THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
could avoid the count, without the latter noticing it, he was nearly always delighted to escape his embrace. This stern man who haunted La Noiraude like a cold silent shadow, caused him more fear than affection. Geneviève, to whom Monsieur de Viargue had given orders to bring him up openly as his son, always represented his father to him as a terrible and absolute master, and this word father only awoke in his mind an idea of reverential dread.
Such was William’s existence during the first eight years of his life. The strange teaching of the old protestant, and the terror with which his father inspired him, all contributed to make him feeble. He was doomed to keep with him through life the shudders and the unwholesome sensitiveness of his infancy. At eight years of age, Monsieur de Viargue sent him as a boarder to the communal school at Véteuil. He had, no doubt, noticed the cruel way in which Geneviève was bringing him up, and wished to remove him entirely from the influence of this disordered brain. At the school, William began in sorrow the apprenticeship of life: he was fatally doomed to be hurt at every turn.
The years that he spent as a boarder were one long martyrdom, one long ordeal that a neglected and deserted child has to pass through, trodden on by everybody and never knowing what he has done wrong. The inhabitants of Véteuil nursed towards Monsieur de Viargue a secret hatred, which was the result of their jealousy and prudery: they never forgave him for being rich and doing as he liked, while the scandal of William’s birth was an endless theme for their slanderous talk. Though they continued to bow humbly to the father, they avenged themselves for his disdainful indifference on the weakness of the son, whose heart they could break without danger. The boys of the town, those of twelve and sixteen, all knew William’s history through having heard it told a hundred times in their families; at home their relatives would talk with such indignation of this adulterous child, that they looked upon it as their duty, now that he was their playfellow, to torture the poor being who was cried out upon by the whole of Véteuil. Their very parents encouraged them in their cowardice, smiling slyly at the persecutions which they inflicted on him.
From the very first play-hour, William felt, from the jeering attitude of his new companions, that he was in a hostile country. Two big fellows, fifteen year old louts, came up and asked him his name. When he replied, in a timid voice, that it was William, the whole band jeered.
“Your name is Bastard, you mean!” cried a schoolboy, amid the hoots and low jokes of these young scamps, who already had the vices of grown-up men.
The child did not understand the insult, but he began to weep with anguish and terror in the centre of this pitiless circle which surrounded him. He got a few shoves, begged pardon, which highly amused these gentlemen, and brought him a few more knocks.
The bent was followed, the school victim was found. During every play-hour, he caught a few thumps on the head, he heard himself saluted by the name of Bastard, which made the blood mount to his cheeks, he knew not why. The dread of blows made him cowardly; he spent his time in the comers, not daring to stir, like a pariah who finds a whole nation up against him and no longer dares to revolt. His masters banded secretly with his comrades; they saw that it would be a clever stroke of policy to make common cause with the sons of the big wigs at Véteuil, and they overwhelmed the child with punishments, themselves enjoying a wicked pleasure in torturing a feeble creature. William gave himself up to despair; he was a detestable pupil, brutalized with blows, hard words and punishments. Slow, sickly, stupid, he would weep in the dormitory for a whole night: this was his only protest.
His sufferings were all the keener for the poignant need that he felt of having somebody to love and only finding objects to hate. His nervous sensitiveness made him cry out with anguish at each fresh insult. “Good God,” he would often murmur, “what crime have I committed?” And, with his childish sense of justice, he would try to find out what it was that could bring down on him such cruel punishments; when he could find nothing, he would be filled with strange dread, he would remember Geneviève’s menacing lessons and think himself tormented by demons for unknown sins. On two occasions, he seriously thought of drowning himself in the school-well. He was then twelve years old.
On holidays he seemed to get out of a grave. The street children would often stone him to the gates of the town. He was now fond of the deserted park at La Noiraude where no one beat him. He never dared to speak to his father about the persecutions he had to endure. He complained only to Geneviève and asked her what was the meaning of that name Bastard which produced in him the burning sensation of a box on the ears. The old woman listened to him gloomily. She was annoyed that her pupil had been taken away from her. She knew that the school chaplain had induced M. de Viargue to let the child be baptised, and she looked upon him as positively doomed to the flames of hell. When William had confided to her his troubles, she exclaimed, without speaking directly to him: “You are the son of sin, you are expiating the crime of the guilty.” He could not understand, but the fanatic’s tone seemed to him so full of anger, that he never after made her his confidante.
His despair increased as he grew up. He at last arrived at an age when he knew what his fault was. His comrades, with their vile insults, had educated him in vice. Then, he wept tears of blood. They hit him through his parents, by telling him the shameful story of his birth. He knew of the existence of his mother by the coarse names which they gave to this woman all around him. The youngsters, once they set foot in the filth, wallowed in it with a sort of vanity; and the little dandies never spared the Bastard any of the vileness which they could invent out of the intimacy between the notary’s wife and Monsieur de Viargue. William was seized at times with an outburst of wild rage; beneath the blows of his executioners, the martyr revolted at last, fell on the first he could lay hands on and tore him like a wild beast; but, as a rule, he remained passive under the insult and simply wept in silence.
As he was entering on his fifteenth year, an event happened, the memory of which he kept all his life. One day, as the school was walking out and passing along one of the streets of the town, he heard his comrades sneering round him and murmuring in their malicious tone:
“Eh! Bastard, look; there’s your mother.”
He raised his head and looked.
A woman was passing along the causeway, leaning on the arm of a man with a weak placid face. This woman surveyed William with a curious look. Her clothes almost rubbed against him as she passed. But she had no smile, and screwed up her mouth with a sort of sanctified and crabbed grimace. The placid expression of the man who was with her never changed.
William, who was nearly fainting, did not hear the banter of his comrades who were bursting with laughter, as if this little adventure had been the greatest joke in the world. He stood savage and speechless. This hurried vision had frozen his life-blood, and he felt himself more miserable than an orphan. For the rest of his life, when he thought of his mother, he would see before him the image of this woman passing by with a sanctimonious scowl, leaning on the arm of her cuckolded and happy husband.
His great grief, during these wretched years, was to be loved by no one. The savage tenderness of Geneviève frightened him almost, and he found his father’s silent affection very cold. He would say to himself that he was alone, and that there was not a single being who had any pity for him. Crushed beneath the persecutions that he endured, he shut himself up with his inexpressible thoughts of kindness; his gentle nature carefully concealed, as a foolish secret at which people would have laughed, the treasures of love which it could not bestow at large. He would lose himself in the endless dream of an imaginary passion into which he would throw himself heart and soul for ever. And he would dream then of a blissful solitude, of a nook where there were trees and streams, where he would be all alone in company with a cherished passion; lover or comrade, he hardly knew which; he simply felt a longing desire for peace. When he had been beaten, and when still all bruised, he would summon up his dream, his hands clasped in a sort of religious frenzy, and he would ask Heaven when he would be able to hide himself and take his rest in a supreme affection.
Had his pride not sustained him, he would perhaps have become habituated to cowardice. But, fortunately, he had in him the blood of the De Viargues; the helpless weakness, to which he was a victim through his chance birth and the plebeian foolishness of his mother, would at times derive an accession of vigour from the pride which he had from his father. He would feel