The Soil (La terre): A Realistic Novel

by Émile Zola

It must be said, however, that his appearance was not calculated to inspire any confidence. His clothes were all in rags, and he was very dirty and very ugly, bearing evident marks of a life of wretchedness and vice. His face, fringed with a scanty growth of hair, was so fleshless and pallid that the women shut their doors and windows at the mere sight of him. What was worse, however, than his appearance was his conversation. He talked about cutting the throats of all the rich folks, and of having, some fine day, a glut of licentious pleasure with the wives and wine of other people. He let fall all kinds of threats in a tragic voice, clenching his fist, and launching out into wild revolutionary theories which he had picked up in the slums of Paris. He ranted, for instance, in the most virulent language about the rights of the people, and their coming enforcement, his flood of words quite frightening and dazing the peasants who heard him. During the last two years the inhabitants of the farms had been accustomed to see him make his appearance at night-fall asking for a corner and a bundle of straw for a bed. When he sat down by the fire he quite froze every one's blood by his terrible words. Then the next morning he went off, to re-appear again a week later on, at the same gloomy twilight hour, and with the same prophecies of approaching ruin and death. And it was because his gloomy and uncanny appearance about the neighbourhood caused so much fear, and excited so much angry indignation, that he was now always sent about his business as soon as possible.

He and Hyacinthe, however, took to each other at once.

"Ah," cried the latter, "what a mistake I made in not cutting every throat in Cloyes in '48! Come along, old fellow, and let's have a glass together!"

He then took Canon off to the Château, where he made him sleep that night, inspired with more and more respectful admiration for the tramp the longer he listened to him. He considered him to be a man of superior mind, one who knew what he was talking about, with his plans for reorganising society at a single swoop. Two days afterwards, Canon went away. A fortnight later, however, he appeared again in the twilight, and after that he constantly dropped in at the Château—eating and sleeping there as though he were at home, and swearing each time he came that the well-to-do classes would be swept clean out of existence before another six weeks had gone by. One night when the father was out poaching, Canon made an attempt to ravish the daughter; but La Trouille, scarlet with shame and boiling over with indignation, scratched him and bit him so severely that he was obliged to let her go.

Fouan was no fonder of Canon than La Trouille was. He accused him of being an idle good-for-nothing, and of trying to bring about a state of general rapine and bloodshed; and, whenever the vagrant was in the house, the old man grew quite gloomy and silent, and went out of doors to smoke his pipe. There was another matter, too, which was disturbing his life again, and causing an increased disagreement between himself and his son, indisposing him for all his former hilarious merriment. Hitherto Hyacinthe, in parting with his share of the land, had never disposed of it to any one save his brother Buteau or his brother-in-law Delhomme, to whom indeed he had sold the greater portion, a little bit at a time. Fouan had always given his signature, as was necessary, without saying a word in opposition. So long as the land remained in the family, he had no objection to its being sold. But now a troublesome question arose about the last field, upon which the poacher had borrowed money. The mortgagee was threatening to put it up to auction, as he had not received a copper of the interest that had been agreed upon. Monsieur Baillehache had been consulted, and had declared that the field would have to be sold, and sold at once, if they did not wish to be ruined by law costs. Buteau and Delhomme, unfortunately, refused to buy it, being angrily indignant with the old man for allowing himself to be preyed upon by that rascal his elder son; indeed they had sternly resolved to do nothing for him as long as he remained where he was. The consequence was that the field was now to be sold by order of the authorities; writs and stamped paper were already flying about. It would be the first piece of land that had gone out of the family. The old man could get no sleep at nights for thinking of it. This land which his father and grandfather had looked at with such longing eyes, and had worked so hard to obtain; this land which, when acquired, had been guarded as jealously as a wife, was now being frittered away in law-costs, passing into the possession of another, some neighbour, for half its value! The old man groaned with rage, and he was so heart-broken that he sobbed like a child. Oh, that scamp of a poacher!

There were now several terrible scenes between the father and son. The latter, however, never replied, but allowed his father to exhaust himself in reproaches and lamentations. The old man would stand there vociferating and unburdening himself of his wrathful indignation in the most tragic fashion.

"Yes, you are a murderer! It is just as though you had taken up a knife and sliced off a bit of my flesh! Such a splendid field as it is! There isn't a finer anywhere! A field where anything will grow by just being planted! What a poor miserable creature you must be to allow it to go to another! Ah, good heavens, to another! The very thought of it going to an outsider makes my blood turn! And it's all caused by your cursed drunkenness! You have drunk the land away, you filthy, swilling swine!"

Then, as the old man almost choked with anger, and nearly sank down from sheer exhaustion, his son quickly answered:

"It's really very foolish of you, dad, to worry yourself in this way. Fly at me as much as you like, if it relieves you in any way at all; but you really ought to take things more philosophically. One can't eat the land, you know! You'd pull a very wry face if any one served you with a dish of soil, wouldn't you? I've borrowed money on it, because five-franc pieces are the crop it best suits me to raise on it. If there's a surplus of a few crowns, we'll drink them! That's the sensible way to look at things. We shall have more than enough of the soil when we're dead!"

On one point, however, father and son were perfectly in accord, and that point was their common detestation of Vimeux the bailiff—a shabby little fellow who was entrusted with the discharge of such duties as his colleague of Cloyes refused to undertake, and who had ventured one evening to come and leave a formal notification of judgment at the Château. Vimeux was a very dirty-looking little creature, a bundle of yellow beard and whiskers, from the midst of which there peered forth a red nose and a pair of bleared eyes. He was always dressed in shabby-genteel fashion—a tall hat, black trousers, and a frock-coat, but these garments were most shockingly worn and stained. He was notorious in the neighbourhood on account of the terrible thrashings he had received from the peasants every time that he had been compelled to serve them with unpleasant documents in places distant from all help and succour. Stories were told about sticks being broken over his shoulders, of his being ducked in ponds, of his being pursued for a couple of miles and kept running at full speed by the continued application of pitchforks; and of a certain sound thrashing that had been administered to him by a mother and her daughter, after his trousers had previously been let down.