The Beast Within - Emile Zola [49]
It was Flore who came in first. She lit the lamp, a small paraffin lamp without a shade, and then laid the table. She said nothing. She hardly looked at Jacques, who stood with his back to her at the window. She had left some cabbage soup on the stove to keep it hot and was beginning to serve it when Misard walked in. He didn’t seem in the least surprised to find Jacques there. Perhaps he had seen him arrive, but he didn’t ask him what brought him there and he appeared totally indifferent towards him; he gave him a quick handshake, a cursory greeting and that was all. It was left to Jacques to explain, a second time, how his engine had broken a coupling-rod and how he thought he might come and say hello to his godmother and spend the night there. Misard slowly nodded his head as he listened, as much as to say that that was all right by him. Everyone sat down to eat. They ate slowly, and for a while no one spoke. Phasie, who since the morning hadn’t taken her eyes off the pot of soup that had been simmering on the stove, accepted a bowlful. But when her husband got up from the table to give her her iron water from a jug in which some nails had been left to soak, which Flore had forgotten to do, she refused to take it. Misard, unobtrusive, frail and with a nasty little cough, didn’t seem to notice the anxious way she watched his every movement. When she asked for some salt, as there wasn’t any on the table, he told her that she shouldn’t put so much salt on her food and that that was what was making her ill. He got up again to fetch some and brought her a little pinch on a spoon. She took it without hesitation, declaring that salt was a great purifier. They talked about the exceptionally mild weather they had been having for the last few days, and about a derailment at Maromme. Jacques was coming to the conclusion that his godmother must be having waking nightmares; he really couldn’t see anything odd about this dreamy-eyed, mild-mannered little man. They sat talking for more than an hour. Twice the night man had sounded his horn, and Flore had left the room for a moment or two. The trains went by, shaking the glasses on the table, but nobody seemed to notice.
When the horn sounded a third time, Flore, who had just cleared everything away, went out, leaving her mother and the two men sitting at the table with a bottle of apple brandy. The three of them sat there for another half hour. Then Misard, who for the last few minutes had been looking intently into one of the corners of the room, picked up his cap and with a simple ‘good night’ walked out. He went poaching in the streams near by, where there were superb eels, and he never went to bed before he had been to check his ground-lines.
Once he had gone, Phasie looked at Jacques.
‘What do you make of that?’ she said. ‘Did you see the way he was looking into that corner? He was thinking I might have hidden my money behind the butter pot. I know him. You mark my words! Tonight he’ll move it to see if it’s there.’
She had broken out into a sweat and was shaking from head to toe.
‘See, it’s happening again! He’s drugged my food. I’ve got a bitter taste in my mouth as if I’d swallowed a lot of old pennies. But I swear I haven’t taken anything from him. It’s enough to make you throw yourself in the river! I can’t take any more tonight. I’d better get to bed. I’ll say goodbye to you now. If you’re leaving at seven twenty-six it’ll be too early for me. Come and see me again, won’t you. Let’s hope I’m still here.’
Jacques had to help her into the bedroom, where she