Complete Works of Emile Zola (1061 page)

But Séverine refused. A shiver had come over her at the thought of going to La Croix-de-Maufras in this snow, in this livid daylight. No, no, there was nothing she desired to do there. She preferred to remain where she was, and wait in the warmth.

“Be seated, madam,” resumed Flore. “It is more comfortable here than in the other room; and, besides, we shall never be able to find sufficient bread for all these people; whereas, if you are hungry, there will always be a bit for you.”

She had handed her a chair, and continued to show herself attentive, making a visible effort to attenuate her usual rough manner. But her eyes never quitted the young woman. It seemed as if she wished to read her; to arrive at a certainty in regard to a particular question that she had already been asking herself for some time; and, in her eagerness, she felt a desire to approach her, to stare her out of countenance, to touch her, so as to know.

Séverine expressed her thanks, and made herself comfortable near the stove, preferring, indeed, to be alone with the invalid in this room, where she hoped Jacques would find means to join her. Two hours passed. Yielding to the oppressive heat, she had fallen asleep, after chatting about the neighbourhood. Suddenly, Flore, who at every minute had been summoned to the kitchen, opened the door, saying in her harsh tones:

“Go in, as she is there.”

It was Jacques who had escaped with good news. The man sent to Barentin had just brought back a whole gang, some thirty soldiers, whom the administration, foreseeing accidents, had dispatched to the threatened points on the line; and they were all hard at work with pick and shovel. Only it would be a long job, and the train would, perhaps, not be able to get off again before evening.

“Anyhow, you are not so badly off,” he added; “have patience. And, Aunt Phasie, you will not let Madame Roubaud starve, will you?”

Phasie, at the sight of her big lad, as she called him, had with difficulty sat up, and she looked at him, revived and happy, listening to him talking. When he had drawn near her bed, she replied:

“Of course not, of course not. Ah! my big lad, so there you are. And so it’s you who have got caught in the snow; and that silly girl never told me so.”

Turning to her daughter, she said reproachfully:

“Try and be polite, anyhow. Return to those ladies and gentlemen, show them some attention, so that they may not tell the company that we are no better than savages.”

Flore remained planted between Jacques and Séverine. She appeared to hesitate for an instant, asking herself if she should not obstinately remain there, in spite of her mother. But she reflected that she would see nothing; the presence of the invalid would prevent any familiarity between the other two; and she withdrew, after taking a long look at them.

“What! Aunt Phasie!” exclaimed Jacques sadly; “you have taken to your bed for good? Then it’s serious?”

She drew him towards her, forcing him even to seat himself at the edge of the mattress; and without troubling any further about the young woman, who had discreetly moved away, she proceeded to relieve herself in a very low voice.

“Oh! yes, serious! It’s a miracle if you find me alive. I wouldn’t write to you, because such things can’t be written. I’ve had a narrow escape; but now I am already better, and I believe I shall get over it again this time.”

He examined her, alarmed at the progress of the malady, and found she had not preserved a vestige of the handsome, healthy woman of former days.

“Then you still suffer from your cramps and dizziness, my poor Aunt Phasie?” said he.

She squeezed his hand fit to crush it, continuing in a still lower tone:

“Just fancy, I caught him. You know, that do what I would, I could not find out how he managed to give me his drug. I didn’t drink, I didn’t eat anything he touched, and all the same, every night I had my inside afire. Well, he mixed it with the salt! One night, I saw him; and I was in the habit of putting salt on everything in quantities to make the food healthy!”

Since Jacques had known Séverine, he sometimes pondered in doubt over this story of slow and obstinate poisoning, as one thinks of the nightmare. In his turn he tenderly pressed the hands of the invalid, and sought to calm her.

“Come, is all this possible? To say such things you should really be quite sure; and, besides, it drags on too long. Ah! it’s more likely an illness that the doctors do not understand!”

“An illness,” she resumed, with a sneer; “yes, an illness that he stuck into me! As for the doctors, you are right; two came here, who understood nothing, and who were not even of the same mind. I’ll never allow another of such creatures to put a foot in this house again. Do you hear, he gave it me in the salt. I swear to you I saw him! It’s for my 1,000 frcs., the 1,000 frcs. papa left me. He says to himself, that when he has done away with me, he’ll soon find them. But, as to that, I defy him. They are in a place where nobody will find them. Never, never! I may die, but I am at ease on that score. No one will ever have my 1,000 frcs.!”

“But, Aunt Phasie,” answered Jacques, “in your place, if I were so sure as all that, I should send for the gendarmes.”

She made a gesture of repugnance.

“Oh! no, not the gendarmes,” said she. “This matter only concerns us. It is between him and me. I know that he wants to gobble me up; and naturally I do not wish him to do it. So you see I have only to defend myself; not to be such a fool as I have been with his salt. Eh! who would ever have thought it? An abortion like that, a little whipper-snapper of a man whom one could stuff into one’s pocket, and who, in the long-run, would get the better of a big woman like me, if one let him have his own way with his teeth like those of a rat.”

She was seized with a little shiver, and breathed heavily before she could conclude.

“No matter,” said she at last, “he will be short of his reckoning again this time. I am getting better. I shall be on my legs before a fortnight. And he’ll have to be very clever to catch me again. Ah! yes, I shall be curious to see him do it. If he discovers a way to give me any more of his drug, he will decidedly be the stronger of the two; and then, so much the worse for me. I shall kick the bucket. But I don’t want to have any meddling between us!”

Jacques thought it must be her illness that caused her brain to be haunted by these sombre ideas; and, to amuse her, he tried joking, when, all at once, she began trembling under the bedclothes.

“Here he is,” she whispered. “I can feel him coming whenever he approaches.”

And sure enough, Misard entered a few seconds afterwards. She had become livid, a prey to that indomitable fright which huge creatures feel in presence of the insect that preys upon them. For, notwithstanding her obstinate determination to defend herself single-handed, she felt an increasing terror of him that she would not confess. Misard cast a sharp look at her and the driver, from the threshold, and then, gave himself an air of not having noticed them side by side.

With his expressionless eyes, his thin lips, his mild manner of a puny man, he was already showing great attention to Séverine.

“I thought madam would perhaps like to take advantage of the opportunity, to have a look at her property. So I managed to slip away for a moment. If madam wishes I will accompany her.”

And as the young woman still refused, he continued in a doleful voice:

“Madam was perhaps surprised in regard to the fruit. It was all worm-eaten, and was really not worth packing up. Then we had a gale that did a lot of harm. Ah! it’s a pity madam cannot sell the place! One gentleman came who wanted some repairs done. Anyhow, I am at the disposal of madam; and madam may be sure that I replace her here, as if she were here herself.”

Then he insisted on giving her bread and pears, pears from his own garden, which were not worm-eaten, and she accepted.

As Misard crossed the kitchen he told the passengers that the work of clearing away the snow was proceeding, but it would take another four or five hours. It had struck midday, and there ensued more lamentation, for all were becoming very hungry. Flore had just declared that she would not have sufficient bread for everyone. But she had plenty of wine. She had brought ten quarts up from the cellar, and only a moment before, had set them in a line on the table.

Then there were not enough glasses, and they had to drink by groups, the English lady with her two daughters, the old gentleman with his young wife. The latter had found a zealous, inventful groom in the young man from Havre, who watched over her well-being. He disappeared and returned with apples and a loaf which he had found in the woodhouse. Flore was angry, saying this was bread for her sick mother. But he had already commenced cutting it up, and handing pieces to the ladies, beginning with the young wife, who smiled at him amiably, feeling very much flattered at his attention.

Her husband was not offended; indeed, he no longer paid any attention to her, being engaged with the American in exalting the commercial customs of New York. The two English girls had never munched apples so heartily. Their mother, who felt very weary, was half asleep. Two ladies were seated on the ground before the hearth, overcome by waiting. Men who had gone out to smoke, in front of the house to kill a quarter of an hour, returned perishing and shivering with cold. Little by little the uneasy feeling increased, partly from hunger having only been half satisfied and partly from fatigue, augmented by impatience and absence of all comfort. The scene was assuming the aspect of a shipwrecked camp, of the desolation of a band of civilised people, cast by the waves on a desert island.

And as Misard, going backward and forward, left the door open, Aunt Phasie gazed on the picture from her bed of sickness. So these were the kind of people whom she had seen flash past, during close upon a year that she had been dragging herself from her mattress to her chair. It was now but rarely that she could go on to the siding. She passed her days and nights alone, riveted there, her eyes on the window, without any other company than those trains which flew by so swiftly.

She had always complained of this outlandish place, where they never received a visit; and here was quite a small crowd come from the unknown. And only to think that among them — among those people in a hurry to get to their business — not one had the least idea of the thing that troubled her, of that filth which had been mixed with her salt! She had taken that device to heart, and she asked herself how it was possible for a person to be guilty of such cunning rascality without anybody perceiving it. A sufficient multitude passed by them, thousands and thousands of people; but they all dashed on, not one would have imagined that a murder was calmly being committed in this little, low-roofed dwelling, without any set out. And Aunt Phasie looked at one after the other of these persons, fallen as it were from the moon, reflecting that when people have their minds so occupied with other things, it is not surprising that they should walk into pools of mire, and not know it.

“Are you going back there?” Misard inquired of Jacques.

“Yes, yes,” replied the latter; “I’m coming immediately.” Misard went off closing the door. And Phasie, retaining the young man by the hand, whispered in his ear:

“If I kick the bucket, you’ll see what a face he’ll pull when he’s unable to find the cash. That’s what amuses me when I think of it I shall go off contented all the same.”

“And then, Aunt Phasie, it’ll be lost for everybody,” said Jacques. “Won’t you leave it to your daughter?”

“To Flore? For him to take it from her? Ah! no, for certain. Not even to you, my big lad, because you also are too stupid, he’d get some of it. To no one; to the earth, where I shall go and join it!”

She was exhausted, and Jacques, having made her comfortable in bed, calmed her by embracing her, and promising to return and see her again shortly. Then, as she seemed to be falling asleep, he passed behind Séverine, who was still seated near the stove, raising his finger with a smile to caution her to be prudent. In a pretty, silent movement she threw back her head offering her lips, and he, bending over, pressed his mouth to them in a deep discreet kiss. Their eyes closed, and when the lids rose again it was to find Flore standing in the doorway gazing at them.

“Has madam done with the bread?” she inquired in a hoarse voice.

Séverine, confused and very much annoyed, stammered out: “Yes, yes. Thank you.”

For an instant Jacques fixed his flaming eyes on the girl.

He hesitated, his lips trembling, as if he wanted to speak. Then, with a furious, threatening gesture, he made up his mind to leave. The door was slammed violently behind him.

Flore remained erect, presenting the tall stature of a warrior virgin, coifed with a heavy helmet of fair hair. So she had not been deceived by the anguish she had felt each Friday, at the sight of this lady in the train he drove. She was at last in possession of the absolute certainty she had been seeking since she held them there together. The man she was in love with, would never love her. It was this slim woman, this insignificant creature that he had chosen; and her regret at having refused him a kiss that night when he had brutally attempted to take one, touched her so keenly that she would have sobbed. For, according to her simple reasoning, it would have been she whom he would have embraced now, had she kissed him before the other. Where could she find him alone at this hour, to cast herself on his neck and cry, “Take me, I was stupid, because I did not know!”

But, in her impotence, she felt a rage rising within her against the frail creature seated there, uneasy and stammering. With one clasp of her arms, hard as those of a wrestler, she could stifle her like a little bird. Why did she hesitate to do so? She vowed she would be revenged, nevertheless, being aware of things connected with this rival that would send her to prison, she whom they permitted to remain at liberty; and tortured by jealousy, bursting with anger, she began clearing away the remainder of the bread and pears with the hasty movements of a beautiful untamed girl.

“As madam will take no more, I’ll give this to the others,” said she.