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    The Fortune of the Rougons
    The Fortune of the Rougons
    The Fortune of the Rougons
    Ebook447 pages8 hours

    The Fortune of the Rougons

    By Émile Zola

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    Emile Zola wrote the following in the preface of his first installment to the Rougon-Macquart series: "The characteristic of the Rougon-Macquart family, the group which I propose to study, is their unbridled passions, that great revolutionizing element of our age, inciting to excessive self-indulgence. Physiologically speaking, these appetites are the gradual outcome of certain nervous and sanguineous modifications which manifest themselves in a race of beings, as a consequence of some previous organic lesion, and which determine the sentiments, the desires, the passions of each individual of the race according to his surroundings; in short, all those natural and instinctive manifestations of human nature, which, in their results, assume the conventional names of virtues and vices… This work, which will comprise several episodes, embodies in my mind the natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire. And the first episode, 'The Fortune of the Rougons,' may, for scientific purposes, be very aptly entitled 'The Origin.'" The monumental work of Zola's magnum opus begins here in this volume which is drawn from the unexpurgated 1886 translation of Henry Vizetelly.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2014
    ISBN9781420910179
    Author

    Émile Zola

    Nació en París en 1840. Hijo de un ingeniero italiano que murió cuando él apenas tenía siete años, nunca fue muy brillante en los estudios, trabajó durante un tiempo en la administración de aduanas, y a los veintidós años se hizo cargo del departamento de publicidad del editor Hachette. Gracias a este empleo conoció a la sociedad literaria del momento y empezó a escribir. Thérèse Raquin (1867; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. LVIII; ALBA MINUS núm. 33) fue su primera novela «naturalista», que él gustaba de definir como «un trozo de vida». En 1871, La fortuna de los Rougon y La jauría iniciaron el ciclo de Los Rougon-Macquart, una serie de veinte novelas cuyo propósito era trazar la «historia natural y social de una familia bajo el Segundo Imperio»; a él pertenecen, entre otras, El vientre de París (1873), La conquista de Plassans (1874) (editadas conjuntamente en ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. XXXV), La caída del padre Mouret (1875), La taberna (1877), Nana (1880) y El Paraíso de las Damas (1883; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. XXVII; ALBA MINUS núm. 29); la última fue El doctor Pascal (1893). Zola seguiría posteriormente con el sistema de ciclos con las novelas que componen Las tres ciudades (1894-97) y Los cuatro Evangelios (1899-1902). En 1897 su célebre intervención en el caso Dreyfuss le valió un proceso y el exilio. «Digo lo que veo –escribió una vez–, narro sencillamente y dejo al moralista el cuidado de sacar lecciones de ello. Puse al desnudo las llagas de los de abajo. Mi obra no es una obra de partido ni de propaganda; es una obra de verdad.» Murió en París en 1902.

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      Book preview

      The Fortune of the Rougons - Émile Zola

      cover.jpg

      THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS

      BY ÉMILE ZOLA

      TRANSLATED BY HENRY VIZETELLY

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5054-0

      eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-1017-9

      This edition copyright © 2014

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      PREFACE.

      INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

      CHAPTER I.

      CHAPTER II.

      CHAPTER III.

      CHAPTER IV.

      CHAPTER V.

      CHAPTER VI.

      CHAPTER VII.

      PREFACE.

      I wish to show how a family, a small group of persons, comports itself amidst the surroundings in which it is placed, expanding and giving birth to ten, twenty individuals who appear at first sight extremely dissimilar, but who, on examination, will be found to be intimately connected with each other. Heredity, the same as gravity, is governed by certain laws.

      By resolving the double question of temperament and surroundings, I shall endeavour to discover and follow out the thread which conducts mathematically from one individual to another. And when I have gathered up all the threads, when I have the whole social group in my hands, I shall exhibit the several members of it at work as actors in an epoch of history; I shall portray them in all the complex diversities of their efforts; and, at the same time, I shall analyse the sum of each individual's volition, and the general tendency of the whole.

      The characteristic of the Rougon-Macquart family, the group which I propose to study, is their unbridled passions, that great revolutionising element of our age, inciting to excessive self-indulgence. Physiologically speaking, these appetites are the gradual outcome of certain nervous and sanguineous modifications which manifest themselves in a race of beings, as a consequence of some previous organic lesion, and which determine the sentiments, the desires, the passions of each individual of the race according to his surroundings; in short, all those natural and instinctive manifestations of human nature, which, in their results, assume the conventional names of virtues and vices. Historically speaking, these appetites originate with the people, whence they spread to contemporary society, affecting all stages under the influence of that impulse, essentially modern, which is communicated to the lower classes during the progress of their social development, and they thus tell the story of the Second Empire, by the help of their individual dramas, from the perfidy of the Coup d'état to the treason of Sedan.

      I had been collecting documents for this vast work for about three years, and the present volume was, indeed, already written, when the fall of the Bonapartes—which was essential to complete my picture, and which, with a kind of fatality, always turned up at the end of the drama—came to my aid, though I had not dared to expect it so near, to supply the terrible and necessary issue of my work. The latter is now complete; it moves in a finished circle; it becomes the picture of a defunct reign, of a strange epoch of folly and shame.

      This work, which will comprise several episodes, embodies in my mind the natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire. And the first episode, The Fortune of the Rougons, may, for scientific purposes, be very aptly entitled The Origin.

      Emile Zola

      INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

      PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF UNE PAGE D'AMOUR.

      I have determined on prefixing to this volume the Genealogical Tree of the Rougon-Macquart family, and I have been prompted to this decision by two reasons.

      Firstly: The requests to have an adequate sketch of this Tree have been very numerous, in so far as it would allow my readers to thread their way through a maze of details concerning the many members of the family of which I have constituted myself the historian.

      My second reason is somewhat more complicated. It is a regret to me that I did not give this Genealogical Tree to the world in the first volume of the series, as its publication would have permitted my plan being grasped at a glance. Were I to withhold it longer, I should be accused in the end of having furbished it up after the event. It is time enough to put on record the fact that it was conceived as it stands in 1868, before I had written a single line, and that it was clearly pictured forth in the first of these fictions, published under the title of La Fortune des Rougons, in which I could not well depict the original representatives of the family, till I had settled, before everything, its branches and offshoots. The difficulty was all the greater as the idiosyncrasies of four generations were to be contrasted, and my characters were to enact their parts within a period of only eighteen years.

      The publication of this Tree will be my answer to such as charge me with a persistent leaning to undue realism and vicious detail. Since 1868 I have been embodying the conception I then outlined, and in this Genealogical Tree I have laid down the broad lines from which I have swerved neither to right nor to left. To it I must yield my undivided attention; it is at once my incentive and my guide. Its results are not attained fortuitously; it contains what I have schemed out and what I am busily realising.

      It now remains for me to say that circumstances only have forced me to publish the detailed Family Tree with Une Page d'Amour, a work which is essentially domestic, and in which I have made no attempt at elaborate portraiture. It should properly have been prefixed to the last volume of the series. Eight have appeared, twelve are still on the stocks, and this fact sufficiently explains my impatience. Some day hereafter it will serve as frontispiece to the last of the volumes, where it will have an intimate connection with the progress of the story. In my mind it has taken shape as embodying the observations of Pascal Rougon, a physician, and a member of the family, who in the closing fiction will sum up the scientific results of the complete work. Doctor Pascal will analyse and elucidate the whole, filling in blanks with exact details which I have hitherto necessarily omitted, lest the succeeding volumes should lose in beauty and interest. The natural and social characteristics of each member of the family will be definitely pictured, and the uncouthness of technical phrases will be smoothed away by explanatory details. My perfected scheme can be made intelligible to my readers from other sources of information. I cannot give here a list of all the physiological works which I have consulted, but would only mention L'Hérédité Naturelle, by Dr. Lucas, in which the curious may find information regarding the results obtained by physiological science, allowing me to build up the Rougon-Macquart Family Tree.

      I have now merely the wish to prove that my novels published during the last nine years are but interdependent units in a complete whole, the plan of which was decided on before putting pen to paper, and that consequently, while judging of the merits of each individual story, my readers should pay some regard to its being in harmony with the perfect scheme. Bearing this in mind, they will be enabled to pass on my work a somewhat juster and more liberal opinion than might otherwise be the case.

      Emile Zola

      THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS.

      A REALISTIC NOVEL.

      CHAPTER I.

      On quitting Plassans by the Porte de Rome, situated at the southern part of the town, you will find, on the right of the road to Nice, and a little way past the first houses of the Faubourg, a plot of land known in that part of the country as the Aire Saint-Mittre.

      The Aire Saint-Mittre is an oblong piece of ground on a level with the footpath of the adjacent road, from which it is separated by a strip of trodden grass. A narrow lane, having no thoroughfare, borders it on the right with a row of hovels; while on the left, and at the further end, it is closed in by two bits of wall overgrown with moss, and above which can be seen the top branches of the mulberry-trees of the Jas-Meiffren—an extensive property—the entrance to which lies lower down. Enclosed thus on three sides, the Aire Saint-Mittre is like a place which leads nowhere, and is' used solely as a promenade.

      In former times a cemetery existed there under the protection of Saint-Mittre, a Provençal saint, who was greatly honoured in the country. In 1851 the old people of Plassans still remembered having seen the walls of the cemetery standing, although it had been closed for several years. The earth, which Bad been glutted with corpses for more than a century, literally perspired with death; and it had been, necessary to open a new burial-ground at the other end of the town. The old cemetery, long abandoned, had been gradually purified by the dark, thick-set vegetation which used to sprout over it every spring. This rich soil, in which the gravediggers could no longer delve without turning up some human remains, possessed a most formidable fertility. The tall weeds, which overtopped the walls after the May rains and the June sunshine, were plainly visible from the high road; while inside, the place presented the appearance of a deep sombre green sea studded with large blossoms of singular brilliancy. Under the shade of the close-set stalks the very sap seemed, as it were, to boil and ooze out from the damp soil.

      Among the curiosities of this field were some large pear-trees, with twisted boughs forming huge knots; none of the housewives of Plassans cared to pluck the large fruit which grew upon them, and which the townspeople used to speak of with grimaces of disgust. No such delicacy, however, restrained the young urchins of the Faubourg, who were in the habit of assembling at twilight in bands, and climbing the walls to steal the pears, even before they were ripe.

      The trees and vegetation, in their vigorous growth, had rapidly assimilated the decomposing matter in the old cemetery of Saint-Mittre; white the malaria rising from the human remains had been greedily absorbed by the flowers and fruits; so that eventually the only odour one could detect, in passing by this accumulation of putrefaction, was that arising from the strong smell of the wild gillyflowers. It was merely a question of a few summers.

      At about this time the townspeople determined to utilise this common property, which had long been useless. The walls bordering the roadway and the blind-alley were pulled down; the weeds and the pear-trees were uprooted; the sepulchral remains were removed; the ground was dug several yards deep, and the bones, which the earth was willing to surrender, were heaped up in a corner. For nearly a month the youngsters, who lamented the loss of the pear-trees, played at bowls with the skulls, and one night some practical jokers suspended femurs and tibias to all the bell-handles of the town. This scandal, which is still remembered at Plassans, did not cease until the authorities decided to have the heaps of bones shot into a hole which had been dug in the new cemetery. All work, however, is usually carried out with a discreet dilatoriness in the country, and during an entire week the inhabitants saw, at distant intervals, a solitary cart occupied in removing these human remains, just as one would cart away rubbish. The worst of it was, the cart had to traverse the whole length of Plassans, and, in consequence of the bad condition of the roads, every jolt of the vehicle scattered fragments of bones and handfuls of rich mould. There was not the least semblance of a religious ceremony, nothing but a slow, brutal cartage. Never before was a town so disgusted.

      For several years the old cemetery remained an object of terror. Although it was situated in the main thoroughfare and was open to all comers, it was left quite deserted, a prey to another vegetarian raid. The authorities of the town, who had doubtless counted on selling it and seeing houses built upon it, had evidently been unable to find a purchaser The recollection of the heap of bones, and the solitary cart jolting through the streets with the oppressive persistence of an incubus, doubtless made the people recoil from the spot; or perhaps this indifference should rather be ascribed to that indolence, to that repugnance to pulling down and setting up again which is so characteristic of country people. As a matter of fact, the authorities still retained possession of this plot of ground, and finally altogether forgot their original desire to dispose of it. They did not even erect a fence round it, but left it open to all comers. As time rolled on, the people grew accustomed to this barren spot; they used to sit on the grass, walk about, or congregate in groups. When the grass had got worn away and the trodden soil had become grey and hard, the old cemetery resembled a badly-levelled public promenade. As if the more effectually to efface every objectionable record, the inhabitants were slowly and unwittingly led to change the very appellation of the place, contenting themselves with the name of the saint only, which was likewise used to designate the blind alley at one corner of the field. Thus there was the Aire Saint-Mittre and the Impasse Saint-Mittre.

      These facts date, however, from some considerable time back. For more than thirty years past, the Aire Saint-Mittre has presented a strange picture. The townspeople, much too inert and indifferent to derive any advantage from it, had let it, for a trifling consideration, to some wheelwrights of the Faubourg, who had turned it into a woodyard. At the present day it is still encumbered with enormous pieces of timber thirty or forty feet long, lying here and there in piles, and looking like immense overturned columns. These parallel piles of timber, reaching from one end of the yard to the other, are a continual source of delight to the youngsters. In some places the ground is covered with the fallen wood, forming a kind of uneven flooring over which it is impossible to walk, except by balancing one's self in a marvellous way. Troops of children amuse themselves all day long with this exercise. You will see them jumping over the great planks, walking along the narrow ends one after another, and crawling astride them: various games which generally terminate in blows and bellowings. Sometimes a dozen of them will sit, closely packed one against the other, on the thin end of a pole raised a few feet above the ground, balancing themselves for hours together. The Aire Saint-Mittre thus serves as a recreation ground for all the little ragamuffins of the Faubourg, who, for more than a quarter of a century, have been in the habit of resorting there to wear out the seats of their breeches.

      The strange associations of the place are enhanced by the circumstance that the wandering gipsies, by a sort of traditional custom, always select this waste land for their encampments. Whenever any of these nomadic establishments, which generally consist of an entire tribe, arrive at Plassans, they take up their quarters in the Aire Saint-Mittre. The place is consequently never empty. There is always some strange-looking band there, some troop of wild men and horribly dried-up women, among whom may be seen groups of healthy-looking children rolling about on the grass. These people live in the open air, devoid of all sense of shame, regardless of everybody, boiling their pots, eating nameless things, displaying their tattered garments, sleeping, fighting, kissing, and reeking with filth and misery.

      This field, formerly deathlike and deserted, save for the buzzing of the hornets around the rich blossoms in the calm sunshine, has thus become a very rowdy spot, resounding with the noisy quarrels of the gipsies and the shrill cries of the urchins of the Faubourg. In one corner, there is a primitive saw-mill for cutting the timber, the great noise of which forms a dull, continuous bass accompaniment to the sharp-sounding voices. The wood is placed on two high tressels, and a couple of sawyers, one of whom stands aloft on the piece of timber itself, and the other underneath, blinded by the falling sawdust, work a large saw to and fro, like wire-pulled puppets, for hours together, with the rigid regularity of a machine. The wood sawn by them is stacked, plank by plank, along the wall at the end, in piles six or eight feet high, which often remain there several seasons, overgrown by weeds close to the ground, and constitute one of the charms of the Aire Saint-Mittre. In between these stacks are mysterious, retired little paths leading to the broader alley between the timber and the wall, a wild strip of verdure revealing only small patches of sky. The vigorous vegetation and the shuddering, deathlike stillness of the old cemetery still invade this alley, with its moss-covered walls and velvety turf. One can feel the soft warm vapours of death's voluptuousness wafted from the old graves lying under the sun. In the whole country round Plassans there is not a more entrancing spot, breathing, as it does, the very spirit of languor, solitude, and tenderness. It is a most delightful pace for love-making. When the cemetery was being cleared, the bones must have been heaped up in this corner; for it frequently happens that one's foot comes across some fragments of a skull lying concealed in the damp turf.

      Nobody, however, thinks of the bodies that have slept under the earth. In the day-time the children play hide-and-seek behind the piles of wood. The green alley is not frequented at all; the only thing to be seen is the woodyard crowded with timber and grey with dust. In the morning and afternoon, when the sun is warm, the whole place is astir. Above all the turmoil, above the ragamuffins playing among the timber, and the gipsies kindling the fire under their cauldrons, the figure of the sawyer mounted on his beam stands out in bold relief, moving to and fro with the precision of clockwork, as if to regulate the busy activity that has invaded the former home of death, only the old people, as they sit on the planks basking in the setting sun, speak at times among themselves of the bones which they had seen conveyed through the streets of Plassans by the legendary cart.

      At nightfall the Aire Saint-Mittre becomes quite deserted, and assumes a hollow look, like a great black hole. The dying embers of the gipsies' fires are no longer visible, although at times shadows can be distinguished gliding noiselessly into the dense mass of darkness. The place is especially miserable in winter time.

      One Sunday evening, at about seven o'clock, a young man stepped lightly from the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and, passing close by the walls, disappeared among the timber in the woodyard. It was in the early part of December, 1851, when the weather was dry and cold. The full moon shone with that sharp brilliancy peculiar to winter moons. The woodyard did not present that deep, sinister appearance which it wears on rainy nights; illuminated with sheets of white light, and wrapped in a deep, chill silence, it wore a soft, melancholy aspect.

      The young man paused a few seconds on the edge of the yard and gazed mistrustfully in front of him. He carried a long gun, the butt-end of which was hidden under his coat, while the barrel, pointing towards the ground, glittered in the moonlight. Tightening his grasp of the weapon, he attentively examined the square shadows cast by the piles of timber. The ground looked like a chess-board, on which the black and white squares were clearly defined by the light and shade. The sawyer's tressels stood out in the centre of the plot of land on a strip of bare grey ground, forming a strange-looking, elongated picture, resembling an immense geometrical figure traced on paper. The rest of the yard, with the great beams lying about, formed a huge couch on which the light reposed, sparsely streaked here and there with slender black lines from the shadows which ran along the different pieces of timber. This sea of poles, lying motionless in the chill silence of the wintry moon, stiffened, as it were, with sleep and cold, recalled the corpses of the old cemetery. The young man cast a rapid glance round the empty space; there was not a creature, not a sound, no danger of being seen or heard. The black patches at the further end caused him some anxiety at first, but after a brief examination he plucked up courage and hurriedly crossed the woodyard.

      As soon as he felt himself under cover he slackened his pace. He was then in the green alley which runs along the wall behind the piles of planks. Here his very footsteps became inaudible; the frozen grass scarcely crackled under his tread. This spot must have possessed some charm for him, for he seemed to experience a feeling of comfort, apprehending no danger, and coming there solely for the pleasure it afforded him. He now no longer concealed his gun. The alley, as it extended itself, looked like a dark trench, while the moon, gliding ever and anon between the piles of timber, streaked the grass with patches of light. The whole place was wrapped in one soft, sad slumber. No words can describe the calm peacefulness of this pathway. The young man traversed its entire length, and stopped at the end where the walls of the Jas-Meiffren form an angle. Here he listened attentively for any sound that might be coming from the adjoining estate.

      At last, hearing nothing, he stooped down, and removing one of the planks, hid his gun amongst the timber.

      An old tombstone, which had been overlooked in the clearing of the burial ground lay in the corner, resting on its side and forming a kind of slightly-sloping raised seat. The rain had worn its edges, and the moss was slowly eating into it. Nevertheless, the following fragment of an epitaph, engraved on that portion of the surface which was sinking in the ground, was still distinguishable by the moonlight. "Here lieth . . . Marie . . . died . . ." The finger of time had effaced the rest.

      When he had concealed his gun, the young man again listened attentively, and hearing nothing, resolved to jump up on the stone. The wall being rather low, he was able to rest his elbows on the top of it. He did not perceive anything excepting a flood of light beyond the row of mulberry-trees along the wall. The flat, barren grounds of the Jas-Meiffren spread out under the moon like an immense sheet of unbleached linen; a hundred yards off the mansion and outhouses formed a still whiter patch. The young man stood gazing anxiously in that direction when, suddenly, one of the clocks of the town struck seven with slow, solemn strokes. He counted the strokes, and then jumped down, apparently surprised and relieved.

      He seated himself on the tombstone, as though he was prepared to wait some considerable time. He remained there for about half-an-hour, motionless and deep in thought, and apparently quite unconscious of the cold, while his eyes gazed fixedly at a dense mass of shadow. He had seated himself in a dark corner; but the rising moon gradually gained upon him, and soon shone full over his head.

      He was a strong, sturdy-looking lad, whose fine mouth, and soft, delicate skin betrayed his youthfulness. He must have been about seventeen years of age, and possessed a characteristic kind of beauty.

      His thin, long face looked like the work of a skilful sculptor; the high forehead, prominently arched eyebrows, aquiline nose and large flat chin, the cheeks with protruding tapering cheekbones, gave a singularly bold relief to his head. Such a face would, with advancing age, develop pronounced bony features, as attenuated as those of a knight errant. But at this stage of puberty the angularity of his face, which was lightly covered with a soft down, was relieved by a certain charming effeminacy and childlike indistinctness of outline. His soft black eyes, still glowing with youth, infused a delicacy into his vigorous-looking countenance. The young fellow would probably not have fascinated most women, as he was not what one would call handsome; but his features, as a whole, were full of such ardent and sympathetic life, such enthusiastic and vigorous beauty, that they must have attracted the gaze and engaged the thoughts of the girls of his country—those sunburnt girls of the South—as he passed their doors in the sultry July evenings.

      He remained seated upon the tomb-stone, wrapped in thought, and apparently quite unconscious of the moonlight which now fell upon his chest and legs. He was of middle stature, rather thickset, with over-developed arms and a labourer's hands, already hardened by toil; his feet, encased in heavy laced boots, looked strong and square-toed. His general appearance, more particularly the coarseness of his limbs, clearly betrayed his lowly origin. There was, however, something in him, in his upright neck, in the thoughtful glances of his eyes, which seemed to indicate an inner revolt against the brutifying manual labour which was beginning to bend him to the ground. His was, no doubt, an intelligent nature buried beneath the oppressive burden of race and class; one of those delicate refined spirits imbedded in a rough exterior, from which they in vain struggle to emancipate themselves. Thus, in spite of his vigour, he seemed timid and restless, feeling a kind of unconscious shame at his imperfection. An honest lad, whose very ignorance generated enthusiasm, whose manly heart was impelled by a childish intellect; displaying alike the submissiveness of a woman and the courage of a hero. On the evening in question, he was dressed in a coat and trousers of greenish corduroy. A soft felt hat, placed lightly on the back of his head, cast a shadow over his face.

      As the neighbouring clock struck the half hour, he started from his reverie with a bound. Perceiving that the moon was shining full upon him, he gazed anxiously in front. Then he abruptly dived back into the shadow, but he was unable to recover the thread of his thoughts. He now perceived that his hands and feet were very cold, and, showing signs of impatience, he jumped up on the stone again, to look into the Jas-Meiffren still empty and silent. Finally, at a loss how to kill time, he jumped down, fetched his gun from the pile of planks where he had concealed it, and amused himself by working the trigger. His weapon was a long, heavy carbine, which had doubtless belonged to some smuggler. The thickness of the butt-end and the heavy breech of the barrel showed it to be an old flintlock which had been altered to take percussion caps by some local gunsmith. Such firearms are frequently found in farm-houses, hung against the wall over the chimney-piece. The young man caressed his gun with affection; twenty times or more, he pulled the trigger, thrust his little finger into the barrel, and examined the butt-end attentively. Led on gradually by a youthful enthusiasm, combined with a little childish frolicsomeness, he ended by pointing his weapon without aiming at anything, like a recruit going through his drill.

      It was now very nearly eight o'clock, and he had been holding his gun levelled for over a minute, when a low, panting voice, light as a breeze, came from the direction of the Jas-Meiffren.

      Are you there, Silvère? the voice asked.

      Silvère dropped his gun and bounded on to the tombstone.

      Yes, yes, he replied, also in a hushed voice. Wait, I'll help you.

      Before he could stretch out his arms the head of a young girl appeared above the wall the child, with singular agility, had assisted herself by the aid of the trunk of a mulberry-tree, climbing up like a kitten. The ease and certainty with which she moved showed that she was familiar with this strange spot. In another moment she was seated on the top of the wall. Silvère, taking her in his arms, lifted her, not without a struggle on her part, on to the seat.

      Let go, she laughingly cried; let go, I can get down alone very well.

      Have you been waiting for me long? she asked, when she was seated on the stone. I've been running, and am quite out of breath.

      Silvère made no reply. He seemed in no laughing humour, as he gazed sorrowfully into the girl's face.

      I wanted to see you, Miette, he said, as he seated himself beside her. I should have waited all night for you. I am going away early to-morrow morning.

      Miette had just caught sight of the gun lying on the grass, and, with an air of thoughtfulness, murmured:

      Ah! so it's decided then; there's your gun!

      Yes, replied Silvère, after a brief silence, his voice still faltering, it's my gun. I thought it best to remove it from the house to-night; to-morrow morning aunt Dide might have seen me take it, and have felt uneasy about it. I am going to hide it, and shall come and fetch it just before leaving.

      Seeing that Miette could not remove her eyes from the weapon which he had so foolishly left on the ground, he jumped up and hid it again among the planks of wood.

      We learnt this morning, he said, as he resumed his seat, that the insurgents of La Palud and Saint Martin-de-Vaulx are on the march, and passed the night yesterday at Alboise. We have decided to join them. Some of the workmen of Plassans have already left the town this afternoon: those who still remain will rejoin their brothers to-morrow.

      He pronounced the word brothers with a youthful emphasis.

      The struggle is becoming inevitable, he added; but, at any rate, we have right on our side and we shall triumph.

      Miette listened to Silvère, her eyes gazing fixedly in front of her, without looking at anything.

      Very well, she said, when he had finished speaking.

      After a brief silence she continued:

      You had warned me, yet I still hoped. However, it is decided.

      Neither of them knew what else to say. The green alley in the deserted corner of the woodyard resumed its melancholy stillness, as the moon chased the shadows of the piles of timber over the grass. The figures of the two young people on the tombstone remained still and motionless in the pale light. Silvère had passed his arm round Miette's waist, and she was reclining gently against his shoulder. They did not kiss, but pressed close to each other with a love that was full of the innocent tenderness of fraternal affection.

      Miette was enveloped in a long brown hooded cloak reaching down to her feet, and leaving only her head and hands visible. Among the women of the lower classes in Provence—the peasants and the labourers—these ample cloaks, which are there called pelisses, and which have probably been worn for ages, are still to be met with. Miette had thrown her hood back on arriving. Living in a hot climate, she was not accustomed to wear a cap in the open air, and her bare head stood out in bold relief against the moonlit wall. Although a mere child, she was already ripening into womanhood. She had arrived at that adorable indistinct stage of development where the frolicsome girl gives place to the grown-up young woman. There is in that stage a delicacy of the shooting bud, a hesitating conformation, which lends an exquisite charm to young girls. The full voluptuous outlines of puberty are already indicated in the innocent meagreness of childhood; the woman shoots forth, preserving, with the unconscious avowal of her sex, the maidenly modesty and embarrassment of the young girl. This period is very unpropitious for some girls, who grow up coarse and ugly, with sickly, sallow complexions like early plants; but for girls who, like Miette, are healthy and live in the open air, it is especially favourable, and, once passed, cannot be recalled.

      Miette was thirteen years of age, and although strong and vigorous did not look older, owing to the bright childish smile which lit up her countenance. In consequence of the climate and the rude life which she led, she was rapidly ripening into womanhood, and was even now marriageable. She was nearly as tall as Silvère, plump and teeming with life. Like her lover, she possessed an uncommon kind of beauty. She would not have been considered ugly, although she might have appeared peculiar to most handsome young people. Her rich black hair, which rose shaggy and erect above her forehead, fell behind in long tresses like surging billows, and flowed over her heart and neck like seething, bubbling waters. It was very thick, and caused her considerable inconvenience, as she did not know how to arrange it. She twisted it as tight as possible, so as to occupy little room, into several plaits as thick as a child's fist, and tied them into a tuft at the back of her head. As she had but little time to devote to her toilette, this immense chignon, hastily contrived without the aid of a mirror, often assumed, under her hands, a powerful grace and beauty. Seeing her head covered with this sort of natural casque, with this mass of frizzed hair which hung about her neck and temples like an animal's mane, one could readily comprehend why she was in the habit of going bareheaded, heedless of the rain and frost.

      The dark outlines traced by the hair gave the form and colour of a golden lunar crescent to her face. Her big eyes starting out of her head, her short turned-up nose with dilated nostrils, and her thick ruddy lips, when regarded apart, would have looked very ugly; viewed, however, in relation to the exquisitely rounded contour and the vivacity of her countenance, these details formed an ensemble of strange, ravishing beauty. When Miette laughed, throwing her head back and gently reclining it on her right shoulder, she resembled the ancient Bacchante, her throat swollen with sonorous gaiety, her cheeks rounded like those of a child, her teeth large and white, her twists of woolly hair tossed about by every outburst of merriment, and forming, as it were, a crown of vine branches. The maiden youthfulness of the girl of thirteen summers was distinguishable in the innocence of her broad womanly grins, and especially in the child-like delicacy of her chin and the soft transparency of her temples. Miette's face, tanned by the sun, reflected, in certain lights, an amber colour. A soft black down already shaded her upper lip. Toil was commencing to disfigure her small hands, which, if left idle, would have become charmingly plump and delicate.

      Miette and Silvère remained silent for a long time. They were reading their own troubled thoughts, and, as they pondered, ever and anon, upon the unknown terrors of the morrow, they tightened their mutual embrace. Their two hearts were communing with each other, feeling the uselessness and bitterness of verbal plaint. The young girl, however, could no longer contain herself, and, choking with emotion, gave expression, in one phrase, to their mutual misgivings.

      You will come back again, won't you? she whispered, as she hung on Silvère's neck.

      Silvère made no reply, but, half-suffocated, and fearing lest he should give way, as Miette had done, he kissed her on the cheek like a brother, at a loss for any other consolation to offer. Then disengaging themselves they again lapsed into silence.

      After a moment Miette shuddered. She was no longer leaning against Silvère's shoulder, and felt herself becoming icy cold. She would not have shuddered thus had she been in this deserted alley the previous evening, seated on this tombstone, where for several seasons they had carried on their flirtations amid the silence of the old corpses.

      I'm very cold, she said, as she pulled her hood over her head.

      Would you like to get up and walk? the young man asked her. It's not yet nine o'clock; we can take a stroll along the main road.

      Miette reflected that she would probably not have the pleasure of another meeting for a long time—another of those evening chats, the joy of which served to sustain her throughout the day.

      Yes, let us walk a little, she quickly replied. Let us go as far as the mill. I could pass the whole night like this if you wanted to.

      They rose from the tombstone, and were soon hidden in the shadows of the piles of planks. Here Miette took off her cloak, which was quilted in the form of little lozenges with a red twill lining, and threw its large warm skirt over Silvère's shoulders, so as to envelop him entirely and draw him close to her under the same garment. They passed their arms round each other's waists, locking themselves together in a close embrace. When they were thus joined, as it were, into a single being, buried in the folds of the pelisse which concealed their human shape, they began to walk slowly in the direction of the high road, passing fearlessly through the vacant parts of the woodyard lighted up by the moon. Miette had thrown the cloak over Silvère, who had submitted to the operation quite naturally, as though it had performed a similar service for them every evening.

      The road to Nice, along both sides of which the houses of the Faubourg are built, was, in the year 1851, lined with elm trees a hundred years old, grand old gigantic ruins, still full of vigour, which the fastidious town council have replaced, some years since, by small plane-trees. While Silvère and Miette were under the trees, the immense boughs of which cast shadows on the footpath in the moonlight, they met two or three black groups moving along silently close to the houses. Like them, they were amorous couples, closely wrapped in cloaks, and carrying on their flirtations in the dark.

      This style of promenading has been instituted by young lovers in the Southern towns. Those boys and girls among the people,

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