Complete Works of Emile Zola (1640 page)

The mother, in a fever of anxiety to know, became suddenly kind and gentle. She was so much under the influence of her own emotions that she forgot to be severe. What pranks Nise might have played with Nanet lost all importance in comparison with the main fact that she desired to be certain of.

“Listen to me, my little girl. It is very naughty not to tell the truth. That day when I deprived you of dessert it was because you insisted that you had got over the wall to look for a ball. Now, if you tell me the truth, I promise not to punish you. Come, tell me, was it Nanet?”

Nise, who was naturally a truthful child, answered at once:

“Yes, mamma, it was Nanet.”

“And he told you that Josine’s real husband was Monsieur Luc?”

“Yes, mamma.”

“And how did he know? Why did he tell you that Monsieur Luc was the real husband of Josine?”

Here innocent little Nise became confused, and again she began to drink her milk instead of answering.

“Oh! I don’t know; for many things. He knows it, though, for certain, he says.”

Notwithstanding her great wish to learn everything, Fernande felt ashamed to put such questions to her little daughter, and so she said no more. She tried to cover up her cruel, vulgar curiosity.

“Nanet don’t know anything at all. He is talking nonsense, and you were a little fool to repeat what he said. You will be so good as never again to sing anything of the kind, if you want to have any dessert.”

So the breakfast at last finished in a silence which corresponded to the sharp, cold weather outside. No more words were exchanged between the mother and the child, the former being absorbed by the secret that had just come into her possession, and the latter being much pleased to have been let off so easily.

Fernande passed the day in her own room, thinking things over, and debating how she could make use of them. In the first place, she asked herself if what Nanet had said could be really true. But what reason could she have to doubt it? He certainly must know; he must have seen; he must have heard. He was too fond of his sister to tell lies about her, and, besides, there were a number of other little things that made the story probable. Then Fernande began to debate within herself how she might make use of such a weapon, which chance seemed to have put into her hand. She sought how she might poison it, and with it kill her enemy. She had never hated Luc more. Delaveau had gone that day to Paris to try to raise a new loan. The Pit was growing more unstable day by day, but victory would be certain if she could succeed in getting rid of the hateful master of La Crêcherie, the man whose plans were threatening to rob her life of luxury and pleasure. If the enemy were dead, competition would be at an end, and victory possible. With a man like Ragu, mad with jealousy, drunken and furious, events might be speedily hurried to the desired end. It would be enough to incite him to pull his knife out of his pocket. But, then, this was as yet only a dream; how could she make it real? How should she act? Should she tell Ragu? Should she give him the name of the man he had been looking for? That was, of course, the proper plan; but her difficulty began when she asked herself by what means she could tell Ragu; where and how? She decided at last to send him an anonymous letter. She would cut the words she wanted out of a newspaper; she would gum them together, and at night she would throw the letter into the post-box. She began to cut out the words. But suddenly this plan appeared very uncertain. It might not accomplish its purpose, for a letter is but a cold resource, and its purport might be overlooked. If Ragu was not at once stung to fury, to madness, he might possibly not act. The truth would have to be forced into him; he must receive the blow in his face, and under such circumstances he assuredly would act like a madman. But whom could she send to interview him? Where could she find an intermediary? — some one who could be trusted to rub the poison into him? She searched in vain, and grew discouraged. She could think of no one. She thought and thought until night came. She grew feverish, and her head throbbed as she tried to plan her tragedy, but did not see how she might bring it to the desired end.

When she went to bed, at about ten o’clock, she had at last come to a decision. She would send for Ragu, on pretence of asking him if he would let his wife come to her house and do some sewing for her for a few days, and when he came, and she had him there alone with her, perhaps she would be able to tell him what she wished him to know. But still she was not satisfied. This plan filled her with anxiety as to the consequences of such a revelation, told quietly in a business-room on the ground floor — the office of her absent husband. She was glad Delaveau was away. She stretched herself out in the bed, restless with fever. In spite of this, however, she was so weary that at last she went to sleep, still in doubt as to what she would do, and until five o’clock in the morning she never stirred, but slept the sweet sleep of an infant. When five o’clock struck she suddenly woke up, and lying on her back, with her large eyes wide open in the darkened chamber, she took up the question where she had left it, and at once solved the problem, with extraordinary boldness and precision. It was very plain. She must go herself to the works, with the pretext for seeing Ragu that she had already prepared, and in the course of conversation she would let fall the words that would put him beside himself. She knew, for she had taken pains to know, that Ragu would be at work that night; so that in the morning, at about seven, she might go down and catch him just when the night workmen were going home and the day workmen were coming on duty. Feverish as she was, she could debate no longer. She felt absolutely certain that she had discovered the best way out of her difficulties. What she relied upon was a feminine instinct common to such women — women who seduce and devour men, and who are confident that things and people, and circumstances that they cannot see beforehand, will bring their purposes at last to the desired end.

How long seemed that time of waiting from five to seven o’clock, hoping for the day so slow in dawning! She could not go to sleep again, but tossed restlessly upon her bed. She was eager to have her interview with Ragu; she seemed spurred on by some feeling that she could hardly account for. She tossed and retossed on her bed, but never faltered in her resolution. She tried to imagine how it all would happen, to plan everything beforehand, but she felt certain of the success of her plan. All would go well, of that she felt sure. It seemed to her that destiny was putting the right events into her hands, that she was fated to set them all to work, and that she could not refuse to employ them. What she minded was being obliged to wait so long.

At last, at a quarter to seven, the hour that she had fixed on beforehand, she sprang out of bed. The cold in her room half froze her, but she became calm, and was once more mistress of herself. Although it was barely day, she lighted no fire, and did not even open the Venetian blinds. She merely bound up her hair, twisted it round her head, fastened it with hair-pins, and without putting on her corsets slipped on a loose white flannel wrapper, which covered her completely; then she put on a pair of white velvet slippers. After this she went downstairs, as she occasionally did early in the morning, when she had forgotten to give some order and had remembered it during the night.

Down-stairs the maids were not astir. They were taking advantage of their master’s absence, and calculating that madame would sleep late that morning. Fernande, with extraordinary precision in her movements, crossed her husband’s office, and opened the door which led from it on to the wooden gallery which communicated with the main building of the Pit, in which the managers’ offices were situated. The clerks would not arrive till eight o’clock, and the boy whose duty it was to sweep out the offices was chatting on the road outside with the watchman, who was quietly smoking his pipe. She was not even noticed. She cut straight across the court-yard, and went into the hall where the puddling-furnaces were located. Nobody had noticed her. As she had serenely calculated, circumstances were in her favor, for the night gang had just left and the day workmen had not arrived. Fortunately, too, as it seemed to her, Ragu, who had been delayed by a sort of rage for work, was there alone, still in his working clothes, but about to change his garments.

Fernande, though she knew something about the place, had never before ventured into this dark abode of coal and iron. She felt an intense disgust for the dirt and mean disorder in which she found herself. She stopped for a moment, a little embarrassed, in her white wrapper and her white slippers, before she felt courage to enter the immense dark hole which was the puddling-hall. Daylight had hardly found its way in there; only two furnaces were lighted, from which flames and smoke shot up like rays of sunshine. She did not know where to set her feet, the place was so full of muddy holes, the floor so black with coal-dust and so encumbered by ingots of iron. An acrid smell of coal-gas from the braziers and of exhalations from the sweating bodies of working-men made her feel sick. Yet she went in, and as she did so she at once saw Ragu in the midst of the great empty hall. He was walking towards the wooden shed in which the workmen hung up their clothes. All night the master-puddler had been rabbling iron, impelled by a furious desire to work and to forget himself in doing so, so that he whirled his rabble as if it were a weapon with which he would like to slaughter the whole world. He was sweating from his work. He had thrown off his apron, and was clad only in his shirt and felt jacket, and before he put on his out-door clothes he was finishing his fourth’ bottle of wine, which was more than he usually drank during the night. He was drinking out of the neck of the bottle. He was drunk with wine and heat and anger. Suddenly turning when he reached the door of the shed, he saw a woman all in white in the black darkness of the hall. He was so astonished at this apparition that he drew near to examine it. Fernande, when she recognized him holding the bottle on high and emptying down his throat what remained of the wine, stopped short, more embarrassed than before. She saw he was half naked, and she had intended to wait till he had put on his clothes before accosting him. But he was coming towards her, and she could not avoid him. She at once began with what she was there for.

“
It is I, Ragu. I have something I wanted to ask of you, and I knew I should find you here.”

He stood still, stupefied at the thought of her having come there to seek him. Then, for the first time, she realized the impossibility of explaining the strange step she had taken, and she rushed at her object at once.

“I wanted to ask you if you would let your wife come and work for me a few days. I want some one, and I thought of her.”

Ragu at once forgot the strangeness of her appearance in that place. A rush of blind anger made his blood boil in his brains.

“My wife! Do you want my wife? Ah! thunder and lightning! Take her, then! Never send her back to me! Let her starve!”

Fernande had expected this violence, but she feigned surprise and pity and concern.

“Then things are not going well with you and her? I thought you had forgiven her, and that matters had been arranged before the little baby should be born.”

“Forgive her? Forgive her what?” cried Ragu, smarting under this new blow of the whip with which she was cutting into his raw wound. “Do you mean I am to forgive the child that strumpet is about to bear?”

“Of course your wife has been too easily misled; she is so young, so pretty. It is only natural at her age that she should listen to handsome gentlemen when they make love.”

He closed his eyes. He saw partly what she meant, and he growled out:

“I’ll settle the handsome gentlemen who make love to her! Madame, do you think I am going to bring up and support that bastard? — her child and his — not mine!” Then Fernande made believe that she was very much astonished, and said, with an air of perfect innocence:

“But I thought they told me... I thought you had settled that question of the child. Ought not the child’s father to provide for it?”

“Who’s that?”

“The master of La Crêcherie, that Monsieur Luc — its father!”

“Its father?”

Ragu, stupefied, had come close up to her. His burning face was close to hers.

“Oh!” cried she; “then is it not true? Then you knew nothing?. Ah! now I am so sorry I said anything. They told me that you had agreed with that Monsieur Luc; that you would keep your wife if he would take the child.” Ragu was trembling all over. His eyes had madness in them. His face was convulsed.

“What are you telling me — say? What did you come here to tell me? You want me to lay hands on the master of La Crêcherie, the Monsieur Luc who has seduced my wife. I see it all now. Never fear, I’ll settle my account with him. I’ll see to that. But tell me, say — why did you come here? What have you done this for?” She was frightened. She felt he was becoming her master. She tried to get away.

“You are beside yourself, Ragu,” said she. “We will say no more now. We will talk it over when you are more calm.”

With one bound he stood between her and the door.

“No — no. Listen. I have something to say to you. You yourself said that handsome gentlemen make love to our wives — you know you said it, and therefore it is only right that we should pay them back in the same way, when their women fall into our power.”

With that he pushed her violently towards the wooden shed, the filthy dressing-room where workmen changed their clothes. The room was dark. There was no one near to save her from his vile embraces.

Ten minutes later, as he left, he remembered that he had dropped something from his pocket. He found it at last after a search; it was his knife. As soon as he had grasped it he ran out, growling insults at his victim. His last words were:

“Now for the other one! I’ll soon settle his affair!”

When Fernande was able to move she gathered up her hair, folded her soiled, torn dressing-wrapper round her, and had the extreme good fortune to get back to her own house without meeting any one. When she reached her own room she thought herself safe. But what was she to do with the clothes she had worn, so torn and dirty? Her white velvet slippers were covered with mud, her white flannel wrapper was spotted with oil and coal-dust. All was filthy and disgusting. She made a bundle of the things and hid, them behind a piece of furniture with the purpose of burning them as soon as opportunity offered, like a murderer who tries to dispose of his bloody clothes.