THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ two years that they were at school together, they were inseparable.

      When they bad got through the rhetoric class, James set out for Paris, where he was to attend the lectures at the School of Medicine. William, left alone at Véteuil, remained for a long time inconsolable at the departure of his friend. He had lost all aptitude for work, living at La Noiraude as in the heart of a desert. He was then eighteen. His father sent for him one day into his laboratory. It was the first time that he had passed the threshold of this room. He found the count standing in the middle of the huge sanctum, his breast covered with a long blue workman’s apron. He seemed to him terribly aged; his temples were bare, and his sunken eyes shone with a strange brilliancy in his thin face all seamed with wrinkles. He had always felt a deep respect for him; this day, he almost felt a dread of him.

      “Sir,” said the count, “I have sent for you in order to tell you my plans with regard to yourself. Be kind enough to tell me if, by chance, you feel an inclination for any occupation.”

      As William stood embarrassed and hesitating he went on: “That is well, my orders will be the more easy for you to carry out. I wish you, sir, to follow no profession whatever, neither doctor, lawyer, nor anything else.’’

      And as the young man looked at him, with an air of surprise, he continued in a slightly bitter tone:

      “You will be rich, you will have it in your power to be a fool and a happy man, if you are fortunate enough to understand life. I regret already that I have had you taught something. Hunt, eat, sleep, these are my orders. Still, if you have a taste for farming, I will allow you to dig.” The count was not joking. He spoke in a peremptory tone, in the certainty of being obeyed. He noticed that his son was casting a glance over the laboratory as if to protest against the life of idleness which he was imposing on him. His voice became threatening.

      “Above all,” he said “swear to me that you will never spend your time on science. After my death, you will shut, this door and never open it again. It is enough that one De Viargue has buried himself here for a whole lifetime. I rely on your word, sir; you will do nothing, and you will try to be happy.”

      William was going to withdraw, when his father, as if touched with sudden grief and emotion, took him by the hands and murmured as he drew him towards him:

      “You understand, my child, obey me; be a simpleminded man, if it is possible.”

      He kissed him hurriedly and dismissed him. This scene had a strange effect on William; he saw that the count must be suffering from a secret grief; in the few dealings that they had with one another, he showed him, from that day, a more affectionate respect. Besides, he conformed strictly to his orders. He stayed for three years at La Noiraude hunting, shooting, roving about the country, and taking an interest in trees and hills. These three years, during which he lived in companionship with nature, finished the work of predestination for the joys and sorrows which the future had in store for him. Lost in the green solitudes of the park, invigorated by the all-pervading thrill of nature beneath the foliage, he purified himself of his school-life, he increased in tenderness and pity. He took up the dream of his youth, he hoped again to find, on the brink of some fountain, a being who would take him in her arms and carry him away, kissing him like a child. Ah! what long reveries, and how sweetly the shadow and silence of the oaks fell on his brow.

      But for the vague restlessness with which his unsatisfied desires filled him, he would have been perfectly happy. Nobody was persecuting him now: when he happened to pass through Véteuil, he saw his old comrades salute him with more cowardice than they had beaten him; it was known in the town that he would be the count’s heir. His only dread, a strange dread mingled with painful hope, was of finding himself face to face with his mother. He did not see her again, and he was sad; the thought of this woman would recur to him every day; her complete forgetfulness of him, was for him an inexplicable monstrosity the cause of which he would have liked to discover. He even asked Geneviève if he ought not to try to see her. The old protestant answered him rudely that he was mad.

      “Your mother is dead,” she added, in her voice of inspiration; “pray for her.”

      Geneviève had always loved the child of sin, in spite of the terrors which such affection caused him. Now that this child had become a man, she put more guard on her heart. Yet at bottom, she was absolutely and blindly devoted to him.

      On two occasions, James came to spend his student’s holidays at Véteuil. These times were for William months of wild joy. The two friends were always together; they would shoot for whole days, or catch crawfish in the little brook that runs through the country. Often, in some secluded nook, they would sit down and talk about Paris, especially about women. James spoke lightly of them, as a man who had no very great regard for them, but who had the gallantry to look kindly on them, and not to speak all his mind on the subject. And William would then reproach him for his coldness of heart; he set woman on a pedestal, and made her an idol, before which he chanted an eternal song of fidelity and love.

      “Oh! do be quiet,” the impatient student would exclaim, “You don’t know what you are saying. You will soon bore your mistresses, if you are always on your knees before them. But you will do as others do, you will deceive and be deceived. Such is life.”

      “No, no,” he would answer in his obstinate way, “I shall not do as others do. I shall never love but one woman. I shall love her in such a way that I defy fate to disturb our affection.”

      “Rubbish! we shall see.”

      And James would laugh at the artlessness of his country friend. He almost scandalised him by the recital of his love adventures of one night. The journeys that he thus, made to Véteuil cemented still more closely the friendship of the two young fellows. Besides, they used to write long letters to one another. Gradually, however, James’s letters became less frequent; the third year, he had ceased to give any sign of life. William was very sad at this silence.

      He knew, through the student’s uncle, that his friend was to leave France, and he would have very much liked to bid him good bye before his departure. He was beginning to get mortally tired at La Noiraude. His father learnt the cause of his languid dejected ways, and said to him one night as he left the table:

      “I know that you want to go to Paris. I give you leave to live there one year, and I expect that you will do some stupid thing or other. You shall have unlimited credit. You may start tomorrow.”

      Next day on his arrival in Paris, William learnt that James had gone away the day before. He had written a farewell letter to him at Véteuil which Geneviève sent on to him. In this letter, which was full of high spirits and very affectionate, his friend informed him that he had been gazetted as surgeon to our expeditionary army to Cochin China, and that he would be doubtless a long time away from France. William returned immediately to La Noiraude, distressed at this hurried departure and terrified at the thought of finding himself alone in an unknown town. He plunged again into his beloved solitude. But, two months later, his father again disturbed his loneliness by ordering him to return to Paris where he intended him to live for a year.

      William went and took up his quarters in the Rue de l’Est, at the very hotel where Madeleine was already staying.

      CHAPTER IV.

      WHEN Madeleine met William, she was thinking of leaving the hotel and looking for a little room which she would furnish herself. In this house, open to all comers, full of students and young women, she did not feel sufficiently at home, and she found herself exposed to having to listen to horrible proposals which put her in mind cruelly of her desertion. After her removal, she intended to work and to utilise her talent for embroidery. СКАЧАТЬ