Macqueron shrugged his shoulders and Delhomme confirmed that, seeing that he had paid for his plot, it now belonged to him. Nothing like it must happen again, that was all. At this, Buteau, who was trying to restrain himself, blew up. The family had felt obliged to observe a certain discretion as the spadefuls of earth continued to thud down onto the old man's coffin, but Buteau was so indignant that, pointing to Delhomme, he shouted to Lengaigne:
‘You needn't rely on this young bugger to have any family feeling! He's just had his father buried next to a thief!’
There was uproar; the family took sides. Fanny restrained her husband by saying that the real mistake had been in not buying a plot for their father next to Rose when they had lost their mother; while Jesus Christ together with La Grande set about Delhomme, both protesting violently that it was inhuman and inexcusable to put the old man next to Saucisse. Monsieur Charles was also of this opinion but expressed it more mildly.
Nobody was able to hear what anybody was saying when Buteau's voice suddenly rose above the din, shouting:
‘Yes, their bones will turn in their graves and they'll eat each other up!’
At this, everyone joined in, relatives, friends and acquaintances. What he said was right, their bones would turn in their graves. The Fouans would finally gobble each other up; Lengaigne and Macqueron would squabble as to who would rot first, the women, Coelina, Flore and Bécu's wife would keep going at each other with tongue and claw. You couldn't rest, side by side, even in your grave, if you loathed each other. And in this sunny graveyard, under the peacefully sprouting weeds, the dead old ancestors fought fiercely on with no quarter given, from coffin to coffin, as fiercely as the fight waged by their living descendants above them amidst the tombstones.
But a cry from Jean drew them apart and everyone turned to look:
‘La Borderie's on fire!’
There was no longer any doubt, flames were bursting through the roofs, flickering and pale in the daylight. A large cloud of smoke was wafting gently northwards. And at that very moment La Trouille came into sight, running at top speed from the farm. While looking for her geese she had noticed the first sparks and had stopped to enjoy the spectacle until the thought of being the first to come and tell the story had sent her running back to Rognes. She straddled the little wall and shouted in her shrill boyish voice:
‘It's burning like mad! It's that dirty louse Tron who came back and set fire to it, in three places, in the barn, the stables and the kitchen. They pinched him just as he was setting light to the straw, the drivers have half-killed him. And the horses and cows and sheep are all being roasted alive. You should just hear them squealing! There's never been anything like it!’
Her green eyes were sparkling and she burst out laughing:
‘And then there's the Cognet girl! You know, she'd not been well since the master died. So they'd forgotten all about her, lying in bed. She was already being toasted and she only just managed to get out in her shift. Oh, she looked so funny dashing round the countryside with bare legs, dancing up and down and showing everything she's got, front and back, and people were shouting “Gee up, neddy,” to help her along, 'cause no one really likes her. One old man said: “There she goes just like she came, with only a shift to cover her arse!” ’
Once again she squirmed with delight.
‘Come and see, it's so funny. I'm going back!’
And she jumped off the wall and dashed away at full speed towards the blazing farmhouse.
Monsieur Charles, Delhomme, Macqueron and almost all the villagers followed her, while the women led by La Grande also left the churchyard and went out onto the road to have a better view. Buteau and Lise stayed behind and the latter detained Lengaigne for a moment, anxious to ask him about Jean without making it too obvious. Had he found work since he'd taken lodgings in the village? When the innkeeper replied that he was leaving and going to join up again, Lise and Buteau felt a great weight lifted from their minds and both made the same remark:
‘What an idiot!’
It was all over now, they could look forward to settling down happily again. They glanced at Fouan's grave, which the gravedigger had nearly finished filling in. And as the two children were lingering to take a look, their mother called to them:
‘Come on, Jules and Laure. And be good and do what you're told or else that man'll come and bury you too!’
The Buteaus went off, pushing their Jules and Laure along in front of them. The two children, who were in on the secret, looked as good as gold with their large, dark, silent, knowing eyes.
Only Jean and Jesus Christ were left in the churchyard. The latter, not greatly interested in the fire, was continuing to watch it from a distance. Standing motionless between two graves, with a vacant dreamy expression in his eyes and looking like a drunken crucified Christ, he seemed to portray the ultimate sadness of all philosophizing. Perhaps he was reflecting that all life is just smoke. And as solemn ideas always excited him, he absent-mindedly lifted his thigh, in his vague dreamy way, and let out three farts, one after the other.
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Bécu, very drunk, as he was going through the graveyard on his way to the fire.
A fourth one came so close to him as he went by that he could almost feel the blast on his cheek. So as he went away, he called out to his friend:
‘If that wind keeps up, there'll be some shit on the way.’
Jesus Christ gave an experimental squeeze.
‘Well, I'm damned, I do want to shit, in fact.’
And stepping deliberately and holding his legs carefully apart, he hurried away and disappeared round the corner of the wall. Jean was alone. In the distance, swirling above La Borderie, now largely burnt out, vast clouds of reddish smoke were casting shadows over the ploughed fields and the scattered sowers. And slowly his gaze came back to the two fresh mounds of earth at his feet, under which Françoise and old Fouan lay in their last sleep. The anger and disgust with people and things which he had felt that morning was melting away, leaving behind a deep sense of peace. Despite himself, he was pervaded by a feeling of gentleness and hope, perhaps because of the warm sunshine.
Yes, his former master Hourdequin had given himself a lot of fuss and bother with these new inventions of his and he hadn't reaped much benefit from his machines and fertilizers, all this new science which was still not properly understood. And then the Cognet girl had finished him off and he too was sleeping in the churchyard; while all that remained of his farm was ashes whirling away in the wind. But what did it matter? The walls might be burnt down but you couldn't burn down the earth. Mother Earth would always be there to feed those who sowed her. She had space enough and time, until people learned how to make her produce more.
It was like all those stories of revolutions and political upsets that people kept prophesying. It was said that the land would pass into other people's hands and harvests from other countries would overwhelm ours and all our fields would be overgrown with brambles. So what? Can you harm the earth? She'll still belong to someone who will be forced to cultivate her in order not to starve. If weeds grew over her for years, it would give her time to rest and become young and fruitful again. The earth doesn't take part in our petty, spiteful, antlike squabbles, she pays no more attention to us than to any other insects, she merely goes on working and working, eternally.
And then there was pain and blood and tears, all those things that cause suffering and revolt, the killing of Françoise, the killing of Fouan, vice triumphing, and the stinking, bloodthirsty peasants, vermin who disgrace and exploit the earth. But can you really know? Just as the frost that burns the crops, the hail that chops them down, the thunderstorms which batter them are all perhaps necessary, maybe blood and tears are needed to keep the world going. And how important is human misery when weighed against the mighty mechanism of the stars and the sun? What does God care for us? We earn our bread only by dint of a cruel struggle, day in, day out. And only the earth is immortal, the Gre
at Mother from whom we spring and to whom we return, love of whom can drive us to crime and through whom life is perpetually preserved for her own inscrutable ends, in which even our wretched degraded nature has its part to play.
Such were the confused notions swirling through Jean's head. But a bugle call resounded in the distance as the firemen of Bazoches-le-Doyen arrived at the gallop, too late. And as he heard it, Jean straightened his back. It was the sound of war breaking through the smoke, with its horses, its cannon, its murderous howl. He choked with emotion. Well, since he no longer had the heart to plough this old land of France, by God, he'd defend it!
As he left he cast one final glance at the two grassless graves and at the infinite expanse of the rich plain of Beauce swarming with sowers, swinging their arms in the same monotonous gesture. Here were the Dead, there was the Seed; and bread would be springing from the Good Earth.
Emile Zola, The Earth
(Series: # )
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