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CAPTAIN BURLE-Part2_Emile Zola(1840-1902)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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cafe that same morning to get a glass of vermouth, so it seemed, and

he had found Melanie there. They had conversed, and in the evening



when he returned Phrosine immediately showed him to the inner room.

Two days later Burle reigned there supreme; still he had not



frightened the chemist, the vermicelli maker, the lawyer or the

retired magistrate away. The captain, who was short and dumpy,



worshiped tall, plump women. In his regiment he had been nicknamed

"Petticoat Burle" on account of his constant philandering. Whenever



the officers, and even the privates, met some monstrous-looking

creature, some giantess puffed out with fat, whether she were in



velvet or in rags, they would invariably exclaim, "There goes one to

Petticoat Burle's taste!" Thus Melanie, with her opulent presence,



quite conquered him. He was lost--quite wrecked. In less than a

fortnight he had fallen to vacuous imbecility. With much the



expression of a whipped hound in the tiny sunken eyes which lighted

up his bloated face, he was incessantly watching the widow in mute



adoration before her masculine features and stubby hair. For fear

that he might be dismissed, he put up with the presence of the other



gentlemen of the divan and spent his pay in the place down to the

last copper. A sergeant reviewed the situation in one sentence:



"Petticoat Burle is done for; he's a buried man!"

It was nearly ten o'clock when Major Laguitte furiously flung the



door of the cafe open. For a moment those inside could see the

deluged square transformed into a dark sea of liquid mud, bubbling



under the terrible downpour. The major, now soaked to the skin and

leaving a stream behind him, strode up to the small counter where



Phrosine was reading a novel.

"You little wretch," he yelled, "you have dared to gammon an



officer; you deserve--"

And then he lifted his hand as if to deal a blow such as would have



felled an ox. The little maid shrank back, terrified, while the

amazed domino players looked, openmouthed. However, the major did



not linger there--he pushed the divan door open and appeared before

Melanie and Burle just as the widow was playfully making the captain



sip his grog in small spoonfuls, as if she were feeding a pet

canary. Only the ex-magistrate and the chemist had come that



evening, and they had retired early in a melancholy frame of mind.

Then Melanie, being in want of three hundred francs for the morrow,



had taken advantage of the opportunity to cajole the captain.

"Come." she said, "open your mouth; ain't it nice, you greedy piggy-



wiggy?"

Burle, flushing scarlet, with glazed eyes and sunken figure, was



sucking the spoon with an air of intense enjoyment.

"Good heavens!" roared the major from the threshold. "You now play



tricks on me, do you? I'm sent to the roundabout and told that you

never came here, and yet all the while here you are, addling your



silly brains."

Burle shuddered, pushing the grog away, while Melanie stepped



angrily in front of him as if to shield him with her portly figure,

but Laguitte looked at her with that quiet, resolute expression well



known to women who are familiar with bodily chastisement.

"Leave us," he said curtly.



She hesitated for the space of a second. She almost felt the gust

of the expected blow, and then, white with rage, she joined Phrosine



in the outer room.

When the two men were alone Major Laguitte walked up to Burle,



looked at him and, slightly stooping, yelled into his face these two

words: "You pig!"



The captain, quite dazed, endeavored to retort, but he had not time

to do so.



"Silence!" resumed the major. "You have bamboozled a friend. You

palmed off on me a lot of forged receipts which might have sent both



of us to the gallows. Do you call that proper behavior? Is that

the sort of trick to play a friend of thirty years' standing?"



Burle, who had fallen back in his chair, was livid; his limbs shook




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