Complete Works of Emile Zola (247 page)

When the servants opened the door of the dining-room, transformed into a refreshment buffet, with sideboards against the walls and a long table in the middle, laden with cold things, there was a push and a crush. A fine tall man, who had bashfully kept his hat in his hand, was so violently flattened against the wall that the wretched hat burst with a pitiful moan. This made the others laugh. They rushed at the pastry and the truffled game, brutally digging their elbows into one another’s sides. It was a sack, hands met in the middle of dishes, and the lackeys did not know to whom to attend of this band of well-bred men, whose out-stretched arms expressed the one fear of arriving too late and finding the dishes empty. An old gentleman grew angry because there was no claret, and champagne, he maintained, kept him awake.

“Gently, messieurs, gently,” said Baptiste, in his serious voice. “There will be enough for every one.”

But nobody listened. The dining-room was full, and anxious dress-coats stood on tiptoe at the door. Before the sideboards stood groups, eating quickly, crowding together. Many swallowed their food without drinking, not having been able to lay their hands on a glass. Others, on the contrary, drank and sought fruitlessly for a morsel of bread.

“Listen,” said M. Hupel de la Noue, whom the Mignon and Charrier couple, sick of mythology, had dragged to the supper-room, “we shan’t get a thing if we don’t club together…. It’s much worse at the Tuileries, and I’ve gained experience there…. You look after the wine, I’ll see to the solids.”

The préfet had his eye on a leg of mutton. He stretched out his arm at the right moment through a break in the shoulders, and quietly carried it off, after stuffing his pockets with rolls. The contractors returned on their side, Mignon with one bottle, Charrier with two bottles of champagne; but they had only been able to find two glasses; they said that didn’t matter, they would drink out of the same. And the party supped off the corner of a flower-stand, at the end of the room. They did not even take off their gloves, but put the slices already cut from the leg of mutton between their bread, and kept the bottles under their arms. And standing up, they talked with their mouths full, stretching out their chins beyond their waistcoats so as to let the gravy fall on the carpet.

Charrier, having finished his wine before his bread, asked a servant to get him a glass of champagne.

“You will have to wait, monsieur!” angrily replied the scared domestic, losing his head, forgetting that he was not in the kitchen. “They have drunk up three hundred bottles already.”

Meantime the notes of the band could be heard swelling with sudden gusts. They were dancing the Kisses Polka, famous at public balls, the rhythm of which each dancer had to mark by saluting his partner. Mme. d’Espanet appeared at the door of the dining-room, flushed, her hair a little disarranged, trailing her long silver dress with a charming air of lassitude. Hardly any one moved aside, she was obliged to push with her elbows to effect a passage. Then she came straight up to M. Hupel de la Noue, who had finished, and who was wiping his mouth with his handkerchief.

“It would be so good of you, monsieur,” she said with a bewitching smile, “if you would find me a chair. I have been all round the table in vain….”

The prefet had a grudge against the marquise, but his gallantry gave him no alternative: he bustled about, found the chair, installed Mme. d’Espanet, and stayed behind her to wait on her. She would only take a few prawns, with a little butter, and half a glass of champagne. She ate daintily amid the gluttony of the men. The table and the chairs were reserved exclusively for the ladies. But an exception was always made in favour of the Baron Gouraud. There he was, comfortably seated in front of a piece of game-pie of which his jaws were slowly munching the crust. The marquise re-subjugated the préfet by telling him that she would never forget her artistic emotions in
Les Amours du Beau Narcisse et de la Nymphe Écho
. She even explained to him why they had not waited for him, in a way that completely consoled him: the ladies, on learning that the minister was there, thought it would not be very proper to prolong the entr’acte. She ended by begging him to go and look for Mme. Haffner, who was dancing with Mr. Simpson, a brute of a man, she said, whom she disliked. And when Suzanne had come, she no longer had an eye for M. Hupel de la Noue.

Saccard, followed by MM. Toutin-Laroche, de Mareuil, Haffner, had taken possession of a sideboard. As there was no room at the table, and M. de Saffré passed with Madame Michelin on his arm, he stopped them and insisted that the pretty brunette should join his party. She nibbled at some pastry, smiling, raising her bright eyes to the five men who surrounded her. They leant over her, touched her alme’s veils embroidered with threads of gold, drove her up against the sideboard against which she ended by leaning, taking cakes from every hand, very gently and very caressing, with the amorous docility of a slave amid her masters. M. Michelin, all alone at the other end of the room, was finishing up a pot of pâté de foie gras which he had succeeded in capturing.

Meantime Mme. Sidonie, who had been prowling about ever since the first strokes of the bow had opened the ball, entered the dining-room and beckoned to Saccard with a glance.

“She is not dancing,” she said, in a low voice. “She seems restless. I believe she is meditating something desperate…. But I have not yet been able to discover the spark…. I must have something to eat and return to the watch.”

And standing up, like a man, she ate a wing of a chicken which she got M. Michelin, who had finished his pâté, to give her. She poured herself out a large champagne-glass full of malaga, and then, after wiping her lips with her fingers, she returned to the drawing-room. The train of her sorceress’s dress seemed already to have gathered up all the dust of the carpets.

The ball grew languid, the band was showing signs of fatigue, when a murmur circulated: “The cotillon! the cotillon!” putting fresh life into the dancers and the brass. Couples came from all the shrubberies in the hot-house; the large drawing-room filled up as for the first quadrille; and there was a discussion among the awakened crowd. It was the last flicker of the ball. The men who were not dancing watched with limp good-nature from the depths of the window-recesses the talkative group swelling in the middle of the room; while the supper-eaters in the next room stretched out their necks to see, without relinquishing their food.

“M. de Mussy says he won’t,” said a lady. “He swears he never leads the cotillon now…. Come, just once more, Monsieur de Mussy, only this little once. Do, to oblige us.”

But the young attaché remained stiff and serious in his stick-up collar. It was really impossible, he had taken a vow. Disappointment followed. Maxime refused also, saying that he could not possibly, that he was worn out. M. Hupel de la Noue dared not offer his services; his frivolity stopped at poetry. A lady suggesting Mr. Simpson was promptly silenced; Mr. Simpson was the most extraordinary cotillon-leader you ever saw; he gave himself over to fantastic and mischievous devices; at one dance where they had been so imprudent as to select him, it was said that he had compelled the ladies to jump over the chairs, and one of his favourite figures was to make everybody go round the room on all-fours.

“Has M. de Saffré gone?” asked a childish voice.

He was just going, he was saying good-bye to the beautiful Madame Saccard, with whom he was on the best of terms since she had refused to have anything to do with him. The amiable sceptic admired the caprices of others. He was brought back in triumph from the hall. He resisted, he said with a smile that they were compromising him, that he was a serious man. Then, in presence of all the white hands stretched out to him:

“Come,” said he, “take your positions…. But I warn you, I belong to the old school. I haven’t two farthings’ worth of imagination.”

The couples sat down around the room, on all the seats that could be gathered together; young men were even sent to fetch the iron chairs from the hot-house. It was a monster cotillon. M. de Saffré, who wore the rapt expression of a celebrant, chose for his partner the Comtesse Vanska, whose Coral dress fascinated him. When everybody was in position, he cast a long look at this circular row of skirts, each flanked by a dress-coat. And he nodded to the orchestra, whose brass resounded. Heads leaned forward along the smiling line of faces.

Renée refused to take part in the cotillon. She had been nervously gay since the commencement of the ball, scarcely dancing, mingling with the groups, unable to remain still. Her friends thought her odd. She had talked, during the evening, of making a balloon journey with a celebrated aeronaut in whom all Paris was interested. When the cotillon began, she was annoyed at no longer being able to walk about at her ease, she stationed herself at the door leading to the hall, shaking hands with the men who were leaving, talking with her husband’s familiars. The Baron Gouraud, whom a lackey was carrying off in his fur cloak, found a last word of praise for Renée’s Otaheitan dress.

Meanwhile, M. Toutin-Laroche shook Saccard’s hand.

“Maxime reckons on you,” said the latter.

“Quite so,” replied the new senator.

And turning to Renée:

“Madame, I have forgotten to congratulate you…. So the dear boy is settled now!”

And as she gave a surprised smile:

“My wife doesn’t know yet,” said Saccard…. “We have this evening decided on the marriage between Mademoiselle de Mareuil and Maxime.”

She continued smiling, bowing to M. Toutin-Laroche, who went off saying:

“You sign the contract on Sunday, don’t you? I am going to Nevers on some mining business, but I shall be back in time.”

Renée remained alone for a moment in the middle of the hall. She smiled no longer; and as she more deeply realized what she had just been told, she was seized with a great shiver. She looked with a fixed stare at the red velvet hangings, the rare plants, the majolica vases. Then she said out aloud:

“I must speak to him.”

And she returned to the drawing-room. But she had to stay in the doorway. A figure of the cotillon barred the way. The band played a soft waltz-movement. The ladies, holding each other’s hands, formed a ring like one of those rings of little girls singing, “
Giro flé giro fla
” and they danced round as quickly as possible, pulling at each other’s arms, laughing, gliding. In the centre a gentleman — it was that mischievous Mr. Simpson — held a long pink scarf in his hand; he raised it, with the gesture of a fisherman about to cast his net; but he did not hurry, he seemed to think it amusing to let those ladies dance round and tire themselves. They panted and begged for mercy. Then he threw the scarf, and he threw it with such skill that it went and wound round the shoulders of Madame d’Espanet and Madame Haffner, who were dancing round side by side. It was one of the Yankee’s jests. Next he wanted to waltz with both ladies at once, and he had already taken the two of them by the waist, one with his left arm, the other with his right, when M. de Saffré said, in his severe voice as cotillon-king:

“You can’t dance with two ladies.”

But Mr. Simpson refused to leave go of the two waists. Adeline and Suzanne threw themselves back in his arms, laughing. The point was argued, the ladies grew angry, the uproar was prolonged, and the dress-coats in the recesses of the windows asked themselves how Saffré proposed to extricate himself creditably from this dilemma. For a moment, in fact, he seemed perplexed, seeking by what refinement of grace he could win the laughers to his side. Then he gave a smile, he took Madame d’Espanet and Madame Haffner, each by one hand, whispered a question in their ears, received their reply, and next addressing himself to Mr. Simpson:

“Do you pick verbena or periwinkle?”

Mr. Simpson, looking rather foolish, said that he picked verbena. Whereupon M. de Saffré handed him the marquise, saying:

“Here’s your verbena.”

There was discreet applause. They thought this very neat. M. de Saffré was a cotillon-leader “who was never at a loss,” so the ladies said. In the meanwhile the band had with its full strength resumed the waltz air, and Mr. Simpson, after waltzing round the room with Madame d’Espanet, led her back to her seat.

Renée was able to pass. She had bitten her lips till the blood came, at the sight of all “this nonsense.” She thought these men and women stupid to throw scarves about and call themselves by the names of plants. Her ears rang, a furious impatience gave her an abrupt desire to throw herself headlong forward and effect a passage. She crossed the drawing-room with a rapid step, jostling the belated couples returning to their seats. She went straight to the conservatory. She had seen neither Louise nor Maxime among the dancers, she said to herself that they must be there, in some nook of foliage, brought together by that instinct for fun and improprieties that made them seek out little corners as soon as they found themselves anywhere together. But she explored the dimness of the conservatory in vain. She only perceived, in the back of an arbour, a tall young man devoutly kissing little Madame Daste’s hands, murmuring:

“Madame de Lauwerens was right: you’re an angel!”

This declaration made in her house, in her conservatory, shocked her. Really Madame de Lauwerens ought to have taken her trade elsewhere! And Renée would have felt relieved could she have turned out of her rooms all these people who shouted so loudly. Standing before the tank, she looked at the water, she asked herself where Louise and Maxime could have hidden themselves. The orchestra still played the same waltz, whose slow undulation made her feel sick. It was unendurable, not to be able to reflect in one’s own house. She became confused. She forgot that the young people were not married yet, and she said to herself it was perfectly clear they had gone to bed. Then she thought of the dining-room, she quickly ran up the conservatory steps. But, at the door of the ball-room, she was for the second time stopped by a figure of the cotillon.

“This is the ‘Dark Spots,’ mesdames,” said M. de Saffré, gallantly. “It is my own invention, and you shall be the first to have the benefit of it.”