When the meal was over Honore rested for a little while, and then went and sawed logs in the woodshed to break the lethargic spell of a hot Sunday afternoon. He worked with neither haste nor fatigue, happy to feel his muscles regain their week-day ease. Ferdinand, annoyed that he should have deserted his guests for a task of so little consequence, bore his entire family off to the woods, and while they were walking told his wife about the family revolution which he had been meditating since the morning.
At four o’clock Honore came into the kitchen, where his wife and children were seated in silence, and drank a glass of wine. He smiled at them, pulled his jacket over his shoulders and set out along the road towards the centre of Claquebue.
Seventeen
The three Malorets were in the kitchen, having just returned from vespers. Tintin had stayed behind to watch a game of skittles. Zephe sat with his back to the door, his elbows on the table and his chin resting on his hands, staring vaguely towards the far end of the kitchen where Anai's, between the w’ardrobe and the bed, was taking off her black skirt bordered with a green stripe, her blue bodice and the embroidered petticoat her daughter had given her. Noel was covertly observing his father’s attitude of dejection, at once worried and contemptuous. He shrugged his shoulders, and picking up the cotton trousers he had thrown over a chair before going to church, began to take off the clothes he was wearing. Anai's laid her petticoat on the bed and began to fold it.
“You ought to change,” she said to Zephe.
Zephe remained silent and motionless. As she opened one of the doors of the big wardrobe to put her things away she repeated:
“You ought to get changed — all the work there is to do.” Zephe lifted his head and contrary to all his normal habits uttered an obscene word. Noel, who was taking off his Sunday trousers, said angrily:
“It’s not our fault if Adelaide made you look a fool this morning, or if the cure called you names!”
“You shut your blasted jaw!”
“The filth you get up to, at least there’s no reason to go advertising it so that it comes bouncing back at you.” Zephe gave an angry jerk of his head but did not reply.
“And anyway the first thing is to behave decently,” added Noel, astonished at his own temerity in speaking so freely to his father.
“You wait till you’ve got daughters of your own— we’ll see how you behave!”
“Everyone isn’t like you!”
Zephe laughed shortly, and without raising his head talked in a low and melancholy voice.
“Thank you!. . People said the same thing about my grandfather and my grandfather’s father, that they slept with their daughters. They went on saying it about my father, and they’ve gone on saying it about me. It was said all over the village and the district, and it was an accepted thing, once and for all. So what good would it have done me if I hadn’t?”
Anais, with her head in the wardrobe, was pretending not to hear.
“And anyway,” Zephe went on, “it’s something… a part of us, as you might say… in the family… in this house… To get rid of it you’d have had to — I don’t know'—be successful elsewhere. . ”
He fell silent, again overtaken by a sort of lassitude. Noel laid his Sunday trousers over the back of a chair by the window. There was a long, sad silence. A shadow' passed outside the window, the dog barked and Honore Haudouin thrust open the door and entered the room. Closing the door behind him he stood contemplating the Malorets. Zephe turned his head to stare at him but remained with his elbows on the table, seeming unsurprised. Startled at being caught in her draw'ers and stays, Anais hid as best she could behind the door of the wardrobe while she searched hurriedly for an apron to wrap round herself.
“You look very nice like that,” said Honore in a voice which shook slightly.
Noel stood hesitating, clad in nothing but his shirt, with his week-day trousers in his hand. Honore, w'ith his back to the door, measured his advantage over the almost naked young man, astonished that the mere wearing of trousers and boots should give him so great a superiority.
Noel’s nakedness seemed to him pitifully vulnerable, making his enterprise almost too easy.
“So you don’t knock when you come into people’s houses?” said Noel, and took a step towards him.
Honore also moved forward and placed his metal-studded boot on one bare foot, but without putting any weight on it, simply to warn Noel of his defencelessness. The boy drew back, his bare skin flinching. Honore drove his knee into his stomach and hit him with both fists, but with no great brutality. Noel did not return the blows: half doubled-up, he seemed to be trying to hide within his shirt, as though the thin cotton could protect him. Honore hit him again, directing the blow with care, and he fell and lay dazed on the floor. All this took place so rapidly that Ana'is, still half-hidden behind one of the doors of the wardrobe, did not see what happened. Zephe had watched with open eyes, but with no wish to intervene. It would have been easy for him at that moment to get to the door and call for help, but the onslaught had called forth, deep in the animal recesses of his nature, a certain feeling of chivalry: he was content that the matter should take its course according to the rules. Moreover, an immense lethargy had kept him pinned down to his chair, and with it a promise of well-being that lurked obscurely in the prospect of defeat. He got up, nevertheless, as Honore turned towards him, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders in the attitude of a wrestler on guard. He was shorter than Honore, but muscular and nimble and well able to take care of himself. But there was no fight in him, and his defensive attitude was no more than a matter of form. Honore felt this so acutely that he did not even hit him. His intention was to shut him in the wardrobe. Moving swiftly, he got hold of him from behind, keeping his arms pinned to his sides. Only then did Zephe attempt to resist, managing to free his right arm as Honore dragged him to the other end of the kitchen. Ana'is ventured neither to move nor to utter a word of protest, seeming principally concerned to avoid showing herself in her drawers. Honore said gently:
“Open the other door, Anais.”
She hesitated, expecting Zephe to tell her not to; but he continued to struggle in silence.
“Come on!” said Honore. “Open it at once!”
She passed behind him so that he might not see her, and after undoing the hook which held the other door closed, slipped back into her corner in the same way. With both doors open, the wardrobe was almost big enough to hold an ox; but Zephe, his feet securing leverage against the edge, fiercely resisted Honore’s efforts to thrust him inside. Drawing back abruptly, Honore caused him to lose his balance and then flung him down on the bundles of material with which the bottom of the wardrobe was filled. After locking both doors he turned back to Noel, who was beginning to regain his wits. Honore knew precisely what he intended to do with him; he had been thinking of it all that morning, and perhaps for over fifteen years. He picked him up in his arms and said to Anais: “You see, he isn’t badly hurt, he’s moving already. I’m going to put him under the bed.”
Ana'is uttered a small, soft moan.
“He’ll stay asleep,” said Honore confidently. “Don’t worry.”
He thrust Noel as far under the bed as he could, and barricaded him with a bench and some pillows. Having completed this operation he sat on the end of the table and smiled at Anais, who had stayed motionless in her corner by the wardrobe.