The Debacle - Emile Zola [229]
One morning when Jean was determined to go, Henriette took his hands and held them in a desperate grip.
‘No, no! I beg of you don’t leave me alone… You are not strong enough, wait a few more days… I promise I will let you go when the doctor says you are strong enough to go back and fight.’
5
SILVINE and Prosper were alone with Chariot in the big farmhouse kitchen on a cold evening in December, she sewing and he making himself a nice whip. It was seven o’clock, and they had had their dinner at six without waiting for old Fouchard, who must have been delayed at Raucourt, where meat was running short. Henriette, who was then on night duty at the hospital, had just left after telling Silvine not to go to bed without making up Jean’s stove.
It was very dark outside against the white snow. Not a sound came from the shrouded village, and the only thing that could be heard was Prosper’s knife as he busied himself adorning the dogwood handle with lozenges and rosettes. He paused occasionally and glanced at Chariot, whose big blond head was beginning to fall about with sleep. When the child did eventually go to sleep the silence seemed still deeper. His mother gently moved the candle away so that the little boy should not have the light in his eyes, and then, without stopping her sewing, she fell into a daydream.
It was then, after some hesitation, that Prosper made up his mind to speak.
‘I say, Silvine, there’s something I’ve got to tell you… I waited until I was alone with you.’
Looking disturbed already, she raised her eyes.
‘This is what it is… Forgive me if I am upsetting you, but you had better be warned… This morning, in Remilly, at the corner by the church, I saw Goliath as plain as I see you now, oh yes, full view and no mistake.’
She turned deathly pale, her hands shook, and the only sound she could utter was a soft moan.
‘Oh God, oh God!’
Prosper went on, carefully choosing his words, and told her what he had found out during the day by questioning various people. Nobody now doubted that Goliath was a spy who had settled in the neighbourhood to find out about routes, resources and all the minute details of its way of life. They recalled his stay at old Fouchard’s farm, his sudden departure and the jobs he had had since round Beaumont and Raucourt. And now here he was back again, occupying some unspecified post in the commanding officer’s headquarters in Sedan and travelling round the villages, apparently employed to gather evidence against some, tax others and see that the crushing requisitions imposed on the inhabitants were being properly enforced. That morning he had been terrorizing Remilly about a delivery of flour that was incomplete and late.
‘You are now warned,’ Prosper said again, ‘and so you will know what to do when he comes here…’
She cut him short with a cry of terror:
‘Do you think he’ll come here?’
‘Well of course, it seems obvious to me… He would have to be very lacking in curiosity, as he has never set eyes on the kid, although he knows he exists… And besides, there’s you, and you’re not all that bad-looking, and nice to see again.’
She made a sign begging him to stop. But the noise had awakened Chariot, and he looked up. His eyes still out of focus as though he were emerging from a dream, he remembered the insult he had been