Complete Works of Emile Zola (667 page)

For fully a fortnight, all these stories formed an exciting topic of conversation to the occupants of the house. The long and short of it was that there remained nothing but the building, estimated to be worth three hundred thousand francs; when the mortgage had been paid off, there would be about half that sum to divide between Monsieur Vabre’s three children. It was fifty thousand francs for each; a meagre consolation, but they would have to make the most of it. Théophile and Auguste had already decided what they would do with their shares. It was settled that the building should be sold. Duveyrier undertook all the arrangements in his wife’s name. To begin with, he persuaded the two brothers not to have the sale by auction before the court; if they were all agreed, it could take place at his notary’s, Maître Renaudin, a man whom he could answer for. Then, he gave them the idea, on the notary’s advice, he said, of putting up the house at a low figure, at a hundred and forty thousand francs merely: it was very cunning, people would flock to the sale, the bids would mount up, and they would realise even more than they expected. Théophile and Auguste laughed confidently. Then, on the day of the sale, after five or six bids, Maître Renaudin abruptly knocked the house down to Duveyrier, for the sum of one hundred and forty-nine thousand francs. There was not even sufficient to pay the mortgage.It was the final blow.

One never knew the particulars of the terrible scene which was enacted that same evening at the Duveyriers’. The solemn walls of the house stifled the sounds. Théophile most probably called his brother-in-law a scoundrel: he publicly accused him of having bought over the notary, by promising to get him appointed a justice of the peace. As for Auguste, he simply talked of the assize-court, where he wished to drag Maître Renaudin, whose rogueries were the talk of the neighbourhood. But though one always ignored how it was that the relatives got to the point of knocking each other about, as rumour said they did, one heard the last words exchanged on the threshold, words which had an unpleasant ring in the respectable severity of the staircase.

“Dirty scoundrel!” shouted Auguste. “You sentence people to penal servitude who have not done nearly as much!”

Théophile, who came out last, held the door, whilst he almost choked with rage and coughing.

“Robber! robber! Yes, robber! And you too, Clotilde, do you hear?
robber!”

He swung the door to so roughly, that all the other doors on the staircase shook. Monsieur Gourd, who was listening, was quite alarmed. He darted a searching glance at the different floors; but he merely caught sight of Madame Juzeur’s sharp profile. Arching his back, he returned on tiptoe to his room, where he resumed his dignified demeanour. One could deny everything. He, delighted, considered the new landlord in the right.

A few days later, there was a reconciliation between Auguste and his sister. The whole house was amazed. Octave had been seen to go to the Duveyriers’. The counsellor, feeling anxious, had agreed not to charge any rent for the warehouse for five years, thus shutting one of the grumbler’s mouths. When Théophile learnt this, he went with his wife and had another row this time with his brother. So he had sold himself, he had gone over to the bandits! But Madame Josserand happened to be in the shop, and he was soon shut up. She plainly advised Valérie not to sell herself any more than her daughter had sold herself. And Valérie had to beat a retreat, exclaiming:

“Then, we’re the only ones who get nothing? May the devil take me if I pay my rent! I’ve a lease. The convict won’t dare to turn us out. And as for you, my little Berthe, we’ll see one day what it’ll cost to have you!”

The doors banged again. The two families were sworn enemies for life. Octave, who had rendered some services, was present, and entered into the private affairs of the family. Berthe almost fainted in his arms, whilst Auguste was ascertaining whether the customers had overheard anything. Even Madame Josserand confided in the young man. She, moreover, continued to judge the Duveyriers very severely.

“The rent is something,” said she. “But I want the fifty thousand francs.”

“Of course, if you paid yours,” Berthe ventured to observe.

The mother did not appear to understand.

“You hear me, I want them! No, no, he must be laughing too much in his grave, that old scoundrel Vabre, I will not let him boast of having taken me in. What rascals there are in the world! to promise money one does not possess! Oh! they will pay you, my daughter, or I will dig him up again and spit in his face!”

CHAPTER XII

One morning that Berthe happened to be at her mother’s, Adèle came and said with a scared look that Monsieur Saturnin was there with a man. Doctor Chassagne, the director of the Asile des Moulineaux, had already warned the parents several times that he would be unable to keep their son, for he did not consider him sufficiently mad. And, hearing of the signature which Berthe had obtained from her brother for the three thousand francs, dreading being compromised in the matter, he suddenly sent him home to his family.

It created quite a scare. Madame Josserand, who was afraid of being strangled, wished to argue with the man. But all she could get out of him was:

“The director told me to inform you that when one is sufficiently sensible to give money to one’s parents, one is sensible enough to live with them.”

“But he is mad, sir! he will murder us.”

“Anyhow, he is not too mad to sign his name!” answered the man going off.

However, Saturnin came home very quietly, with his hands in his pockets, just as though he had returned from a stroll in the Tuileries gardens. He did not even allude to where he had been staying. He embraced his father who was crying, and likewise heartily kissed his mother and his sister Hortense, whilst they both trembled tremendously. Then, when he caught sight of Berthe, he was indeed delighted, and caressed her with all the pretty ways of a little boy. She at once took advantage of his affected and confused condition to inform him of her marriage. He displayed no anger, not appearing at first to understand, as though he had forgotten his former fits of passion. But when she wished to return to her home downstairs, he began to howl: he did not mind whether she was married or not, so long as she remained where she was, always with him and close to him. Then, seeing her mother’s frightened looks as she ran and locked herself in another room, it occurred to Berthe to take Saturnin to live with her. They would be able to find him something to do in the basement of the warehouse, though it were only to tie up parcels.

That same evening, Auguste, in spite of his evident repugnance, acceded to Berthe’s desire. They had scarcely been married three months and a secret disunion was already cropping up between them, it was the collision of two different constitutions and educations, a surly, fastidious and passionless husband, and a lively woman who had been reared in the hothouse of false Parisian luxury, who played fast and loose with existence, so as to enjoy it all alone like a spoiled and selfish child. Therefore he could not understand her need of movement, her constant goings-out on visits, on errands and for walks, her gallop through the theatres, exhibitions, and other entertainments. Two and three times a week, Madame Josserand would call for her daughter, and keep her until dinner-time, delighted at going about in her company, and of thus taking advantage of her daughter’s handsome dresses which she no longer paid for.

The husband’s main revolts were on account of these too glaring costumes, the usefulness of which he was unable to see. Why dress oneself thus above one’s means and position in life?
What need was there to spend in such a manner the money which was so necessary for his business? He generally said that when one sold silks to other women, one should wear woollens oneself. But then Berthe put on her mother’s ferocious airs, asking him if he expected her to go about naked; and she discouraged him still more by the doubtful whiteness of her petticoats, by her disdain of all linen which is not displayed, having stock phrases with which to shut him up always ready in case he persisted in his complaints:

“I prefer to excite envy rather than pity. Money is money, and when I have only had twenty sous, I have always pretended I had forty.”

As a result of matrimony, Berthe was gradually acquiring her mother’s build. She was growing fatter, and resembled her more than she had ever done before. She was no longer the girl who did not seem to care about anything and who quietly submitted to the maternal cuffs; she had grown into a woman, who was rapidly becoming more obstinate every day, and who had formed the intention of making everything bow to her pleasure. Auguste looked at her at times, astounded at such a sudden change. At first, she had felt a vain joy in throning herself at the cashier’s desk, in a studied costume of elegant simplicity. Then, she had soon wearied of trade, suffering from constant want of exercise, threatening to fall ill, yet resigning herself to it all the same, but with the attitude of a victim who sacrifices her life to the prosperity of her home. And, from that moment, a struggle at every hour of the day had commenced between her and her husband. She shrugged her shoulders behind his back, the same as her mother did behind her father’s; she went again through all the family quarrels which had disturbed her youth, treating her husband as the gentleman who had simply got to pay, overwhelming him with that contempt for the male sex, which was, so to say, the basis of her education.

“Ah! mamma was right!” she would exclaim after each of their quarrels.

Yet, in the early days, Auguste had tried to please her. He liked peace, he longed for a quiet little home, he already had his whims like an old man, and had got thoroughly into the habits of his chaste and economical bachelor life. His old lodging on the “entresol
”
no longer sufficing, he had taken the suite of apartments on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard, and thought himself sufficiently insane in spending five thousand francs on furniture. Berthe, at first delighted with her room upholstered in thuja and blue silk, had shown the greatest contempt for it, after visiting a friend who had just married a banker. Then quarrels arose with respect to the servants. The young woman, used to the waiting of poor semi-idiotic girls, who had their bread even cut for them, insisted on their doing things which set them crying in their kitchens for afternoons together. Auguste, not particularly tender-hearted as a rule, having imprudently gone and consoled one, had to turn her out of the place an hour later on account of madame’s tears, and her request that he should choose between her and that creature. Afterwards, a wench had come who appeared to have made up her mind to stop. Her name was Rachel, and she was probably a Jewess, but she denied it, and let no one know whence she had sprung. She was about twenty-five years old, with harsh features, a large nose, and very black hair. At first, Berthe declared that she would not allow her to stop two days; then, in presence of her dumb obedience, her air of understanding and saying nothing, she had little by little allowed herself to be satisfied, as though she had yielded in her turn, and was keeping her for her good qualities, and also through an unavowed fear. Rachel, who submitted without a murmur to the hardest tasks, accompanied by dry bread, took possession of the establishment, with her eyes open and her mouth shut, like a servant of foresight biding the fatal and foreseen hour when her mistress would be able to refuse her nothing.

Meanwhile, from the ground floor of the house to the servants’ storey, a great calm had succeeded to the emotions caused by Monsieur Vabre’s sudden death. The staircase had again become as peaceful as a church;
not a breath issued from behind the mahogany doors, which were for ever closed upon the profound respectability of the various homes. There was a rumour that Duveyrier had become reconciled with his wife. As for Valérie and Théophile, they spoke to no one, but passed by stiff and dignified. Never before had the house exhaled a more strict severity of principles. Monsieur Gourd, in his cap and slippers, wandered about it with the air of a solemn beadle.

One evening, towards eleven o’clock, Auguste continued going to the door of the warehouse, stretching his head out, and glancing up and down the street. An impatience which had increased little by little was agitating him. Berthe, whom her mother and sister had fetched away during dinner, without even giving her time to finish her dessert, had not returned home after an absence of more than three hours, and in spite of her distinct promise to be back by closing time.

“Ah! good heavens! good heavens!” he ended by saying, clasping his hands together, and making his fingers crack.

And he stood still before Octave, who was ticketing some remnants of silk on a counter. At that late hour of the evening, no customer ever appeared in that out-of-the-way end of the Rue de Choiseul. The shop was merely kept open to put things straight.

“Surely you know where the ladies have gone?” inquired Auguste of the young man.

The latter raised his eyes with an innocent and surprised air.

“But, sir, they told you. To a lecture.”

“A lecture, a lecture,” grumbled the husband. “Their lecture was over at ten o’clock. Respectable women should be home at this hour!”

Then he resumed his walk, casting side glances at his assistant, whom he suspected of being an accomplice of the ladies, or at least of excusing them. Octave, also feeling anxious, slyly observed him. He had never before seen him so nervously excited. What was it all about? And, as he turned his head, he caught sight of Saturnin at the other end of the shop cleaning a looking-glass with a sponge dipped in spirit. Little by little, the family set the madman to do house-work, so that he might at least earn his food. But that evening Saturnin’s eyes sparkled strangely. He crept behind Octave, and said in a very low voice:

“Beware of him. He has found a paper. Yes, he has a paper in his pocket. Look out, if it’s anything of yours!”

And he quickly resumed rubbing his glass. Octave did not understand. For some time past the madman had been displaying a singular affection for him, like the caress of an animal yielding to an instinct. Why did he speak to him of a paper? He had written no letter to Berthe, as yet he only ventured to look at her with tender glances, watching for an opportunity of making her some trifling present. It was a tactic he had adopted after deep reflection.