty of your men not to stir hand or
finger without orders from me.”
Secardot consented finally to these prudent measures, and handed him
the key.
During this conversation the Marquis murmured a few complimentary
words into the ear of Félicité. This Coup de Théatre had awakened his
admiration. The woman smiled, and as the Commandant left the room, she
said, “You are really going?”
“One of Napoleon’s old soldiers,” he replied, “is not likely to allow
himself to be intimidated by the rabble.”
Félicité turned to the Marquis and murmured in his ear:
“I wish to Heavens that this Commandant could be arrested. He is
altogether too zealous.”
Rougon returned to the salon, where Granoux and Rondier still sat in
their respective arm-chairs, stunned and bewildered.
“Now,” said Pierre, “that we are alone, I propose to you that we shall
hide ourselves, and avoid a certain arrest.”
His hearers were quite ready to embrace him.
“I shall have need of you very soon, gentlemen,” said Rougon,
pompously. “To us will belong the honor of restoring order to Plassans.”
“You may rely on us,” cried Vuillet, with an enthusiasm that disturbed
Félicité.
Time pressed. These remarkable defenders of Plassans, by way of
protecting the town, and restoring it to its normal condition of
quiet, now hurried to find some place of concealment. When Pierre was
alone with his wife he bade her not commit the blunder of barricading
herself, but to open the door when any one knocked; and in answer
to any inquiries for him, she could say that he had gone on a short
journey. She pretended to be frightened out of her wits, and asked what
was going to become of them. He answered harshly:
“Never mind. Let me manage our affairs. They are going very well.”
A few minutes later he was hurrying through the streets. He saw a body
of Insurgents marching, and singing the Marseillaise.
“Yes,” he muttered, “it is time. The town is in a state of insurrection
already.”
He went at once to the Roman gate, and was covered with cold
perspiration, while the man slowly swung it open.
After a step or two on the road, he saw in the yellow moonlight, at
the other end of the Faubourg, the glitter of the fire-arms of the
Insurgents. It was with hurrying feet that he reached his mother’s
house in Saint-Mittre, where he had not been for years.
CHAPTER IV.
INSULTS AND WOUNDS.
ANTOINE Macquart returned to Paris after Napoleon’s fall. He was
in none of the last and bloody battles of the Empire. He had been
simply dragged from one place to another, and lived the uneventful
barrack-life of a soldier. His indolence was deeply rooted, and his
drunkenness gained him innumerable punishments, to which he was utterly
indifferent; saying to his comrades.
“I have money, and when I have served my time, I can live in comfort
and idleness.”
This belief and his stupid ignorance prevented his ever reaching the
grade of corporal. He had not returned to Plassans even for a single
day since his departure, for his elder brother had invented a thousand
pretexts to keep him away. He was, therefore, in complete ignorance
of the manner in which Pierre had disposed of their mother’s fortune.
Adelaide, in the utter indifference in which she lived, had written to
him only three times, and had then contented herself with saying that
she was well. The silence which followed his demands for money did
not arouse his suspicions. His knowledge of Pierre’s stinginess was
sufficient to explain the difficulty which he had in obtaining from
him an occasional piece of twenty francs. His animosity against his
brother, who had, contrary to his promise, permitted him to remain in
the service, increased with each year.
He swore to himself that, on his return, he would no longer obey like a
little boy, but would claim his share of his mother’s property and live
at ease.
The tumbling down of his castles in the air was something terrible.
When he reached the Faubourg and saw that the very landmarks of the
Fonque property had vanished, he was literally stunned. He inquired
for his mother’s address, and when he found her, a frightful scene
followed. Adelaide calmly informed him of the sale of her property. He
flew into a violent rage and shook her angrily, but the poor woman only
replied:
“Your brother has everything. He will look out for you--never fear.”
He at last left his mother and went to Pierre, to whom he had written,
and found him prepared to receive him, and to quarrel on the smallest
pretext.
“Listen to me,” said the oil merchant “If you insult me, I will put
you out of the door. What are you to me? We do not even bear the same
name. It is unfortunate enough that my mother should have misconducted
herself as she did, without her illegitimate children coming here
to abuse me! I was well disposed toward you, but since your present
insolence I will not do the smallest thing for you.”
Antoine was half choked with rage.
“And my money, Thief! Will you give that back to me? Or must I drag you
before the courts?”
Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
“I have none of your money,” he said, calmly. “My mother disposed
of her fortune precisely as she chose. I have never meddled in her
affairs, or tried to ferret out what she has done with her money. I
have voluntarily renounced all claims to her estate, and am far above
any of your vile accusations.”
And as his brother raved--more and more exasperated by this
coolness--he laid before his eyes the receipt signed by Adelaide. The
sight of this paper overwhelmed Antoine.
“It is well,” he said, almost calmly. “I know now what to do.”
The truth was, however, that he was utterly at a loss to know in what
direction to turn. His sense of powerlessness aggravated his rage. He
returned to his mother, and asked her a thousand questions. She, poor
woman, could do nothing but send him back to Pierre.
“Do you think,” he cried, insolently, “that I have nothing better to do
than to dance between you and him? I shall soon find out who has the
money, unless you and some rascal of a man have gotten rid of it.”
He then went on to speak of his father, who he said was always tipsy,
and had crunched up everything before his death, and left his children
without a sou. The poor woman listened with a stupefied look. Tears
ran down her cheeks. She defended herself with the terror of a child,
replying to her son’s questions as if she had been standing before a
judge. She assured him that she had not a sou with such perseverance
that Antoine ended by believing her.
He slept at his mother’s on a mattress thrown in a corner. He had
returned with empty pockets, and was the more exasperated to see his
brother prosperous, while he was left to roam the streets like a dog
without a master. As he had no money to buy civilian’s clothes, he went
out the next day in his army pantaloons and kepi, wearing, too, a brown
velvet coat, which had belonged to Macquart. In this most singular
costume he ran to the authorities and made his complaint.
He was received with a contempt which brought angry tears to his eyes.
In the country people are especially severe toward fallen families.
Pierre, moreover, had begun to wash himself clean from the original
stain. His rascality was laughed at. It was said he had done well for
himself, and if he had got possession of the whole property, that it
would be a good lesson for the profligates of the town.
Antoine went back discouraged. One lawyer had bidden him wash his
dirty linen in private; but the lawyer, before giving this advice, had
adroitly managed to find out that he had not money enough to carry on
his suit. According to this man the affair would be a long one, and his
success more than doubtful.
That evening Antoine was harder than ever towards his mother. He
renewed his accusations and his threats. He kept the poor woman
until midnight, shivering with shame and fright. Adelaide told him
that Pierre paid her an annuity, which made him all the more certain
that his brother had pocketed the fifty thousand francs. But in his
irritation he pretended to doubt, and continued to interrogate her with
a suspicious air.
“No; I am quite sure my father was not the only one,” he said, coarsely.
At these words she threw herself on an old chest, and spent the night
in tears.
Antoine saw that it was impossible for him to carry on a contest,
unsupported, against his brother. He tried at first to interest
Adelaide in his behalf, for an accusation brought by her would have
great weight. But the poor woman, gentle as she was, refused to do this.
“I am most unfortunate,” she said, “and you are right to be angry with
me; but I can never do anything to injure one of my children. No; I
should prefer that you should beat me.”
He saw that it was useless for him to insist, and he contented himself
by saying that she was justly punished, and that he did not pity her
in the least. That evening Adelaide had one of those nervous attacks,
in which she lay for hours, with eyes wide open, stiff and cold as if
dead. The young man threw himself on his mattress, then started up and
deliberately searched the house to ascertain if there were no small
hoards hidden anywhere. He found about forty francs. He stole them, and
while his mother lay unconscious, left the house and took the Diligence
for Marseilles.
He hoped that Mouret, the hatter, who had married his sister Ursule,
would, indignant at Pierre’s rascality, defend his wife’s interests.
But he did not find matters as he hoped. Mouret said frankly that he
had always regarded Ursule as an orphan, and that he would not, on
any account, have any disagreement with her family. Antoine, received
thus coldly, did not linger long, but before leaving he determined
to avenge himself for the contempt which he read in the eyes of his
brother-in-law.
“Take care; my sister has always been very delicate, and I find her
much changed. You will probably lose her before long.”
The tears which filled Mouret’s eyes proved that he had touched an open
wound with a rough hand.
When he got back to Plassans, Antoine felt even more than before that
his hands were tied, and this certainty made him fiercer than before.
For a month he wandered about, telling his story to whomsoever would
listen to him. When he had obtained a few sous from his mother, he went
to the nearest wine-shop, and there sat and abused his brother. The
sweet fraternity existing between drunken men insured him a sympathetic
audience. All the vagrants in the town espoused his quarrel, and talked
vociferously of that rascal Rougon, who allowed a brave soldier to be
penniless and without a crust of bread. The séance generally terminated
in a denunciation of all rich people.
Antoine, with a sharp eye to vengeance, continued to walk about in his
old pantaloons and his kepi, although his mother offered to buy him
more suitable garments. He flourished his rags in the eyes of all the
little world at Plassans--on Sundays even more than on other days.
One of his keenest enjoyments was to pass Pierre’s shop twenty times
daily. He made the holes in his coat larger with his fingers, and often
stopped before the door to chat with some of his boon companions, who
were generally quite as tipsy as himself. He would narrate, in the
loudest voice, the robbery of fifty thousand francs, and his words
penetrated the most remote corner of the Rougon establishment.
“Upon my word,” said Félicité, in despair, “he will drive us to sell
the house!”
The vain little woman suffered terribly at this time. She even
regretted having married Rougon, who had such a terrible family. She
would have given worlds to have found some way to induce Antoine to
parade his rags elsewhere. But when she proposed to her husband to give
him a little money, and induce him to leave, Pierre would say angrily:
“No! not one sou! Let him starve, and die in the gutter!”
But at last he in his turn admitted that Antoine’s conduct was
unendurable. One day Félicité determined to bring the matter to a
conclusion, and called to “that man,” by which disdainful term she
designated Antoine. He was with a companion, quite as tipsy as himself.
“Who is shouting to us?” cried Antoine, sulkily. Félicité drew back a
little.
“It is to you alone that I wish to speak,” she said.
“Nonsense!” answered Antoine, “this is a good friend of mine, and he
can hear all you have to say. He is my witness.”
The witness dropped heavily into a chair, and looked about him with the
stupid smile of tipsy men, who are determined to be insolent.
Félicité stood in front of the door, ashamed that any one should
look in and see the singular guests she received. Fortunately, her
husband came to her aid, and a violent quarrel ensued between him
and his brother, whose thick tongue repeated over and over again the
same insulting epithets. He finally began to weep, and his emotion so
touched his comrade that he too felt called upon to burst into tears.
Pierre was quite dignified.
“You are certainly unfortunate,” he said, “and I really pity you. You
have cruelly insulted me, but I cannot forget that we have the same
mother. If I give you anything, however, you must understand that I do
it from kindness, and not from fear. Do you want a hundred francs?”
This sudden offer dazzled Antoine’s companion, who looked at him with
an expression which signified.
“If he offered you one hundred francs, you had better take them and
treat him civilly.”
But Antoine was not so easily contented. He asked his brother if he was
laughing at him.
“No, he would have his share, ten thousand francs--not a penny less!”
“You are wrong,” stammered his friend.
Pierre lost his patience, and threatened to pitch both the friends out
of the window. Then Antoine reduced his claim to one thousand francs.
They quarrelled for a full hour, when Félicité interfered, for a crowd
was gathering about the shop.
“Look here,” she said, hastily. “My husband will give you two hundred
francs. I will buy you a complete suit of clothes, and will hire you a
lodging for one year.”
Rougon shook his head angrily, but Antoine’s companion shouted,
enthusiastically.
“Done! My friend agrees.”
Antoine said, in a sulky tone, that he accepted the offer, for he felt
that he would obtain no more. It was agreed that the money and the
clothing should be sent the next day, and that Félicité should look for
a lodging for him at once.
A week later, Antoine was installed in a large and commodious room in
the Old Quartier, where Félicité--on an assurance from him that he
would not disturb them further--had been better than her promise, and
had put in a bed, a table, and chairs.
Adelaide saw her son depart without any regret, for she had been
condemned to bread and water for the three months he had lived with
her. Antoine quickly drank up the two hundred francs given him by
Rougon. He never once thought of investing them in some little business
by which he could live. When he was again without a sou he made another
application to Rougon. But Pierre quietly bade him take himself off,
and forbade him ever to cross his threshold again. Antoine repeated
his accusations as loudly as before, but the town, who had been kept
informed by Félicité of all that had taken place, were much impressed
with their generosity, and treated him as a ne’er-do-well who was a
sore trial to his family.
In the meantime Antoine, sore pressed by famine, threatened to become
a smuggler like his father. The Rougons shrugged their shoulders; they
knew him to be altogether too cowardly to risk his skin.
Finally, full of rage against his connections and against the whole
civilized world, Antoine determined to look for work.
He had made the acquaintance of a basket maker, and offered to assist
him. In a very little time he had learned to braid baskets, of a coarse
texture, which sold readily at a very low price.
After a time he worked on his own account. He liked this employment,
for he could take it up when he pleased. He could lounge for several
days, and when he was penniless would hurriedly make a dozen baskets,
and sell them at market. He never took up his osier slips without
a sullen curse directed against the rich, who lived without doing
anything.
The trade of a basket maker is not especially lucrative, and he could
not have made money enough by it to provide for his low tastes, had he
not discovered a way of obtaining his osier without expense.
He pretended he bought it more cheaply than he could at Plassans, in
a neighboring town, but the truth was that he stole it on dark nights
from the osier plantations on the Viorne. He was discovered once,
and spent several days in prison. From that time he became a furious
Republican. He declared that he was smoking his pipe calmly on the bank
of the river when the guard arrested him.
“They want to get rid of me because they know what my opinions are. But
I do not fear these rich people; no, not I!”
After ten years of this thriftless idleness Antoine Macquart decided
that he worked too hard. His one dream was to find some way of living
where he would not be compelled to work. He was not content with bread
and water, like some persons who are willing to be hungry, provided
they can fold their arms. He seriously thought of applying for a
situation as servant with some nobleman in the Quartier Saint-Marc.
But one of his friends, who was employed as a groom, told him such a
tale of his deprivations, and of the exacting claims of masters, that
Macquart, seeing the time was near at hand when he must buy his osier,
determined to sell himself as a substitute, and resume his life as a
soldier, which he preferred a thousand times over to that of a workman.
At this time he made the acquaintance of a woman, which modified all
his plans.
Josephine Gavaudau, known throughout the town under the familiar
diminutive of Fine, was a tall, stout creature of about thirty. Her
square face was as large as a man’s, and on her chin and upper lip
were several long hairs. She was said to have the most extraordinary
strength, which reputation, as well as her broad shoulders, inspired
the street boys with such marvellous respect that they dared not laugh
at her moustache.
With this stout frame Fifine’s voice was very tiny--that of a little
child, clear and flute-like. Those persons who knew her best declared
that, notwithstanding her terrible air, she was as mild as a lamb. She
was hard-working, and could have saved money had she not loved drink.
Anisette was her especial adoration, and on Sunday evenings she was
often carried home. All the week through she worked like a dog in
several ways. She sold fruit and roasted chestnuts in their season,
scrubbed and washed dishes, and at leisure moments mended straw chairs.
It was in this way that she was so well known, for in the South, straw
chairs are almost universal.
Antoine Macquart made the acquaintance of Fine at market. When he
went there to sell his baskets in winter, he generally stood to keep
warm by the side of her furnace. He was struck by her courage and
her perseverance first, and then by degrees, under her rough husk,
discovered her real timidity and goodness of heart.
He often saw her give handfuls of chestnuts to the ragged imps who
stood longingly before her smoking wares. At other times, when the
Inspector of the Market was rude, she wept big tears like a child.
Antoine finally decided that this was the sort of wife he needed. She
would work for them both, and he would rule. She could be his beast
of burthen--indefatigable and obedient. As to her love of drink, he
thought it only quite natural.
Having duly weighed all the advantages of this union, he declared
himself. Never had any man before proposed marriage to her. In vain did
her friends tell her that Antoine was the worst of scamps; she was not
courageous enough to refuse him.
They were married, and Antoine took up his residence in his wife’s
apartment in La Rue Cévadière, near the Market. This apartment
consisted of three rooms much more comfortably furnished than his own,
and it was with a sigh of supreme content that he stretched himself
on the two excellent mattresses which adorned the bed. All went well
at first. Fine neglected none of her numerous tasks. Antoine braided
more baskets in a week than he had ever done in a month before. But on
Sunday war was declared. They had a round sum of money in the house,
and that night they were both tipsy, and fought like tigers, while
the next day it was impossible for either to remember how the quarrel
had begun. They had begun the evening pleasantly enough; some trifle
exasperated Antoine, who gave her a cuff, which she returned. The next
day she went to work as usual, as if nothing had happened; but her
husband was sulky, rose late, and spent the whole day in the open air,
smoking his pipe in the sunshine.
From this time the life of these people was clearly marked out. It
was tacitly understood between them that the wife would sweat blood
and water to support her husband. Fine, who loved to work, made no
objection. Her patience, when she had not been drinking, was something
angelic, and she did not seem to think it strange that her man was so
lazy, and that he should shirk the smallest duties. Her darling sin,
Anisette, opened her eyes apparently, and on the evenings when she had
forgotten herself, before a bottle of her favorite liquor, she was
quite ready for a quarrel, if Antoine began one, and would fall on him
tooth and nail, reproaching him for his ingratitude and indolence. The
neighbors became habituated to the noise in their rooms, where the
husband and wife fought and drank by turns.
“Some day,” said Fine, to her brutal master, “you will break my arm or
my leg; and then who will work for you?”
Antoine was by no means dissatisfied with his new life. He was well
clothed, ate when he was hungry, and drank when he was thirsty. He laid
aside his basket-making entirely, promising himself vaguely to braid a
few soon. He kept under his bed a bundle of osier for twenty years.
The Macquarts had three children, two daughters and a son.
Lisa, the eldest, was born a year after the marriage of their parents.
She was a healthy, handsome child, very like her mother, but never
showed a tithe of her energy and industry. She inherited from her
father a love of ease and a certain indolence, and as a child would
work all day for a cake. When she was seven, a neighbor took a great
fancy to her, as a little servant, and when this woman lost her
husband in 1859, and she went to Paris to live, she took Lisa with
her--her parents had, as it were, given her the child.
The second daughter, Gervaise, was lame from her birth. Conceived
in drunkenness, her twisted thigh was a strange reproduction of the
brutality which her mother had been compelled to endure.
Gervaise was very delicate, and Fine, seeing her always pale and
feeble, put her on a régime of Anisette, under pretext that she needed
strengthening. Gervaise grew up tall and slender, always wearing
dresses that were much too large, and floated loosely about her. Her
face was very delicate and sweet, while her infirmity was almost a
grace.
The son, Jean, was born three years later. A strong, hardy fellow, as
like his mother in character as he was unlike her physically. He grew
up with the determination to create for himself some day an independent
position. He went regularly to school, and studied hard to acquire a
little arithmetic and orthography; but his mental faculties were so
slow in operation, that it took him a day to learn what others would
acquire in an hour.
As long as these children lived at home, Antoine grumbled at the
useless mouths who devoured his wife’s earnings. He swore never to have
another child, declaring that his wife always gave the best in the
house to the children.
Each pair of shoes and each new garment Fine bought for them caused
him to sulk for forty-eight hours. He thought it outrageous that, for
the sake of these children, he should be compelled to smoke four sous
tobacco, and to dine on potatoes which he detested utterly.
Later, when Jean and Gervaise began to earn something, he was more
kindly disposed toward them. Lisa had gone. He accepted the earnings of
the children without the smallest compunction, for had he not done the
same by their mother? When Gervaise was eight years old, she went to a
merchant near by to crack almonds. She was paid ten sous per day, which
her father regularly pocketed, and Fine never dared ask what became
of the money. When the girl was apprenticed to a fine laundress and
finally received two francs per day, the two francs were swallowed up
in the same way. Jean, who was with a cabinet-maker, was robbed in the
same way by Macquart, who intercepted him before the boy could take his
money to his mother. If by any chance this slipped through the father’s
fingers, which sometimes happened, Antoine was in a terrible state
of mind, and for a week would watch wife and children with the most
ferocious aspect, ready to quarrel on the smallest provocation, but not
having quite audacity enough to acknowledge the cause of his irritation.
Gervaise grew up in the street with the boys of the neighborhood,
and at fifteen bore a child, the father of which was a workman named
Lantier. Macquart was furious, but when he found that Lantier’s mother,
a good woman, was ready to take the child, he calmed down again. But
he took care to say nothing of Lantier’s marrying Gervaise, for his
daughter made considerable money. Four years later she had a second
son, whom Lantier’s mother also took. Macquart closed his eyes this
time, and seemed to see nothing.
This epoch was the best in Antoine Macquart’s life. He was dressed
like a tradesman, with a coat and pantaloons of fine cloth. He was
clean and well shorn, and not in the least like the ragged fellow who
formerly frequented the wine shops. He read the newspapers at the
Cafés, and walked on the parade ground with the fashionable world. He
played the gentleman as long as he had money in his pocket. When he had
none, he remained at home and reproached every one with his poverty,
and, in short, made himself so utterly disagreeable, that Fine in
self-protection gave him the last silver piece in the house, so that
he could spend the evening at the Café. He was the very incarnation of
selfishness. Gervaise brought at least sixty francs per month into the
house, and wore thin calico dresses all winter, while he ordered vests
of black satin from the best tailor in Plassans. Jean was despoiled
with equal impudence. The Café, where his father spent entire days, was
exactly opposite his master’s shop, and while the lad stood with his
plane or his saw near the window, he could see, on the other side of
the street, “Monsieur” Macquart sugaring his coffee, or playing piquet
with some petty shopkeeper. It was with the lad’s money that the scamp
was playing. The boy never went to the Café, for he had not even the
five sous required for a _gloria_.[1]
Antoine treated his son as if he had been a girl: not allowing him
to keep a centime, and demanding an exact account of his time and
movements.
If the poor fellow allowed himself to be overpersuaded by his comrades,
and spent a day in the country, his father would strike him and
reproach him with the four francs he had thrown away. He thus kept
his son in a state of dependence. There came to the Macquarts several
friends of Gervaise--merry, laughing girls--who filled the room with
youth and gayety. Poor Jean, deprived of all amusement, kept in the
house by lack of means, admired these girls; but his timidity was so
great that he did not dare to lay a finger upon them. Macquart shrugged
his shoulders in pity.
“What an innocent!” he muttered, with an air of ironical superiority.
And it was he who kissed these girls when his wife’s back was turned.
He even went further with a little laundress in whom Jean was
especially interested. The old rascal piqued himself on his gallantry,
and pillaged the house without the smallest sense of shame. He assumed
the most superior airs, and never came in from the Café without a sneer
at the poverty of his home. He said the dinner was detestable, that
Gervaise was a fool and that Jean would never be a man.
Wrapped up in himself, he gayly rubbed his hands when he had eaten the
best in the pantry, and then smoked his pipe, while the two children,
worn out with fatigue, slept with their heads on the table. His days
were empty but happy. It seemed to him altogether natural that he
should be taken care of and indulged. He also frequently narrated
his amorous escapades before his son, who would listen with eager,
hungry eyes. The children never rebelled, because they had always been
accustomed to seeing their mother the humble servant of her husband.
Fine continued to tremble before him--although she had plenty of common
sense--and allowed him to tyrannize over the household. He carried off
every night all the money she earned during the day, without her daring
to reproach him. Sometimes, when he had drunk in advance the money of
the whole week, he reproached her as a stupid thing, who had no faculty
in the management of her affairs.
Fine, with lamb-like sweetness, replied in that tiny voice which
produced such a quaint effect issuing from her enormous frame,
“that she was no longer young, and that money was hard to get!” As
a consolation for her husband’s injustice, she bought a gallon of
Anisette, which she drank in the evening with her daughter, while
Antoine was at the Café, and after Jean had gone to bed. The two women
listened acutely, ready to hide the bottle and the glasses at the
smallest sound. Sometimes Macquart would return very late, and--tipsy
himself--would look at wife and daughter, with a vague smile. A bright
color suffused the girl’s pale, delicate face, and nothing could be
more heart-breaking than the sight of this frail creature, with that
drunken smile on her lips. Sometimes Jean would be compelled to rise
and separate his mother from his father, so fiercely did they quarrel,
and carry his sister to her bed.
Each political party has its grotesque and unprincipled adherents.
Antoine Macquart, devoured by envy and hate, longing for vengeance for
fancied wrongs, desired for a Republic as an era when he could fill his
pockets from his neighbor’s cash-box, and even strangle that neighbor
should he venture to show the smallest discontent. His constant study
of the newspapers, his visits to the Café, had filled his mind with the
strangest possible theories. One must have heard a wandering radical
who had badly digested his reading, talk by the hour together, to have
any idea of the point to which Macquart had arrived. As he talked a
great deal and boasted much of having been a soldier, he was naturally
surrounded by gaping hearers. Without being the chief of any party,
he had gathered about him a small band of workmen who accepted his
bombastic fury as honest convictions.
In February he walked about Plassans much as if the town belonged to
him. He had grown insufferably insolent, and impressed his importance
so strongly on the mind of the proprietor of the Café, that he did not
even dare ask for the payment of a bill that had assumed formidable
proportions. He drank an enormous number of “demi-tasses” about this
time, occasionally invited his friends to drink with him, and orated
for hours together, on the text that the people were dying of hunger,
and that the rich ought to divide their hoards. This came well from a
man who never in his life had given a sou to a poor man.
He was the more impelled to fierce Republicanism from his desire to
revenge himself on the Rougons. Ah! what joy would be his if some day
he could hold Félicité and Pierre at his mercy! Although these last had
not been over prosperous, they had become Bourgeois while he remained a
working-man. This exasperated him, and to add to his mortification, one
of their sons was a lawyer--another a physician, and a third an employé
under government; while he, Macquart, was still a common working-man!
He was also mortified at the idea that his wife should sell chestnuts
in the Market, and repair all the greasy old chairs in the Quartier.
Pierre was his brother--why should he be so much better off than
himself? Had he not stolen his money?
“No!” he would exclaim loudly, “my brother ought to be in a convict’s
cell this very day!”
This hatred increased as he saw the influence the Rougons were
gradually acquiring. He called the yellow salon a nest of conspirators
and vipers, who met each evening to devise plans by which they could
plunder the people. He declared that his brother was not so poor as
he pretended, and that he hid his wealth because he was afraid of
robbers. He concealed his personal enmity under the veil of the purest
patriotism.
Félicité would gladly have silenced Macquart with money, if she could
have done so; but, alas! money was not over-plentiful with her. Antoine
was a constant mortification and reproach to her. She felt that all
her new friends scorned her for being allied to such a man, and she
asked herself, with increasing agony, how she could ever wash away this
stain. She trembled for the success of their plans, which this man
could frustrate at pleasure.
Antoine did his best to exasperate and annoy these people. At the Café
he spoke of Pierre as “his brother;”--in the street, if he chanced to
meet one of the frequenters of the yellow salon, he would utter such
opprobrious epithets that the victim, horrified at this audacity, would
repeat them the same night to the Rougons with the air of holding them
accountable for the insult.
One evening Granoux came in, utterly furious.
“Upon my word,” he cried, “this is too much!” and turning to Pierre he
added:
“A man with a brother like yours should find some way of suppressing
him. I was crossing the square quietly when the fellow passed me and
uttered a few words under his breath. I distinctly heard him say ‘old
rascal!’”
Félicité sought to soothe the perturbed spirits of her guest, but all
in vain. The Marquis came to her assistance.
“It is certainly very strange,” he said. “Why should this person have
called you old rascal? Are you certain the insult was addressed to you?”
Granoux looked puzzled, and finally it was decided that Antoine had
said:
“You are going to that old rascal’s.”
The Marquis caressed his chin, with a sly smile, and Rougon said,
coolly:
“To be sure, I was the person of whom he spoke. I am thankful that it
is explained, and I have only to beg, gentlemen, that you will avoid
this person with the greatest care. I have long since renounced him
formally.”
But Félicité did not take things quite so coolly. Each one of
Macquart’s outbreaks made her perfectly ill.
Some months before the Coup d’État the Rougons received an anonymous
letter--three pages of coarse accusations and insults. This letter
threatened, that if his party triumphed, the whole story of the
disgraceful loves of Adelaide, and the theft committed by Pierre, in
compelling her to sign a receipt of fifty thousand francs, should be
published in the morning journals. This letter was a great blow to
Rougon, while Félicité could not refrain from a few sarcastic words in
regard to his family.
“We must at all costs get rid of this fellow,” said Pierre, gloomily,
for he was quite sure that the letter was Antoine’s handiwork.
In the meantime Antoine had counted on making an accomplice of
Aristide, but the young man, although blinded by rage and jealousy,
was not quite foolish enough to make common cause with a man like his
uncle, and kept him at a distance. Macquart, therefore, had only the
children of his sister Ursule to whom to turn.
Ursule herself had died in 1859, thus fulfilling her brother’s sinister
prophecy. The nervous attack of her mother had developed in her in
the form of slow consumption. She left three children: a daughter of
eighteen, Hélène, the wife of an employé, and two boys, François, a
young man of twenty-three, and a little fellow of six, named Silvère.
His wife’s death, whom he adored, was to Mouret an overwhelming blow.
He struggled against it for a year, indifferent to his business and
daily losing the money he had made with so much difficulty. Then, one
fine morning, he was found dead in a closet where Ursule’s dresses
still hung against the wall. His eldest son entered his Uncle Rougon’s
employment as clerk.
Rougon gladly received his nephew, whom he knew to be sober and
hard-working. He felt the need of some person on whose fidelity he
could rely. Besides, he had watched the career of this Mouret, and,
learning to respect him, had come to terms with his sister. Perhaps,
too, he wished to offer some compensation to François, whose mother he
had robbed. While he soothed his conscience by giving employment to
his nephew, he also did a very good thing for himself, for he found
precisely the aid he required. If at this time the Rougon establishment
was not prosperous, it was not the fault of this youth, who spent his
life behind the counter, between a jar of oil and a bundle of dry
cod-fish.
He was very like his mother, physically, but he inherited his father’s
honest but narrow mind, and was by nature regular and methodical in all
his ways.
Three months after he entered his uncle’s employment, his uncle, in the
same spirit of compensation, gave him his daughter Marthe--his youngest
daughter, of whom he did not know precisely how to dispose. The two
young persons fell in love with each other. A singular circumstance
undoubtedly drew them together; they were wonderfully like each
other--any one would have taken them for brother and sister.
François was singularly like his grandmother. Marthe was quite as
much so, although her father, Pierre Rougon, bore not the smallest
likeness to his mother; the physical likeness had overleaped the son to
re-appear again in his child. But the resemblance between these young
people went no further than their faces. François was the worthy son
of the hatter, Mouret--steady, and even a little heavy. Marthe had all
the unsettled, nervous ways of her grandmother, whom she startlingly
resembled. Perhaps it was this physical likeness and their mental and
moral dissimilarity which attracted them toward each other.
In four years they had three children. François remained with his uncle
until the latter retired, when the young man went to Marseilles to
establish himself in business.
Macquart saw that it was of no use to attempt to drag into his campaign
against the Rougons this hard-working youth; but he fancied he had
discovered an accomplice ready to his hand in Mouret’s second son,
Silvère, then a boy of fifteen, who was but six when his father was
found hanging among his mother’s dresses. His elder brother was at
a loss what to do with him, and took him to his uncle, who made a
wry face on seeing him, as he had not intended to go so far with his
compensations as to receive another mouth to fill.
Silvère grew up in this ungenial atmosphere, for he was no more
welcome to Félicité than to Pierre, when his grandmother, on one of her
rare visits, took compassion on him, and carried him away with her.
Pierre was delighted, but said nothing of increasing the allowance he
made Adelaide, and which henceforth must serve for two.
Adelaide was now over seventy. She had grown old in that damp and
dreary solitude, Saint-Mittre, where she lived on vegetables, and from
which she did not emerge twice in the month. She looked like a nun,
with her soft whiteness and automatic walk, whom the cloister has
totally separated from the world.
Her pale face, always rigidly framed in a white coif, was like the face
of a dying woman--a masque characterized by profound indifference.
Habits of unbroken silence had made her absolutely mute. The gray
shadows of her home, and the constant sight of the same objects, had
softened her eyes, and given to them a crystal-like clearness.
It was a slow moral and physical death, which had transformed the
half-insane and amorous girl into the grave matron. When her eyes were
fixed on some distant object, looking without seeing, it was plain
that behind those eyes lay a great emptiness. Nothing remained of the
past but the smoothness of her skin and the slenderness of her hands,
trembling with senile weakness. Her poor, wornout frame was as frail as
a dead leaf.
After Macquart’s death--the man so necessary to her life--the necessity
of loving had burned within her, devouring her with heat and flames;
and yet she had never dreamed of yielding to her unappeased desires. A
life of shame would perhaps have left her less exhausted, than this
unassuaged longing, which modified her whole organism.
Sometimes this corpse, this aged pale face, wherein seemed to be not
one drop of blood, was shaken by a nervous attack, which sharpened all
her faculties once more, and restored her to an intensity of life. She
lay on her bed rigid, with eyes wide open, and then would be suddenly
convulsed. Her strength was terrific on these occasions, and it was
necessary to tie her securely, that she might not hurt her head against
the wall. These attacks shook in a piteous way her poor, emaciated
frame. It was as if all her youthful passions had returned and rebelled
against the coldness of her years.
When she was able to totter about again, the old gossips would look at
her with a sneer and say:
“The old mad woman has been drinking.”
The childish smile of little Silvère was warmth to her half-frozen
form. She had asked for the child because she was weary of solitude,
and trembled lest she should die alone. This child-life in the house
seemed her best security against death. Without becoming in any way
demonstrative, she silently devoted herself to him with ineffable
tenderness.
She watched him all day long, listening with ravished ears to the
insufferable noise with which he filled the whole house.
The tomb-like place reverberated when Silvère rode over it upon a
stick, shouting and hallooing. She busied herself over him with
adorable awkwardness, she who, in her youth, had forgotten to be a
mother, for her lover’s sake, now washed and dressed this child, and
guarded his frail existence with unwearying care. This love was the
best and last gift, compassionate Heaven had bestowed on this crushed
and weary heart, tortured for years by the keenest desires, and now
dying slowly, absorbed in this affection for a child.
She had not life enough left in her to love the boy with the
demonstrative affection of hearty, kind old grandmothers. Sometimes
she took him on her knees and looked earnestly into his blue eyes, and
when he--terrified by her pale face and steady stare--burst into sobs,
she seemed to be confused and troubled, and would put him down without
kissing him.
Did she think him like the smuggler Macquart?
Who can tell?
Silvère grew up in this solitude. He called Adelaide “Aunt Dide.”
The name of Aunt in Provence is a mere term of affection applied
indiscriminately. The child loved his grandmother with a tenderness
mingled with respectful terror. When he first went to her, and she had
one of her nervous attacks, he would run away and hide in horror at
her convulsed countenance. But later, when he was twelve years old, he
watched over her courageously, preventing her from falling from the
bed, and held her, sometimes for hours, tightly in his arms with the
vain hope of controlling the spasms that contracted her limbs, looking
all the while down upon the piteous face and the emaciated body
revealed by the clinging garments.
This ever-recurring tragedy--the old woman rigid and immovable as
a corpse, the child leaning over her, watching for the return of
life--was a strange and dreary sight. When Aunt Dide came to herself,
she would rise with difficulty, straighten out her clothing, and move
about the house. She never remembered what had taken place, and the
boy from instinct never made any allusion to the painful scenes, which
were, however, precisely what attached the child most strongly to
his grandmother, whom he adored in the same shamefaced way in which
she worshipped him. He was grateful to her for having taken him, and
regarded her as a mysterious creature, the victim of some strange
malady, whom he must pity and respect.
The two lived thus in a sad silence which concealed the warmest
affection.
These melancholy surroundings imparted to Silvère, as he grew up,
great strength of character and much enthusiasm. He was serious and
contemplative; eager for instruction. He learned a little orthography
and arithmetic at the Brothers’ school, which he left at twelve years
of age when he was apprenticed to a trade. But, as he read every volume
he came across, his mental furniture was a strange mixture. He knew a
great deal about many things, but he could not classify his knowledge,
or arrange it so that he could get at it.
When very young he was in the habit of playing a great deal with a
good-natured wheelwright, named Vian, whose workshop was close by. The
boy would climb on the wheels of the wagons that were brought there
for repair, and try to use the heavy tools which his small hands could
hardly lift. One of his greatest pleasures was to help the workmen by
bringing them pieces of wood which they chanced to need; and when he
was older he naturally wished to become the apprentice of Vian, who
had taken a great fancy to this little fellow, who had grown up, as it
were, under his heels. Vian asked Adelaide to send him the boy. Silvère
accepted the offer joyously, hoping that the day was not far off when
he could repay to poor Aunt Dide the money she had expended for him. He
became an excellent workman in a very short time.
But his ambition soared higher. He had seen at a carriage-maker’s in
Plassans a beautiful new calèche glittering with varnish, and said to
himself that some day he would build carriages like that. This calèche
remained in his mind as an ideal toward which all his aspirations rose.
The wagons on which he labored at Vian’s struck him as unworthy of
his tenderness. He frequented the School of Design, where he made the
acquaintance of a young collegian, who lent him a dilapidated treatise
on Geometry. He became engrossed in this study, and spent weeks in
trying to comprehend the simplest things in the world. In this way he
became one of that very small number of workmen who can sign their
names, and who speak familiarly of Algebra.
Nothing is so likely to unsettle and lead a mind astray as instruction
like this, built of broken reeds, without any solid foundation.
Such scraps and crumbs often give the most absolutely false ideas of
the great sciences, and render those who have amassed them perfectly
intolerable. But with Silvère this stolen knowledge only increased his
thirst for more. He had a full appreciation of the broad horizons which
were as yet closed to him, and he lived enwrapped in the most innocent
adoration of the thoughts and great words toward which he longingly
strove, all ignorant as he was, of their full significance.
His ignorance and faith were almost painful to witness as he knelt on
the threshold of the Temple, accepting the candles which burned afar
off for veritable stars.
The house in which Silvère and Aunt Dide dwelt, consisted of a large
room into which opened the street door; this room, which was paved,
served both as kitchen and dining-room, and had as furniture only
straw chairs, a table on trestles, and a large box which Adelaide had
transformed into a sofa, by throwing over the lid a ragged woollen
cover. In one corner, at the left of a huge chimney, stood a Holy
Virgin in plaster, surrounded by artificial flowers--the traditional
Holy Mother, which is to be found in all the Provençal houses, whether
its inmates be irreligious or otherwise. A long corridor led to the
little court-yard behind the house, and to the well; on the left of the
corridor was Aunt Dide’s room, small, and containing an iron bedstead
and one chair. On the right, in a still smaller room, was Silvère’s bed
and a series of shelves which he had built from floor to ceiling, to
hold his dear books which he had picked up at the second-hand stalls in
the neighborhood. He read at night, with his lamp fastened by a nail to
the head of his bed, and, if his grandmother were taken ill, he was at
her side at the first sound.
The life led by the young man differed little from the life of the
boy. He had all his father’s repugnance to wine-shops and Sunday
dissipation. His comrades disgusted him by their brutal pleasures. He
preferred to read and to puzzle his brain over some simple problem in
Geometry. Aunt Dide now intrusted to him all her commissions, and never
went outdoors herself.
The young man’s heart sometimes ached with pity for her, as he saw
her living within a stone’s throw of her children, and yet as totally
abandoned by them as if she were dead. If at times he had a vague
consciousness that Aunt Dide was expiating old faults, he said to
himself: “All the more reason then for me to love her, and to forgive
her.”
Republican ideas are the natural outgrowth of a nature like this.
Silvère read and re-read a volume of Rousseau, which he had found on
a book-stall. That dream of universal happiness, so precious to the
unfortunate, the words “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” rang in his
ears with the sonorous sound of bells calling the faithful to their
knees. When he learned that the Republic had been proclaimed in France,
he at once believed that every one was to be supremely happy.
His semi-instruction allowed him to see further than the other workmen,
and his aspirations did not stop at his daily bread. His complete
ignorance of men and things retained him in this Eden for some time,
and when he saw that all was not going as smoothly as he had hoped
in his ideal Republic, he was greatly pained. Each act which seemed
to strike at the interests of the people excited in him the hottest
indignation.
Gentle as a child, his political hatreds were absolutely ferocious. He
who would not have killed a fly, talked of shouldering a musket.
Liberty was his passion--an unreasoning, absolute passion into which
he put all his energy. Both too ignorant and too well instructed to be
tolerant, he dreamed of an ideal government of absolute justice and
absolute liberty. It was at this time that his uncle, Macquart, wished
to influence him.
Antoine said to himself that this young simpleton would be a bad enemy
to manage if he could exasperate him sufficiently, and did his best
to ingratiate himself with Silvère, for whose ideas he professed the
warmest admiration. He had a way, too, of regarding the triumph of
the Republic as the inauguration of happy days for all persons, which
flattered the moral aspirations of his nephew, and before long the
two men met several times in the week. Antoine endeavored to persuade
the young man that the Rougon salon was the principal obstacle to the
happiness of France, but he made a great mistake when he called his
mother “that old wretch,” and then narrated the scandal of her life.
Silvère, red with shame, listened quietly, crushed by this melancholy
and unsolicited confidence; but from this day forth he treated his
grandmother with greater tenderness and deference than before.
Macquart soon realized the blunder he had made, but attempted to
utilize it by saying that to Pierre Rougon was due all Adelaide’s
poverty and isolation. To hear him talk one would suppose him to have
been always the best of sons, and that his brother’s conduct alone had
been disgraceful and cruel. Silvère therefore became very indignant
with his Uncle Pierre, to Antoine’s great contentment.
At each of Silvère’s visits the same scenes were repeated. He generally
came in at night while the Macquart family were dining. Antoine
swallowed his potatoes, grumbling all the time.
“You see, Silvère,” he muttered, with a dull rage that he but
indifferently concealed, “we have nothing but potatoes to eat. We
are not rich enough for meat, which is only for the wealthy. It is
impossible to make both ends meet with children who eat like the devil!”
Gervaise and Jean cast down their eyes, and did not dare to touch the
loaf again. Silvère, who lived half the time in the sky, did not grasp
the position of things, and uttered in a calm voice, these words which
were big with a tempest:
“But, uncle, you ought to work.”
“Oh! yes,” sneered Macquart, keenly sensitive to this touch on his
open wound; “oh! yes; you want me to work, do you? You want these rich
people to speculate on me, do you? You want me to work for twenty sous,
I suppose.”
“Twenty sous are twenty sous, you know; and even a little helps in a
house. But why don’t you go into some business? You, as an old soldier,
could easily find something to do.”
Fine here interfered with a heedlessness of which she soon repented.
“That is just what I tell him every day,” she cried; “and the Inspector
of the Market wants an assistant. I spoke to him of my husband, and he
is well disposed toward us.”
Macquart interrupted her.
“Hold your tongue,” he said, brutally. “These women never know what
they say. They would not appoint me. They know my opinions too well.”
Antoine refused every position that was offered, alleging the most
singular reasons, and when any one argued with him he became perfectly
terrible.
If Jean, after dinner, took up a newspaper, his father would say:
“You had much better go to bed. To-morrow you will be up late, and lose
your day. Just think of your bringing me eight francs less than you
ought last week! But I will settle that. I have told your master never
to pay you, and that I will call in person for the money.”
Jean went to bed to escape from his father’s recriminations. He
sympathized little with Silvère. Politics wearied him, and he thought
his cousin something of a prig.
When the table was cleared away, and the two women talked apart in low
voices, Macquart would exclaim:
“Well! Upon my word! Is there nothing to mend here? We are all in
rags, and yet you sit idle. Listen, Gervaise, I have been to see your
mistress, and she has little to say that is good of you.”
Gervaise, who was twenty, colored at being reproved in this way before
Silvère, who was never comfortable in her presence since one night,
when coming in late, he had found mother and daughter both dead-drunk,
with an empty bottle in front of them. From that hour he never saw
his cousin without remembering this shameful spectacle. He was also
repelled by the stories he had heard about her. Innocent as a girl
himself, he looked at her stealthily with vague astonishment.
When the two women took up their needles and began to repair their old
garments, Macquart leaned back luxuriously on the best seat, sipping
his coffee and smoking. This was the hour generally selected by the old
rascal to accuse the rich of living on the sweat of the poor. He raged
magnificently against those gentlemen in La Ville Neuve who lived in
idleness, and were supported by the labor of the lower classes. The
distorted notions he had acquired from the newspapers of that same
morning became grotesque and more monstrous still, as they passed
through his lips. He talked fluently of a time not far off when no
one would be compelled to work. He reserved for the Rougons the most
furious, bitter hate. He had not quite digested the potatoes he had
eaten.
“I saw that conceited fool, Félicité,” he said, “buying a chicken in
the market. These robbers eat chickens, you see!”
“Aunt Dide,” replied Silvère, “says that Uncle Pierre was very kind to
you when you first came back. Did he not expend quite a large sum for
you at that time?”
“A large sum!” howled Antoine, angrily. “Your grandmother is crazy! I
never had anything from those brigands!”
Fine again interfered, and reminded her husband that he had had a
complete outfit of clothes, a year’s lodging, and two hundred francs
in cash. Antoine bade her hold her peace, and continued with fast
increasing anger:
“Two hundred francs! That is a large amount, indeed! I was entitled to
ten thousand! We must on no account forget the bone they threw to the
dog, nor the old coat which Pierre gave me because it was too ragged
and dirty for him to wear again.”
He lied; but no one dared contradict him. He turned to Silvère:
“You are very simple to defend them,” he said. “They robbed your
mother, who would be alive to-day had she had money enough to be
properly taken care of.”
“No, uncle, you are unjust. My mother died from no lack of care, and I
know that my father would never have accepted a cent from his wife’s
family.”
“Nonsense! Your father would have taken the money just as any other
man would have done. We, too, have been pillaged, and we ought to join
forces:” and Macquart began for the fiftieth time to tell the story of
the fifty thousand francs. His nephew knew it by heart, and listened
with some impatience.
“If you were a man,” said Antoine, as he finished, “you would go some
day with me, and we would make a nice row at the Rougon mansion. We
would not go out until they gave us the money.”
But Silvère became very grave, and replied in a stern voice:
“If these people have robbed us, so much the worse for them. I do
not want their money. Do you not see, uncle, that it is not for us
to strike at one of our own family? If they have done wrong, their
punishment is sure to come, sooner or later.”
“What an utter simpleton you are!” cried his uncle. “Do you suppose
that God cares what becomes of us? We are a most miserable set, and
there is not a member of our family who would throw me a crust of bread
if I were starving.”
Gervaise here said, timidly:
“But, papa, Cousin Pascal was very good to you last winter when you
were ill.”
“He took care of you without ever asking a sou,” added Fine, coming to
her daughter’s assistance; “and many a time did he give me a five franc
piece to provide you with a good soup.”
“Indeed! I should have died,” answered Macquart, “if I had not had a
good constitution. Hold your tongue, you silly creatures! They all wish
to see me dead! If I am ever ill again, I will thank you not to send
for my nephew, for I am none too much at my ease when I know myself
to be in his hands. He has no practice whatever; and as for that
Aristide, he is a little viper. You will see some day how readily he
will turn his coat; and there is Eugène, whom they pretend has such a
distinguished position in Paris. I know all about it! He is an employé
in La Rue de Jerusalem. He is a spy.”
“Who told you so?” asked Silvère, whose upright nature was deeply
wounded by his uncle’s lying accusations.
“I don’t know who told me, but it is true all the same. He is a spy. As
for you, you stand like a sheep in the hands of the shearer. You are no
man at all! I do not wish to say any evil of your brother François; but
were I in your place, I should not be over pleased with the manner in
which he has behaved. He makes a great deal of money at Marseilles, and
has never sent you a sou. If you should be starving some day, I advise
you never to turn to him--”
“I hope I shall never need to turn to any one,” answered the young man,
proudly. “My work keeps my aunt and myself in comfort. You are very
cruel, uncle.”
“No, I am not cruel. I only tell you the truth, for your eyes ought to
be opened. Our family are a miserable set--this is the truth, even down
to Maxime, Aristide’s little son, who is only nine years old, and yet
sticks out his tongue at me when we meet in the street. That child will
beat his mother some day, and I shall be glad of it!”
All the dirty linen washed so complacently by Macquart before his
nephew, was a heavy burthen to the young man; but Antoine did his best
to exasperate him against all his relatives.
“Oh, yes, defend them,” he cried. “I am telling you all this, so that
you can the better protect my poor mother, who has been treated by all
these people in the most outrageous manner. You know nothing about it.
The Rougons have forbidden Aristide’s boy to say good-morning to the
old lady, and Félicité talks of placing her in a lunatic asylum.”
The young man turned very pale.
“Enough!” he cried; “not another word. I cannot bear it.”
“Well, well; I will say no more, if it annoys you,” replied the old
rascal, with an affectation of kindness. “There are other things which
you ought to know, nevertheless; unless you wish to play the part of a
fool, and be always imposed upon.”
Macquart hoped to incite Silvère against the Rougons, and also enjoyed
the most exquisite pleasure in bringing tears to the eyes of the young
man, whom he heartily disliked, probably because he was a good workman
and industrious. He used all his ingenuity to invent the most atrocious
falsehoods, which should strike to the heart of the young man. Antoine
gloated over his pallor and trembling lips, and when he had exhausted
himself, he took up politics.
“The Rougons are preparing a master-blow,” he said.
“What do you mean?” asked Silvère.
“I mean that they are arranging a plan by which they are to seize, one
of these nights, all the good citizens and place them in prison.”
The young man ventured to express a doubt, but his uncle gave all the
details with precision--told of the long lists and of the names upon
these lists, and by degrees Silvère credited this old woman’s tale, and
raged in his turn against the enemies of the Republic.
“These are the people whom we ought to render powerless, if we wish to
save the country. But what do they intend to do with the citizens they
arrest?”
“What do they intend to do with them!” answered Macquart, with a laugh.
“They mean to shoot them in their dungeons.”
Silvère, stupefied with horror, glared at his uncle in silence.
“And these will not be the first they have assassinated either. You
have only to go out any night behind the prison, and you will hear the
shots and the groans.”
The two men sat and talked until after midnight, while the women crept
quietly off to bed. It was a strange conversation, during which the
uncle drank innumerable glasses of brandy, and from which the nephew
rose intoxicated also, but only with enthusiasm. Antoine could obtain
from the young Republican no positive promise. The youth would only say
that Eternal Justice would have its way sooner or later, and punish the
wicked.
The youth talked, to be sure, vaguely, of bearing arms against the
enemies of the Republic; but as soon as his uncle personified these
enemies, in his Uncle Pierre or other persons of his acquaintance, he
drew back in horror. Nevertheless, Antoine had over his life a very
powerful influence. He irritated his nerves by his constant diatribes,
and ended by inducing him to look forward to happiness as only to be
obtained by armed violence.
When Silvère was sixteen, Macquart initiated him into the secret
society of the Montagnards, that powerful association of the South.
And from that moment the young Republican coveted the smuggler’s
carabine, which Adelaide had hung over her mantel. One night, when
his grandmother was asleep, he cleaned it and then hung it again
on its nail and waited. He rocked himself with the most fanciful
hopes--dreamed of Homeric contests and chivalric engagements from which
the defenders of Liberty should emerge conquerors, and receive the
applause of the world.
Macquart was not discouraged. He said that he would strangle the
Rougons if ever he got them cornered. About this time he saw himself
compelled to go to work, for in 1850, Fine died suddenly of a
congestion of the lungs, which she caught by going to wash the family
linen in the Viorne, and bringing it home wet on her shoulders. Her
death appalled Macquart, for with her perished his income. When, at the
end of a few days, he sold the furnace over which his wife cooked her
chestnuts, and the trestle she used in mending the straw chairs, he
burst out in angry reproaches against Heaven, for having taken away the
good woman, of whom, during her life, he had been heartily ashamed, and
who now he would so gladly have brought back.
He now was more eager than ever that his children should pass no idle
moments. A month later however, Gervaise, wearied by his continual
exactions, went away with her two children and Lantier. They went to
Paris. Antoine swore about his daughter from morning until night, and
prayed that she would die in a hospital.
Before long Jean followed his sister’s example. He waited for pay-day,
and managed to get hold of his own money, and then said to one of his
friends, who repeated it to Antoine, that he would no longer take care
of his father, who never lifted a finger for himself.
The next day Antoine was alone, without a sou, in the rooms where for
twenty years he had lived in such exceeding comfort. At first he was
furiously angry, and broke everything, but at last became almost sick
in his fear of work. When Silvère came to see him, he complained, with
tears, of the ingratitude of children. Had he not always been a good
father? Jean and Gervaise were monsters of ingratitude--they abandoned
him now because he was old and they could get no more from him.
“But, uncle,” said Silvère, “you are still able to work.”
Macquart coughed and said feebly, that he for a long time had been
unable to endure the smallest fatigue; and when his nephew went away he
borrowed ten francs of him. For a month Antoine lived on the articles
which he carried daily to be sold, and soon only one table, a chair and
his bed were all that was left.
When he was at the end of all his resources, with the pallor of a man
who is about to commit suicide, he pulled out the bundle of osier which
had lain undisturbed for a quarter of a century. He lifted it as if
it weighed tons. He began to braid baskets, and was more incendiary in
his discourse than ever before. He spoke of all the rich men in the
town with the most abusive epithets. But Antoine never worked when he
could extract any money from Silvère or a comrade. He was no longer
“Monsieur” Macquart, the workman, who, carefully dressed and shaved,
played at being a gentleman, but he became once more the dirty devil
who had formerly speculated on his rags with such good results. Now
that he was to be seen daily at Market, selling his baskets, Félicité
actually did not dare go there. He once mortified her by a terrible
scene.
As may be supposed, Macquart welcomed the Coup d’État with the noisy
joy of a dog who scents his prey; but, as for a few days Plassans was
undisturbed, Antoine thought his plans would all fail, and not until
he heard of the risings all over the country did he hope again. In the
evening he was with some of the faithful in a wine-shop in the old
Quartier when a comrade rushed in, to say that the Insurgents were but
a few kilomètres distant. A shout of triumph rang through the room.
Macquart himself was almost delirious with enthusiasm. The unexpected
arrival of the Insurgents seemed to him a delicate attention of
Providence toward himself, and his hands trembled at the thought that
he would soon hold the Rougons in his grasp.
Meanwhile Antoine and his friends hurried from the café. All the
Republicans who had not already left Plassans were on the Square. This
was the band which Rougon had seen as he ran to conceal himself at his
mother’s. When the band reached the Rue de Banne, Macquart made four
of his especial friends linger a little in the rear. He persuaded them
that they should at once arrest the enemies of the Republic, if they
hoped to avoid great misfortunes; the truth was, he feared lest Pierre
should make his escape, after all. The four men followed him meekly,
and they all knocked at Rougon’s door. Félicité’s courage at this time
was most admirable. She opened the street-door.
“We wish to come in,” said Macquart, roughly.
“By all means, gentlemen,” she said, with sarcastic politeness,
pretending not to recognize her brother-in-law.
When Macquart stood in the yellow salon, he bade her call her husband.
“My husband is not here,” she said, calmly. “He is travelling on
business. He took the Diligence for Marseilles at six o’clock this
evening.”
Antoine, at this statement, uttered an angry exclamation. He passed
into the bed-room, looked under the bed and behind the curtains, his
friends lending their cheerful assistance. For a quarter of an hour
they searched the rooms. Félicité, quietly seated on the sofa in the
salon, was busy fastening her skirts, as if she had been hastily
awakened, and had not time to dress properly.
“It is true! The coward has run away!” cried Macquart, looking about,
however, suspiciously as he spoke.
He felt almost certain that Pierre could not have abandoned the ground
at this decisive moment. He went up to Félicité, who opened her mouth
with a prodigious yawn.
“Tell us instantly where your husband is concealed,” he said. “I assure
you we will do him no harm.”
“I have told you the truth,” she answered, impatiently. “I cannot give
my husband into your hands, for he is not here. You have looked for
yourselves, have you not? Then, pray, go and leave me in peace.”
Macquart, exasperated by her coolness, would certainly have struck
her had not a great uproar been heard from the street. It was the
Insurgents sweeping up La Rue de Banne.
Macquart shook his fist at his sister-in-law as he left the salon, and
at the foot of the stairs, he bade one of his companions sit down on
the lowest step and not move until a new order.
“You will come to me at once, however, if you see Rougon return.”
The man obeyed, and dropped heavily on the stairs. When he was on the
sidewalk, Macquart lifted his eyes and beheld Félicité leaning out of
the window, watching the Insurgents as if they had been a regiment
marching to music. This last indication of tranquillity was more than
he could bear, and he felt as if he must go back and pitch the old
woman into the street. He looked up at her, and said between his teeth:
“Yes, look at us! we will see how you will feel about it to-morrow.”
It was about eleven when the Insurgents entered the town through
the Roman gate, which was thrown open to them by the Republicans,
notwithstanding the lamentations of the porter, from whom they tore the
keys by force.
At the head of the column marched the citizens of Plassans, guiding
the others--Miette bearing the flag all the more boldly, that she felt
that frightened eyes were watching her behind the closed blinds. The
Insurgents moved with considerable caution, fearing to be received with
a discharge of musketry, although they well knew the calm disposition
of the people. But the town seemed dead. There was hardly a sound.
Only five or six shutters were open, and at one stood an old man with
a candle in his hand. As soon as he caught sight of this girl all in
scarlet, appearing to draw after her this crowd of black demons, he
shut his window in fear and trembling, terrified at the diabolical
sight. The silence of the sleeping town tranquillized the Insurgents,
who finally reached the Market Place, which was brightly lighted by the
moon. The Hôtel de Ville, freshly restored, was a mass of dead white,
on which the balcony of the first floor was defined by slender black
lines of wrought iron. Several persons stood on the balcony: the Mayor,
Commandant Secardot, three or four Municipal Counsellors, and other
functionaries. Three thousand Republicans filling the Square stood
ready to burst open the closed doors.
The Commandant had found time to slip into his uniform before he
awakened the Mayor, and in five minutes after they were both on the
balcony. They heard the approach of the Insurgents.
Secardot wished to fight. He insisted that twenty men were enough to
bring this canaille to reason, but the Mayor shrugged his shoulders,
and declared that the only thing to do was to capitulate honorably.
He went out upon the balcony, while the moonlight shone on the black
and surging mass below, and glittered on the guns and bayonets:
“Who are you? and what do you want?” asked the Mayor, in a firm voice,
when the tumult abated.
Then a man in a long coat advanced.
“Open the door,” he said, “and avoid a fratricidal contest.”
“I command you to retire,” replied the Mayor. “I protest in the name of
the Law.”
These words awoke a great clamor. When calmness was in a degree
restored, voices and words were again heard.
“We are here in the name of the Law! Your duty is to respect the
fundamental Law of the country--the Constitution which is being
outrageously violated!”
“Long live the Constitution! Long live the Republic!” And when the
Mayor tried to speak he was interrupted:
“You are a mere functionary, and we intend to remove you,” said the man
in the long coat.
When the Commandant, who was gnawing his moustache in a great rage,
heard the Mayor thus threatened, he could not keep silent any longer.
“Zounds, man! if I had only four men and a corporal, I would come down
and pull your ears to recall you to your senses!”
A fierce growl ran through the crowd, and the Mayor hastily left the
balcony, imploring Secardot to be reasonable if he did not wish them
all to be murdered.
The doors were broken in at once, the National Guards disarmed, and the
Mayor and all the functionaries taken prisoners.
The Commandant, who refused to give up his sword, was protected by the
chief of the contingent from Tulettes. The prisoners were taken to a
little café in the Market Place.
This body of rebels would not have entered Plassans, had not the chiefs
decided that food and rest were necessary before they could proceed
to Sainte-Roure. When the Mayor learned that the band wanted food, he
offered to procure it for them. This functionary evinced, in these
difficult circumstances, a very clear apprehension of the situation. If
the hunger of these three thousand men could be appeased, and Plassans
did not find them in the morning, sitting on the sidewalks, the
citizens would think of them as the phantoms of a bad dream.
Although he was still a prisoner, the Mayor, accompanied by two guards,
went to the doors of all the bakers and bade them bring out their
bread, and then distributed all the provisions they could discover.
About one o’clock the three thousand men made a hearty meal.
Notwithstanding the keen air, the crowd was not without a certain
amount of gayety. They blew on their fingers to warm them as they ate,
and sat round on the door-steps of the houses. Curious faces peeped out
from the windows watching these fierce rebels drinking at the pump.
The police station was invaded and the police disarmed. Miette and
Silvère were impelled in this direction. The child, still holding the
standard pressed against her breast, leaned against the wall, while the
young man, carried away by the human current, assisted his companions
in tearing their carabines from the police. Silvère, in his excitement,
attacked a stout fellow and snatched his gun; the barrel struck the
man’s eye and the blood spurted over Silvère’s hands, who was suddenly
sobered. He looked at his hands, and then at the gun, and fled madly.
“Are you wounded?” cried Miette.
“No, no,” he answered, in a choked voice. “I have killed a police
officer.”
“Did you see him die?”
“No; but his face is covered with blood.”
He dragged the girl away, and when they were in the Market he made
her sit down. He looked at his hands, and talked incoherently. Miette
finally understood that he wished to take leave of his grandmother.
“Go,” she said. “Do not be uneasy about me. Wash your hands first.”
He went away rapidly, holding his hands far out from him, without
seeming to remember that he could wash them at some one of the
fountains near by. He had but one idea, to run to his Aunt Dide’s
and there plunge his hands into the cold water of the well in the
court-yard. All his peaceful, tender childhood returned to him; he
felt an irresistible desire to shelter himself among his grandmother’s
skirts once more, if it were only for a minute. He arrived all out of
breath. Aunt Dide had not gone to bed, which at any other time would
have occasioned him great surprise. Nor did he, at first, notice his
Uncle Rougon, who sat in the corner on the old box.
“Grandmother,” he said, rapidly, “you must forgive me. I am going away
with the others. I have blood on my hands. I have killed a police
officer.”
“Killed a police officer!” repeated Aunt Dide, in a strange voice.
Her eyes flashed as she looked at the red stains on his hands. She
turned to the chimney.
“The gun,” she exclaimed; “where is the gun?”
Silvère, who had left it with Miette, declared it was safe. For the
first time Adelaide, in the presence of her grandson, made an allusion
to the smuggler Macquart.
“You must bring back the gun,” she cried, with singular energy. “It is
all that is left of him. Swear that you will bring it back. You have
killed a policeman--a policeman killed him!”
She continued to look at Silvère fixedly, with an air of cruel
satisfaction. She asked no explanation of his intentions, nor did she
weep as grandmothers do when they see their grandchildren suffer the
smallest scratch. She had only one thought apparently.
“Was it with that gun you killed the policeman?” she asked.
Silvère apparently did not understand.
“Yes,” he said; “and I am going to wash my hands.”
When he returned from the well he saw his uncle, who had heard what he
had said to his grandmother. “Félicité was right,” Pierre thought; “I
shall certainly be ruined by my family. Now that this boy has committed
this crime, I shall never receive the office for which I hoped, unless
I prevent him from joining the rebels now.” He stood in front of the
door.
“Listen to me,” he said to Silvère; “I am the head of the family, and I
forbid you to leave this house. To-morrow I will assist you in reaching
the frontier.”
Silvère shrugged his shoulders.
“Let me pass,” he said, quietly; “I am not a spy, and I will not betray
your hiding-place.” And as Rougon continued to talk, he added: “Why do
you say I am of your family? Have you not always denied me? Fear has
brought you here now, because you know that the day of justice is at
hand. Move away, sir. I have a duty to fulfil.”
Rougon did not move. Then Aunt Dide, who had listened to Silvère’s
vehement words in a sort of ecstasy, laid her withered hand on her
son’s arm.
“Move, Pierre,” she said; “the child must go!”
The young man pushed his uncle lightly aside, and passed through the
door. Rougon fastened it behind him, and said to his mother, in a
voice that was both angry and threatening:
“If any accident happens to him, it will be your fault. You are utterly
mad, and have not the smallest idea of what you are doing.”
But Adelaide did not seem to hear. She threw a log on the dying fire,
saying as she did so with a vague smile:
“I know all about it. He will stay away a month, and will then come
back in better health and looks, than when he went away.”
She was speaking of Macquart.
Silvère hurried back to the Market. As he approached the place where he
had left Miette, he heard a great noise and confusion of voices.
A cruel scene had just taken place. Among the persons attracted by
curiosity to the Square was Justin, a young man of twenty, the cousin
of Miette. He hated her, and reproached her with the bread she ate, and
it was believed, thus revenged himself for the scorn with which she had
rejected his insolent advances. He was a spy on her every movement, for
he indulged the fond hope that he could induce his father to put her
out of doors.
He had long since discovered her intimacy with Silvère, and only waited
a good opportunity to lay it before his father; and this evening, when
she slipped out of the house at eight o’clock, he could keep silent no
longer, but went at once to the old man. Rébutat was furiously angry,
and said he would thrash the girl well, if she ever dared to cross his
threshold again.
Justin went comfortably to bed, demoniacally pleased at the scene
which he anticipated. But he suddenly decided to go out and see what
had become of his cousin. He dressed again and went out. He finally
found Miette seated on the bench where she was waiting for Silvère,
and when he beheld her wrapped in her pelisse, and with the red folds
of the flag sweeping over and behind her, he began to sneer and utter
the coarsest jokes. The girl was dumb under these insults, and finally,
shaken by her sobs, she buried her face in her hands.
Justin called her every opprobrious epithet and the daughter of a
convict, and said she was never to go to his father’s house again
unless she wished to be kicked out of it.
A little group had gathered around the girl, laughing at this
painful scene. At last, however, some one more manly than the others
interfered, and told the young man to be silent, or he would be
properly chastised. But Justin defied him, saying he was not afraid. At
this moment Silvère appeared, and young Rébutat tried to slink away,
but hesitated, not being able to deny himself the pleasure of insulting
the girl once more before her lover.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “I thought that fellow was not far off. It was to
follow him that you left us, was it not? Miserable girl, and she is not
sixteen. May I ask when the baptism will take place?”
He started back as Silvère raised his clenched fist.
“And please,” he continued, “not make a mistake, and be confined with
us--”
He was silenced by a blow on his mouth, for Silvère had rushed upon
him. The fellow fled, and Silvère made no attempt to follow him. He
rushed back to Miette, and dried her tears with spasmodic eagerness.
She lifted her head haughtily.
“I will weep no more,” she said. “I am glad he has behaved in this way,
for now I have no remorse in having left his father’s roof.”
She lifted the flag and took her place again among the Insurgents. It
was then about two o’clock in the morning. The cold was so keen that
the Republicans had risen to their feet, and were trying to keep warm
by moving about the Square.
Orders were given to march on. The column reformed, and the prisoners
were placed in the centre.
At this moment Aristide was seen moving busily about. He had come to
the conclusion, that, in the face of this formidable rising, it would
be most imprudent not to remain the friend of the Republicans; but at
the same time, as he did not wish to commit himself too far with them,
he came with his arm in a sling to wish them God-speed, complaining
bitterly that he was not able to shoulder a musket. He met his brother
Pascal in the crowd, carrying his case of surgical instruments.
The physician told him in a quiet voice that he was going with the
Insurgents. Aristide laughed in his sleeve at his innocence, and got
away as soon as he could, lest he should be appointed Guardian of the
town--a position which he regarded as singularly hazardous.
The Insurgents had little hope of holding Plassans, for the town was
imbued with too thorough a reactionary spirit. They would all have gone
away had not Macquart offered to hold Plassans on the condition that
twenty men of courage and determination should be left under his orders.
The twenty men were detailed, and he marched at their head triumphantly
into the Mayor’s house. As he did this the main body left by the great
gate, leaving behind them the silent and deserted streets, adown which
they had swept like a tempest. Before them stretched the highway, white
in the moonlight.
Miette refused any assistance from Silvère, and walked on firm and
erect, holding the standard of the red flag in both hands, unheeding
the numbness of her fingers, now blue with the cold.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: A cup of coffee or tea, with a dash of spirit in it.]
CHAPTER V.
“THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.”
THE Insurrectionary band resumed its march through the cold, still
country, and arrived at Orchères about ten o’clock in the morning.
Their road wound along the hills, at the base of which ran the Viorne.
On the left the plain stretched out, dotted by villages. At the right
rose the desolate peak of the Garrigues, rusty as if browned by the
sun. The road passed among huge boulders, between which glimpses of the
valley could be caught. Nothing was wilder--nothing more grand than
this road hewn through the hills. At night the aspect of the place was
peculiarly solemn. Under the pale light the Insurgents swept along,
as through an avenue of a ruined town, with its temples shattered and
fallen on either side. The moon transformed each rock into a mutilated
column, a crumbled capital, or a wall pierced by mysterious portals.
High up, the Garrigues slept like an immense Cyclopean city, whose
terraces, houses and obelisques hid half the sky; and below, the
moonlight spread over the plain, where floated a light fog. The rebels
might have fancied, had they been imaginative, that they were on a
gigantic causeway, constructed on the shore of a phosphorescent sea.
That night the Viorne roared hoarsely, but through the noise it made
the sharp notes of the tocsin were heard.
The villages scattered over the plain on the other side of the river
were sounding the alarm and lighting their fires. Until daybreak the
marching column saw the insurrection run along the valley like a
train of gunpowder. The fires pierced the darkness with glittering
red points--distant strains of music came on the wind--and all the
extent of country before them seemed to be stirred by angry shivers.
For leagues the spectacle remained the same. These men, who marched in
the blind fever planted there by the events in Paris, were immensely
excited by the spectacle of the whole earth, as it were, shaken by
revolt. They believed that France was with them; that beyond the
Viorne, vast armies of men were hastening, like themselves, to the
defence of the Republic; and these uncultivated minds, with the
facile belief of masses, looked forward to an easy victory. Had any
one ventured to say that they were the only ones to stand firm, and
that the rest of the French people were in a state of abject terror,
the rash speaker would have been seized and the words strangled in
his throat. They were constantly encouraged also by the welcome they
received from the villages along their route. The inhabitants rose in
a body, the women ran to meet them and wish them a speedy victory. The
men, half-clothed, joined them with weapons in their hands. At each
village was a new ovation, cries of welcome and cordial adieux.
Toward morning the moon disappeared behind the Garrigues, and the
march was continued in the thick darkness of a winter night. They
could see neither the hills nor the valleys; they heard only the
muffled, plaintive strokes of bells, hidden they knew not where, whose
despairing appeals pushed them on unrelentingly.
Meanwhile, Miette and Silvère had not faltered in their march; but just
before daybreak the girl admitted that she was utterly worn out, and
could not keep up with the long strides of the men about her. But she
was determined they should hear no complaint, for she was ashamed that
she was not as strong as a boy. Silvère, seeing that the flag-staff
wavered in her stiff hands, tried to induce her to let him carry it,
but with childish obstinacy she would not allow him to do more than aid
her with one hand. But when the moon was hidden she allowed him not
only to bear the standard but to support her also.
“Are you very tired, my poor little Miette?” asked her companion.
“Only a little,” she answered, in a faint voice.
“Shall we rest a while?”
She did not reply, and he saw that she was nearly unconscious. He
confided the flag to one of the Insurgents, and left the ranks,
carrying the girl in his arms. She struggled a little, vexed to be
treated like a child. He calmed her, telling her that he knew of a road
across the country which would abridge the distance by half. They could
rest, he said, a good hour, and then reach Orchères as soon as the band.
It was then six o’clock. A light fog rose from the Viorne, and the
night seemed very black. The young people climbed one of the spurs of
the Garrigues for a little way, and then seated themselves on a rock.
Around them was a fathomless abyss of darkness; it was as if they had
been shipwrecked on a reef. They heard not a sound now except two
bells, one of which rang far down at their feet in some village built
along the road. The other was more distant, and seemed to reply to the
feverish moans of the first, by sobs and complaints.
Miette and Silvère, warmed by their rapid walk, no longer felt the
cold. They did not speak, however, but listened in melancholy silence
to the appeal of the tocsin. They could not see each other, and Miette
was frightened. She grasped Silvère’s hand mechanically, and held it
tightly in hers. After the uproar of the last few hours, this sudden
silence--this solitude, in which they sat side by side in weary
bewilderment, was as a sudden awakening from a tumultuous dream. It
seemed to them as if they had been thrown upon a rocky shore by some
stupendous wave.
An inevitable reaction set in; they forgot their enthusiasm and the
band of men whom they were to rejoin. They were filled with the
ineffable joy of feeling themselves once more alone with each other,
hand in hand.
“You will not let me go with you, I know,” said the young girl. “I
could march by your side all night, but they go so fast that I could
not breathe.”
“But why should I not let you go with me?” asked the young man.
“I do not know; I am afraid you do not love me. I cannot walk as far
as you, and you think me only a child.” Silvère smiled, and Miette
divined it in spite of the darkness.
She continued in a decided voice:
“I am tired of being treated as your sister: I wish to be your wife,”
and she laid her head on his breast, and held him closely in her arms.
“We are cold--this will warm us.”
Until this troubled hour the young people had loved each other with
fraternal tenderness. In their ignorance they continued to believe that
it was friendship alone which induced them to linger thus, each in the
arms of the other. Every girl who lies on the shoulder of a youth is
already a woman--innocent and unconscious, whom a caress can awaken.
When lovers kiss each other on the cheeks, the way is short to the
lips. One kiss transforms friends to lovers. It was on this cold, black
night in December, with the dreary tocsin vibrating in their ears, that
Miette and Silvère exchanged one of those kisses which summon every
drop of blood from the heart to the lips.
Miette had said, “This will warm us!”--and they innocently waited. They
each felt the arms of the other hot through their clothing. They felt
their breasts rise with the same sigh. A bright light passed before
their closed eyes, and strange noises rang through their brains. This
languid happiness was indefinitely prolonged, and it was in that dream
that their lips met. The kiss was long and eager, and in shame and
confusion they separated. When their blood ran less hotly in their
veins, they found themselves far apart.
Miette did not dare approach Silvère, who was so silent that she was
not even sure he was there. If their walk had not been so rapid and
the night so dark, this kiss would never have been exchanged. Miette
thought of Justin and of the vile words he had uttered, and at which
she had wept without understanding their significance; now her cheeks
tingled with shame. She uttered a stifled sob.
“What is it?” asked Silvère, anxiously. “Why do you weep?”
“Let me be,” she answered. “I do not know.” Then, amid her tears, she
added:
“How unfortunate I am! When I was only ten, I was stoned by the
children in the street. To-day I am treated as if I were the vilest of
the vile. Justin was right, Silvère. We are behaving very badly.”
The young man in consternation put his arms about her with vain efforts
to console her.
“I love you,” he murmured. “I am your brother. Why do you say we
are behaving badly? Have we not always embraced each other when we
separated?”
“Yes, but not in the same way,” she answered, in a voice that was
almost inaudible. “I felt so strangely that I know it was wrong, and
the men will laugh as I pass them, and they will have a right to do so.”
The young man could say nothing, for he could find no words to soothe
this innocent child, whom that first kiss of passion threw into such
mortal terror.
He drew her closer, but she struggled away from him, and said,
pantingly: “If you choose, we can leave the country. I shall never dare
to return to Plassans. My uncle will beat me, and every one will point
at me.”
Then with sudden irritation she added:
“No. I am accursed. I forbid you to leave Aunt Dide to follow me. You
must leave me here on this highway.”
“Miette! Miette!” cried Silvère; “how can you say such cruel things?”
“How are they cruel? They are only true! I will not go back to Plassans
with you.”
The young man kissed her once more on her lips.
“You will be my wife; and no one will dare say a word against you,” he
murmured.
“No, no,” she answered, faintly. “I am too young to be your wife. You
must leave me here.”
Then Silvère could bear no more, and burst into wild, boyish sobs.
Miette, terrified at the sound, wound her arms tenderly about him, and
cried out that it was all her fault; and the two children mingled their
tears, while the bells continued their dreary sound.
The young man said at last:
“You are right; we cannot return to Plassans. If we are conquerors
I will go for Aunt Dide and take her away with us. If we are
vanquished--” He stopped.
“If we are vanquished,” repeated Miette, gently.
“I shall not be here in that case,” continued Silvère, in a low voice;
“and you must console the poor old grandmother.”
“It is better to die,” sighed the girl, pressing her lips once more to
his. She wished to die with him.
Die! Die! The bells repeated the word with ever growing earnestness,
and the lovers listened to the dreary summons as, with lip on lip, they
drank the sweetest joy.
“I love you! I love you!” murmured Silvère.
Miette shook her head; she seemed to say that the young man was hiding
something from her. Her ardent nature had an intuitive perception of
the fulness of life, and this rebellion of her blood and her nerves
she frankly evinced by her burning, restless hands, and her vague
entreaties.
Somewhat calmed at last, she placed her head on Silvère’s shoulder.
The young man leaned over her and kissed her again. She drank in his
kisses, and asked them their secret meaning. She questioned them;
she felt their liquid fire run through her veins. A sudden fatigue
overwhelmed her, and she fell asleep.
Silvère wrapped the red pelisse more closely about her and himself, and
neither felt the cold. When Silvère knew by Miette’s regular breathing
that she was at last asleep, he rejoiced at this repose, which would
allow her after a while to continue on her way. He determined to let
her sleep an hour undisturbed. The heavens were still black; low down
in the East a faint white line indicated the approach of day.
There must have been a grove of pines quite near, for their musical
greeting to the new-born day, the soft sighing of the wind through
their branches, was heard by Silvère, mingled with the wail of the
bells which still vibrated through the keen air, soothing Miette’s
slumbers as they had lulled the hot fever of her blood.
These children, until this troubled night, had lived one of those
innocent idyls which exist sometimes among the working classes, in
their simplicity reminding one of an ancient Greek fable.
Miette was not more than nine when her father was sent to prison for
having killed a gendarme. The trial was long remembered in the country.
The criminal haughtily confessed the murder, but swore he did it in
self-defence. “It was a duel,” he said, “not an assassination.” Nothing
moved him from this assertion. The judge told him that a gendarme had
a right to fire at a poacher, but a poacher none to attack a gendarme.
Chantegreil escaped the guillotine only on account of the good
character he had previously borne, and wept like a child when he was
sent to Toulon.
The little girl, who had lost her mother in the cradle, lived with
her grandfather in a little village among the mountains, and when the
poacher left them, the child and the old man lived on charity, and
finally the old man died of grief. Miette was alone, and would have
begged on the highway had not the neighbors remembered that she had an
aunt at Plassans, and one, more kind-hearted than the others, hunted up
this aunt, who gave the child a very cool reception.
Eulalie Chantegreil was a big, wilful creature, who led her husband by
the nose, as the neighbors said. But the truth was that her husband had
the greatest respect for this strong woman, who was endowed with most
uncommon energy and perseverance. The family prospered owing to her,
but the good man groaned when, coming home one night, he found Miette
installed there also. But his wife closed his lips by saying:
“Pshaw! The child is strong and stout. She will do instead of a
servant. We can feed and clothe her, and save the wages!”
This calculation soothed her husband, who felt of the child’s arms,
and found them very well developed for her age. The very next day he
began to make her useful. The work done by peasants at the South is
much lighter than at the North. Women are rarely seen there mowing
the earth, bearing burthens or performing the work of men--but gather
olives and the leaves of the mulberry trees, while their hardest labor
is to weed the ground.
Miette worked with a light heart--life in the open air was both her joy
and her health. She was all smiles as long as her aunt lived, for the
good woman, in spite of her roughness, had a tender, loving heart. She
often protected the child against the heavy tasks her husband imposed,
and would say:
“Don’t you see, simpleton, if you wear her out to-day, that she can do
nothing to-morrow?”
This argument was decisive. Rebufat submitted quietly, and carried the
burthen himself which he had intended to impose on the child.
The only thing that disturbed the child’s peace while her aunt lived,
was the incessant persecution to which she was subjected by her cousin.
He liked to tread on her feet, push and pinch her secretly, and when he
saw the pain he had given, laughed with that peculiar laugh of people
who enjoy the miseries of others.
Miette would look at him with her great black eyes full of haughty
disdain and the boy would shiver, for in reality he stood in deadly
terror of the girl.
Aunt Eulalie died suddenly, and from that day Rebufat treated Miette
like a beast of burthen. She did not complain, for she felt that she
had a debt to pay, but half the night through she would weep for that
good aunt who had stood between her and her taskmaster. She was not
indolent; indeed, she liked work. She was proud of her strong arms and
broad shoulders. She was greatly disturbed, however, by her uncle’s
distrust and by his incessant reproaches. A stranger would never have
been treated as she was, but being a poor relation, she was forced to
submit. She paid for all she received ten times over, and there was not
a day that she was not taunted with the bread she ate.
Justin continued to torture her--his favorite trick was to talk to her
constantly of her father. He gave her the most odious details of the
murder and the trial. He then told her how convicts were treated--how
many hours they were compelled to work each day with a ball and chain.
Miette tried to close her ears, but it was quite impossible. Sometimes
she would fly at Justin in childish rage, and then her uncle would say
with a sneer:
“Blood never lies. You will end at the galleys as well as your father!”
As Miette grew older, she learned to endure her martyrdom without
tears, and fixed her eyes on Justin in a way that reduced him to
silence. She was tempted at times to run away, but she absolutely had
not the courage to avow herself conquered by the persecutions she
endured. She knew, too, that she earned her bread, and was not indebted
to the Rebufats. This certainly satisfied her pride. She lived,
therefore, in a continual contest. Her line of conduct was to perform
each duty conscientiously, and to avenge herself for the treatment
she received by a contemptuous silence. She knew that her uncle was
constantly urged by Justin to send her away from the house, and she
took a certain kind of pleasure in remaining.
She lived an isolated life, growing up in revolt, and naturally
acquired opinions which were startling enough to those about her.
Her thoughts were constantly on her father, and she finally arrived at
the firm belief that he had been most unjustly treated, and when the
little scamps in the street called out after her: “There she goes--the
convict’s daughter!” she would hurry on with compressed lips and eyes
dusky with wrath.
As she entered the gate, she would turn and look back at the little mob.
She would have grown hard and cruel, like all pariahs, if her childhood
had not had some pleasant memories for her. As she thought of these
the hot tears would come, and she would run and hide herself, knowing
intuitively that if her tears were seen, her martyrdom would be
fiercer; and when she had cried her heart out she would bathe her eyes
and regain her calmness, doing her best not to seem a child.
The well in the court-yard of the house inhabited by Aunt Dide and
Silvère was on the boundary line, and Silvère drew the water. One day
the pulley broke, and the young wheelwright arranged a new one. To
mount it he was obliged to climb upon the wall, and when his task was
completed, he turned an inquisitive glance into the next enclosure.
A peasant girl was weeding a bed of vegetables. It was July; the air
was soft and balmy, and the sun just setting. A colored handkerchief
was knotted loosely over the girl’s shoulders. Her white sleeves were
rolled up, and she was kneeling on the folds of her dark blue cotton
skirts, which were fastened by two bretelles crossing over her back.
She was steadily pulling up the weeds and throwing them into an old
basket at her side. The young man watched the decided, quick movements
of those brown arms. She had looked up once, but immediately lowered
her head so that he could not see her face. He sat looking at her
curiously, swinging his chisel in his hand, when suddenly the chisel
fell on the edge of the well and rebounded into the Jas-Meiffren land.
Silvère hesitated, not knowing whether he should descend or not; but
the peasant girl quietly rose, picked up the chisel and held it up to
Silvère, who leaned down from the wall in great embarrassment. He saw
that the girl was very young; she raised her charming face, with its
rich, ripe lips and superb black eyes. He had never before been so
near any girl, and he did not know that a mouth and pair of eyes could
be so pleasing to look at. He looked at the arm which held the chisel
toward him. The arm was of a golden brown to the elbow, and a little
above, but in the shadow of the chemise sleeve, the skin was milky
white. The little peasant girl began to be very much embarrassed; but
neither youth nor maiden knew what to do next. They had not exchanged a
word. Silvère forgot to say, “Thank you.”
“What is your name?” he said at last.
“Marie,” answered the girl; “but everybody calls me Miette--and you?
what is your name?”
“Silvère,” replied the young workman, quickly. “I am fifteen; how old
are you?”
“I shall be eleven on All Saints’ Day.”
Silvère uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“And I thought you a woman grown!” he said. “Your arms are so large!”
She laughed and gave a pleased glance at her sturdy arms. Then a brief
silence ensued, and as Silvère seemed to have no more questions to
ask, Miette returned to her weeds, while he still sat on the wall. The
oblique rays of the sun fell on the yellow earth, and in this bright
light the boy watched the peasant girl, in her blue skirts and white
chemise. Suddenly he felt ashamed of himself, and hastily left the wall.
That evening Silvère, full of his adventure, tried to elicit some
information from Aunt Dide. Perhaps she could tell him who this Miette,
with such shining eyes and rosy lips, might be. But Aunt Dide had
never so much as cast one glance over that high wall; it was to her
as a rampart which shut in all her Past. She was utterly ignorant of
all that took place in those old grounds, and wished to remain so, for
it was there she had buried her love, her heart, and her flesh. At
Silvère’s first question she started back in dismay. Did he intend to
disturb the ashes of those extinct days, and make her weep, as Antoine
had done?
“I do not know,” she gasped. “I never go out. I never see anyone.”
Silvère waited for morning with some impatience, and as soon as he
reached the workshop he made his comrades talk. They were quite ready
to do so. He said nothing of his interview with Miette, but spoke
vaguely of a girl who lived at Jas-Meiffren.
“Oh! that is little Chantegreil!” cried one of his companions, and
at once proceeded to narrate the story of the poacher and his child
Miette, with that blind hatred felt by the crowd toward pariahs. The
girl was spoken of with especial coarseness. They stigmatized her
as the convict’s daughter, as if that reason were sufficient for
condemning the poor little girl to an eternal shame.
The wheelwright, Vron, a good, honest man, finally imposed silence upon
them.
“Hold your tongues, boys!” he said. “Are you not ashamed to attack a
child like that? I have seen her, and she has a good face. I am told,
too, that she is not afraid of work, and that she can do as much now as
a woman of thirty. There are plenty of do-nothings about, and I trust
that when the time comes she will get a good husband, who will compel
you all to keep a civil tongue in your heads.”
Silvère, who had grown sick at the coarse jests of these men, felt
tears spring to his eyes at these last words, but he did not speak. He
took up his hammer and went to work with unusual energy.
That night, as soon as he left the workshop, he ran to the wall. He saw
Miette weeding the garden as she had done the night before. She went
toward him with an embarrassed smile.
“You are Chantegreil, are you not?” he asked.
She recoiled; the smile left her lips and her eyes grew dark and
defiant. Did he mean to insult her like the others? She turned her back
without replying.
Silvère looked at her in consternation, and hastened to add--
“Don’t go; I did not intend to say anything you would not like. I have
several things to say to you.”
She came back slowly and suspiciously. Silvère, however, did not speak,
for he was afraid of committing some new blunder.
Finally, with his whole heart in his voice, he said:
“Would you like me for a friend?”
And as Miette lifted her radiant eyes, he continued, eagerly:
“I know that people worry you. They shall not do so now, for I will
protect you.”
The child smiled. This friendship so frankly offered annihilated all
her bad dreams. She shook her head, and answered:
“No; I do not wish you to quarrel with any one on my account. You would
have too much to do. Then, too, there are some people against whom it
is impossible for you to defend me.”
Silvère opened his mouth to contradict her, but in a coaxing voice she
added, gently:
“It is enough that you should be my friend.”
Then they talked for a time, and dropped their voices very low. Miette
told her new friend of her cousin and of her uncle. On no account, she
said, must they ever see him on the top of the wall. Justin would be
unendurable, if he should have a weapon like that against her. She told
of her fears and her trouble with the frankness of a little girl, who
meets another to whom her mother has forbidden her to speak. Silvère
understood only that he could not see Miette as often as he pleased. He
said he would not climb the wall again, and they were trying to arrange
some way of seeing each other when, suddenly, Miette saw Justin in the
distance, and hurriedly begged Silvère to vanish. He dropped on his
side of the wall, and stood there listening a few minutes.
The next day he came to the wall again, but Miette was not there:
she had finished her work in that part of the garden. A whole week
elapsed without Silvère seeing her, and he thought seriously of going
deliberately to Jas-Meiffren and asking to see Miette.
The well was very deep, and on each side of the wall rounded the half
circle. In the sleeping water the two openings were reflected like
two half moons separated by the black shadow of the wall. They looked
like two singularly bright mirrors, reflecting on sunny mornings, with
marvellous fidelity, each leaf of the ivy that clambered on the wall.
One morning very early Silvère, when he went to draw the water for
Aunt Dide, leaned over mechanically as he caught the rope. He stood in
silent amazement, for it seemed to him he could distinguish a young
girl’s face looking at him with a faint smile, but as he grasped the
rope the water trembled, and the face was lost. He waited, with his
heart in his mouth, for the water to be smooth once more, and as the
ripples extended and disappeared, he saw the apparition return with the
timid grace of a phantom. At last the water was calm once more, and he
saw Miette’s face, her colored kerchief and white chemise. She could
see Silvère also, and presently they exchanged a cheerful nod. At last
they spoke.
“How do you do, Silvère?”
“How do you do, Miette?”
The strange sound of their voices startled them, for in this cool
damp place they had acquired a singular sweetness, and seemed to come
from afar off with that peculiar clearness one hears in voices heard
at evening in the country. They realized that they could speak very
softly, and yet be heard by each other. The well echoed the faintest
sigh, and they leaned over, looking down and talking. Miette told him
how grieved she had been for a week not to see him. She was at work
at the other end of the grounds, and could not get away. She gave a
little angry toss of the head as she spoke, to which Silvère responded
by a similar movement. They made their little confidences exactly as if
they were face to face. Little did it matter to them that the wall was
between them, now that they could see each other in this discreet water.
“I knew,” said Miette, sagaciously, “that you drew the water every day
at this hour: I can always hear the creaking of the rope. So I have
made the excuse that the water from the well cooks vegetables better
than that from the reservoir, which we have used, and I determined to
come here every morning when you did, so I might say good-morning to
you without any one knowing it.”
She laughed with innocent delight at her own shrewdness, as she added:
“But I did not suppose that we should see each other in the water!”
This was, in fact, a most unlooked-for amusement to these children. At
last Miette said she must go, and bade Silvère draw up his bucket. But
Silvère did not dare move, for it hurt him to mar the smiling face he
saw reflected there. He touched the rope. A light shiver passed over
the water, and Miette’s smiles faded. He stopped, seized by a strange
fear. He fancied that she wept. But the child cried:
“Go! go!” with a laugh, repeated by the echo at the same moment.
She suddenly dropped a pail into the well. All was black then. And
Silvère filled his buckets mournfully, and listened to Miette’s
footsteps on the other side of the wall.
From this time the young people never missed this morning meeting--if
meeting it can be called. The sleeping water, wherein they saw each
other, gave to these interviews an indefinite charm. They no longer
cared to see each other face to face; it was much more amusing to
take the well for a mirror and to intrust to the echo their mutual
good-morning. They soon came to regard the well as an old friend. They
liked to look down on that motionless surface, heavy like quicksilver.
Below, in a mysterious twilight, green lights and shadows chased
each other hither and thither. They looked down into a green nest,
tapestried with moss and overhung with foliage. They took it into
their foolish heads to go down and sit upon projecting stones within
the well, where their feet touched the water, and where they could
stay for hours without any one having the smallest suspicion of their
whereabouts. Sometimes a vague terror assailed them; they fancied
they heard other voices than their own--other sighs than those they
themselves uttered. These sounds they could not explain, but they
were all natural enough, and the slight terror they felt was only an
additional attraction. The well, therefore, remained their old friend.
Never had Justin suspected the reason of Miette’s haste to draw the
water in the morning. Sometimes he watched her afar off as she leaned
over the curbstone.
“Lazy thing!” he would mutter. “She likes to play still, as if she were
five years old!”
How could he suppose that on the other side of the wall a young gallant
was looking in the water at the girl’s smiling face, and that he was
saying at that moment:
“If that ass of a Justin ill-treats you--he will hear from me!”
This amusement went on for a month. It was July; the mornings were
intensely hot, and the coolness about the well was delicious. Miette
came like the wind down the garden path--the short hairs about her
forehead curling closely--she hardly took time to put her pitcher down.
And Silvère, who was almost always there first, felt, as he saw her
sudden reflection in the water, almost as if she had thrown herself
into his arms at the end of a path.
Around them the sun shone, birds sang, and the loud hum of insects,
among the flowers and vines on the old wall, filled the air with summer
sounds. But they neither heard nor cared for this; they were in their
cool, fresh solitude.
Sometimes Miette was in a teasing mood. She shook the rope and dashed
the water about. Silvère implored her to be quiet, for he, of a more
placid temperament than she, asked for no greater pleasure than looking
at the reflection of his friend’s face.
But she would not listen to him. She jested and teased, speaking in a
hoarse voice, to which the echo gave a certain sweetness:
“No, no,” she said, “I am ugly to-day; I am not Miette. See how hideous
I am--!”
And she made the most frightful faces, laughing gayly at the fantastic
reflection in the water.
One morning she was really angry. Silvère was not at the rendezvous,
and she waited for him for a half hour. In vain did she make the pulley
utter a most plaintive appeal. In vain did Silvère explain to her that
he had been detained by Aunt Dide. To all his excuses she would only
say:
“You have made me unhappy, and I do not wish to see you!”
The poor boy interrogated with despair this vacant mirror wherein
he had so often seen the charming vision. He was compelled to leave
without seeing Miette. The next day he was early at the interview, and
gazed with melancholy eyes down into the well, saying to himself that
he knew she would not come, when all at once he heard a rippling laugh,
and her face flashed like a gleam of sunshine athwart the dusky surface
of the water.
So much of his life did this well now fill, that never afterward did
Silvère pass it, without a thrill from head to foot, and without seeing
Miette’s fair face.
These months of tenderness rescued the girl from her utter
discouragement. She felt herself once more a child, and as if she
had left far behind her the constraint and hardness of her life. The
certainty that she was loved by some one--that she was no longer alone
in the world--enabled her to endure Justin’s taunts as well as those of
the ill-tempered children of the neighborhood. Within her heart was
a melody which drowned the hisses. She thought of her father with the
same tenderness, but without the thirst for vengeance. Her new-born
love was like the fresh dawn coming after a feverish night.
She said to herself that she ought to retain her former discontented
air, if she wished to prevent Justin from having any suspicions; but,
notwithstanding all her efforts, her eyes were full of sweetness--the
dark look of other days had vanished.
Justin said, one day, when he heard her singing:
“You seem very gay, La Chantegreil! I wonder what you have been doing?”
She shrugged her shoulders, but she trembled and tried to resume her
rôle; it was long, therefore, before Justin was able to discover how
she had escaped from his clutches.
Silvère, in his turn, was very happy; his daily interviews with Miette
filled up the vacancy of his life. His long and silent tête-à-têtes
with Aunt Dide were now employed in thinking over the events of the
morning. He was quiet and secretive in temperament, and liked solitude.
At this time, too, he occupied himself in reading all the books he
could get hold of. He read an immense amount of worthless trash, which
would have singularly troubled his imagination, but for the absorbing
affection which had taken possession of his whole nature.
At night, when he lighted his lamp and opened a dusty volume, which he
took by chance from the shelf over his bed, not a female character
appeared in its pages that he did not at once compare with Miette. If
he read a romance or a poem, he married Miette at the dénouement, or
he died with her. If, on the contrary, it was some political pamphlet
he read, some grave dissertation on political economy--which style
of books he infinitely preferred to romances, as the half-educated
generally prefer what they do not understand--he still found some way
of interweaving the girl he loved, with this farrago of unintelligible
words, for he said to himself that he was learning things which would
teach him to be a more loving, tender husband when he was married.
Miette, in his opinion, was essential to the abolition of Pauperism,
and the definite triumph of the Revolution.
Weary as he was, he could not lay down the volume at times, and with
eyes aching from the yellow, uncertain light of the lamp, he hung
over the pages where the woman appeared always with the features of
Miette. In him all his mother’s nervousness had expanded into chronic
enthusiasm--into a reaching and longing for all that was far off
and unattainable. His solitary childhood, his semi-instruction, had
developed to a singular degree the tendencies of his nature. But he
was not yet of an age when a fixed idea plants its nail into the brain
of a man. In the morning, after he had plunged his head into a pail of
water, he remembered but vaguely the phantoms of the night before, and
retained only his faith and ineffable tenderness. He was a child again,
and ran to the well to bask in the smile of the girl he loved; and if
sometimes he met Aunt Dide’s questioning eyes--she being troubled at
his quiet thoughtfulness, and vaguely wondering if his feet had not
strayed over the boundary of that land so familiar to her--he would
kiss her on the cheek, with the assurance that he was thinking of the
future.
But Miette and Silvère wearied a little at last of seeing only their
shadows. They had exhausted their game, and they wished to meet face
to face and roam the green fields with their arms about each other.
Silvère said one day that he would jump over the wall and walk with her
in the grounds; but the child was so disturbed by this threatened folly
that he promised not to do it.
The wall in which the well was built formed an elbow, which was a
most convenient shelter from intruders, and near by, and totally
forgotten, was the door opened one night by Macquart and Adelaide. It
was overgrown with green moss, and hung with ivy. The locks and hinges
were rusty, and the key probably lost. The grass grew tall against it,
proving that for years probably no one had passed through it. Silvère
determined to look for the key. He well knew with what devotion Aunt
Dide cherished all the relics of the past, and yet he looked the house
through for a week without the smallest result. He tried to fit more
than thirty keys to the lock--keys which he had picked up all through
the house, and was becoming quite discouraged, when all at once he
found the one of which he was in search. It was fastened by a ring to
the key of the hall-door, which was always in the lock, and had hung
there for forty years.
Aunt Dide had fingered it each day, but could not make up her mind to
take it away.
When Silvère was certain that he held what he wanted in his hand, he
waited until the next day to surprise Miette, from whom he had kept his
plan entirely secret. In the morning, when he heard the child put down
her pitcher, he softly unlocked the door, and, putting his head in, saw
Miette perched on the edge of the well, looking down intently.
He called softly: “Miette! Miette!” She looked up, supposing him on the
top of the wall, but when she beheld him not ten steps from her, she
uttered a little cry of astonishment. It was midsummer and Assumption
Day--the bells were ringing gayly.
Ah! how sweet it was to be together. They held each other’s hands, and
were about to say what they had never dared intrust to the echoing
well, when all at once Silvère turned pale and drew back. He had just
seen Aunt Dide standing in the doorway.
The grandmother had come quite by chance in that direction. When she
saw the open space in that dark wall made by the door which Silvère
had forgotten to close, she received a violent blow on the heart. This
white opening seemed to her a chasm of light hewn violently through
her black Past. She saw herself hurrying through it with eager, loving
feet, and Macquart awaiting her. She clung to his neck, while the
rising sun entered with her into the court by the door which she had
not had time to close, and bathed them in its oblique rays.
The vision dazzled her with its brightness, awakening her from the
sleep of old age, with its remorseless recollections.
The thought that this door could ever open again had never occurred to
her. Macquart’s death had forever walled it up. Had the well and the
wall itself been swallowed in the earth, she could not have been more
astonished.
She stood motionless, burning with indignation against the sacrilegious
hand which, after violating the lock, had left the door open, like a
yawning tomb. She would never have known the place. The old garden,
with its beds of vegetables, had disappeared. Not a stone, not a tree
that she remembered, and this spot where she had grown up, and which
the evening before she had seen each time she closed her eyes, was now
a desolate, blank space--a mere stubble-field. It seemed to her that
her heart died again, and for the second time. She deeply regretted
that she had responded to the summons of this open door, and was about
to turn away without seeking to know more, when she perceived Miette
and Silvère.
Another cruel pang was hers. For the second time the door had opened
for a pair of lovers. It was the beginning of the end, with its present
joys and its future tears! Aunt Dide saw only the tears, and a quick
presentiment assailed her. Shaken by the remembrance of all she had
suffered, and by the fear that future evils would yet come through
this door, which she, so long ago, had rashly opened, she went forward
silently and took her grandson by the hand. Perhaps she might have
left the children there, to talk in the shadow of the old wall, had she
not felt herself to be their involuntary accomplice.
Miette snatched up her pitcher and fled, happy in her escape. Aunt Dide
smiled faintly.
“She is very young,” she murmured. “She has plenty of time.”
She probably meant to say that Miette had plenty of time to suffer and
to weep.
Then turning to Silvère, whose eyes were watching the child’s fleet
step, she said, quietly:
“Take care, my child; it kills sometimes!”
These were the only words she ever uttered on this event which had
shaken her soul to its very foundation. When Silvère left the house,
she locked the door and threw the key into the well, and then went back
and looked at the wall, thankful to see that it looked as it had done,
dark and immovable. The tomb was closed, covered by those boards, black
and mouldy from dampness, and dotted with snail shells, like silver
tears.
That evening Aunt Dide had one of those nervous attacks common with
her, during which she often spoke in a loud, continuous voice; and as
Silvère held her in his arms he heard disconnected words of which he
caught only a few. She seemed to be crying out for vengeance on some
one, and then she uttered a plaintive appeal for mercy. When the crisis
came to an end she, as usual, shivered from head to foot with fear. She
half-raised herself and looked into the corners with a wild, inquiring
gaze, and then fell back on the pillow with long sighs of dread and
horror.
She drew Silvère closer to her, seeming to know him, and yet
confounding him with some other person.
“They are there!” she stammered. “Do you see them? They have come to
arrest you! They will kill you yet! Send them away; they hurt me,
looking at me in this way!”
And she turned her face to the wall that she might not see these people
of whom she spoke.
After a long silence she spoke again.
“You are close to me, my dear child, are you not? I entreat you not to
leave me. We did very wrong when we cut through that wall, and I have
suffered from that very day. I knew the door would work us some great
ill, and now those poor children--think of their tears! They, too, will
be killed--shot like dogs!”
She fell back into her cataleptic condition, and was no longer
conscious of Silvère’s being in the room. Suddenly she started up, and
looked at the foot of the bed with an appalling expression of terror.
“Why did you not send them away?” she cried, as she hid her white head
on the young man’s breast. “They are always there, and the one with the
gun is going to fire!”
A little later and she was sleeping that heavy sleep in which her
attacks terminated.
The next day she seemed to have no recollection of what had taken
place, and she never spoke to Silvère of the morning when she had
found him in the next garden.
The young people did not see each other for several days. But when
Miette dared to go near the well again, she found Silvère waiting
for her, who at once urged her to find some place where they could
meet face to face. She did not require much urging, but agreed, with
the laugh of a mischievous child, infinitely amused at the idea of
outwitting Justin.
Silvère proposed all sorts of impracticable places. Miette shrugged her
shoulders in high disdain, and told him she would find a place. The
next morning at the well she told him to be in the rear of Saint-Mittre
at ten o’clock.
All day long the girl’s selection puzzled him very much, and his
astonishment did not diminish as he threaded the narrow path among the
boards.
“She will never come that way,” he said to himself. Then he heard a
rustling of branches behind the wall, and suddenly a laughing face and
disordered hair above the wall.
“It is I!” she cried.
And it was Miette, indeed, who had climbed one of the mulberries which
line the wall, at this very day. She jumped down on the flat tomb.
Silvère watched her with delighted astonishment. He took her two hands
and said:
“How clever you are! You can climb better than I.”
And thus it was that they met for the first time in that strange
corner where subsequently they passed so many happy hours.
From this moment they saw each other nearly every night. The well
served as a medium of communicating any changes of hours in their
interviews, and all the little news which was too important in their
eyes to admit of any delay; if one wished to communicate with the
other, the pulley was put in motion: its sharp appeal was heard afar
off.
Miette’s room was above the kitchen, and had its own especial
staircase. This enabled her to go out at any hour she pleased without
being seen by her uncle or Justin.
What happy times were these! It was early in September, one of the
most delicious months of the year in Provence. The lovers could not
meet until after nine, and then Miette came over the wall like a bird,
disdaining any assistance from Silvère. Her lover called her a tom-boy,
but in his heart was delighted at her agility and determination. He
watched her climb the wall with the complacency of a big boy looking
on at the sports of his younger brother. There was much childishness
in their budding tenderness, and one day they determined to go to the
shores of La Viorne birds-nesting.
“You will see how I can climb trees,” said Miette, proudly. “I can go
up so high! so high! Did you ever rob magpies’ nests? They are the
hardest to get at!”
And then ensued a long discussion as to the best way of climbing
poplars, Miette giving her opinion with all the ready coolness of a boy.
Silvère put his arm around her waist, and they walked up and down the
path, all the time quarrelling as to whether they ought to put their
feet or their hands in certain places on the branches. All the time
they talked they felt a strange thrill of joy which the well had never
afforded them. They concealed from each other the singular emotion each
felt at the touch of the other. They yielded to their new sensations,
all the time talking, like two school-boys, of the birds’ nests which
were most difficult to attain.
They paced up and down this narrow path, where they felt thoroughly
at home already. Miette, happy in her discovery, insisted on being
complimented upon it.
“We might have gone a full league,” she said, “and not hit on such a
hiding-place.”
Thick grass deadened the sound of their steps. They were enveloped in
foliage, and could see but a narrow strip of deep blue sky, set thick
with stars, above their heads. The spot was so quiet and so secluded
that involuntarily they lowered their voices, though no one could hear
them, as they told each other the thousand nothings of the day.
At other times they, like two children, climbed every pile of boards,
and Silvère frightened Miette by telling her that Justin was certainly
watching them from behind the wall. Then she would gravely walk by his
side, as all out of breath she would declare that some day they must
have a run in the meadow, and see which could catch the other.
They would linger in this place until midnight, while the town slept,
and the windows in the Faubourg were extinguished one by one.
Never were they disturbed in their solitude. At this hour there were no
children playing at hide-and-go-seek among the boards. Sometimes the
young lovers would hear the distant song of a band of workmen, and on
warm evenings see an occasional couple or an old man seated by the side
of the road. When the evenings grew cooler, Saint-Mittre was deserted,
except for the Gypsy camp and its fires, before which flitted black
shadows. The calm air of the night brought them an occasional phrase
or word--the good-night of a bourgeois as he closed his door, or the
rattling of an obtrusive blind. And when Plassans was all quiet they
heard the Gypsies quarrelling, the crackling of their fire, and the
guttural voices of the young girls, as they sang in an unknown tongue.
But the lovers did not care to linger outside at the end of their
beloved walk. They hastened back to it, feeling as free there--not more
than fifty feet from the Roman gate--as if they were in some nook on
the mountain side. The only sound which caused them any emotion was
that of the clock striking.
When the hour sounded, they pretended not to hear, and sometimes they
stopped short, if they wished to argue the point. They could have
chatted and played until morning, but Miette would reluctantly decide
at last to climb her wall once more; but even then there was further
delay, for she lingered with her elbows planted on the top sustained by
the mulberry branches, which served her as a ladder. Silvère, standing
on the tomb, could reach her hands. They repeated over and over again
their good-nights, but always had a few last words to say.
At last Silvère was the one to exclaim.
“It is midnight; we must go.”
Then Miette, with girlish obstinacy, would insist that he should leave
first; she wished to see him go down the path; but he was equally
determined to know that she was safe on the ground, away from those
perilous branches; and as the young man would not yield, she, to punish
him, would say:
“And now I am going to jump!”
Silvère held his breath as he listened to the dull thud of her leap,
and to the little laugh with which she fled. He watched her shadow
glance past the rifts of moonlight, and then slowly and reluctantly
turned away himself.
This was the life of these young people for two years. No frosts
nor snows, no wintry cold kept them within doors. Miette wore her
voluminous pelisse, and they laughed at the bad weather. When the air
was keen and struck their faces like slender wands, they did not sit
down. They walked up and down, wrapped in the pelisse. One night they
made a huge ball of snow and rolled it into a corner, where it remained
for nearly a month.
Rain did not alarm them either. Silvère would hurry through the most
terrible down-pour, saying that Miette certainly would not come, and
when Miette arrived, drenched to her skin, he forgot to scold her.
He finally arranged a little roof, which was movable, of slanting
boards among the piles of planks, under whose shelter they could sit
side by side, listening to the pattering of the rain above their heads.
In no other place were they so happy; a deluge ran past their feet,
but they were warm in the pelisse. For hours they would sit there with
that love of the rain which makes little girls walk gravely up and
down under an umbrella. In fact they rather preferred the nights to
be rainy, and yet this weather gave additional pain to their parting,
for neither could hear the steps of the other. As soon as Miette was
over the wall, only the rush of the water could be heard, and they were
uneasy until they met, lest something had happened.
But Spring came again. April brought soft nights, and the grass grew
green once more. In this awaking of all living things, the young lovers
sometimes regretted their wintry solitude, which enabled them to feel
so far from every human being. The long twilights were tedious to them,
as Miette could not climb the wall until it was quite dark, and when it
was safe for her to do this they no longer found the perfect solitude
which had so delighted them.
The children in the neighborhood played until late on the boards,
and sometimes one or more hid behind the very place where Miette and
Silvère were sitting. The fear of being surprised, and the noises
around them, rendered them very uneasy.
Then they found the narrow path too confined as the season advanced.
The grass came up to their knees, and as they trampled it under their
feet certain plants exhaled intoxicating odors. Then with eyes half
closed, they would lean against the wall, wondering whence came this
strange lassitude.
They finally decided that their cherished retreat was too close, and
they determined to extend their walks into the country.
Miette came with her pelisse. They stole along the walls until they
reached the highway and the open fields, where the air rolled in like
the waves of the sea, and dissipated the languor caused by the tall
grasses in Saint-Mittre.
They explored the whole country round about for two Summers. Each rock,
each grassy bank and clump of trees, was known to them. They realized
all their dreams--they ran their race in the meadow--and Silvère had
great difficulty in catching Miette.
They found their birds’ nests, too. These amusements appeased the fever
in their blood, and they played like two happy children let loose from
school. The whole country belonged to them; Miette, with a woman’s easy
conscience, never hesitated to gather a bunch of raisins, a branch of
green almonds, or any fruit that came in her way, which quite shocked
Silvère, but he did not dare scold the girl.
“The bad little thing!” he would say to himself, quite desperate, and,
dramatizing the situation, “she will certainly make a thief of me!”
Miette made him eat half the fruit she stole. And he became very
adroit in avoiding the fruit trees and vineyards. He compelled her
at times to sit by his side, and then it was that she complained of
suffocating. They listened to the water of the river running between
the overhanging willows; the hum of the locusts came up to them from
the valley below, the sky glittered with stars, and in this great
solitude the children sat hand in hand.
Silvère, who vaguely realized their danger, occasionally started up
with a proposal that they should try and reach one of the little
islands in the middle of the river. Miette would not allow Silvère to
carry her, and it more than once happened that she slipped and fell,
but as the water was very shallow, it did not much matter.
When they reached the island, they would lie on the strip of sand
which encircled it, their eyes nearly on a level with the water, which
sparkled in silvery ripples. Miette declared that she was in a boat,
and that it was certainly moving, and they began to sing the rhythmic
cadence which they had heard from the boatmen.
One island in especial had a clump of trees overhanging the water. The
children seated themselves on the gnarled roots and splashed their bare
feet in the quiet pool below.
These foot-baths put a notion into Miette’s head, which was full of
danger to their childish innocence. She had long wished to learn to
swim. She had found the very spot, and Silvère must teach her; but
Silvère raised objections. It was not wise, they would be seen, she
might take cold, and so on; but the real reason was, that he could not
see where they would undress and dress, nor how he was to hold her in
the water.
But the girl did not seem to think of any difficulties. The very
next night she appeared in a bathing dress which she had made from an
old woollen skirt. Silvère went home for some flannel drawers. The
arrangements were very simple. Miette went a step or two aside; the
night was so dark that she stood against the willows, a vague white
shadow, for only a second or two. Silvère stood like a young oak, while
the arms and legs of the girl looked like the milky stems of some of
the river-reeds.
They entered the water, with little outcries at its coldness. All
Silvère’s scruples and fears were forgotten in this new game, which
lasted for an hour. They threw the water over each other, and Silvère
gave the first swimming lesson. He held her by her belt, and she,
furiously agitating both arms and legs, fancied herself swimming; but
when he withdrew his support, she would utter little shrieks of terror
and snatch at his arm. “Hold me closer!” she cried.
After this first bath, Silvère was ashamed of having had any fears.
“Miette was such a child, and so full of gayety!” he said to himself.
In a fortnight she could swim, and, rocked by the waves, she could
revel in the summer silence and the overhanging sky. The shadows on
the shore enchanted her. She liked to swim toward an open space, where
the moonlight fell, calm and still, the water growing more ruffled as
she approached, with circles gradually enlarging until they were lost
under the willows, from whence came soft whispers and rustles. When she
floated on her back, the sky above was more beautiful still, and from
the far-off horizon, which she could not see, she heard the appeal of
a solemn voice and the sighs of the night.
She was not dreamy by nature; she enjoyed the heaven, the river, the
shadows and the moonlight with all her senses. She adored the river,
and, as she swam against the current, she loved to feel the water press
strongly against her breast and limbs. She would pass from the shining
water, which reflected the moon, into the blackest shadow, with a
little shiver, as if she had left a sunny plain at mid-day and felt the
chill of the shady trees.
She would no longer allow Silvère to touch her in the water. She swam
silently at his side, moving farther away when she felt an accidental
touch.
When they left the bath, they were often strangely troubled. Miette
took an hour to dress; she would put on her chemise and skirt, and lie
down on the turf complaining of intense fatigue, and bidding Silvère,
who was equally disturbed, take a seat by her side.
Fortunately, the girl declared one night that she would take no more
baths. She said the water was so cold that the blood rushed to her
head. She gave this reason in all innocence.
They resumed their old talks; and of the danger which they had run,
nothing remained in Silvère’s mind, except an intense admiration for
Miette’s physical vigor. She could now swim as well as himself. He
adored strength and bodily exercise, and felt a marvellous esteem for
her beautiful strong arms. He treated her, in short, more as another
youth, like himself, than as a girl, and these very rough plays
protected them and prevented them from marring the beauty of their love.
In Silvère’s affection for Miette was much of the kindness he felt
toward all that were unhappy. He could never see a beggar--a sick man
crouched by the road-side--a child walking bare-foot on the rough
stones--without a choking in his throat.
He loved Miette, because no one else loved her--because her life
was so lonely--and because she was regarded almost as a pariah. His
dreams in regard to her were full of generous folly. He wished to
raise himself, that he might raise her, for he looked upon her as his
future wife, and upon himself as fulfilling a sacred mission; his brain
was so bewildered by his mystic socialism, that he went so far as to
imagine Miette seated on a throne, and all the village bowing before
her, begging her pardon and singing her praises. But he forgot all
this nonsense when Miette jumped from the wall, or said to him on the
highway:
“Let us run! You will never catch me!”
But if the young man’s waking dreams were of the glorification of his
beloved, his sense of justice was so keen that he often brought tears
to her eyes when he talked of her father. The girl, in spite of the
tenderness with which her love for Silvère had filled her heart, still
had her bad hours, when the rebellion of her ardent nature sent the
light from her eyes and the smiles from her lips.
She maintained, then, that her father had an absolute right to kill
the gendarme, that the land belonged to one man as much as to another,
and that a poor man has a right to shoot down his game wherever he can
find it. Then Silvère gravely explained the Law, as he understood it,
and with commentaries so strange that, had the worthy magistrates of
Plassans heard them, they would have gasped with horror.
These talks took place generally in some quiet corner in the open
fields. The grassy carpet of a rich green, extended as far as the eye
could stretch, without a single tree to break its surface. The sky,
with its numberless stars, was far above them. Miette was by no means
disposed to yield her side of the argument; she asked if her father
ought to have stood still and allowed himself to be killed by the
gendarme. Silvère hesitated a moment, and then said that it was better
to be a victim than a murderer--that it was a great misfortune to kill
a fellow-creature even in legitimate self-defence. In his own eyes,
he said, the law was a sacred thing, and he thought the judges who
condemned Chantegreil were right. The girl grew furious, and cried out
that his heart was no better than the others; and as he continued to
defend his opinion, she burst into tears and said, between her sobs,
that he would blush for her whenever he recalled her father’s crime.
But Miette’s tears were not an absolute proof that Silvère’s arguments
had convinced her, or that her heart was softened by them, for a
certain bitterness lay dormant in the depths of her heart, as was once
shown by her telling, with demoniac delight, how one day she had seen
a gendarme fall from his horse and break his leg.
About this time, too, she confided to Silvère that she thought Justin
had found out why she sang nowadays, and why she smiled.
“Never mind!” she added. “If he comes to disturb us, we will receive
him in such a way that he will never interfere with us again!”
Sometimes the girl was too tired for a long country walk, and then they
returned to their beloved Saint-Mittre, to the narrow path which was
sweet and fresh and free from the intoxicating odors which in midsummer
had disturbed their senses.
They sat on the old tomb with a comfortable sense of being at home.
They loved to talk of the old Cemetery, and with their lively
imaginative natures they said their love had grown like a beautiful
plant from out this corner fertilized by Death. It had grown like a
weed--flourished like those poppies which the least breath of air shook
on their slender stems; and they told each other in timid whispers,
that the whispers among trees, the soft breeze that touched their
foreheads, the shiver that swept over the trees, were so many ghosts
who had returned to earth, eager to recommence their earthly lives.
They believed that were they to come there no more, the Cemetery would
bewail their absence, and that the blades of grass that twisted around
their ankles were slender fingers reaching from the tomb, eager to
retain them. But the children were never horrified by these strange
fancies; they felt themselves surrounded by invisible friends; they
were simply saddened and at a loss to comprehend the vague wishes and
commands of the dead.
Miette, with her feminine instincts, delighted in all dismal subjects.
Silvère had found several bones and a skull. At each new discovery
Miette was thrilled. If the bone was small, she declared it to be
that of some beautiful young girl who had died of a fever just before
her marriage. If the bone was large, she said it belonged to some
old man--a soldier--or a judge! The tombstone near the wall always
interested them. On one clear moonlight night Miette discovered some
letters on its surface. She insisted on Silvère at once removing the
moss, and then they both read the inscription:
“Cy--gist--Marie--morte--”
Miette, finding her name on this stone, was greatly troubled. Silvère
called her “a simpleton;” but she could not keep back her tears. She
said she knew she should soon die, and that this was her grave. The
young man was chilled in his turn, but he reproached the child for her
folly.
“What! Could this be she--little Miette--who was always so courageous!”
They ended by laughing together, and each determined never to say any
more about this tomb; but when the gray autumnal nights came, Miette
was the first to speak of this dead Marie, this unknown girl with whose
resting-place they were so strangely familiar.
One night Miette earnestly entreated Silvère to turn over the flat
stone and see what was underneath. He refused, saying it would be a
sacrilege, and this refusal concentrated Miette’s thoughts still more
on the dear phantom whose name she bore.
She wondered if she had died when she was just her age--
“Listen to me, Silvère,” said Miette. “When you are dead I shall come
here to die, and I should like this stone to be laid over my body.”
Silvère, with a choking in his throat, begged her to think of
something more cheerful. But both carried from this Cemetery the vague
presentiment of a short life. A voice whispered to them that they would
die before their marriage had crowned their lives.
It was undoubtedly this tomb, and the constant association with the
Cemetery, which made them talk on that cold December night, as they sat
above the road to Orchères, and watched the Insurgents marching on, of
their desire to lie together in some deep grave.
Miette slept softly, with her head on Silvère’s shoulder, and at
daybreak awoke with a start. Before them the valley lay white in the
dawn--the sun, however, was still behind the hills--along the horizon
ran a streak of light. Afar off the Viorne, like a white satin ribbon,
wound through red and yellow fields just tilled; gray masses of olive
trees, vineyards and farm-houses, stood out in the cold morning air,
and the fresh wind blew full in the faces of the children. They started
to their feet, cheered by the brightness of the morning. They looked
about with eager eyes, and listened to the ringing of the bells.
“I have slept delightfully!” cried Miette. “I dreamed you kissed me.
Did you kiss me?”
“I think it quite possible,” answered Silvère, with a laugh. “But it
was frightfully cold.”
“Yes; my feet ache.”
“Then let us run; we have at least two leagues to go.”
They hurried to the highway; but where they stood they looked back
to the rock as if to bid it farewell. But they said nothing of the
burning kiss they had there exchanged, but walked on, the young man
selecting the best and shortest roads; for he had often been sent by
his master to Orchères. They went much more than two leagues, and
Miette accused him of having made a mistake; but at last they came out
of a narrow lane directly in front of Orchères, and at the same moment
heard the outcries of a crowd, for the insurrectionary band were just
entering the town. Miette and Silvère entered with them. Never had
they seen so much enthusiasm. In the streets it was like some great
fête day. The Insurgents were met as if they were liberators. Men
embraced each other, and the women brought food and drink, and on the
door-steps stood old men who wept. The Southern character was shown
in their shouting, singing and dancing. Silvère’s ideas of death and
discouragement were set aside for the time. He had wished to fight and
sell his life as dearly as possible. Now he thought only of Victory, of
living joyfully with Miette, and of the great peace of the universal
Republic.
This fraternal reception of the inhabitants of Orchères was the
last joy of the Insurgents. The day passed in boundless hopes. The
prisoners, the Mayor, Commandant, and several others, were placed in a
large room overlooking the square. From the windows they contemplated,
with shocked surprise, the enthusiasm of the crowd.
“Would to heaven,” murmured the Commandant, leaning over the
window-sill as if it were the cushioned velvet of a box at the theatre,
“that I had two or three cannon! I would soon clear out this rabble.”
Then catching a glimpse of Miette, he addressed the Mayor:
“Look there!” he said; “look at that girl all in red. It is a positive
disgrace. They have literally brought their creatures with them. A
little more of this, and we shall see strange things.”
The Mayor shook his head, and talked about “passions unchained” and
“the darkest hour of our national history.”
“Pray be quiet, sir,” said another of the prisoners; “or you will have
us all massacred!”
The truth was, these gentlemen were treated with the greatest possible
gentleness, and given a most excellent dinner, but to cowards like most
of the prisoners, these very attentions were full of direful meaning.
They could only be treated so well that they might be tenderer and
fatter when the proper day came to eat them!
At twilight Silvère came face to face with his cousin, Dr. Pascal,
who was worshipped by all these men. He had followed them, making the
most unremitting efforts to turn them from their object. Then, as if
convinced by their arguments, he said:
“You are perhaps right, my friends; fight if you choose. I shall be
here to mend your legs and your arms.”
And all that morning he gathered specimens from the stones on the
road-side, and was quite desperate that he had not brought with him his
geologist’s hammer and his botany box. His pockets were full of stones
when he met his nephew, and he carried a bundle of green things under
his arm.
“Hallo!” he cried, as he saw Silvère. “Is that you? I thought I was the
only one of my family here.”
He uttered these words with faint sarcasm, for he could not quite
pardon his father and his Uncle Antoine. Silvère was glad to see his
cousin, for the Doctor was the only one of the Rougon family who
greeted him with any cordiality, or even spoke to him when they met in
the street. The young man seeing him with the Insurgents, and covered
with dust, naturally supposed him to be allied to the Republican cause,
and at once began to talk of the Right, of the people, of the Holy
Cause, and of the certain Victory, with boyish heat and emphasis.
Pascal listened silently, watching with a smiling face the play of
the lad’s features, as if he were studying a subject, dissecting an
enthusiasm to see what lay at the bottom.
“Upon my word!” he muttered; “you are your grandmother’s descendant,
indeed!”
And he added in a low voice, in the tone of a chemist taking notes:
“Hysteria or sincere enthusiasm. Absurd folly or sublime unselfishness.
Devil take these nerves!”
And then as if thinking aloud, he added:
“The family record is complete. It will have a hero!”
Silvère had not heard, for he was still talking of his dear Republic.
Miette was a little in advance--she did not leave her lover for a
moment. This girl, wrapped in her ruddy garments, puzzled the Doctor.
He suddenly interrupted Silvère.
“Who is that girl?” he asked.
“My wife,” answered the boy, gravely.
The Doctor opened his eyes, but as he was always timid and embarrassed
with women, he said nothing to Miette, but lifted his hat with great
courtesy as he passed her.
The night was a restless, uneasy one. The enthusiasm of the Insurgents
was passing away, and in the morning clouded faces were on every side.
Disastrous rumors were in circulation that Paris was conquered, the
Province tied hand and foot, that troops had left Marseilles and were
advancing under the orders of Colonel Masson and of the Prefect. There
was a great awakening, full of anger and despair. These men, who
were burning the evening before with patriotic fervor, were chilled
by seeing France submissively kneeling. They looked on themselves as
rebels, and they could be driven away by musket-shots like wild beasts;
and they had dreamed of a great war, the rising of a People, and a
brilliant Victory!
Then this handful of men threw away their arms in discouragement, and
sat down on the side of the highway, saying that they would there await
the balls that should lay them dead, and in that way show their faith
in Republicanism.
Although these men had now nothing before them but exile or death,
there were few desertions. They stood firmly together; it was against
their chiefs that their anger was directed. They complained of their
incapacity and of the irreparable faults they had committed. The
Insurgents were now under the command of irresolute men, and at the
mercy of the first soldiers who presented themselves.
They spent two days at Orchères, losing their time and aggravating
their situation. Their General, hesitating under the tremendous
responsibility which now devolved upon him, decided that to linger
longer at Orchères was dangerous, and about one o’clock gave the order
for departure, and led his little army to the heights of Sainte-Roure,
which was a defensible position. Sainte-Roure spreads its houses upon
the flank of a hill; behind the town enormous blocks of stone shut out
the horizon. This citadel, so to speak, is reached only by the Plaine
des Nores.
An esplanade used as a race-course, shaded by superb elms, overlooks
the plain. It was on this esplanade that the Insurgents encamped. The
night was black and lowering. A rumor of treason was buzzed about, and
at daybreak the band was passed in review. The Contingents stood in
straight lines, with their back to the plain. They were clad in all
sorts of costumes--brown coats and blue blouses, drawn around the
waist by red belts. Their arms, equally diverse, glittered in the clear
sunlight. At this moment a sentinel, who had been forgotten in the
olive-grove, ran toward them, crying.
“The soldiers! the soldiers!”
The Insurgents, greatly excited, and forgetful of all discipline, threw
themselves forward, eager to see the soldiers. The ranks were broken,
and when the troops appeared from behind the gray olives, marching down
upon them, there was a panic from one end to the other of the little
band; but in the centre a wood-cutter shouted out, waving his red
cravat as he spoke:
“Here Chavanos! Saint-Eutrope! Here Tulettes! Here Plassans!”
The villages summoned by the wood-cutter united under the elms, grouped
contrary to all rules of strategy, but ready to prevent the passage
of the soldiers. Plassans was in the centre of this heroic battalion.
Among the gray blouses and the glitter of their arms, the red pelisse
worn by Miette stood out like a large scarlet spot, or like a gaping
wound.
There was suddenly a great silence. At one of the windows of the room
where the prisoners were confined appeared a white head.
“Go back; close the shutters!” cried the Insurgents, furiously; “you
will certainly be killed.”
The shutters were closed, and not a sound was heard save the measured
tread of the soldiers as they approached.
A minute, which seemed interminable, elapsed. The soldiers were hidden
behind a rising in the ground; but soon the Insurgents saw the points
of their bayonets glittering in the sunlight, and shivering like a
field of wheat blown by the wind. Silvère thought he saw the gendarme
whose blood had stained his hands. He knew from his companions that
he had not killed the man, but that he had deprived him of the sight
of one eye. The sudden recollection of this man, of whom he had not
thought since he left Plassans, was insupportable. He wondered if it
were fear he felt. He grasped his carabine, a mist passed over his
eyes, yet he saw the bayonets slowly and steadily approaching.
Silvère turned toward Miette, who, with a flashed face, was standing
on tip-toe to see the soldiers. Nervous expectation had dilated her
nostrils; her red lips were parted over her teeth, white, like those of
a young lioness.
A quick discharge of musketry was heard. The Insurgents felt a great
wind pass over their heads, followed by a shower of green leaves, cut
off by the bullets from the branches of the elms.
A hollow noise, like that of a tree falling, induced Silvère to look
around. The stout wood-cutter, who was a head taller than any of his
companions, lay on the ground with a bullet through his forehead.
Silvère discharged his carabine, loaded and fired it again, without
stopping to take aim, and with but one idea, to kill something or
somebody. The smoke rose from among the soldiers, and the leaves
continued to fall on the Insurgents, for the soldiers fired too high.
Occasionally, above the musketry, the young man heard a long groan, a
hoarse cry, and there was a vacant spot for a moment in the little band.
For ten minutes the firing continued, and then a voice was heard.
“Save yourselves, if you can!” were the words, followed by a mad yell
of rage and the exclamations:
“Cowards! cowards!”
The General fled, and the cavalry were cutting down the sharp-shooters
on the plain.
A rough voice said that it was better to die where they were, but the
first voice repeated:
“Save yourselves, if you can!”
The men then ran away, leaping over the dead bodies, until not
more than a dozen were left, out of which number five were almost
immediately killed.
The two children did not move. As the battalion diminished, the higher
did Miette raise her flag; she held it like a huge candle straight
before her. It was riddled with shot.
When Silvère had no more cartridges in his pocket, he looked at his
carabine with a dazed sort of air. A shadow passed over his face as if
a colossal bird had brushed past his forehead. He looked up and saw
that the flag had dropped from Miette’s hands. The child with both
hands clasped against her breast, and her head thrown back, with an
expression of acute suffering, was slowly falling to the ground. She
did not utter one sound. The flag was her resting-place.
“Quick!” said Silvère, trying to lift her, “we must run!”
But she did not move; her eyes were wide open.
“You are wounded!” cried Silvère, beside himself with fear.
She did not speak. She seemed to be stifling.
He tore open her dress, but could see no wound. His eyes were blind
with tears. At last, under the left breast, he saw a tiny hole with one
single drop of blood.
“It is nothing!” he sobbed. “I will find Doctor Pascal: he will cure
you. If you could only get up. Can you not rise?”
The soldiers had ceased firing. They threw themselves now on the few
remaining rebels sword in hand. In the centre of this vacant esplanade
Miette and Silvère were alone. In utter desperation the youth tried to
lift her, but the child uttered such a sigh of pain that he laid her
gently down again.
“Speak to me!” he prayed. “Why do you say nothing?”
But she could not reply. Her fluttering hands seemed to say that it
was not her fault. Her lips were rapidly becoming pinched by the hand
of Death. Her loosened hair lay over the red folds of the flag; and
only her eyes were living--shining in her white face. Silvère sobbed.
In those great eyes he read a despairing longing for life. They said
to him that Miette was going away all alone without ever having been
his wife. They were full of reproach, and Silvère understood them only
too well. He remembered the burning kiss they had exchanged, and in
despair and agony he pressed his lips upon that virgin bosom, which he
saw for the first time. He murmured, amid his sobs:
“No, no, this is nothing. Do not speak if it hurts you. Wait a moment,
I will raise your head; and then I will try and warm your hands. They
are so cold.”
The discharge of musketry recommenced in the olive grove, but Silvère
did not hear it. Nor did he see Pascal, who came hurrying toward him
thinking he was wounded. As soon as the young man realized who it was,
he cried:
“Save her! She is wounded under the left breast! How thankful I am that
you are here! You will save her!”
At this moment a light convulsion passed over the face of the dying
girl. A dark shadow settled down upon it, and from her half open lips
came a little sigh. Her eyes, still wide open, were fixed upon the
young man.
Pascal leaned over her, and then said, in a low voice:
“She is dead.”
“Dead!” The word stunned Silvère as if it had been a clap of thunder.
“Dead! Dead!” he repeated; “it is not true! She is looking at me--you
can see yourself that she is looking at me!”
And he caught the physician by the arm, entreating him not to go
away--insisting that she was not dead, and that he must save her.
Pascal answered him affectionately:
“I cannot stay, for others need me. Believe me, the poor child is
really dead.”
“Dead!” The words resounded through the youth’s brain. Miette still
looked at him. He threw himself upon the corpse, covering it with
kisses, but the child was stiff and cold.
All at once he was overwhelmed with terror. He staggered to some little
distance and crouched on the ground, saying, over and over again:
“She is dead--but she sees me! She will never shut her eyes; she will
look at me always!”
This idea soothed the sharpness of his grief.
Meanwhile the Cavalry cut down all the fugitives--but Silvère knew
nothing of what was going on about him. He did not see his cousin, who
came to bring the carabine Silvère had thrown aside. Pascal knew it
from having seen it hanging over Aunt Dide’s chimney; but when he saw
that the boy paid no attention to him, Pascal took it away to the Hôtel
de la Mule Blanche, where the prisoners were incarcerated.
Then ensued a horrible massacre. Colonel Masson and the Prefect vainly
ordered a retreat; the soldiers were furious, and they bayoneted the
Contingents wherever they were found, and when they could see no more
enemies, they riddled the façade of the hotel with balls. The shutters
were shivered, as were the windows. Lamentable outcries were heard:
“The prisoners! The prisoners!” shouted the Prefect.
But the soldiers paid no attention to these words, and the Commandant
appeared at the window, shaken by a hurricane of indignation; by his
side was Monsieur Pierotte, one of the prisoners. There was a discharge
of musketry, and Pierotte fell dead.
Silvère and Miette still looked at each other. The young man did not
hear anything that was going on. He knew only that men were gathering
about them, and he drew the folds of the red flag over Miette’s naked
bosom.
But the contest was over. A gendarme in search of another victim,
perceiving Silvère under the trees, ran toward him; but seeing that he
was only a child, he said:
“What on earth are you doing here, boy?”
Silvère, with his eyes still on Miette, did not answer.
“The little scamp!” exclaimed the soldier; “his hands are all black
with powder. Up with you, sir; you will soon be dealt with!”
And as Silvère did not move, the gendarme perceived that the body that
lay before them was that of a woman.
“A beautiful girl!” he muttered. “It is a great pity, to be sure. But
she could not have been your mistress--you are too young.”
He jerked Silvère violently to his feet, and pulled him off as he would
have done a dog.
Silvère made no resistance, but, turning half around, kept his eyes
fixed on Miette as long as he could. He was desperate at the idea of
leaving her alone under the trees. His last look showed her to him
lying among the folds of the red flag, with her large eyes still wide
open.
CHAPTER VI.
SHREWDNESS AND COURAGE.
ROUGON, about five o’clock that same morning, ventured out from his
mother’s, whom he left asleep in her chair. He stole down to the end of
Saint-Mittre. Not a sound, nor a shadow. He went on to the Roman gate,
standing wide open. Plassans was still asleep, and might have been
taken for a Dead City. Rougon, with growing confidence, continued his
investigation. He uttered at last a long sigh of relief. The Insurgents
had vanished like a nightmare, and had abandoned Plassans. The town
was his own. Silent and confiding, he had but to stretch out his hand
and take it. He stood motionless, with folded arms, in the attitude of
a great captain on the eve of victory. Afar off, he heard the ripple
of the fountains, as the water fell into their basins. A new anxiety
assailed him. Suppose the Empire had been achieved without him! His
brow was beaded with cold perspiration at this idea. He hurried on,
hoping that Félicité would be able to give him all the details of what
had occurred.
As he turned the corner of the street, he came full in front of his
house. He rubbed his eyes. What did he see? The windows of the yellow
salon were brilliantly lighted, and a form, which he recognized as that
of his wife, was leaning from the window, and wildly gesticulating. He
could not understand what this meant, when all at once a hard something
fell at his feet. Félicité had thrown him the key of the room where he
had hidden a supply of guns. This key signified clearly that he was to
use these guns. He at once retreated, unable to divine why his wife had
prevented him from entering the house.
He went at once to find Rondier, who lived at the other end of the town
and was completely ignorant of the events of the night, but was up and
dressed, and entirely ready to march. Pierre proposed that they should
go together and see Granoux.
The servant of this gentleman was very reluctant to admit them, and
they heard the poor man saying, in a tone of piteous terror:
“Look out what you do, Catherine; the streets are infested with
brigands.”
He was in his bed-room, and had no light. When he recognized his
friends, he was relieved, but would not allow a lamp to be brought to
the room, lest it should serve as a mark for some bullet. He insisted
that the town was in the hands of the rebels, and he groaned and moaned.
“You know nothing about it,” he said; “I tried to sleep, but they made
a most infernal racket! Then I threw myself into this chair, by the
window, where I could look out. Such vile faces--such ferocious-looking
creatures! And when they passed by here they carried with them all our
best friends as prisoners, and uttered cries like cannibals.”
Rougon was delighted. He made Granoux repeat over and over again whom
he had seen in the clutches of these brigands.
“I tell you I saw them all,” said the good man, almost weeping. “It is
perfectly outrageous. I heard what they said, too, as they passed under
my window.”
Rondier calmed the old man by assuring him that the town was free.
When he learned this, and that Rougon had come in order that he should
assist in saving Plassans, he was at once filled with warlike ardor.
The three saviours deliberated, and finally decided to summon their
friends, and all meet in the room where their arms were stored. Rougon
was still disturbed by Félicité’s strange gestures, and scented some
unknown snare. Granoux, the dullest of the three, was the first to say
that some Republicans must have been left in the town.
These words were as a revelation to Rougon, who at once said to himself:
“Yes; and a Macquart is among them.”
In another hour they were in their improvised Armory. They had gone
quietly from door to door, and collected as many men as possible; but
there were only thirty-nine, all numbered, who came with disordered
dress and pale faces. The room, in which they assembled, was encumbered
with old hoops and dilapidated barrels. The guns lay in three long
boxes in the centre. A wax taper, on a bit of board, lighted this
strange scene in a dim, uncertain sort of way. When Rougon lifted
the covers off the three cases, the scene was at once sinister and
grotesque. Above the guns, whose shining barrels reflected a bluish
light, necks were elongated, and heads were bowed with a certain secret
horror, while on the walls the yellow light of the taper threw gigantic
shadows of exaggerated noses and disordered hair.
Meanwhile this reactionary band hesitated. A father spoke of his
children, and others, without offering any excuse, edged toward the
door. But two conspirators came in, and these knew that in the Hôtel
de Ville, not more than twenty of the Republicans remained. Forty-one
against twenty struck them in a favorable light. The arms were
distributed. It was Rougon who did this, and each of these men as he
took his gun, whose muzzle, on this cold December night, was like ice,
felt a great chill creep over him.
The shadows on the wall bore a grotesque resemblance to embarrassed
conscripts. Pierre closed the boxes with a sigh. He had one hundred and
nine guns there which he would most gladly have distributed. Then he
took out the cartridges, of which there were two huge hogsheads, enough
to defend Plassans against an army. They filled their pockets, and when
they had loaded their guns they stood looking at each other a moment,
their eyes full of cowardly cruelty.
They crept along the side of the houses in single file like savages,
Rougon at their head. The hour had come for him to risk his person if
he wished his plans to succeed. He carried his head high, but there was
a deadly sinking at his heart.
Suddenly the column came to an abrupt standstill. They fancied they
heard distant martial sounds, but it was only the small copper plates,
hung by chains, used by the barbers of the South as signs, rattling in
the wind.
After this halt the preservers of Plassans resumed their cautious
march, and soon reached the Hôtel de Ville, where they grouped
themselves about Rougon, deliberating once more. Opposite them the
whole façade of the Hotel was black, except one window. It was then
about seven o’clock, and day was breaking.
After a discussion of some ten minutes it was decided that they should
go to the door and investigate. Perhaps they would be able to discover
the occasion of this ominous silence. The door was partially open;
one of the investigators looked in and came back, saying that he had
seen a man sitting there asleep with a gun between his knees. Rougon
determined to take advantage of this, and crept in, snatched the gun,
and with the assistance of two of his companions bound and gagged the
man.
This first success, achieved with such adroitness, and in such profound
silence, singularly encouraged the little band, who had imagined much
slaughter and a terrible uproar.
Rougon was compelled to insist that the demonstrations of their joy
should be most quiet. They advanced slowly, and in the room on the left
they found about fifteen men asleep and snoring by the expiring light
of a lantern hung against the wall. Rougon, who had developed into a
great general, left half his men in the corridor, outside this door,
with directions not to awaken these sleepers, but to treat them with
respect, and to make them prisoners if they moved.
Our friends then proceeded to ascertain the meaning of the lighted
window they had seen from the square. It was this which troubled
Rougon, for he scented Macquart. He crept up the stairs softly,
followed by his twenty heroes.
Macquart was in the Mayor’s private room, seated in his arm-chair, and
with his elbows on the Mayor’s own desk. After the departure of the
Insurgents, he was so absolutely certain of victory that he felt he
had nothing to do but to take triumphant possession. In his eyes, this
band of three thousand men, which had passed through the town, was an
invincible army. The National Guard was dismembered, the Quartier of
the Nobles quivering with fear, and the shopkeepers in the New Quartier
had never touched a gun in their lives. They had no arms, he said to
himself, and did not even take the trouble to close the gates; and
while his men slept calmly, he waited tranquilly until daylight, when
he thought all the Republicans in the country would gather around him.
He contemplated strong Revolutionary measures--the nomination of a
Commune, of which he should be the chief; the imprisonment of the bad
patriots, and more particularly of all the people whom he disliked. The
thought of the Rougon faction vanquished--the yellow salon deserted--of
all that clique asking favors of him--gave him the sweetest joy. He
determined to issue a proclamation to the inhabitants of Plassans. He
dictated it, and when it was finished reclined in his arm-chair, and
ordered it to be read aloud before it was sent to be printed.
The Proclamation commenced thus:
“CITIZENS OF PLASSANS: The hour of your Independence has
sounded. The reign of Justice has arrived.”
A noise as the door of the room was slowly opened.
“Is that you?” asked Macquart, interrupting the reader.
There was no answer, but the door opened still further.
“Come in,” said Macquart, impatiently. “Did you find my scamp of a
brother at home?”
Then suddenly the door, which opened in the middle, flew apart and
struck against the wall on either side, a rush of armed men filled the
room, with Rougon at their head.
“The scoundrels! they have guns after all,” howled Macquart.
He tried to snatch a pair of pistols that lay on the desk, but there
were five men ready to spring at his throat. The combatants were
singularly embarrassed by their guns, which were useless to them, and
yet which they dared not lay down. In the contest Rougon’s gun went off
accidentally, filling the room with smoke: the ball crashed a superb
mirror over the chimney. This sudden report stunned everybody, and put
an end to the battle. All at once came a noise from the court-yard.
Granoux ran to the window, anxious to discover what was going on. A
voice from below called out that all was well. Granoux closed the
window, quite radiant. The truth was that the discharge of Rougon’s
gun, and the crash of the broken glass, had awakened the sleepers,
who had surrendered, seeing that resistance was impossible, and had
discharged their muskets in the air without well knowing what they did.
There are times when guns go off by themselves in the hands of cowards.
Meanwhile Rougon tied Macquart’s hands with the curtain bands, while
Macquart himself wept with rage.
“Go on,” he said. “The others will come back, and then we will settle
affairs.”
This allusion to the Insurrectionists caused a cold shiver to pass down
the backs of the victors, and Macquart watched his brother pale under
his glare of hate.
“I know some fine things,” continued Macquart. “Send me to the Assizes,
that I may tell the judge some funny stories.”
Rougon’s very lips turned pale. He was in deadly fear that Macquart
would speak, and that he should be lowered in the estimation of these
gentlemen, who had come to assist him in the salvation of Plassans.
These gentlemen drew a little aside, seeing that a stormy explanation
between the two brothers was inevitable. Rougon took a heroic
resolution. He advanced to the group and said:
“We will keep this man here. When he has reflected a little, he may be
able to give us some useful information.”
Then in a pompous voice he continued:
“I shall fulfil my duty, gentlemen. I have sworn to save this town from
anarchy, and I shall keep my word, were I even compelled in doing so to
slay my nearest relative!”
He had the air of an old Roman sacrificing his family on the altar of
his country. Granoux, much moved, pressed his hand warmly.
“I understand you,” he murmured; “you are sublime.”
Granoux then retired, leaving Pierre alone with his brother.
Rougon began:
“You did not expect me, then?” he said. “Unhappy creature! Do you
realize to what your vices and your follies have led you?”
Macquart shrugged his shoulders.
“Look here,” he answered, “you are an old rascal; he laughs best who
laughs last.”
Rougon, who could not decide what was best for him to do, pushed his
brother into a small dressing-room where the Mayor often took a nap.
This dressing-room was lighted from above, and had no other issue than
the door into the next room. It was furnished with several chairs, a
divan and a marble washstand.
Pierre locked the door after having untied his brother’s hands, and
stood outside listening.
Macquart dropped heavily on the divan, and then began to sing the
Marseillaise in a stentorian voice.
Rougon in his turn placed himself in the Mayor’s arm-chair. He sighed
and wiped his brow. What a struggle was his to conquer fortune and
honors! But the end was near. He felt it in the soft cushions among
which he lay. He mechanically touched the mahogany of the desk, and
said to himself that it was as smooth as a woman’s skin. He settled
himself more at his ease, unconsciously assuming the position in which
Macquart had sat while he listened to the reading of his proclamation.
This room, with its faded hangings and its smell of musty paper, was
to him a Holy temple. But in spite of his delight, he started at each
outburst of Macquart’s voice. The broken words--“Aristocracy à la
lanterne,”--“Down with the rich!” came to him through the door, and
disturbed his triumphant dream in a most disagreeable fashion.
Was he always to be thwarted by this man? Was he always to meet him
at each turn? His dream which had begun by showing him Plassans at
his feet, ended by the vision of a crowded court-room, where Judge
and Jury, as well as the audience, eagerly listened to the shameful
revelations of Macquart--the story of fifty thousand francs and
several others. And while he enjoyed the soft cushions of the Mayor’s
arm-chair, he saw himself hanging from a lamp-post in La Rue de la
Banne. Who would relieve him from this most inconvenient personage? At
last Antoine fell asleep, and Pierre had a few minutes of unalloyed
bliss.
From these he was aroused by two of his friends, who had just come from
the prison to which they had consigned the Insurgents. The day was
getting well on--the town would soon be all astir, and it was necessary
that they should decide on their course.
Pierre at once proceeded to read the papers which lay on the table.
“This Proclamation suits us perfectly,” he exclaimed. “We shall only
have a word or two to change.”
And in a few moments he read aloud:
“Citizens of Plassans, the hour for resistance is over. The reign of
order has returned!”
It was decided that this Proclamation should be printed, and that it
should be affixed to all the corners of the streets.
“Now listen,” said Rougon; “I am entirely ready to accept the
responsibility of my acts. My love of order is shown by what I have
done, and I consent to act as Mayor until the regular authorities can
be again established. But, lest I should be accused of ambition, I must
be assured that I am fulfilling the wishes of my fellow-citizens!”
Granoux and Rondier became quite enthusiastic. Had not their friend
rescued the town? and they recapitulated his deeds of prowess. Had not
the yellow salon been always open to the friends of power? Had not his
ears and eyes been always on the alert? Had not the idea of the dépôt
for arms originated with him? and finally on this glorious night were
not the gratitude and admiration of the Municipal Council assured?
Then Granoux spoke in praise of the modesty of his friend, whom, he
said, no one would ever accuse of ambition, and whose delicacy he could
fully comprehend.
Under all this eulogy Rougon bowed his head humbly. He murmured two
or three times: “Ah! you are going too far!” with the little gasps of
a man who is being tickled. He lay well back among his cushions, and
bowed to the right and to the left with the grace of a Prince whom a
Coup d’État will suddenly transform into an Emperor. When they were
tired of this incense they descended to stern reality. Granoux started
off to find some of the City Council, and Rougon decided to go home.
As he entered his own street he trod in a martial way, and his heels
resounded on the pavement. He held his hat in his hand, for his face
was flushed with gratified pride.
At the foot of the stairs he saw Cassonte, the man he had placed there
and bidden to stay. He was still there with his big head on his hands,
looking steadily before him with the expression of a faithful dog.
“You are waiting for me?” said Pierre. “Very well; go and say to
Monsieur Macquart that I have come home. You will find him at the
Mayor’s.”
Cassonte rose and retired with an awkward bow, to Pierre’s great
relief, who laughed as he went up the stairs, and said half aloud:
“I certainly have plenty of courage, and plenty of common-sense!”
Félicité had been up all night. He found her in her Sunday costume.
Her cap, with garnet ribbons, looked as if she expected company. In
vain had she leaned from out her window; she had heard nothing, and was
dying of curiosity.
“Well!” she exclaimed, rushing toward her husband, who, whistling
lightly, swaggered into the yellow salon. She followed him and closed
the doors behind her. She pulled an arm-chair forward, into which he
sank, saying as he did so:
“We are all right. I shall have my office.”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Is that true?” she cried, in a frenzy of delight. “I have heard
nothing. Oh! tell me all!”
She behaved as if she were fifteen, and fluttered around him like a
moth dazzled by the light. Pierre, in the effusion of his victory,
opened his heart to her entirely. He did not omit a detail, and
explained even his future projects, forgetting that according to him,
women were good for nothing, and that a man, if he wished to retain his
mastery, should always keep them in ignorance. Félicité drank in all
his words, and even made him repeat a portion of his narration, saying
she did not understand; in fact, joy had really affected her head in
such a way that there was a strange ringing in her ears. When Pierre
told her what had taken place at the Mayor’s, she burst into hysterical
laughter, and changed her seat several times; she could not sit still.
After forty years of ineffectual struggle, they had at last met with
success. She was so excited that she forgot all prudence.
“Do you know,” she cried, “that you owe all this to me? If I had
allowed you to do just as you pleased, you would have been victimized
by the Insurgents. You would have been carried off with the Mayor and
all the rest.”
And showing all her yellow teeth, she added, with a laugh--
“So much for Republics!”
But Pierre had grown very sulky.
“Hold your tongue!” he said. “You always think you foresee everything.
It was I who thought of concealing myself. Women always think they know
something about politics. Let me tell you, my old woman, if you had
managed this ship, you would have run it on a rock!”
Félicité shut her lips closely together. She had momentarily forgotten
the part she intended to play--of a good but silent fairy. She fell
into one of those dumb fits of rage which assailed her when her husband
looked down on her in a lofty sort of way. She promised herself, when
the time came, to take some revenge which would deliver Pierre to her,
bound hand and foot.
“The Receiver-General was taken prisoner, you know,” added Pierre,
quietly.
Félicité started. She was standing at the window, and looking longingly
at the Receiver’s house. She turned, and in a strange voice said:
“Do you mean that Monsieur Pierotte is arrested?”
She smiled complacently as she spoke; then a bright color suffused her
face. She was about to utter the brutal words--
“I wish the Insurgents would murder him!”
Pierre read her thoughts in her eyes.
“If some ball should chance to hit him,” he murmured, “it would smooth
out everything. He would not be turned out, and we should not be
blamed.”
But Félicité shivered. It seemed to her that if she assented to these
words, it would be like condemning a man to death. If Pierotte were
killed, he would haunt her dreams, and she would feel as if she
had killed him. She hardly dared look at the opposite windows, so
thoroughly was her joy mingled with terror.
Pierre then proceeded to lay before her all the discomforts and the
weak points of their position. He spoke of Macquart. “How on earth was
he to get rid of the rascal?”
Félicité cried:
“We can’t do everything at once! We will find some way of silencing
him.”
She moved about the room, dusting and rearranging the furniture.
Suddenly she stood still and looked at the faded hangings.
“Good heavens!” she said; “how ugly and shabby it all is! Just think of
the people who will be coming here!”
“Pshaw!” replied Pierre, in a tone of superb indifference. “It is easy
enough to change all that.”
He who the evening before held in holy regard the chairs and the
sofa, was now quite ready to jump on them if the fancy had seized
him. Félicité, with the same disdain, gave a contemptuous push to an
arm-chair that was minus a roller.
Rondier at that moment appeared. It seemed to the old lady that he
was much more deferential than usual in his manner toward herself and
Pierre. He was followed by others, and soon the salon was full. No one
yet knew the details of what had taken place in the night, and all
hurried, with their eyes starting out of their heads and smiles on
their faces, to hear the truth. These gentlemen, who had fled the night
before so precipitately at the approach of the Insurgents, now came
back like a swarm of importunate flies that had been dispersed by a
strong wind.
Rougon waited for them to speak, and watched the door with furtive
glances. For an hour there was a succession of vague congratulations
and admiring murmurs.
At last Granoux appeared. He stood for a moment on the threshold,
with his right hand thrust into the breast of his coat, endeavoring
to conceal his emotion under an affectation of great dignity. Every
one felt at once that something extraordinary was about to take place.
Granoux walked up to Rougon and extended his hand.
“My friend,” he said, “I am the bearer of the respects of the City
Council. They call you to their head until the Mayor returns. You have
saved Plassans. Men, with your intelligence and courage, are needed in
these abominable days on which we are fallen. Come--”
Granoux hesitated; for the little discourse he had arranged with so
much trouble escaped his memory. But Rougon grasped his hands and
exclaimed:
“Thanks, my dear Granoux. I am infinitely obliged to you.”
Then there were exclamations all around the room, and a mighty hubbub
and shaking of hands; but Rougon, dignified as a Judge, asked for a few
moments’ private conference with Rondier and Granoux. Business before
all else: the town was in such a critical position!
The three then retired into a corner and talked with lowered voices. It
was quickly decided that Rougon should assume the title of President of
the City Council, Granoux should be his Secretary, and Rondier would be
Commander-in-chief of the reorganized National Guards. These gentlemen
were to support each other under all and every trial.
Félicité came toward them and suddenly said:
“And Vuillet? What of him?”
The men looked at each other. No one had seen Vuillet. Rougon lifted
his eyebrows with a little air of anxiety.
“Perhaps he was carried off with the others,” he answered, meditatively.
But Félicité shook her head. Vuillet was not the kind of man to be
swallowed up so easily. She was certain that he was concocting some
mischief.
The door opened. Vuillet came in with an obsequious bow and thin lips
closely compressed. He extended his damp hand to Rougon and then to the
others. Vuillet had been, as Félicité thought, cutting his slice out of
the cake. He had seen the Insurgents through the grating of his cellar
as they marched away, carrying with them the Postmaster.
He immediately walked into that gentleman’s private office. He knew all
the employés, and told them he would assume the duties of their chief
until his return, and they need have no anxiety whatever. He proceeded
to examine the morning’s mail with concealed curiosity. He turned over
the letters, seeming to look for one in particular. Undoubtedly his new
position suited him, for in his contented mood he generously presented
one of the employés with a copy of a work that had been repressed by
the Censors.
Vuillet had a choice collection of obscene literature, which he
concealed in a deep drawer under a layer of rosaries and religious
engravings. It was he who inundated the town with photographs which
should have been burned in the Market Place. His sale of prayer-books,
however, was in no degree injured by this more lucrative business.
After some consideration, he felt that he might have been rather hasty
in the manner in which he had taken possession of the Post-Office, and
went to call on Rougon, who was growing into a most puissant individual.
“What on earth have you been about?” asked Félicité, suspiciously.
Then he told his story with many embellishments. According to him, he
had prevented the Post-Office from being pillaged.
“Stay there!” said Pierre, authoritatively, “and make yourself useful.”
This last phrase revealed the real fear of the Rougons. They dreaded
lest any should be useful but themselves. Pierre, however, felt that
there could be no serious peril to fear while Vuillet was shut up in
the Post-Office Department. But Félicité was not altogether pleased.
Rougon then proceeded to give his attentive audience an account of
the occurrences of the night. He was quite magnificent in his dramatic
rendering of the events. The distribution of the fire-arms was quite
thrilling, but the description of the march through the deserted
streets and the seizure of the Mayoralty, struck these worthy Bourgeois
with stupor.
“And you were only forty-one in number?” one said.
“Upon my word, you were very courageous,” murmured another.
These questions excited Rougon’s imagination to greater activity. He
answered every one; rehearsed the whole scene, and took all parts. He
repeated the exclamations of the Insurgents when they were surprised.
In short, he was magnificent.
Granoux burned to tell something himself--Rondier was by no means
willing to be kept entirely in the background, and both interrupted
Rougon occasionally--sometimes they all spoke at once, and disputed
with some little sharpness over the order of events.
Finally Rougon’s narration drew near its close.
“Fortunately no blood was spilled!” he said.
“But was there no firing?” asked Félicité, fearing this would be
regarded as a lame and impotent conclusion.
“Oh, yes! there were guns discharged with culpable imprudence.”
And in reply to a murmur, he continued:
“Culpable is precisely what I mean. War is cruel enough at the best,
without the useless shedding of blood. One of these balls wounded the
cheek of one of the Insurgents.”
This unexpected wound satisfied his hearers, and Rougon went on to
describe the arrest of his brother, but without naming him, simply
calling him “the Chief of the Band.”
“He leaped upon me,” he said. “I pushed aside the Mayor’s arm-chair,
and seized him by the throat. My gun was in the way, but I did not care
to lay it down. In the scuffle it went off.”
“No,” exclaimed Granoux, who had been mad to speak; “I saw it all. The
man wished to murder you. I saw his black fingers slip through your
arm. It was he who drew the trigger.”
“Is that so?” said Rougon, turning very pale.
He had not been aware of his danger at the time, and was now chilled
with fear. Granoux was not in the habit of lying, but on the day of a
great battle a man may be excused for seeing things dramatically.
“I heard the ball whistle past my ear,” said Rougon, in a low, hoarse
whisper.
There was a long silence. Every one was full of respect for this great
hero, who had heard a ball whistle past his ear. Who else among them
had had a similar experience?
Félicité believed it to be her duty to throw herself into her husband’s
arms. But Rougon gently put her aside, and ended his tale by a sentence
which is still remembered in Plassans:
“I heard the ball whistle past my ear, and it shivered the great mirror
over the mantel.”
The excitement was great. The mirror became an individual, and it was
spoken of as if it had been shot through the heart.
Finally Rougon and his two deputies announced that they must go to
the Mayor’s office. Granoux was bursting with importance, and as he
left the room, he took Rougon’s arm with the air of a great captain
exhausted by fatigue, murmuring:
“I have been on my feet for thirty-six hours, and Heaven only knows
when I shall be allowed to get to bed!”
Before Rougon went away he took Vuillet aside, and told him he must at
once publish an article, treating as they deserved the rascally band,
which had been seen in Plassans.
The habitués of the yellow salon were not now disposed to linger there
long. They were eager to publish to the world all the news they had
gathered, and quickly dispersed: Félicité from her window saw them
hurrying down the street.
It was now between ten and eleven. Plassans at last was wide awake,
and in a great state of excitement. Rumors were in circulation that
thousands of bandits had invaded the streets, and disappeared at dawn
like an army of phantoms. Some skeptics shrugged their shoulders. But
as certain details were very precise, Plassans began to believe that
a terrible misfortune had hung over them, but had not touched them.
This vague horror and mystery made even the bravest shudder. Who had
turned away the lightning? They spoke of unknown preservers--of a
little band of men, who had boldly severed the head of this Hydra, but
no one knew who these noble creatures were, until the habitués of the
yellow salon appeared in the street and disseminated the news. It went
like a train of powder, and ran from one end of the town to the other
in the shortest conceivable time. Rougon’s name was in every mouth,
accompanied with exclamations of surprise in the Ville Neuve, and with
eulogy in the old Quartier.
The idea that they were without a Sub-Prefect--without a Mayor--without
a Postmaster, without, in fact, authorities of any kind, horrified the
citizens. They could not understand how they could have slept through
events of such importance and then awakened as usual. The first stupor
over, they looked eagerly for their liberators.
Some of the Republicans shrugged their shoulders, but the small
shopkeepers, all the Conservatives in short, blessed these heroes,
whose exploits had been shrouded in darkness.
When it was known that Rougon had arrested his own brother, their
admiration knew no bounds. Allusions were made to Brutus, and this
indiscretion which he feared would do him harm, added to his glory. The
gratitude was unanimous, and Rougon was accepted as their preserver.
“Just think of it!” said those who were cowards. “They were only
forty-one of them.”
The story ran through Plassans that forty-one of the citizens had
compelled three thousand rebels to eat the dust. Some of the dwellers
in La Ville Neuve--lawyers without cases, and old military men who were
ashamed of their slumbers on that eventful night--ventured to raise a
doubt. Why were there no proofs of this hand-to-hand combat? No dead
bodies--no stains of blood? It was certainly very strange.
“But the mirror!” repeated the fanatics. “Surely you can’t deny that
the Mayor’s mirror was broken! You can go and look at it for yourself!”
And all day long, until nightfall, there was a procession of
individuals going in and out of the Mayor’s room, looking at the round
hole in the mirror, with its radiating fractures. Then one after the
other said precisely the same words: “Bless my soul! That ball had some
strength!” And they went away quite convinced.
Félicité, at her window, drank in with delight all this hum of praise
rising from the town, which at this hour was exclusively occupied with
her husband. The hour of her triumph was near at hand, and she looked
forward to grinding the town under her heel. All the past bitterness of
her life came back to her and sharpened her present enjoyment.
She left her window and walked slowly up and down the room, which
seemed to her absolutely sanctified. Was it not here that her husband
had been flattered and eulogized? Was it not here that the Bourgeois
had humbled themselves? The shabby furniture, the worn velvet and
tarnished gilding, all assumed in her eyes the aspect of the glorious
relics found on a field of battle. The plain of Austerlitz never
awakened a more profound emotion.
She went to the window once more, and seeing Aristide on the Square,
she beckoned to him; but he did not choose to answer her appeal.
She called him.
“Come up!” she said. “Your father is not here.”
Aristide came in with the air of a Prodigal son. For four years he had
not entered this room. His arm was still in a sling.
“Your hand still pains you, then?” asked his mother, half laughing.
He colored, and with some embarrassment, replied:
“Oh! it is better; it is nearly well!”
Then he turned away, not knowing what to say.
Félicité took compassion on him.
“You have heard of your father’s beautiful conduct?” she said.
He answered that the whole town was talking of it, and then his usual
confidence returned. He looked his mother full in the face, and
returned the smile with which she had inquired about his arm.
“I came to see if my father was wounded.”
“Nonsense!” answered Félicité, petulantly. “Why don’t you act as if
you had common-sense? Come forward boldly. Acknowledge that you made a
mistake in joining the Republicans. You will not be sorry if you enrol
yourself on our side.”
But Aristide protested. “Republicanism was a great idea,” he said.
“I understand you,” answered his mother, warmly. “You are afraid your
father will receive you badly; but I will arrange all that. Take my
advice; write an article which will appear to-morrow in praise of
the Coup d’État, and then come here in the evening, and you will be
received with open arms.”
And as the young man was still silent, she continued, in an earnest
tone:
“Do you not understand. Our good fortune is also yours. Do not be
silly. You are seriously compromised unless you join us at once.”
The young man made a gesture--the gesture of Cæsar passing the Rubicon.
He made no verbal engagement; but as he was about to leave, his mother
caught the end of the scarf which bound his arm.
“First, let me take off this thing! It is ridiculous, you know!”
Aristide allowed her to remove the silk scarf. He took it from her,
folded it smoothly, and placed it in his pocket. He then kissed his
mother, and said he would see her the next day.
Rougon had, in the meantime, taken formal possession of the Mayoralty.
There were but eight of the Council left--the others were in the hands
of the Insurgents. These eight gentlemen were thrown into an agony of
terror when the critical position of the town was laid clearly before
them. The municipal machine belonged to any one who understood its
workings. Rougon was by force of circumstances the absolute master of
the town--a most extraordinary crisis which could place this power in
the hands of a man of tarnished reputation, to whom twenty-four hours
before, not a person in the town would have lent one hundred francs.
Pierre’s first act was to announce the permanence of the Provisionary
Commission. Then he busied himself with the reorganization of the
National Guards. He got together about three hundred of the old men,
distributed the arms which he had stored, and over five hundred
soldiers were placed under the command of Rondier, who, when he
reviewed his little army in the Square, was made utterly miserable
by seeing that the vegetable merchants were secretly laughing. His
men were without uniforms, and their black hats, coats and guns were
singularly unharmonious. But their intentions were good. A detachment
was left at the door of the Mayoralty, and the rest were distributed at
the different doors of the city.
Rougon went to La Rue Canquoin to ask the gendarmes to remain on the
side of Law and Order. He directed the doors to be broken open, for
the Insurgents had carried away the keys. He told them that he should
call on them, if he required their services; but in the meantime all
he asked of them was inaction. The Brigadier complimented him on his
prudence. Rougon, hearing that there was a wounded man there, asked
to see him, as he thought this would tend to his popularity. He found
Rengade lying down, with his eye bandaged. He talked to him of Duty and
of many other similarly comforting things--the blind man cursing and
swearing all the time: for he knew that this wound would compel him to
leave the service. Pierre promised to send a physician to him.
“Thank you, sir,” answered Rengade; “but what would do me more good
than anything else, would be to wring the neck of the little rascal
that put out my eye. I should know him instantly. He was a pale
fellow--very young.”
Pierre remembered the blood he had seen on Silvère’s hands. He
retreated a little as if he feared that the sufferer would spring at
his throat, and shout out:
“It was your nephew who blinded me! You shall pay for it.”
And while Pierre silently cursed every member of his family connection,
he declared solemnly that if the fellow could be found he should be
punished with the extreme rigor of the law.
“No, no; you need not take the trouble, for I intend to wring his neck
for him,” answered the blind man.
The Proclamation which appeared early in the day produced an excellent
impression; and the streets until twilight offered an appearance of
general relief and restored confidence.
A report, coming from no one knew whence, was in circulation, to
the effect that the troops sent in pursuit of the Insurgents were
approaching. People straggled out on the high road, with the hope of
hearing the music, but returned greatly disappointed, having seen and
heard nothing.
Uneasiness began to be felt once more, and the members of the
Provisionary Commission were particularly disturbed. Rougon,
attributing this to the fact of their having had no dinner, sent them
off, bidding them come back at nine o’clock. He was himself about to
leave when Macquart awoke, and began to pound violently on the door of
his prison.
He declared he was hungry, and asked what time it was; and when his
brother said it was five o’clock, he grumblingly replied that his
friends ought to have been back before that hour, and they would
soon appear. Rougon sent him something to eat, and then departed,
considerably disturbed by Macquart’s persistence in speaking of the
return of the Insurgents.
In the streets his uneasiness increased. The aspect of the town seemed
to him changed. Silent shadows flitted along the sidewalks, and over
the mournful houses seemed to fall, with the twilight, a gray fear as
persistent as a fine rain. The foolish confidence felt during the day
added to this equally foolish and unreasoning terror of the night. The
inhabitants were weary to that degree, that they had hardly strength to
wonder, what reprisals the Insurgents would take. Rougon shivered with
terror as he hurried on. As he passed the Café on the corner where the
lamps were just lighted, he heard a word or two that frightened him
still more.
“You know,” said a coarse voice, “that it is thought the soldiers have
been massacred by the rebels!”
There was a horrified exclamation from many voices. Rougon was tempted
to go in, and laugh at their credulity; but as he was by no means easy
in his own mind he did not venture to do this. When he met his wife at
his own door, she reproached him for his down-heartedness, but when the
dessert was on the table she comforted him again.
“Don’t you see,” she said, “that it is a great gain to us if the
Prefect does forget us? We shall have saved the town all the same. I
should like the rebels to come back; we could receive them as they
deserve, and cover ourselves with glory. Listen to my advice: go
yourself, and close the gates of the town; then do not go to sleep all
night, but move about a good deal, and keep yourself before the public
as much as possible: it will all count in your favor later.”
Pierre returned to his colleagues considerably cheered. The members
of the Council came in one after the other, bringing panic in their
garments as we carry about the smell of rain on a stormy day. They
declared they were to be abandoned to the fury of a mob, and Pierre
promised that he would send for a regiment of soldiers the next day.
Then he told them he was about to have the gates closed. The National
Guards repaired to the gates, shut and locked them, and when they
returned, the Council seemed much relieved. Pierre told them that the
critical condition of the town made it necessary for him to remain at
his post all night, and asked if they would do the same. They rendered
a cordial assent, and about eleven o’clock all these gentlemen were
soundly sleeping in the Mayor’s arm-chairs and on his sofas.
A tall lamp on the desk lighted the strange scene. Rougon suddenly
started up and sent for Vuillet, whose promised article he remembered
not having seen.
The Librarian soon appeared, and in not the best possible humor.
“Well!” said Rougon, “where is your article?”
“Did you send for me on that account?” asked Vuillet, angrily. “The
paper itself was not issued. I really did not care to be massacred
to-morrow, if the rebels should chance to return!”
Rougon forced a smile, saying that he did not think there was much
danger of this event taking place. It was precisely to quell just such
foolish rumors that the article was required, and would have done
excellent service in a good cause.
“I dare say,” returned Vuillet; “but the best cause, it strikes me now,
is to keep one’s head on one’s shoulders. No,” he added with a sneer;
“I thought you had killed all the Insurgents, but I find you have left
too many for me to run any risk.”
Rougon, as the man left the room, sat aghast at the impertinence of
this man, who was ordinarily so humble. He could not comprehend it, but
he had no time to seek for an explanation, for Rondier entered, making
a great noise with the sabre that was fastened at his side.
All the sleepers started up, thinking it was a call to arms.
“Gentlemen,” said Rondier, “I think the Insurgents are upon us!”
These words were received in dismal silence. Rougon alone had strength
to say:
“Have you seen them?”
“No; but we hear very strange noises in the environs of the town, and
one of my men affirms that he saw mysterious fires kindled along the
mountain side.”
And as the gentlemen looked at each other with scared faces, he added:
“I am going back to my post. I am in fear of some attack. I have done
my duty and warned you.”
Rougon tried to detain him, but his efforts were useless. The Council
tore their hair. Strange noises! Mysterious fires! What a frightful
night this was! What should they do! Granoux advised the same tactics
which had served them so well the night before, that is, to hide
themselves and wait until the rebels had left Plassans, and then
emerge from their concealment and take possession of the deserted
streets. Pierre, remembering what his wife had said, told them that
Rondier could easily be mistaken, and that the best way was to see for
themselves.
The Council made a wry face at this, but when it was agreed that an
armed escort should accompany them, their courage revived. With thirty
of the National Guards they ventured into the sleeping town. They went
along the ramparts from gate to gate, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
The National Guards at the different posts asserted that they had heard
no strange sounds from outside, and when Granoux listened himself he
could distinguish nothing save the clamor of the Viorne.
Yet their anxiety was not altogether calmed, and they returned with
preoccupied minds, although they pretended to shrug their shoulders
and spoke of Rondier as a visionary. Suddenly Rougon, who wished to
reassure his friends, determined to show them the plain. He led his
little troop to the Quartier Saint-Marc, and knocked at the Hôtel
Valqueyras.
The Count had left Plassans for his château, and there was no one in
the hotel except the Marquis de Carnavant, who, since the previous
evening, had remained quietly within doors, not out of fear, but
because he was unwilling to be seen, at this decisive moment, too much
with the Rougon faction.
He was extremely curious to know what was going on in the yellow salon,
and when a valet came to tell him, in the middle of the night, that
there were some gentlemen below, who wished to see him, he could be
prudent no longer, but hurried down.
“My dear Marquis,” said Rougon, presenting the members of the Municipal
Commission, “we have a great favor to ask of you. Will you allow us to
go into the garden?”
“Certainly,” answered the astonished gentleman. “I will go with you
myself.”
And as they went the Marquis heard the reason of this extraordinary
request. The garden terminated in a terrace, which overlooked the
plain, and from this spot a limitless stretch of land was outspread
before them.
Rougon saw at once that no better post for observation could be
obtained. The National Guards remained in the background, and the
members of the Commission leaned over the parapet of the terrace.
The strange sight before them silenced them completely. Afar off, in
the valley, ran the river, between the Garrigues and La Seille, the
moonlight falling on the water. Groups of trees and sombre rocks, on
tongues of land, stretched out into this sea of light.
Granoux, though by no means of a poetical temperament, was so moved by
the serene peace of this wintry scene that he said:
“A most beautiful night, gentlemen.”
“Rondier has certainly been dreaming!” said Rougon, with some disdain.
But the Marquis had acute ears.
“Hark!” he whispered, “I hear the tocsin.”
They all leaned over the parapet and held their breath, and lightly,
with a crystal-like sound, the far-off tinkle of a bell was heard.
It was certainly the tocsin. Rougon declared it to be the bell at
Béage, a village a full league from Plassans. He said this to reassure
his colleagues.
“Listen! Listen!” interrupted the Marquis. “This time it is certainly
the bell of Saint-Maur we hear!”
This second bell was instantly followed by another, and another, until
twenty were ringing as rapidly as possible--the whole plain joined
in the desperate appeal. The Marquis, who rather enjoyed terrifying
Rougon, was quite willing to explain the cause of all this commotion.
“It means,” he said, “that the neighboring villages are mustering, and
intend to attack Plassans at daybreak.”
Granoux half closed his eyes.
“Do you see nothing down there?” he asked.
No one heard him or paid any attention to what he said, but shut their
eyes to hear better.
“Look!” he resumed, after a momentary silence. “Do you see nothing
close to the shore?”
“Yes--I see,” replied Rougon, desperately; “it is a fire--”
Another fire was lighted almost immediately opposite the other; then
a third and a fourth. Red spots appeared all along the valley, at
almost equal distances, like the lamps in a gigantic avenue. The moon,
now sinking rapidly, made these lights look like pools of blood. This
sinister illumination completed the consternation of the Council.
“Upon my life!” sneered the Marquis, “the brigands have a very pretty
system of signals!”
And he counted the fires, in order to ascertain, he said, how many men
were to fight with the brave fellows of Plassans. Rougon was disposed
to suggest doubts, and to say that the villages were simply signalling
their intention of joining the Insurgents, and had no intention of
attacking Plassans. But his hearers, by their silence, showed that
their minds were made up, and that they refused all consolation.
“I hear the Marseillaise,” said Granoux, in a despairing tone.
He was correct. A band had followed the Viorne, and, as they approached
the town, broke out with the words:
“To arms, citizens--form your ranks!”
It was really a most extraordinary night! These gentlemen spent it
with their elbows on the parapet, stiff with cold, but unable to tear
themselves from this spectacle of this vast plain, shaken by the
Marseillaise and the tocsin, and all aflame with signal fires.
Before their eyes blazed this luminous sea, and in their ears resounded
this wild clamor. They were finally unable to separate what they really
saw and heard from the work of their imagination.
On no account would they have left this place; had they turned their
backs, they would have fancied that the enemy were in hot pursuit.
Toward morning, however, when the moon had set, they were seized by a
horrible panic, fancying that invisible shadows were hiding among the
trees, ready to leap at their throats. The slightest noise they heard,
they construed into men whispering and consulting at the foot of the
terrace before scaling it.
The Marquis, as if to console them, said, in his ironical voice:
“Do not be disturbed--they will wait until daybreak!”
Rougon stormed and cursed. He felt horribly afraid. Granoux’s hair
turned white. At last day came slowly on. It was a horrible moment of
suspense to these gentlemen, for they fully expected to see an army
ranged in a line-of-battle before the town.
With extended neck and eager eyes they peered through the slowly
dissipating mists of the night. And in the vague shadows they saw
monstrous sights: the plain transformed into a lake of blood--the rocks
were dead bodies floating on its surface--the trees were battalions
of armed men! At last, when the dawn had effaced these phantoms, the
day was so cold, so pale and sad, that even the Marquis was depressed.
There were no Insurgents to be seen--the highway was clear; but the
gray valley had a cut-throat aspect. The fires were extinguished, but
the bells still sounded. About eight o’clock Rougon caught sight of a
band of men creeping along the shores of the river.
Our friends were nearly dead with cold, hunger, and fatigue. Not seeing
any immediate peril, they decided to take a few hours of repose. A
sentinel was left on the terrace with orders to warn Rondier if he saw
anything unusual. Granoux and Rougon, prostrated by the emotions of the
night, hurried to their homes. They lived near each other.
Félicité received her husband with the greatest tenderness. She called
him “poor dear,” and prophesied that all would end well; but he shook
his head. She allowed him to sleep until eleven o’clock; then, after
giving him a good breakfast, hurried him away.
At the Mayor’s room Rougon met only four of the Council. The others
sent excuses: they were really ill. Terror had taken violent possession
of the whole town, for the gentlemen who had spent the night on the
terrace of the Hôtel Valqueyras did not keep their experience a
secret, but told it to all their acquaintances with the addition of
many a dramatic incident. In fact many persons in Plassans believed
that these gentlemen had witnessed cannibals dancing and devouring
their prisoners; sorcerers stirring the caldrons, wherein simmered the
dissevered bodies of children, and an interminable file of bandits,
whose arms glittered in the mingled light of fire and moon. They
talked, too, of the bells, which sounded the alarm, as rung by hands
that were not of this world, and declared that the Insurgents had set
fire to the forests in the environs, and that all the country was
aflame.
It was Tuesday, market day at Plassans. Rondier wanted the gates thrown
open to admit the peasants with their vegetables, butter, and eggs. As
soon as the Council assembled, five in number, including the President,
it was decided that this would be most culpable imprudence, and that
the gates must be kept closed. Then Rougon decided that the public
crier must go through the streets, and proclaim the town to be in a
state of siege, and then no one could pass through the gates, either
to go out or to pass in. The gates were officially closed at mid-day,
therefore. This step, taken to reassure the public mind, only drove
people wild with terror; and nothing could be more curious than to
see this town, in the nineteenth century, in mid-day, thus bolted and
barred.
When Plassans had buckled tight its belt of ramparts, which was bolted
like a besieged fortress under fire, there was nothing more for the
inhabitants to do but to wait the progress of events. They were in
momentary expectation of hearing the firing break forth. Nothing was
known of what was going on in the outside world. For two days the
Insurgents had interrupted all communication between Plassans and the
rest of France. Around them rang the tocsin and the Marseillaise, with
its sound of a torrent let free, and the town were mad with mingled
fear and hope.
About two o’clock the report was circulated that the Coup d’État had
been a disastrous failure; that the Prince President was a prisoner
in Vincennes; that Paris was in the hands of the demagogues, and that
Marseilles, Toulon, and all the South, in fact, were in the power of
the victorious Insurrectionists, who would march on Plassans that
night, and murder the inhabitants.
A deputation waited on the Municipal Council to reproach them for
having closed the gates, which would naturally add to the irritation
of the Insurgents. Rougon lost his head, and defended his orders. They
asked him where the soldiers were that he had promised. He then told
a square lie, and declared he had promised none. The absence of this
much-talked-of regiment was, in reality, the principal cause of the
panic. The best informed people undertook to name the very spot where
these unfortunate soldiers had been massacred.
At four o’clock the Council, with Rougon at their head, were again on
the terrace at Orchères. The cold was insufferable. There was nothing
to be seen, and they agreed that it was useless to linger there.
Rondier, of course, must keep watch and guard. Poor Rondier, who had
been a member of the National Guard under Louis Philippe, accepted his
position meekly.
Pierre went home through the most unfrequented streets. He felt that
his popularity was on the wane. He heard his name at every corner, and
with it some contemptuous epithet or sneer. His wife received him in
silent consternation, for she, too, had begun to despair. Could it be
that their dream was to vanish thus? And they sat and looked at each
other in the yellow salon. The day was fading--a dark, wintry day,
which gave a dingy look to the orange paper, with its huge branches.
Never had the room looked so dingy and sordid. They were alone. Not a
soul was left of the crowd who congratulated them the evening before.
One day had seen them conquered and browbeaten, and if the following
twenty-four hours were not more propitious, their game was lost.
Félicité, who the night before had dreamed of Austerlitz, thought now
of Waterloo.
Then, as her husband said nothing, she went to the window--to the
window where she had gazed with such longing upon the house opposite.
She saw a number of persons on the Square and closed the blinds,
fearing she would be hissed, or the glass broken by missiles. She
felt that these people were looking up at her windows, and talking of
herself and her husband.
One voice was high above the others.
“I told you that the Insurgents would not ask permission of the
forty-one to return. The forty-one! What a preposterous farce it all
was!”
“There was no fighting whatever,” answered his companion. “I went
myself to see, and the court-yard, at the Mayor’s, was as clean as my
hand!”
A workman, who had timidly joined the group, added:
“It did not require much to take possession of the Mayoralty. The doors
were not even shut.”
A laugh greeted this sentence, which so encouraged the workman that he
added:
“This Rougon does not amount to much anyway.”
This insult cut Félicité to the heart. The ingratitude overwhelmed her.
She called her husband, that he, too, might read this lesson of the
instability of the masses.
“The mirror that was broken is about all that took place,” continued
the first speaker, “of any consequence, and I believe that Rougon fired
at it deliberately to make believe there had been some fray.”
Pierre uttered a low cry of pain. By-and-by, some one would say that
he had never heard a ball whistle past his ear, and there would not
be a vestige of his glory left. But this was not all. A hoary-headed
scandal-monger now narrated, with many hesitations for lack of memory,
the tale of Adelaide’s affair with the smuggler. His story aroused new
indignation, and the words, “thieves--rabble--shameless wretches!”
rose to the casement, behind which Rougon and Félicité listened with
fear and anger. Then some one uttered a few words of compassion for
Macquart. Yesterday Rougon had been looked upon as a modern Brutus,
who sacrificed his family affections on the altar of his country.
But to-day Rougon was only an adventurer, who had trampled down his
brother, and used him as a footstool to raise himself.
“You hear!” murmured Pierre. “You hear what these people say? We are
lost!”
Félicité drummed on the blind with stiffened fingers, and answered:
“Let them say what they will. If we end by being the strongest, they
will see with what wood I can warm myself. I know whence comes this
blow. It is from the Ville Neuve.”
And Madame Rougon was right. The sudden unpopularity of her husband was
due to a few lawyers who were much vexed at the importance which had
been thrust upon, or assumed by, this illiterate and almost bankrupt
merchant.
They declared that Rondier and Granoux were excellent men, who were
deceived by that rascal, Rougon. But for him Granoux would have been
Mayor _pro tem_. Nothing that Rougon had done was wise, or had
even a grain of sense in it. His closing the gates was an absolute
act of folly, and it was his fault that five members of the Council
had been taken with inflammation of the lungs in consequence of their
exposure on the terrace of the Hôtel Valqueyras.
The Republicans were considerably encouraged by this obvious
discontent, and they began to discuss the possibility of taking some
active steps.
Rougon had a happy thought.
“Was not Aristide,” he asked, “coming to-night to make peace?”
“Yes,” answered Félicité, “he promised a splendid article, but the
paper did not appear.”
Her husband interrupted her quickly.
“Is not that he, just going out of the Sub-Prefect’s?”
“Certainly it is,” cried his wife, glancing out, “and he has put the
scarf on his arm again.”
Yes, it was true, Aristide had resumed his sling. The Empire was not
established, nor were the Republicans in power; therefore he deemed it
expedient to resume his rôle of a wounded man. He crossed the Square
without looking up, and disappeared around the corner.
“No, he is not coming up,” said Félicité, bitterly. “We are low down
now, and our children desert us.”
She closed the window that she might hear no more, and when she had
lighted the lamp they dined; but their food was left on their plates:
in their discouragement they forgot to eat. They had little time to
decide on the course they should adopt. Unless Plassans was at their
feet by the next morning, they must make up their minds to see Fortune
slip from beyond their grasp.
The absolute lack of certain intelligence was the only cause of this
trouble. This Félicité, with her quick intuition, instantly perceived.
If they knew the result of the Coup d’État, they could play their
rôle with undiminished audacity, either keeping up their parts as
saviours of the town, or compel people to forget that they had made
such preposterous claims. But as they knew nothing precisely, they lost
their head at the idea of staking everything on that throw of the dice
while in this lamentable state of dense ignorance.
“And that devil of a Eugène has not written me!” cried Rougon,
despairingly, without remembering that this exclamation revealed to
his wife what he supposed to be a secret from her.
But Félicité pretended not to have heard. But she asked herself with
a sudden sinking of her heart why it was that they had not heard
from Eugène. He had kept them faithfully informed of the success of
the Bonapartist cause, and should also have hastened to announce
the triumph or defeat of Prince Louis. Simple prudence would have
counselled this. If, therefore, he was silent, it must be because
a Republican victory had consigned him to the prison at Vincennes.
Félicité shivered. Her son’s unbroken silence destroyed her last hope.
At this moment the _Gazette_ was brought in, fresh and damp.
“Is it possible,” exclaimed Pierre, “that Vuillet has issued his paper
after all!”
He hastily opened it, read the heading of an article, and sank back in
his chair.
“Read!” he said, faintly; and held the paper to Félicité.
It was a superb article--extremely severe toward the Insurgents.
Never before had so much venom and so many falsehoods fallen from one
pen! Vuillet began by describing their entrance into Plassans--“These
bandits, this scum of the earth, invaded the town,” he wrote, “drunk
with brandy, luxury and pillage.” Then he went on to say that
they terrified the populace by their savage cries and threats of
assassination.
The scene at the Hôtel de Ville and the arrest of the authorities was
an atrocious deed: they took the most respectable men by the throat,
the Mayor, the Commander of the National Guards, the Postmaster--in
fact, all the functionaries--spat in their faces, and crowned them with
thorns, so to speak.
Vuillet spoke of twenty girls in scarlet raiment. Poor little Miette
had been thus multiplied.
“And among these monsters,” he wrote, “were shameless creatures clad in
red, as if they had been rolled in the blood of the martyrs whom these
assassins had murdered and left to die on the road-side. They waved
their flags, and abandoned themselves openly to the ignoble caresses of
the entire horde!”
This was the beginning of the article, which wound up with a virulent
peroration; Vuillet asking if France would submit any longer to “these
wild beasts, who respected neither property nor people.” He made an
appeal to all brave citizens, saying that longer toleration would
be absolute encouragement, and that the Insurgents would “tear the
daughter from the mother, the wife from the arms of her husband.”
Finally, after a well-worded sentence in which he declared that God
wished these miscreants to be exterminated, he ended by these words:
“We hear that these scoundrels are again at our doors; so be it! Let
each of us take a gun and kill them, as we would dogs. I shall be
found in the first rank, glad that I have it in my power to assist in
exterminating such vermin from the earth!”
This article--a combination of Provincial heaviness and ordinary
abuse--utterly appalled Rougon.
“This is the last drop in our cup,” he murmured; “they will all believe
that I inspired this diatribe.”
“But,” said his wife, thoughtfully, “did you not tell me this morning
that he absolutely refused to attack Republicanism? You said he was
frightened and pale as death.”
“Yes, to be sure--I do not understand in the least.”
Neither did Félicité; the thought of this man, musket in hand,
patrolling the ramparts, seemed to her one of the most extraordinary
things she had ever heard of. There was certainly something underneath
which they had not got at. She felt certain that if the rebels were at
the gates of the city, Vuillet would never have uttered these threats.
“He is a bad man. I have always said so,” resumed Rougon, as he laid
down the paper. “I was altogether too good-natured in allowing him to
stay in the Post-Office.”
These words were a flash of inspiration to Félicité, who started to her
feet. She threw on a hat and shawl.
“What now?” asked her husband. “It is after nine o’clock. Are you going
out?”
“You can go to bed,” she replied. “You are tired, of course; I am not.
You can rest. Sleep while you can--I will wake you when I come back,
and we will talk then.”
She went out with an alert step, and hurried to the Post-Office. She
entered Vuillet’s private room. He started when he saw her. Never
had Vuillet been so happy as in his present position. Every letter
underwent his personal examination; he turned them all over and over,
smelt of them, rapped them lightly with his knuckles. His temptation
was as great as his pleasure, for the secrets of all Plassans were
there--secrets which involved the honor of women, the fortunes of
men--and he had but to break the seals in order to become the confidant
of the best people in town. Besides, the Librarian could sin with
impunity just at the time of which we write, for if some letters were
delayed, and if others were lost entirely, the blame would be laid at
the door of the Republicans, who had disturbed all communication. The
shutting of the gates disturbed his calculations in some degree, but it
was finally settled that the mail was to be allowed to come in.
He had unsealed several letters--those which his instinct told him
contained intelligence likely to be of use to him. These he kept in a
drawer, intending to distribute them later--after he had acquired a
reputation for courage, when all the rest of the town shook in their
shoes.
Our readers will admit that this astute being had fully understood the
situation. When Madame Rougon entered, he was turning over an immense
mass of letters and papers, apparently sorting them. He rose with his
usual obsequious smile, and drew forward a chair; his red eyelids
quivered uneasily. But Félicité did not sit down; she said, quietly,
but sternly:
“I want the letter.”
Vuillet half shut his eyes with an innocent sort of look.
“What letter, dear lady?” he asked.
“The letter you received this morning for my husband. Please be quick,
sir, as I am really in great haste.”
As he stammered and equivocated, saying that he had seen no letter, and
that it was certainly very odd, Félicité interrupted him with a certain
menace in her voice:
“The letter in question is from Paris--from my son, Eugène. You know
now, I fancy; but I will find it myself.”
She extended her hand, as if to turn over several packages of letters,
which lay on the desk. He hastily interfered, and said he would look.
The service was so very imperfect just then. Perhaps there might be a
letter for her, after all, and if there were, of course it would be
found. But he had not seen it, that was quite certain.
As he spoke he walked hastily about the room, and seemed to be looking
among all the papers. Then he opened drawers and boxes, Félicité
waiting calmly all this time.
“You are right,” he at last exclaimed, taking some papers from a box.
“Ah! these clerks, they take advantage of the present crisis to do
nothing as it ought to be done!”
Félicité took the letter and examined the seal, not appearing to be in
the least disturbed that her evident mistrust must wound her companion.
She saw at once that the envelope had been opened, for the Librarian
had fastened it with a wax that was somewhat deeper in color than the
original seal. She opened the envelope in such a way that the seal
was uninjured, as she felt that some time she might want to use this
testimony.
Eugène announced, in a few brief words, the complete success of the
Coup d’État. He announced their complete victory. Paris was conquered.
The Provinces would not dare lift a finger, and he advised his parents
to stand firm in the partial insurrection which now disturbed the
South. He told them that their fortunes were made, if they did not now
flinch.
Madame Rougon put her letter in her pocket, and then seated herself,
looking Vuillet full in his face. He pretended to be very busy, and
would not look at her.
“Listen to me, Monsieur Vuillet,” she said. “Let us lay our cards on
the table! You are making a great mistake, which will do you harm. If,
instead of opening my letters--”
He straightened himself up, pretending to be much offended; but she
calmly continued:
“I know you well; you will never acknowledge it. But it is useless to
waste words in this way. I think you would do better to be frank--”
And as he continued to talk about his honesty, she at last lost all
patience.
“Do you think me a fool?” she cried. “Have I not read your article?”
She at last induced him to admit that the thing of all others he
preferred was to have the college custom. It had been his once; but
when the Faculty discovered that he sold obscene engravings to the
pupils, he was dismissed, and came near being sent to the House of
Correction.
Félicité seemed much astonished at the modesty of his ambition. To
violate the seals of letters, to risk the galleys--merely to sell a few
dictionaries!
“Oh!” he said, in a sharp voice, “five thousand francs per annum is
not such a trifle in my eyes. I do not ask, like some people, for
impossibilities.”
She did not reply, and there was no more said about breaking open
letters. A treaty of alliance was concluded, by which Vuillet promised
to do all that they desired of him, provided the Rougons would assure
him the custom of the college. When she left him, Félicité enjoined
caution upon him, and told him that all the letters must be distributed
the next day.
She returned home with slow, thoughtful steps, and even took a longer
way that she might have more time for reflection. Under the trees she
met the Marquis de Carnavant, who had taken advantage of the night and
its darkness to roam the town without compromising himself. The clergy
of Plassans, to whom all action was abhorrent, had, since the Coup
d’État, preserved the most absolute neutrality. The Empire, in their
eyes, was a settled thing, and they only waited their time to resume,
in a new direction, their secular intrigues. The Marquis, no longer
useful as their agent, was devoured with curiosity to see how the
Rougons would come out.
“Is that you, child?” he said, as he met Félicité. “I wanted much to
see you. Your affairs are becoming considerably disturbed, are they
not?”
“Not at all; they are all I could desire,” she answered.
“I am glad to hear it; but you must tell me more than that. I must
acknowledge that I was mortally afraid for your husband and his
colleagues the other night. If you had only seen how ridiculous they
were when I pretended to discover Insurgents behind every tree in the
valley. Will you forgive me?”
“I thank you!” answered Félicité. “I wish you would do it again. Come
in some morning when I am entirely alone.”
She turned away abruptly, as if her meeting the Marquis had decided
some doubtful question in her mind. Her steps were quick and decided;
indomitable will was expressed in all her little person. She saw the
way now to avenge herself on Pierre for his secretiveness, and to hold
her pre-eminence in their home.
She found Pierre asleep. She took the candle, and, holding it in one
hand, looked at him attentively. Then she drew a chair to the side of
the bed, tore off her hat, loosened her hair, and began to sob.
“What on earth is the matter?” asked Pierre, suddenly awakened.
She did not answer; but wept more bitterly than before.
“For heaven’s sake, answer!” replied her husband, terrified by this
despair. “Where have you been? Have you seen the Insurgents?”
She shook her head and said, faintly:
“I come from the Hôtel Valqueyras. I went to ask advice from Monsieur
de Carnavant. Ah! my poor friend, all is lost!”
Pierre sat up in bed. He was very pale; his large neck was displayed by
his night-shirt, which was open at the throat. He looked like a Chinese
idol.
“The Marquis,” continued Félicité, “thinks that the Prince has
succumbed. We are ruined, and have not a cent in the world!”
As is often the case with cowards, Pierre flew into a passion. It
was all his wife’s fault--the fault of the Marquis--the fault of his
family! He himself never cared for politics, and should never have had
anything to do with them but for their bad counsel!
“I wash my hands of it all!” he cried. “You have been as silly as
possible. Would it not have been much wiser to live on our small
income, quietly? But you are never satisfied unless you rule, and you
see to what you have brought us.”
He forgot that he had been quite as eager and determined as his wife,
and abandoned himself to the relief of holding others responsible for
his failure.
“Besides,” he continued, “why is it that we have not succeeded with
our children? Eugène deserts us at the decisive moment; Aristide has
dragged us down into the mud; and all, even Pascal, have compromised us
in one way or another. He, you know, has gone after the Insurgents in
the guise of a philanthropist. Such utter stuff!”
As soon as he stopped to draw a long breath, Félicité said, softly:
“And then there is Macquart.”
“Yes, I forgot him,” answered her husband, with considerable violence;
“and the mere mention of his name drives me mad. But that is not all.
I saw little Silvère at my mother’s the other night, with his hands
covered with blood. I did not say anything to you about it at the time,
for I thought it would terrify you to know that he had put out the
eye of a gendarme. Think of seeing one of our nephews on trial in the
court-room! Ah! what a family! As to Macquart--I was nearly crazy to
break his head the other night! Yes; I--”
Félicité allowed this torrent of words to flow on uninterrupted. She
received all her husband’s reproaches with angelic sweetness, bowing
her head as if crushed by her own unworthiness. She sighed profoundly,
and at last exclaimed:
“What are we to do? Good heavens! what are we to do? We are overwhelmed
with debts--”
“And it is all your fault!” cried Pierre, loudly.
The truth was that the Rougons were in a bad way. Their hopes of
success had led them into numerous extravagances. From the beginning of
the year 1851, they had been in the habit of offering each evening to
the habitués of the yellow salon glasses of syrup, punch--cakes, and
even an occasional collation, during which the death of the Republic
was drunk. Pierre, too, had put a quarter of his capital into the fund
for the purchase of arms.
“The pastry-cook’s bill is at least one thousand francs,” continued
Félicité, in her most dulcet tones; “and we owe twice that to the
liquor-dealer. Then there is the baker and the fruiterer.”
Pierre gasped in agony. Félicité gave her last thrust:
“And then there are the ten thousand francs you gave for arms!”
“I never did!” he shouted. “I was cheated and robbed. That fool of a
Secardot did that, by telling me that the Napoleons were sure to win
the day. I merely intended to make an advance. That old scamp shall
give me back my money!”
“That he certainly will not do,” answered his wife, shrugging her
shoulders; “and when we have paid all this we shall not have a sou to
buy bread. We shall have to look out at once for some hole in the old
Quartier.”
This last phrase sounded pretty dreary. Pierre saw the hole in his
mind’s eye of which his wife spoke. It was there that he should die
after having struggled on so many years with the hope that his last
days would be his best days. He had robbed his mother uselessly,
dabbled in the vilest intrigues, and lied year after year, and for
what? The Empire would not pay his debts--this Empire which alone could
save him from ruin. He started from his bed:
“No,” he cried. “I prefer to be killed by the Insurgents! I will take a
musket and go out to meet them!”
“To be sure,” answered his wife. “You will not have far to go, for they
will be here before long, and that would be as good a way as another to
put an end to everything.”
Pierre felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his back,
and with a shiver he crawled back to bed. He pulled the sheets up over
his face and began to weep. This big man often shed tears. They flowed
from his eyes as readily as from those of a child.
Félicité expected just this, and smiled with fiendish joy at seeing him
so abased. She preserved her melancholy attitude, and the spectacle of
her resignation increased her husband’s woe.
“Speak!” he said at last; “is there really no straw to snatch?”
“None whatever,” she replied. “You have just now stated the situation
plainly. There is no one to help us. Our own children have betrayed us!”
“Let us run away from Plassans, then,” he said eagerly; “let us go
to-night.”
“Run away! My poor, dear husband, we should be the talk of the town
by to-morrow! Do you not remember that you ordered the gates locked
yourself?”
Pierre tossed about on his bed restlessly for a minute or two, and then
murmured entreatingly:
“Well, then, why can’t you think of something? You have suggested
nothing.”
Félicité looked up hastily, with a gleam of enjoyment in her eyes, and
with a gesture of indifference, replied:
“But I am so foolish, you know. You have told me a hundred times that I
knew nothing of politics.”
And as her husband relapsed into embarrassed silence, she continued
quietly:
“You kept me out of all of your affairs, you know; so how can
you expect me to advise you now? You have done all for the best,
undoubtedly, for women talk so much, and it is infinitely better that
men should steer their own barks by themselves.”
She said this in a tone of such delicate irony that her husband did not
feel the cruelty of her words. He was simply filled with remorse, and
suddenly confessed. He spoke of Eugène’s letters, explained his plans
and his conduct with the loquacity of a man who clears his conscience.
He interrupted himself constantly to ask: “What would you have done
in my place?” or “Was I not right? How could I act differently?”
Félicité would not make the smallest sign. She listened with the cold
impassibility of a judge, but in reality her enjoyment was exquisite.
She had him at last under her thumb, and she played with him as a cat
plays with a mouse.
“But wait!” exclaimed Rougon. “I will show you Eugène’s letters, and
then you will understand better.”
She caught him by the sleeve, but he broke away from her. He spread out
the letters before her, and then returning to bed, read some of them
aloud. She smiled pityingly, for her compassion was really aroused.
“Now,” he said; “what have you to say? Do you see any way of saving us
from ruin?”
She seemed to be absorbed in thought.
“You are a woman of no ordinary intelligence,” he continued,
caressingly. “I made a great mistake in not taking you at once into my
confidence.”
“Let us say no more about that,” she interrupted; “I, on the contrary,
think if you had more courage--” and as he hung on her words, she added
with a smile:
“But you must promise not to distrust me again. You will tell me
everything in future, will you not? And will you always consult me?”
He swore that he would do precisely as she said in all such matters
in future. Then Félicité went to bed, and with her lips close to her
husband’s ear, explained her plans and views.
According to her the panic was greater than ever throughout the town.
Pierre must preserve an heroic attitude among the appalled inhabitants.
As for herself, she did not believe the Insurgents were so near.
Besides, in any event, the Rougons would be recompensed, for after
they had played the rôle of preservers, that of martyrs was not to be
disdained.
Félicité was so much in earnest, and spoke with so much conviction,
that her husband, surprised at first by the simplicity of her plan,
which was mainly characterized by audacity, ended in regarding it with
the utmost approval, and promised to conform to all her wishes.
“You must not forget that it was I who saved you,” murmured the old
lady, in a coaxing voice.
They kissed each other and said good-night. But they neither of them
fell asleep, and Pierre, who lay looking at the round spot made by the
night-lamp on the ceiling, turned to his wife and said something in a
low voice.
“No, no,” murmured Félicité, with a shiver. “It would be too cruel--”
“Pshaw!” he answered. “Don’t you see we could employ Macquart, and so
get rid of him?”
Félicité seemed quite struck by this idea. She reflected, and then with
some hesitation stammered out:
“You are right, possibly. We should be very foolish to have any
scruples when it is a question of life and death. Let me attend to it.
I will go to-morrow and see Macquart, and ascertain if we can come to
any arrangements. You would quarrel with him and spoil everything.
Good-night, my poor, dear man. I think our troubles are over.”
They embraced each other again, and at last fell asleep. And on the
ceiling the circle of light flickered and winked like a huge eye
glaring down on these two persons, whose sleep was haunted by guilty
dreams.
The next day before light Félicité went to the Mayor’s, instructed by
Pierre as to where she should find Macquart. She carried in a napkin
a uniform of the National Guards. The Concierge conducted her to the
dressing-room, which was temporarily transformed into a prison cell.
Macquart had been shut up in this dressing-room for two days and two
nights, and had had ample time for reflection. At first he had been
tempted to kick down the door, hoping that his brother was in the next
room, and meaning to strangle him then, or later, if the Insurgents
should come. But as hours went on, he grew calmer in the gathering
twilight, and began to pay some attention to the luxuries surrounding
him. Monsieur Garcounet was wealthy; his tastes were delicate and
refined, and this room was exquisitely arranged. The divan was soft and
luxurious; perfumes, soaps, and pomades were on the dressing-table and
marble washstand, and the light fell softly down from above. Macquart,
in this perfume-laden air, fell asleep, thinking that “these confounded
rich people were pretty fortunate.”
He covered himself with a violet-scented sofa blanket, supported
himself on innumerable pillows, and slept until morning. When he opened
his eyes, a thread of sunlight glanced down from the window above. He
looked around the room, and came to the conclusion that he had never
before seen so comfortable a place devoted to washing. It would not
be a difficult matter, he thought, to keep himself clean with so many
little pots and vials. He thought with some bitterness of all he might
have had in this life. He wondered if he had not made a mistake, and
if it would not have been wiser to have been on good terms with the
Rougons. But he dismissed the thought. The Rougons were rascals who
had robbed him, but he was not especially vindictive, for the softness
of the cushions and the warmth of the room had soothed down his anger.
He wondered vaguely if the Insurgents had abandoned him, and if the
Republic were not a grand imposition. These Rougon people were lucky
creatures after all.
He recalled his useless infamies, his incessant warfares against the
other members of his family. As to Silvère, he did not count; he was a
foolish enthusiast, and would never amount to anything.
He himself was now alone. His wife was dead, his children had left
him, and he would die in a corner without a cent, like a dog. It
might not be too late for him to change his politics after all! As
he said this, he looked at the marble washstand, and felt a strong
desire to wash his hands with a certain paste which he saw in a crystal
box. Macquart, like all do-nothings, who are supported by their wives
and children, had all the tastes of a hair-dresser. Although he wore
patched breeches, he liked to put highly-scented oils on his head, and
passed hours at his barber’s, where they talked politics, and who gave
him a little gentle combing between two discussions. The temptation was
too strong. Macquart went to the stand; he washed his face and hands,
combed and perfumed himself. He made use of all the bottles, all the
soaps, and all the powders. But his greatest joy was in the Mayor’s
towels--they were so soft and so thick. He buried his face in them with
delight. When he was scented and pomaded and felt good from head to
foot, he threw himself again on the divan, more disposed than ever to
measures of conciliation. He felt a growing contempt for the Republic
ever since he had put his nose into the Mayor’s scent-bottles. He was
quite sure that it was time to make peace with his brother. He wondered
what he had best ask as the price of his treason. His hatred was as
great as ever, but this was one of those moments when in utter silence
and solitude one tells one’s self plain truths, and finds excuses for
one’s own cowardice and indifference. Antoine finally made up his mind
to send for his brother the next morning. But when the next morning
came, and Félicité appeared, he realized that he was needed, and at
once was on his guard.
The negotiation was long, and managed with infinite art. The two
exchanged vague complaints: Félicité, surprised at finding Antoine
quite polite after the scene that had previously taken place on Sunday
evening, assumed a tone of gentle reproach. She deplored the hatred
that divided the family; but then he had calumniated his brother in
such a way that poor Rougon was quite beside himself.
“My brother never behaved like a brother toward me,” answered Macquart,
violently. “Did he ever assist me in any way? No; he would have let me
die in my garret. At one time he seemed kindly disposed, and gave me
two hundred francs. I was then sorry that I had said any harm of him; I
went about saying that he had a good heart after all.”
This signified--
“If you had continued to furnish me with money, I would have been
charmed to aid you instead of opposing you. It is all your own fault;
you should have bought me.”
Félicité understood him so well that she replied:
“I know; you have accused us of harshness, because you fancied us
better off than we were; but you were mistaken, my poor brother; we are
really poor people, and have never been able to follow the dictates of
our hearts toward you.”
She hesitated a moment, and then went on:
“We, of course, could under certain circumstances make a sacrifice. But
we are poor--very poor.”
Macquart pricked up his ears. “I have them,” he thought. Then, without
appearing to notice the indirect offer of his sister-in-law, he went
on to recount all his various afflictions--the death of his wife, and
the flight of his children. Félicité, on her side, spoke of the crisis
through which the country was passing. She pretended that the Republic
had ruined them, and moaned over an epoch which forced one brother to
imprison another. She dropped a word or two about the galleys.
“I am not at all concerned,” answered Macquart. “I defy you all.”
She exclaimed at this.
“You do not understand,” she cried. “I said this only to show you that
we would never abandon you. I have come, my dear Antoine, to give you
the means of flight.”
They looked full in each other’s eyes before they entered on the
contest.
“What conditions do you make?” he asked, at last.
“None whatever,” was the reply.
She seated herself on the sofa by his side, and continued in a decided
voice:
“And even if after passing the frontier you should need a note of a
thousand francs, I could manage to let you have it.”
Again there was a silence.
“If the affair is straightforward and honest,” murmured Antoine, with
a contemplative air. “You know I do not care to be mixed up in any of
your manœuvres.”
“But there are no manœuvres,” answered Félicité, smiling at the
scruples of the old rascal. “Nothing could be more simple. You will
leave this room; go at once to your mother’s, and hide there until
midnight; and then you and your friends will come and recapture this
building.”
Macquart could not conceal the surprise he felt. He could not grasp the
meaning of this proposition.
“I thought,” he said, “that you were victorious.”
“It is impossible for me to stop to explain,” answered the old woman,
impatiently. “Do you accept my proposal?”
“No; I do not accept it. I wish time for reflection. I should be very
foolish to risk a fortune for a thousand francs.”
Félicité rose.
“Do as you think best,” she said, coldly. “You have really very little
perception of your position. You have seen fit to treat me as if I were
some old beggar, and when I, in my kindness, extend a helping hand to
you, you do not choose to be saved. Well, then, do as you choose. Wait
until the authorities come back. As for me, I wash my hands of it all.”
She was at the door.
“But,” he answered, imploringly, “give me some explanations, will you
not? How can I conclude a bargain without knowing more? For two days I
have heard nothing of what is going on outside. How do I know that you
are not deceiving me?”
“You are a perfect simpleton,” answered Félicité, turning at these
words. “You are very wrong in not submitting blindly to us. A thousand
francs is a very nice sum, and I should advise you to accept it.”
He still hesitated.
“But when we have taken this building again, what then?”
“Ah! that I cannot tell you,” she answered, with a smile. “There may be
a shot or two.”
He looked at her.
“Tell me,” he said, in a hoarse voice, “tell me the truth. Do you not
intend to have me shot?”
Félicité colored. She had thought certainly that a ball might do her
the great favor of disembarrassing her of Antoine, which would be to
her a clear saving of a thousand francs.
“What an idea!” she murmured. “How can you have such terrible ideas?”
She added more quietly:
“And do you accept? You fully understand, do you not?”
Macquart had fully understood. He saw that it was a trap now proposed
to him.
He understood nothing about it, which was all the more reason for his
driving a better bargain. After speaking of the Republic as a mistress
he had repudiated, he recounted the risks he ran, and ended by asking
for two thousand francs. But Félicité was firm, and they argued until
she promised to procure for him, on his return to France, a place where
he would have nothing to do, and which would be lucrative all the same.
Then the bargain was concluded. She made him put on the uniform of the
National Guards, which she had brought with her. He could walk quietly
out into the Square, and thence to his mother’s. About midnight he was
to get together all the Republicans he knew, and telling them that the
Hôtel de Ville was empty, he would lead them there at once.
Félicité gave him two hundred francs, and promised him eight hundred
more the next day. Thus it was that the Rougons risked the very last
franc they owned. When Félicité went down-stairs she waited a few
moments to see Macquart come out.
“It is all right,” said Félicité, to her husband, as she went into the
room where he sat. “It will be at midnight, you know. I wish heartily
they could be all shot. Would they not have torn us to pieces gladly
only yesterday?”
“You are right,” answered Pierre; “any one in our place would do just
the same!”
This morning, it was Wednesday, Pierre was especially careful with
his dress. His wife combed his hair, and tied his cravat. She twisted
him about, and turned him around like a child who is going to a
distribution of prizes. Then, when he was ready, she told him that he
was very satisfactory, and that he could stand his own before them
all. His big round face was deadly pale with the effort it cost him
to assume an air of dignity, and of heroic determination. She herself
accompanied him as far as the door, all the time murmuring advice in
his ear: he must not flinch, no matter how great the panic might be.
He must keep the gates more closely shut than ever.
What a day that was! The Rougons still talk of it as of a glorious and
decisive battle. Pierre went straight to the Hôtel de Ville, looking
neither to the right nor the left. He installed himself in a stately
manner as if he never intended to leave the place. He sent a note to
Rondier to signify that he had resumed the reins.
“You will watch the gates,” he wrote, knowing that these words might
become a matter of history, “I will mount guard within, and compel
the Insurgents to respect persons and property. It is now, when evil
passions rise to the surface, that good citizens should seek to stifle
them at the peril of their lives.” The style, the very faults of
orthography, added an heroic element to this note, which was antique in
its laconism.
Not one of the Provisionary Council appeared. The two who had held out
longest, and Granoux himself, remained prudently at home: of the whole
number only Rougon, in his Presidential arm-chair, remained at his
post. He did not condescend to make an attempt to bring them together;
he was there: that was quite enough. Sublime spectacle! characterized
by a local journal, at a later date as, “Courage and Duty hand in hand.”
Pierre was absolutely alone all the morning in this great building
whose high ceilings resounded with the noise of his heels. The doors
all stood wide open, and he walked from room to room with such an air
of importance that the Concierge, meeting him several times in the
corridors, saluted him with an air of respectful surprise. He was seen
at one window after another, and notwithstanding the sharp cold he even
several times emerged upon the balcony with piles of paper in his hand,
as if overwhelmed with business.
Then at midnight he made a tour of inspection through the town. He went
to the gates, spoke of a possible attack, and expressed his fears that
the Insurgents were nearer than was supposed. He relied, he said, on
the well-known courage of the National Guards--he knew they were ready
to die in defence of a good cause.
When he returned from this inspection, with the slow dignity of a man
who has set his house in order, and who has only Death to which to look
forward, he recognized the fact that all the small shop-keepers he
passed looked at him with consternation, and evident surprise that one
of themselves, a mere merchant, could have the audacity to attempt to
stand against an army.
The anxiety throughout the town was at its height. The inhabitants
were in momentary expectation of the arrival of the Insurgents. The
news of Macquart’s escape was already buzzed about. It was said that
he had been delivered by his friends, the Reds, and that he was only
waiting until night when he would set fire to the town, and murder the
inhabitants. As to the Ville Neuve, the lawyers and retired merchants,
who only the evening before had abused the yellow salon, they were
utterly surprised and dared not openly attack a man of such courage.
They contented themselves with saying that it was the sheerest folly to
brave the rebels in this way, and that this useless heroism would draw
down on Plassans greater misfortune. About three o’clock they arranged
a Deputation to wait upon Pierre, who received them with words that
were absolutely sublime.
The Deputation, after complimenting him on his patriotism, implored
him not to dream of resistance. But in a loud voice he talked of Duty
to his Country--Order and Liberty! He said he had no intention of
insisting upon any one following his example, but he intended to obey
the dictates of his heart and conscience.
“I stand alone, gentlemen,” he said; “and am therefore able to assume
all the responsibility. No one but myself will be compromised. If
there must be a victim, I offer myself, with the earnest hope that the
sacrifice of my life will save my fellow-citizens.”
A Notary, the head of the Deputation, said in reply, that Rougon was
going to certain death.
“I know it,” replied Pierre, solemnly. “I know it, and am ready!”
The gentlemen all looked at him. This “I am ready!” struck them as
being the finest thing they had ever heard. “Who was ever as brave as
that?” they asked each other.
The Notary conjured him to summon the police about him, but he answered
that the blood of these men was doubly precious at this time, and
that he would not call upon them except in the last extremity. The
Deputation slowly withdrew in a great state of excitement, and one
hour later all Plassans spoke of Rougon as a hero. A few cowards called
him a madman. Toward evening Rougon was much astonished at seeing
Granoux rush into the room. The old merchant called him “greatest of
men,” and declared that he was determined to die at his side. The “I
am ready!” had moved him to the deepest enthusiasm. Pierre was touched
by the devotion of this poor man, and determined that he should be
publicly complimented by the Prefect, which would naturally humiliate
the others who had deserted him in such a cowardly fashion. Granoux and
Rougon therefore waited the approach of night alone in the deserted
rooms of the Mayor.
At the same hour Aristide was in a great state of uneasiness, walking
up and down his room. He had read Vuillet’s article with utter
astonishment, and his father’s acts amazed him still more. He had seen
him at a window in a white cravat and black coat, and so perfectly
unmoved by the approach of danger that all his son’s preconceived ideas
were entirely upset. That the Insurgents would return victorious was
the belief of the entire town. Aristide wavered, however; he dared not
go himself to his parents, and sent Angèle, who, when she returned,
said to her husband with her little drawl:
“Your mother wishes to see you. She is not angry, but she has a look as
if she were laughing at you. She said several times that she thought
you had best put your scarf in your pocket.”
Aristide was intensely annoyed. He hurried to La Rue de Banne, ready
to make any concession demanded. His mother received him with a
disdainful smile.
“Ah! my dear boy!” she said, as soon as she saw him; “you are none too
wise, I fear!”
“How is one to know anything,” he cried, angrily, “in a place like
Plassans! I am absolutely becoming stupefied. There is never a word of
intelligence to be obtained here--it is as if one were shut up in a
prison. Ah! if I had only gone to Paris with Eugène!”
Then seeing the mocking smile on his mother’s lips, he continued:
“You have not been very kind or generous toward me, mother,” he said.
“I know perhaps more than you think. I know that my brother has kept
you thoroughly informed of what was going on, and yet you have never
given me the smallest hint that I could find useful.”
“You knew this, did you?” said Félicité, suddenly becoming very serious
and suspicious; “then you are more stupid than I supposed. Have you
been opening my letters then, like another person of my acquaintance?”
“No; I don’t do that,” answered Aristide, with great coolness; “but I
listen at doors.”
This frankness did not displease the old lady. She smiled again, and
said more gently:
“Then why is it that you have not come over to us before?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” answered the young man, somewhat
embarrassed; “I had not the most absolute faith in you. You receive
such terrible brutes: my father-in-law for example, Granoux and
others, and I did not wish to go too fast--” He hesitated, and then
went on uneasily:
“But you are certain now of the success of the Coup d’État, are you
not?”
“I!” cried Félicité, who was exasperated by her son’s doubts; “I am
sure of nothing, you know.”
“And yet you sent me word to take the scarf off my arm?”
“Of course; because all these men are laughing at you.”
Aristide, with his hands in his pockets, stood with his eyes riveted on
the branches running over the yellow paper. His mother was indignant at
seeing him hesitate.
“I return to my opinion,” she said; “you are certainly none too wise,
and yet you are offended that we did not read Eugène’s letters to you!
Why you, with your constant hesitations and uncertainties, would have
spoiled everything. You always hesitate--”
“Yes, that is true,” he said, interrupting his mother, and riveting his
eyes upon her with a cold, stern glare; “but I do not think you know me
yet. I would set fire to the town any time if I wished to warm my feet.
I am tired of eating dry bread, and I wish to make my fortune. I shall
not run any risks now, you may be sure of that.”
He uttered these words with such bitterness that his mother recognized
her own blood in this mad determination to succeed.
She said, softly:
“Your father has a great deal of courage.”
“Yes,” he answered, with a sneer; “a great deal. He has a neat head,
and reminds me of Leonidas at Thermopylæ. Was it you, mother, who
arranged his hair in that way?”
Presently he said, more gayly:
“Papa is not a man to allow himself to be killed, unless it is to his
advantage! That I know very well!”
“And you are right,” answered his mother. “You must wait until
to-morrow. I cannot say another word now. My lips are absolutely tied.”
He said no more and went away, while Félicité, looking after him from
the window, felt all her old partiality revive, and said to herself
that she could never have had the courage to allow him to leave without
giving him a hint of the truth.
For the third time in this troubled epoch, night fell on Plassans. The
town was in great fear. Every house-owner retired to his own dwelling,
and bolted the doors with great noise and ceremony. The general feeling
was that there would be no Plassans the next morning--that it would be
level with the ground, or would have ascended to heaven, in clouds of
smoke.
When Rougon went home to dinner, he found the streets absolutely
deserted. This solitude rendered him very sad and melancholy. Toward
the end of the meal his heart became so softened that he asked his
wife if it were really necessary to carry out the insurrection which
Macquart was preparing.
“Had you seen the way in which these men greeted me!” he said. “I
really can’t see the use of killing people. Can we manage our little
affairs without that?”
“What a simpleton you are!” cried Félicité, angrily. “It was all your
idea, and now you wish to draw back! I tell you, you would never do
anything without me. Go your own road. Do you think the Republicans
will spare you if they once get you in their clutches?”
Rougon returned to his self-appointed post; he sent Granoux off with
orders to send the National Guards at once to the Hôtel de Ville in
small numbers and as secretly as possible. Rondier, the Parisian
Bourgeois, who had strayed into the Provinces, received no warning,
lest he should ruin the whole affair by preaching humanity.
About eleven o’clock the court-yard was full of National Guards. Rougon
struck terror to their souls. He told them that the Republicans who
had remained at Plassans had resolved on a last desperate blow, and he
assured them that he had discovered this through his secret police.
When he had finished drawing a most sanguinary picture of the massacre
which these terrible creatures would inaugurate, he gave the order not
to utter another word, not even a whisper, and to extinguish all the
lights. He took a gun himself. All that day Rougon moved as if in a
dream. He felt as if he were simply his wife’s puppet; that she pulled
all the strings, and he had such confidence in her that he would have
allowed a rope to be placed around his neck, with the conviction that
his wife would come to the rescue at the last moment.
To increase the noise and terrify the sleeping town to a greater
degree, he bade Granoux go to the Cathedral and sound the tocsin as
soon as the first gun was fired.
In the shadow--in the dark silence of the court--the National Guards,
in anxious terror, waited--with their eyes riveted on the porch, as
eager to discharge their guns as if they expected a band of wolves.
Macquart had spent the whole day at Aunt Dide’s. He had stretched
himself on the old chest, regretting the divan of the Mayor’s. He was
eager to spend the two hundred francs which absolutely burned his
pocket, but was compelled to do it only in imagination. His mother
moved about with a pale face, and never opened her lips--stiff and
silent as an automaton. She knew nothing and cared less for the
fears which convulsed the town. She was a thousand leagues away from
Plassans, absorbed in the one idea which kept her eyes wide open and
fixed.
Antoine sent her to buy a roasted chicken from a restaurant near by;
and after he had devoured it, he said, with a sneer:
“Only people who work and know how to manage their affairs can eat
chicken! You have always wasted everything, unless, as I sometimes
believe, you are giving your savings to Silvère. He has a mistress, you
know, and if you have stored up a nice little sum for him, he will make
it fly some day.”
He laughed with brutal enjoyment. The money he had in his pocket--the
treason he was preparing--the certainty that he had sold himself at a
good price--filled him with that contentment of bad people who gloat
over the evil they do. Aunt Dide heard nothing but Silvère’s name.
“Have you seen him?” she asked, opening her lips hastily.
“Who? Silvère?” answered Antoine. “He was strolling about among the
Insurgents, with a girl all in red on his arm. If he were hit by a
stray ball, it would be a very good thing.”
The old woman looked at him strangely, and in a measured voice said:
“And why--pray?”
“Because he is so stupid!” answered Macquart, somewhat embarrassed. “I
have arranged all my affairs, and am not a child, you know.”
But Aunt Dide murmured:
“There was blood on his hands! They will kill him! His uncle will send
the gendarmes to find him!”
“What are you muttering, old woman?” asked her son. “If you have
anything to say, out with it! I prefer that people should accuse me
openly. If I talked Republicanism sometimes to the boy, it was simply
to put some common-sense notions into his head. I like Liberty, but I
don’t want it to degenerate into license; and as to Rougon, I respect
him. He has both head and courage!”
“Did he have the gun?” interrupted Aunt Dide, who could not think of
anything but Silvère.
“The gun? Oh, yes! He has Macquart’s gun, then, has he?” replied
Antoine, after glancing at the mantel where the gun usually hung. “I
think I saw it in his hands. A nice thing, too, to carry under one arm
and a girl on the other! He is an absolute fool!” And he went on to
utter some coarse pleasantries.
Aunt Dide walked away without a word.
Toward evening Antoine put on a blouse, pulled a hat over his eyes, and
went out. He went down to the old Quartier and glided into house after
house. All those strong Republicans who had not followed the Insurgents
assembled about nine o’clock in a Café, where Macquart had bade them
await his coming. When there were about fifty men assembled, he made
an incendiary address. He told them he had a personal vengeance to
satisfy--a shameful yoke to throw off--and finished by assuring them
that they could obtain possession of the Hôtel de Ville in ten minutes.
He had just left it; it was vacant. The red flag could float over the
building that very night, if they pleased. The men talked together a
little. They said to each other that the Insurgents were at the gates,
and it would not be honorable in themselves not to regain the power
which would enable them to receive their brothers with arms and gates
thrown wide open. No one distrusted Macquart. His hatred against the
Rougons, the personal vengeance of which he spoke, were securities for
his loyalty. It was agreed that all who had guns should go home at once
and seek them, and that at midnight they should all reassemble on the
Square.
But they had no balls. They decided finally that they would not load
their arms with more than powder. It was unnecessary, one said to
another, as there would be no resistance of course. Once again did
Plassans have armed men stealing along the streets. When Macquart got
his men all together, he advanced boldly. He knocked at the door, and
when the Concierge, who had been well drilled, asked what they wanted,
they threatened him so fiercely that the man, pretending to be horribly
frightened, threw the door wide open.
Then Macquart said, loudly:
“Come in, my friends.”
This was the signal agreed upon. He darted swiftly to one side, and
while the Republicans dashed forward, the darkness of the court-yard
was suddenly illuminated, and a shower of balls fell among them. The
National Guards, exasperated by waiting, eager to be delivered from
the nightmare which had weighed upon them in this dark court-yard, had
all discharged their pieces at the same moment with feverish haste.
The glare was so great that Macquart saw Rougon, in the yellow light,
taking deliberate aim at himself. He remembered Félicité’s blush, and
ran away, saying:
“That rascal means to kill me! He owes me eight hundred francs.”
Frightful outcries broke on the silence of the night. The Republicans
shouted “Treason!” and fired in their turn. A National Guard fell in
the doorway. The Republicans took to flight, shouting through the
silent streets:
“They are assassinating our brothers!”
Their despairing voices found no echo.
The defenders of Order having reloaded their pieces, rushed across the
vacant Square like madmen, and discharged their guns into every dark
doorway where the flickering shadows, thrown by a street lamp, induced
them to fancy some rebel had taken refuge. This went on for ten minutes.
The uproar burst like a thunder-bolt over the sleeping town. The
inhabitants, awakened by this infernal fusillade, started up with their
teeth chattering with fear. Nothing would have tempted them to look out
at the windows. Slowly on the air, still resounding with the musketry,
fell the sounds of the Cathedral bell sounding the tocsin with its
irregular rhythm, reminding one of some gigantic copper caldron beaten
by an angry child. This sound, which the Bourgeois had never before
heard, terrified them more than the fire-arms. And they fancied, too,
they heard the noise of cannon rattling over the pavement. They went
back to bed, and pulled the bed-clothes over their heads, making
themselves as small as possible, while their wives at their sides held
their breath in dismay.
The National Guards on the ramparts had of course also heard these
reports. They believed the Insurgents to have entered the city by some
subterranean passage, and in little bands of four and five, hurried
through the streets to discover what was going on. But Rougon sent them
back instantly with severe reproaches for deserting their posts. Filled
with consternation at this, for in their panic they had really left the
gates open and without a soul to guard them, they ran back with a most
frightful din and noise. For an hour Plassans believed that a pillaging
army was within the gates of the town. The fusillade--the tocsin--the
marching and countermarching of the National Guards--their arms which
they dragged after them like clubs, and their shouts were absolutely
appalling. Naturally all the inhabitants supposed the Insurgents to be
in possession of the town, and they lay in their beds shivering with
terror.
Granoux still sounded the tocsin which, as silence fell upon the town,
became more and more dreary. Rougon himself could bear the sobbing
notes no longer; he ran to the Cathedral, the small door of which he
found open, and the beadle standing on the sill.
“For heaven’s sake!” cried Rougon, “do stop that noise. It is like some
one crying.”
“But it is not I, sir,” answered the beadle, in a despairing tone. “It
is Monsieur Granoux, who is in the tower. I had taken out the hammer of
the bell by orders of the Curé, just to prevent the tocsin from being
rung. Monsieur Granoux would not hear reason, and he climbed up; but I
can’t imagine how the devil he makes the noise.”
Rougon hastily ascended the narrow corkscrew staircase, which led to
the bells, calling as he went:
“Enough! Enough! In the name of goodness, stop!”
When he was high up, he saw, in a ray of moonlight which streamed
through an opening, Granoux, without a hat, pounding with a great
hammer. He went at his work with a tremendous air of resolution. He
leaned back, and then came forward with wild impetus, hitting the
sonorous brass as if he wished to split it. All his stout form trembled
with earnest enthusiasm. He was like a blacksmith, hammering hot iron,
but he was a short and bald blacksmith, in a black coat.
Surprise nailed Rougon to the stairs. It was indeed a grotesque sight,
and he understood the strange sounds which had electrified the town. He
shouted to him to stop, but the other did not hear him. Rougon leaned
forward and pulled his coat. Granoux then turned and recognized him.
“Ah!” he cried, in a triumphant voice, “you heard me, then, did you?
I tried at first to make a sound with my fists, but I could not, and
fortunately I found this hammer. Let me do it a little longer.”
But Rougon tore him away. Granoux wiped his brow, and exacted a promise
from his companion that he should tell every one the next day that it
was with a simple hammer that he had made all this noise.
Toward morning Rougon thought he had best go and reassure Félicité. By
his orders, the National Guards were in the Hôtel de Ville. He had not
allowed the bodies to be removed, saying that an example was required
by the people in the old Quartier. Consequently, when he came out of
the building, he slipped on the hand of one of these murdered men, as
it lay on the edge of the sidewalk. He nearly fell. This soft hand,
which he crushed under his heel, made him sick and faint with disgust.
He strode through the deserted streets with the feeling that a bloody
fist threatened him in the rear.
“There are four lying on the ground,” he said, as he crossed his
threshold.
Then husband and wife looked at each other, stupefied at their crime.
The lamp gave a tone like yellow wax to their excessive pallor.
“You left them there?” asked Félicité. “They ought to be found there.”
“Most assuredly--I was not the one to pick them up. They lie on their
backs. I stepped on something soft--”
He put up his foot, and looked at his shoe; the heel was red with
blood! While he put on a pair of boots, Félicité resumed:
“Very well, that is settled, then! They can’t say now that you fire
only at looking-glasses!”
This fusillade, which the Rougons had arranged, that they might be
definitively accepted as the preservers of Plassans, brought the whole
town to their feet in humble gratitude.
The day was pale, gray and wintry. The inhabitants at last ventured out
from between their sheets, and as the report ran that the Insurgents
had taken flight, leaving their dead in the gutters, Plassans went
in a body to investigate. A curious crowd gathered about the four
bodies, which were horribly mutilated--one especially, had three balls
through the head; a portion of the skull was carried away, leaving
the brain naked. But the most horrible of the four was the National
Guard who had fallen under the porch. The man was well known to them.
Two of the others were hatters’ apprentices; the third was unknown.
And before the pools of red blood that stained the pavement, groups
stood, open-mouthed and as terrified as if they expected to be treated
with the same summary justice, if they did not kiss the hand which was
raised to save them from the demagogues.
The panic of the night was increased fourfold by the sight of these
bodies. The true story of this fusillade was never known. The firing
of the combatants--Granoux and his hammer--the tramping and rattling
of the National Guards through the streets, had filled the ears of the
town with such a noise that most of the citizens imagined a terrible
battle had taken place.
When the conquerors multiplied the number of their adversaries, and
spoke of five hundred, there was a general outcry; the Bourgeois
declared they had seen from their windows a dense body of Insurgents,
passing for nearly an hour. Never could five hundred men have made such
a disturbance. It was an army that had stolen into the city through
some subterranean passage. Rougon had used the phrase, “They came in
through the earth,” as a figure of speech; but it was seized upon as a
fact, for the guards at the gate swore that not a man had passed them
going out or coming in. It is true that they avoided making any mention
of their own rapid rushes through the city. The most sensible and
shrewdest persons adopted the belief that the Insurgents had entered
the town in some mysterious way. Before long a rumor of treason was in
circulation, as the men led by Macquart were not likely to hold their
tongues; but these rumors were attributed to the disappointment of the
Republicans.
It was asserted, on the other hand, that Macquart was Rougon’s
prisoner, and that he was kept in some dark hole, where he was dying of
hunger. This terrible tale caused every one to regard Rougon with more
admiration than before.
Thus it was that this stout, bleached-looking Bourgeois became a
terrible gentleman, of whom no one dared speak lightly.
He had received a baptism of blood. The dwellers in the Old Quartier
were mute with terror before the dead bodies, but about ten o’clock,
when the people from the Ville Neuve arrived, the Square resounded
with stifled exclamations. They spoke of the first attack and of the
broken mirror, but this time, with great respect, they called Rougon a
hero. The corpses, with wide open eyes, looked at these gentlemen, who
shuddered as they said that civil war was a dismal thing, and had its
sad necessities. The Notary, the man who had headed the Deputation,
went from group to group, repeating the “I am ready!” of the energetic
man to whom the safety of their town was entirely due. Those who had
jeered most loudly at the forty and one, as well as those who had
boldly stigmatized the Rougons as Insurgents and cowards, who fired
their pieces in the air, were the first to talk of the Crown of Laurel,
which should be voted to the citizen of whom Plassans would be always
proud. “For the pools of blood on the sidewalk were drying, and the
dead told of the excesses committed by the party of Disorder, Rapine
and Murder, and of the iron hand that was needed to enforce peace.”
Granoux in his turn received congratulations. The story of the hammer
was known. Only by an innocent, almost unconscious lie, he pretended,
that having been the first to see the Insurgents, he hurried to the
bell in order to sound the alarm. Without this, the National Guards
would all have been murdered.
His exploit was called “prodigious!” He was thence forward always
spoken of as “that gentleman who sounded the tocsin with a hammer.”
Although this epithet was somewhat lengthy, Granoux accepted it as
a title of nobility, and the word “hammer” was never uttered in his
presence without his regarding it as the most delicate flattery.
Just as the bodies were being carried away, Aristide came to look at
them, with cold, dispassionate eyes. With his hand, the one that the
evening before he had worn in a sling and which was now free, he opened
the blouse worn by one of the dead men to examine the wound. This
examination was a thorough one, and seemed to have been undertaken to
remove some doubt. His lips were tightly compressed, and he hurried
away to hasten the distribution of the _Independent_, in which was
a long article he had contributed.
As he traversed the streets, he remembered his mother’s word, “You will
see to-morrow.” He had indeed seen, and even his stolidity was shaken.
Meanwhile, Rougon began to find his victory somewhat of an
embarrassment. Alone in the Mayor’s private room, he listened to the
dull stormings of the crowd below, and felt it utterly impossible for
him to do what he knew to be expected of him, that was, to show himself
upon the balcony. The blood through which he had trod hung like lead
upon his feet. He asked himself what he should do until evening. His
poor head was stunned by the excitement and events of the night, and he
was literally unable to give an order, or suggest an expedient. What
would be the end? Where was Félicité dragging him? Would there be any
more people whom he would be called upon to slay? He shivered; doubts
assailed him. He saw the ramparts surrounded by an avenging army of the
Republicans, when, all at once, he heard a hoarse shout:
“The Insurgents! The Insurgents!”
He started up, and lifting a curtain looked down on the crowd running
distractedly across the Square. In a moment, as brief as a lightning
flash, he saw himself ruined and assassinated. He cursed his wife, and
cursed the entire town.
He turned and looked behind him, as if seeking some way of escape.
The crowd burst into wild applause; at the same moment there followed
shouts of joy which made the very windows rattle. Again he looked from
the windows. The women were waving their handkerchiefs, and the men
shaking hands with each other. Rougon could not understand what he saw.
It seemed to him as if his very brain were turning. The huge, silent
and deserted building weighed upon him like a nightmare.
Rougon, when he made his confessions to Félicité, was utterly unable
to say how long this season of intense suspense lasted. He could only
remember that it was a sound of steps which finally aroused him. He
expected to see men in blouses armed with pitchforks and axes; instead
of which, he beheld the City Council in black coats and with radiant
faces. Not a Member was missing. All these gentlemen had suddenly
recovered their health on the reception of the good news. Granoux threw
himself into the arms of his friend.
“The soldiers have come!” he cried; “the soldiers!”
And, in fact, a regiment, under the command of Colonel Masson and
of the Prefect of the Department, had arrived. The glitter of their
guns on the plain had been taken for the approach of the Insurgents.
Rougon’s emotion was so great that tears rolled down his cheek. He
wept. This heroic citizen wept! The City Council watched these tears
fall with respectful admiration. But Granoux fell once more on his
friend’s neck, exclaiming:
“I am so happy! You know I always speak the truth, and I am not
ashamed, gentlemen, to acknowledge that we have all been afraid--all,
except this grand creature. His courage has been absolutely sublime.
I said just now to my wife, that Rougon was a great man, and that he
ought to be decorated.”
The gentlemen went on conversing, while Rougon endeavored to collect
himself--unable to believe in this sudden triumph, he lost all control
of his voice and stammered like a child. At last he was able to speak
with the dignity befitting the solemnity of the occasion. But this
dignity was again shaken by the enthusiasm which greeted him when he
appeared on the Square. He heard the voices of the people reiterate
that it was he alone who had been unmoved by the universal panic. He
drank in this applause with the silent joy of a woman whose unexpressed
desires are at last appeased.
The Prefect and the Colonel had entered the town alone, leaving the
troops encamped on the road to Lyons. They had lost much time, having
been greatly deceived as to the route taken by the Insurgents, whom
they now knew to be at Orchères. They had come themselves to Plassans
to reassure the populace, and to publish the cruel decree which
sequestered the property of the Insurgents, and condemned to death
those who were found with arms in their hands. Colonel Masson smiled
slightly when the huge iron bolts of the Roman gate were drawn with a
frightful rattle. Rondier received these gentlemen and told them of
Rougon’s brilliant acts--of the three days’ panic, and of the glorious
victory of the preceding night. Consequently, when the Prefect entered
the room where Rougon stood, he advanced toward him with outstretched
hands, congratulated him, and implored him to continue to watch over
the town until the return of the authorities, adding that he would not
fail to report his magnificent conduct.
Notwithstanding the cold, everybody was at the windows--Félicité
leaning far out of hers at the risk of falling, and pale with joy.
Aristide had just come in with a number of the _Independent_, in
which he had declared himself squarely in favor of the Coup d’État,
which he welcomes as “the dawn of Liberty in Order, and Order in
Liberty.” He made a delicate allusion to the yellow salon and to the
great minds who reflected in silence and allowed insults to pass over
in silence, showing their true courage and heroism only in the hour of
need. He considered this last phrase especially happy. His mother was
extremely grateful, and embraced the dear boy, and placed him next her
on her sofa.
The Marquis de Carnavant was there also, eager and quietly attentive.
When the Prefect shook hands with Rougon, Félicité wept.
“See! see!” she cried to Aristide. “He pressed your father’s hand.
Look! He is still holding it!”
She glanced at all the windows which overlooked the Square, and at the
crowds of heads in each.
“How furious they must be! Look at Madame Pierotte; she is biting her
handkerchief. And the Notary’s daughters and Madame Massicot! Did you
ever see such long faces in your life? Yes, it is our turn now, good
people!”
She watched the whole scene with eager interest, her lithe body
quivering as she gazed. She interpreted the least gesture, and invented
the words she could not hear, and said half aloud that her husband
made a capital bow. Once she quite sobbed when the Prefect accorded a
word or two to Granoux, probably in reference to the hammer, for the
old merchant blushed like a young girl, and with a deprecating gesture
seemed to say that he had done only his duty.
But she was still more vexed at her husband’s foolish kindness in
introducing Monsieur Vuillet to these gentlemen. Vuillet, it is true,
kept so close to them that it was impossible for Rougon to do otherwise.
“What a manœuvrer!” muttered Félicité. “He sticks his nose in
everywhere! And now the Colonel is talking to Pierre. What can he be
saying?”
“Oh, my dear!” answered the Marquis, with delicate sarcasm, “he is only
complimenting him on having kept the gates so carefully closed!”
“My father saved the town,” said Aristide, dryly. “Have you seen the
bodies, sir?”
The Marquis made no reply. He went back to the window and dropped into
a chair with a little shrug of the shoulders, and a slightly disgusted
air.
At this moment Rougon rushed into the room, clasped his wife to his
bosom, and exclaimed:
“My best beloved!”
He could say no more. Félicité bade him embrace Aristide also, and told
him of the glorious article in the _Independent_. Pierre would
have kissed the Marquis on both cheeks had he been bidden to do so. But
his wife took him aside and gave him Eugène’s letter, which she had
put into an outer envelope. She pretended that it had just been brought
in.
He read it and held it toward her with a laugh.
“You are an absolute sorceress!” he said. “You guessed it all. Heaven
only knows what follies I should have committed without you! In future
we will go into a mutual business. Yes, you are a smart woman.”
He put his arm around her, while she exchanged a discreet smile with
the Marquis.
CHAPTER VII.
THE OLD CEMETERY.
IT was on Sunday that the troops reached Plassans and encamped in the
Faubourg, while the Prefect and the Colonel went to dine with the
Mayor. The night was dark, except that the sky in the north was lighted
with strange tawny streaks of yellow, like the copper-colored clouds
which so often herald a storm.
The reception accorded by the citizens was very timid; these soldiers
smelling of blood--hot from slaughter--passing along in the gray
twilight, silent and formidable, disgusted the crowd in the street, and
later these men told their tales of fierce reprisals and formidable
fusillades, of which the whole country has preserved the memory. The
terror of the Coup d’État had begun--that terror which kept the South
shivering through long, weary months.
Plassans in her first fright and her hatred of the Insurgents would
have welcomed these soldiers with enthusiasm, but now before this
sombre regiment the inhabitants asked themselves if they had not
committed some political sins themselves which merited a few shot.
The authorities returned in two carrioles hired at Sainte-Roure.
Their entrance was by no means triumphant. Rougon vacated the Mayor’s
arm-chair without regret. His hand was played, and he awaited his
recompense from Paris.
The following day came a letter from Eugène. Félicité had taken care to
send her son the numbers of the _Gazette_ and _Independent_
which, in a second edition, had related the battle of the night and the
arrival of the Prefect. Eugène wrote that the nomination of his father
to a most desirable position was then on the point of being signed.
“But,” he added, “I have good news for you. You will also have the
ribbon of the Legion of Honor.”
Félicité wept. Her husband decorated! Her proudest dreams had never
gone so far as that. Rougon, pale with joy, talked about giving a great
dinner, and threw to the people on the Square the very last pieces of
silver he had in the world.
“Listen to me,” he said to his wife; “we will invite Secardot. He
has bored me to death with his rosette for a long time. Then Rondier
and Granoux, for I should not be sorry for them to feel that their
money-bags will never win them the Cross. Vuillet is a skinflint, but
we will ask him, too; and you must go in person to invite the Marquis.
You know that the Colonel and the Prefect dine at the Mayor’s, who
has not invited me. He wished to show me how insignificant I was in
his eyes, I presume. If he should ask me now, I should tell him that
I, too, had friends to dinner. Order everything from the Hôtel de
Provence. We must overshadow the Mayor.”
Félicité started forth on her mission. Pierre, amid all his joy, felt
a vague uneasiness. The Coup d’État would pay all his debts. His
son Aristide bemoaned his errors, and was penitent; he had gotten
rid of Macquart; but he dreaded some escapade of Pascal’s, and was
considerably disturbed by fears for Silvère--not that he pitied him the
least in the world, but he was very unwilling that the affair of the
gendarme should come before the courts. Ah! if an intelligent bullet
had only gone through that boy’s head.
As his wife had pointed out to him that very morning, all obstacles had
fallen before him; his family had worked for his elevation, and Eugène
and Aristide, these do-nothings, whose collegiate expenses he had so
bitterly regretted, were at last paying the interest on the capital
sunk in their education; and now the thought of this miserable Silvère
must come to mar this hour of triumph.
While Félicité ran about, busy with preparations for her dinner, Pierre
decided to go and make some inquiries for Silvère, but could find out
nothing. Pascal had remained behind with the wounded. Rougon then
went to the Faubourg, where the troops were encamped, hoping to see
Macquart, and pay him the eight hundred francs, which he had gotten
together with great difficulty. But when he saw the prisoners guarded
by soldiers, with shining fire-arms in their hands, he was afraid of
compromising himself, and retreated quietly to his mother’s, intending
to send her in search of news. When he entered Adelaide’s dwelling,
night was close at hand. He saw, at first, no one but Macquart, who sat
smoking, with his brandy-bottle at his side.
“Is that you?” muttered Macquart; “I am bored to death here. Have you
brought the money?”
But Pierre did not reply. He had just perceived his son Pascal leaning
over the bed, and eagerly interrogated him. The Doctor, considerably
surprised at this anxiety, which he at first attributed to paternal
tenderness, answered quietly that the soldiers had taken him prisoner
at one time, and that he should have been shot but for the intervention
of a brave man whom he did not know. His title of Doctor was his
safety-guard, and he had come on with the Regiment. It was a great
relief to Pierre to find that he was not to be compromised in this
direction. He expressed his joy in eager words, but Pascal checked him.
“My poor grandmother is alarmingly ill,” he said. “I brought her back
this gun which she so highly valued; and see! she was lying as you see
her.”
Pierre’s eyes had now become accustomed to the darkness, and could
discern Aunt Dide lying stiff, cold and dead upon the bed. This poor
body, racked by nervous affections ever since it was rocked in the
cradle, had at last succumbed. The nerves had, so to speak, eaten away
the blood. The dull persistent work of this ardent flesh devouring
itself in tardy chastity had made of the unhappy creature a mere mass
which only a galvanic battery could move again.
She seemed to have suffered intensely, for on her face, generally
of nunlike pallor, were large red spots. The features were horribly
convulsed, and the hands clenched and buried in her clinging skirts,
which showed the emaciation of her poor body.
Rougon shrugged his shoulders in a surly way. This heart-breaking
sight was to him simply disagreeable; he had company to dinner that
day, and he did not wish to be dispirited. His mother had really been
most ungenerous and wished to annoy him--by selecting just this time to
die. He therefore answered hastily:
“Oh! I have seen her like this a hundred times. Let her rest: that is
all any one can do.”
Pascal shook his head.
“No,” he answered, gently; “this attack is like no other she has ever
had. I have studied her faithfully, and this is very different. Look at
her eyes: they have a peculiar fluidity and a strange clearness. And
look at her face: do you not see the frightful tension of the muscles?”
Then leaning over his grandmother, Pascal continued, as if speaking to
himself:
“I have seen faces like that before, but they were persons who had been
assassinated--who had died of fright. She must have had some terrible
shock.”
“But how did the attack come on?” asked Rougon, impatiently--not
knowing how to get away.
Pascal did not know; but Macquart, as he filled his glass, said he had
sent his mother to buy a bottle of Cognac. She was gone a long time,
and when she came in she fell stiff on the floor, without a word.
Macquart had carried her to the bed himself.
“The thing that astonishes me,” he said, in conclusion, “is that she
did not break the bottle.”
The Doctor thought for a minute, and said at last:
“On my way here, I heard two shots--perhaps they were shooting some of
the prisoners. If she happened to be passing at the moment, the sight
of the blood may have thrown her into this state--”
As he spoke he tried to introduce between the close-shut teeth of Aunt
Dide a few drops of a restorative which he took from a little box he
always carried about him.
Macquart asked his brother again if he had brought the money.
And Rougon, glad of this diversion, answered that he had.
Macquart, seeing that he was to be paid, now began to complain. He
understood only too late the weight and consequences of his treason,
or he would have asked five times as much. A thousand francs would not
have been too much. His children had deserted him; he was alone in the
world, and obliged to leave France; and he actually wept as he spoke of
his exile.
“Will you have the eight hundred francs?” said Rougon, impatiently, for
he was anxious to depart.
“No; I want twice that. Your wife cheated me. If she had said right out
what she expected of me, I would never have compromised myself for such
a trifle.”
Rougon dashed the eight hundred francs upon the table.
“I assure you,” he said, “that you will have no more; I beg you to
leave to-night, and if you do, I will not forget you.”
Macquart, still grumbling, pushed the table nearer the window, and
began to count the gold pieces. He rang the money on the table, and
felt of them with lingering delight; the jingling filled the room. He
interrupted himself an instant, and said:
“You promised me some sort of a position, and I should like one in some
good country town.”
“Yes, yes, I will attend to that,” answered Rougon. “Have you your
eight hundred francs?”
Macquart began to count them. The last Louis fell from his fingers when
a sudden burst of wild laughter caused him to start and look round.
Aunt Dide was sitting up in bed, with her gray hair astray upon her
shoulders, and her pale face with its crimson spots. With extended arms
and shaking head she called out, deliriously:
“The price of blood! the price of blood! I heard the gold--I heard it!
And it is they who sold him. Ah! the assassins--the wolves!”
She threw back her hair, and passed her hand over her forehead. Then
she continued:
“I have seen him ever so long; seen him with his forehead pierced by
a bullet. I have seen people taking aim at him with guns. They kept
whispering in my ear for days and weeks that they meant to shoot him,
and it killed me. Have mercy on him, good people; have mercy! He shall
never see her again--never--never! I will keep him with me always. Oh!
do not fire--it was not my fault! If you only knew--”
She struggled forward upon her knees, weeping, struggling,
imploring--extending her poor trembling hands toward some lamentable
vision that she saw in the dark shadow of the room. Then suddenly she
drew back, her eyes starting out of her head, and from her convulsed
throat escaped a hoarse, terrible cry, as if some spectacle that she
alone could see filled her with mad terror.
“Oh, the gendarme!” she said, choking and falling back on the bed,
where she rolled with long bursts of frenzied laughter.
Pascal watched her attentively. The two brothers, in great fright,
retreated to the farthest corner of the room. When Rougon heard the
word “gendarme,” he thought he understood, for ever since the death
of her lover on the frontier, Aunt Dide nourished a profound hatred
against the gendarmes and Custom House officers, whom she confounded.
“It is the story of the smuggler she is telling you,” said Macquart.
Pascal signed to him to be quiet. The dying woman struggled into a
sitting position once more, and looked around with a stupefied air, as
if she had suddenly awakened and found herself in some unknown place.
Then, with a start, she said:
“Where is the gun?”
The physician put the gun into her hands. She uttered an exclamation
of joy. She looked at it tenderly, touched it caressingly, saying in a
childish voice:
“Yes, this is it; and it is all stained with blood--fresh blood. Red
hands have touched this barrel. Oh! poor Aunt Dide!--poor Aunt Dide!”
Her sick brain took another turn.
“The gendarme was dead,” she murmured, “but he came back; I saw him
myself. Such creatures never really die!”
Suddenly, with a furious air, and pointing the gun, she advanced to her
two sons, who were crouched in a corner mute with horror. Her loosened
skirts trailed after her; her shoulders, bowed under the weight of
years, were bare and frightfully wrinkled.
“It was you who shot him!” she cried. “I heard the gold. I had but one
poor child, and they devoured him, for they are wolves. Oh! the vile
creatures! They robbed him and killed him, and live like gentlemen.
Curse them all! Curse them all!”
She sang and she laughed, and repeated these words--“Curse them all!”
with a strange musical intonation.
Pascal with tears in his eyes took her in his arms, and laid her back
upon her bed. She submitted like a child. She continued her song,
accelerating the rhythm, beating the measure on the sheets with her
withered hands.
“That is precisely what I feared,” said the physician. “She is mad. The
blow was too rude for a poor creature whose mind was already weakened
by nervous attacks. She will die in an insane asylum as her father did.”
“But what could she have seen?” asked Rougon, emerging from the corner
where he had retreated.
“I have a terrible suspicion,” answered Pascal. “I wish to say
something to you about Silvère. He is a prisoner, and there is no time
to lose, if you wish to save him.”
Pierre looked at his son, and turned very pale, as in a rapid voice, he
replied:
“I will go and see the Prefect at once, if you will promise to watch
over your grandmother until to-morrow, when we will have her taken to
the asylum at Tulettes. You, Macquart, must go to-night--”
He stammered, and tripped over his words, longing to be out in the
street again. Pascal looked from his father to his uncle, and then to
his grandmother. His instincts as a savant carried him away; he studied
the mother and the son with the attention of a naturalist, watching the
metamorphose of an insect; and he thought of this family as of a tree
which throws out its different branches, and whose bitter sap permeates
the smallest stems and twigs. He saw, as by a lightning flash, the
future of the Rougon-Macquart family, with their cowardly, hungry
instincts, baying like hounds in hot pursuit of gold.
At the sound of Silvère’s name Aunt Dide stopped speaking. She listened
a moment, and then uttered the most frightful yells. The room was now
utterly dark, and the cries of the mad woman rang as from a closed
tomb. Rougon fled in dismay.
As he left Saint-Mittre, he asked himself if it were not most unwise
to ask mercy for Silvère, from the Prefect. While deliberating on this
point he saw Aristide, who, recognizing his father from a distance,
hurried to meet him, and said a few words in a low voice. Pierre turned
pale, and looked toward the fire which the gypsies had lighted in the
distance, and then the two men disappeared through the Roman gate,
pulling up their collars to hide their faces.
“That saves me a needless walk,” muttered Rougon. “Let us go to dinner;
they are waiting for us now.”
When they arrived, the yellow salon was resplendent. Everybody was
there with the exception of the Marquis, who pretended that he was
suffering from rheumatism, and was also on the eve of a little
journey--the truth was that he had become so utterly disgusted with
these people that he could not sit down at their table, and his
relative, the Comte de Valqueyras, had asked him to pay him a long
visit at his country-seat.
This refusal from the Marquis annoyed the Rougons, but Félicité
consoled herself with the unwonted display in which she was permitted
to indulge. She hired two candelabra, and ordered two more entrées and
another course, to make amends for the absence of the Marquis. The
table, to do justice to the occasion, was laid in the salon, and the
Hôtel de Provence furnished all the glass, silver and porcelain. At
five o’clock the table was spread that the guests might be struck by
it in all its glory as soon as they entered. At either end stood, on
the white linen, two large bouquets of artificial roses in vases of
gilt-edged china, highly painted.
The little circle could not conceal the admiration aroused by this
beautiful sight. The men exchanged smiles and stealthy glances, which
meant that the Rougons were throwing their money away. The fact was
that Félicité, when she went to give her invitations, was unable to
hold her tongue. She told everybody that Pierre was to be decorated,
and also to have some fat office; and this information made them
singularly observant. It struck them as a little hard that Rougon
should bear off all the honors when they were quite ready to do as much
dirty work as he.
Those who had made the most noise and cared least for the Empire were
profoundly vexed to see that, thanks to themselves, the very poorest
among them was the one to wear the red ribbon in his button-hole! The
whole salon should, by rights, have been decorated.
“It is not that I care a sou for the decoration,” said Rondier to
Granoux, as they stood together in the embrasure of the window. “I
refused it in the time of Louis Philippe, when I was Furnisher to the
Court. Ah! Louis Philippe was a good king. France will never have
another like him!”
Rondier had actually become an Orleanist again! Then he added, with
considerable hypocrisy:
“But with you, my dear Granoux, it is vastly different. Don’t you think
a red ribbon would look as well in your button-hole as in Rougon’s?
Have not you, after all, done quite as much for the town as he?
Yesterday, I heard the whole affair discussed, and no one believed that
you could have made so much noise with a hammer!”
Granoux stammered a few words of thanks, and colored like a young girl,
as he leaned toward Rondier and whispered:
“Pray do not mention it. But I have reason to think that Rougon will
ask for the Ribbon for me.”
Rondier became very grave and extremely polite to every one. Vuillet
came toward him, and began to talk of the recompense which their
friend was to receive, and Rondier answered, loud enough to be heard
by Félicité, that men like Rougon honored the Legion of Honor. The
Librarian that morning had received the formal assurance that the
custom of the college should be restored to him.
Secardot felt that only soldiers were entitled to the Ribbon, but he
was excessively surprised at Pierre’s courage, and quietly said that
Napoleon certainly knew how to recognize merit and courage.
Rougon and Aristide were greeted with enthusiasm and outstretched
hands. Angèle sat on a sofa by the side of her mother-in-law, looking
at the table with intense delight and longing.
Secardot complimented his son-in-law on his superb article in the
_Independent_, and showed him especial cordiality.
The young man, in reply to his questions, replied that his strongest
desire was to depart with his family for Paris, where his brother
Eugène was quite ready to push him, but he could not do this for lack
of money: he needed five hundred francs. Secardot agreed to give him
this amount; and in his imagination saw his daughter received at the
court of Napoleon III.
Félicité made a little sign to her husband, and Pierre escaped for
a moment from the room. On his return he whispered to his wife that
he had found Pascal, and that Macquart would leave that night. He
lowered his voice still more as he told her of his mother’s insanity,
and bade her keep it to herself, “for it would spoil our soirée,” he
added. Husband and wife exchanged a look wherein each read the thought
of the other: that the old woman could give them no more trouble. The
smuggler’s house could now be torn down, as the Fonque walls had been,
and they would have the respect and consideration of the whole town.
But the guests began to look impatiently toward the table, and Félicité
requested them to take their seats. As each lifted his spoon Secardot
arose, and with a gesture begged for a moment’s attention.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “in the name of Society, I wish to say to our
host how glad we are that he is to be duly rewarded for his courage and
patriotism. I recognize the fact that Rougon by a direct interposition
from heaven was retained in Plassans, while those rascals dragged us
along the highways. Therefore I, with both hands, applaud the decision
of the Government. Permit me to finish. You will congratulate our
friend also on the fact that in addition to being made Chevalier of the
Legion of Honor, he is also to be appointed to a most desirable office.”
There was a little exclamation of surprise, a forced smile from some of
the guests, and many congratulations.
Secardot asked for a minute more of attention.
“I have not finished,” he said. “We are happy, however, in retaining
our friend with us owing to the death of Monsieur Pierotte.”
An exclamation ran around the table. Félicité felt a sharp contraction
of her heart. Secardot had told her of the death of the Receiver,
but this sudden and frightful death thus abruptly spoken of in the
beginning of this triumphal dinner, was like a cold blast full in her
face. She remembered her wish--it was she who had killed this man!
With a great rattle of spoons and glasses the dinner proceeded. In the
Provinces people eat much and noisily. All talked at once, and spoke of
their vanquished foes with some roughness, and of the absence of the
Marquis with a sneer. Rondier asserted that the nobleman had been in
such terror of the Insurgents that fear had given him the jaundice.
Before the dinner was over, Granoux was very red and Vuillet very pale,
but both equally tipsy. Secardot continued to drink with undiminished
energy. Angèle sipped glasses of eau sucrée after she could not eat
another mouthful.
The delight of feeling themselves out of danger, of finding themselves
in the yellow salon around a table well lighted and well spread, made
these people a trifle reckless.
The dinner, as one among them gracefully expressed it, was “a true
Lucullus feast.” Pierre’s pale face was triumphant. Félicité said
carelessly that they would very likely hire poor Pierotte’s house until
they could buy such a one as they wanted. As she talked she mentally
arranged their furniture in the house across the street.
Suddenly she started, and rising from, her chair went to Aristide and
whispered in his ear:
“And Silvère?” she said; “where is he?”
The young man, surprised by this question, started.
“He is dead,” he answered, hoarsely. “I was there when the gendarme
blew out his brains with a pistol.”
Félicité shivered. Her lips parted. She was about to ask her son why he
had not prevented the murder, but she could not speak. Aristide read
the question on her trembling lips, and murmured:
“I could say nothing, for I felt that it was a good thing, though
rather hard on him!”
This brutal frankness displeased Félicité. She knew that Aristide never
would have made this avowal if he had not been drinking, and if he had
not been exhilarated by his Parisian plans and prospects. He wavered to
and fro upon his chair. Pierre, who had watched this conversation, cast
a glance of entreaty upon his son. As Félicité returned to her chair,
she caught a glimpse through the closed window of a candle burning on
the other side of the street. The candle was at the head of Monsieur
Pierotte’s coffin. His body had been brought home that morning.
She took her seat, and felt the heat of this candle scorching her
shoulders. At this moment the dessert was brought in, eliciting cries
of enthusiasm.
The return of the troops, after the carnage on the Plaine des Nores,
was characterized by the most hideous reprisals. Men were shot down
from behind the walls; others were sent tumbling to the bottom of a
ravine by the deliberate aim of a gendarme, and the dead were strewn on
either side of the highway. The troops could have been followed by the
tracks of blood they left behind them. At each halt they massacred a
few Insurgents: two were killed at Sainte-Roure; three at Orchères, and
one at Béage.
At Plassans they proposed to shoot one or more of the prisoners, that
the town might feel a proper respect for the new-born Empire. But the
soldiers were many of them weary of slaughter, and no one moved. The
prisoners, tied hand and foot, listened and waited in a sort of stupor.
At this moment, Rengade, the gendarme whose eye Silvère had put out,
approached. As soon as he heard of the arrival of the soldiers and
that they had with them a hundred or more prisoners, he started up,
shivering with fever, and at the risk of his life went out into the
cold and darkness of the wintry night. His wound reopened. The bandage
which covered his empty orbit was stained with blood, and drops ran
down upon his cheek and moustache.
He ran from prisoner to prisoner, looking in each shrinking face, for
he was a most appalling sight; suddenly he cried:
“I have him! I have him!”
He laid his hand on Silvère’s shoulder.
The boy was looking out into vacancy--seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
Ever since they left Sainte-Roure he had had this same stunned
expression. He had obeyed each order given with the docility of a
child. Covered with dust, he toiled on like a patient animal driven by
a shepherd. His thoughts were with Miette. He saw her lying upon the
flag under the tree, with her eyes wide open to the sky. For three days
he had seen only this, and now in the gathering darkness he saw her
still.
Rengade turned to the officer, who could not induce any of his men to
volunteer to carry out the execution he proposed.
“This fellow put out my eye,” he said. “Give him to me.”
The officer made no reply, but walked off with an indifferent air. The
gendarme understood at once that he could do as he pleased.
“Get up!” he said, shaking the lad.
Silvère, like all the other prisoners, was chained to a companion. He
was attached to a peasant--a man from Ponjols, named Mourgue--a man of
fifty, of whom hot suns and hard work had made a mere brute. He was
much bent, and his hands were stiff; his face utterly stolid, except
for a certain fashion of working his eyes, which had a cautious, timid
expression in them like that of a beaten hound.
He had left home with his pitchfork over his shoulder only because all
the other peasants did, and could have given no other reason why he was
on the high road. Why he was taken prisoner, he understood still less.
He had a vague notion that he was being taken to his home. All the
terrible sights he had seen, the curiosity with which he was regarded,
brutalized him still more. He did not speak, for no one understood his
patois, and had no idea what the gendarme had said or wanted.
Fancying, however, that it might be the name of his village, he lifted
his dull face and said, in guttural tones:
“I am from Panjols.”
A loud laugh followed this, mingled with cries:
“Loosen the peasant! Let him loose, I say!”
“Pshaw!” answered Rengade, “the more of these vermin we tread under our
heels the better! As long as they are together, they may as well go off
together!”
There was a murmur.
The gendarme turned his terrible face toward the disapproving crowd,
and they scattered.
A dapper little tradesman hastily withdrew, saying that if he stayed
another minute, he should be too sick to eat his dinner. Somebody,
who recognized Silvère, said something about the girl in red; then
the little tradesman came back for a closer inspection of the lover
of the girl with the flag--of the creature he had read about in the
_Gazette_.
Silvère neither saw nor heard. Rengade took him by the collar and
pulled him up--Mourgue, of course, with him.
“Come,” said the gendarme, whom Silvère at last recognized.
The boy quickly turned his head aside. The sight was a cruel shock to
him, and he shrank from the one eye of this man, which glittered below
the folds of linen.
Silvère walked directly toward Saint-Mittre, Rengade rather following
than leading. The field lay desolate under the yellow sky, whose copper
clouds cast a strange and lurid light upon the scene. Never had the
spot been so utterly dreary. The tall trestle in the corner suggested
a guillotine, and no living thing was to be seen except three gypsies,
who with wild eyes thrust their hands from out their cart. They were an
old man and woman, and a young girl whose eyes shone like those of a
hungry wolf.
Silvère looked down toward the well-known path. He remembered a far-off
Sunday when, on a beautiful moonlight night, he had trodden it. How
sweet it was then! How clearly the pale rays brought out each twig! Now
how cold and ghastly it was! The gypsy girl sang a strange melody in an
unknown tongue. Then Silvère remembered that this far-away Sunday was
not more than a week old, and that he had then come to say farewell to
Miette. It seemed to him years since his feet had trod that familiar
path, and when they turned into the narrow alley his heart failed him.
He recognized the odor of the grass, the shadow of each plant, and the
holes in the wall. A wail seemed to fill the air, ascending from all
these well-known objects.
The alley seemed to stretch away as if it were miles long. He felt the
wind blow cold and damp upon him. The corner had grown strangely old.
He saw the wall rusty with moss; the turf ruined by the frost; the
piles of boards mouldy with dampness: it was desolation. The yellow
twilight fell like a fine dust over the ruins of all his hopes. He
closed his eyes. He saw the alley green and fresh again; it was warm,
and he was there with Miette. Then came December rains, cold and raw;
but they were still there, and, sheltered by the boards, listened with
delight to the roar of the shower.
In one brief moment he lived over all his life. Miette jumped over the
wall and ran toward him, laughing as she came. He could see her now in
the dim shadow, and could hear her talk of the birds’ nests, and the
trees she could climb. Then he caught the soft murmur of the river, the
hum of the locusts, and the wind that sighed through the poplars in the
Sainte-Claire meadows. How they ran! and how utterly out of breath they
were!
He remembered it all. She had learned to swim in two weeks. She was a
brave child, with only one fault: she would take the fruit, and he had
lectured her. The recollection of their first caresses brought him back
to Saint-Mittre. He heard the clocks striking and the closing of the
shutters in the houses near by, and saw the last gleam of the expiring
embers of the gypsy’s fire. It was time for Miette to go. She kissed
her hand to him from the wall. He should not see her again--never,
never again. A terrible pang tore his heart.
“Come,” sneered the blind man, “choose your own place.”
Silvère went on a little farther. He was nearly at the end of the
alley, and could see a narrow streak of copper-colored sky. There for
two years he had spent the better part of his life. The slow approach
of death was ineffably sweet to him. He delayed, and said adieu to each
thing he loved--to the grass, and to the stones of the old wall--to
all of which Miette had given so much of her vivid personality, and his
thoughts wandered once more. They were only waiting until they were old
enough to marry. Aunt Dide would have lived with them.
Ah! if they had but fled to some distant village where the vagabonds
of the Quartier could not have flung in Miette’s face the crime of her
father! What happy peace theirs might have been! He would have opened
a blacksmith’s shop on the edge of some well-travelled road. His old
ambition was gone; he cared no more for the showy carriages, but in
the confusion of his thoughts he could not recall why his dream of
felicity would never be realized. Why should he not yet go away with
Miette and Aunt Dide? Suddenly he remembered the fusillade: he saw a
flag droop before him, rushing against his cheek like the wings of some
gigantic bird broken in its flight. It was the Republic, which lay
stiff and stark by Miette’s side under that red flag. They were both
dead. Both had wounds in their breasts from which the life-blood was
slowly welling. His two loves died at one blow, and now he was ready to
die too. He saw himself again kneeling at the side of his beloved dead
under the trees, amid the smoke of the powder.
But the blind man was becoming impatient.
“Come on,” he said. “I am tired of this.”
Silvère started. He looked down at his feet. A fragment of a skull lay
whitening in the grass. He fancied that the alley was full of voices.
The dead were calling him--the old dead--those whose hot breaths,
during those July evenings, had troubled him and his sweetheart so
strangely. He knew their voices; he heard them say that Miette should
be his once more in some place under the earth more secluded even than
their old trysting-place.
The Cemetery, which had sought to fill the hearts of the two children
with keen desire, now seemed eager to drink Silvère’s warm blood.
“Is this the place?” asked the blind man.
The young man looked about him: they had reached the end of the alley.
He saw the flat tomb and started. Miette was right: that stone was for
her.
“Cy--gist--Marie--Morte.”
She was dead. He leaned against the stone; it was the very spot which
her feet first touched as she came over the wall.
The gendarme loaded his pistol.
The thought of dying pleased Silvère. He had longed for death as he
marched on that dusty highway. Had he known where Death would find
him, the knowledge would have given wings to his feet. To die on this
stone, to die in this alley, which seemed to him pervaded by Miette’s
presence, was a consolation for which he had not dared to hope. Heaven
was very good! He waited with a vague smile. The peasant had seen the
pistols--until then he had no interest in where they were going. Now,
filled with terror, he threw himself at the feet of the gendarme,
repeating over and over again:
“I am from Ponjols! I am from Ponjols!”
He apparently thought that he was taken for some one else.
“What do I care where you come from?” grumbled Rengade.
And as the poor peasant, weeping with terror, not understanding why he
was to die, extended his trembling hands, hardened and distorted by
toil, and stammered that he had done no wrong, the fierce gendarme,
impatient at not being able to place the pistol precisely where he
wished, shouted:
“Have done with your noise!”
Then Mourgue, mad with terror, began to howl like a beast or a pig
whose throat is being cut.
“Will you hold your tongue?” repeated the gendarme, firing as he spoke.
The peasant rolled, a heavy mass, at his feet, and then rebounded
toward the pile of boards. The violence of the shock had broken the
cord which attached him to his companion. Silvère fell on his knees
before the tomb.
Rengade had refined his vengeance by killing Mourgue first. He played
with his second pistol, raising it slowly, taking aim at Silvère, and
dropping it again. The youth calmly looked at him. The gendarme, with
his one burning eye, disturbed him. He turned away his eyes, fearing
that he would die like a coward if he continued to look at this man
with the blood-stained bandage and moustache. As he raised his eyes he
saw Justin’s head over the wall, just, where Miette was in the habit of
first speaking to him.
Justin was at the Roman gate among the crowd when the gendarme took
the two men away as his prisoners. He ran as fast as his legs would
take him through the grounds of Jas-Meiffren, not wishing to lose the
spectacle of the execution. The thought, that he, the only one of the
good-for-nothings of the Faubourg, would be able to see the sight at
his ease, as if from a balcony, caused him to go so rapidly that he
fell head-over-heels more than once. He arrived too late for the first
tragedy; he heard the pistol-shot as he climbed the mulberry tree.
When he saw that Silvère was still living, he smiled. The soldiers had
told him of Miette’s death, and he waited to see Silvère die with the
pleasure which it was his nature to feel in the sufferings of others.
Silvère, recognizing this head, with its pale, freckled face and
dishevelled hair, experienced a spasm of wild rage and a longing to
live. This was the last revolt of his nature--a momentary rebellion. He
fell on his knees once more, and looked before him. In the melancholy
twilight, he beheld a strange vision--at the end of the alley, at the
entrance to Saint-Mittre, he fancied he saw Aunt Dide standing stiff
and rigid as if carved of stone.
At this moment the cold muzzle of the pistol touched his temple. Justin
laughed. Silvère closed his eyes, and heard the voices of the dead
in the church-yard calling him eagerly. In the darkness he still saw
Miette under the trees, wrapped in the flag. Then the gendarme pulled
the trigger; the child’s skull burst like a ripe pomegranate; his face
fell on the stone, and his lips touched the spot worn by Miette’s feet.
And at the Rougons’ that evening--at dessert--gay laughter ran around
the table. At last they enjoyed the same pleasures as the rich. Their
appetites, sharpened by thirty years of restrained desires, showed
ferocious teeth. These unsatiated, hungry creatures welcomed the birth
of the Empire, the reign of the eager quarry. The Coup d’État founded
the fortunes of the Rougons as well as the Bonapartes. Pierre stood
with his glass in his hand.
“I drink to the health of Prince Louis, to the Emperor!” he cried.
These gentlemen, who had drowned their jealousies in champagne, drank
this toast with enthusiasm. It was a fine spectacle to see all these
people embracing and congratulating each other over the dead body--the
body of the Republic that was still warm. Secardot had a happy thought.
He took from Félicité’s head-dress a knot of red satin ribbon, which
she wore over her right ear. He cut it with his dessert-knife, and
passed it solemnly through Rougon’s button-hole, who with a radiant
face played great modesty, and gently pushed aside his friend’s
officious hand.
“No, no,” he said; “it is too soon. We must await the movements of the
Government.”
“Sacrebleu!” cried Secardot. “Let it be! It is one of Napoleon’s old
soldiers who decorates you!”
All the salon joined in the applause. Félicité was in ecstasies.
Granoux, in his enthusiasm, mounted upon a chair, waved a napkin and
uttered a brief discourse which was lost in the uproar. The yellow
salon was wild with excitement.
But the bit of red satin, placed in Pierre’s button-hole, was not the
only red stain in the Rougons’ triumphal march. Forgotten under the bed
in the next room lay a shoe with a bloody heel. The candle, at the head
of Monsieur Pierotte’s coffin on the other side of the street, was like
an open wound. And afar off, at the end of the alley in Saint-Mittre, a
sea of blood was slowly coagulating on the flat tomb.
THE END.
=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES=
Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
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