Complete Works of Emile Zola (652 page)

“It is merely to be an interview,” declared Monsieur Josserand, still struggling. “I swear that I will not enter into any engagements.”

“Of course, of course,” said Bachelard. “Eléonore does not wish you to do anything dishonourable.”

Berthe just then returned. She had seen some boxes of preserved fruits, and, after some lively caresses, she tried to get one given her. But the uncle’s speech again became thick; impossible, they were counted, and had to leave that very evening for Saint-Petersburg. He slowly got them in the direction of the street, whilst his sister lingered before the activity of the vast warehouses, full to the rafters with every imaginable commodity, suffering from the sight of that fortune made by a man without any principles, and bitterly comparing it with her husband’s incapable honesty.

“Well! tomorrow night then, towards nine o’clock, at the Café de Mulhouse,” said Bachelard outside, as he shook Monsieur Josserand’s hand.

It so happened that, on the morrow, Octave and Trublot, who had dined together before going to see Clarisse, Duveyrier’s mistress, entered the Café de Mulhouse, so as not to call too early, although she lived in the Rue de la Cerisaie, which was some distance off. It was scarcely eight o’clock. As they entered, the sound of a violent quarrel attracted them to a rather out-of-the-way room at the end. And there they beheld Bachelard already drunk, enormous in size, and his cheeks flaring red, having an altercation with a little gentleman, pale and quarrelsome.

“You have again spat in my beer!” roared he in his voice of thunder. “I’ll not stand it, sir!”

“Go to blazes, do you hear? or I’ll give you a thrashing!” said the little man, standing on the tips of his toes.

Then Bachelard raised his voice very provokingly, without drawing back an inch.

“If you think proper, sir! As you please!”

And the other having with a blow knocked in his hat, which he always wore swaggeringly on the side of his head, even in the cafés, he repeated more energetically still:

“As you please, sir! If you think proper!”

Then, after picking up his hat, he sat himself down with a superb air, and called to the waiter:

“Alfred, change my beer!”

Octave and Trublot, greatly astonished, had caught sight of Gueulin seated at the uncle’s table, his back against the wall, smoking with a tranquillity amounting to indifference. As they questioned him on the cause of the quarrel:

“I don’t know,” replied he, watching the smoke ascend from his cigar. “Always a lot of rot! Oh! a mania for getting his head punched! He never retreats.”

Bachelard shook hands with the new-comers. He adored young people. When he heard that they were going to call on Clarisse, he was delighted, for he himself was going there with Gueulin; only he had to wait for his brother-in-law, Josserand, whom he had an appointment with. And he filled the little room with the sounds of his voice, covering the table with every drink imaginable for the benefit of his young friends, with the insane prodigality of a man who does not care what he spends when out on pleasure. Ill-formed, with his teeth too new and his nose in a blaze beneath his short snow-white hair, he talked familiarly to the waiters and thoroughly tired them out, and made himself unbearable to his neighbours to such a point that the landlord came twice to beg him to leave, if he could not keep quiet. The night before, he had been turned out of the Café de Madrid.

But a girl having put in an appearance, and then gone away, after walking round the room with a wearied air, Octave began to talk of women. This set Bachelard off again. Women had cost him too much money; he flattered himself that he had had the best in Paris. In his business, one never bargained about such things; just to show that one had something to fall back upon. Now, he was giving all that up, he wished to be loved. And, in presence of this bawler chucking banknotes about, Octave thought with surprise of the uncle who exaggerated his stuttering drunkenness to escape the family extortions.

“Don’t boast, uncle,” said Gueulin. “One can always have more women than one wants.”

“Then, you silly fool, why do you never have any?
”
asked Bachelard.

Gueulin contemptuously shrugged his shoulders.

“Why? Listen! Only yesterday I dined with a friend and his mistress. The mistress at once began to kick me under the table. It was an opportunity, wasn’t if? Well! when she asked me to see her home, I made off, and I haven’t been near her since. Oh! I don’t deny that, for the time being, it might have been very agreeable. But afterwards, afterwards, uncle! Perhaps one of those women a fellow can never get rid of. I’m not such a fool!”

Trublot nodded his head approvingly, for he also had renounced women of society, through a dread of the troublesome morrows. And Gueulin, coming out of his shell, continued to give examples. One day in the train a superb brunette, whom he did not know, had fallen asleep on his shoulder; but he had thought twice, what would he have done with her on arriving at the station?
Another day, after a wedding, he had found a neighbour’s wife in his room, eh?
that was rather cool; and he would have made a fool of himself had it not been for the idea that afterwards she would certainly have wanted him to keep her in boots.

“Opportunities, uncle!” said he, coming to an end, “no one has such opportunities as I! But I keep myself in check. Every one, moreover, does the same; one is afraid of what may follow. Were it not for that, it would, of course, be very pleasant! Good morning! good evening! one would see nothing else in the streets.”

Bachelard, become wrapped in thought, was no longer listening to him. His bluster had calmed down, his eyes were wet.

“If you are very good,” said he suddenly, “I will show you something.”

And, after paying, he led them out. Octave reminded him of old Josserand. That did not matter, they would come back for him. Then, before leaving the room, the uncle, casting a furtive glance around, stole the sugar left by a customer on a neighbouring table.

“Follow me,” said he, when he was outside. “It’s close by.”

He walked along, grave and thoughtful, without uttering a word. He drew up before a door in the Rue Saint-Marc. The three young men were about to follow him, when he appeared to give way to a sudden hesitation.

“No, let us go off, I won’t.”

But they cried out at this. Was he trying to make fools of them?

“Well! Gueulin mustn’t come up, nor you either, Monsieur Trublot. You’re not nice enough, you respect nothing, you’d joke. Come, Monsieur Octave, you’re a serious sort of fellow.”

He made Octave walk up before him, whilst the other two laughed, and called to him from the pavement to give their compliments to the ladies. On reaching the fourth floor, he knocked, and an old woman opened the door.

“What! it’s you, Monsieur Narcisse? Fifi did not expect you this evening,” said she, with a smile.

She was fat, with the calm, white face of a nun. In the narrow dining-room into which she ushered them, a tall fair young girl, pretty and simple looking, was embroidering an altar cloth.

“Good day, uncle,” said she, rising to offer her forehead to Bachelard’s thick trembling lips.

When the latter had introduced Monsieur Octave Mouret, a distinguished young man whom he counted amongst his friends, the two women curtsied in an old-fashioned way, and then they all seated themselves round the table, lighted by a petroleum lamp. It was like a quiet country home, two regulated existences, out of sight of all, and living upon next to nothing. As the room overlooked an inner courtyard, one could not even hear the sound of the passing vehicles.

Whilst Bachelard paternally questioned the child on her feelings and her occupations since the night before, the aunt, Mademoiselle Menu, at once began to tell Octave their history, with the familiarity of a worthy woman who thinks she has nothing to hide.

“Yes, sir, I come from Villeneuve, near Lille. I am well known to Messieurs Mardienne Frères, in the Rue Saint-Sulpice, where I worked as an embroiderer for thirty years. Then, a cousin having left me a house in our part of the country, I was lucky enough to let it as a life interest at a thousand francs a-year, sir, to people who thought they would bury me on the morrow, and who are nicely punished for their wicked idea, for I am still alive, in spite of my seventy-five years.”

She laughed, displaying teeth as white as a young girl’s.

“I was doing nothing, my eyes being quite worn out,” continued she, “when my niece, Fanny, came to me. Her father, Captain Menu, had died without leaving a sou, and no other relation, sir. So, I at once took the child away from her school, and made an embroiderer of her — a very unprofitable craft; but what could be done? whether that, or something else, women always have to starve. Fortunately, she met Monsieur Narcisse. Now, I can die happy.”

And, her hands clasped on her stomach, in her inaction of an old workwoman who has sworn never again to touch a needle, she looked tenderly at Bachelard and Fifi with tearful eyes. The old man was just then saying to the child:

“Really, you thought of me! And what did you think?”

Fifi raised her limpid eyes, without ceasing to draw her golden thread.

“Why, that you were a good friend, and that I loved you very much.”

She had scarcely looked at Octave, as though indifferent to the youth of so handsome a fellow. Yet he smiled on her, surprised, and moved by her gracefulness, not knowing what to think; whilst the aunt, who had grown old in a celibacy and a chastity which had cost her nothing, continued, lowering her voice:

“I might have married her, might I not?
A workman would have beaten her, a clerk would have given her no end of children. It is better far that she should behave well with Monsieur Narcisse, who looks a very worthy man.”

And, raising her voice:

“Ah! Monsieur Narcisse, it will not have been my fault if she does not please you. I am always telling her: do all you can to please him, show yourself grateful. It is but natural, I am so thankful to know that she is at last provided for. It is so difficult to get a young girl settled in life, when one has no friends!”

Then Octave abandoned himself to the happy simplicity of this home. In the still atmosphere of the room floated an odour of fruit. Fifi’s needle, as it pierced the silk, alone made a slight monotonous noise, like the ticking of a little clock, which might have regulated the placidity of the uncle’s amours. Moreover, the old maid was honesty itself; she lived on the thousand francs of her income, never touching Fifi’s money, which the latter spent as she chose. Her scruples yielded only to white wine and chestnuts, which her niece occasionally treated her to, after opening the money box in which she collected four sou pieces, given as medals by her good friend.

“My little duck,” at length said Bachelard, rising, “we have business to attend to. Good-bye till tomorrow. Now, mind you are very good.”

He kissed her on the forehead. Then, after looking at her with emotion, he said to Octave:

“You may kiss her too, she is a mere child.”

The young man pressed his lips to her fair skin. She smiled, she was very modest; however, it was merely like a family gathering, he had never seen such sober-minded people. The uncle was going off, when he re-entered the room, exclaiming:

“I was forgetting, I’ve a little present.”

And, turning out his pocket, he gave Fifi the sugar which he had just stolen at the café. She thanked him very heartily, and, as she crunched up a piece, she became quite red with pleasure. Then, becoming bolder, she asked:

“Do you not happen to have some four sou pieces?
”

Bachelard searched his pockets without result. Octave had one, which the young girl accepted as a memorial. She did not accompany them to the door, no doubt out of propriety; and they heard her drawing her needle, having at once resumed her altar-cloth, whilst Mademoiselle Menu saw them to the landing, with her good old woman’s amiability.

“Eh? it’s worth seeing,” said uncle Bachelard, stopping on the stairs. “You know, it doesn’t cost me five louis a month. I’ve had enough of the hussies who almost devoured me. On my word! what I required was a heart.”

But, as Octave laughed, he became mistrustful.

“You’re a decent fellow, you won’t take advantage of what I have shown you. Not a word to Gueulin, you swear it on your honour? I am waiting till he is worthy of her to show her to him. An angel, my dear fellow! No matter what is said, virtue is good, it refreshes one. I have always gone in for the ideal.”

His old drunkard’s voice trembled, tears swelled his heavy eyelids. Down below, Trublot chaffed, pretending to take the number of the house; whilst Gueulin shrugged his shoulders, asking Octave, who was astounded, what he thought of the little thing. Whenever the uncle’s feelings had been softened by a booze, he could not resist taking people to see these ladies, divided between the vanity of showing his treasure and the fear of having it stolen from him; then, on the morrow, he forgot all about it, and returned to the Rue Saint-Marc with an air of mystery.

“Everyone knows Fifi,” said Gueulin, quietly.

Meanwhile, Bachelard was looking out for a cab, when Octave exclaimed:

“And Monsieur Josserand, who is waiting at the café?”

The others had forgotten him entirely. Monsieur Josserand, very annoyed at wasting his evening, was impatiently waiting at the entrance, for he never took anything out of doors. At length they started for the Rue de la Cerisaie. But they had to take two cabs, the commission agent and the cashier in the one, and the three young men in the other.

Gueulin, his voice drowned by the jingling noise of the old vehicle, at first talked of the insurance company where he was employed. Insurance companies and stockbrokers were equally unpleasant, affirmed Trublot. Then the conversation turned to Duveyrier. Was it not unfortunate that a rich man, a magistrate, should let himself be fooled by women in that way?
He always wanted them in out-of-the-way neighbourhoods, right at the end of the omnibus routes: modest little ladies in their own apartments, playing the parts of widows; unknown milliners, having shops and no customers; girls picked out of the gutter, clothed, and shut up, as though in a convent, whom he would go to see regularly once a week, like a clerk trudging to his office.