THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ him to die without ever seeing the bright sun. She thought that by these lessons she was saving him from Satan.

      Sometimes, however, in the afternoon, he would run about in the long passages at La Noiraude, and venture under the trees in the park.

      The mansion, which was called La Noiraude at Véteuil, was a big square building, three stories high, and all dark and ugly, very much like a house of correction. Monsieur de Viargue disdainfully allowed it to fall into ruins. He occupied a very small portion of it: one room on the first floor and another at the top of the house, which he had made into his laboratory: on the ground floor, he had reserved himself a dining-room and a sitting-room. The other apartments in the spacious mansion, except those occupied by Geneviève and the servants, were completely deserted. They were never even opened.

      When William went along the gloomy silent passages which traversed La Noiraude in every direction, he felt seized with secret terror. He hurried past the doors of the empty rooms. Filled with the horrible ideas which Geneviève put into his head, he fancied he could hear moanings and stifled sobs from these rooms; he would ask himself fearfully who could inhabit these apartments whose doors were always fastened. He preferred the walks in the park, and yet he did not dare to go far, such a timorous, cowardly mortal had the old protestant made him.

      Occasionally, he met his father, but the sight of him made him tremble. Up to the age of five, he had hardly seen him. The count was forgetting that he had a sou. He had not even troubled his head about the formalities he would have to go through some day if he wished to adopt him. The child had been necessarily declared as born of parents unknown. Monsieur de Viargue was aware the notary always pretended to be ignorant of the existence of his wife’s bastard, and he promised himself some day to put William’s position straight. As he had no other heir, he intended to bequeath his fortune to him. These thoughts, however, did not trouble him very much; he was absorbed in his experiments, more ironical and more haughty than ever: he listened impassively to the accounts that Geneviève gave him from time to time about the child.

      One day, as he was going down to the park, he met him with the old woman, who was leading him by the hand. He was quite astonished to find him so big. William, who was entering on his fifth year, had on one of those delightful dresses of light bright-coloured material that children wear. The father, somewhat struck, stopped for the first time; he took hold of his son, and raising him up to his face, looked at him attentively. William, by a mysterious phenomenon of blood, was like the count’s mother. The resemblance struck the father, and moved him. He kissed the poor little trembling fellow’s brow.

      From that day, he never met his son without kissing him. After his fashion, he loved him as much as he could love. But his embrace was cold, and the hasty kiss which he gave him at times was not enough to win the child’s heart. When William could avoid the count, without the latter noticing it, he was nearly always delighted to escape his embrace. This stern man who haunted La Noiraude like a cold silent shadow, caused him more fear than affection. Geneviève, to whom Monsieur de Viargue had given orders to bring him up openly as his son, always represented his father to him as a terrible and absolute master, and this word father only awoke in his mind an idea of reverential dread.

      Such was William’s existence during the first eight years of his life. The strange teaching of the old protestant, and the terror with which his father inspired him, all contributed to make him feeble. He was doomed to keep with him through life the shudders and the unwholesome sensitiveness of his infancy. At eight years of age, Monsieur de Viargue sent him as a boarder to the communal school at Véteuil. He had, no doubt, noticed the cruel way in which Geneviève was bringing him up, and wished to remove him entirely from the influence of this disordered brain. At the school, William began in sorrow the apprenticeship of life: he was fatally doomed to be hurt at every turn.

      The years that he spent as a boarder were one long martyrdom, one long ordeal that a neglected and deserted child has to pass through, trodden on by everybody and never knowing what he has done wrong. The inhabitants of Véteuil nursed towards Monsieur de Viargue a secret hatred, which was the result of their jealousy and prudery: they never forgave him for being rich and doing as he liked, while the scandal of William’s birth was an endless theme for their slanderous talk. Though they continued to bow humbly to the father, they avenged themselves for his disdainful indifference on the weakness of the son, whose heart they could break without danger. The boys of the town, those of twelve and sixteen, all knew William’s history through having heard it told a hundred times in their families; at home their relatives would talk with such indignation of this adulterous child, that they looked upon it as their duty, now that he was their playfellow, to torture the poor being who was cried out upon by the whole of Véteuil. Their very parents encouraged them in their cowardice, smiling slyly at the persecutions which they inflicted on him.

      From the very first play-hour, William felt, from the jeering attitude of his new companions, that he was in a hostile country. Two big fellows, fifteen year old louts, came up and asked him his name. When he replied, in a timid voice, that it was William, the whole band jeered.

      “Your name is Bastard, you mean!” cried a schoolboy, amid the hoots and low jokes of these young scamps, who already had the vices of grown-up men.

      The child did not understand the insult, but he began to weep with anguish and terror in the centre of this pitiless circle which surrounded him. He got a few shoves, begged pardon, which highly amused these gentlemen, and brought him a few more knocks.

      The bent was followed, the school victim was found. During every play-hour, he caught a few thumps on the head, he heard himself saluted by the name of Bastard, which made the blood mount to his cheeks, he knew not why. The dread of blows made him cowardly; he spent his time in the comers, not daring to stir, like a pariah who finds a whole nation up against him and no longer dares to revolt. His masters banded secretly with his comrades; they saw that it would be a clever stroke of policy to make common cause with the sons of the big wigs at Véteuil, and they overwhelmed the child with punishments, themselves enjoying a wicked pleasure in torturing a feeble creature. William gave himself up to despair; he was a detestable pupil, brutalized with blows, hard words and punishments. Slow, sickly, stupid, he would weep in the dormitory for a whole night: this was his only protest.

      His sufferings were all the keener for the poignant need that he felt of having somebody to love and only finding objects to hate. His nervous sensitiveness made him cry out with anguish at each fresh insult. “Good God,” he would often murmur, “what crime have I committed?” And, with his childish sense of justice, he would try to find out what it was that could bring down on him such cruel punishments; when he could find nothing, he would be filled with strange dread, he would remember Geneviève’s menacing lessons and think himself tormented by demons for unknown sins. On two occasions, he seriously thought of drowning himself in the school-well. He was then twelve years old.

      On holidays he seemed to get out of a grave. The street children would often stone him to the gates of the town. He was now fond of the deserted park at La Noiraude where no one beat him. He never dared to speak to his father about the persecutions he had to endure. He complained only to Geneviève and asked her what was the meaning of that name Bastard which produced in him the burning sensation of a box on the ears. The old woman listened to him gloomily. She was annoyed that her pupil had been taken away from her. She knew that the school chaplain had induced M. de Viargue to let the child be baptised, and she looked upon him as positively doomed to the flames of hell. When William had confided to her his troubles, she exclaimed, without speaking directly to him: “You are the son of sin, you are expiating the crime of the guilty.” He could not understand, but the fanatic’s tone seemed to him so full of anger, that he never after made her his confidante.

      His despair increased as he grew up. He at last arrived at an age when he knew what his fault was. His comrades, with their vile insults, had educated him in vice. Then, he wept tears of blood. They hit him through his parents, by telling him СКАЧАТЬ