Complete Works of Emile Zola (452 page)

‘Wait a moment, mother!’ exclaimed Clorinde, ‘I’ll give you this couch. I’ll lie down on the bed. I’m not feeling very well. I’ve got an insect inside me; and it’s begun to bite me again.’

There was a general movement. Pozzo and Madame Correur assisted the young woman to her bed. They had to turn down the coverings, and flatten the pillows. Countess Balbi, meantime, lay down on the couch while Flaminio remained standing behind her, black and silent, though glar­ing ferociously at the visitors.

‘You don’t mind my lying down, do you?’ said Clorinde to the others. ‘I feel so much better when I’m lying down. I’m not going to send you away. You must stay where you are.’

She was stretched out at full length, her elbow resting on a pillow, while her spreading black blouse looked like a stream of ink upon the white counterpane. Nobody had had any idea of going away. Madame Correur was talking in a whisper to Pozzo about Clorinde’s superb figure, while M. Kahn, M. Béjuin and the colonel paid their respects to the Countess, who nodded her head and smiled. Every now and then, without turning round, she would call in a soft voice: ‘Flaminio!’

The tall footman knew what she meant, and at once raised a cushion or brought a stool, or took a scent bottle from his pocket, retaining, however, in all he did the ferocious air of a brigand in evening dress.

All at once Auguste happened to have an accident. After prowling through the three rooms, stopping to examine all the garments that were lying about, he had felt a little bored, and to amuse himself had begun to drink glassful after glassful of sugared water. Clorinde kept her eye upon him, watching the sugar-basin gradually empty, when suddenly the youth broke his glass, against the side of which he had been press­ing his spoon too violently.

‘It’s all because he puts too much sugar in!’ cried Clorinde.

‘Dunderhead!’ exclaimed the colonel. ‘You can’t even drink water rationally! One big glassful every morning and every evening, that’s the way. There is nothing better. It keeps away all diseases.’

Fortunately there was a diversion, for M. Bouchard now made his appearance. It was past ten o’clock. He had dined in town, which had caused him to he a little late. He seemed surprised at not finding his wife there. ‘Monsieur d’Escorailles said he would bring her,’ he remarked, ‘and I promised to call for her and take her home.’ Half an hour later Madame Bouchard at length arrived, accompanied by M. d’Escorailles and M. La Rouquette. After a coolness which had lasted a year, the young Marquis had returned to his allegiance to the pretty blonde. He and she, it appeared, had met M. La Rouquette as they were driving in an open cab to the Delestangs’, and thereupon they had all three gone on to the Bois together, laughing loudly and indulging in somewhat broad pleasantries; indeed, M. d’Escorailles had even fancied for a moment that the deputy’s arm was behind Madame Bouchard’s waist. The trio brought a whiff of gaiety into Clorinde’s room, something of the fresh air of the dark avenues of the Bois along which they had just passed so merrily.

‘Yes, we’ve been to the lake,’ said M. La Rouquette. ‘They insisted upon taking me off. I was quietly going home to work.’

Then he suddenly became serious. During the previous session he had made a speech upon a financial question after a whole month’s special study of his subject, and since then he had affected a very steady-going air, as though he had buried all his youthful frivolities.

‘By the way,’ began Kahn, taking him to the end of the room, ‘you who are on such good terms with Marsy — ‘

Then he continued in such a low tone that nothing further could be heard. Pretty Madame Bouchard, who had bowed to the Countess, was now sitting beside the bed, holding Clorinde’s hand, and sympathising with her in a fluty voice. Meantime, M. Bouchard, who remained standing in a prim and dignified attitude, suddenly began to speak aloud amidst all the surrounding buzz of conversation, ‘I have something to tell you,’ he said, ‘our fat man is a nice sort of fellow.’

Before explaining himself, however, he began to rail at Rougon as the others had done. It was now impossible, he said, to ask him for anything, for he could not even return a polite answer; and he, M. Bouchard, considered that polite­ness came before everything. Then as they continued to ask him what Rougon had done, he at last told them.

‘I can’t bear injustice,’ said he. ‘I spoke to him about one of the clerks in my division, Georges Duchesne; you know him, don’t you? You’ve met him at my house. Well, he’s a young fellow of sterling merit, and we treat him as though he were our own son. My wife is very fond of him, as he comes from the same part of the country as herself. Well, we had lately been scheming to get Duchesne appointed assistant head clerk. It was my idea, but you approved of it, didn’t you, Adèle?’

Madame Bouchard looked embarrassed, and bent yet more closely to Clorinde to escape the eyes of M. d’Escorailles, which she felt were fixed on her.

‘Well,’ continued the head of department, ‘how do you think the fat man received my request? He glared at me in his offensive way for a full minute, and then he bluntly refused to make the appointment. When I pressed the matter, he said to me with a smile: “Monsieur Bouchard, don’t press your request; you distress me. There are very grave reasons why I cannot accede to it.” I couldn’t get him to say another word. He saw, however, that I was very much put out, and so he begged me to remember him kindly to my wife.’

That very evening, as it happened, Madame Bouchard had had a rather lively passage of arms with M. d’Escorailles on the subject of this same Georges Duchesne. ‘Oh well!’ she now deemed it advisable to say in a rather petulant voice, ‘Monsieur Duchesne will have to wait. I don’t know that we need trouble ourselves about him.’

But her husband seemed quite determined. ‘No, no,’ he returned; ‘he deserves to be assistant head clerk, and he shall be! My credit is involved. Oh, I really can’t stand injustice!’

He grew so excited that some of the others had to soothe him. Clorinde, who appeared somewhat absent-minded, was in reality trying to hear the conversation between M. Kahn and M. La Rouquette, who had ensconced them­selves at the foot of her bed. The former was explaining the state of his affairs. His great undertaking of a railway line between Niort and Angers was in a very critical position. The shares had at first been sold on the Bourse at a pre­mium of eighty francs, before a single stroke of work had been done. Relying upon his much-talked-of English com­pany, M. Kahn had indulged in the most reckless speculation, and now the whole business was on the verge of bankruptcy, and must collapse unless he could at once obtain some powerful support.

‘Some time ago,’ he said, ‘Marsy offered to bring about a sale of the concern to the Western Company. For myself I’m quite ready to enter into negotiations. We should only want to get an Act passed.’

Clorinde heard this, and thereupon quietly beckoned to the two men, who drew near and began a long conversation with her. Marsy, said the young woman, bore no spite. She would speak to him on the subject, and would offer him the million francs for which he had asked, the previous year, as his price for supporting the grant. His position as Presi­dent of the Corps Législatif would make it an easy matter for him to get the necessary Act passed.

‘Marsy’s the only man who’s of any good in matters of this kind,’ she added with a smile. ‘If you try to manage without him, you always have to call him in later on to patch up the broken pieces.’

However, all the other visitors were now speaking at once, and the room was full of noise. Madame Correur was telling Madame Bouchard of her latest desire, which was to go to Coulonges and die there in the family home. She grew quite pathetic as she spoke of the neighbourhood where she had been born, and she declared that she would compel Madame Martineau to give up the house which was full of the associations of her childhood. Meantime, as was fatal, the men were again harping on the subject of Rougon. M. d’Escorailles was describing the anger of his father and mother, who had written to him upon learning how Rougon was abusing his power, bidding him break with the minister and return to the Council of State. The colonel, on his side, related how the fat man had flatly refused to ask the Emperor for a post for him in the imperial palaces. Even M. Béjuin complained that his Majesty had never visited the cut-glass works at Saint Florent upon the occasion of his journey to Bourges, although Rougon had solemnly promised to obtain that favour. And amidst all this babel, Countess Balbi reclined smiling, on her couch, looking the while at her still plump hands.

‘Flaminio!’ she said, softly. Then the tall footman took a little tortoise-shell box full of mint lozenges out of his waistcoat pocket, and the Countess crunched these lozenges with an air of quiet enjoyment.

It was nearly midnight when Delestang returned home. When they saw him raise the hangings of the doorway leading to the boudoir, they all became silent and turned anxiously towards him. But he let the curtain fall again; there was no one with him. Then, after a further pause, the visitors broke into various exclamations:

‘Are you by yourself?’

‘You haven’t brought him with you then?’

‘Have you lost the fat man on the way?’

Truth to tell, there was a general feeling of relief. Delestang explained that Rougon had felt very tired and had left him at the corner of the Rue Marbeuf.

‘And a good thing, too!’ exclaimed Clorinde, stretching herself out on the bed; ‘he’s by no means entertaining.’

This was the signal for a fresh outburst of complaint and accusation. Delestang protested and tried to get a word in; for he usually made a pretence of defending Rougon. ‘There is no doubt that he might have acted better than he has done towards certain of his friends,’ he slowly said as soon as he was allowed to speak. ‘But, in spite of everything, he’s a wonderfully clever fellow. I myself shall be eternally grateful to him.’

‘Grateful for what?’ cried M. Kahn, snappishly.

‘For all that he has done — ‘

But the others angrily interrupted him. Rougon had never done anything for him, they cried. What was it that he supposed Rougon had done for him?

‘You quite surprise me!’ said the colonel. ‘It is ridi­culous to carry modesty to that extent. You don’t stand in need of anyone’s help, my dear friend. You have succeeded through your own merits.’

Then they all began to sound Delestang’s praises. His model farm at La Chamade was something unparalleled, they asserted;
it had long ago proved that he possessed all the qualifications of an able administrator and statesman. He had a quick eye, a clear mind, and a hand that was energetic without being rough. And besides, had not the Emperor himself manifested the greatest appreciation of him all along? His Majesty and himself were in accord upon almost every point.

‘Pooh!’ M. Kahn ended by saying; ‘it is you who keep Rougon up. If you weren’t his friend and didn’t support him in the council, he would have come to grief a fortnight ago!’

Delestang, however, went on with his protestations. He himself might indeed be of some service, but it was only right to give everyone his due. That very evening, at the Ministry of Justice, in discussing a very complicated financial question, Rougon had given proof of extraordinary lucidity of mind.

‘Oh yes, I daresay,’ said M. La Rouquette scornfully; ‘the cunning of a smart attorney.’

Clorinde had not yet opened her lips. The visitors kept glancing at her as though they expected her to say something. But for some time she rolled her head on her pillow, as though she were trying to rub the nape of her neck.

‘That’s right; scold him,’ she said at last, speaking of her husband, though not mentioning him by name. ‘He will have to be beaten into taking his real place.’

‘The position of Minister for Agriculture and Commerce is quite a secondary one,’ remarked M. Kahn in order to pre­cipitate matters.

This was touching a sore spot. Clorinde was annoyed at her husband being shelved to what she considered a minor post. And she now sharply sprang into a sitting posture, and let fall the words that everyone had been waiting for: ‘He can go to the office of the Interior as soon as ever we wish it,’ said she.

Delestang tried to speak, but all the company rushed to­wards him amid an outburst of delight. Then at last he seemed to give in, a rosy flush suffused his cheeks, his hand­some face fairly beamed with pleasure. Madame Correur and Madame Bouchard whispered to each other that he was re­markably good looking, and the latter, with that perverted taste which makes some women admire baldness, cast loving glances at his bare skull. Then M. Kahn, the colonel and the others, expressed by winks, gestures and hasty words the high estimate which they set upon his ability. They pros­trated themselves before the feeblest mind of the whole coterie, and admired one another in his person. He, at any rate, would be an easy and docile master, and would never compromise them. They could set him up as a god with impunity, free from all fear of his thunder-bolts.

‘You are quite fatiguing him,’ at last exclaimed pretty Madame Bouchard in her tender voice.

Fatiguing him, were they? At this there was a general outburst of sympathy. In point of fact Delestang was looking rather pale again, and his eyes had a sleepy expres­sion. But nothing tries a man like brain-work, the visitors remarked to each other with an air of commiseration, and the poor fellow had been working since five o’clock that morning! Then they gently insisted that he should go to bed. And he obeyed them with quiet docility, kissing his wife on the fore­head and then quitting the room.

It was now one o’clock, and the guests began to speak of retiring, whereupon Clorinde assured them that she was by no means sleepy, and that they might stay on. However, no one sat down again. The lamp in the boudoir had just gone out, and there was a strong smell of oil in the room. It was with difficulty that they could find sundry small articles, such as Madame Correur’s fan, the colonel’s stick, and Madame Bouchard’s bonnet. Clorinde, calmly stretched on her bed, stopped Madame Correur just as the latter was going to ring for Antonia. The maid, it appeared, always went to bed at eleven o’clock. Then just as they were all going away, the colonel suddenly bethought himself of Auguste, whom he had forgotten. He found him asleep on a sofa in the boudoir, with his head resting on a dress which he had rolled up to form a pillow; and the others scolded him for not having attended to the lamp. In the gloom of the staircase, where the gas was turned very low, Madame Bouchard gave a little scream. She had twisted her foot, she said. Finally, as the visitors carefully felt their way with the aid of the balusters, loud peals of laughter were heard upstairs, Pozzo having lingered after the others had gone.