XI
Now all talk of the little Claire has ceased. As was expected, the case has been abandoned. So Joseph and the forest of Raillon will keep their secret forever. Of that poor little human creature no more will be said henceforth than of the body of a blackbird that dies in the woods, in a thicket. The father continues to break stone on the highway, as if nothing had happened, and the town, stirred and roused for a moment by this crime, resumes its usual aspect,—an aspect still more dismal because of the winter. The very bitter cold keeps people shut up in their houses. One can scarcely get a glimpse of their pale and sleepy faces behind the frosty windows, and in the streets one seldom meets anybody except ragged vagabonds and shivering dogs.
To-day Madame sent me on an errand to the butcher's shop, and I took the dogs with me. While I was there, an old woman timidly entered the shop, and asked for meat,—"a little meat to make a little soup for my sick boy." The butcher selected, from the débris piled up in a large copper pan, a dirty bit, half bone, half fat, and, after carefully weighing it, announced:
"Fifteen sous."
"Fifteen sous! " exclaimed the old woman; "but that is impossible! And how do you expect me to make soup out of that? "
"As you like," said the butcher, throwing the piece back into the pan. " Only, you know, I am going to send you your bill to-day. If it is not paid by to-morrow, then the process-server! "
"Give it to me," said the old woman, then, with resignation.
When she had gone, the butcher explained to me:
"Nevertheless, if we did not have the poor to buy the inferior parts, we really should not make enough out of an animal. But these wretches are getting to be very exacting nowadays."
And, cutting off two long slices of good red meat, he threw them to the dogs.
The dogs of the rich,—indeed! they are not poor.
At the Priory events succeed one another. From the tragic they pass to the comical, for one cannot always shudder. Tired of the captain's mischief- making, and acting on Madame' s advice. Monsieur has at last brought suit before a justice of the peace. He claims damages and interest for the breaking of his bell-glasses and his frames, and for the devastation of the garden. It seems that the meeting of the two enemies in the office justice was really something epic. They black- guarded one another like rag-pickers. Of course, the captain denies, with many oaths, that he has ever thrown stones or anything else into Lanlaire's garden; it is Lanlaire who throws stones into his.
"Have you witnesses? Where are your wit- nesses? Dare to produce witnesses, screams the captain.
"Witnesses? rejoins Monsieur; " there are the stones, and all the dirty things with which you have been continually covering my land. There are the old hats, and the old slippers, that I pick up every day, and that everybody recognizes as having belonged to you."
"You lie."
"You are a scoundrel, a drunken rake."
But, it being impossible for Monsieur to bring admissible and conclusive testimony, the justice of the peace, who, moreover, is the captain's friend, invites Monsieur to withdraw his complaint.
"And for that matter, permit me to say to you," concluded the magistrate, “it is highly im- probable, it is quite inadmissible, that a valiant soldier, an intrepid officer, who has won all his stripes on fields of battle, amuses himself in throwing stones and old hats upon your land, like a small boy."
"Egad!" vociferates the captain, "this man is an infamous Dreyfusard. He insults the army." "I?"
Yes, you! What you are trying to do, you dirty Jew, is to disgrace the army. Long live the army!"
They came near taking each other by the hair, and the justice had much difficulty in separating them. Since then Monsieur has stationed permanently in the garden two invisible witnesses, behind a sort of board shelter, in which are pierced, at the height of a man, four round holes, for the eyes. But the captain, being warned, is lying low, and Monsieur is out the cost of his watchers.
I have seen the captain two or three times, over
the hedge. In spite of the frost, he stays in his
garden all day long, working furiously at all sorts
of things. For the moment he is putting oil-paper
caps on his rose-bushes. He tells me of his misfortunes. Rose is suffering from an attack of influenza, and then—with her asthma!
Bourbaki is dead. He died of a congestion of the
lungs, from drinking too much cognac. Really,
the captain has no luck. And surely that bandit of
a Lanlaire has cast a spell over him. He wishes
to get the upper hand of him, to rid the country of
him, and he submits to me an astonishing plan of
campaign.
"Here is what you ought to do, Mademoiselle Celestine. You ought to lodge with the prosecuting attorney at Louviers a complaint against Lanlaire for outrages on morals and an assault on modesty. Ah! that's an idea!
"But, captain, Monsieur has never outraged my morals or assaulted my modesty."
"Well, what difference does that make?"
"I cannot."
"What! you cannot? But there is nothing simpler. Lodge your complaint, and summon Rose and me. We will come to declare, to certify in a court of justice, that we have seen everything, everything, everything. A soldier's word amounts to something, especially just now, thunder of God! And remember that, after that, it will be easy to rake up the case of little Claire, and involve Lanlaire in it. Ah! that's an idea! Think it over, Mademoiselle Célestine; think it over."
Ah! I have many things, much too many things, to think over just now. Joseph is pressing me for a decision; the matter cannot be postponed. He has heard from Cherbourg that the little café is to be sold next week. But I am anxious, troubled. I want to, and I don't want to. One day the idea pleases me, and the next it doesn't. I really believe that I am afraid that Joseph wants to drag me into terrible things. I cannot come to a decision.
He is not brutal in his method of persuasion; he
advances arguments, and tempts me with promises
of liberty, of handsome costumes, of secure, happy,
triumphant life.
But I must buy the little café," he says to me. "I cannot let such an opportunity go by. And he Revolution comes? Think of it, Célestine; that means fortune right away. And who knows? The Revolution—ah! bear that in mind—is the best thing possible for the cafés."
"Buy it, at any rate. If it is not I, it will be somebody else."
"No, no, it must be you. Nobody else will do. I am crazy over you. But you distrust me."
"No, Joseph, I assure you."
"Yes, yes; you have bad ideas about me."
I do not know, no, really, I do not know, where, at that moment, I found the courage to ask him:
"Well, Joseph, tell me that it was you who outraged the little Claire in the woods."
Joseph received the shock with extraordinary tranquillity. He simply shrugged his shoulders, swayed back and forth a few seconds, and then, giving a hitch to his pantaloons, which had slipped a little, he answered, simply:
"You see? Did I not tell you so? I know your thoughts; I know everything that goes on in your mind."
His voice was softer, but his look had become so terrifying that it was impossible for me to articulate a word. "It is not a question of the little Claire; it is a question of you.
He took me in his arms, as he did the other evening.
"Will you come with me to the little café?'
Shuddering and trembling, I found strength to answer:
"I am afraid; I am afraid of you, Joseph. Why am I afraid of you?"
He held me cradled in his arms. And, disdaining to justify himself, happy perhaps at increasing my terrors, he said to me, in a paternal tone:
"Well, well, since that is the case, I will talk with you again about it to-morrow."
A Rouen newspaper is circulating in town, in
which there is an article that is creating a scandal among the pious. It is a true story, very droll,
and somewhat risqué, which happened lately at Port-
Lançon, a pretty place situated three leagues from
here. And it gains in piquancy from the fact that
everybody knows the personages. Here again is
something for people to talk about, for a few days.
The newspaper was brought to Marianne yesterday,
and at night, after dinner, I read the famous article
aloud. At the first phrases Joseph rose, with much
dignity, very severe and even a little angry. He
declared that he does not like dirty stories, and
that he cannot sit and listen to attacks on religion.
"You are not behaving well in reading that,
Célestine; you are not behaving well."
And he went off to bed.
To-day, November 10, it took us all day to clean the silver service. That is an event in the house, —a traditional epoch, like the preserve-canning season. The Lanlaires possess a magnificent silver service, containing old pieces, rare and very beautiful. It comes from Madame's father, who took it, some say on deposit, others say as security for money lent to a neighboring member of the nobility. Young people for military service were not all that this blusterer bought. Everything was fish that came to his net, and one swindle more or less made no difference to him. If the grocer is to be believed, the story of this silver service is one of the most doubtful, or one of the clearest, as you choose to look at it. It is said that Madame's father got his money back, and then, thanks to some circum- stance the nature of which I do not know, succeeded in keeping the silver service in the bargain. An astonishing piece of sharp practice!
Of course, the Lanlaires never use it. It remains locked up at the back of a closet in the servants' hall, in three great boxes lined with red velvet and fastened to the wall by solid iron clamps. Every year, on the tenth of November, it is taken from the boxes, and cleaned under Madame's supervision. And it is never seen again until the following year. Oh! Madame's eyes in presence of her silver service,—her silver service in our hands! Never have I seen in a woman's eyes such aggressive cupidity.
Are they not curious, these people who hide everything, who bury their silver, their jewels, all their wealth, all their happiness, and who, being able to live in luxury and joy, persist in living a life of ennui bordering on deprivation?
The work done, the silver service locked up for a year in its boxes, and Madame having gone away after satisfying herself that none of it has stuck to our fingers, Joseph said to me, with a queer air:
"That is a very beautiful silver service, you know, Célestine. Especially the cruet of Louis XVI.' Ah! sacristi! and how heavy it is! The whole business is worth perhaps twenty-five thousand francs, Célestine; perhaps more. One does not know what it is worth."
And, looking at me steadily and heavily, piercing the very depths of my soul, he asked:
"Will you come with me to the little café?"