Complete Works of Emile Zola (671 page)

For some time past, Monsieur Gourd had been prowling about with an uneasy and mysterious air. He was met gliding noiselessly along, his eyes open, his ears pricked up, continually ascending the two staircases, where lodgers had even encountered him going his rounds in the dead of night. The morality of the house was certainly worrying him; he felt a kind of breath of shameful things which troubled the cold nakedness of the courtyard, the calm peacefulness of the vestibule, the beautiful domestic virtues of the different storeys.

One evening, Octave had found the doorkeeper standing motionless and without a light at the end of his passage, close to the door which opened on to the servants’ staircase. Greatly surprised, he questioned him.

“I wish to ascertain something, Monsieur Mouret,” simply answered Monsieur Gourd, deciding to go off to bed.

The young man was very much frightened. Did the doorkeeper suspect his relations with Berthe? He was perhaps watching them. Their attachment encountered continual obstacles in that house where there was always someone prying about and the inmates of which professed the most strict principles. Thus he could only rarely approach his mistress, his sole joy being, if she went out in the afternoon without her mother, to leave the warehouse on some pretext and join her in one of the more out of the way passages, where he would stroll about with her on his arm for an hour or so. Since the end of July, however, Auguste had been in the habit of going every Tuesday night to Lyons; for he had been foolish enough to take a share in a silk manufactory which was in difficulties. But until then, Berthe had refused to profit by this night of liberty. She trembled at the thought of her maid, she feared that some forgetfulness on her part, might place her in the girl’s power.

It happened to be a Tuesday night when Octave discovered Monsieur Gourd watching close to his room. This increased his uneasiness. For a week past, he had been imploring Berthe to come up and join him in his apartment, when all the house would be asleep. Had the doorkeeper guessed this? Octave went back to his room dissatisfied, tormented with fear and desire. His love was chafing, becoming a mad passion, and he angrily saw himself falling into all the stupidities of which the heart is capable. As it was, he could never join Berthe in a passage, without buying her whatever attracted her attention in a shop window. Thus, the day before in the Passage de la Madeleine, she had looked so greedily at a little bonnet, that he had made her a present of it: chip straw, and nothing more than a garland of roses, something deliciously simple, but costing two hundred francs; he thought the price rather stiff.

The night was a close one, and overcome by the heat, Octave had dosed off in an easy chair, when towards midnight he was roused by a gentle knocking.

“It’s I,” faintly whispered a woman’s voice.

It was Berthe. He opened the door and clasped her in his arms in the obscurity. But she had not come up for that; when he had lighted his candle, he saw that she was deeply troubled about something. The day before, not having sufficient money in his pocket, he had been unable to pay for the bonnet at the time; and as in her delight she had so far forgotten herself as to give her name, they had sent her the bill that evening. Then, trembling at the thought that they might call on the morrow when her husband was there, she had dared to come up, gathering courage from the great silence of the house, and confident that Rachel was asleep.

“Tomorrow morning, you will be sure to pay it tomorrow morning, won’t you?” implored she, trying to escape.

But he again clasped her in his arms.

“Stay!”

She remained. The clock slowly struck the hours in the voluptuous warmth of the room; and, at each sound of the bell, he begged her so tenderly to stay, that her strength seemed to desert her and she yielded to his entreaties. Then, towards four o’clock, just as she had at length determined to go, they both dropped off to sleep locked in each other’s arms. When they again opened their eyes, the bright daylight was entering at the window, it was nine o’clock. Berthe uttered a cry.

“Good heavens! I’m lost!”

Then ensued a moment of confusion. With her eyes half closed with sleep and fatigue, feeling vaguely about with her hands scarcely able to distinguish anything, she gave vent to stifled exclamations of regret. He, seized with a similar despair, had thrown himself before the door, to prevent her from going out, at such an hour. Was she mad?
people might meet her on the stairs, it was too risky; they must think the matter over, and devise a way for her to go down without being noticed. But she was obstinate, simply wishing to get away; and she again made for the door, which he defended. Then, he thought of the servants’ staircase. Nothing could be more convenient; she could go quickly through her own kitchen into her apartment. Only, as Marie Pichon was always in the passage of a morning, Octave considered it prudent to divert her attention, whilst the other young woman made her escape.

He went out in his ordinary quiet way, and was surprised to find Saturnin making himself at home at Marie’s, and calmly watching her do her house work. The madman loved thus to seek refuge beside her as in former days, delighted with the manner in which she left him to himself, and certain of not being jostled. Moreover, he was not in her way, and she willingly tolerated him, though his conversational powers were not great. It was company all the same, and she would still sing her ballad in a low and expiring voice.

“Hallo! so you’re with your lover?” said Octave, manœuvring so as to keep the door shut behind his back.

Marie turned crimson. Oh! that poor Monsieur Saturnin! Was it possible? He who seemed to suffer even when any one touched his hand by accident! And the madman also got angry. He would not be any one’s lover — never, never! Whoever told his sister such a lie would have him to deal with. Octave, amazed at his sudden irritation, felt it necessary to calm him.

Meanwhile, Berthe made her way to the servants’ staircase. She had two flights to descend. At the first step a shrill laugh, issuing from Madame Juzeur’s kitchen below, caused her to stop;
and she tremblingly stood against the landing window, opened wide on to the narrow courtyard. Then the sound of voices broke forth, the flow of morning filth ascended from the pestiferous hole. It was the servants who were all furious with little Louise, accusing her of looking through their keyholes when they were going to bed. Not yet fifteen, a mere chit, something decent! Louise laughed, and laughed louder than ever. She did not deny it. She knew all about Adèle’s plumpness. Oh! it was a sight worth seeing! Lisa was precious skinny, Victoire’s stomach was staved in like an old barrel; and to silence her the others retorted with the most abominable language. Then, annoyed at having been thus undressed before each other, tormented by the necessity of defending themselves, they took their revenge on their mistresses by undressing them in their turn. Thank you for nothing! Lisa might be skinny, but she was not as bad as the other Madame Campardon, a fine shark’s skin, a regular treat for an architect; Victoire contented herself with wishing all the Vabres, the Duveyriers, and the Josserands in the world as well preserved stomachs as her own, if ever they reached her age; as for Adèle, she would certainly not have exchanged her plumpness with madame’s young ladies, who had next to nothing at all! And Berthe, frightened and immovable, never having even suspected the existence of that common sewer, assisted for the first time at the washing of the domestics’ dirty linen, at the moment when the masters and mistresses were washing themselves.

Suddenly a voice exclaimed:

“Here’s master coming for his hot water!”

And windows were quickly closed, and doors slammed. The silence of death ensued, yet Berthe did not at first dare to move. When she at length went down the thought came to her that Rachel was probably in her kitchen, waiting for her. This caused her fresh anguish. She now dreaded to enter, she would have preferred to reach the street and fly away in the distance for ever. She nevertheless pushed the door ajar, and felt relieved on beholding that the servant was not there. Then, seized with a childish joy on finding herself at home again and safe, she hurried to her room. But there was Rachel standing before the bed, which had not even been opened. She looked at the bed and then at her mistress with her expressionless face. In her first moment of fright the young woman lost her head to the point of trying to excuse herself, and talked of an illness of her sister’s. She stammered out the words, and then, frightened at the poorness of her lie, understanding that denial was utterly useless, she suddenly burst into tears. Dropping on to a chair she continued crying.

This lasted a good while. Not a word was exchanged, sobs alone disturbed the perfect quiet of the room. Rachel, exaggerating her habitual discretion, maintaining her cold manner of a girl who knows everything, but who says nothing, had turned her back and was making a pretence of beating up the pillows, as though she was just finishing arranging the bed. At length, when madame, more and mote upset by this silence, was giving too loud a vent to her despair, the maid, who was then dusting, said simply, in a respectful tone of voice:

“Madame is wrong to take on so, master is not so very pleasant.”

Berthe left off crying. She would pay the girl, that was all. Without waiting further she gave her twenty francs. Then, not thinking that sufficient, and already feeling uneasy, having fancied she saw her curl her lip disdainfully, she rejoined her in the kitchen, and brought her back to make her a present of an almost new dress.

At the same moment Octave, on his part, was again in a state of alarm on account of Monsieur Gourd. On leaving the Pichons’, he had found him standing immovable the same as the night before, listening behind the door communicating with the servants’ staircase. He followed him without even daring to speak to him. The doorkeeper gravely went back again down the grand staircase. On the floor below he took a key from his pocket and entered the room which was let to the distinguished individual who came there to work one night every week. And through the door, which remained open for a moment, Octave obtained a clear view of that room which was always kept as closely shut as a tomb. It was in a terrible state of disorder that morning, the gentleman having no doubt worked there the night before. A huge bed, with the sheets stripped off, a wardrobe with a glass door, empty save for the remnants of a lobster and two partly filled bottles, two dirty hand-basins lying about, one beside the bed and the other on a chair. Monsieur Gourd, with his calm air of a retired judge, at once occupied himself with emptying and rinsing out the basins.

As he hurried to the Passage de la Madeleine to pay for the bonnet, the young man was tormented by a painful uncertainty. Finally, he determined to engage the doorkeepers in conversation on his return. Madame Gourd, reclining in her commodious arm-chair, was getting a breath of fresh air between the two pots of flowers at the open window of their room. Standing up beside the door, old mother Pérou was waiting in an humble and frightened manner.

“Have you a letter for me?” asked Octave, as a commencement.

Monsieur Gourd just then came down from the room on the third floor. Seeing after that was the only work that he now condescended to do in the house; and he showed himself highly flattered by the confidence of the gentleman, who paid him well on condition that his basins should not pass through any other hands.

“No, Monsieur Mouret, nothing at all,” answered he.

He had seen old mother Pérou perfectly well, but he pretended not to be aware of her presence. The day before he had got into such a rage with her for upsetting a pail of water in the middle of the vestibule, that he had sent her about her business on the spot. And she had called for her money, but the mere sight of him made her tremble, and she almost sank into the ground with humility.

However, as Octave remained some time doing the amiable with Madame Gourd, the doorkeeper roughly turned towards the poor old woman.

“So, you want to be paid. What’s owing to you?”

But Madame Gourd interrupted him.

“Look, darling, there’s that girl again with her horrible little beast.”

It was Lisa who, a few days before, had found a spaniel in the street. And this occasioned continual disputes with the doorkeepers. The landlord would not allow any animals in the house. No, no animals and no women! The little dog was even forbidden to go into the courtyard;
the street was quite good enough for him. As it had been raining that morning, and the little beast’s paws were sopping wet, Monsieur Gourd rushed forward, exclaiming:

“I will not have him walk up the stairs, you hear me? Carry him in your arms.”

“So that he shall make me all in a mess!” said Lisa insolently. “What a great misfortune it’ll be, if he wets the servants’ staircase a bit! Up you go, doggie.”

Monsieur Gourd tried to seize hold of her, and almost slipped, so he fell to abusing those sluts of servants. He was always at war with them, tormented with the rage of a former servant who wishes to be waited on in his turn. But Lisa turned upon him, and with the verbosity of a girl who had grown up in the gutters of Montmartre she shouted out:

“Eh! just you leave me alone, you miserable old flunkey! Go and empty the duke’s jerries!”

It was the only insult capable of silencing Monsieur Gourd, and the servants all took advantage of it. He returned to his room quivering with rage and mumbling to himself, saying that he was certainly very proud of having been in service at the duke’s, and that she would not have stayed there two hours even, the baggage! Then, he assailed mother Pérou, who almost jumped out of her skin.

“Well! what is it you’re owed?
Eh! you say twelve francs sixty-five centimes. But it isn’t possible?
Sixty-three hours at twenty centimes the hour. Ah! you charge a quarter of an hour. Never! I warned you, I only pay the hours that are completed.”

And he did not even give her her money then, he left her perfectly terrified, and joined in the conversation between his wife and Octave. The latter was cunningly alluding to all the worries that such a house must cause them, hoping thus to get them to talk about the lodgers. Such strange things must sometimes take place behind the doors! Then, the doorkeeper chimed in, as grave as over.