Complete Works of Emile Zola (1843 page)

Every year the Rostands used to go to eat a
bouillabaisse
in a hollow of the rocks on the shore, in the direction of Niolon. Afterwards, as partridges abounded amongst the hills, the gentlemen would organise a shooting party. That year Madame Rostand wanted to take Naïs to wait on them, and refused to listen to Micoulin’s remarks when the old savage attempted to raise some objection.

They set out early. The morning was a charming one. Lying like a mirror beneath the gleaming sun was the blue expanse of the sea; ripples appeared amid the currents, where the blue was tinged with violet, whilst in apparently stagnant spots the azure faded away into a milky transparency. You might have imagined the sea to be an immense piece of shot satin, whose changing colours grew more and more indistinct as the limpid horizon was reached. And over that slumbering lake the boat glided very softly.

The narrow beach on which they landed was at the mouth of a gorge, and they settled down on a strip of scorched grass which was to serve as a table.

How enjoyable that picnic was! First of all Micoulin set off alone in the boat to take up the baskets which he had set the day before. By the time he came back Naïs bad gathered some thyme and lavender and enough dry wood to make a large fire. That day the old man was to make the
bouillabaisse,
the classic fish soup, the secret of which the coast fishermen transmit from father to son. And a terrible
bouillabaisse
it was, with its strong doses of pepper, and odour of crushed garlic. The Rostands were greatly interested in the preparation of the savoury mess.

‘Micoulin,’ said Madame Rostand, ‘do you think you will be as successful as last year?’

The old man seemed to be in excellent spirits. First of all he washed the fish in sea water, whilst Naïs took the large pan out of the boat. Soon all was in progress: the fish at the bottom of the vessel, just covered with some water, with some onion, oil, garlic, a handful of pepper, and a tomato; then the whole was placed on the fire, a formidable fire, large enough to roast a sheep. Fishermen say that the goodness of
bouillabaisse
lies in the cooking: the pan must disappear amid the flames. Micoulin gravely cut some slices of bread into a salad bowl, and at the end of half an hour he poured the liquor on the slices, serving up the fish separately.

‘Come along,’ he said. ‘It’s not good unless it’s hot.’ Then the
bouillabaisse
was devoured with the usual jokes.

‘I say, Micoulin, did you put any gunpowder in it?’

‘It’s very good, but it wants a throat of brass to swallow it.’

Micoulin devoured his share tranquilly, swallowing a slice of bread at each mouthful, and showing at the same time how flattered he felt at eating with his masters.

Having finished, they sat there waiting for the heat of the day to pass off. The glistening rocks covered with ruddy streaks threw grateful shadows around. Clumps of evergreen oaks showed sombre foliage, whilst on the slopes the rows of pines ascended in regular lines, looking like little soldiers on the march. An oppressive silence filled the quivering air.

Madame Rostand had brought the endless embroidery, which was never seen to leave her hands. Naïs, seated at her side, seemed to be interested in the movements of her needle. But her eyes were really on her father. He was lying on his back a few paces away enjoying a siesta. Then, farther still, Frédéric also was sleeping beneath the protecting shade of his broad-brimmed straw hat.

At about four o’clock they awoke, and Micoulin declared that he knew of a covey of partridges at the bottom of a ravine. He had seen them three days previously, so Frédéric allowed himself to be tempted, and they both took their guns.

‘Pray be careful,’ said Madame Rostand. ‘You might slip and hurt yourself.’

‘Yes, that does happen sometimes,’ said Micoulin quietly.

They then went off, and as they disappeared behind the rocks, Naïs jumped up and followed them at a distance, muttering: ‘I’m going to see.’

Instead of keeping to the pathway at the bottom of the gorge, she turned to the left among the bushes, hurrying along and avoiding the loose stones for fear of setting them rolling. At length, at a bend of the road, she espied Frédéric walking quickly, slightly bent, and ready to lift his gun to his shoulder. As yet she saw nothing of her father, but presently she discovered him on the same slope as herself: he was crouching down, looking towards the gorge, and he seemed to be waiting for something. Twice he raised his gun. Supposing the partridges flew up between the two sportsmen, Micoulin and Frédéric might shoot one another. Naïs, gliding from bush to bush, anxiously took up a position behind the old man.

Some minutes passed. On the other side Frédéric had disappeared in a dip in the ground, but finally he reappeared, and remained for an instant motionless. Then Micoulin, still crouching down, took a long aim at the young man. But with a kick Naïs knocked the barrel of his gun upward, and the charge went off in the air with a fearful report which brought down all the echoes of the gorge.

The old man sprang to his feet. On seeing Naïs, he seized the gun by its smoking barrel, as if he meant to dash her to the earth with one blow. But the girl stood her ground, her cheeks as white as death, her eyes darting fire. He dared not strike her, and, trembling with rage, he could only stammer out in dialect: ‘I’ll kill him, never you fear!’

At the report of the gun the partridges had flown off, Frédéric winging two of them. And about six o’clock the Rostands returned to La Blancarde, old Micoulin rowing with his accustomed air of sullen, stubborn brutishness.

V

SEPTEMBER was drawing to an end. After a violent storm the air had become very cool. The days grew shorter, and Naïs refused to meet Frédéric out of doors at night-time. However, as she reached the house every morning at six o’clock, and Madame Rostand did not get up till nine, the lovers still had opportunities for converse.

It was now that Naïs showed the greatest affection for Frédéric. She would take hold of his neck, draw his face towards hers, and look into it with a passion which filled her eyes with tears. It was as if she feared that she might never see him more. And she showered kisses upon him as if to protest and swear that she would guard him.

‘What is the matter with Naïs?’ Madame Rostand would often remark. ‘She changes every day.’

Indeed she was becoming thinner, and quite pale. The fire in her eyes was dying away. She often remained for a long while silent, and then would give a start, looking alarmed like a girl awakening from a bad dream.

‘You are ill, my child; you must take care of yourself,’ repeated her mistress.

But Naïs would smile and answer:

‘Oh, no, madame, I’m quite well and happy! I’ve never been so happy.’

One morning, as she was helping to count the linen, she ventured to ask a question.

‘Are you going to stop late at La Blancarde this year?’

‘Till the end of October,’ replied Madame Rostand. Naïs stood still for a moment with fixed eyes; then she unconsciously said aloud: ‘Twenty days more.’

A continual struggle was going on within her. She wished to keep Frédéric near her, and yet at the same time she was constantly tempted to cry out, ‘Go!’

He was lost to her; never would that season of love return; she had felt it from their first meeting. One night of gloomy despair she had even gone so far as to wonder whether she ought not to allow her father to kill Frédéric, so that he might never love another; but the idea of seeing him dead — he so delicate, so fair, more like a girl than herself — was unbearable to her, and the evil thought filled her with horror. No, she would save him, and he should never know of it. He might love her no longer, but she would be happy in the thought that he still lived.

She would often say to him, ‘Don’t go to sea to-day; the weather will be rough.’ At other times she pressed him to leave La Blancarde: ‘You must be sick of being here; you won’t love me any longer. Go to town for a few days.’

These changes of humour surprised him. He thought her less handsome, now that her face had become drawn; and besides his was a very fickle temperament. He began to pine for the eau de Cologne and the rice powder of the beauties of Aix and Marseilles.

Meantime the old man’s words were constantly ringing in Naïs’ ears: ‘I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him!’ In the middle of the night she would wake up, thinking that she had heard shots fired. She became timid, and screamed whenever a stone rolled away from under her feet. When Frédéric was out of her sight, she was always worrying about him; and what terrified her most was that from morning to night she still seemed to hear Micoulin repeating, ‘I’ll kill him!’ The old man however, preserved, stubborn silence, he never made any allusion to what had passed, either by word or gesture; but for her, his every look, his every movement implied that he would kill his young master at the first opportunity he might have of doing so without being disturbed. And afterwards he would deal with Naïs. In the meantime he kicked her about like some disobedient dog.

‘Does your father still use you badly?’ Frédéric asked the girl one morning.

‘Yes,’ she replied; ‘he’s going mad.’

And after showing him her arms, which were black with bruises, she muttered these words, which she often whispered to herself: ‘It’ll soon be over, it’ll soon be over.’

At the beginning of October she became more gloomy than ever. She was absent-minded, and one could often see her lips move as if she were talking to herself. On several occasions Frédéric perceived her standing on the cliff, seemingly examining the trees around her and measuring the depth of the abyss. A few days later he discovered her with Toine the hunchback, plucking figs on the farthest part of the estate. Toine used to come and help her whenever she had too much to do. He was under the fig-tree, and Naïs, who had mounted on a thick branch, was joking with him, calling to him to open his mouth, and then throwing down figs which burst upon his face. The poor fellow opened his mouth as he was bidden, and closed his eyes in ecstasy, whilst his huge face expressed complete beatitude. Frédéric was certainly not jealous, but he could not refrain from taking Naïs to task.

‘Toine would cut off his hand for us,’ she said curtly. ‘We mustn’t ill-treat him, he may be useful later on.’

The hunchback continued coming to La Blancarde every day. He worked on the cliff, where he was cutting a narrow canal to bring some water to the end of an experimental kitchen garden. Naïs used to go and watch him, and lively talk would ensue between them. He was so long over the task that old Micoulin finally called him a lazybones and kicked his legs, as he would have done his daughter’s.

Rain fell on two successive days. Frédéric, who had to return to Aix the following week, determined that before leaving he would once more go out fishing with Micoulin. And seeing Naïs turn pale he laughed and replied ‘that he should not choose a day when the mistral was blowing.’ Then, as he was to leave so soon, the young girl consented to meet him once more. They met late at night on the terrace. The rain had cleansed the earth, and a strong odour rose from all the freshened vegetation. When that usually parched country is thoroughly soaked, all its colours and odours become intensified: the red earth looks like blood, the pines are of an emerald green, the rocks of the whiteness of freshly-washed linen. However, that night, all that the lovers could detect was the enhanced perfume of the thyme and lavender bushes.

Old associations led them to the olive-trees. Frédéric was walking towards one which had sheltered their first love-meeting — it stood quite at the edge of the cliff — when Naïs, as if aroused from a reverie, caught hold of his arm, dragged him from the edge, and said, trembling, ‘No, no; not there!’

‘Why, what is the matter?’ he asked.

She hesitated, and finally remarked that after such a fall of rain the cliff was not safe. And she added: ‘Last winter there was a landslip here.’

They sat down farther back, under another olive-tree. And at last Naïs convulsively burst into tears, and would not say why she was crying. Afterwards a frigid silence took possession of her, and when Frédéric joked her about her sadness and apathy in his company she murmured:

‘No, don’t say that. I love you too much. But I’m not in good health: and, besides, it’s all over. You’re going away.’

He vainly tried to comfort her, telling her that he would come again from time to time, and that next autumn he would spend two months there. But she shook her head; she knew very well that all was over now.

Their meeting ended in embarrassing silence; they gazed at the sea; Marseilles was glittering with gas lamps, but the Planier lighthouse showed only a solitary mournful gleam; and gradually the horizon imparted to them some of its own melancholy. At three o’clock, when Frédéric quitted Naïs, kissing her, he felt her shudder.

He could not sleep when he got back into the house; he read till dawn, and then, feeling feverish, he took up a position at the window. Just at that moment Micoulin was starting off to take up his traps. As the old man passed along the terrace he raised his head and asked Frédéric if he were coming with him that morning.

‘No,’ replied Frédéric; ‘I’ve slept too badly. Tomorrow.’

The old fellow went off with a slouching gait. He had to go down to his boat at the foot of the cliff, just under the olive-tree, where he had surprised his daughter. When he had disappeared, Frédéric, on turning his head, was astonished to see Toine already at work; the hunchback was standing near the olive-tree with a pickaxe in his hand, repairing the narrow channel which the rain had damaged. The air was cool; it was pleasant at the window. Frédéric went to make a cigarette, and as he lounged back to the casement a terrible crash — a roll of thunder as it seemed — was suddenly heard. He rushed to the window. It was a landslip. He could only distinguish Toine, who was running for his life, flourishing his pickaxe, amid a cloud of red dust. At the edge of the abyss the old olive-tree, with its gnarled branches, had pitched forward, crashing into the sea. A cloud of spray flew up, while a terrible cry rent the air. Then Frédéric saw Naïs leaning over the parapet, her stiffened hands clutching at the stonework, while her eyes peered into the depths below. There she stood, motionless and expectant, with her hands pressed to the low wall. Still, she no doubt divined that somebody was looking at her, for she turned her head, saw Frédéric, and cried: ‘My father! my father!’