The Flood
Zola, Émile, 1840-1902
English
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THE FLOOD
I.
My name is Louis Roubien. I am seventy years old. I was born in the
village of Saint-Jory, several miles up the Garonne from Toulouse.
For fourteen years I battled with the earth for my daily bread. At last,
prosperity smiled on we, and last month I was still the richest farmer
in the parish.
Our house seemed blessed, happiness reigned there. The sun was our
brother, and I cannot recall a bad crop. We were almost a dozen on the
farm. There was myself, still hale and hearty, leading the children to
work; then my young brother, Pierre, an old bachelor and retired sergeant;
then my sister, Agathe, who came to us after the death of her husband.
She was a commanding woman, enormous and gay, whose laugh could be heard
at the other end of the village. Then came all the brood: my son, Jacques;
his wife, Rosie, and their three daughters, Aimee, Veronique, and Marie.
The first named was married to Cyprica Bouisson, a big jolly fellow, by
whom she had two children, one two years old and the other ten months.
Veronique was just betrothed, and was soon to marry Gaspard Rabuteau. The
third, Marie, was a real young lady, so white, so fair, that she looked as
if born in the city.
That made ten, counting everybody. I was a grandfather and a great-grandfather.
When we were at table I had my sister, Agathe, at my right, and my brother,
Pierre, at my left. The children formed a circle,seated according to age,
with the heads diminishing down to the baby of ten months, who already ate
his soup like a man. And let me tell you that the spoons in the plates made a
clatter. The brood had hearty appetites. And what gayety between the mouthfuls!
I was filled with pride and joy when the little ones held out their hands
toward me, crying:
"Grandpa, give us some bread! A big piece, grandpa!"
Oh! the good days! Our farm sang from every corner. In the evening, Pierre
invented games and related stories of his regiment. On Sunday Agathe made
cakes for the girls. Marie knew some canticles, which she sang like a
chorister.
She looked like a saint, with her blond hair falling on her neck and her
hands folded on her apron.
I had built another story on the house when Aimee had married Cyprien; and
I said laughingly that I would have to build another after the wedding of
Veronique and Gaspard. We never cared to leave each other. We would sooner
have built a city behind the farm, in our enclosure. When families are united,
it is so good to live and die where one has grown up!
The month of May had been magnificent that year. It was long since the
crops gave such good promise. That day precisely, I had made a tour of
inspection with my son, Jacques. We started at about three o'clock.
Our meadows on the banks of the Garonne were of a tender green. The
grass was three feet high, and an osier thicket, planted the year before,
had sprouts a yard high. From there we went to visit our wheat and our
vines, fields bought one by one as fortune came to us. The wheat was
growing strong; the vines, in full flower, promised a superb vintage. And
Jacques laughed his good laugh as he slapped me on the shoulder.
"Well, father, we shall never want for bread nor for wine. You must
be a friend of the Divine Power to have silver showered upon your land
in this way."
We often joked among ourselves of our past poverty. Jacques was right.
I must have gained the friendship of some saint or of God himself,
for all the luck in the country was for us. When it hailed the hail
ceased on the border of our fields. If the vines of our neighbors fell
sick, ours seemed to have a wall of protection around them. And in the
end I grew to consider it only just. Never doing harm to any one, I
thought that happiness was my due.
As we approached the house, Rose gesticulated, calling out:
"Hurry up!"
One of our cows had just had a calf, and everybody was excited. The
birth of that little beast seemed one more blessing. We had been obliged
recently to enlarge the stables, where we had nearly one hundred head
of animals--cows and sheep, without counting the horses.
"Well, a good day's work!" I cried. "We will drink to-night a bottle of
ripened wine."
Meanwhile, Rose took us aside and told us that Gaspard, Veronique's
betrothed, had come to arrange the day for the wedding. She had invited
him to remain for dinner.
Gaspard, the oldest son of a farmer of Moranges, was a big boy of twenty
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