'Well!' resumed Goliath, 'I'm certainly not malicious, and I've no liking for quarrels, as you must know, but I swear to you that I'll have them all arrested, old Fouchard and the others, every one of them, if you don't give me a favourable answer. And I will take the little one away and send him to Germany, to my mother, who will be very pleased to have him; for, since you want to break off everything, he belongs to me. So you hear me, eh? I shall only have to come and take him when there is nobody left here. I am the master, mind, and I do what I please. Come, what is your decision?'
She gave no answer, however; she was pressing the child yet more closely to her bosom, as though she feared that Goliath might there and then tear him away from her; and into her large eyes there came an expression of mingled terror and execration.
'Well,' he resumed, 'I'll allow you three days for reflection. I shall come for your answer on Monday evening; see that the window of your room, overlooking the orchard, is left open. If on Monday evening at seven o'clock I do not find it open, I will have all your folks arrested the very next day, and I'll come back to fetch the little one. So till Monday, Silvine.'
He went off quietly, whilst she remained standing there, her head buzzing with such terrible, such monstrous ideas that it was as though she had suddenly become an idiot. And thus, throughout the whole day, a tempest warred within her. At first she instinctively thought of carrying her child away in her arms, of going off straight before her, no matter whither. But then, what would become of her when night fell; how would she be able to earn a living for him and for herself? Besides, the Prussians scouring the roads might arrest her and possibly bring her back. Then the idea occurred to her of speaking to Jean, of warning Prosper and even Fouchard, but again she hesitated and recoiled. Was she sure enough of their friendship to be certain that she would not be sacrificed to their tranquillity? No, no, she would say nothing to anybody; she alone would extricate herself from this danger, which she herself had created by the stubbornness of her refusal. But what scheme could she devise? in what manner could she prevent that misfortune? for all her native honesty revolted at the thought; she would never have forgiven herself if through her fault a catastrophe should fall on so many people, and especially on Jean, who showed himself so kind to little Charlot.
Hours elapsed, the following day went by, and yet she had not been able to devise any plan. She applied herself to her work as usual, swept the kitchen, attended to the cows, cooked the soupe. And hour by hour, amid her absolute silence—the frightful silence which she still stubbornly maintained—her hatred of Goliath ascended with increasing force to her brain and poisoned it. He was her sin, her damnation, the serpent who had tempted her to her fall. But for him she would have waited for Honoré, and Honoré would be still alive and she would be happy. In what an arrogant tone had he declared that he was the master? Forsooth it was true, there were no more gendarmes, no more judges to whom she could appeal for protection—might had become right. Oh! to be stronger than he was, to seize him when he came, he who talked of seizing others! She was now entirely bound up in her child, the flesh of her flesh; his chance father went for nothing, had indeed never counted. She was not a wife, and when she thought of that man only a feeling of anger inflamed her, the rancour of one who had been vanquished. Rather than surrender her child to him she would have killed the boy and herself afterwards. And she had told him plainly, she would have liked to have seen that child already grown to manhood and capable of defending her; and she pictured him in years to come, armed with a rifle, and riddling the bodies of all that hateful race over yonder. Yes, indeed, a Frenchman the more, a Frenchman to slay the Prussians!
However, only one day now remained to her, and she must come to a decision. An atrocious idea had at the very outset passed through her poor, ailing, disordered brain: she might warn the Francs-tireurs, give Sambuc the information he desired. But the idea remained fugitive and indeterminate, and she brushed it aside as being too monstrous even for examination; after all, was not that man her child's father? She could not have him murdered. Then, however, the idea came back again, slowly enveloping her, growing, little by little, more and more importunate; and now it was imposing itself upon her with all the victorious strength of its simplicity and absoluteness. If Goliath were dead, Jean, Prosper, and Fouchard would have nothing more to fear. She herself would retain possession of Charlot, and nobody would ever again challenge her right to the child. And there was something else, too, something deep-rooted that ascended from the innermost recesses of her being: a needment to have done with it all, to efface the paternity of the child by suppressing its father, a savage joy at the thought that she would emerge from the issue with her transgression amputated as it were, and as the one parent, the sole possessor of the child, whom henceforth she would share with no man. All day long did she dwell upon this plan, no longer possessing the energy to repulse it, but ever and ever brought back to the details of the ambuscade that would be necessary, planning and arranging its most trifling incidents. So now, then, the idea had become a fixed one, an idea which once sown is bound to germinate, and which one ceases to discuss; and when at last she began to put this idea to execution, to obey this impulse of the inevitable, she proceeded on her course like one in a dream, carried along by another's will, by a force which she had never felt within her before.
On the Sunday, old Fouchard, who felt uneasy, had sent word to the Francs-tireurs that their sack of loaves would be carried to the Boisville quarries, a very lonely spot, not much more than a mile away; and, as Prosper had other things to see to, he despatched Silvine thither with a barrow. Was not fate thus deciding the issue? She interpreted it, indeed, as a decree of Destiny, and spoke out, giving Sambuc an appointment for the following evening, in a clear, calm voice, as though she were not able to act otherwise. On the morrow there were further signs, positive proofs that people and even things had willed the crime. First, old Fouchard was abruptly summoned to Raucourt, and left word that they were to dine without him, for he foresaw that he would be unable to get back before eight o'clock. Then, too, Henriette, whose turn to sit up watching at the ambulance only came on Tuesdays, received notice, late in the day, that she must that evening take the place of the person on duty, who had fallen ill. Accordingly, as Jean never left his room, no matter what noise he heard, there only remained Prosper whose intervention was to be feared. He was certainly not in favour of combining with others to slaughter a solitary man. However, when he saw his brother and the latter's two lieutenants arrive at the farm, the disgust with which these rascals inspired him became blended with his execration of the Prussians. He was certainly not going to interfere to save one of those dirty rogues, even though he might be sent to his account in a foul way, and he preferred to go to bed and bury his head under the clothes, so that he might not hear anything and might not be tempted to act like a soldier.
It was a quarter to seven, and Charlot seemed determined not to go to sleep, though as a rule his head fell upon the table as soon as he had eaten his soupe. 'Come, go to by-by, my darling,' repeated Silvine, who had carried him into Henriette's room, 'you see how comfortable you are on friend's big bed.'