Complete Works of Emile Zola (756 page)

‘That was made by your great-uncle,’ explained Chanteau, who was delighted to find a subject of conversation. ‘My father, you know, began life as a carpenter, and I have always preserved his masterpiece.’

He was not at all ashamed of his origin, and Madame Chanteau tolerated the presence of the bridge on the mantel­piece, in spite of the displeasure which this cumbersome curiosity always caused her by reminding her of her marriage with a working-man’s son. But the little girl was no longer paying attention to her uncle’s words, for through the window she had just caught sight of the far-reaching horizon, and she eagerly stepped forward and planted herself close to the panes, whose muslin curtains were held back by cotton loops. Since her departure from Paris her one continual thought had been the sea. She had dreamed of it and never ceased to question her aunt about it during their journey; inquiring at every hill they came to whether the sea lay at the other side of it. When at last they reached the beach at Arromanches, she had been struck silent with wonder, her eyes dilating and her heart heaving with a heavy sigh. From Arromanches to Bonneville she had every minute thrust her head out of the gig’s hood, in spite of the violent wind, in order to look at the sea, which seemed to follow them. And now the sea was still there; it would always be there, as though it belonged to her. With her eyes she seemed to be slowly taking possession of it.

The night was falling from the grey sky, across which the wind drove the clouds at headlong speed. Amid the in­creasing darkness of that turbulent evening only the white line of the rising tide could be distinguished. It was a band of foam, which seemed to be ever widening, a succession of waves flowing up, pouring over the tracts of weed and cover­ing the ridges of rock with a soft gliding motion, whose approach seemed like a caress. But far away the roar of the billows increased, huge crests arose, while at the foot of the cliff, where Bonneville had stowed itself away as securely as possible behind its doors, there hovered a death-like gloom. The boats, drawn up to the top of the shingle, lay there, alone and deserted, like huge stranded fish. The rain steeped the village in vaporous mist, and only the church still stood out plainly against a pale patch of sky.

Pauline stood by the window in silence. Her little heart was heaving anew. She seemed to be stifling, and as she drew a deep sigh all her breath appeared to drain from her lips.

‘Well! it’s a good deal bigger than the Seine, isn’t it?’ said Lazare, who had just taken his stand behind her.

The girl continued to be a source of much surprise to him; he felt all the shy awkwardness of a schoolboy in her presence.

‘Yes, indeed,’ she replied, in a very low voice, without turning her head.

‘You are not frightened of it?’

At this she turned and looked at him with an expression of astonishment. ‘No, indeed. Why should I be? The water won’t come up so far as this!

‘Ah! one never knows what it will do,’ he said, yielding to an impulse to make fun of her. ‘Sometimes the water rises over the church.’

She broke into a hearty laugh, an outburst of noisy, healthy gaiety, the merriment of a sensible person whom the absurd delights.

‘Ah! cousin,’ said she, playfully taking the young man’s hand, ‘I’m not so foolish as you think. You wouldn’t stop here if the sea were likely to come up over the church.’

Lazare laughed in his turn, and clasped the child’s hands. The pair were henceforth hearty friends. In the midst of their merriment Madame Chanteau returned into the room. She appeared quite delighted, and exclaimed as she rubbed her hands: ‘Ah! you have got to know each other, then? — I felt quite sure you would get on well together.’

‘Shall I bring in dinner, Madame?’ asked Véronique, standing by the kitchen door.

‘Yes, certainly, my girl. But you had better light the lamp first; it is getting too dark to see.’

The night, indeed, was falling so quickly that the dining-room would have been in darkness but for the red glow of the coke fire. Lighting the lamp caused a further delay, but at last the operation was satisfactorily performed, and the table lay illuminated beneath the lowered shade. They were all in their places, Pauline between her uncle and cousin, and opposite her aunt, when the latter rose from her chair again, with that restlessness of one who can never remain still.

‘Where is my bag? Wait a moment, my dear; I am going to give you your mug. Take the glass away, Véronique. The little girl is used to having her own mug.’

She took a silver mug, already a little battered, out of her bag, and, having first wiped it with her napkin, placed it before Pauline. Then she put the bag away behind her, on a chair. The cook brought in some vermicelli soup, warning them, in her crabbed fashion, that it was much overcooked. No one dared complain, however. They were all very hungry, and the soup hissed in their spoons. Next came some soup-beef. Chanteau, fond of dainties, scarcely took any of it, reserving himself for the leg of mutton. But when this was placed upon the table there was a general outcry. It was like fried leather; surely they could not eat it!

‘I knew very well how it would be,’ said Véronique, placidly. ‘You oughtn’t to have kept it waiting.’

Pauline, with a laugh, cut her meat up into little bits, and managed to swallow it, in spite of its toughness. As for Lazare, he was quite unconscious of what he had upon his plate, and would have eaten slices of dry bread without knowing that they were not cut from a fowl’s breast. Chan­teau, however, gazed at the leg of mutton with a mournful expression.

‘And what else have you got, Véronique?’

‘Fried potatoes, sir.’

He made a gesture of despair and threw himself back in his chair.

‘Shall I bring the beef back again, sir?’ asked the cook.

But he answered her with a melancholy shake of his head. ‘As well have bread as boiled beef. Oh, my gracious! what a dinner! and just in this bad weather, too, when we can’t get any fish.’

Madame Chanteau, who was a very small eater, looked at him compassionately.

‘My poor dear,’ she said, suddenly, ‘you quite distress me. I have brought a little present with me; I meant it for to-morrow, but as there seems to be a famine this evening—’

She had opened her bag as she spoke and drew out of it a pan of
foie gras.
Chanteau’s eyes flashed brightly.
Foie gras!
Ah, it was forbidden fruit! A luxury which he adored, but which his doctor had absolutely forbidden him to touch.

‘You know,’ continued his wife, ‘you must have only a very little. Don’t be foolish, now, or you shall never have any more.’

Chanteau had caught hold of the pan, and he began to open it with trembling hands. There were frequently tremen­dous struggles between his greediness and his fear of gout; and almost invariably it was his greediness that got the upper hand. Never mind! it was too good to resist, and he would put up with the pain that would follow.

Véronique, who had watched him helping himself to a thick slice, took herself off to the kitchen, grumbling as she went:

‘Well, well! how he will bellow to-morrow!’

The word ‘bellow’ was habitually on her tongue, and her master and mistress had grown quite used and reconciled to it, so naturally and simply did it come from her lips. When the master had an attack of gout he bellowed, according to Véronique, and she was never scolded for her want of respect in saying so. The dinner ended very merrily. Lazare jokingly dispossessed his father of the
foie gras.
When the cheese and biscuits were put upon the table, Matthew’s sudden appearance caused a boisterous commotion. Until then he had been lying asleep under the table. But the arrival of the biscuits had awakened him. He seemed to have scented them in his sleep. Every evening, just at this stage of the meal, it was his custom to get up and shake him­self and make the round of the table, questioning the faces of the diners to see if they were charitably disposed. Usually it was Lazare who first took pity upon him, but that evening Matthew, on his second circuit of the table, halted by Pauline’s side and gazed up at her earnestly with his honest human-like eyes; and then, divining in her a friend both of man and beast, he laid his huge head on her little knee, with­out dropping his glance of mild supplication.

‘Oh, what a shameful beggar you are!’ said Madame Chanteau. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Matthew, to be so greedy?’

The dog swallowed at a single gulp the piece of biscuit which Pauline offered him, and then again laid his head on her little knee, asking for another piece, with his eyes con­stantly fixed on those of his new friend. She laughed at him and kissed him and found him very amusing, with his flattened ears and the black spot under his left eye, the only spot of colour that marked his rough white hairy coat. Then there came a diversion of another character. Minouche, growing jealous, leapt lightly upon the edge of the table, and began to purr and rub her head against the little girl’s chin, swaying her supple body the while with all the grace of a young kid. To poke one with her cold nose and kiss one lightly with her sharp teeth, while she pounded about with her feet like a baker kneading dough, was her feline way of caressing. Pauline was now quite delighted between the two animals. The cat on her left, the dog on her right, took possession of her and worried her shamefully in order to secure all her biscuits.

‘Send them away,’ said her aunt. ‘They will leave you nothing for yourself.’

‘Oh! that doesn’t matter,’ she placidly replied, feeling quite happy in being despoiled.

They finished, and Véronique removed the dishes. The two animals, seeing the table quite bare, gave their lips a last lick and then took themselves off, without even saying ‘thank you.’

Pauline rose from her chair, and went to stand by the window, straining her eyes to penetrate the darkness. Ever since the soup had been put upon the table she had been watching the window grow darker and darker, till it had gradually become as black as ink. Now it was like an impenetrable wall; the dense darkness had hidden every­thing — sky, sea, village, and even church itself. Nevertheless, without feeling in the least disturbed by her cousin’s jests, she tried to distinguish the water, worrying to find out how far the tide was going to rise; but she could only hear its ever-increasing roar, its angry threatening voice, which seemed to grow louder every minute amidst the howling of the wind and the splashing of the rain. Not a glimmer, not even the whiteness of the foam, could be seen in that chaos; and nothing was heard but the rush of the waves, lashed on by the gale in the black depths.

‘Dear me,’ said Chanteau, ‘it is coming up stiffly, and yet it won’t be high-water for another couple of hours.’

If the wind were to blow from the north,’ put in Lazare, ‘Bonneville would certainly be swept away. Fortunately for us here, it is coming slantwise.’

The little maid had turned and was listening to them, her big eyes full of an expression of anxious pity.

‘Bah!’ said Madame Chanteau, ‘we are safe under shelter, and we must let other folks get out of their trouble as best they may — Tell me, my dear, would you like a cup of hot tea? And then, afterwards, we will go to bed.’

Véronique had laid an old red cloth, with a faded pattern of big bunches of flowers, over the dinner-table, around which the family generally spent the evening. They took their accustomed places. Lazare, who had left the room for a moment, came back carrying an inkstand, a pen, and a whole handful of papers, and, seating himself beneath the lamp-light, he began to copy some music. Madame Chanteau, whose eyes since her return had never ceased following her son with an affectionate glance, suddenly became very stiff and surly.

‘That music of yours again! You can’t devote an evening to us, then, even on the night of my return home?’

‘But, mother, I am not going out of the room. I mean to stay with you. You know very well that this doesn’t interfere with my talking. Fire away and talk to me, and I will answer you.’

He went on with his work, covering half the table with his papers. Chanteau had stretched himself out comfort­ably in his armchair, with his hands hanging listlessly at his sides. In front of the fire Matthew lay asleep, while Minouche, who had sprung upon the table again, was per­forming an elaborate toilet, carefully licking her stomach, with one leg cocked up in the air. The falling light from the hanging lamp seemed to make everything cosy and homelike, and Pauline, who with half-closed eyelids had been smiling upon her newly-found relatives, could no longer keep herself from sleep, worn out as she was with fatigue and rendered drowsy by the heat of the room. Her head slipped down upon her arm, which was resting on the table, and lay there, motionless, beneath the placid glow of the lamp. Her delicate eyelids looked like a silk veil cast over her eyes, and soft regular breath came gently from her pure lips.

‘She must be tired out,’ said Madame Chanteau, lowering her voice. ‘We will just wake her up to give her some tea, and then I will take her to bed.’

Then silence reigned in the room. No sound broke upon the howling of the storm except the scratching of Lazare’s pen. It was perfect quiet, the habitual sleepiness of life spent every evening in the same spot. For a long time the father and mother looked at each other without saying a word. At last Chanteau asked, in a hesitating voice:

‘And is Davoine doing well at Caen?’

‘Bah! Doing well, indeed! I told you that you were being taken in!’

Now that the child was fast asleep they could talk. They spoke in low tones, however, and at first seemed inclined to tell each other what there was to be told as briefly as possible. But presently passion got the better of them and carried them on, and, by degrees, all the worries of the household became manifest.

At the death of his father the former journeyman car­penter, who had carried on his timber-trade with ambitious audacity, Chanteau had found the business considerably compromised. A very inactive man himself, unaspiring and careful, he had contented himself with simply putting matters on a safe basis, by dint of good management, and living upon a moderate but sure profit. The one romance of his life was his marriage. He had married a governess whom he had met in a friend’s family. Eugénie de la Vignière, the orphan daughter of one of the ruined squireens of the Cotentin, reckoned upon fanning his indolent nature into ambition. But he with his imperfect education, for he had been sent late to school, recoiled from vast schemes, and opposed his own natural inertness to the ambitious plans of his wife. When their son was born, she transferred to that child her hopes for the family’s rise in life, sent him to college, and superintended his studies every evening herself. But a last disaster upset all her plans. Chanteau, who had suffered from gout from the time he was forty years of age, at last experienced such severe and painful attacks that he began to talk about selling his business. To Madame Chan­teau this portended straitened means and mediocrity, the spending of their remaining days in retirement on their petty savings, and the casting of her son into the struggle for life, without the support of an income of twenty thousand francs, such as she had dreamed of for him.