Complete Works of Emile Zola (451 page)

‘What a nice scent you’ve got here,’ said Madame Correur, complimentarily.

‘Oh, it’s I who smell so nice,’ the young woman naively replied.

Then she began to talk of the essences which she ob­tained direct from the perfumer to the Sultanas, and even held her arm under Madame Correur’s nose. Her black velvet blouse had got a little disarranged, and her feet, in their little red slippers, showed below it. Pozzo, languid and intoxicated by the strong perfumes which she exhaled, was tapping his instrument gently with his thumb.

However, after a few minutes, the conversation turned of necessity on Rougon, as was invariably the case every Thurs­day and Sunday. The band seemed to come together for the sole purpose of discussing this one everlasting subject. Its members felt an ever-growing rancour against the great man, a craving to relieve themselves by ceaseless recrimination.

Clorinde no longer had any trouble to set them going. They always arrived with a fresh burden of grievances, ever dis­contented and jealous, actually embittered by what Rougon had done for them, and burning with a violent fever of in­gratitude.

‘Have you seen the fat man to-day?’ the colonel asked. Rougon was no longer ‘the great man.’ ‘No,’ said Clorinde; ‘but we may see him here this even­ing. My husband persists in bringing him to see me.’

‘I was in a café this afternoon, where they were criticising him very severely,’ the colonel continued, after a pause. ‘They say that his position is very shaky, and that he won’t last another two months.’

M. Kahn made a gesture of contempt. ‘Well, for my part,’ he said, ‘I don’t give him three weeks. Rougon, you see, is not cut out for governing. He is too fond of power, and gets intoxicated with it; and then he strikes out right and left and treats people with revolting harshness. During these last five months he has been guilty of some most mon­strous acts.’

‘Yes, yes, indeed,’ the colonel interrupted; ‘all kinds of injustices and unfairnesses and absurdities. He abuses his power, most certainly he does.’

Madame Correur said nothing, but expressed, by a gesture, her opinion that Rougon’s head was not particularly well balanced.

‘Ah, yes, indeed,’ said M. Kahn, noticing the gesture. ‘He hasn’t got a well-fixed head, has he?’

Then M. Béjuin observed that the others were looking at him, and felt called upon to say something. ‘No! Rougon’s not at all an able man,’ he remarked; ‘not at all.’

Clorinde lay back on her pillows, gazing at the luminous circle which the lamp east on the ceiling, and letting the others talk on. When they paused, she said, with the in­tention of starting them again: ‘There is no doubt that he has abused his power, but he asserts that the things with which people reproach him were done for the sole purpose of obliging his friends. I was talking to him on the subject the other day. The services which he has rendered you — ‘

‘Rendered us! rendered us!’ they all cried furiously. And they went on talking all together, eager to protest against any such insinuation. However, M. Kahn shouted the others down.

‘The services which he has rendered me! That’s a fine joke! I had to wait two years for my railway grant, with the result that the prospects of the scheme, once very bril­liant, have suffered considerably. If he is such a friend of mine, why doesn’t he come to my assistance now? I asked him to obtain the Emperor’s sanction to a bill authorising the amalgamation of my company with the Western Company, and he told me that I must wait. Rougon’s services to me, indeed! Well, I should like to know what they are! He has never done anything for me, and he
can’t
do anything now!’

‘And I, and I, do you imagine that I am indebted to him for anything?’ cried the colonel, breaking in before Madame Correur could speak. ‘He surely doesn’t take any credit to himself for that commander’s cross, which had been promised to me for five years and more? He has taken Auguste into his office, it is true; but I bitterly regret now that I ever let the boy go there. If I had put him into business he would have been earning twice as much. That wretched Rougon told me only yesterday that he would not be able to increase Auguste’s pay for another eighteen months. That is the way he ruins his credit for the sake of his friends!’

At last Madame Correur also was able to relieve her feelings. ‘Did he mention my name?’ she said, bending towards Clorinde. ‘I never asked that much from him; and have yet to learn the nature of his services to me. He can’t say as much with regard to my services to him; and if I liked to talk — . But no matter. I certainly asked him for a few favours on behalf of my friends. I don’t deny that. I delight in being of use to anyone. But I must say that everything he has a hand in turns out badly, and that his favours seem to bring ill-luck. There’s that poor Herminie Billecoq, an old pupil of Saint Denis, who was wronged by an officer, and for whom Rougon procured a dowry. Well, the poor girl came to me with a dreadful story this morning. There’s no chance of her getting married after all, for the officer has absconded, taking the dowry with him. And you understand me. Anything that Rougon has done at my request has been done for others, and not for myself. When I came back from Coulonges, after the settlement of my brother’s affairs, I went to tell him of the tricks that Madame Martineau had been playing with respect to the division of the property. I wanted the house in which I was born as part of my share, but the wretched woman contrived to keep it her­self. Well, do you know what was the only answer I could get from Rougon? He told me three times over that he couldn’t trouble himself any further about the miserable business!’

While Madame Correur was speaking, M. Béjuin, in his turn, had begun to show signs of excitement, and he now stammered: ‘I am exactly in the same position as Madame. I have never asked Rougon for anything — never, never! Any­thing that he may have done has been done in spite of me, and without my knowing anything about it. He avails him­self of one’s silence to take every advantage of one, yes, every advantage.’

His words died away in a mutter; and then all four re­mained for a moment silently wagging their heads.

Presently M. Kahn resumed, in a solemn voice: ‘The truth of the matter is this. Rougon is an ungrateful fellow. You all remember how we used to scour Paris, working to get him back into office. We devoted ourselves to his cause to such a point as to take our meals anywhere and anyhow. And he then contracted a debt towards us which in his whole lifetime he could not fairly discharge. Now, however, he finds gratitude too heavy a burden for him, and so he casts us adrift. Well, we might have expected as much!’

‘Yes, yes, indeed,’ cried the others. ‘He owes everything to us, and he’s repaying us in a pretty fashion.’

Then for a while they completely overwhelmed Rougon with an enumeration of all the things they had done for him; whenever one of them became silent another brought forward some still more crushing detail. The colonel, however, sud­denly felt uneasy about Auguste, who had disappeared from the bedchamber. Just then a peculiar noise was heard in the dressing-room — a sort of gentle, continuous dabbling sound — and the colonel hurried off to see what it could be. He then found Auguste apparently much interested in the bath, which Antonia had forgotten to empty. Some slices of lemon, which Clorinde had used for her nails, were floating on the water, and these Auguste was inquisitively examining.

‘The boy is quite a nuisance,’ murmured Clorinde. ‘He goes poking about everywhere.’

‘Really, now,’ said Madame Correur, who seemed to have been waiting for the colonel’s absence, ‘the thing in which Rougon is most deficient is tact. Between ourselves, I may say, now that the gallant colonel can’t hear us, that it was a great mistake on Rougon’s part to take that young man into his office in defiance of the regulations. That is not the kind of service a man ought to render to his friends. It only brings him into discredit.’

However, Clorinde interrupted her. ‘Do go, my dear madam,’ said she, ‘and see what they’re doing in the bath­room.’

M. Kahn had begun to smile, and, when Madame Correur left the room, he also lowered his voice and put in a word. ‘How fine it is to hear her talk,’ he said. ‘The colonel has, no doubt, been well looked after by Rougon, but she herself has no reason to complain. Rougon absolutely compromised himself on her account in that troublesome Martineau busi­ness. He showed himself very deficient in morality in that matter. Nobody ought to kill a man for the mere sake of pleasing an old friend, ought he?’

Then M. Kahn got up and began to stroll about the room, and ultimately he went back to the ante-room to get his cigar-case, which he had left in his overcoat. At that moment the colonel and Madame Correur came back.

‘Hallo! has Kahn gone?’ exclaimed the colonel; and, without any transition, he went on: ‘Well, we others may have a right to run down Rougon, but Kahn, in my opinion, ought to remain dumb. I don’t like heartless people. Just now I kept from saying anything, but in a café where I was this afternoon it was openly said that Rougon was falling through having lent his name to that swindling railway line from Niort to Angers. A man ought not to make such a blunder as that! To think of that big fat imbecile firing mines and delivering speeches a mile long, and even trying to make the Emperor responsible for the success of the line! Ah! it’s Kahn, my good friends, who’s made a mess of it for all of us! Don’t you agree with me, Béjuin?’

M. Béjuin briskly nodded his head. He had already agreed with Madame Correur and M. Kahn. Meanwhile, Clorinde, still reclining on the couch, was amusing herself with biting the tassel of her girdle, which she kept drawing over her face, as though she wanted to tickle herself. Her eyes were wide open and smiling at the ceiling.

‘Hush!’ she said, all at once.

M. Kahn was just coming back, biting off the end of a cigar between his teeth. He lighted it and blew out two or three big puffs of smoke, for smoking was allowed in Clorinde’s bedroom. Then, resuming the previous conversa­tion, he said: ‘Well, if Rougon asserts that he has weakened his power by serving us, I can truthfully declare that we have been dreadfully compromised by his patronage. He has such a rough, brutal way of pushing one forward that it’s no wonder if one breaks one’s nose against a wall. However, as a result of all these violent ways of his, he’s now tumbling down again. For my part, I feel no desire to help to pick him up any more. If a man can’t preserve his own credit, there must be something wrong with him. I tell you that he is seriously compromising us. I have got heavy enough responsibilities as it is, and I give him up.’

While saying this, however, M. Kahn spoke hesitatingly, and his voice grew faint. Madame Correur and the colonel bent their heads to escape the necessity of declaring them­selves in the same peremptory fashion. In spite of every­thing, Rougon was still in office, and before abandoning him they wanted to secure some other powerful patron.

‘The fat man isn’t everybody,’ said Clorinde carelessly. At this they all looked at her, hoping that she was going to give them some formal promise. But she made a little gesture, as though to bid them have patience. This tacit hint of some new patronage which would shower benefits upon them was really the mainspring of their assiduous attendance at the young woman’s Sundays and Thursdays. Among the strong odours of her room they scented a coming triumph; and, believing that they had exhausted Rougon in obtaining the satisfaction of their early desires, they looked forward to the advent of some new power that should realise their more recent dreams, which were far greater and more numerous than the others had been.

However, Clorinde at last raised herself up from her pillows, and, bending towards Pozzo, she blew into his neck, laughing loudly as she did so, as though thrilled with some wild impulse of merriment. When she felt pleased she often gave way to some such outburst of childish gaiety. Pozzo, whose hand seemed to have gone to sleep on his guitar, threw back his picturesque Italian head and showed his white teeth when he was thus roused, but Clorinde went on laughing and blowing with such force that at last he begged for mercy. Then, when she had scolded him in Italian, she turned towards Madame Correur. ‘He must sing to us, mustn’t he?’ she said. ‘If he will sing I won’t blow any more. He has composed a very pretty song. You will like it.’

They all asked to hear the song, and Pozzo began to finger his guitar again. Then he sang, keeping his eyes fixed upon Clorinde all the time. The song was like a passionate murmur accompanied by short soft notes. The tremulous Italian words could not be distinguished; however, at the last couplet, which seemed to be expressive of the pains of love, Pozzo, while assuming a very mournful tone, began to smile with an expression of mingled joy and despair. When he finished, his audience enthusiastically applauded him. Why didn’t he publish those charming songs of his? they asked. Surely his position in the diplomatic service could be no impediment.

‘I once knew a captain who brought out a comic opera,’ said Colonel Jobelin; ‘and nobody in the regiment thought any the worse of him for it.’

‘Ah, but in the diplomatic service — ‘ murmured Madame Correur, shaking her head.

‘Oh, I think you are wrong there,’ remarked M. Kahn. ‘Diplomatists are like other men, and many of them cultivate the social arts.’

However, Clorinde touched Pozzo lightly with her foot and whispered something to him, and thereupon the young man rose, laid his guitar on a heap of clothes, and left the room. When he returned, some five minutes afterwards, he was followed by Antonia, carrying a tray on which were a water-bottle and some glasses. Pozzo himself held a sugar-basin for which there was no room on the tray. Nothing stronger than sugared water was ever drunk at Clorinde’s receptions, and her friends knew that she was well pleased if they simply took the water by itself.

‘Hallo! what’s that?’ she suddenly exclaimed, turning towards the dressing-room, where a door could be heard creaking. Then, as though remembering, she added: ‘Oh, it’s my mother! She’s been in bed.’

It was, indeed, Countess Balbi; who made her appearance in a black woollen dressing-grown, with a piece of lace tied round her head. Flaminio, the big footman with the long beard and brigand’s face, was supporting her from behind, almost carrying her, in fact, in his arms. However, she did not appear to have aged, her pale face still smiled with the smile of one who had been a queen of beauty.