Complete Works of Emile Zola (1799 page)

“Does it thaw, Julie?”

Her lady’s maid hands her the morning peignoir, which she has just been warming in front of a good fire.

“Oh, no, madam, it does not thaw. On the contrary it freezes harder — they have just found a man frozen to death on the top of an omnibus.”

The marchioness is as merry as a child; she claps her hands, exclaiming:

“Ah! so much the better! I’ll go skating this afternoon.”

II

Julie softly draws back the curtains, so that the sudden daylight may not hurt the tender sight of the delicious marchioness.

The room is filled with the bluish reflex of the snow which conveys quite a gay light to it. The sky is grey, but it is such a pretty grey that it reminds the marchioness of a pearl-grey silk gown she wore, the previous evening, at the ministerial ball. This gown was trimmed with white guipure, similar to the streaks of snow she perceives at the edge of the roofs, against the pale sky.

The previous evening she had been charming with her new diamonds. She had gone to bed at five o’clock, and her head was still a bit heavy. However, she has seated herself before a glass, and Julie has raised her mass of fair hair. The peignoir slips down, and the shoulders remain bare to the centre of her back.

A whole generation has already grown old gazing on the marchioness’ shoulders. Since ladies of a merry disposition, thanks to a powerful government, have been able to wear low-neck. gowns and dance at the Tuileries, she has trotted her shoulders through the crowded drawing-rooms of the official world, with an assiduity that has made her the living signboard of the charms of the Second Empire. She has been obliged to follow the fashion and cut down her gowns, now to the small of the back, now to the centre of the bosom; so that the dear woman, dimple by dimple, has shown all the treasures of her bodice. There is hardly a bit of her back and bosom that is unknown, from the Madeleine to Saint Thomas d’Aquin. The so widely displayed shoulders of the marchioness are the voluptuous coat of arms of the reign.

III

It would certainly be of no use to describe the marchioness’ shoulders. They are as well known as the Pont Neuf. For eighteen years they have formed part of the public shows. It suffices to catch sight of the smallest part of them in a drawing-room, at the theatre, or elsewhere, to exclaim: “By Jove! the marchioness! I know her by the beauty spot on her left shoulder!” — .

They are very fine shoulders, for the matter of that, white, plump, provoking. The gaze of a government passing over them has increased their delicacy, somewhat in the way of those flagstones which are eventually polished by the feet of the crowd.

If I were the husband or lover, I would sooner go and kiss the glass door knob of a minister’s private room, worn by the hands of favour-hunters, than graze with my lips those shoulders on which the warm breath of all gallant Paris has passed. When one thinks of the thousands of desires they have awakened, one wonders what sort of clay nature employed in kneading them, in order that they might not be eaten away and crumble into dust, like those nudities of statues exposed to the open air of the gardens, and of which the outline has been devoured by the winds.

The marchioness has placed her modesty elsewhere. She has made her shoulders an institution. And how she has struggled for the government of her choice! Always on the breach, everywhere at once, at the Tuileries, with the ministers, in the embassies, with simple millionaires, convincing the undecided with smiles, propping up the throne with her alabaster breasts, displaying in times of danger little hidden and delicious corners, more persuasive than the arguments of orators, more decisive than the swords of soldiers, and threatening, in order to gain a vote, to cut down her chemisettes until the most ferocious members of the opposition acknowledge themselves vanquished.

The shoulders of the marchioness have always remained entire and victorious. They have supported a world, without a wrinkle ever having come to spoil their marble whiteness.

IV

When the marchioness left Julie’s hands this afternoon, attired in a delicious Polish toilette, she went skating. She skates adorably.

It was bitterly cold in the wood, and there was a north wind which nipped the noses and lips of the ladies, as if fine sand were being blown into their faces. The marchioness laughed, and was amused at feeling cold. From time to time she went and warmed her feet at the brasiers that had been lighted on the shores of the little lake. Then she returned to the icy air, skimming along like a swallow grazing the ground.

Ah! what delightful sport, and how lucky it is there is no thaw! The marchioness will be able to skate all the week.

The marchioness, on her way home, noticed a wretched woman in one of the side avenues of the Champs Elysées, shivering, half dead with cold, at the foot of a tree.

“Poor thing!” she murmured, as if annoyed.

And as the carriage was going too quick, and the marchioness could not find her purse, she threw her bouquet to the poverty-stricken creature, a bouquet of white lilac quite worth five louis,

MY NEIGHBOUR JACQUES

I

I WAS then living in the Rue Gracieuse, the garret of my twenty summers. The Rue Gracieuse is a steep lane, which descends from the knoll of Saint Victor, behind the Jardin des Plantes.

I ascended two floors — houses are low in those parts — assisting myself with a cord so as not to slip on the worn stairs, and I thus reached my hovel in most absolute obscurity. The room, which was large and cold, had the naked and dim aspect of a vault. I have experienced brilliant sunlight, however, amidst this darkness, and there were days when my heart was beaming.

On those occasions the merry laughter of a little girl reached me from the adjoining garret, which was peopled by a whole family, father, mother, and a brat seven or eight years old.

The father had an angular appearance, and a head placed askant between two pointed shoulders. His bony face was yellow, with big black eyes deeply set beneath bushy eyebrows. This man, notwithstanding his lugubrious appearance, preserved a good, timid smile; any one would have set him down as a big child of fifty, for he became troubled and blushed like a girl. He sought the dark, and glided along the walls with the humility of a pardoned convict A few greetings exchanged between us, had made a friend of him. His strange features, which bore the imprint of a restless, good-natured look, pleased me. Little by little, we had come to shaking hands.

II

At the end of six months, I was still ignorant as to what was the calling that gave Jacques and his family bread. He spoke little. I had certainly, in a purely disinterested way, questioned his wife on two or three occasions; but I had only received evasive answers which she stammered out with embarrassment One day — it had rained the previous night, and my heart was aching — as I was descending the Boulevard d’Enfer, I noticed one of those pariahs of the working classes of Paris advancing towards me, a man attired in black raiment and a black hat, wearing a white necktie and carrying under his arm the narrow coffin of a new-born babe.

He was walking with lowered head, holding his light burden with dreamy unconcern, kicking the pebbles before him on the road It was a dull morning. This passing sadness gave me pleasure. The man raised his head at the sound of my footsteps, then quickly turned it aside, but too late: I had recognised him. My neigh our Jacques was an undertaker’s man.

I watched him disappear, ashamed of his shame. I felt sorry I had not taken the other side of the street. He proceeded on his way, hanging his head still lower, and no doubt saying to himself that he had just lost the grasp of the hand we exchanged each evening.

III

I met him next day on the stairs. He stood timidly up against the wall, making himself small, small, humbly holding back the folds of his blouse, so that it might not touch my garments. He stood there bowed down, and I perceived that his poor hoary head was shaking with emotion.

I stopped, looked him in the face, and extended my hand to him, wide open.

He raised his head, hesitated, and in his turn looked me in the face. I saw his great eyes become troubled, and his sallow countenance showing red spots. Then, suddenly taking my arm, he accompanied me to my garret, where he at length recovered speech.

“You are an honest young fellow,” he said to me; “the grasp of your hand has made me forget many a sour look.” And he took a seat and unbosomed himself to me. He confessed that before being in the business, he felt, like others, uncomfortable when he met an undertaker’s man. But since then, in his long journeys, amidst the silence of the funeral procession, he had thought the thing over, and was astounded at the disgust and fear he awakened on his way.

I was then twenty, and would have hugged an executioner. I launched out into philosophical reflections, and sought to prove to my neighbour Jacques that his work was sacred. But he shrugged his pointed shoulders, silently rubbed his hands, and, resuming his slow and embarrassed tone of voice, said:

“The gossip of the neighbourhood, you see, sir, the savage looks of the passers-by trouble me little, so long as my wife and child have bread. One thing worries me. I can’t sleep at night when I think of it. My wife and myself are elderly people, who care no more for shame. But young girls are ambitious. My poor Marthe will blush for me later on. When she was five years of age she saw one of my companions, and she cried so, and was so frightened that I have never dared put on the black cloak before her. I dress and undress on the stairs.

I felt pity for my neighbour Jacques. I suggested to him that he should leave his clothes in my room, and come and put them on at ease, out of the cold. He took all kinds of precautions to remove his forbidding garments to my lodging. I saw him regularly from that day, morning and night. He dressed and undressed in a corner of my attic.

IV

I had an old trunk that was worm-eaten and crumbling away to dust. My neighbour Jacques made it his wardrobe; he laid newspapers at the bottom of it, and carefully folded up his black clothes on them.

Sometimes, at night, when nightmare awoke me with a start, I cast an affrighted look at the old trunk, which stood against the wall like a coffin, and I fancied I saw the hat, the black cloak, and white necktie issue from it.

The hat rolled round my bed, snoring and jumping with little starts; the cloak expanded, and, flapping its folds like great black wings, silently flew about the room, displaying all its breadth; the white necktie became longer and longer, then began to creep slowly towards me with head erect and wriggling tail.

I opened my eyes immoderately wide, and perceived the old trunk standing motionless and dark in its corner.

V

I was constantly having dreams at that time, dreams of love and also dreams that were sad. My nightmare gave me pleasure j I liked my neighbour Jacques, because he lived among the dead, and brought me the acrid odours of the cemeteries. He had told me secrets, and I was penning the first pages of” The Reminiscences of an Undertaker’s Man.”

In the evening, before my neighbour Jacques undressed, he sat down on the old trunk to give me an account of his day. He was very fond of talking of his dead people. One time it was a young girl — the poor child, who had died of consumption, did not weigh heavy; another time it was an old man — this old man, whose coffin had strained his arms, was a big, fat functionary, who must have carried away his gold with him in his pockets. And I had private details about each corpse; I knew their weight, the noises that had proceeded from their coffins, the way in which they had had to be carried down, at the turns of the staircases. Some evenings my neighbour Jacques came home more talkative and with a beaming face. He leant against the walls, with his cloak hooked over his shoulder, his hat on the back of his head. He had come across generous heirs, who had treated him to “the quarts of wine and piece of Brie cheese of consolation.” And he ended by displaying tender feelings. He vowed to me that when the time came, he would carry me to my grave with all the kindly consideration of a friend.

I lived thus for more than a year, with my attention taken up with the dead.

One morning my neighbour Jacques failed to make his appearance. A week later, he was dead.

When two of his companions removed the body, I was on the threshold of my door, and heard them joking as they carried down the coffin, which seemed to make a sullen remonstrance at each knock it received.

One of them, a little fat fellow, said to the other, who was tall and thin:

“The biter’s bit.”

THE PARADISE OF CATS

AN aunt bequeathed me an Angora cat, which is certainly the most stupid animal I know of. This is what my cat related to me, one winter night, before the warm embers.

I

I was then two years old, and I was certainly the fattest and most simple cat any one could have seen. Even at that tender age I displayed all the presumption of an animal that scorns the attractions of the fireside. And yet what gratitude I owed to Providence for having placed me with your aunt! The worthy woman idolised me. I had a regular bedroom at the bottom of a cupboard, with a feather pillow and a triple-folded rug. The food was as good as the bed; no bread or soup, nothing but meat, good underdone meat.

Well! amidst all these comforts, I had but one wish, but one dream, to slip out by the half-open window, and run away on to the tiles. Caresses appeared to me insipid, the softness of my bed disgusted me, I was so fat that I felt sick, and from morn till eve I experienced the weariness of being happy.

I must tell you that by straining my neck I had perceived the opposite roof from the window. That day four cats were fighting there. With bristling coats and tails in the air, they were rolling on the blue slates, in the full sun, amidst oaths of joy. I bad never witnessed such an extraordinary sight. From that moment my convictions were settled. Real happiness was upon that roof, in front of that window which the people of the house so carefully closed. I found the proof of this in the way in which they shut the doors of the cupboards where the meat was hidden.