Complete Works of Emile Zola (441 page)

The prefect passed his hand across his brow in an anxious way. He was already searching his memory, trying to think of certain lawyers, merchants, and druggists. However, he still nodded his head approvingly. But Rougon was not altogether pleased with his hesitating demeanour. ‘I won’t conceal from you,’ he said, ‘that his Majesty is by no means satisfied just now with the administrative staff. There will probably soon be a great change amongst the prefects. We need very devoted men in the present grave circumstances.’

This affected the prefect like a cut from a whip.

‘Your excellency may rely on me,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have already fixed upon my men. There is a druggist at Péronne, a cloth merchant and a paper maker at Doullens; and, as for the lawyers, there’s no lack of them; there’s a perfect plague of them. Oh, I assure your excellency that I shall have no difficulty in making up the dozen. I am an old servant of the Empire.’

For another moment he chattered on about devoting him­self to the saving of the country, and then took his leave with a very low bow. When he had closed the door behind him, the minister swayed his heavy frame with an air of doubt.

He did not believe in little men. Then, without sitting down again, he drew a red line through La Somme upon his list. The names of more than two-thirds of the departments were already scored out in the same way.

When Rougon again rang for Merle, he was annoyed to see that the ante-room was as full as ever. He fancied he could recognise the two ladies still standing by the table. ‘I told you to send everybody away!’ he cried. ‘I am going out, and cannot see anybody else.’

‘The editor of the
Vœu National
is there,’ murmured the usher.

Rougon had forgotten the editor. He clasped his hands behind his back, and ordered Merle to admit him. The journalist was a man of some forty years of age, with a heavy face, and was very carefully dressed.

‘Ah! here you are, sir!’ said the minister roughly. ‘Things cannot go on like this, I warn you of it.’

Then he began to pace the room, inveighing hotly against the press. It was demoralising everything, bringing about general disorganisation, and inciting to disorder of every kind. The very robbers who stabbed wayfarers on the high-roads were preferable to journalists, said he. A man might recover from a knife-thrust, but pens were poisoned. Then he went on to make even more odious comparisons; and gradually worked himself into a state of excitement, gesticulating angrily, and thundering forth his words. The editor, who had remained standing, bent his head to the storm, while his face wore an expression of submissive consternation.

‘If your excellency would condescend to explain to me,’ he at last ventured to say; ‘I don’t quite understand — ‘

‘What?’ roared Rougon furiously. Then he sprang forward, spread out the newspaper on his table, and pointed to the columns that were marked with red pencil. ‘There are not ten lines free from offence!’ he exclaimed. ‘In your leading article, you appear to cast a doubt upon the govern­ment’s capacities in the matter of repressive measures. In this paragraph on the second page you appear to allude to me when you speak of the insolent triumph of parvenus. Among your miscellaneous items there are a lot of filthy stories, brain­less attacks upon the upper classes.’

The editor clasped his hands in great alarm, and tried to get in a word. ‘I assure your excellency — I am quite in despair that your excellency could suppose for a moment — I, too, who have such very warm admiration for your excellency — ‘

Rougon, however, paid no attention to this. ‘And the worst of the matter is, sir,’ he continued, ‘that everyone is aware of your connection with the administration. How is it likely that the other newspapers will respect us, when those in our own pay do not? All my friends have been denouncing these abominations to me this morning.’

Then the editor joined Rougon in declaiming against the incriminated matter. He had read none of those articles and paragraphs, he said. But he would at once dismiss all his contributors. If his excellency wished it, he would send him a proof-copy of the paper every morning. Rougon, who had relieved his feelings, declined this offer. He had not the time to examine a proof-copy, he said. Just as he was dismissing the editor, however, a fresh thought seemed to strike him. ‘Oh, I was forgetting,’ he said. ‘That well-bred woman who betrays her husband in the novel you are publishing serially supplies a detestable argument against good education. It ought not to be alleged that a woman of that kind could possibly commit such a sin.’

‘The serial has had a great success,’ murmured the editor, again feeling alarmed. ‘I have read it, and have found it very interesting.’

‘Ah! you’ve read it, have you? Well, now, does this wretched woman feel any remorse in the end?’

The editor carried his hand to his forehead, amazed, and trying to remember. ‘Remorse? No, I think not,’ he replied. Rougon had already opened the door, and as he closed it upon the journalist, he called after him: ‘It is abso­lutely necessary that she should feel remorse! Insist upon the author filling her with remorse!’

CHAPTER X

A TRIP TO NIORT

Rougon had written to Du Poizat and M. Kahn asking them to spare him the infliction of an official reception at the gates of Niort. He arrived there one Saturday evening a little before seven o’clock, and at once went to the prefecture, with the intention of resting till noon the following day, for he was feeling very tired. After dinner, however, several people called. Doubtless the news of the minister’s arrival had already spread through the town. A small drawing-room near the dining-room was thrown open, and a kind of im­promptu reception was organised. Rougon, as he stood between the two windows, was obliged to stifle his yawns and reply as pleasantly as he could to the greetings offered to him.

One of the deputies of the department, the very attorney who had usurped M. Kahn’s position as official candidate, was the first to make his appearance. He arrived quite out of breath, half scared, wearing a frock-coat and coloured trousers, for which he apologised on the ground that he had only just returned on foot from one of his farms, and had been anxious to pay his respects to his excellency as soon as possible. Then a short fat man appeared, wearing a somewhat tight-fitting dress coat and white gloves. There was an air of ceremonious regret about him. He was the mayor’s first assessor, and had just been informed by his servant of Rougon’s arrival. The mayor, he said, would be greatly distressed. He was not expecting his excellency till the following day and was at present at his estate of Les Varades, some six miles off. After the assessor there came a procession of six gentlemen with big feet, big hands, and big heavy faces. The prefect pre­sented them to Rougon as distinguished members of the Statistical Society. Then the head-master of the state college arrived, bringing with him his wife, a charming blonde of eight-and-twenty. She was a Parisienne, and her dresses were the wonder of Niort. She told Rougon somewhat bitterly of her great dislike for provincial life.

M. Kahn, who had dined with the minister and the prefect, was on his side hotly plied with questions respecting the next day’s ceremony. It had been arranged that the party would repair to a spot some two or three miles from the town, in the district known as Les Moulins, where it was intended that the first tunnel on the new line from Niort to Angers should be pierced; and there the Minister of the Interior was to fire the first mine. Rougon, who had assumed a homely good-natured manner, said that he merely wanted to do what he could to honour an old friend’s laborious enterprise. He moreover considered himself to be an adopted son of the department of Deux-Sèvres, which in former days had sent him to the Legislative Assembly. To tell the truth, however, the real object of his journey was in accordance with Du Poizat’s strongly urged advice to display himself, in the pleni­tude of power, to his old constituents, so as to make sure of their support should it ever become necessary for him to enter the Corps Législatif.

From the windows of the little drawing-room the town could be seen black and slumberous. No further visitors called. The news of the minister’s arrival had come too late in the day. This circumstance, however, gave an additional feeling of triumph to the few zealous ones who had put in an appearance at the prefect’s. They gave no hint of retiring, but seemed quite elated with joy at being the first to meet his excellency in private conversation. The mayor’s assessor repeated in a doleful voice, through which rang a note of jubilation: ‘
Mon Dieu!
how distressed the mayor will be! And the presiding judge, too, and the public prosecutor and all the other gentlemen!’

Towards nine o’clock, however, it might have been supposed that the whole town was in the ante-room, for a loud tramping of feet was heard there. Then a servant entered the drawing-room and announced that the chief commissary of police desired to pay his respects to his excellency. And it was Gilquin who made his appearance: Gilquin, looking quite gorgeous in evening dress and straw-coloured gloves and kid boots. Du Poizat had given him a place in his department. He bore himself very well, the only traces of his old manner being a somewhat swaggering motion of his shoulders and a marked disinclination to part with his hat, which he persisted in holding against his hip in imitation of a pose which he had studied on a tailor’s fashion-plate. He bowed to Rougon and addressed him with exaggerated humility. ‘I venture to recall myself to the kind recollection of your excellency, whom I had the honour of meeting several times in Paris,’ said he.

Rougon smiled, and he and Gilquin chatted for a few moments. Then the latter made his way into the dining-room, where tea had just been served, and he there found M. Kahn, who was glancing over a list of the guests invited to the next day’s ceremony. In the little drawing-room the conversation had now turned upon the grandeur of the Emperor’s reign. Du Poizat, standing by Rougon’s side, was extolling the Empire, and they bowed to one another as though they were mutually congratulating themselves upon some personal achievement, while the citizens of Niort clustered round, agape with respectful admiration.

‘What clever fellows they are, eh?’ said Gilquin, who was watching the scene through the open doorway.

Then, as he proceeded to pour some rum into his tea, he gave M. Kahn a nudge. Du Poizat, lean and enthusiastic, with his irregular white teeth and feverish, childish face all aglow with triumph, appeared to take Gilquin’s fancy. ‘Ah, you should have seen him when he first arrived in the depart­ment,’ said the commissary in a low voice. ‘I was with him. He stamped his feet angrily as he walked along. He no doubt felt a grudge against the people here: and since he’s been prefect, he’s been amusing himself by avenging all his youthful grievances. The townspeople who knew him when he was a poor miserable fellow don’t feel inclined to smile now when they see him go past. He makes a strong prefect; he’s quite cut out for the post. He’s very different from that fellow Langlade, whom he superseded, a mere ladies’ man, as fair as a girl. We came across photographs of ladies in very low dresses even amongst the official papers in his room.’

Then Gilquin paused. He fancied that the wife of the head-master had her eyes on him. And so, desirous of display­ing the graces of his person, he bent forward again to speak to M. Kahn. ‘Have you heard of Du Poizat’s meeting with his father?’ he asked. ‘Oh, it was the most amusing thing in the world. The old man, you know, is a retired process-server, who has got a nice little pile together by lending petty sums by the week at high interest; and he now lives like a wolf in an old ruin of a house where he keeps loaded guns in the hall. Well, he had told his son a score of times that he would come to the gallows; and Du Poizat had long dreamt of having his revenge. That, indeed, was one of his reasons for wanting to be prefect here. So one morning he put on his finest uniform, and, under the pretext of making a round, he went and knocked at the old man’s house. Then, after a good quarter of an hour’s parley, the father opened the door, a pale little old man he was, and he gazed with a stupefied look at his son’s gold-laced uniform. Well, now, guess what was the first thing he said, as soon as he discovered that his son had become the prefect! “Don’t send for the taxes any more, Leopold!” Yes, those were his very words. He didn’t show the slightest fatherly emotion. When Du Poizat came back, he was biting his lips, and his face was as white as a sheet. His father’s unruffled tranquillity had quite exasperated him. Ah! he’ll never manage to subdue the old man!’

M. Kahn nodded his head discreetly. He had slipped the list of guests into his pocket, and was now sipping a cup of tea while glancing occasionally into the adjoining room. ‘Rougon is half asleep,’ he said. ‘Those idiots ought to have enough sense to leave him and let him go to bed. I want him to be in good form for to-morrow.’

‘I hadn’t seen him for some time,’ said Gilquin. ‘He has put on more flesh.’ Then, lowering his voice, he continued: ‘They managed it very cleverly, those two fine fellows! They worked some quiet trick or other out of that bomb affair at the Opera which I had warned them of. It came off, as you know; but Rougon pretends that he went to the prefecture and that no one there would believe him. Well, that’s his business, and there’s no occasion to say any more about it. On the day of the affair, Du Poizat stood me a ripping
déjeuner
at a café on the boulevards. Oh! what a time we had! We went to a theatre in the evening, I think, but I haven’t any very distinct recollection of it, for I slept for two days afterwards.’

M. Kahn now appeared to find Gilquin’s confidences somewhat alarming, for he got up and left the dining-room. Then the commissary felt quite convinced that the head­master’s wife was certainly gazing at him. So he also went back into the drawing-room and busied himself about her, and ended by bringing her some tea, biscuits and cake. He really carried himself very well; he looked like a gentleman who had been badly brought up, and this appeared to influence the beautiful blonde in his favour.