THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
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comes the storm,” said Madeleine. “Oh! I love the lightning.”
She got up and went into the middle of the yard to get a better view. William remained seated in the arbour. He was in pain. A storm gave him a strange feeling of dread. His mind remained firm, and he had no fear of being struck by lightning, but his whole body revolted at the noise of thunder, especially at the blinding flashes of the electric fluid. When a flash dazzled his eyes he seemed to receive a violent blow in the chest, and felt a pang of pain in his breast which left him trembling and aghast.
This was purely a nervous phenomenon. But it was very like fear, very like cowardice, and William was grieved at appearing a poltroon in presence of Madeleine. He had shaded his eyes with his hand. At last, unable to fight against the rebellion of all his nerves, he shouted to his young companion; he asked her in a voice which he tried to render calm, if it would not be more prudent to go and finish their dessert inside the restaurant.
“Why it hardly rains at all,” replied Madeleine. “We can stay a bit longer.”
“I should prefer to go in,” he answered haltingly, “the sight of the lightning makes me feel bad.”
She looked at him with an air of astonishment.
“Very well,” she said simply. “Let us go in, then.”
A maid carried the dinner things into the public room of the inn, a large bare apartment, with blackened walls and no furniture but chairs and benches. William sat down, with his back to the windows, before a plate of strawberries which he left untouched. Madeleine soon finished hers; then she got up and went and opened a window which looked out on the yard. Leaning on the sill, she surveyed the sky now all ablaze. —
The storm was bursting with terrible violence. It had settled over the wood, weighing down the air beneath the blazing canopy of clouds. The rain had ceased, a few sudden gusts of wind were twisting and bending the trees. The flashes of lightning followed each other with such rapidity that it was quite light outside — a bluish kind of light which made the country look like a scene in a melodrama. The peals of thunder were not repeated in the echoes of the valley: they were as clear and sharp as detonations of artillery. The lightning looked as if it must strike the TREES round the inn. Between each peal, the silence was appalling.
William felt extremely uncomfortable at the thought of a window being open behind his back. In spite of himself, a sort of nervous impulse made him turn his head and he saw Madeleine quite pale in the violet light of the flashes. Her golden hair, which had been wetted by the rain in the yard, fell over her shoulders, and now seemed lit up by every sudden blaze.
“Oh! how fine it is,” she exclaimed. “Just come and look, William. There is a tree over there which looks all a-blaze. You might fancy that the flashes of lightning were rushing about in the wood like wild-beasts let loose. And the sky! — Well! it’s a wonderful display of fireworks.”
The young fellow could no longer resist the mad desire he felt of going and closing the shutters. He rose.
“Come now,” he said impatiently, “shut the window. It is quite dangerous for you to stand there like that.”
He stepped forward and touched Madeleine on the arm. She turned half round.
“You are afraid then?” she said to him.
And she burst into a loud laugh, one of those derisive laughs a woman gives when she wishes to scoff at you.
William hung his head. He hesitated for a moment before going to sit down again at the table; then, overcome by his distress, he murmured: “I implore you.”
Just then, the clouds burst and torrents of water came down. A hurricane got up and drove the rain in a stream right into the room. Madeleine was fain to close the window. She came and sat down in front of William.
After a short silence she said:
“When I was a little girl, my father used to take me in his arms, when there was a thunderstorm, and carry me to the window. I recollect how, for the first few times, I used to hide my face against his shoulder; afterwards I used to be amused at watching the lightning — But you are afraid, are you not?”
William raised his head.
“I am not afraid,” he replied gently, “I am in pain.” There was another period of silence. The storm continued with terrible flashes. For nearly three hours the thunder never ceased to nimble.
William sat the whole of this time on his chair, crushed and motionless, his face pale and weary. Seeing his nervous shudders, Madeleine was convinced at last that he really did suffer; she watched him with interest and surprise, quite astonished that a man should have more delicate nerves than a woman.
These three hours were desperately long for the young couple. They hardly spoke. Their lovers’ dinner bad had a strange termination. At last the thunder passed away, and the rain became less heavy. Madeleine went and opened the window.
“It is all over,” she said. “Come, William, the lightning has stopped.”
The young man feeling relieved and breathing freely once more, came and leaned on the window sill by the side of her. They stood there a minute. Then she put her hand out.
“It hardly rains at all now,” she remarked. “We must be off, if we don’t want to miss the last train.”
The landlady came into the room.
“You are going to spend the night here, are you not?” she asked. “I will go and get your room ready.”
“No, no,” quietly replied Madeleine, “we are not going to stay here, I don’t want to. We only came for dinner, did we not, William? We will start now.”
“Why it s impossible! The roads are quite impassable. You will never get to your destination.”
The young woman seemed very concerned. She fidgeted uneasily and repeated:
“No, I want to be off; we ought not to stay the night.’’
“Just as you like,” replied the landlady, “only, if you venture out, you will sleep in the fields, instead of under shelter, that’s all.”
William said nothing: he simply looked at Madeleine in an imploring way. The latter avoided his glances; she was walking up and down with an agitated step, a prey to a violent struggle. In spite of her firm determination not to look at her companion, she at last bestowed a glance on him; she saw him so humble, so submissive before her, that her will relented. One mutual look and she gave way. She took a few more steps with stern brow and cold face. Then, in a clear decisive tone, she said to the landlady:
“All right, we will stay here.”
“Then I will go and get the blue room ready.”
Madeleine started suddenly.
“No, not that, another one,” she replied in a strange tone.
“But all the others are taken.”
The young woman hesitated again. There was a fresh struggle in her mind. She murmured:
“We had better leave.”
But she met William’s beseeching look a second time. She yielded. While the bed was being got ready, the young couple went outside the inn. They walked on and sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, lying in a meadow at the entrance to the wood.
In the freshness after the rain, the smell of the fields could be felt afar. The air, still warm, was balmy with cool breezes, the verdure and wet soil exhaled a pungent perfume. Strange sounds proceeded from the wood, sounds of dripping leaves and herbage drinking in the fallen rain.
All nature was pervaded with a thrill, that delicious thrill which the fields have when a storm has beaten the dust down. And this thrill, so universal on this gloomy night, robbed the darkness of its mysterious pervading charm.
One half of the sky, exquisitely clear, was studded, with