He was no longer moving, dazed by fright, bewildered,
fearing the devil, ghosts, all the mysterious beings
of darkness, and he waited a long time without daring
to move. But when he found out that nothing else
was moving, a little reason returned to him, the reason
of a drunkard.
Gently he sat up. Again he waited a long time,
and at last, growing bolder, he called:
“Melina!”
His wife did not answer.
Then, suddenly, a suspicion crossed his darkened mind,
an indistinct, vague suspicion. He was not moving;
he was sitting there in the dark, trying to gather
together his scattered wits, his mind stumbling over
incomplete ideas, just as his feet stumbled along.
Once more he asked:
“Who was it, Melina? Tell me who it was.
I won’t hurt you!”
He waited, no voice was raised in the darkness.
He was now reasoning with himself out loud.
“I’m drunk, all right! I’m
drunk! And he filled me up, the dog; he did it,
to stop my goin’ home. I’m drunk!”
And he would continue:
“Tell me who it was, Melina, or somethin’ll
happen to you.”
After having waited again, he went on with the slow
and obstinate logic of a drunkard:
“He’s been keeping me at that loafer Paumelle’s
place every night, so as to stop my going home.
It’s some trick. Oh, you damned carrion!”
Slowly he got on his knees. A blind fury was
gaining possession of him, mingling with the fumes
of alcohol.
He continued:
“Tell me who it was, Melina, or you’ll
get a licking—I warn you!”
He was now standing, trembling with a wild fury, as
though the alcohol had set his blood on fire.
He took a step, knocked against a chair, seized it,
went on, reached the bed, ran his hands over it and
felt the warm body of his wife.
Then, maddened, he roared:
“So! You were there, you piece of dirt,
and you wouldn’t answer!”
And, lifting the chair, which he was holding in his
strong sailor’s grip, he swung it down before
him with an exasperated fury. A cry burst from
the bed, an agonizing, piercing cry. Then he began
to thrash around like a thresher in a barn. And
soon nothing more moved. The chair was broken
to pieces, but he still held one leg and beat away
with it, panting.
At last he stopped to ask:
“Well, are you ready to tell me who it was?”
Melina did not answer.
Then tired out, stupefied from his exertion, he stretched
himself out on the ground and slept.
When day came a neighbor, seeing the door open, entered.
He saw Jeremie snoring on the floor, amid the broken
pieces of a chair, and on the bed a pulp of flesh
and blood.
As we sat chatting after dinner, a party of men, the
conversation turned on women, for lack of something
else.
