Complete Works of Emile Zola (666 page)

“It will sustain us,” said she.

And, when he kissed her on the mouth in the anteroom, she closed her eyes. Their sugary lips seemed to be melting like sweetmeats.

It was close upon eleven o’clock. The coffin had not been brought down for exhibition, as the undertaker’s men, after wasting their time at a neighbouring wine-shop, had not finished putting up the hangings. Octave went to have a look out of curiosity. The porch was already closed in at the back by a large black curtain, but the men had still to fix the hangings over the door. And outside on the pavement, a group of maid-servants were gossiping with their noses in the air; whilst Hippolyte, dressed in deep mourning, hastened on the work with a dignified air.

“Yes, madame,” Lisa was saying to a dried-up woman, a widow, who had been with Valérie for a week, “it will have benefitted her nothing. The story’s well known in the neighbourhood. To make sure of her share of what the old fellow left behind him, she went and had a child by a butcher of the Rue Sainte-Anne, because her husband looked as though he were going to die right off. But the husband’s still jogging along, and it’s the old chap who’s gone. A fat lot of good she’s done herself with her dirty brat!”

The widow, highly disgusted, nodded her head.

“It serves her right!” rejoiced she. “She’s had all her piggishness for nothing. I sha’n’t stay with her, you may take my word. I gave her a week’s notice this morning. Her little monster Camille went messing all over my kitchen!”

But Lisa ran to question Julie, who came down to give Hippolyte some instructions. Then, after a few minutes’ conversation, she returned to Valérie’s servant

“It’s an affair no one can understand. I think your mistress might have spared herself the trouble of getting her child and have let her husband die all the same, for it seems they’re still searching after the old fellow’s fortune. The cook says they’re making such funny faces up there, the faces of people who’ll be fighting together before the day’s over.”

Adèle now arrived, with four sous’ worth of butter under her apron, Madame Josserand having requested her never to show anything that she was sent to fetch. Lisa insisted on seeing, and then abused her and called her a fool. Whoever heard of anyone going out for four sous’ worth of butter! Ah, well! she would have made those skinflints feed her better, or else she would have fed herself before them; yes, with the butter, the sugar, the meat, everything. For some time past the other servants had been thus inciting Adèle to rebel. She was becoming perverted. She took up a small piece of the butter and eat it at once without any bread, just to show the others how brave she was.

“Shall we go up now!” asked she.

“Not I,” said the widow, “I want to see him brought down. I’ve been keeping an errand back on purpose for it.”

“And I also,” added Lisa. “I’ve heard he weighs twelve stone. If they drop him on their beautiful staircase, won’t it just knock it about!”

“Well, I’m going up, I’d rather not see him,” resumed Adèle. “I don’t want to dream again like I did last night, that he’s pulling my feet and abusing me because of the mess I make.”

And she went off, followed by the jokes of the other two. All night long, on the servants’ floor, they had been amused by Adèle’s nightmares. Moreover, so as not to be alone, the servants had left their doors open; and, a funny coachman having played at being a ghost, little cries and smothered laughter had been heard along the passage up till daylight. Lisa said in an affected way that she was not likely to forget it. It was a fine bit of fun, all the same!

But Hippolyte’s angry voice brought their attention back to the hangings. He was shouting out, forgetful of his dignified air:

“You damned drunkard! you’re putting it on upside down!”

It was true, the workman was hooking on the escutcheon bearing the deceased’s monogram wrong side up. The black hangings edged with silver lace were now fixed; there remained nothing but a few curtain-rests to put up, when a truck filled with some poor person’s furniture appeared at the door. A youngster was drawing it along, whilst a tall, pale girl followed, pushing behind. Monsieur Gourd, who was talking with his friend, the stationer opposite, rushed up to them and, in spite of the solemnity of his mourning, exclaimed:

“Well? well! what’s he up to? Can’t you see, you fool?
”

The tall girl interposed.

“I am the new lodger, sir, you know. This is my furniture.”

“Impossible! tomorrow!” shouted the doorkeeper in a rage.

She looked at him, and then at the funeral hangings, in a stupefied sort of a way. This door walled up with black evidently bewildered her. But she recovered herself, and explained that she could not leave her furniture out in the street. Then Monsieur Gourd treated her roughly.

“You’re the boot-stitcher, aren’t you? You’ve taken the small room upstairs. Another piece of the landlord’s obstinacy! All this for the sake of a hundred and thirty francs, and in spite of the bother we had with the carpenter! Yet he promised me he would never let to work-people any more. Ah! bosh, now it’s going to begin again, and with a woman this time!”

Then he recollected that Monsieur Vabre was dead.

“Yes, you may look; it just happens that it’s the landlord who’s dead, and if he’d gone off a week ago you’d not be here, that’s very certain! Come, look sharp; get it over before they bring him down!”

And, in his exasperation, he himself gave a shove to the truck, pushing it through the hangings, which opened and then slowly closed again. The tall, pale girl disappeared behind the black mass.

“She comes at a nice time!” observed Lisa. “How lively it is to move into a lodging in the middle of a funeral! Had I been in her place, I’d have given the doorkeeper a bit of my mind!”

But she held her tongue when Monsieur Gourd, who was the terror of the servants, reappeared. His ill-temper arose from the fact of its being rumoured that the house was going to fall to Monsieur Théophile and his wife as their share of the inheritance. He would have given a hundred francs out of his own pocket to have had Monsieur Duveyrier for landlord — a man who belonged to the magistracy. It was this that he was explaining to the stationer. However, some of the people now began to come out. Madame Juzeur passed and smiled at Octave, who had found Trublot waiting on the pavement. Then Marie appeared, and she, deeply interested, stood watching the men arrange the trestles for the coffin.

“The people on the second floor are extraordinary,” said Monsieur Gourd, raising his eyes to the closed shutters of that storey. “One could almost fancy that they made their arrangements to avoid acting like every one else. Yes, they went away on a journey three days ago.”

At this moment Lisa hid herself behind the widow, as she caught sight of cousin Gasparine, who was bringing a wreath of violets, a delicate attention on the part of the architect, desirous of keeping on good terms with the Duveyriers.

“By Jove!” declared the stationer, “she makes herself smart, does the other Madame Campardon!”

He innocently called her thus by the name all the tradespeople of the neighbourhood gave to her. Lisa suppressed a laugh. But there was a great disappointment. The servants suddenly learnt that the coffin had been brought down. It was really too stupid for them to have remained in the street looking at the black cloth!

They hastened indoors; and the coffin, borne by four men, was indeed just coming out of the vestibule. The hangings darkened the porch; one could catch a glimpse of the white light of the courtyard beyond, which had been well washed that morning. Little Louise, who had followed Madame Juzeur, was there alone, standing on tiptoe, her eyes wide open and her face pale with curiosity. The men who had carried down the coffin were puffing and blowing at the foot of the stairs, the gildings and imitation marble of which looked coldly solemn beneath the faint light from the ground glass windows.

“He’s gone off without his last quarter’s rent!” murmured Lisa, with the waggish hatred of a Paris girl for landlords.

Then Madame Gourd, who had remained in her armchair on account of her poor legs, rose painfully on her feet. As she was quite unable to get even as far as the church, Monsieur Gourd had told her to be sure and salute the landlord’s corpse when it passed their room. It was a matter of duty. She went to the door with a mourning cap on her head, and curtsied as the coffin went by.

At Saint-Roch, Doctor Juillerat made a show of not going inside during the ceremony. There was, moreover, a tremendous crowd, and quite a group of men preferred to remain on the steps. The weather was very mild, a superb June day. And, as they were unable to smoke, their conversation turned upon politics. The principal door was left open, and at moments the sound of the organs issued from the church, which was draped in black and filled with lighted tapers, looking like so many stars.

“You know that Monsieur Thiers will stand for our district next year,” announced Léon Josserand in his grave way.

“Ah!” said the doctor. “Of course you will not vote for him — you who are a Republican?”

The young man, whose opinions cooled down the more Madame Dambreville introduced him into good society, curtly answered:

“Why not?
He is the declared adversary of the Empire.”

Then a heated discussion ensued. Léon talked of tactics, whilst Doctor Juillerat stuck to principles. According to the latter, the middle classes had had their day; they were an obstacle in the road of the Revolution; now that they had acquired property, they barred the future with greater obstinacy and blindness than the old nobility.

“You are afraid of everything; you go in for the very worst reaction the moment you fancy yourselves threatened!”

At this Campardon flew into a passion.

“I, sir, have been a Jacobin and an atheist like you. But, thank heaven! reason came to me. No, I will not even stoop to your Monsieur Thiers. A blunderhead — a man who amuses himself with chimeras!”

However, all the Liberals present — Monsieur Josserand, Octave, Trublot even, who did not care a straw, declared that they would vote for Monsieur Thiers. The official candidate was a great chocolate manufacturer of the Rue Saint-Honoré, Monsieur Dewinck, whom they chaffed immensely. This Monsieur Dewinck had not even the support of the clergy, who were uneasy at his relations with the Tuileries. Campardon, decidedly gone over to the priests, greeted his name with reserve.Then, suddenly changing the subject, he exclaimed:

“Look here! the bullet which wounded your Garibaldi in the foot ought to have pierced his heart!”

And, so as not to be seen any longer in the company of these gentlemen, he entered the church, where the Abbé Mauduit’s shrill voice was responding to the lamentations of the chanters.

“He sleeps there now,” murmured the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. “Ah! what a clean sweep ought to be made of it all!”

The Roman question interested him immensely. Then, as Léon reminded them of the words of the Cabinet Minister to the Senate that the Empire had sprung from the Revolution, only in order to keep it within bounds, they returned to the coming elections. All were agreed upon the necessity of giving the Emperor a lesson; but they were beginning to be troubled with anxiety, they were already divided respecting the candidates, whose names gave rise to visions of the red spectre at night-time. Close to them, Monsieur Gourd, dressed as correctly as a diplomatist, listened with supreme contempt to what they were saying; he was for the powers that be, pure and simple.

The service was drawing to a close, a long melancholy wail which issued from the depths of the church, silenced them.

“
Requiescat in pace!”

“
Amen!”

Whilst the body was being lowered into the grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetery, Trublot, who had not let go of Octave’s arm, saw him exchange another smile with Madame Juzeur.

“Ah! yes,” murmured he, “the very unhappy little woman. Anything you like except that!”

Octave started. What! Trublot also! The latter made a gesture of disdain: no, not he, one of his friends. And, moreover, everybody who cared for that kind of thing.

“Excuse me,” added he. “As the old fellow’s now stowed away, I will go and render Duveyrier an account of something which I undertook to see after for him.”

The relations were retiring, silent and doleful. Then, Trublot detained the counsellor behind the others, to tell him that he had seen Clarisse’s maid; but he did not know the new address, the maid having left Clarisse the day before she moved out, after a battle royal. It was the last hope which had flown. Duveyrier buried his face in his handkerchief and rejoined the other relations.

That very evening, quarrels commenced. The family found itself in the presence of a disaster. Monsieur Vabre, with that sceptical carelessness which notaries occasionally display, had not left any will. All the furniture was ransacked in vain, and the worst was that there was not a rap of the expected six or seven hundred thousand francs, neither money, title-deeds nor shares; they discovered merely seven hundred and thirty-four francs in ten sou pieces, the hoard of a silly paralytic old man. And undeniable traces, a note-book covered with figures, letters from stockbrokers, opened the eyes of the next-of-kin, pale with passion, to the old fellow’s secret vice, an ungovernable passion for gambling, an unskilful and desperate craving for stock-jobbing, which he hid behind the innocent mania for his great statistical work. All had been engulfed, the money he had saved at Versailles, the rents of his house, even the sous he had sneaked from his children; and during the latter years, he had gone to the point of mortgaging the house for one hundred and fifty thousand francs, at three different periods. The family stood thunder-stricken before the famous safe, in which it thought the fortune was locked up, but which simply contained a host of singular things, broken scraps picked up in the various rooms, pieces of old iron, fragments of glass, ends of ribbon, jumbled amidst wrecked toys stolen from young Gustave in bygone days.

Then, the most violent recriminations were indulged in. They called the old fellow a swindler. It was disgraceful, to fritter away his money thus, like a sly person who does not care a straw for anyone and who acts an infamous comedy in order to get people to continue to coddle him. The Duveyriers were inconsolable at having boarded him for twelve years, without once asking him for the eighty thousand francs of Clotilde’s dowry, of which they had only had ten thousand francs. It was always ten thousand francs, rejoined Théophile, who had not had a sou of the fifty thousand promised him at the time of his marriage. But Auguste, in his turn, complained more bitterly still, reproaching his brother with having at least secured the interest of the money during three months; whilst he would never have a shadow of the fifty thousand francs, inserted in his contract. And Berthe, incited by her mother, said some very unpleasant things with an indignant air at having entered a dishonest family. And Valérie, bemoaning the rent she had so long been stupid enough to pay the old chap, for fear of being disinherited, could not stomach it, regretting the money as though it had been used for an immoral purpose, employed in supporting debauchery.