Complete Works of Emile Zola (934 page)

He fumbled anxiously in his pockets, and slipped a five-franc piece into Palmyre’s hand.

“Here! Put it away; I’ve none for anybody else. I shall have to talk again to La Grande, since she’s so wicked.”

This time he got clear off. Luckily, as he was puffing and blowing up the slope on the other side of the Aigre, the Bazoches butcher, on his way back, gave him a lift in his cart; and he all but vanished as he gained the level of the plain, jolting along with the dancing silhouette of his three-cornered hat alone standing out against the leaden sky.

Meantime the church square had emptied, and Fouan and Rose had just gone down home, where they found Grosbois already waiting. A little before ten, Delhomme and Hyacinthe arrived in their turn; but Buteau was waited for in vain till twelve.

The eccentric rascal never could be punctual. Doubtless he had stopped on the road somewhere to breakfast. It was proposed to go on without him; then, a vague fear inspired by his hot-headedness led to the decision that the lots should not be drawn for till two o’clock, after breakfast. Grosbois, accepting a bit of bacon and a glass of wine from the Fouans, finished up one bottle, started on another, and re­lapsed into his usual state of intoxication.

Two o’clock, and still no Buteau appeared. So Hyacinthe, languishing for debauch, like the rest of the village, that Sunday feast-day, went lounging past Macqueron’s. This succeeded: the door was flung open, and Bécu appeared shouting:

“Come along, you rascally baggage, and let me treat you to a glass.”

Bécu had got stiffer still, assuming more and more dignity as his intoxication increased. A drunken, old-soldierly fellowship, a secret affection, drew him towards the poacher; but he avoided recognising him when he was on duty with his badge on his arm, being always on the point of catching him flagrante delicto, and struggling between duty and inclination. In the tavern, however, when he was tipsy, he stood him treat like a brother.

“Take a hand at piquet, eh?” said he; “and, by God, if the Bedouins bore us, we’ll slit their ears for ‘em!”

They installed themselves at a table, and played cards boisterously, while quart after quart of wine was served them.

Macqueron, with his fat, moustachioed face, sat huddled up in a corner, twiddling his thumbs. Since he had been gaining money by speculating in the light wines of Montigny, he had fallen into idle ways — hunting, fishing, and playing the gentle­man; though he remained filthy and ragged, while his daughter Berthe flounced to and fro in silk. If his wife had heeded him they would have shut up shop, giving up both the grocery and the refreshment business; for he was growing conceited, and had dim ambitions, as yet unrecognised by himself. But she was ferociously eager for gain, and he, although concerning himself personally about nothing, was content to let her go on serving tipple, just to annoy his neighbour Lengaigne, who kept the tobacco shop, and also dealt in drink. ‘Twas a long­standing rivalry, ever smouldering, and ever ready to burst into a blaze.

Yet sometimes they were at peace for weeks together; and, as it happened, Lengaigne then came in with his son Victor, a tall, awkward youth, who was to draw for the conscription the next year. Lengaigne himself, a lanky, frozen-looking man, with a little owl’s head set upon broad, brawny shoulders, had remained a peasant and tilled the soil, while his wife weighed out the tobacco and drew the wine. He derived a special importance from the fact that he was barber and hair-cutter to the whole village, an avocation which he had brought back from his regiment, and which he plied either at his shop, amid the eaters and drinkers, or else, if his customers preferred it, at their own homes.

“Well, this beard of yours, is it to be done to-day, my boy?” he asked, from the door.

“Bless me! Right you are, I told you to come,” cried Macqueron. “This very moment, if you like.”

He reached an old shaving-dish from its hook, and took some soap and warm water, while the other drew from his pocket a razor the size of a cutlass, which he set about sharpening on a strop fixed to the case. A squeaky voice now issued from the adjacent grocery department:

“I say,” cried Cœlina, “are you going to mess the tables which people drink at? Well, then, you sha’n’t! I won’t have hair found in the glasses at my house.”

This was an attack on the cleanliness of the rival tavern, where customers ate more hair than they drank genuine wine, she said.

“Sell your salt and pepper, and hold your row!” replied Macqueron, annoyed by this public curtain-lecture.

Hyacinthe and Bécu tittered.

“An extinguisher for the good lady that!” They ordered of her a fresh quart of wine, which she brought in speechless fury. Then they shuffled the cards, and dashed them violently on to the table, as if to exasperate each other. Trump, trump, and trump!

Lengaigne had already lathered his customer, and was holding him by the nose, when Lequeu, the schoolmaster, pushed the door open.

“Good-day, everybody!”

He stood silently in front of the stove, warming his loins, while young Victor, stationed behind the players, became absorbed in watching their game.

“By the by,” resumed Macqueron, taking advantage of a moment when Lengaigne was wiping the lather off the razor on to his shoulder, “just now, before mass, Monsieur Hourdequin spoke to me again about the road. Things must be settled some way or another.”

The road in question was the famous one direct from Rognes to Châteaudun, which was to shorten the distance by about two leagues, for vehicles were now forced to pass through Cloyes, Of course, the farm was much interested in this new route, and to carry the point the mayor relied greatly on his assessor — himself interested in a speedy settlement. There was a question of facilitating the approach of vehicles to the church, which could now only be reached by goat-paths, and the projected line of route followed the steep lane that wound its narrow way between the two taverns. Only broaden that, and level down the ascent a bit, and the grocer’s grounds — which would be by the road-side, and of easy access — would increase tenfold in value.

“Yes,” he continued, “it would seem that the Government, before giving us any help, is waiting for us to vote something. That’s so, isn’t it? You are in it.”

Lengaigne, who was a municipal councillor, but who had not as much as a square inch of garden behind his house, replied:

“I don’t care a curse! What the deuce has your road to do with me?”

Then, making an attack on the other cheek, which he rasped as with a nutmeg-grater, he fell foul of the farm. These latter-day gentle folks were even worse than the nobles of old.

Why, they had kept everything to themselves in the distri­bution of the land, made laws merely for their own advantage, and they lived only on the distress of poor folks. The others listened, constrained, yet inwardly pleased by his temerity, for they had the peasant’s immemorial, unconquerable hatred of the landowner.

“It’s a good thing we are among ourselves,” muttered Macqueron, glancing uneasily at the schoolmaster. “I am on the Government side. So is our deputy, Monsieur de Chédeville, who is, they say, a friend of the Emperor’s.”

Lengaigne began furiously shaking his razor.

“And that’s another pretty rogue of a fellow! Oughtn’t a rich man like him, possessing more than two thousand acres of land over there towards Orgères, oughtn’t he to make you a present of your road, instead of trying to wring coppers out of the village? The low beast!”

The grocer, alarmed this time, protested. “No, no. He’s very straightforward, and not proud. But for him you wouldn’t have had your tobacco-counter. What would you say if he took it away from you again?”

Abruptly calming down, Lengaigne went on scraping the other’s chin. He had lost his temper and gone too far; his wife was right in saying that his ideas would play him false. At that moment a quarrel was heard to threaten between Bécu and Hyacinthe. The former was in an ill-tempered, pugna­cious state of drunkenness, while the other, on the contrary, grim and overbearing though he was when sober, grew more and more maudlin with every glass of wine, subsiding into the genial meekness of a tipsy apostle. Add to this their radical difference of opinion: the poacher being a Republican — a Red, as people said — who boasted of having made the gentlefolks dance the rigadoon at Cloyes in ‘48; and the rural constable being a wild Bonapartist and worshipping the Emperor, with whom he pretended to be acquainted.

“I swear it! We had partaken of a red herring salad together, when he said to me: ‘Not a word. I am the Emperor.’ I knew him at a glance, because of his likeness on the five-franc pieces.”

“Maybe! Anyhow, he’s a low fellow, who beats his wife and never loved his mother!”

“Hold your tongue, in God’s name! or I’ll break your jaw for you!”

The quart bottle which Bécu was brandishing had to be taken from him; whilst Hyacinthe, with tearful eyes, sat awaiting the blow in cheerful resignation. Then they resumed their game, like brothers. Trump, trump, and trump!

Macqueron, rendered uneasy by the assumed indifference of the schoolmaster, finished by asking him:

“And you, Monsieur Lequeu, what do you say?”

Lequeu, who was warming his slender, sallow hands against the stove-pipe, smiled the bitter smile of a superior person who is compelled by his position to remain silent.

“I say nothing,” he answered. “It’s none of my business.”

Macqueron soused his face in a basin of water, and while spluttering and wiping himself dry, replied:

“Well, mark my words! I mean to do something. If the road’s voted, by God. I’ll let ‘em have my ground for nothing.”

This declaration stupefied the audience. Even Hyacinthe and Bécu looked up, despite their intoxication. There was a pause. They gazed at Macqueron as if he had suddenly gone mad; and he, spurred on by the effect produced, yet with his hands trembling at the engagement he was taking, added:

“There’ll be something like half an acre. The man who goes back on his word is a scoundrel! I’ve sworn it!”

Lengaigne departed with his son Victor, exasperated and disgusted by his neighbour’s munificence. Land didn’t cost him much, the way he robbed people.

Macqueron, despite the cold, now took his gun, and went out to see if he could come across a rabbit he had noticed in his vineyard the day before. In the tavern there only remained Lequeu — who spent his Sundays there without taking anything to drink — and the two gamblers, who were poring over their cards. Hours elapsed, while other peasants came and went.

Towards five o’clock the door was roughly pushed open, and Buteau appeared, followed by Jean. Immediately he saw Hyacinthe, he cried:

“I’d have wagered five francs. Don’t you care a damn for anybody? We’re waiting for you.”

The drunkard, slobbering and merry, replied:

“That’s a good ‘un! I’m waiting for you. You’ve kept us hanging about since morning, and I think it cool of you to complain.”

Buteau had stopped at La Borderie, where Jacqueline, whom, at the age of fifteen, he had knocked head over heels in the hay, had kept him to eat some hot buttered toast with Jean. Farmer Hourdequin having gone to breakfast at Cloyes after mass, the two sparks had kept it up pretty late, and had only just reached the village in each other’s company.

Meantime, Bécu yelled out that he would pay for the five quarts, but that the game was to stand over; while Hyacinthe, reluctantly unfixing himself from his chair, followed his brother, chuckling to himself, with his eyes swimming in mildness.

“Wait there,” said Buteau to Jean, “and in half an hour come and pick me up. You know you dine with me at father’s.”

When the two brothers had entered the sitting-room of the Fouans’ house, they found the company assembled in full. The father was standing up with bent head. The mother, seated near the table in the middle, was mechanically knitting. Opposite her was Grosbois, who had eaten and drunk so much as to be in a state of doze, with his eyes half-open; while, farther off, Fanny and Delhomme were waiting patiently on two low chairs. There were some unwonted articles in the smoky room, with its shabby old furniture and its utensils worn by scrubbing: a blank sheet of paper, an ink-bottle, and a pen stood on the table beside the surveyor’s hat — a monumental, rusty-black hat with which he had trudged through rain and sunshine for ten years past. Night was falling, and through the narrow window came an expiring, murky glimmer, in which the flat brim and urn-like body of the hat loomed strangely.

Grosbois, always ready for business in spite of his intoxica­tion, woke up and stammered out:

“Now we’re right. I told you the deed was ready. I called yesterday at Monsieur Baillehache’s, and he showed it me. Only the numbers of the lots are left blank after your names. So we will draw, and the notary need then only write in the lots and you can sign on Saturday at his place.”

He roused himself and raised his voice: “Come, I will get the tickets ready.”

Fouan’s children abruptly approached, making no secret of their distrust. They watched Grosbois, and kept a sharp eye on his slightest movements, as on those of a conjuror capable of juggling away the shares. First he had cut the sheet of paper into three with his drink-sodden, shaking fingers; now he was writing the figures 1, 2, 3, and enormous, strongly-marked figures they were. The others watched his pen over his shoulders, the parents themselves nodding their satisfaction on seeing the impossibility of deception. The tickets were slowly folded up and thrown into the hat. A solemn stillness reigned.

At the expiration of two long minutes Grosbois exclaimed:

“Well, you must make up your minds. Who begins? “

No one stirred. The night deepened, and the hat seemed to grow larger in the gloom.

“By order of seniority, eh?” proposed the surveyor. “You begin, Hyacinthe, you’re the eldest.”

Hyacinthe, the amiable, came forward, but he lost his balance, and all but fell sprawling. He had violently shoved his fist into the hat as though with the purpose of extracting a mass of rock from it. When he had secured one of the tickets, he had to go to the window to see.