The Debacle - Emile Zola [79]
‘And what about Silvine, isn’t she here now?’
Fouchard looked quizzically at his son, and his eyes twinkled with hidden amusement.
‘Oh yes, oh yes.’
Then silence, and he spat very deliberately. After a pause Honoré had to go on:
‘Well, has she gone to bed?’
‘No, no.’
Finally the old man condescended to explain that he had gone as usual that morning to market in Raucourt, taking her with him in the cart. Because soldiers were going through the town that was no reason for people to give up eating meat and for business to stop. So, as always on Tuesdays, he had taken a sheep and a quarter of beef and he was finishing selling them when the arrival of the 7th corps had landed him in the middle of a terrible shindy, everybody running about and knocking each other over. So he had been afraid of somebody taking his horse and cart and had gone, not waiting for Silvine, who was doing some errands in the town.
‘Oh, she’ll get back all right,’ he concluded in his calm voice. ‘She will have taken refuge in Dr Dalichamp’s house, he’s her godfather… She’s a brave girl, for all her look of only being able to do what she’s told… Certainly she’s got lots of good points.’
Was he teasing? Or was he trying to explain why he was keeping on this girl who had come between him and his son, and that in spite of the Prussian’s child from whom she refused to be parted? Once again he cast his sly glance and laughed to himself.
‘Charlot is asleep in there, in her room, and she won’t be long, I’m sure.’
Honoré’s lips were trembling, and he looked so hard at his father that the latter resumed his walking up and down. Silence fell again, an endless silence while he automatically cut himself some more bread, still chewing. Jean went on too, without feeling any need to say a word. But Maurice had had enough to eat, and with his elbows on the table he looked round at the old sideboard and the old clock and daydreamed about the holidays he had spent at Remilly long ago with his sister. The minutes ticked by, the clock struck eleven.
‘Hell,’ he murmured, ‘we mustn’t let the others go without us.’ He went over and opened the window, and Fouchard did not object. The whole black valley was scooped out below like a rolling sea of shadows. Nevertheless, when your eyes became accustomed to it you could make out quite clearly the bridge lit by the fires on either bank. There were still cuirassiers crossing, looking in their big white cloaks like phantom riders whose horses, whipped on by a wind of terror, were walking on the water. And that went on and on endlessly, and always at the same speed like a slow-moving vision. To the right the bare hills, where the army was sleeping, were still wrapped in a death-like stillness and silence.
‘Oh well,’ went on Maurice with a gesture of despair, ‘it’ll be tomorrow morning now!’
He had left the window wide open, and old Fouchard seized his gun, cocked his leg over the rail and jumped out with the agility of a young man. For a minute or two he could be heard walking away with the regular step of a sentinel, then nothing could be heard but the distant roar of the crowded bridge. No doubt he had sat down on the roadside, feeling more secure there where he could see danger coming and be ready to leap back and defend his home.
Now Honoré was watching the clock every minute, and his nervousness was growing. It was only six kilometres from Raucourt to Remilly, hardly more than one hour’s walking for a strapping young woman like Silvine. Why wasn’t she back, for it was hours since the old man had lost her in the confusion of a whole army corps all over the place, blocking all the roads? He felt certain that some catastrophe had happened, and he visualized her caught in some horrible adventure, running panic-stricken across the fields, trampled on by horses.
Suddenly all three