Complete Works of Emile Zola (659 page)

Octave, thoroughly bewildered, drew on one side. When they had gone, he looked at Jules who was still in a state of collapse on his chair, and at Marie leaning against the sideboard and looking very pale. Neither of them said a word.

“What is the matter?” asked he.

But, without answering him, the young woman commenced scolding her husband in a doleful voice.

“I told you how it would be. You should have waited, and let them learn the thing by degrees. There was no hurry, it does not show as yet.”

“What is the matter?” repeated Octave.

Then, without even turning her head, she said bluntly, in the midst of her emotion!

“I am in the family way.”

“I have had enough of them!” cried Jules rising indignantly. “I thought it right to tell them at once of this bother. I wonder if they think it amuses me! I am more taken in by it all than they are. More especially, by Jove! as it is through no fault of mine. Is it not true, Marie, that we have no idea how it has come about?
”

“That is so, indeed,” affirmed the young woman.

It quite affected Octave; and he felt a violent desire to do something nice for the Pichons. Jules continued to grumble: they would receive the child all the same, only it would have done better to have remained where it was. On her side, Marie, generally so gentle, became angry, and ended by agreeing with her mother, who never forgave disobedience. And the couple were coming to a quarrel, throwing the youngster from one to the other, accusing each other of being the cause of it, when Octave gaily interfered.

“It is no use quarrelling, now that it is there. Come, we won’t dine here; it would be too sad. I will take you to a restaurant, if you are agreeable.”

The young woman blushed. Dining at a restaurant was her delight. She spoke however of her little girl, who invariably prevented her from having any pleasure. But it was decided that, for this once, Lilitte should go too. And they spent a very pleasant evening. Octave took them to the “Bœuf à la Mode,” where they had a private room, to be more at their ease, as he said. There, he overwhelmed them with food, with an earnest prodigality, without thinking of the bill, happy at seeing them eat. He even at dessert, when they had laid Lilitte down between two of the sofa cushions, called for champagne; and they sat there, their elbows on the table, their eyes dim, all three full of heart, and feeling languid from the suffocating heat of the room. At length, at eleven o’clock, they talked of going home;
but they were very red, and the fresh air of the street intoxicated them. Then, as the child, heavy with sleep, refused to walk, Octave, to do things handsomely until the end, insisted on hailing a cab, though the Rue de Choiseul was close by. In the cab, he was scrupulous to the point of not pressing Marie’s knees. Only, upstairs, whilst Jules was tucking Lilitte in, he imprinted a kiss on the young woman’s forehead, the farewell kiss of a father parting with his daughter to a son-in-law. Then, seeing them very loving and looking at each other in a drunken sort of way, he left them to themselves, wishing them a good-night and many pleasant dreams as he closed the door.

“Well!” thought he, as he jumped all alone into bed, “it has cost me fifty francs, but I owed them quite that. After all, my only wish is that her husband may make her happy, poor little woman!”

And, with his heart full of emotion, he resolved, before falling asleep, to make his grand attempt on the following evening.

Every Monday, after dinner, Octave assisted Madame Hédouin to examine the orders of the week. For this purpose they both withdrew to the little closet at the back, a narrow apartment which merely contained a safe, a desk, two chairs, and a sofa. But it so happened that on the Monday in question the Duveyriers were going to take Madame Hédouin to the Opéra-Comique. So, towards three o’clock, she sent for the young man. In spite of the bright sunshine, they were obliged to burn the gas, for the closet only received a pale light from an inner courtyard. He bolted the door, and, as she looked at him in surprise, he murmured:

“No one can come and disturb us.”

She nodded her head approvingly, and they set to work. The new summer goods were going splendidly, the business of the house continued increasing. That week especially the sale of the little woollens seemed so promising that she heaved a sigh.

“Ah! if we only had enough room!”

“But,” said he, commencing the attack, “it depends upon yourself. I have had an idea for some time past, which I wish to lay before you.”

It was the stroke of audacity he had been waiting for. His idea was to purchase the adjoining house in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, to give notice to an umbrella-dealer and to a toy-merchant, and then to enlarge the warehouses, to which they could add several other vast departments. And he warmed up as he spoke, showing himself full of disdain for the old way of doing business in the depths of damp, dark shops, without any display, evoking a new commerce with a gesture, piling up in palaces of crystal all the luxury pertaining to woman, turning over millions in the light of day, and illuminating at night-time in a princely style.

“You will crush the other drapers of the Saint-Roch neighbourhood,” said he; “you will secure all the small customers. For instance, Monsieur Vabre’s silk warehouse does you a good deal of harm at present; well! increase your shop front, have a special department for silks, and you will force him into bankruptcy before five years are past. Besides, there is still a question of opening that new street, the Rue du Dix-Décembre, which is to lead from the new Opera-House to the Bourse. My friend Campardon alludes to it every now and then. It may increase the business of the neighbourhood tenfold.”

Madame Hédouin listened to him, her elbow on a ledger, her beautiful, grave head buried in her hand. She was born at “The Ladies’ Paradise,” which had been founded by her father and her uncle; she loved the house, she could see it expanding, swallowing up the neighbouring houses, and displaying a royal frontage; and this dream suited her active intelligence, her upright will, her woman’s delicate intuition of the new Paris.

“Uncle Deleuze would never give his consent,” murmured she.”Besides, my husband is too unwell.”

Then, seeing her wavering, Octave assumed his most seductive voice — an actor’s voice, soft and musical. At the same time he looked tenderly at her, with his eyes the colour of old gold, which some women thought irresistible. But, though the gas-jet flared close to the nape of her neck, she remained as cool as ever; she merely fell into a reverie, half stunned by the young man’s inexhaustible flow of words. He had come to studying the affair from the money point of view, already making an estimate with the impassioned air of a romantic page declaring a long pent up love. When she suddenly awoke from her reflections, she found herself in his arms. He was thinking that she was at length yielding.

“Dear me! so this is what it all meant!” said she in a sad tone of voice, freeing herself from him as from some tiresome child.

“Well! yes, I love you,” cried he. “Oh! do not repel me. With you I will do great things — “

And he went on thus to the end of the tirade, which had a false ring about it. She did not interrupt him; she was standing up and again scanning the pages of the ledger. Then, when he had finished, she replied:

“I know all that — I have already heard it before. But I thought you were more sensible than the others, Monsieur Octave. You grieve me, really you do, for I had counted upon you. However, all young men are foolish. We need a great deal of order in such a house as this, and you begin by desiring things which would disturb us from morning to night. I am not a woman here, I have too much to occupy me. Come, you who are so well organized, how is it you did not comprehend that it could never be, because in the first place it is stupid, in the second useless, and, moreover, luckily for me, I do not care the least about it!”

He would have preferred her to have been indignantly angry, displaying grand sentiments. Her calm tone of voice, her quiet reasoning of a practical woman, sure of herself, disconcerted him. He felt himself becoming ridiculous.

“Have pity, madame,” stammered he, before losing all hope. “See how I suffer.”

“No, you do not suffer. Anyhow, you will get over it. Hark! there is some one knocking, you would do better to open the door.”

Then he had to draw the bolt. It was Mademoiselle Gasparine, who wished to know if any lace-trimmed chemises were expected. The bolted door had surprised her. But she knew Madame Hédouin too well; and, when she saw her with her cold air standing in front of Octave, who was full of uneasiness, a slight mocking smile played about her lips as she looked at him. It exasperated him, and in his own mind he accused her of having been the cause of his ill-success.

“Madame,” declared he abruptly, when Gasparine had withdrawn, “I leave your employment this evening.”

This was a surprise for Madame Hédouin. She looked at him.

“Why so?
I do not discharge you. Oh! it will not make any difference; I have no fear.”

These words decided him. He would leave at once; he would not endure his martyrdom a minute longer.

“Very good, Monsieur Octave,” resumed she as serenely as ever. “I will settle with you directly. However, the firm will regret you, for you were a good assistant.”

Once out in the street, Octave perceived that he had behaved like a fool. Four o’clock was striking, the gay spring sun covered with a sheet of gold a whole corner of the Place Gaillon. And, angry with himself, he wandered at hap-hazard down the Rue Saint-Roch, discussing the way in which he ought to have acted. To begin with, why had he not pinched that Gasparine’s hips? That perhaps was what she wanted; but, unlike Campardon, he did not care for women dried up to such a point; besides, he might perhaps have made a mistake there also, for she seemed to be one of those who are rigidly virtuous with Sunday gentlemen, having a week-day friend to count upon from the Monday to the Saturday. And how absurdly green too of him to wish to become the mistress’s lover in spite of her! Could he not have made his money in the house without requiring at the same time both bread and bed? For a moment, scarcely knowing what to do, he was on the point of returning to “The Ladies’ Paradise,” and admitting himself to have been in the wrong. Then the thought of Madame Hédouin, so calmly superb, awakened his suffering vanity, and he went towards Saint-Roch. So much the worse! it was done now. He would go and see if Campardon happened to be in the church, and take him to the café to have a glass of Madeira. It would help to divert his thoughts. He entered by the vestibule into which the vestry door opened, a dark dirty passage such as is to be met with in houses of ill-repute.

“You are perhaps looking for Monsieur Campardon?” said a voice close beside him, as he stood hesitating, scrutinizing the nave with his glance.

It was the Abbé Mauduit, who had just recognised him. The architect being away, he insisted on showing the works, about which he was most enthusiastic, to the young man. He took him behind the chancel, and first of all showed him the chapel of the Virgin, with its white marble walls and its altar surmounted by the group in the manger, the infant Jesus between Joseph and the Virgin Mary, executed in an old-fashioned style;
then, still farther back, he took him across to the chapel of Perpetual Adoration, with its seven golden lamps, its golden candelabra, its golden altar shining in the dim reddish light of the aureate stained-glass windows. But there, on the right and the left, wooden hoardings shut off the farthest portion of the apsis;
and, in the midst of the chilly silence, above the kneeling black shadows, muttering prayers, resounded the strokes of picks, the voices of masons, all the deafening uproar of a work-yard.

“Walk in,” said the Abbé Mauduit, gathering up his cassock. “I will explain everything to you.”

On the other side of the planks there was a continual shower of old plaster, a corner of the church open to the outside air, white with the lime flying about, and damp with the spilt water. On the left one could still see the Tenth Station, Jesus being nailed to the cross, and on the right, the Twelfth, the women around Jesus. But, in the middle, the group of the Eleventh Station, Jesus on the cross, had been removed, and laid against a wall;
and it was there that the men were at work.

“Here we are,” continued the priest. “I had the idea of lighting the central group of the Calvary from above by means of an opening in the cupola. You can fancy what an effect it will have.”

“Yes, yes,” murmured Octave, whose thoughts were diverted by this stroll amidst building materials.

The Abbé Mauduit, speaking in a loud voice, had the air of a stage-carpenter directing the placing of some gorgeous scenery.

“There will naturally be only the most rigid bareness, nothing but stone walls, without a touch of paint or a fillet of gold. One must fancy oneself in a crypt in some desolate chamber underground. But the great effect will be the Christ on the Cross, with the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene at his feet. I shall place the group on the top of a rock, detaching the white statues by means of a grey background; and the light from the cupola, like some invisible ray, will light them up with a brightness that will bring them forward and animate them with a supernatural life. You will see, you will see!”

And he turned round to call out to a workman:

“Move the Virgin on one side; you will be breaking her leg directly.”

The workman called a comrade. Between them they got hold of the Virgin round the small of her back and carried her to a place of safety, like some tall white girl who had fallen down under a nervous attack.

“Be careful!” repeated the priest, following them through the rubbish, “her dress is already cracked. Wait a while!”

He gave them a hand, seizing Mary round the waist, and then, all covered with plaster, withdrew from the embrace.

“Then,” resumed he, returning to Octave, “just imagine that the two bays of the nave there before us are open, and go and stand in the chapel of the Virgin. Over the altar, and through the chapel of Perpetual Adoration, you will behold the Calvary right at the back. Just fancy the effect: these three enormous figures, this bare and simple drama in this tabernacle recess, beyond the dim mysterious light of the stained-glass windows, the lamps and the gold candelabra. Eh? I think it will be irresistible!”