Fruitfulness - Emile Zola
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This time the good woman consented, so truthful did the girl's accents
seem to be. Constant visits to the vilest dens, where crime sprouted from
the dunghill of poverty, had made Madame Angelin brave. She was obliged
to close her umbrella when she glided through the breach in the fence in
the wake of the girl, who, slim and supple like a cat, glided on in
front, bareheaded, in her ragged shawl.
"Give me your hand, madame," said she. "Take care, for there are some
trenches. . . . It's over yonder at the end. Can you hear how he's
moaning, poor brother? . . . Ah! here we are!"
Then came swift and overwhelming savagery. The three bandits, Alexandre,
Richard, and Alfred, who had been crouching low, sprang forward and threw
themselves upon Madame Angelin with such hungry, wolfish violence that
she was thrown to the ground. Alfred, however, being a coward, then left
her to the two others, and hastened with Toinette to the breach in order
to keep watch. Alexandre, who had a handkerchief rolled up, all ready,
thrust it into the poor lady's mouth to stifle her cries. Their intention
was to stun her only and then make off with her little bag.
But the handkerchief must have slipped out, for she suddenly raised a
shriek, a loud and terrible shriek. And at that moment the others near
the breach gave the alarm whistle: some people were, doubtless, drawing
near. It was necessary to finish. Alexandre knotted the handkerchief
round the unhappy woman's neck, while Richard with his fist forced her
shriek back into her throat. Red madness fell upon them, they both began
to twist and tighten the handkerchief, and dragged the poor creature over
the muddy ground until she stirred no more. Then, as the whistle sounded
again, they took the bag, left the body there with the handkerchief
around the neck, and galloped, all four of them, as far as the Grenelle
bridge, whence they flung the bag into the Seine, after greedily
thrusting the coppers, and the white silver, and the yellow gold into
their pockets.
When Mathieu read the particulars of the crime in the newspapers, he was
seized with fright and hastened to the Rue de la Federation. The murdered
woman had been promptly identified, and the circumstance that the crime
had been committed on that plot of vacant ground but a hundred yards or
so from the house where Norine and Cecile lived upset him, filled him
with a terrible presentiment. And he immediately realized that his fears
were justified when he had to knock three times at Norine's door before
Cecile, having recognized his voice, removed the articles with which it
had been barricaded, and admitted him inside. Norine was in bed, quite
ill, and as white as her sheets. She began to sob and shuddered
repeatedly as she told him the story: Madame Angelin's visit the previous
month, and the sudden arrival of Alexandre, who had seen the bag and had
heard the promise of further help, at a certain hour on a certain date.
Besides, Norine could have no doubts, for the handkerchief found round
the victim's neck was one of hers which Alexandre had stolen: a
handkerchief embroidered with the initial letters of her Christian name,
one of those cheap fancy things which are sold by thousands at the big
linendrapery establishments. That handkerchief, too, was the only clew to
the murderers, and it was such a very vague one that the police were
still vainly seeking the culprits, quite lost amid a variety of scents
and despairing of success.
Mathieu sat near the bed listening to Norine and feeling icy cold. Good
God! that poor, unfortunate Madame Angelin! He could picture her in her
younger days, so gay and bright over yonder at Janville, roaming the
woods there in the company of her husband, the pair of them losing
themselves among the deserted paths, and lingering in the discreet shade
of the pollard willows beside the Yeuse, where their love kisses sounded
beneath the branches like the twittering of song birds. And he could
picture her at a later date, already too severely punished for her lack
of foresight, in despair at remaining childless, and bowed down with
grief as by slow degrees her husband became blind, and night fell upon
the little happiness yet left to them. And all at once Mathieu also
pictured that wretched blind man, on the evening when he vainly awaited
the return of his wife, in order that she might feed him and put him to
bed, old child that he was, now motherless, forsaken, forever alone in
his dark night, in which he could only see the bloody spectre of his
murdered helpmate. Ah! to think of it, so bright a promise of radiant
life, followed by such destiny, such death!
"We did right," muttered Mathieu, as his thoughts turned to Constance,
"we did right to keep that ruffian in ignorance of his father's name.
What a terrible thing! We must bury the secret as deeply as possible
within us."
Norine shuddered once more.
"Oh! have no fear," she answered, "I would die rather than speak."
Months, years, flowed by; and never did the police discover the murderers
of the lady with the little bag. For years, too, Norine shuddered every
time that anybody knocked too roughly at her door. But Alexandre did not
reappear there. He doubtless feared that corner of the Rue de la
Federation, and remained as it were submerged in the dim unsoundable
depths of the ocean of Paris.
XX
DURING the ten years which followed, the vigorous sprouting of the
Froments, suggestive of some healthy vegetation of joy and strength,
continued in and around the ever and ever richer domain of Chantebled. As
the sons and the daughters grew up there came fresh marriages, and more
and more children, all the promised crop, all the promised swarming of a
race of conquerors.
First it was Gervais who married Caroline Boucher, daughter of a big
farmer of the region, a fair, fine-featured, gay, strong girl, one of
those superior women born to rule over a little army of servants. On
leaving a Parisian boarding-school she had been sensible enough to feel
no shame of her family's connection with the soil. Indeed she loved the
earth and had set herself to win from it all the sterling happiness of
her life. By way of dowry she brought an expanse of meadow-land in the
direction of Lillebonne, which enlarged the estate by some seventy acres.
But she more particularly brought her good humor, her health, her courage
in rising early, in watching over the farmyard, the dairy, the whole
home, like an energetic active housewife, who was ever bustling about,
and always the last to bed.
Then came the turn of Claire, whose marriage with Frederic Berthaud, long
since foreseen, ended by taking place. There were tears of soft emotion,
for the memory of her whom Berthaud had loved and whom he was to have
married disturbed several hearts on the wedding day when the family
skirted the little cemetery of Janville as it returned to the farm from
the municipal offices. But, after all, did not that love of former days,
that faithful fellow's long affection, which in time had become
transferred to the younger sister, constitute as it were another link in
the ties which bound him to the Froments? He had no fortune, he brought
with him only his constant faithfulness, and the fraternity which had
sprung up between himself and Gervais during the many seasons when they
had ploughed the estate like a span of tireless oxen drawing the same
plough. His heart was one that could never be doubted, he was the helper
who had become indispensable, the husband whose advent would mean the
best of all understandings and absolute certainty of happiness.
From the day of that wedding the government of the farm was finally
settled. Though Mathieu was barely five-and-fifty he abdicated, and
transferred his authority to Gervais, that son of the earth as with a
laugh he often called him, the first of his children born at Chantebled,
the one who had never left the farm, and who had at all times given him
the support of his arm and his brain and his heart. And now Frederic in
turn would think and strive as Gervais's devoted lieutenant, in the great
common task. Between them henceforth they would continue the father's
work, and perfect the system of culture, procuring appliances of new
design from the Beauchene works, now ruled by Denis, and ever drawing
from the soil the largest crops that it could be induced to yield. Their
wives had likewise divided their share of authority; Claire surrendered
the duties of supervision to Caroline, who was stronger and more active
than herself, and was content to attend to the accounts, the turnover of
considerable sums of money, all that was paid away and all that was
received. The two couples seemed to have been expressly and cleverly
selected to complete one another and to accomplish the greatest sum of
work without ever the slightest fear of conflict. And, indeed, they lived
in perfect union, with only one will among them, one purpose which was
ever more and more skilfully effected--the continual increase of the
happiness and wealth of Chantebled under the beneficent sun.
At the same time, if Mathieu had renounced the actual exercise of
authority, he none the less remained the creator, the oracle who was
consulted, listened to, and obeyed. He dwelt with Marianne in the old
shooting-box which had been transformed and enlarged into a very
comfortable house. Here they lived like the founders of a dynasty who had
retired in full glory, setting their only delight in beholding around
them the development and expansion of their race, the birth and growth of
their children's children. Leaving Claire and Gervais on one side, there
were as yet only Denis and Ambroise--the first to wing their flight
abroad--engaged in building up their fortunes in Paris. The three girls,
Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, who would soon be old enough to marry,
still dwelt in the happy home beside their parents, as well as the three
youngest boys, Gregoire, the free lance, Nicolas, the most stubborn and
determined of the brood, and Benjamin, who was of a dreamy nature. All
these finished growing up at the edge of the nest, so to say, with the
window of life open before them, ready for the day when they likewise
would take wing.
With them dwelt Charlotte, Blaise's widow, and her two children, Berthe
and Guillaume, the three of them occupying an upper floor of the house
where the mother had installed her studio. She was becoming rich since
her little share in the factory profits, stipulated by Denis, had been
increasing year by year; but nevertheless, she continued working for her
dealer in miniatures. This work brought her pocket-money, she gayly said,
and would enable her to make her children a present whenever they might
marry. There was, indeed, already some thought of Berthe marrying; and
assuredly she would be the first of Mathieu and Marianne's grandchildren
to enter into the state of matrimony. They smiled softly at the idea of
becoming great-grandparents before very long perhaps.
After the lapse of four years, Gregoire, first of the younger children,
flew away. There was a great deal of trouble, quite a little drama in
connection with the affair, which Mathieu and Marianne had for some time
been anticipating. Gregoire was anything but reasonable. Short, but
robust, with a pert face in which glittered the brightest of eyes, he had
always been the turbulent member of the family, the one who caused the
most anxiety. His childhood had been spent in playing truant in the woods
of Janville, and he had afterwards made a mere pretence of studying in
Paris, returning home full of health and spirits, but unable or unwilling
to make up his mind with respect to any particular trade or profession.
Already four-and-twenty, he knew little more than how to shoot and fish,
and trot about the country on horseback. He was certainly not more stupid
or less active than another, but he seemed bent on living and amusing
himself according to his fancy. The worst was that for some months past
all the gossips of Janville had been relating that he had renewed his
former boyish friendship with Therese Lepailleur, the miller's daughter,
and that they were to be met of an evening in shady nooks under the
pollard-willows by the Yeuse.
One morning Mathieu, wishing to ascertain if the young coveys of
partridges were plentiful in the direction of Mareuil, took Gregoire with
him; and when they found themselves alone among the plantations of the
plateau, he began to talk to him seriously.
"You know I'm not pleased with you, my lad," said he. "I really cannot
understand the idle life which you lead here, while all the rest of us
are hard at work. I shall wait till October since you have positively
promised me that you will then come to a decision and choose the calling
which you most fancy. But what is all this tittle-tattle which I hear
about appointments which you keep with the daughter of the Lepailleurs?
Do you wish to cause us serious worry?"
Gregoire quietly began to laugh.
"Oh, father! You are surely not going to scold a son of yours because he
happens to be on friendly terms with a pretty girl! Why, as you may
remember, it was I who gave her her first bicycle lesson nearly ten years
ago. And you will recollect the fine white roses which she helped me to
secure in the enclosure by the mill for Denis' wedding."
Gregoire still laughed at the memory of that incident, and lived afresh
through all his old time sweethearting--the escapades with Therese along
the river banks, and the banquets of blackberries in undiscoverable
hiding-places, deep in the woods. And it seemed, too, that the love of
childhood had revived, and was now bursting into consuming fire, so
vividly did his cheeks glow, and so hotly did his eyes blaze as he thus
recalled those distant times.
"Poor Therese! We had been at daggers drawn for years, and all because
one evening, on coming back from the fair at Vieux-Bourg, I pushed her
into a pool of water where she dirtied her frock. It's true that last
spring we made it up again on finding ourselves face to face in the
little wood at Monval over yonder. But come, father, do you mean to say
that it's a crime if we take a little pleasure in speaking to one another
when we meet?"
Rendered the more anxious by the fire with which Gregoire sought to
defend the girl, Mathieu spoke out plainly.
"A crime? No, if you just wish one another good day and good evening.
Only folks relate that you are to be seen at dusk with your arms round
each other's waist, and that you go stargazing through the grass
alongside the Yeuse."
Then, as Gregoire this time without replying laughed yet more loudly,
with the merry laugh of youth, his father gravely resumed:
"Listen, my lad, it is not at all to my taste to play the gendarme behind
my sons. But I won't have you drawing some unpleasant business with the
Lepailleurs on us all. You know the position, they would be delighted to
give us trouble. So don't give them occasion for complaining, leave their
daughter alone."
"Oh! I take plenty of care," cried the young man, thus suddenly
confessing the truth. "Poor girl! She has already had her ears boxed
because somebody told her father that I had been met with her. He
answered that rather than give her to me he would throw her into the
river."
"Ah! you see," concluded Mathieu. "It is understood, is it not? I shall
rely on your good behavior."
Thereupon they went their way, scouring the fields as far as the road to
Mareuil. Coveys of young partridges, still weak on the wing, started up
both to the right and to the left. The shooting would be good. Then as
the father and the son turned homeward, slackening their pace, a long
spell of silence fell between them. They were both reflecting.
"I don't wish that there should be any misunderstanding between us,"
Mathieu suddenly resumed; "you must not imagine that I shall prevent you
from marrying according to your tastes and that I shall require you to
take an heiress. Our poor Blaise married a portionless girl. And it was
the same with Denis; besides which I gave your sister, Claire, in
marriage to Frederic, who was simply one of our farm hands. So I don't
look down on Therese. On the contrary, I think her charming. She's one of
the prettiest girls of the district--not tall, certainly, but so alert
and determined, with her little pink face shining under such a wild crop
of fair hair, that one might think her powdered with all the flour in the
mill."
"Yes, isn't that so, father?" interrupted Gregoire enthusiastically. "And
if you only knew how affectionate and courageous she is! She's worth a
man any day. It's wrong of them to smack her, for she will never put up
with it. Whenever she sets her mind on anything she's bound to do it, and
it isn't I who can prevent her."
Absorbed in some reflections of his own, Mathieu scarcely heard his son.
"No, no," he resumed; "I certainly don't look down on their mill. If it
were not for Lepailleur's stupid obstinacy he would be drawing a fortune
from that mill nowadays. Since corn-growing has again been taken up all
over the district, thanks to our victory, he might have got a good pile
of crowns together if he had simply changed the old mechanism of his
wheel which he leaves rotting under the moss. And better still, I should
like to see a good engine there, and a bit of a light railway line
connecting the mill with Janville station."
In this fashion he continued explaining his ideas while Gregoire
listened, again quite lively and taking things in a jesting way.
"Well, father," the young man ended by saying, "as you wish that I should
have a calling, it's settled. If I marry Therese, I'll be a miller."
Mathieu protested in surprise: "No, no, I was merely talking. And
besides, you have promised me, my lad, that you will be reasonable. So
once again, for the sake of the peace and quietness of all of us, leave
Therese alone, for we can only expect to reap worry with the
Lepailleurs."
The conversation ceased and they returned to the farm. That evening,
however, the father told the mother of the young man's confession, and
she, who already entertained various misgivings, felt more anxious than
ever. Still a month went by without anything serious happening.
Then, one morning Marianne was astounded at finding Gregoire's bedroom
empty. As a rule he came to kiss her. Perhaps he had risen early, and had
gone on some excursion in the environs. But she trembled slightly when
she remembered how lovingly he had twice caught her in his arms on the
previous night when they were all retiring to bed. And as she looked
inquisitively round the room she noticed on the mantelshelf a letter
addressed to her--a prettily worded letter in which the young fellow
begged her to forgive him for causing her grief, and asked her to excuse
him with his father, for it was necessary that he should leave them for a
time. Of his reasons for doing so and his purpose, however, no
particulars were given.
This family rending, this bad conduct on the part of the son who had been
the most spoilt of all, and who, in a fit of sudden folly was the first
to break the ties which united the household together, was a very painful
blow for Marianne and Mathieu. They were the more terrified since they
divined that Gregoire had not gone off alone. They pieced together the
incidents of the deplorable affair. Charlotte remembered that she had
heard Gregoire go downstairs again, almost immediately after entering his
bedroom, and before the servants had even bolted the house-doors for the
night. He had certainly rushed off to join Therese in some coppice,
whence they must have hurried away to Vieux-Bourg station which the last
train to Paris quitted at five-and-twenty minutes past midnight. And it
was indeed this which had taken place. At noon the Froments already
learnt that Lepailleur was creating a terrible scandal about the flight
of Therese. He had immediately gone to the gendarmes to shout the story
to them, and demand that they should bring the guilty hussy back, chained
to her accomplice, and both of them with gyves about their wrists.
He on his side had found a letter in his daughter's bedroom, a plucky
letter in which she plainly said that as she had been struck again the
previous day, she had had enough of it, and was going off of her own free
will. Indeed, she added that she was taking Gregoire with her, and was
quite big and old enough, now that she was two-and-twenty, to know what
she was about. Lepailleur's fury was largely due to this letter which he
did not dare to show abroad; besides which, his wife, ever at war with
him respecting their son Antonin, not only roundly abused Therese, but
sneeringly declared that it might all have been expected, and that he,
the father, was the cause of the gad-about's misconduct. After that, they
engaged in fisticuffs; and for a whole week the district did nothing but
talk about the flight of one of the Chantebled lads with the girl of the
mill, to the despair of Mathieu and Marianne, the latter of whom in
particular grieved over the sorry business.
Five days later, a Sunday, matters became even worse. As the search for
the runaways remained fruitless Lepailleur, boiling over with rancor,
went up to the farm, and from the middle of the road--for he did not
venture inside--poured forth a flood of ignoble insults. It so happened
that Mathieu was absent; and Marianne had great trouble to restrain
Gervais as well as Frederic, both of whom wished to thrust the miller's
scurrilous language back into his throat. When Mathieu came home in the
evening he was extremely vexed to hear of what had happened.
"It is impossible for this state of things to continue," he said to his
wife, as they were retiring to rest. "It looks as if we were hiding, as
if we were guilty in the matter. I will go to see that man in the
morning. There is only one thing, and a very simple one, to be done,
those unhappy children must be married. For our part we consent, is it
not so? And it is to that man's advantage to consent also. To-morrow the
matter must be settled."
On the following day, Monday, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Mathieu
set out for the mill. But certain complications, a tragic drama, which he
could not possibly foresee, awaited him there. For years now a stubborn
struggle had been going on between Lepailleur and his wife with respect
to Antonin. While the farmer had grown more and more exasperated with his
son's idleness and life of low debauchery in Paris, the latter had
supported her boy with all the obstinacy of an illiterate woman, who was
possessed of a blind faith in his fine handwriting, and felt convinced
that if he did not succeed in life it was simply because he was refused
the money necessary for that purpose. In spite of her sordid avarice in
some matters, the old woman continued bleeding herself for her son, and
even robbed the house, promptly thrusting out her claws and setting her
teeth ready to bite whenever she was caught in the act, and had to defend
some twenty-franc piece or other, which she had been on the point of
sending away. And each time the battle began afresh, to such a point
indeed that it seemed as if the shaky old mill would some day end by
falling on their heads.
Then, all at once, Antonin, a perfect wreck at thirty-six years of age,
fell seriously ill. Lepailleur forthwith declared that if the scamp had
the audacity to come home he would pitch him over the wheel into the
water. Antonin, however, had no desire to return home; he held the
country in horror and feared, too, that his father might chain him up
like a dog. So his mother placed him with some people of Batignolles,
paying for his board and for the attendance of a doctor of the district.
This had been going on for three months or so, and every fortnight La
Lepailleur went to see her son. She had done so the previous Thursday,
and on the Sunday evening she received a telegram summoning her to
Batignolles again. Thus, on the morning of the day when Mathieu repaired
to the mill, she had once more gone to Paris after a frightful quarrel
with her husband, who asked if their good-for-nothing son ever meant to
cease fooling them and spending their money, when he had not the courage
even to turn a spit of earth.
Alone in the mill that morning Lepailleur did not cease storming. At the
slightest provocation he would have hammered his plough to pieces, or
have rushed, axe in hand, and mad with hatred, on the old wheel by way of
avenging his misfortunes. When he saw Mathieu come in he believed in some
act of bravado, and almost choked.
"Come, neighbor," said the master of Chantebled cordially, "let us both
try to be reasonable. I've come to return your visit, since you called
upon me yesterday. Only, bad words never did good work, and the best
course, since this misfortune has happened, is to repair it as speedily
as possible. When would you have us marry off those bad children?"
Thunderstruck by the quiet good nature of this frontal attack, Lepailleur
did not immediately reply. He had shouted over the house roofs that he
would have no marriage at all, but rather a good lawsuit by way of
sending all the Froments to prison. Nevertheless, when it came to
reflection, a son of the big farmer of Chantebled was not to be disdained
as a son-in-law.