Complete Works of Emile Zola (665 page)

“Be quick; you have no time to lose.”

The priest hastened to take his departure. He announced that he would bring the sacrament and the extreme unction, so as to be prepared for every emergency. And Théophile, in his obstinacy, murmured:

“Ah, well! so dying people are now made to receive the communion in spite of themselves!”

But they all at once experienced a great emotion. On regaining her place, Clotilde had found the dying man with his eyes wide open. She could not repress a faint cry; the others hastened to the bedside; and the old fellow’s glance slowly wandered round the circle, without the least movement of his head. Doctor Juillerat, with an air of surprise, came and bent over his patient, to follow this last crisis.

“Father, it is us; do you know us?” asked Clotilde.

Monsieur Vabre looked at her fixedly; then his lips moved, but not a sound came from them. They were all pushing one another, wishing to secure his last word. Valérie, who found herself right at the rear, and obliged therefore to stand on tiptoe, said harshly:

“You are stifling him. Do move away from him. If he desired anything, no one would be able to know.”

The others had to draw on one side. And Monsieur Vabre’s eyes were indeed looking round the room.

“He wants something, that is certain,” murmured Berthe.

“Here’s Gustave,” said Clotilde. “You see him, do you not? He has come expressly from school to embrace you. Kiss your grandfather, my child.”

As the youngster drew back frightened, she kept him there with her arm, whilst, she awaited a smile on the dying man’s distorted features. But Auguste, who had been watching his eyes, declared that he was looking at the table; no doubt he wished to write. This caused quite a shock. All tried to be first. They brought the table to the bedside, and fetched some paper, an inkstand, and a pen. Then they raised him, propping him up with three pillows. The doctor gave his consent to all this with a simple blink of the eyes.

“Give him the pen,” said Clotilde, quivering, and without leaving go of Gustave, whom she continued to hold towards him.

Then came a solemn moment. The relations, pressed round the bed, awaited anxiously. Monsieur Vabre, who did not appear to recognise any one, had let the penholder drop from his fingers. For a moment his eyes wandered over the table, on which was the oak box full of tickets. Then, slipping from off his pillows, and falling forward like a piece of rag, he stretched out his arm in a final effort, and, plunging his hand amongst the tickets, he dabbled about, in the happy manner of a baby playing with something dirty. He brightened up, and wished to speak, but he could only lisp one syllable, ever the same, one of those syllables into which brats in swaddling-clothes put a whole host of sensations.

“Ga — ga — ga — ga — “

It was to the work of his life, to his great statistical study, that he was bidding good-bye. Suddenly his head rolled over. He was dead.

“I expected as much,” murmured the doctor, who, seeing how scared the relations were, carefully laid him out, and closed his eyes.

Was it possible? Auguste had removed the table, they all remained chilled and dumb. Soon their sobs burst forth. Well! as there was nothing more to hope for, they would manage all the same to share the fortune. And Clotilde, after hastening to send Gustave away, to spare him the frightful spectacle, gave free vent to her tears, her head leaning against Berthe, who was sobbing the same as Valérie. Standing at the window, Théophile and Auguste were roughly rubbing their eyes. But Duveyrier especially exhibited a most extraordinary amount of grief, stifling heart-rending sobs in his handkerchief. No, really, he could not live without Clarisse, he would rather die at once, like the other one there; and the loss of his mistress, coming in the midst of all this mourning, caused him immense bitterness.

“Madame,” announced Clémence, “here are the sacraments.”

Abbé Mauduit appeared on the threshold. Behind his shoulder, one caught a glimpse of the face full of curiosity of a boy chorister. On beholding the display of grief, the priest questioned the doctor with a glance, whilst the latter extended his arms, as though to say it was not his fault. So, after mumbling a few prayers, Abbé Mauduit withdrew with an air of embarrassment, taking his paraphernalia along with him.

“It is a bad sign,” said Clémence to the other servants, standing in a group at the door of the anteroom. “The sacraments are not to be brought for nothing. You will see they will be back in the house before another year goes by.”

Monsieur Vabre’s funeral did not take place till the day after the morrow. Duveyrier, all the same, had inserted in the circulars announcing his demise, the words, “provided with the sacraments of the Church.”

As the warehouse did not open on that day, Octave was free. This holiday delighted him, as, for a long time past, he had wished to put his room straight, alter the position of some of the furniture, and arrange his few books in a little bookcase he had bought second-hand. He had risen earlier than usual, and was just finishing what he was about towards eight o’clock on the morning of the funeral, when Marie knocked at the door. She had brought him back a heap of books.

“As you do not come for them,” said she, “I am obliged to take the trouble to return them to you.”

But she blushingly refused to enter, shocked at the idea of being in a young man’s room. Their intimate relations had, moreover, completely ceased, in quite a natural manner, because he had not returned to her. And she remained quite as affectionate with him, always greeting him with a smile whenever they met.

Octave was very merry that morning. He wished to tease her.

“So it is Jules who won’t let you come into my room?
”
he kept saying. “How do you get on with Jules now?
Is he amiable?
Yes, you know what I mean. Answer now!”

She laughed, and was not at all scandalized.

“Why, of course!
whenever you take him out, you treat him to vermouth, and tell him things which send him home like a madman. Oh! he is too amiable. You know, I don’t ask for so much. Still, I prefer it should take place at home than elsewhere, that’s very certain.”

She became serious again, and added:

“Here, I have brought you back your Balzac, I was not able to finish it. It’s too sad. That gentleman has nothing but disagreeable things to tell one!”

And she asked him for stories with a great deal of love in them, and travels and adventures in foreign lands. Then she talked of the funeral, she would attend the service in the church, and Jules was going to follow the corpse to the cemetery. She had never been afraid of dead people; when twelve years old, she had remained a whole night beside an uncle and an aunt who had been carried off by the same fever. Jules, on the contrary, hated talking of death to such a point that he had forbidden her since the day before to speak of the landlord stretched out on his back downstairs; but she could find nothing to say about anything else, nor he either, so that they did not exchange ten words an hour, but sat thinking of the poor gentleman all the while. It was becoming wearisome, she would be glad when he was taken away, for Jules’s sake. And, happy at being able to discuss the subject to her heart’s content, she satisfied her inclination, harassing the young man with questions: had he seen him?
was he very much altered?
was she to believe what was related about an abominable accident which occurred whilst he was being put in his coffin? as for the relations, were they not pulling the mattresses to pieces, so as to search everything? So many idle stories circulated in a house like theirs, where there was such a number of servants! Death was death: everyone was interested in it

“You’re giving me another Balzac,” resumed she, looking at the books he was again lending her. “No, take it back, it is too realistic.”

As she held the volume out to him, he caught hold of her by the wrist, and tried to draw her into the room. She amused him with all her curiosity about death; he thought her comic and more lively, and on a sudden she became an object to be desired. But she comprehended, and turned very red, then, disengaging herself, she hastened away, saying:

“Thank you, Monsieur Mouret, I shall see you by-and-by at the funeral.”

When Octave was dressed, he remembered his promise to go and see Madame Campardon. He had two good hours to while away, the funeral being timed for eleven o’clock, and he thought of utilizing his morning in making a few calls in the house. Rose received him in bed; he apologized, fearing that he disturbed her; but she herself called him in. They saw so little of him, and she was so delighted at having some one to talk to.

“Ah! my dear child,” declared she at once, “it is I who ought to be below, nailed up between four planks!”

Yes, the landlord was very lucky, he had finished with existence. And Octave, surprised at finding her a prey to such melancholy, asked her if she felt worse.

“No, thank you. It is always the same. Only there are times when I have had enough of it. Achille has been obliged to have a bed put up in his workroom, because it annoyed me whenever he moved in the night. And you know that Gasparine has yielded to our entreaties, and has left the drapery establishment. I am very grateful to her, she nurses me so tenderly! Ah! I could no longer live were it not for all these kind affections around me!”

Just then, Gasparine, with her submissive air of a poor relation, fallen to the rank of a servant, brought her a cup of coffee and some bread and butter. She helped her to raise herself, propping her up against some cushions, and served her on a little tray covered with a napkin. And Rose, dressed in a little loose embroidered jacket, ate with a hearty appetite, amidst the linen, edged with lace. She was quite fresh, looking younger than ever, and very pretty, with her white skin, and short fair curly hair.

“Oh! the stomach is all right, it is not the stomach that is ailing,” she kept saying, as she soaked her slices of bread and butter.

Two tears dropped into her coffee. Then Gasparine scolded her.

“If you cry, I shall call Achille. Are you not pleased? are you not sitting there like a queen?”

When Madame Campardon had finished, and she again found herself alone with Octave, she was quite consoled. Out of coquetry, she again returned to the subject of death, but with the gentle gaiety of a woman idling away the morning between her warm sheets. Well! she would go off all the same, when her turn came; only, they were right, she was not unhappy, she could let herself live;
for, in point of fact, they spared her all the main cares of life.

Then, as the young man rose to leave, she added:

“Now do try and come oftener? Amuse yourself well, don’t let the funeral make you too sad. One dies a trifle every day, the thing is to get used to it.”

It was the little maid Louise who opened the door to Octave at Madame Juzeur’s, on the same landing. She ushered him into the drawing-room, looked at him a moment as she laughed in her bewildered sort of way, and then ended by stating that her mistress was just finishing dressing. Madame Juzeur appeared almost at once, dressed in black, and looking gentler and more refined than ever in her mourning.

“I felt sure you would call this morning,” sighed she with a weary air. “All night long I have been dreaming and seeing you. It is impossible to sleep, you understand, with that corpse in the house!”

And she admitted that she had got up three times in the night to look under the furniture.

“But you should have called me!” said the young man gallantly. “Two in a bed are never frightened.”

She assumed a charming air of shame.

“Hold your tongue, it’s naughty!”

And she held her open hand over his lips. He was naturally obliged to kiss it. Then, she spread the fingers out, laughing the while as though being tickled. But he, excited by this play, sought to push matters farther. He had caught hold of her, and was pressing her against his breast, without her making the least attempt to free herself; then, in a very low voice, he whispered in her ear:

“Come now, why won’t you?”

“Oh! in any case, not today!”

“Why not today?”

“What! with that corpse below. No, no, it’s impossible.”

He was holding her tighter, and she was abandoning herself. Their warm breaths were heating one another’s faces.

“Then, when? tomorrow?”

“Never.”

“But you are free, your husband behaved so badly, that you owe nothing to him.”

And he was forcibly seizing her. But she, very supple, glided from him. Then taking him in her arms, and holding him so that he could not move, she murmured in her caressing voice:

“Anything you like except that! You understand me, never that, never, never! I would sooner die. It’s an idea of mine, that’s all? I have taken an oath, however there is no necessity for you to know. You are then like other men, who are never satisfied, so long as anything is refused them. Yet, I love you a great deal. Anything you like, except that, my love!”

In her determination, there was a sort of Jesuitical reserve, a fear of the confessional, a certainty of having her minor sins forgiven, whilst the great one would cause her no end of unpleasantness with her spiritual director. Then, there were other unavowed sentiments, her honour and self-esteem blended together, the coquetry of always having the advantage of men by never satisfying them, and a shrewd personal enjoyment in being smothered with kisses, without any after consequences. She liked this better, and she stuck to it, not a man could flatter himself of having succeeded with her, since her husband’s cowardly desertion. And she was a respectable woman!

“No, sir, not one! Ah! I can hold up my head, I can! What a number of wretched women, in my position, would have misconducted themselves!”

She pushed him gently aside and rose from the sofa.

“Leave me. It worries me so much, does that corpse downstairs. It seems to me that the whole house smells of it.”

Meanwhile, the time for the funeral was approaching. She wished to be at the church beforehand, so as not to see all the funeral trappings. But, while escorting him to the door, she recollected having mentioned her liqueur; she therefore made him come in again, and fetched the bottle and a couple of glasses herself. It was a very sweet cream, with a perfume of flowers. When she had drank of it, a greediness like that of a little girl gave an air of languid delight to her face. She could have lived on sugar; vanilla and rose-scented sweeties had the same effect on her as an amorous caress.