Complete Works of Emile Zola (208 page)

“Yes, I’ve brought it; we’ll settle now,” Rougon replied, glad of this diversion.

Thereupon Macquart, seeing that he was about to be paid, began to moan. He had only learnt the consequence of his treachery when it was too late; otherwise he would have demanded twice or thrice as much. And he complained bitterly. Really now a thousand francs was not enough. His children had forsaken him, he was all alone in the world, and obliged to quit France. He almost wept as he spoke of his coming exile.

“Come now, will you take the eight hundred francs?” said Rougon, who was in haste to be off.

“No, certainly not; double the sum. Your wife cheated me. If she had told me distinctly what it was she expected of me, I would never have compromised myself for such a trifle.”

Rougon laid the eight hundred francs upon the table.

“I swear I haven’t got any more,” he resumed. “I will think of you later. But do, for mercy’s sake, get away this evening.”

Macquart, cursing and muttering protests, thereupon carried the table to the window, and began to count the gold in the fading twilight. The coins tickled the tips of his fingers very pleasantly as he let them fall, and jingled musically in the darkness. At last he paused for a moment to say: “You promised to get me a berth, remember. I want to return to France. The post of rural guard in some pleasant neighbourhood which I could mention, would just suit me.”

“Very well, I’ll see about it,” Rougon replied. “Have you got the eight hundred francs?”

Macquart resumed his counting. The last coins were just clinking when a burst of laughter made them turn their heads. Aunt Dide was standing up in front of the bed, with her bodice unfastened, her white hair hanging loose, and her face stained with red blotches. Pascal had in vain endeavoured to hold her down. Trembling all over, and with her arms outstretched, she shook her head deliriously.

“The blood-money! the blood-money!” she again and again repeated. “I heard the gold. And it is they, they who sold him. Ah! the murderers! They are a pack of wolves.”

Then she pushed her hair aback, and passed her hand over her brow, as though seeking to collect her thoughts. And she continued: “Ah! I have long seen him with a bullet-hole in his forehead. There were always people lying in wait for him with guns. They used to sign to me that they were going to fire. . . . It’s terrible! I feel some one breaking my bones and battering out my brains. Oh! Mercy! Mercy! I beseech you; he shall not see her any more — never, never! I will shut him up. I will prevent him from walking out with her. Mercy! Mercy! Don’t fire. It is not my fault. If you knew —  — “

She had almost fallen on her knees, and was weeping and entreating while she stretched her poor trembling hands towards some horrible vision which she saw in the darkness. Then she suddenly rose upright, and her eyes opened still more widely as a terrible cry came from her convulsed throat, as though some awful sight, visible to her alone, had filled her with mad terror.

“Oh, the gendarme!” she said, choking and falling backwards on the bed, where she rolled about, breaking into long bursts of furious, insane laughter.

Pascal was studying the attack attentively. The two brothers, who felt very frightened, and only detected snatches of what their mother said, had taken refuge in a corner of the room. When Rougon heard the word gendarme, he thought he understood her. Ever since the murder of her lover, the elder Macquart, on the frontier, aunt Dide had cherished a bitter hatred against all gendarmes and custom-house officers, whom she mingled together in one common longing for vengeance.

“Why, it’s the story of the poacher that she’s telling us,” he whispered.

But Pascal made a sign to him to keep quiet. The stricken woman had raised herself with difficulty, and was looking round her, with a stupefied air. She remained silent for a moment, endeavouring to recognise the various objects in the room, as though she were in some strange place. Then, with a sudden expression of anxiety, she asked: “Where is the gun?”

The doctor put the carbine into her hands. At this she raised a light cry of joy, and gazed at the weapon, saying in a soft, sing-song, girlish whisper: “That is it. Oh! I recognise it! It is all stained with blood. The stains are quite fresh to-day. His red hands have left marks of blood on the butt. Ah! poor, poor aunt Dide!”

Then she became dizzy once more, and lapsed into silent thought.

“The gendarme was dead,” she murmured at last, “but I have seen him again; he has come back. They never die, those blackguards!”

Again did gloomy passion come over her, and, shaking the carbine, she advanced towards her two sons who, speechless with fright, retreated to the very wall. Her loosened skirts trailed along the ground, as she drew up her twisted frame, which age had reduced to mere bones.

“It’s you who fired!” she cried. “I heard the gold. . . . Wretched woman that I am! . . . I brought nothing but wolves into the world — a whole family — a whole litter of wolves! . . . There was only one poor lad, and him they have devoured; each had a bite at him, and their lips are covered with blood. . . . Ah! the accursed villains! They have robbed, they have murdered. . . . And they live like gentlemen. Villains! Accursed villains!”

She sang, laughed, cried, and repeated “accursed villains!” in strangely sonorous tones, which suggested a crackling of a fusillade. Pascal, with tears in his eyes, took her in his arms and laid her on the bed again. She submitted like a child, but persisted in her wailing cries, accelerating their rhythm, and beating time on the sheet with her withered hands.

“That’s just what I was afraid of,” the doctor said; “she is mad. The blow has been too heavy for a poor creature already subject, as she is, to acute neurosis. She will die in a lunatic asylum like her father.”

“But what could she have seen?” asked Rougon, at last venturing to quit the corner where he had hidden himself.

“I have a terrible suspicion,” Pascal replied. “I was going to speak to you about Silvere when you came in. He is a prisoner. You must endeavour to obtain his release from the prefect, if there is still time.”

The old oil-dealer turned pale as he looked at his son. Then, rapidly, he responded: “Listen to me; you stay here and watch her. I’m too busy this evening. We will see to-morrow about conveying her to the lunatic asylum at Les Tulettes. As for you, Macquart, you must leave this very night. Swear to me that you will! I’m going to find Monsieur de Bleriot.”

He stammered as he spoke, and felt more eager than ever to get out into the fresh air of the streets. Pascal fixed a penetrating look on the madwoman, and then on his father and uncle. His professional instinct was getting the better of him, and he studied the mother and the sons, with all the keenness of a naturalist observing the metamorphosis of some insect. He pondered over the growth of that family to which he belonged, over the different branches growing from one parent stock, whose sap carried identical germs to the farthest twigs, which bent in divers ways according to the sunshine or shade in which they lived. And for a moment, as by the glow of a lightning flash, he thought he could espy the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of unbridled, insatiate appetites amidst a blaze of gold and blood.

Aunt Dide, however, had ceased her wailing chant at the mention of Silvere’s name. For a moment she listened anxiously. Then she broke out into terrible shrieks. Night had now completely fallen, and the black room seemed void and horrible. The shrieks of the madwoman, who was no longer visible, rang out from the darkness as from a grave. Rougon, losing his head, took to flight, pursued by those taunting cries, whose bitterness seemed to increase amidst the gloom.

As he was emerging from the Impasse Saint-Mittre with hesitating steps, wondering whether it would not be dangerous to solicit Silvere’s pardon from the prefect, he saw Aristide prowling about the timber-yard. The latter, recognising his father, ran up to him with an expression of anxiety and whispered a few words in his ear. Pierre turned pale, and cast a look of alarm towards the end of the yard, where the darkness was only relieved by the ruddy glow of a little gipsy fire. Then they both disappeared down the Rue de Rome, quickening their steps as though they had committed a murder, and turning up their coat-collars in order that they might not be recognised.

“That saves me an errand,” Rougon whispered. “Let us go to dinner. They are waiting for us.”

When they arrived, the yellow drawing-room was resplendent. Felicite was all over the place. Everybody was there; Sicardot, Granoux, Roudier, Vuillet, the oil-dealers, the almond-dealers, the whole set. The marquis, however, had excused himself on the plea of rheumatism; and, besides, he was about to leave Plassans on a short trip. Those bloodstained bourgeois offended his feelings of delicacy, and moreover his relative, the Count de Valqueyras, had begged him to withdraw from public notice for a little time. Monsieur de Carnavant’s refusal vexed the Rougons; but Felicite consoled herself by resolving to make a more profuse display. She hired a pair of candelabra and ordered several additional dishes as a kind of substitute for the marquis. The table was laid in the yellow drawing-room, in order to impart more solemnity to the occasion. The Hotel de Provence had supplied the silver, the china, and the glass. The cloth had been laid ever since five o’clock in order that the guests on arriving might feast their eyes upon it. At either end of the table, on the white cloth, were bouquets of artificial roses, in porcelain vases gilded and painted with flowers.

When the habitual guests of the yellow drawing-room were assembled there they could not conceal their admiration of the spectacle. Several gentlemen smiled with an air of embarrassment while they exchanged furtive glances, which clearly signified, “These Rougons are mad, they are throwing their money out of the window.” The truth was that Felicite, on going round to invite her guests, had been unable to hold her tongue. So everybody knew that Pierre had been decorated, and that he was about to be nominated to some post; at which, of course, they pulled wry faces. Roudier indeed observed that “the little black woman was puffing herself out too much.” Now that “prize-day” had come this band of bourgeois, who had rushed upon the expiring Republic — each one keeping an eye on the other, and glorying in giving a deeper bite than his neighbour — did not think it fair that their hosts should have all the laurels of the battle. Even those who had merely howled by instinct, asking no recompense of the rising Empire, were greatly annoyed to see that, thanks to them, the poorest and least reputable of them all should be decorated with the red ribbon. The whole yellow drawing-room ought to have been decorated!

“Not that I value the decoration,” Roudier said to Granoux, whom he had dragged into the embrasure of a window. “I refused it in the time of Louis-Philippe, when I was purveyor to the court. Ah! Louis-Philippe was a good king. France will never find his equal!”

Roudier was becoming an Orleanist once more. And he added, with the crafty hypocrisy of an old hosier from the Rue Saint-Honore: “But you, my dear Granoux; don’t you think the ribbon would look well in your button-hole? After all, you did as much to save the town as Rougon did. Yesterday, when I was calling upon some very distinguished persons, they could scarcely believe it possible that you had made so much noise with a mere hammer.”

Granoux stammered his thanks, and, blushing like a maiden at her first confession of love, whispered in Roudier’s ear: “Don’t say anything about it, but I have reason to believe that Rougon will ask the ribbon for me. He’s a good fellow at heart, you know.”

The old hosier thereupon became grave, and assumed a very affable manner. When Vuillet came and spoke to him of the well-deserved reward that their friend had just received, he replied in a loud voice, so as to be heard by Felicite, who was sitting a little way off, that “men like Rougon were an ornament to the Legion of Honour.” The bookseller joined in the chorus; he had that morning received a formal assurance that the custom of the college would be restored to him. As for Sicardot, he at first felt somewhat annoyed to find himself no longer the only one of the set who was decorated. According to him, none but soldiers had a right to the ribbon. Pierre’s valour surprised him. However, being in reality a good-natured fellow, he at last grew warmer, and ended by saying that the Napoleons always knew how to distinguish men of spirit and energy.

Rougon and Aristide consequently had an enthusiastic reception; on their arrival all hands were held out to them. Some of the guests went so far as to embrace them. Angele sat on the sofa, by the side of her mother-in-law, feeling very happy, and gazing at the table with the astonishment of a gourmand who has never seen so many dishes at once. When Aristide approached, Sicardot complimented his son-in-law upon his superb article in the “Independant.” He restored his friendship to him. The young man, in answer to the fatherly questions which Sicardot addressed to him, replied that he was anxious to take his little family with him to Paris, where his brother Eugene would push him forward; but he was in want of five hundred francs. Sicardot thereupon promised him the money, already foreseeing the day when his daughter would be received at the Tuileries by Napoleon III.

In the meantime, Felicite had made a sign to her husband. Pierre, surrounded by everybody and anxiously questioned about his pallor, could only escape for a minute. He was just able to whisper in his wife’s ear that he had found Pascal and that Macquart would leave that night. Then lowering his voice still more he told her of his mother’s insanity, and placed his finger on his lips, as if to say: “Not a word; that would spoil the whole evening.” Felicite bit her lips. They exchanged a look in which they read their common thoughts: so now the old woman would not trouble them any more: the poacher’s hovel would be razed to the ground, as the walls of the Fouques’ enclosure had been demolished; and they would for ever enjoy the respect and esteem of Plassans.

But the guests were looking at the table. Felicite showed the gentlemen their seats. It was perfect bliss. As each one took his spoon, Sicardot made a gesture to solicit a moment’s delay. Then he rose and gravely said: “Gentlemen, on behalf of the company present, I wish to express to our host how pleased we are at the rewards which his courage and patriotism have procured for him. I now see that he must have acted upon a heaven-sent inspiration in remaining here, while those beggars were dragging myself and others along the high roads. Therefore, I heartily applaud the decision of the government. . . . Let me finish, you can then congratulate our friend. . . . Know, then, that our friend, besides being made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, is also to be appointed to a receiver of taxes.”