Nana - Émile Zola (good books to read for young adults txt) 📗
- Author: Émile Zola
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the last to remain.
She went away; she shut the door. Nana was left alone with upturned
face in the light cast by the candle. She was fruit of the charnel
house, a heap of matter and blood, a shovelful of corrupted flesh
thrown down on the pillow. The pustules had invaded the whole of
the face, so that each touched its neighbor. Fading and sunken,
they had assumed the grayish hue of mud; and on that formless pulp,
where the features had ceased to be traceable, they already
resembled some decaying damp from the grave. One eye, the left eye,
had completely foundered among bubbling purulence, and the other,
which remained half open, looked like a deep, black, ruinous hole.
The nose was still suppurating. Quite a reddish crush was peeling
from one of the cheeks and invading the mouth, which it distorted
into a horrible grin. And over this loathsome and grotesque mask of
death the hair, the beautiful hair, still blazed like sunlight and
flowed downward in rippling gold. Venus was rotting. It seemed as
though the poison she had assimilated in the gutters and on the
carrion tolerated by the roadside, the leaven with which she had
poisoned a whole people, had but now remounted to her face and
turned it to corruption.
The room was empty. A great despairing breath came up from the
boulevard and swelled the curtain.
“A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!”
THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER
THE BETROTHAL
Pere Merlier’s mill, one beautiful summer evening, was arranged for
a grand fete. In the courtyard were three tables, placed end to
end, which awaited the guests. Everyone knew that Francoise,
Merlier’s daughter, was that night to be betrothed to Dominique, a
young man who was accused of idleness but whom the fair sex for
three leagues around gazed at with sparkling eyes, such a fine
appearance had he.
Pere Merlier’s mill was pleasing to look upon. It stood exactly in
the center of Rocreuse, where the highway made an elbow. The
village had but one street, with two rows of huts, a row on each
side of the road; but at the elbow meadows spread out, and huge
trees which lined the banks of the Morelle covered the extremity of
the valley with lordly shade. There was not, in all Lorraine, a
corner of nature more adorable. To the right and to the left thick
woods, centenarian forests, towered up from gentle slopes, filling
the horizon with a sea of verdure, while toward the south the plain
stretched away, of marvelous fertility, displaying as far as the eye
could reach patches of ground divided by green hedges. But what
constituted the special charm of Rocreuse was the coolness of that
cut of verdure in the most sultry days of July and August. The
Morelle descended from the forests of Gagny and seemed to have
gathered the cold from the foliage beneath which it flowed for
leagues; it brought with it the murmuring sounds, the icy and
concentrated shade of the woods. And it was not the sole source of
coolness: all sorts of flowing streams gurgled through the forest;
at each step springs bubbled up; one felt, on following the narrow
pathways, that there must exist subterranean lakes which pierced
through beneath the moss and availed themselves of the smallest
crevices at the feet of trees or between the rocks to burst forth in
crystalline fountains. The whispering voices of these brooks were
so numerous and so loud that they drowned the song of the
bullfinches. It was like some enchanted park with cascades falling
from every portion.
Below the meadows were damp. Gigantic chestnut trees cast dark
shadows. On the borders of the meadows long hedges of poplars
exhibited in lines their rustling branches. Two avenues of enormous
plane trees stretched across the fields toward the ancient Chateau
de Gagny, then a mass of ruins. In this constantly watered district
the grass grew to an extraordinary height. It resembled a garden
between two wooded hills, a natural garden, of which the meadows
were the lawns, the giant trees marking the colossal flower beds.
When the sun’s rays at noon poured straight downward the shadows
assumed a bluish tint; scorched grass slept in the heat, while an
icy shiver passed beneath the foliage.
And there it was that Pere Merlier’s mill enlivened with its
ticktack a corner of wild verdure. The structure, built of plaster
and planks, seemed as old as the world. It dipped partially in the
Morelle, which rounded at that point into a transparent basin. A
sluice had been made, and the water fell from a height of several
meters upon the mill wheel, which cracked as it turned, with the
asthmatic cough of a faithful servant grown old in the house. When
Pere Merlier was advised to change it he shook his head, saying that
a new wheel would be lazier and would not so well understand the
work, and he mended the old one with whatever he could put his hands
on: cask staves, rusty iron, zinc and lead. The wheel appeared
gayer than ever for it, with its profile grown odd, all plumed with
grass and moss. When the water beat upon it with its silvery flood
it was covered with pearls; its strange carcass wore a sparkling
attire of necklaces of mother-of-pearl.
The part of the mill which dipped in the Morelle had the air of a
barbaric arch stranded there. A full half of the structure was
built on piles. The water flowed beneath the floor, and deep places
were there, renowned throughout the district for the enormous eels
and crayfish caught in them. Below the fall the basin was as clear
as a mirror, and when the wheel did not cover it with foam schools
of huge fish could be seen swimming with the slowness of a squadron.
Broken steps led down to the river near a stake to which a boat was
moored. A wooden gallery passed above the wheel. Windows opened,
pierced irregularly. It was a pell-mell of corners, of little
walls, of constructions added too late, of beams and of roofs, which
gave the mill the aspect of an old, dismantled citadel. But ivy had
grown; all sorts of clinging plants stopped the too-wide chinks and
threw a green cloak over the ancient building. The young ladies who
passed by sketched Pere Merlier’s mill in their albums.
On the side facing the highway the structure was more solid. A
stone gateway opened upon the wide courtyard, which was bordered to
the right and to the left by sheds and stables. Beside a well an
immense elm covered half the courtyard with its shadow. In the
background the building displayed the four windows of its second
story, surmounted by a pigeon house. Pere Merlier’s sole vanity was
to have this front plastered every ten years. It had just received
a new coating and dazzled the village when the sun shone on it at
noon.
For twenty years Pere Merlier had been mayor of Rocreuse. He was
esteemed for the fortune he had acquired. His wealth was estimated
at something like eighty thousand francs, amassed sou by sou. When
he married Madeleine Guillard, who brought him the mill as her
dowry, he possessed only his two arms. But Madeleine never repented
of her choice, so briskly did he manage the business. Now his wife
was dead, and he remained a widower with his daughter Francoise.
Certainly he might have rested, allowed the mill wheel to slumber in
the moss, but that would have been too dull for him, and in his eyes
the building would have seemed dead. He toiled on for pleasure.
Pere Merlier was a tall old man with a long, still face, who never
laughed but who possessed, notwithstanding, a very gay heart. He
had been chosen mayor because of his money and also on account of
the imposing air he could assume during a marriage ceremony.
Francoise Merlier was just eighteen. She did not pass for one of
the handsome girls of the district, as she was not robust. Up to
her fifteenth year she had been even ugly.
The Rocreuse people had not been able to understand why the daughter
of Pere and Mere Merlier, both of whom had always enjoyed excellent
health, grew ill and with an air of regret. But at fifteen, though
yet delicate, her little face became one of the prettiest in the
world. She had black hair, black eyes, and was as rosy as a peach;
her lips constantly wore a smile; there were dimples in her cheeks,
and her fair forehead seemed crowned with sunlight. Although not
considered robust in the district, she was far from thin; the idea
was simply that she could not lift a sack of grain, but she would
become plump as she grew older—she would eventually be as round and
dainty as a quail. Her father’s long periods of silence had made
her thoughtful very young. If she smiled constantly it was to
please others. By nature she was serious.
Of course all the young men of the district paid court to her, more
on account of her ecus than her pretty ways. At last she made a
choice which scandalized the community.
On the opposite bank of the Morelle lived a tall youth named
Dominique Penquer. He did not belong to Rocreuse. Ten years before
he had arrived from Belgium as the heir of his uncle, who had left
him a small property upon the very border of the forest of Gagny,
just opposite the mill, a few gunshots distant. He had come to sell
this property, he said, and return home. But the district charmed
him, it appeared, for he did not quit it. He was seen cultivating
his little field, gathering a few vegetables upon which he
subsisted. He fished and hunted; many times the forest guards
nearly caught him and were on the point of drawing up proces-verbaux
against him. This free existence, the resources of which the
peasants could not clearly discover, at length gave him a bad
reputation. He was vaguely styled a poacher. At any rate, he was
lazy, for he was often found asleep on the grass when he should have
been at work. The hut he inhabited beneath the last trees on the
edge of the forest did not seem at all like the dwelling of an
honest young fellow. If he had had dealings with the wolves of the
ruins of Gagny the old women would not have been the least bit
surprised. Nevertheless, the young girls sometimes risked defending
him, for this doubtful man was superb; supple and tall as a poplar,
he had a very white skin, with flaxen hair and beard which gleamed
like gold in the sun.
One fine morning Francoise declared to Pere Merlier that she loved
Dominique and would never wed any other man.
It may well be imagined what a blow this was to Pere Merlier. He
said nothing, according to his custom, but his face grew thoughtful
and his internal gaiety no longer sparkled in his eyes. He looked
gruff for a week. Francoise also was exceedingly grave. What
tormented Pere Merlier was to find out how this rogue of a poacher
had managed to fascinate his daughter. Dominique had never visited
the mill. The miller watched and saw the gallant on the other side
of the Morelle, stretched out upon the grass and feigning to be
asleep. Francoise could see him from her chamber window.
Everything was plain: they had fallen in love by casting sheep’s
eyes at each other over the mill wheel.
Another week went by. Francoise became more and more grave. Pere
Merlier still said nothing. Then one evening he
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