Complete Works of Emile Zola (787 page)

‘Ah! the cup that was on the dresser! She’s gone off with your cup, Mademoiselle Pauline!’

Then she bolted off in pursuit of the young thief, and a couple of minutes afterwards dragged her back into the kitchen with all the stern ferocity of a gendarme. It was as much as they could do to search the child, for she struggled and bit and scratched and screamed as though they were trying to murder her. The cup was not in her pocket, but they discovered it next to her skin, hidden away in the rag which served her as a chemise. Thereupon ceasing to weep, she impudently asserted that she did not know it was there, that it must have dropped into her clothes while she was sitting on the floor.

‘His reverence was quite right when he said she would rob you!’ Véronique exclaimed. ‘If I were you I would send for the police.’

Lazare, too, began to speak about sending her to prison, provoked as he was by the demeanour of the girl, who perked herself up like a young viper whose tail had been trodden upon. He felt inclined to smack her.

‘Hand back the money that was given to you!’ he cried. ‘Where is it?’

The child had already raised the coin to her lips in order to swallow it, when Pauline set her free, saying:

‘Well, you may keep it this time, but you can tell them at home that it is the last they will get. In future I shall come myself to see what you are in need of. Now, be off with you!’

They could hear the girl’s naked feet splashing through the puddles, and then all became silent. Véronique pushed the bench aside and stooped down to sponge away the pools of water that had trickled from the children’s rags. Her kitchen was in a fine state, she grumbled; it reeked of all that filth to such a degree that she would have to keep all the windows and doors open. Pauline, who seemed very grave, gathered up her money and drugs without saying a word, while Lazare, with an air of disgust and
ennui,
went out to wash his hands at the yard tap.

It was great grief to Pauline to see that her cousin took but little interest in her young friends from the village. Though he was willing to help her on the Saturday after­noons, it was only out of mere complaisance; his heart was not in the work. Whereas neither poverty nor vice repelled her, their hideousness depressed and annoyed Lazare. She could remain cheerful and tranquil in her love for others, whereas he could not cease to think of himself without find­ing fresh reasons for gloomy broodings. Little by little, those disorderly, ill-behaved children, in whom all the sins of grown-up men and women were already fermenting, began to cause him real suffering. The sight of them proved like an additional blight to his existence, and when he left them he felt hopeless, weary, full of hatred and disgust of the human species. The hours that were spent in good works only hardened him, made him deny the utility of almsgiving and jeer at charity. He protested that it would be far more sensible to crush that nest of pernicious vermin under foot than to help the young ones to grow up. Pauline listened to this, sur­prised by his violence, and pained to find how different were their views.

That Saturday, when they were alone again, the young man revealed all his suffering by a single remark.

‘I feel as though I had just come out of a sewer,’ said he. Then he added: ‘How can you care for such horrible monsters?’

‘I care for them for their own good and not for mine,’ the girl replied. ‘You yourself would pick up a mangy dog in the road.’

Lazare made a gesture of protest. ‘A dog isn’t a man,’ he said.

‘To help for the sake of helping, is not that something?’ Pauline resumed. ‘It is vexing that they don’t improve in conduct, for, if they did, perhaps they would suffer less. But I am content when they have got food and warmth; that is one trouble less for them, at any rate. Why should you want them to recompense us for what we do for them?’

Then she concluded sadly:

‘My poor boy, I see that all this only bores you, and it will be better for you not to come and help me in future. I don’t want to harden your heart and make you more uncharit­able than you already are.’

Thus Lazare eluded all her attempts, and she felt heart­broken at finding how utterly powerless she was to free him from his fear and
ennui.
When she saw him so nervous and despondent, she could scarcely believe that it was the result merely of his secret trouble she imagined there must be other causes for his sadness, and the idea of Louise recurred to her. She felt sure that he must still be thinking about the girl, and suffered from not seeing her. A cold chill came upon her at this thought, and she tried to recover her old feeling of proud self-sacrifice, telling herself that she was quite capable of spreading sufficient brightness and joy about her to make them all happy.

One evening Lazare made a remark that hurt her cruelly.

‘How lonely it is here!’ he said, with a yawn.

She looked at him. Had he got Louise in his mind? But she had not the courage to question him. Her kindliness struggled within her, and life became a torture again.

There was another shock awaiting Lazare. His old dog, Matthew, was far from well. The poor animal, who had completed his fourteenth year in the previous March, was getting more and more paralysed in his hind-quarters. His attacks left him so stiff that he could scarcely crawl along; and he would lie out in the yard, stretching himself in the sun, and watching the members of the family with his melancholy eyes. It was the old dog’s eyes, now dimmed by a bluish cloudiness, blank like those of a blind man, that especially wrought upon Lazare’s feelings. The poor animal, however, could still see, and used to drag himself along, lay his big head on his master’s knee, and look up at him fixedly with a sad expression that seemed to say that he understood all. His beauty had departed. His curly white coat had turned yellowish, and his nose, once so black, was becoming white. His dirtiness, and a kind of expression of shame that hung about him — for they dared not wash him any more on account of his great age — rendered him yet more pitiable. All his playfulness had vanished; he never now rolled on his back, or circled round after his tail, or showed any impulses of pity for Minouche’s kittens when Véronique carried them off to drown in the sea. He now spent his days in drowsing like an old man, and he had so much difficulty in getting up on his legs again, and dragged his poor soft feet so heavily, that often one of the household, moved to pity at the sight, stooped to support him for a moment or two in order that he might be able to walk a little.

He grew weaker every day from loss of blood. They had sent for a veterinary surgeon, who burst out laughing on seeing him. What! were they making a fuss about a dog like that? The best thing they could do was to put him out of the way at once. It was all very well to try and keep a human being alive as long as possible, but what was the good of allowing a dying animal to linger on in pain? At this they quickly bustled the vet out of the house, after paying him his fee of six francs.

One Saturday Matthew lost so much blood that it was found necessary to shut him up in the coach-house. A stream of big red drops trickled after him. Doctor Cazenove, who had arrived rather early, offered to go and see the dog, who was treated quite as a member of the family. They found him lying down, in a state of great weakness, but with his head raised very high, and the light of life still shining in his eyes. The Doctor made a long examination of him, with all the care and thoughtfulness which he displayed at the bedside of his human patients. At last he said:

‘That abundant loss of blood denotes a cancerous de­generation of the kidneys. There is no hope for him, but he may linger for a few days yet, unless some sudden haemorrhage carries him off.’

Matthew’s hopeless condition threw a gloom over the dinner-table. They recalled how fond Madame Chanteau had been of him, all the wild romps of his youth, the dogs he had worried, the cutlets he had stolen off the gridiron, and the eggs that he gobbled up warm from the nest. But at dessert, when Abbé Horteur brought out his pipe, they grew lively again, and listened with attention to the priest as he told them about his pear-trees, which promised to do splendidly that year. Chanteau, notwithstanding certain prickings which foreboded another attack of gout, finished off by singing one of the merry songs of his youth. Thus the evening passed away delightfully, and even Lazare himself grew cheerful.

About nine o’clock, just as tea was being served, Pauline suddenly cried out:

‘Oh look! There’s poor Matthew!’

And, in truth, the poor dog, all bleeding and shrunken, was dragging himself on his tottering legs into the dining-room. Then immediately afterwards they heard Véronique, who was rushing after him with a cloth. She burst into the room, crying:

‘I had to go into the coach-house, and he made his escape. He still insists upon being where the rest of us are, and one can’t take a step without finding him between one’s legs. Come! come! you can’t stop here.’

The dog lowered his old trembling head with an expression of affectionate entreaty.

‘Oh! let him stop, do!’ Pauline cried.

But the servant seemed displeased.

‘No! indeed, not in such a state as that. I have had quite enough to do, as it is, with wiping up after him. It’s really quite disgusting. You’ll have the dining-room in a nice state if he goes dragging himself all over the place in this way. Come along! Come along! Be a little quicker, do!’

‘Let him stay here, and you go away!’ said Lazare.

Then, as Véronique furiously banged the door behind her, Matthew, who seemed to understand the situation perfectly well, came and laid his head on his master’s knee. Everyone wanted to lavish dainties on him; they broke up lumps of sugar, and tried to brighten him up into liveliness. In times past they had been accustomed every evening to amuse them­selves by placing a lump of sugar upon the table on the opposite side to that at which the dog was stationed, and then as Matthew ran round they caught up the sugar and deposited it on the other side, in such wise that the dog went rushing round the table in pursuit of the dainty which was ever being removed from him, till at last he grew quite dizzy with the perpetual flitting, and broke out into wild and noisy barking. Lazare tried to set this little game going again, in the hope of cheering the poor animal. Matthew wagged his tail for a moment, went once round the table, and then staggered and fell against Pauline’s chair. He could not see the sugar, and his poor shrunken body rolled over on its side. Chanteau had stopped humming, and everyone felt keen sorrow at the sight of that poor dying dog, who had vainly tried to summon up the romping energies of the past.

‘Don’t do anything to tire him,’ the Doctor said gently, ‘or you will kill him.’

Then the priest, who was smoking in silence, let fall a remark which was probably intended to account for his emotion.

‘One might almost imagine,’ he said, ‘that these big dogs were human beings.’

About ten o’clock, when the priest and the Doctor had left, Lazare, before going to his own room, went to lock Matthew in the coach-house again. He laid him carefully down upon some fresh straw, and saw that his bowl was full of water; then he kissed him and was about to leave him, but the dog raised himself on his feet with a painful effort, and tried to follow the young man. Lazare had to put him back three times, and then at last the dog yielded, but he raised his head with so sad an expression to watch his master depart that Lazare, who felt heart-broken, came back and kissed him again.

When he reached his room at the top of the house the young man tried to read till midnight. Then he went to bed. But he could not sleep; his mind dwelt continually upon Matthew; the image of the poor animal, lying on his bed of straw, with his failing eyes turned towards the door, never ceased to haunt him. On the morrow, he thought, Matthew would be dead. Every minute he caught himself involuntarily sitting up in bed and listening, fancying he heard a bark in the yard. His straining ears caught all sorts of imaginary sounds. About two o’clock in the morning he heard a groaning which made him jump out of bed. Who could be groaning like that? He rushed out on to the landing, but the house was wrapped in darkness and silence, not a breath came from Pauline’s room. Then he could no longer resist his impulse to go downstairs. The hope of once more seeing his old dog alive made him hasten his steps; he scarcely gave himself time to thrust his legs into a pair of trousers, before he started off, taking his candle with him.

When he reached the coach-house Matthew was no longer lying on the straw; he had dragged himself some distance away from it, and was stretched upon the hard ground. When he saw his master enter, he no longer had enough strength to raise his head. Lazare placed his candle on some old boards, and was filled with astonishment when he bent down and saw the ground all black. Then a spasm of pain came to him as he knelt and found that the poor animal was weltering in his death-throes in a perfect pool of blood. Life was quickly ebbing from him; he wagged his tail very feebly, while a faint light glistened in the depths of his eyes.

‘Oh! my poor old dog!’ sobbed Lazare; ‘oh! my poor old dog!’

Then, aloud, he said:

‘Wait a moment! I will move you. Ah! I’m afraid it hurts you, but you are drenched lying here; and I haven’t even got a sponge. Would you like something to drink?’

Matthew still gazed at him earnestly. Gradually the death-rattle shook his sides, and the pool of blood grew bigger and bigger, quite silently, and as though it were fed by some hidden spring.

Various ladders and broken barrels in the coach-house cast great shadows around, and the candle burnt very dimly. But suddenly there came a rustling among the straw. It was the cat, Minouche, who was reposing on the bed made for Matthew, and had been disturbed by the light.

‘Would you like something to drink, my poor old fellow?’ Lazare repeated.

He had found a cloth, which he dipped in the pan of water and pressed against the dying animal’s mouth. It seemed to relieve him; and his nose, which was excoriated through fever, became a little cooler. Half an hour passed, during which Lazare constantly dipped the cloth in the water, while his eyes filled with tears at the painful sight before him, and his heart ached with all the bitterness of grief. Wild hopes came to him at times, as they do to the watchers at a bedside; perhaps, he thought, he might recall ebbing life by that simple application of cold water.