The Earth Page 26

  ‘Hand over your five francs,’ said her father. ‘That'll teach you.’

  She swore that she had lost them during the chase, whereupon he gave an incredulous snort and searched her. When he found nothing he exploded again:

  ‘So you've given them to your fancy boy? Christ, how stupid can you be! You let them stuff you and then pay them for it!’

  Beside himself with anger, he went out, shouting as he locked her in that she would have to stay there on her own until the following day because he didn't intend to come home himself.

  Once his back was turned, La Trouille examined her body for weals: there were only two or three, so she tidied her hair, put on her clothes again and calmly undid the lock, a task in which she had acquired a certain knack. Then she made herself scarce without even bothering to close the door behind her: if any burglars came, they'd be wasting their time anyway! She knew where to find Nénesse and Delphin, in a little copse down by the Aigre. And, indeed, they were waiting for her there: this time it was the turn of her cousin Nénesse. He had three francs and the other lad only six sous. When Delphin gave her back her five francs, she decided, like the kind-hearted girl she was, that they'd blue it all together. They went back to the fair and she paid for some macaroons for them, after buying herself a big red satin bow which she stuck into her hair.

  Meanwhile, just as he was arriving at Lengaigne's, Jesus Christ met Bécu wearing his newly polished badge on a smart tunic. He took him fiercely to task:

  ‘I say, you, is that the way you're supposed to do your rounds? Do you know where I found your son Delphin?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On top of my daughter. I'll write to the préfet to get you sacked, you dirty pig with your pig of a son!’

  Bécu immediately flared up.

  ‘Your bloody daughter spends all her time with her legs in the air!… So she's been leading Delphin astray, has she? Bugger me if I don't have the gendarmes on her.’

  ‘You just try, you old shit.’

  The two men stood glaring angrily at each other. Then suddenly they both calmed down.

  ‘We must talk it over, let's go in and have a drink,’ said Jesus Christ.

  ‘No money,’ said Bécu.

  At that, the other man, in high spirits, took the first of his five-franc pieces out of his pocket, flipped it over and screwed it into his eye.

  ‘How about that, eh? Let's demolish it, you happy man!… In you come, shitface. The drinks are on me, you stand treat for me often enough.’

  Grinning broadly, they propelled each other with hearty slaps into Lengaigne's tap-room. That year Lengaigne had hit on an idea: as the fair owner had refused to put up his tent in disgust at not having covered his expenses the year before, the enterprising innkeeper had converted the barn next to his shop, which had a carriage gateway opening onto the road, into a dance-hall; he had even pierced a communicating door in the wall dividing the two rooms. In this way he had succeeded in attracting the custom of the whole village and Macqueron, his rival across the road, was furious because he had no customers at all.

  ‘Two litres of wine and make it snappy,’ shouted Jesus Christ. ‘One for each of us!’

  But as Flore, both delighted and flustered at this influx of customers, was serving him, Jesus Christ realized that he had interrupted Lengaigne in the middle of a letter which he was reading out loud, surrounded by a group of villagers. In answer to his question, the landlord replied grandly that it was a letter from his son Victor, who was doing his military service.

  ‘Ha! Ha! Good lad,’ said Bécu, intrigued. ‘And what's he got to say for himself? Start from the beginning again.’

  So Lengaigne began again:

  ‘Dear Mum and Dad, this is to tell you that our regiment's been in Lille in Flanders, for a month less one week. It's not a bad place except that wine is dear, you have to pay up to sixteen sous a litre…’

  And the four pages of the letter, written in a painstaking hand, contained little else: the same detail recurred again and again, in ever longer sentences. Moreover, everyone present exclaimed in horror at each mention of the price of wine: what dreadful places these were! Bloody army! Near the end of the letter there was a vague attempt to wheedle some money out of his parents; could he have twelve francs to replace a pair of shoes he had lost?

  ‘Ha! Ha! There's a lively lad!’ exclaimed the gamekeeper again. ‘God damn it, he's a man now!’

  When the two litres had been consumed, Jesus Christ ordered two more; wine in bottle at a franc apiece. He was paying as he ordered, to surprise everybody, slamming down his money on the table and causing a tremendous stir. When the first five-franc piece had been drunk, he pulled out the second one, screwed it in his eye again and shouted that when it was all gone there was still some where that came from. And so the afternoon went by and the boozing peasants jostled each other as they came and went amidst the rising tide of drunkenness. Never anything but serious and gloomy during the week, they were now all shouting, spitting vigorously and banging their fists on the tables. One man, tall and thin, decided to have a shave and Lengaigne at once sat him down amongst the other customers and scraped away at his hide with his razor so roughly that it sounded like someone scouring the bristles of a pig. Another man followed him, amidst general hilarity. And tongues were wagging; people were laughing about Macqueron, who was afraid to show his face now. Wasn't it the fault of this dud deputy mayor himself if the fair owner had refused to put up his marquee in Rognes? Something could have been arranged. But naturally he was more concerned in voting for roads that would make the land he was handing over worth three times as much. This remark raised a howl of laughter. Fat Flore, for whom this day was the high point of her career, kept running to the door and bursting into derisive laughter each time she saw Coelina peering out behind the windows opposite, her face green with envy.

  ‘Madame Lengaigne, we want some cigars,’ bellowed Jesus Christ. ‘Expensive ones. Ten cents each!’

  As night was falling and the paraffin lamps were being lit, Bécu's wife came in looking for her man. But a tremendous game of cards had just started.

  ‘Aren't you coming? Look, it's after eight. We've got to eat, you know.’

  He gave her a majestic drunken stare.

  ‘Go and get stuffed!’

  At that, Jesus Christ broke in.

  ‘Madame Bécu, allow me to invite you. How about it? We'll have a blow-out, just the three of us… Did you hear what I said, boss? The best you've got: some ham, rabbit, cheese, fruit!… And don't be afraid. Come and have a look… Look out!’

  He pretended to be rummaging at length in his pockets. Then suddenly he produced his third five-franc piece and held it up in the air.

  ‘Cuckoo! There it is!’

  Everyone split their sides with laughter and one fat man nearly had a fit. What a wag that Jesus Christ was! And some of them jokingly felt him to see if he'd got coins secreted all over his carcass which he could go on producing until his thirst was quenched.

  ‘I say, old girl,’ he kept saying to Bécu's wife, while they were eating. ‘How about a spot of bed together, if the old man doesn't object? What d'you say, eh?’

  She was very dirty, because she said she hadn't known she was going to be invited to stay; and she was laughing away, with her grimy, ratlike face, as thin as a rusty old rake, while the enterprising Jesus Christ did not hesitate to seize her bare thighs under the table. Her husband, dead drunk, was spluttering and grinning and bellowing that the slut could easily take on the pair of them.

  It was ten o'clock and the dance began. Through the communicating door you could see the glare of the four lamps fastened to the roof timbers with wire. The blacksmith Clou was there with his trombone, as well as the nephew of a ropemaker of Bazoches-le-Doyen who was playing the violin. You did not pay to go in but each dance cost two sous. The earth floor of the barn had been sprayed with water to settle the dust. When the band was not playing you could hear the steady, sharp cr
ack of rifles from the shooting-gallery. And the normally gloomy roadway was ablaze with the reflectors of the two other stalls, the bazaar sparkling with gilt and the tombola decorated with mirrors and draped in red like a chapel.

  ‘Ah, there's my little girly-wirly!’ cried Jesus Christ with tears in his eyes.

  It was La Trouille, coming into the room followed by Delphin and Nénesse; nor did her father seem surprised at seeing her there, although he had locked her in at home. In addition to the bright red bow in her hair, she was wearing a thick necklace of false coral round her neck, with beads made of sealing-wax, blood-red against her brown skin. All three of them, tired of roaming round the stalls, were blown-up and torpid from a surfeit of sweets. Dressed in a smock and capless, with his dishevelled bullet head, Delphin had the wild look of someone who only likes the open air. Young though he was, Nénesse already had a yearning for city slickness and he was sheathed in a suit bought from Lambourdieu, the sort of tight reach-me-downs turned out by the hundred by cheap Paris tailors; and he was wearing a bowler hat to show his contempt and loathing for village life.

  ‘My girly!’ piped Jesus Christ, ‘My little girly, come and try a drop of this… It's good, isn't it?’

  He gave her a drink out of his glass while Bécu's wife asked Delphin sternly:

  ‘What's happened to your cap?’

  ‘I lost it.’

  ‘Lost it! Let me get at you!’

  But Bécu, gratified at the thought of his son's precocious amorous exploits, grinningly intervened.

  ‘Leave the boy alone! He's growing up. So, you rapscallions, you've been having it off together, you little imp of Satan, you!’

  ‘Go away and play,’ said Jesus Christ finally, with a fatherly air. ‘And be good children.’

  ‘They're tight as owls,’ said Nénesse in disgust as they went back into the dance-hall.

  La Trouille started laughing:

  ‘Good God, of course they are! That's what I was relying on. That's why they were nice to us.’

  The dance was livening up; all you could hear was Clou's trombone booming away and drowning the squeaky little violinist. The earth floor had been over-watered and was turning into mud under the heavy tramp of the dancers; and soon, from beneath the swirling petticoats and the large sweaty patches under the armpits of jackets and bodices, there arose a powerful stench of goat reinforced by the acrid smell of the smoky lamps. But in the interval between two quadrilles, there was a stir when Berthe, the Macquerons' daughter, came in wearing a silk foulard dress, similar to those worn by the tax-collector's daughters in Cloyes on Saint Lubin's Day. Good Lord! Had the girl's parents let her come or had she slipped away behind their backs? And people noticed that she was dancing only with the wheelwright's son whom her father had forbidden her to meet because of a family feud. People were joking about it: so she was getting tired of ruining her health on her own!

  A moment earlier, although he was very tipsy, Jesus Christ had caught sight of Lequeu's unprepossessing features as he was standing by the communicating door watching Berthe bouncing up and down in the arms of her beau. He could not refrain from making a comment.

  ‘I say, Monsieur Lequeu, aren't you going to take a turn with your sweetheart?’

  ‘Who's that supposed to be?’ demanded the schoolmaster angrily, his sallow face going livid.

  ‘The girl with the pretty saucy eyes over there, of course.’

  Furious at having been found out, Lequeu spun on his heels without saying a word and stood motionless with his back towards him in the attitude of arrogant contempt into which he often cautiously withdrew. And as Lengaigne came up at this moment, Jesus Christ collared him. Well, he'd told that slimy bugger off good and proper, hadn't he? They'd teach him all about rich girls! It wasn't as if Not Got Any was as smart as all that, because she'd only got hair on her head; and urged on by drink he talked about it as if he had seen it himself. Everyone knew it, from Cloyes to Châteaudun, all the young men joked about it. Not one single hair, honest Injun! She was as bald as a billiard ball down you know where. Flabbergasted at such a phenomenon, they all craned their necks to contemplate Berthe with a grimace of disgust as they followed her with their eyes each time she came dancing by, all white under her billowing skirts.

  ‘Well, you old rogue,’ said Jesus Christ, addressing Lengaigne familiarly. ‘It's not like your daughter, is it? She's got some.’

  And looking pleased with himself, Lengaigne replied:

  ‘She certainly has!’

  Suzanne was now living in Paris and had moved up in the world, people said. Her father would speak discreetly of ‘a very good job’. But farmers were still coming in and when one of them, a tenant farmer, asked him about Victor, he produced his letter again. ‘Dear Mum and Dad, this is to tell you that our regiment's been in Lille in Flanders…’ They listened and people who had already heard it five or six times before gathered round again. And it really was nearly a franc a litre, yes, sixteen whole sous!

  ‘What a dreadful place,’ said Bécu again.

  At this moment, Jean appeared. He went straight over to look at the dancing, as though looking for someone. Then he came back, disappointed and uneasy. For the last two months he had not dared to make such frequent visits to Buteau's house because he felt that Buteau was cold, almost hostile. No doubt he had failed to hide his feelings for Françoise, his friendship for her which was growing into an obsession, and his former mate had noticed it. And that must have irritated him by upsetting his calculations.

  ‘Good evening to you,’ said Jean, stopping at a table where Fouan and Delhomme were sharing a bottle of beer.

  ‘Would you care to join us, Corporal?’ said Delhomme politely.

  Jean accepted, and when he had drunk to their health:

  ‘It's odd that Buteau hasn't turned up.’

  ‘Talk of the devil,’ said Fouan.

  And in fact, Buteau was just coming through the door, but on his own. He went slowly round the room, shaking hands here and there, then he came up to the table where his father and brother-in-law were sitting but refused to sit down himself or have a drink.

  ‘Lise and Françoise aren't coming to the dance?’ enquired Jean finally, in a voice that trembled slightly.

  Buteau stared at him with his little hard eyes.

  ‘Françoise has gone to bed, that's the best place when you're young.’

  But they broke off, intrigued by a scene near by. It was Jesus Christ squabbling with Flore. He was asking for a litre of rum to make hot grog, and she was refusing to bring it.

  ‘No, that's your lot, you're drunk enough.’

  ‘Hey, what's that she's fussing about? D'you think you're not going to get your money, you silly old woman? I'll buy up your whole caboodle if you like! Look, all I've got to do is blow my nose.’

  He had hidden his fourth five-franc piece in the palm of his hand and he now squeezed his nose between two fingers, blew violently and pretended to extract the coin which he then displayed beneath their gaze like a monstrance.

  ‘That's what comes out of my nose when I've got a cold!’

  The walls rang with applause and Flore had to admit defeat and bring the litre of rum and some sugar. A salad bowl was needed as well. And then the amazing Jesus Christ held the whole room agog as he stirred the punch with his elbows jutting out and his red face lit up by the flames, which added the final blast of heat to a room that was already overheated by the smoky fumes of the lamps and the men's pipes. But suddenly Buteau, exasperated by the sight of the money, burst out:

  ‘You pig, aren't you ashamed of boozing away all the money that you've stolen from Father?’

  His brother took it as a joke.

  ‘Ah, so it's you, my baby brother. You must be short of a drink to be talking balls like that.’

  ‘I'm telling you you're a shit and you'll end up in jug. And anyway, it's you who broke Mother's heart.’

  Choking with laughter, the drunk slammed his spoon violently into
the salad bowl so that it erupted into flames like a volcano.

  ‘All right, all right, that's your story. Of course it's my fault unless it's yours.’

  ‘And I'm telling you that wasters like you don't deserve the wheat to grow. When I think that our land, all the land that our forefathers worked so hard to leave to us, has been mortgaged by you and handed over to other people… You dirty swine, what have you done with your land?’

  At this, Jesus Christ suddenly came to life. The flames of his punch were subsiding, he sat up and leant back in his chair, seeing that all the other people drinking had fallen silent and were watching to see how he would react.

  ‘The land?’ he bellowed. ‘The land doesn't give a brass farthing for you. You're just a slave to it, you bloody fool. It takes away all your pleasure, all your strength, your whole life… It doesn't even make you rich! While I, who despise it and sit there with folded arms and give it a kick up the arse now and again, I live like a prince, as you can see, I just drink… Yes, bloody hell!’

  The villagers laughed again while Buteau, taken aback by such a sharp attack, could only falter:

  ‘You good-for-nothing waster! You don't do any work and you're proud of it.’

  Jesus Christ was now well launched:

  ‘The land makes me sick. There must really be something wrong with you to go on believing in it… Does it really exist? It's mine, it's yours, it's nobody's. Didn't it belong to the old man? And didn't he have to chop it up to give it to us? And won't you have to chop it up to give it to your children? So what? It comes and goes, it gets larger and smaller – and especially smaller. You even think it's wonderful to have six acres when Father had nineteen… Well, as for me, I was fed up, it wasn't enough for me, so I've squandered the lot. And anyway, baby brother, I only like sound investments and land is collapsing. I wouldn't invest a penny in it, it's a bad job, a bloody disaster that's going to clean out the lot of you. Bankrupts… all being taken for a ride.’