Complete Works of Emile Zola (445 page)

‘I have a painful duty to perform, madame’ — Gilquin began for the third time.

‘But it is a crime! You will kill him!’ Madame Martineau interrupted. ‘You have not been ordered to kill him, have you?’

‘I am acting under orders,’ Gilquin replied in a rougher tone, for he wished to curtail the entreaties which he thought were coming.

But a gleam of desperate anger flashed across Madame Martineau’s plump face, and her eyes glanced round the room, as though she were trying to discover some possible means of saving her husband. However, she calmed herself by an effort, and reverted to her previous demeanour, like a strong-minded woman who realises that tears can be of no service.

‘God will punish you, sir,’ she quietly said, after a short pause, during which she had kept her eyes fixed on Gilquin.

Then, without a tear or entreaty she turned to lean over the chair in which her husband lay dying. Gilquin had merely smiled.

Just at this moment the corporal, who had gone in person to the Golden Lion, came back to say that the landlord asserted he had not got a vehicle of any sort. The arrest of the notary, who was extremely popular in the neighbourhood, must have been noised abroad, and the landlord was doubtless concealing his conveyances; for two hours previously, when the com­missary had questioned him on the subject, he had promised to let him have an old brougham which he let out for drives in the neighbourhood.

‘Go and search the inn!’ cried Gilquin, enraged by this fresh obstacle. ‘Search every house in the village! Do they think they will have a game with us? And be quick, I have an engagement to keep, and have no time to spare. I give you a quarter of an hour.’

The corporal hurried off again, taking his men with him; and each went in a different direction. Three-quarters of an hour passed, however, and then another quarter, and then another. At the end of an hour and a half one of the gendarmes returned with a very long face. All his searching had been futile. Gilquin, who had grown feverishly excited, kept rushing about and looking out of the window into the twilight. The ball would certainly begin without him, he reflected, and the head-master’s wife would consider him guilty of great discourtesy. Each time that he went past the notary’s chair he almost choked with anger. Never had any criminal caused him so much trouble as that man who lay there perfectly motionless, becoming ever paler and colder.

It was past seven o’clock when the corporal returned with a beaming countenance. He had at last discovered the land­lord’s old brougham, concealed in a shed half a mile from the village. The horse was harnessed and between the shafts, and it was the animal’s snorting which had enabled him to discover it. However, when the vehicle was at the door, it became necessary to dress M. Martineau, and this took a very long time. His wife very slowly and deliberately put him on some clean white stockings and a clean white shirt. Then she dressed him in black from head to foot; black trousers, frock-coat and waistcoat. She would not allow the gendarmes to render her the slightest assistance. The notary quietly yielded to her touch. A lamp had been lighted, and Gilquin stood tapping his hands together impatiently, while the corporal remained perfectly still, his three-cornered hat casting a huge shadow upon the ceiling.

‘Come, come, haven’t you done now?’ Gilquin repeated. For the last five minutes Madame Martineau had been searching in a drawer. At last she produced a pair of black gloves which she put into her husband’s pocket. ‘I hope, sir,’ she said, ‘that you will allow me to come in the carriage. I should much like to go with my husband.’ ‘That is impossible,’ replied Gilquin roughly. She restrained herself instead of pressing her request. ‘At any rate,’ she said, ‘you will allow me to follow him?’

‘The roads are free to every one,’ answered the commis­sary, ‘but you won’t be able to get a vehicle, as there are none in the neighbourhood.’

At this Madame Martineau shrugged her shoulders slightly, and left the room to give an order. Ten minutes afterwards a gig drew up in front of the door, behind the brougham. It was now necessary to get the notary downstairs. The two gendarmes carried him, while his wife supported his head. Whenever the dying man uttered the slightest groan, Madame Martineau imperiously ordered the gendarmes to stop, which they did, notwithstanding the angry glances of the commis­sary. In this way they halted for a moment on each succes­sive step. The notary looked like a corpse in their arms, and he was quite unconscious when they seated him in the carriage.

‘Half-past eight!’ exclaimed Gilquin angrily, looking at his watch for the last time. ‘Confound it all! I shall never get there!’

There was no doubt about that. He would be fortunate if he arrived before the ball was half over. However, he sprang on his horse with an oath and ordered the coachman to drive as fast as he could. The brougham led the way, the gendarmes riding at each side of it; then, a few yards behind, followed the commissary, and the corporal, and last of all came the gig with Madame Martineau. The night air was very sharp. The little
cortège
passed over the long grey road through all the sleeping country, accompanied by a rumbling of wheels and the monotonous footfalls of the horses. Not a word was spoken during the journey. Gilquin was thinking of what he should say when he met the head-master’s wife. Every now and then, however, Madame Martineau sprang to her feet in the gig, fancying that she heard a death-rattle, but she could scarcely distinguish the brougham as it rolled on before her through the black night.

It was half-past ten when they reached Niort. The com­missary, to avoid passing through the town, directed the driver of the brougham to go round by the ramparts. When they reached the gaol, they had to ring loudly. As soon as the gatekeeper saw the white, stiffened prisoner they were bringing him, he went off to rouse the governor. The latter, who was not very well, soon made his appearance in his slippers. And when he saw Martineau, he became quite angry, and absolutely refused to receive a man in such a con­dition. Did they take the gaol for an hospital? he asked them.

‘The man has been arrested, and what do you expect us to do with him?’ cried Gilquin, losing his temper at this fresh impediment.

‘Whatever you like, monsieur le Commissaire, except bring him here,’ replied the governor. ‘I again tell you that I refuse to receive him. I won’t take such a responsibility upon myself.’

Madame Martineau had profited by this discussion to get into the brougham with her husband. And she now pro­posed that he should be taken to the hotel.

‘Very well, to the hotel or the devil, or wherever you like!’ cried Gilquin. ‘I’ve had quite enough of him! Take him along!’

He conformed sufficiently to his duty, however, to accom­pany the notary to the Hôtel de Paris, which Madame Mar­tineau herself fixed upon. The Place de la Préfecture was now becoming empty, and only some children were left play­ing on the footways, while the middle-class couples slowly disappeared into the darkness of the neighbouring streets. However, the bright glow from the six windows of the pre­fecture still made the square almost as light as day. The band’s brass instruments were blaring, and the ladies’ bare shoulders and curled chignons could be seen between the open curtains, circling round the room. As the notary was being carried to the first floor, Gilquin raised his head and caught sight of Madame Correur and Mademoiselle Billecoq, who were still gazing at the festivities. The elder lady, how­ever, must have noticed her brother, for, leaning out so far as to risk a fall, she made an energetic sign to Gilquin to come upstairs. He did so.

Towards midnight the ball at the prefecture reached its zenith. The doors of the dining-room, where a cold supper had been laid, had just been thrown open. The ladies, with hot, flushed faces, fanned themselves as they stood up and ate, amidst a deal of gay laughter. Others were still dancing, unwilling to lose a single quadrille, and contenting themselves with glasses of syrup and water, which gentlemen brought to them. The room was full of a hazy glitter of women’s hair and skirts and braceleted arms. There seemed to be too much gold, too much music, and too much heat; and Rougon, who felt half suffocated, was glad indeed to make his escape on being discreetly summoned by Du Poizat.

Madame Correur and Mademoiselle Herminie Billecoq were waiting for him in the small adjoining salon where he had seen them on the previous evening. They were both crying bitterly.

‘My poor brother! my poor Martineau!’ stammered Madame Correur, while wiping her tears away with her handkerchief. ‘Ah! I felt sure that you could do nothing for him. Oh, why couldn’t you have saved him?’

Rougon was going to say something, but she would not give him time.

‘He has been arrested to-day,’ she continued. ‘I have just seen him. Oh dear! oh dear!’

‘Don’t distress yourself,’ replied Rougon, at last. ‘The matter shall be looked into, and I hope that we shall be able to obtain his release.’

Thereupon Madame Correur ceased dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. She looked at Rougon and exclaimed in her natural voice: ‘But he is dead!’ Then again she re­lapsed into a disconsolate tone and buried her face in her handkerchief. ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! my poor, poor Mar­tineau!’

Dead! A sudden tremor passed through Rougon’s body. He could not find a word to say. For the first time he became conscious of a pit before him, a dark gloomy pit into which he was being gradually driven. To think that the man was dead! He had never intended that anything of that kind should happen. Things had gone too far.

‘Alas! yes, the poor dear man is dead,’ said Mademoiselle Herminie Billecoq, with a deep, long-drawn sigh. ‘It seems that they refused to receive him at the gaol. Then, when we saw him arriving at the hotel in such a pitiable condition, madame went down and insisted upon being admitted, saying that she was his sister. A sister may surely claim to receive her brother’s last breath. That is what I said to that hussy of a Madame Martineau, who threatened to turn us out of the room. But we forced her to let us remain by the bedside.
Mon Dieu!
it was soon all over. The death agony only lasted an hour. The poor man was lying on the bed dressed all in black. Anyone would have thought that he was a notary, just going to a marriage. And he died out just like a candle-flame, with a little twist of his face. He couldn’t have had much pain.’

‘And then — would you believe it? — Madame Martineau actually tried to pick a quarrel with me,’ cried Madame Correur. ‘I don’t know what she was driving at, but she spoke about my brother’s property, and accused me of having given him the last stroke. I said to her, “If I had been there, madame, I would never have allowed him to be taken away, I would have let the gendarmes hew me in pieces sooner!” And they
should
have hewn me in pieces sooner! I told you so, didn’t I, Herminie?’

‘Yes, yes, indeed,’ said the tall girl.

‘Well, I know my tears won’t bring him to life again,’ continued Madame Correur; ‘but I’m crying because I can’t help it. Oh, my poor Martineau!’

Rougon felt very ill at ease. He drew back his hands which Madame Correur had grasped. Still he could not think of anything to say, shocked as he was by the story of this death which seemed so abominable to him.

‘Look!’ exclaimed Herminie, who was standing in front of the window, ‘you can see the room from here in this bright light. It is the third window to the left, on the first floor. There is a light behind the curtains.’

However, Rougon dismissed them, while Madame Correur in return apologised for having troubled him, calling him her friend, and saying that her first impulse had been to come and tell him the fatal news.

‘It is a very annoying business,’ Rougon whispered to Du Poizat, when he returned to the ball-room, with his face still pale.

‘It is all that idiot Gilquin’s doing!’ replied the prefect, shrugging his shoulders.

The ball was still going on merrily. In the dining-room, a part of which could be seen through the open door, the mayor’s assessor was stuffing the three daughters of the con­servator of rivers and forests with sweetmeats; while the colonel of the seventy-eighth was drinking punch and listening attentively to the cutting remarks of the chief surveyor of bridges and highways, who was munching sugared almonds. M. Kahn, near the door, was repeating to the President of the Civil Tribunal the speech which he had delivered in the afternoon on the advantages of the new railway line; and round them stood a group of grave-faced men, the comptroller of taxes, the two justices of the peace, and the delegates from the consultative Chamber of Agriculture and the Statistical Society, all with gaping mouths. Then around the ball-room, in the glow of the chandeliers, the dancers revolved to the music of a waltz, which the band blared forth. The son of the receiver-general was dancing with the mayor’s sister; one of the public prosecutor’s assessors was with a girl in blue; and the other with a girl in pink. But one couple excited particular admiration, that composed of the commissary of police and the head-master’s wife, who slowly revolved in a close embrace. Gilquin had hurried off to array himself irreproachably in black dress-coat, patent-leather boots and white gloves, and the beautiful blonde, having forgiven him for his tardy arrival, was now nestling against his shoulder, with languishing eyes. Gilquin threw his chest forward, and brought the motion of his hips into strong prominence, a vulgarism, which seemed to delight the spectators as if it had been some­thing very tasteful. And as the pair revolved round the room they all but came into collision with Rougon, who had to step back to the very wall to let them pass him in a whirling cloud of tarlatan, spangled with golden stars.

CHAPTER XI

IN COUNCIL AT ST. CLOUD

Rougon had at last succeeded in obtaining the portfolio of Agriculture and Commerce for Delestang. One morning, early in May, he went to the Rue de Colisée to fetch his new colleague, for there was to be a ministerial council at Saint Cloud, where the Court had just gone to reside.

‘What! are you coming with us?’ Rougon exclaimed in surprise, as he saw Clorinde taking her place in the landau which was standing in front of the steps.