Complete Works of Emile Zola (1628 page)

The sub-prefect smiled.

“No, no, my friend,” he said; “believe me, do not get the town involved in it.... You have been wise enough to be influenced by the good reasons I gave you not to bring the town into the suit, and to let it be all the work of that terrible Laboque, who is just mad for vengeance and for massacre. Pray keep on as you are doing. Be a mere spectator. You will always be able to profit by his victory — if he is victorious.... Ah! my friend, if you only knew all the advantages to be derived from not being mixed up in anything!”

And he completed his speech by a gesture, which meant how much peace he had enjoyed in his sub-prefecture since he had contrived to take no prominent part in any matter. Things were not going on smoothly in Paris, there the central authority was weakening every day. The time was at hand when
bourgeois
society would have to crumble of itself, or be overthrown by a revolution, and he, a good sceptic and philosopher, did not ask to live after that had happened; he would be glad to end his days in the snug little nest he had got into. So all his concern with politics was to let things go on as they would, having as little to do with them as possible, being sure that the government, in the midst of the difficulties that were destroying it, would be very much obliged to him for letting the beast it dreaded work out its own destruction, without worrying it unnecessarily. They knew the value of a sub-prefect who never was heard of, whose intelligent efforts had made Beauclair a place that gave no anxiety to the government. And he had done well for himself. He had been sufficiently remembered to have received many praises, and he quietly went on digging the grave of a society that was near its end, and spending his own last days at the feet of
la belle Leonore.

“You understand me, my friend — don’t compromise yourself, for in times like those in which we live, who can tell what may happen to-morrow? We may expect anything; so the best way is not to oppose things. Let others go first, and run the risk of breaking their bones. Then you can see what to do.”

Here Leonore came in, dressed in light silk, as if she had grown younger, now that she had entered the forties. She was a majestic blond beauty, with a candid, pious expression in her eyes, though all the town knew of her
liaison
with Châtelard. She was, however, accepted everywhere. Châtelard took her hand and kissed it as gallantly as he had ever done, while her husband, looking as if he had been relieved of a duty too heavy for him, looked at them both with an affectionate air, like a man who accepted compensations, and who knew that his own comfort in life was assured.

“Ah! — you are ready. So now we will go — won’t we, Châtelard?... Be easy. I’ll be prudent. I don’t want to get into a scrape which might cost us our peace and tranquillity. But all the same, you know, at Delaveau’s one must agree with the others.”

At the same hour Judge Gaume sat, expecting the arrival of his daughter Lucille and Captain Jollivet, his son-in-law, who were to come for him, and then all three would go together to breakfast at the Delaveaus’. The judge had grown much older during the last four years; he seemed more gloomy and severe; he was keenly devoted to the letter of the law, and would pass hours writing the reasons for his decisions with the utmost minuteness. It was said that he had been heard to moan on certain nights, as if he felt that everything was crumbling under his feet, even that law itself, to which he clung so desperately, as if it were a last plank that might save him. And while still touched by the remembrance of the tragedy in his own family, the misconduct and violent death of his wife, he could not but suffer when he saw the same thing likely to be repeated in the case of his adored daughter, his Lucille, with so innocent a face, so like her mother, for she, too, might betray her husband, as he himself had been betrayed. In truth, she had not been married to Jollivet six months before she had betrayed him. The man with whom she compromised herself was a petty lawyer’s clerk, a big, blond fellow, younger than herself, with great blue eyes like a girl’s. The judge, who suspected what was taking place, suffered from it frightfully. It seemed like a repetition of the treason which had left a wound still bleeding in his heart. He dreaded an explanation, for he feared that it might bring back all that be had suffered on that dreadful day when his wife had killed herself in his presence after confessing her guilt. But what an abominable world he lived in, where every woman he loved had been unfaithful! And how could he believe in justice when it was the best and the most beautiful through whom he suffered?

Morose and dreamy, the judge was seated in his office, where he had just been reading the last number of the J
ournal de Beauclair,
when the captain and Lucille came in. The article violently attacking La Crêcherie, which he had just read, seemed to him foolish, unskilful, and brutal. And he said, quietly:

“It is not you, I hope, my good Jollivet, as people say, who write these articles. It does no good to malign our enemies.”

The captain gave an embarrassed gesture, and said:

“
Oh! write? — you know I never write; that is not in my line. But it is true that I give Lebleu some ideas — notes, you know — little scraps of paper, and he gets somebody — I don’t know who — to write them up for him.” And as the judge’s face still showed his dissatisfaction, Jollivet went on:

“What would you have? One must fight with such weapons as he has. If those cursed fevers in the Soudan had not forced me to send in my resignation, I would have had some good sword-cuts for those idealists who are doing their best to put an end to us with their wicked Utopias.... Ah! good Heaven! — how much good it would do me to shed the blood of a dozen of them.”

Lucille stood silent, small and pretty, with her usual enigmatic smile. And she turned on her big husband, with his warlike mustachios, a look so clearly ironical that the judge could not but perceive in it the amused contempt that she felt for this bold swordsman, whom she could turn about as she pleased with her little pink hands, as a cat plays with a mouse.

“Oh! Charles,” said she, softly, “don’t be so cruel; don’t say things that frighten me.”

But here she caught her father’s eye. She dreaded lest he might suspect her, and added, with her innocent, candid air:

“Dear father, is it not very wrong for Charles to talk so lightly about shedding blood? We ought all to live in peace, each in his own little hole, and then the good God might give us His blessing and perhaps send us a dear little son.”

Gaume saw that she was still ironical, and that before her rose the image of her lover, the petty lawyer’s clerk with blue eyes, the doll who had replaced the dolls in her nursery.

“All that is very sad and very cruel,” said the judge; but he did not specify what. What could he resolve, what could he do, when every one was bent on deceiving and destroying others?

He got up with difficulty. He took his hat and gloves to start for the breakfast at the Delaveaus’. And in the street, when Lucille, whom he adored, although she made him suffer, took his arm, he had a delightful moment, in which all his troubles were forgotten, as in the case after a lovers’ quarrel.

At the Pit, about noon, Delaveau came and joined Fernande in the little parlor which opened on the dining room in the lower story of the old cottage of the Qurignons, where the manager of the works now lived. It was rather a small place. Downstairs there was only one other room, which Delaveau used as his office, and which communicated by a wooden gallery with the offices in the vicinity of the works. On the first and second stories!7 there were chambers. Ever since a young woman, who delighted in luxury, had inhabited the house, carpets and curtains covered the old walls and gave them a look of cheerfulness and a touch of splendor.

Boisgelin was the first guest to arrive, but came alone. “Why!” cried Fernande, putting on an air of disappointment, “is not Suzanne coming?”

“She begs you to excuse her,” answered Boisgelin, politely;
“
she has so bad a headache this morning that she cannot leave her chamber.”

Every time there was any question of going to the Pit Suzanne always found some pretext to avoid this aggravation of her sorrows; and no one but Delaveau, in his blindness, was deceived by it.

Boisgelin opened the conversation at once.

“So we are met on the eve of the famous lawsuit. Well! isn’t it a sure thing? Isn’t La Crêcherie as good as ruined?”

Delaveau shrugged his shoulders. “Whether it loses its case or not, what does it signify to us. Of course, it has done us harm by reducing the price of iron; but we are not competing with it in what we manufacture, and thus far the injury to us has not been great.”

Trembling with anger, and marvellously beautiful that day, Fernande looked at her husband with flashing eyes.

“Oh! you don’t know how to hate!” she cried. “Here is a man who has interfered with all your projects, who has founded rival works at your very door, the success of which will be the ruin of the concern you manage. He is a constant obstacle and a constant menace, and yet you don’t even wish that he may be ruined.... Ah! let him be flung naked into a ditch; I should be glad!”

She had felt from the very first that Luc was to be their enemy, and she could never speak without hatred of the man who might disturb her enjoyment of life. That was the one unpardonable crime. She wanted prosperous works, with hundreds of men puddling iron before the burning mouth of the furnaces, all to feed her eagerness for pleasure and luxury, which ever demanded more and more expense. It was she, the devourer of men and money, whose appetite could no longer be satisfied by the Pit, with its power - hammers and its gigantic machines. And what would become of her hope of a high position in the future, and of millions accumulated and squandered, if the Pit should go to ruin by reason of competition? Therefore, she left her husband and Boisgelin no peace, but nagged them, worried them, and seized every occasion to speak and let them know her fears and her anger.

Boisgelin, who was rather proud of never having anything to do with the business of the works, and spent his profits without ever counting them, in the role of a good fellow, an elegant horseman, and a capital sportsman, shuddered, nevertheless, when he heard Fernande talking about possible ruin. He turned to Delaveau, in whom he still placed absolute confidence, and said:

“You are not anxious, are you, cousin? Is all going on well?”

Again the engineer shrugged his shoulders.

“
I tell you, as I have told you before, that our house is not yet affected.... The entire town is rising against this man. He is mad. You can see how unpopular he has made himself; and if I am well pleased that this suit is brought against him, it is because that will make an end of him in the opinion of Beauclair. In three months all our workmen whom he has inveigled from us will be coming here, with clasped hands, begging me to take them back. You will see, you will see! There is nothing like authority. The enfranchisement of labor is mere folly. A workman no longer does anything well after he becomes his own master.”

There was silence; then he added, in a lower tone, with a look of anxiety in his eyes:

“And yet we must be prudent. La Crêcherie is not a competitor to be left out of consideration, and what would disturb me would be the absence of funds necessary for a contest in case of any sudden emergency. We are living too much from hand to mouth. We shall find it indispensable to create a sinking fund, and put into it — we will say — one-third of our yearly earnings.”

Fernande made an involuntary gesture of protestation. It had been her fear that her lover’s means might be impaired, that she might be the sufferer, and have to give up prospects of joy and pride and pleasure that she expected would flow to her out of his wealth. She looked up at Boisgelin, who, of his own accord, responded at once:

“No, no, cousin; not just now. I cannot give you anything. I have too heavy expenses. Moreover, I ought to thank you again, for you are making my money bring me even more interest than you promised me.... We will see about it later. We will talk the matter over.”

But Fernande remained nervous, and her suppressed anger fell upon Nise, who had just been breakfasting with her nurse, and who was brought in before being taken to pass the afternoon with one of her little friends. Nise, who was nearly seven, was growing up a charming little girl, fair and rosy, always smiling, with short, light curls, which made her look like a little woolly sheep.

“Look here, my dear Boisgelin; here is a little disobedient girl, who will make me ill.... Ask her what she did the other day at the luncheon that she gave to your son Paul and little Louise Mazelle.”

Without the least embarrassment, Nise smiled as gayly as before, as she fixed her limpid blue eyes on the company.

“Oh!” continued her mother, “she will not own that she did wrong.... Well, though I had repeatedly forbidden her, she opened the old gate that leads into our garden, and let in the whole crowd of dirty little brats from La Crêcherie. Among them was that Nanet, a horrid little scamp, to whom she has taken a great fancy. And your Paul was there, too, and Louise Mazelle, fraternizing with all that set, the children of Bonnaire, the man who left us so basely. Yes, Paul paired off with Antoinette, and Louise with Lucien, and Mademoiselle Nise with her friend Nanet, all doing their best to spoil our flower-beds! And, you see, she does not even blush with shame while I am telling you about it.”

“That is not fair,” Nise answered, simply, in her clear, little voice; “nothing was broken, and we were playing together very nicely. Nanet is so droll.”

This answer completed Fernande’s exasperation.

“Oh, you find him droll, do you? Now, listen: if I ever find you playing with him again, I will deprive you of your dessert for a week. I have no intention that you shall be the occasion of any unpleasantness with those people from the other side. They will make use of the opportunity to say everywhere that we entice their children for some bad purpose.... Understand, then, that this time I am in earnest; and that if you see Nanet again, I shall have something to say about it.”