Читать книгу The Complete Short Stories (All Unabridged) - Emile Zola - Страница 12

Sister-of-the-poor slept in the garret, a sort of loft strewn with pieces of old furniture. On moonlight nights, thanks to a narrow dormer-window, she had light to go to bed by. On others she was obliged to grope her way to reach her couch, a poor one, made of four badly joined planks, and a straw paillasse, which was so lumpy that in places the two sides of the tick touched each other.

On that particular night the moon was at its full. A luminous stream ran along the beams, filling the garret with light When Guillaume and Guillaumette were in bed, Sister-of-the-poor went upstairs. On dark nights she sometimes felt very much afraid at sudden moans, at the sound of footsteps she fancied she heard, and which were nothing more than the cracking of woodwork and the scampering of mice. And so she was very fond of the beautiful satellite whose friendly rays dispersed her fears. On nights when it shone, she opened the dormer-window, and thanked it in her prayers for having returned to see her.

She was very much pleased to find light in her room. ‘She was tired, and would sleep very tranquilly, feeling herself watched over by her good friend the moon. She had often felt it in her sleep wandering thus about the room, silent and gentle, driving away the bad dreams of winter nights.

She ran and knelt down on an old chest, in the midst of the white light There she prayed to God. Then, going towards the bed, she unhooked her skirt.

The skirt slid to the ground, and in doing so a quantity of big sous fell out of the distended pocket. Sister-of-the-poor, motionless and in terror, watched them rolling about She stooped down and picked them up one by one, taking hold of them with the tips of her fingers. She piled them up on the old chest, without seeking to ascertain how many there were, for she could only count up to fifty, and she could see very well that there were several hundred of them. When she could find no more on the ground, she picked up her skirt, and understood by the weight that the pocket was again full. Then, for a good quarter of an hour, she pulled handfuls of sous out of it, thinking she would never reach the bottom. At last she could only feel one more. When she looked at it, she recognised it was the sou the beggar-woman had given her that same evening.

She then said to herself that the Almighty had just performed a miracle, and that this ugly-looking sou which she had disdained, was a sou such as the wealthy never had. She felt it vibrate between her fingers, ready to multiply again And she was all of a tremble lest it should take the fancy to fill the whole garret with wealth. Even now she knew not what to do with those piles of new money that were shining in the moonlight, and she gazed around her quite troubled Like a good workgirl she had always a needle and cotton in her apron pocket, and she looked about her for a piece of old sacking to make a bag. She made it so narrow that she could hardly get her little hand into it; material was wanting, and besides, Sister-of-the-poor was pressed for time. Then, having placed the poor woman’s sou right at the bottom, she began to slip the pieces covering the chest into the bag, pile by pile. As each lot fell, the bag became full, and was immediately empty again. The hundreds of big sous had plenty of room there, and it was easy to see that it could have held four times as many.

After that, Sister-of-the-poor, who was tired, hid the bag under the paillasse, and went to sleep. She laughed in her dreams, thinking of all the alms she would be able to distribute the next day.