Complete Works of Emile Zola (661 page)

She maintained towards him the attitude of a mistress simply polite.

“The fact is,” he observed, “I intended arranging these shelves this evening.”

“Do not trouble about them,” resumed she, “there are plenty of people here to do that. I give you your evening.”

Towards nine o’clock, Octave found Madame Duveyrier awaiting him in her grand white and gold drawing-room. Everything was ready, the piano open, the candles lit. A lamp placed on a small round table beside the instrument only imperfectly lighted the room, one half of which remained in shadow. Seeing the young woman alone, he thought it proper to ask after Monsieur Duveyrier. She replied that he was very well; his colleagues had selected him to report on a very grave affair, and he had just gone out to obtain certain information respecting it.

“You know, the affair of the Rue de Provence,” said she simply.

“Ah! he has that in hand!” exclaimed Octave.

It was a scandal which was the talk of all Paris, quite a clandestine prostitution, young girls of fourteen procured for high personages. Clotilde added:

“Yes, it gives him a great deal of work. For a fortnight past all his evenings have been taken up with it.”

He looked at her, knowing from Trublot that uncle Bachelard had invited Duveyrier to dinner that day, and that afterwards they were to finish the evening at Clarisse’s. But she was very serious, she still talked gravely of her husband, relating with her highly respectable air some most extraordinary stories, in which she explained how it was he was so seldom seen beneath the conjugal roof.

“No doubt! for he too has the cure of souls,” murmured he, embarrassed by her clear glance.

She seemed to him very beautiful, all alone in that room. Her red hair gave a certain paleness to her rather long face, which had the obstinate immobility of a woman absorbed in her duty; and, dressed in grey silk, her waist and shoulders tightly encompassed in a bodice plentifully supplied with whalebones, she treated him with an amiability devoid of all warmth, as though separated from him by a triple coat of mail.

“Well! sir, shall we begin?” resumed she. “You will excuse my importunity, will you not? And open your lungs, display all your powers, as Monsieur Duveyrier is not here. You perhaps heard him boast that he did not like music.”

She put such contempt into the words, that he thought it right to risk a faint laugh. Moreover, it was the sole bitter feeling which at times escaped her before other people with respect to her husband, when exasperated by his jokes on her piano, she who was strong enough to hide the hatred and the physical repulsion with which he inspired her.

“How can one help liking music?” remarked Octave with an air of ecstasy, so as to make himself agreeable.

Then, she seated herself on the music-stool. A collection of old tunes was open on the piano. She had already selected an air out of “Zémire and Azor,” by Grétry. As the young man could only just manage to read his notes, she made him go through it first in a low voice. Then, she played the prelude, and he sang the first verse.

“Perfect!” cried she with delight, “a tenor, there is not the least doubt of it, a tenor! Pray continue, sir.”

Octave, feeling highly flattered, gave out the two other verses. She was beaming. For three years past she had been seeking for one! And she told him of all her vexations, Monsieur Trublot for instance; for, it was a fact, the causes of which were worth studying, that there were no longer any tenors among the young men of society: no doubt it was owing to tobacco.

“Be careful, now!” resumed she, “we must put some expression into it. Begin it boldly.”

Her cold face assumed a languid expression, her eyes turned towards him with an expiring air. Thinking that she was warming, he became more animated also, and considered her charming. Not a sound came from the adjoining rooms, the vague shadow of the grand apartment seemed to envelop them in a drowsy voluptuousness; and, bending behind her, touching her chignon with his chest, the better to see the music, he sighed out in a quaver the two lines:

“
And I am myself

More trembling than you.”

But, the melodious phrase ended, she let her impassioned expression fall like a mask. Her frigidity was beneath it. He drew back, feeling anxious, and not caring for another adventure like that with Madame Hédouin.

“You will get along very well,” said she. “Only, accentuate the time more. See, like this.”

And she herself sang, repeating quite twenty times: “More trembling than you,” bringing out the notes with the rigour of a sinless woman, whose passion for music was not more than skin deep in her mechanism. Her voice rose little by little, filling the room with shrill cries, when they both suddenly heard some one exclaiming loudly behind their backs:

“Madame! madame!”

She started, and, recognising her maid Clémence, exclaimed:

“Eh? what?”

“Madame, your father has fallen with his face in his papers, and he doesn’t move. We are so frightened.”

Then, without exactly understanding, and greatly surprised, she quitted the piano and followed Clémence. Octave, who was uncertain whether to accompany her, remained walking about the drawing-room. However, after a few minutes of hesitation and embarrassment, as he heard people rushing about and calling out distractedly, he made up his mind, and, crossing a room that was in darkness, he found himself in Monsieur Vabre’s bedchamber. All the servants had hastened to the spot — Julie with her kitchen apron on, Clémence and Hippolyte, their minds still full of a game at dominos they had just left; and, standing up with bewildered looks, they surrounded the old man, whilst Clotilde, leaning close to his ear, called to him, and implored him to say a word, just one word. But still he did not move, his nose remained buried in his tickets. His forehead had struck the ink-stand. A splash of ink covered his left eye, and trickled slowly down to his lips.

“He is in a fit,” said Octave. “He must not be left there. We must get him on to his bed.”

But Madame Duveyrier was losing her head. Emotion was little by little seizing upon her cold nature. She kept repeating:

“Do you think so, do you think so? O good heavens! O my poor father!”

Hippolyte, a prey to an uneasy feeling, to a visible repugnance to touch the old man, who might go off in his arms, did not hurry himself. Octave had to call to him to help. Between them they laid him on the bed.

“Bring some warm water!” resumed the young man, addressing Julie. “Wipe his face.”

Now Clotilde became angry with her husband. Ought he to have been away? What would become of her if anything happened? It was just as though it were done on purpose; he was never at home when he was wanted; and, gracious goodness! that was not often! Octave interrupted her to advise her to send for Doctor Juillerat. No one had thought of it. Hippolyte started off at once, delighted at the chance of getting away.

“To leave me alone like this!” continued Clotilde. “I don’t know, but there must be all sorts of affairs to settle. O my poor father!”

“Would you like me to inform the other members of the family?” asked Octave.
“
I can fetch your brothers. It would be prudent.”

She did not answer. Two big tears swelled her eyes, whilst Julie and Clémence tried to undress the old man. Then she stopped Octave; her brother Auguste was out, having an appointment that evening; and as for Théophile, he would do well not to come, for the mere sight of him would be their father’s death-blow. Then she related that the latter had called on his children for some overdue rent; but they had received him most brutally, especially Valérie, who refused to pay, and demanded the sum he promised at the time of their marriage; and that scene was no doubt the cause of the fit, for he had come back in a most pitiable state.

“Madame,” observed Clémence, “one side of him is already quite cold.”

This increased Madame Duveyrier’s anger. She no longer spoke, for fear of saying too much before the servants. Her husband did not apparently care a button for their interests! Had she only been acquainted with the law! And she could not remain still, she kept walking up and down before the bed. Octave, whose attention was diverted by the sight of the tickets, looked at the formidable apparatus which covered the table; it was a big oak box, filled with a series of cardboard tickets, scrupulously sorted, the stupid work of a lifetime. Just as he was reading on one of these tickets: “‘Isidore Charbotel;’ Exhibition of 1857, ‘Atalanta;’ Exhibition of 1859, ‘The Lion of Androcles;’ Exhibition of 1861, ‘Portrait of Monsieur P — ,’” Clotilde went and stood before him and said, resolutely, in a low voice:

“Go and fetch him.”

And, as he evinced his surprise, she seemed, with a shrug of her shoulders, to cast off the story about the report of the affair of the Rue de Provence, one of those eternal pretexts, which she invented for her acquaintances. She let out everything in her emotion.

“You know, Rue de la Cerisaie. All our friends know it.”

He wished to protest.

“I assure you, madame — “

“Do not stand up for him!” resumed she. “I am only too pleased; he can stay there. Ah! good heavens! if it were not for my poor father!”

Octave bowed. Julie was wiping Monsieur Vabre’s eye with the corner of a towel; but the ink had dried, and the smudge remained in the skin, which was marked with livid streaks. Madame Duveyrier told her not to rub so hard;
then she returned to the young man, who was already at the door.

“Not a word to any one,” murmured she. “It is needless to upset the house. Take a cab, call there, and bring him back in spite of everything.”

When he had gone, she sank on to a chair beside the patient’s pillow. He had not recovered consciousness; his breathing alone, a deep and painful breathing, troubled the mournful silence of the chamber. Then, the doctor not arriving, finding herself alone with the two servants, who stood by with frightened looks, she burst out into a terrible fit of sobbing, in a paroxysm of deep grief.

It was at the Café Anglais that uncle Bachelard had invited Duveyrier to dine, without any one knowing why, perhaps for the pleasure of treating a counsellor, and of showing him that tradespeople knew how to spend their money. He had also invited Trublot and Gueulin, four men and no women, for women do not know how to eat; they interfere with the truffles, and spoil digestion. The uncle, too, was known all along the Boulevards for his gorgeous dinners, whenever a customer called on him from the most remote parts of India or Brazil, dinners at three hundred francs a head, by which he nobly upheld the honour of French commission agents. He was seized with a mania for spending money; he demanded the most extravagant articles, gastronomic curiosities, often uneatable, sterlets from the Volga, eels from the Tiber, grouse from Scotland, bustards from Sweden, bears’ feet from the Black Forest, bison humps from America, turnips from Teltow, gourds from Greece; and he also ordered things most out of season, such as peaches in December and partridges in July, besides an abundance of flowers, of silver plate, and of crystal glass, and an attendance which quite upset the restaurant, without mentioning the wines, for which he had the cellar turned topsy-turvy, requiring unknown vintages, considering nothing old enough or rare enough, dreaming of unique bottles at two louis the glass.

That evening, as it was summer-time — a season when everything is in abundance — he had not found it so easy to run up the bill. The fare, decided upon the day before, was, however, remarkable — asparagus cream soup, then some little
timbales à la Pompadour;
two
relevés,
a trout in the Genevese style and a fillet of beef
à la Chateaubriand;
two
entrées,
ortolans
à la Lucullus
and a crayfish salad; and, finally, a haunch of venison in the way of roast, and artichoke hearts
à la jardinière
for vegetable, followed by a chocolate
soufflé
and some fruit. It was simple and grand, and swelled, moreover, by a truly royal selection of wines — old Madeira with the soup, Château-Filhot ‘58 with the side-dishes, Johannisberger and Pichon-Longueville with the
relevés,
Château-Lafite ‘48 with the
entrées,
Sparkling Moselle with the roast, and iced Rœderer with the dessert. He deeply regretted a bottle of Johannisberger a hundred and five years old, which had been sold to a Turk for ten louis three days before.

“Drink away, drink away, sir,” he kept saying to Duveyrier; “when wines are good, they never intoxicate. It’s the same with food; it never does one harm so long as it’s delicate.”

He, however, was careful. On this occasion he was posing for the gentleman, shaved and brushed up, and with a rose in his buttonhole, restraining himself from breaking the crockery, which he was in the habit of doing. Trublot and Gueulin eat of everything. The uncle’s theory seemed the right one, for Duveyrier, who suffered a great deal from his stomach, had drank considerably, and had returned to the crayfish salad, without feeling the least indisposed, the red blotches on his face merely assuming a purple hue.

At nine o’clock, the dinner was still in full swing. The breeze from an open window fanned the flames of the candles as they lit up the silver plate and the glass; and, in the midst of the confusion of the table, four superb baskets of flowers were fading. Besides the two butlers, each guest had a waiter behind his chair, specially charged with supplying him with bread and wine, and changing his plates. It was close in spite of the breeze from the Boulevard. A feeling of repletion was taking possession of all, in the spicy fumes of the dishes and the vanilla-like bouquet of the grand wines.

Then, when the coffee had been served, with some liqueurs and cigars, and all the attendants had withdrawn, uncle Bachelard suddenly leant back in his chair and heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

“Ah!” declared he, “one is comfortable.”

Trublot and Gueulin, also leaning back in their chairs, opened their arms.

“Completely!” said the one.

“Up to the eyes!” added the other.