The Soil (La terre): A Realistic Novel

by Émile Zola

"Yes, that is perhaps true," murmured Lise.

"Come, now, we've had quite enough of the matter; let's go to bed. If he asks for the papers, I'll make it my business to reply to him; and the others had better not try to worry me!"

They now went off to bed, after concealing the papers under the marble top of an old chest of drawers, which seemed to them to be a safer hiding-place than one of the drawers themselves, even if they were kept locked. The old man was left alone, without a candle, for fear of fire, and he continued sobbing and talking deliriously all through the night.

On the morrow Monsieur Finet found him calmer, and altogether better than he had expected. Ah, those old plough horses had their souls well riveted to their bodies! he exclaimed. The fever which he had feared did not seem likely now. He prescribed steel, quinine, and other expensive drugs, filling the Buteaus with renewed consternation; and, as he was leaving, he had a struggle with La Frimat, who had been on the watch for him.

"My good woman," he said, "I have already told you that there is really no difference between your husband and this block of stone. I can't put life into stones, can I? You must know very well what the end will be; and the sooner the better both for him and for you."

He then whipped up his horse, and the old woman sank down on to the block of stone in a flood of tears. It was already a weary long time, a dozen years and more, that she had been burdened with the support of her husband, and her strength was failing her with advancing age. She was afraid, indeed, that ere long she would be too weak to cultivate her patch of ground: but all the same, it upset her to think that she might soon lose the infirm old man, who had become like her child, whom she lifted and dressed and undressed and pampered with dainties. Even the unparalysed arm which he had hitherto been able to use was now growing so stiff that she herself was obliged to put his pipe into his mouth.

At the end of a week Monsieur Finet was astonished to find Fouan on his legs again. He was still very feeble, but he was obstinately bent on getting about, saying that the best way to keep from dying was to be determined not to die. Buteau sniggered behind the doctor's back with a contemptuous grin, for he had tossed all the prescriptions, after the second one, aside, declaring that the best way was to let the complaint feed on itself till it was exhausted. On market-day, however, Lise had been weak enough to bring back with her from the town a draught, which had been prescribed on the previous evening; and when the doctor paid his last visit on the Monday Buteau told him that the old man had nearly had a relapse.

"I don't know what it was they put into the bottle you ordered, but it made him dreadfully sick," he said.

That day, in the evening, Fouan at last spoke on the subject nearest his heart. Ever since he had left his bed he had been prowling about the house with an air of anxiety, with his mind quite blank as to where he had deposited his papers. He ferreted and searched everywhere, and made desperate efforts to remember where he had put them. Then, at last, a vague recollection dawned upon him. Perhaps he had not hidden them away anywhere, but had left them lying on the shelf. But, then again, supposing he was mistaken in his fears, supposing no one had taken the papers, was it advisable to give the alarm, and confess to the existence of this money, which it had cost him such a struggle in the past to get together, and concerning which he had ever since maintained the most determined silence? For two days he struggled on against contending emotions—the despair with which the sudden disappearance of his money filled him, and the fear of the consequences of indiscreetly opening his mouth. Gradually, however, a clear recollection of matters returned to him, and he remembered having placed the packet of papers on the shelf on the morning of his attack, pending an opportunity to slip them into a chink in the rafters of the ceiling, which he had just discovered as he lay on his bed gazing into the air. Plundered and desperate, he now unbosomed himself.

They had just finished their evening meal. Lise was putting the plates away, and Buteau, who had been watching his father with leering eyes ever since the day he had left his bed, expected the outbreak, and was swinging himself on his chair, thinking that the explosion was now really coming off, for the old fellow seemed so very wretched and excited. He was not mistaken, for Fouan, who had been persistently tottering about the room on his shaky legs, now suddenly halted in front of his son.