Earth by Émile Zola

Author:Émile Zola
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016-02-10T15:29:00+00:00

Chapter 6

For the last two days Jean had been working in the fields Hourdequin owned near Rognes, where the farmer had set up a steam threshing machine, hired from an engineer from Châteaudun who took it round the area between Bonneval and Cloyes. With his cart and two horses, the young man fetched the sheaves from the ricks all around and then took the grain back to the farm; while the machine, puffing away from morning to night, sent a golden dust cloud up into the sunshine and filled the whole countryside with its loud, incessant rumble.

Jean, sick at heart, was racking his brains trying to think how he could sleep with Françoise again. A month had already gone by since he had held her in his arms, at the very spot where he was threshing the wheat; and now she was scared and kept avoiding him. He despaired of ever getting another go, yet he wanted her more than ever and his passion was growing into an obsession. As he drove his horses along, he asked himself why he shouldn’t just go to the Buteaus and ask for her hand in marriage. So far, there had been no open or definitive quarrel between them. He always called out a greeting to them when he went by. And once the idea of marriage occurred to him as the only way of having her again, he soon convinced himself that it was his duty and that it would be wrong of him not to marry her.

All the same, when he went back to his machine the following morning, he felt very nervous. He would never have dared to make the approach had he not seen Buteau and Françoise going off to the fields together. He thought that as Lise had always been friendly towards him, he would be less nervous with her; so he handed his horses to a friend and slipped away.

‘Hullo, Jean!’ Lise cried cheerfully, now thoroughly recovered from the birth of her daughter. ‘We haven’t seen you for ages. What’s up?’

He apologized and then, with the abruptness typical of shy people, he came straight to the point. At first she might have imagined it was herself he was making advances to, because he reminded her that he had always liked her and would gladly have had her for his wife. Then he added quickly:

‘That’s why I’d be happy to marry Françoise, if you’d let me.’

She looked at him in such surprise that he faltered:

‘Oh, I know it’s not as simple as that. I just wanted to let you know.’

‘Well, I never!’ she said in the end. ‘I’m surprised, I didn’t expect it, seeing the difference in age. But first we must see what Françoise thinks about it.’

He had gone along with the intention of telling her everything, so that he would be forced to marry Françoise. But at the last moment he had qualms. If Françoise hadn’t confessed to her sister and nobody knew about it, had he the right to mention it first? He lost heart and felt ashamed of being thirty-three.

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