Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

to patience, trying to remember

the circumstances of my burial. Probably the ground had been bought

for five years, and this would be against my chances of self-deliverance, for I remembered having noticed at Nantes that in the

trenches of the common graves one end of the last lowered coffins

protruded into the next open cavity, in which case I should only

have had to break through one plank. But if I were in a separate

hole, filled up above me with earth, the obstacles would prove too

great. Had I not been told that the dead were buried six feet deep

in Paris? How was I to get through the enormous mass of soil above

me? Even if I succeeded in slitting the lid of my bier open the

mold would drift in like fine sand and fill my mouth and eyes. That

would be death again, a ghastly death, like drowning in mud.

 

However, I began to feel the planks carefully. The coffin was

roomy, and I found that I was able to move my arms with tolerable

ease. On both sides the roughly planed boards were stout and

resistive. I slipped my arm onto my chest to raise it over my head.

There I discovered in the top plank a knot in the wood which yielded

slightly at my pressure. Working laboriously, I finally succeeded

in driving out this knot, and on passing my finger through the hole

I found that the earth was wet and clayey. But that availed me

little. I even regretted having removed the knot, vaguely dreading

the irruption of the mold. A second experiment occupied me for a

while. I tapped all over the coffin to ascertain if perhaps there

were any vacuum outside. But the sound was everywhere the same. At

last, as I was slightly kicking the foot of the coffin, I fancied

that it gave out a clearer echoing noise, but that might merely be

produced by the sonority of the wood.

 

At any rate, I began to press against the boards with my arms and my

closed fists. In the same way, too, I used my knees, my back and my

feet without eliciting even a creak from the wood. I strained with

all my strength, indeed, with so desperate an effort of my whole

frame, that my bruised bones seemed breaking. But nothing moved,

and I became insane.

 

Until that moment I had held delirium at bay. I had mastered the

intoxicating rage which was mounting to my head like the fumes of

alcohol; I had silenced my screams, for I feared that if I again

cried out aloud I should be undone. But now I yelled; I shouted;

unearthly howls which I could not repress came from my relaxed

throat. I called for help in a voice that I did not recognize,

growing wilder with each fresh appeal and crying out that I would

not die. I also tore at the wood with my nails; I writhed with the

contortions of a caged wolf. I do not know how long this fit of

madness lasted, but I can still feel the relentless hardness of the

box that imprisoned me; I can still hear the storm of shrieks and

sobs with which I filled it; a remaining glimmer of reason made me

try to stop, but I could not do so.

 

Great exhaustion followed. I lay waiting for death in a state of

somnolent pain. The coffin was like stone, which no effort could

break, and the conviction that I was powerless left me unnerved,

without courage to make any fresh attempts. Another suffering—

hunger—was presently added to cold and want of air. The torture

soon became intolerable. With my finger I tried to pull small

pinches of earth through the hole of the dislodged knot, and I

swallowed them eagerly, only increasing my torment. Tempted by my

flesh, I bit my arms and sucked my skin with a fiendish desire to

drive my teeth in, but I was afraid of drawing blood.

 

Then I ardently longed for death. All my life long I had trembled

at the thought of dissolution, but I had come to yearn for it, to

crave for an everlasting night that could never be dark enough. How

childish it had been of me to dread the long, dreamless sleep, the

eternity of silence and gloom! Death was kind, for in suppressing

life it put an end to suffering. Oh, to sleep like the stones, to

be no more!

 

With groping hands I still continued feeling the wood, and suddenly

I pricked my left thumb. That slight pain roused me from my growing

numbness. I felt again and found a nail—a nail which the

undertaker’s men had driven in crookedly and which had not caught in

the lower wood. It was long and very sharp; the head was secured to

the lid, but it moved. Henceforth I had but one idea—to possess

myself of that nail—and I slipped my right hand across my body and

began to shake it. I made but little progress, however; it was a

difficult job, for my hands soon tired, and I had to use them

alternately. The left one, too, was of little use on account of the

nail’s awkward position.

 

While I was obstinately persevering a plan dawned on my mind. That

nail meant salvation, and I must have it. But should I get it in

time? Hunger was torturing me; my brain was swimming; my limbs were

losing their strength; my mind was becoming confused. I had sucked

the drops that trickled from my punctured finger, and suddenly I bit

my arm and drank my own blood! Thereupon, spurred on by pain,

revived by the tepid, acrid liquor that moistened my lips, I tore

desperately at the nail and at last I wrenched it off!

 

I then believed in success. My plan was a simple one; I pushed the

point of the nail into the lid, dragging it along as far as I could

in a straight line and working it so as to make a slit in the wood.

My fingers stiffened, but I doggedly persevered, and when I fancied

that I had sufficiently cut into the board I turned on my stomach

and, lifting myself on my knees and elbows thrust the whole strength

of my back against the lid. But although it creaked it did not

yield; the notched line was not deep enough. I had to resume my old

position—which I only managed to do with infinite trouble—and work

afresh. At last after another supreme effort the lid was cleft from

end to end.

 

I was not saved as yet, but my heart beat with renewed hope. I had

ceased pushing and remained motionless, lest a sudden fall of earth

should bury me. I intended to use the lid as a screen and, thus

protected, to open a sort of shaft in the clayey soil.

Unfortunately I was assailed by unexpected difficulties. Some heavy

clods of earth weighed upon the boards and made them unmanageable; I

foresaw that I should never reach the surface in that way, for the

mass of soil was already bending my spine and crushing my face.

 

Once more I stopped, affrighted; then suddenly, while I was

stretching my legs, trying to find something firm against which I

might rest my feet, I felt the end board of the coffin yielding. I

at once gave a desperate kick with my heels in the faint hope that

there might be a freshly dug grave in that direction.

 

It was so. My feet abruptly forced their way into space. An open

grave was there; I had only a slight partition of earth to displace,

and soon I rolled into the cavity. I was saved!

 

I remained for a time lying on my back in the open grave, with my

eyes raised to heaven. It was dark; the stars were shining in a sky

of velvety blueness. Now and then the rising breeze wafted a

springlike freshness, a perfume of foliage, upon me. I was saved!

I could breathe; I felt warm, and I wept and I stammered, with my

arms prayerfully extended toward the starry sky. O God, how sweet

seemed life!