Complete Works of Emile Zola (421 page)

‘With us in Italy,’ resumed Clorinde in a low tone, ‘love is the great business of life. Young girls of twelve already have their lovers. For myself, I have travelled about so much, that I’ve almost become a man. But if you could only have seen mamma when she was young! She was so lovely that people came from long distances to see her, but she seldom if ever left her house. There was a count who stayed at Milan expressly for six months without catching sight of her hair even. The fact is, that Italian women are very different from French women, who are always chattering and gadding about. An Italian woman remains with the man she has chosen. But I have travelled so much, that I really don’t know whether I haven’t lost that instinct or not; still I think that I could love very strongly; ah, yes, with all my heart and soul.’

She had let her eyelids fall, and her face glowed as with a voluptuous ecstasy. While she was speaking, Rougon had left his table as though attracted by some force which he could not withstand, and his hands were trembling. But when he got near to Clorinde, the girl opened her eyes again and gave him a quiet glance. Then, as she looked at the clock, she said with a smile: ‘This makes ten tickets.’

‘Ten tickets! what do you mean?’ asked Rougon, quite confused.

When he had recovered his self-possession, she burst into a laugh. It delighted her to bewitch him and intoxicate him in this way, and when he opened his arms to clasp her, to elude him with a laugh. She seemed in high glee. At this Rougon turned very pale, and cast a furious glance at her, which only served to increase her merriment. ‘Well, I think I’d better be off now,’ she said. ‘You’re not polite enough for ladies’ society. No, really, my mother will be expecting me.’

Rougon, however, had resumed his paternal manner, and told her that she must spare him another five minutes. He had got tired of the work he was doing when she came in, he said; it was a report to be presented to the Senate on certain petitions. Then he began to talk to her about the Empress, for whom she professed enthusiastic devotion. The Empress, said he, had been at Biarritz for the last week. At this the girl again leant back in her arm-chair and began to chatter. She knew Biarritz very well; she had once spent a season there, before it had become such a fashionable watering-place; and she very much regretted that she was unable to revisit it while the Court was there. Then she went on to describe a meeting of the Academy to which M. de Plouguern had taken her on the previous day. An author had been admitted as a member, and she made many jokes at the expense of his baldness. She had a horror of books, she declared. Whenever she tried to read, she had to go off to bed, suffering from terrible nervous attacks. She could not understand what she read. Then, on Rougon telling her that the author received at the Academy on the previous day was an enemy of the Emperor’s, and that his discourse had swarmed with abominable allusions, she seemed quite astounded.

‘Why, he looked such a nice man!’ she exclaimed.

But Rougon also had begun to inveigh against books. A novel had just been published, he said, which had aroused his utmost indignation. It was a work of the most depraved kind, which, while claiming to portray the exact truth, dragged the reader through all the wild fancies of an hysterical woman.
1
The word hysterical seemed to please him, for he repeated it three times; but when Clorinde asked him to explain what he meant by it, he refused to answer, suddenly becoming very prudish.

‘Everything may be said,’ he continued, ‘only there is a fitting way of saying it. In administrative matters, for instance, we are frequently obliged to tackle very delicate subjects. I have read, for example, reports upon certain matters which have been very precise, very detailed; but they have been written in a clear, simple, straightforward style, so that there was nothing unchaste or impure about the document. But our present-day novelists have adopted a style which is full of suggestiveness, a manner of de­scribing things which makes it appear as if they were actually going on before you. They call that art. To me it seems to be simply indecency and bad taste.’

Then he went on to speak of authors, whom he had never read, but whom, like many other people, he accused of the grossest immorality. And yet while he was thus prating of virtue and denouncing vice, he was cleverly manoeuvring to get behind Clorinde’s chair without her being aware of it. The girl was gazing at the ceiling with an expression of absent-mindedness. ‘Oh, as for novels,’ she murmured, ‘I have never even opened one. They are all a pack of false­hoods. You don’t know
Leonora, the Gipsy,
do you? It is a pretty book. I read it in Italian when I was quite little. It is about a young girl who ends by marrying a lord. She is captured by brigands to begin with — ‘

However, a slight grating sound behind her made her start and turn her head: ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I am pulling the blind down,’ replied Rougon; ‘I was afraid the sun was inconveniencing you.’

The girl was, indeed, sitting in a flood of sun-light, whose dancing dust gilded her corsage as with luminous down. ‘Please leave the blind alone,’ she cried, ‘I love the sun. I feel as though I were in a warm bath.’

Then she raised herself in her chair and glanced into the garden. But when she saw the gardener still kneeling there, with the back of his blue blouse turned towards them, she reverted to her reclining attitude again, smiling, and easy once more. Rougon, who had followed her glance, left the blind as it was, and the girl began to banter him. He was just like an owl, she said, to be so fond of darkness. However, he showed no resentment, but began to pace the room, swaying about like a bear contemplating some wily act of treachery.

‘Oh, come and look here,’ he said at last, pointing to a large photograph; ‘you haven’t seen my last portrait, have you?’

But she merely smiled, and replied: ‘Oh! I can see it very well from here; and, besides, you’ve shown it to me before.’

Rougon was not yet discouraged. He drew down the blind of the other window, and invented several reasons to induce the girl to go into the shady corner which he had made by doing so. She would be much more comfortable there, he told her. But Clorinde, despising this obvious snare, merely shook her head. Then Rougon came and stood in front of her; and, dropping all attempts at stratagem, said straightforwardly: ‘Oh, by the way, I want to show you my new horse, Monarque. You know that I have been making an exchange. You are fond of horses, and you shall tell me what you think of him.’

But the girl still refused to move. Then Rougon began to press her. The stable was only a few yards away. It wouldn’t take her more than five minutes at the most. She continued to refuse, however, and thereupon Rougon mur­mured with a touch of scorn in his voice: ‘What! are you afraid?’

At this she started up, as though lashed with a whip. She looked very grave and somewhat pale.

‘Let us go and look at Monarque,’ she said quietly.

As she gathered up the train of her riding-habit she fixed her eyes upon Rougon’s, and for a moment they remained gazing at each other as if to read each other’s thoughts. It was a challenge given and accepted, without any pretence of concealment. Then she led the way down the steps while Rougon, by force of habit, buttoned the house-coat which he was wearing. But the girl had only taken a step or two along the garden-walk when she stopped short. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said.

She went back into the room, and when she returned, she was toying with her riding-whip, which she had left behind the cushion of the couch. Rougon glanced at the whip, and then slowly raised his eyes to Clorinde. She was smiling again, and once more she walked on in front of him.

The stable was at the end of the garden, on the right. When they passed the gardener, the man was gathering up his tools and preparing to go away. Rougon, bareheaded in the blazing sun, followed Clorinde, who went quietly onward, tapping the shrubs with her riding-whip as she passed them. Neither spoke a word. Clorinde did not even turn her head. On reaching the stable, she waited while Rougon opened the door, and then went inside, in front of him. The door, which Rougon swung back, closed noisily, and Clorinde still smiled, her face wearing an open expression, in which pride and con­fidence were clearly to be read.

The stable was a small and commonplace one, with four oak stalls. Although the slabs had been washed that morn­ing, and the racks and mangers and other wood-work were kept scrupulously clean, there was a strong scent about the place, and the atmosphere was warm and damp, like that of a Turkish bath. From each of the two round dormer-windows there fell but a pale glimmer of light, and the corners remained wrapt in gloom. Clorinde, having just left the bright sun­shine of the garden, could at first distinguish nothing; but she kept still, and did not open the door again for fear lest Rougon should think she was alarmed. Only two of the stalls were occupied. The horses snorted and turned their heads.

‘This is the one, isn’t it?’ asked Clorinde, when her eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom. ‘He looks a very nice animal.’

She patted the horse gently, and then slipped inside the stall, stroking the animal as she went without showing the least sign of fear. She wanted to see his head, she said; and when she had made her way to the far end of the stall, Rougon could hear her kissing the horse’s nose. The sound of those kisses exasperated him.

‘Come back, I beg you!’ he cried. ‘If he were to step on one side, you might be crushed to death!’

But the girl only laughed, kissed the horse more affection­ately than before, and spoke to him caressingly, while he, at this unexpected fondling, fairly quivered with pleasure. At last she came out of the stall again. She was very fond of horses, she said, they always knew her, and never tried to hurt her, even when she teased them. She knew how to manage them. Some were very skittish, but this one seemed very steady. Then she stooped down behind the horse, and lifted one of its hoofs with both hands as if to examine it. The animal remained quite still.

Rougon gazed at her while she thus stooped before him; but all at once she felt a slight touch under her arm-pits. She did not even start, however; she went on examining the horse’s hoof, till the touch became more pronounced, and then letting the hoof drop, she stood up and inquired: ‘What is the matter with you? What has come over you?’

Then, as Rougon suddenly tried to clasp her round the waist, she rapped his knuckles smartly, and, stationing herself against the wall in front of the stalls, raised the train of her riding-habit, which was thrown over her left arm, as a shield, while in her right hand she held her whip uplifted. Rougon’s lips were trembling, but he did not say a word; Clorinde, however, seeming quite at ease, went on talking freely: ‘You can’t touch me, you’ll see,’ she said. ‘When I was younger, I used to take fencing-lessons. I’m sorry I did not go on with them. Come, look out for your fingers! There! what did I tell you?’

She seemed to be only in fun. She did not strike Rougon severely, but just playfully lashed at him whenever his hands came too near. She was so quick in her defence that he could not even touch her dress. A perfect hail came clattering down upon him on every side. Before long he was tingling all over, and stepped back panting, with his face very red, and drops of perspiration trickling down his brow. Then, however, his manner changed, and still without a word he advanced menacingly; but Clorinde, though smiling and talk­ing as before, at once struck him several smart blows of in­creasing severity. She looked very beautiful as she stood there with her skirts drawn tightly, and her corsage yielding to every movement of her lissom figure. She was like a sinuous, bluish-black serpent, and whenever she raised her arm to strike, at the same time slightly throwing her head back, her throat and bosom formed a charming curve.

‘Well, now,’ she exclaimed, with a laugh, ‘have you had enough? You’ll be the first to tire, I think, my friend.’

But in her turn she suddenly stopped talking. Rougon’s eyes were glaring fiercely now, and his face was quite crimson. Then a bright light also appeared in Clorinde’s eyes, and she seemed to revel in the whipping she was administering to him. Again and again did she wheel and slash about her. And at last, as he, goaded to fury, made a yet more desperate onslaught, she put forth all her strength and cut him clean across the face from ear to ear.

‘Hussy!’ he cried, and broke into a torrent of coarse language, abominable charges, swearing and sputtering, half-choked by his excitement.

She did not deign to reply. For a moment she stood there motionless and haughtily calm like a statue, with her face very pale.

But he burst into a strain of passionate pleading; and thereupon she looked at him and answered: ‘Well, then, marry me!’

At this, however, Rougon, as if recovering his self-posses­sion, forced a laugh, a sneering, insulting laugh, and shook his head.

Her retort, the only one that womanly pride could dictate, came swift and forcible. Then neither spoke again.

The horses in the stalls had turned their heads and were snorting, disturbed by the contest which they had heard. The sun had just risen high enough to shine through the dormer-windows, and two golden beams sent sparkles dancing through the gloom of the stable. Clorinde, now perfectly calm again, slipped up to Monarque’s head, with her whip under her arm. She gave the horse two kisses on the muzzle and exclaimed: ‘Good-bye, old fellow. You, at any rate, know how to behave yourself.’

Rougon, quite crushed and ashamed, was also now per­fectly calm. With his hands still quivering he straightened his cravat, and felt his coat to ascertain if it was properly buttoned. Then they walked quietly back through the garden. Rougon’s left cheek was stinging him, and he dabbed it with his handkerchief. When they reached his study, Clorinde’s first glance was for the timepiece. ‘That makes thirty-two tickets,’ she said with a smile.

As Rougon looked at her in surprise, she once more broke into a laugh, and continued: ‘You had better send me off at once. The hand is moving forward. The thirty-third minute has begun. See, I’m putting the tickets on your desk.’