Complete Works of Emile Zola (679 page)

“Do be calm, Monsieur Narcisse. She loves you well all the same. I felt that it would not be very agreeable to you. I said to her: ‘If Monsieur Narcisse learns this; he will be annoyed.’ But she has scarcely lived as yet, has she? She does not know what pleases, nor what does not please. Do not weep any more, as her heart is always for you.”

As neither the child nor the uncle listened to her, she turned towards Auguste, she told him how much more anxious such an adventure made her feel for her niece’s future. It was so difficult to place a young girl decently! She, who had been thirty years in the employ of Messieurs Mardienne Frères, the embroiderers of the Rue Saint-Sulpice, where one could make inquiries about her, knew at the cost of what privations a work-girl made both ends meet in Paris, when she wished to remain virtuous. In spite of her good nature, though she had received Fanny from the hands of her own brother, Captain Menu, on his death-bed, she could never have been able to bring the child up with the thousand francs life annuity, which now enabled her to relinquish her needle. And she had, therefore, hoped to die in peace on seeing her with Monsieur Narcisse. But not a bit of it — Fifi goes and displeases her uncle, just for the sake of a lot of nonsense!

“Perhaps you know Villeneuve, near Lille?” said she in conclusion.” I come from there. It is a pretty large town — “

But Auguste’s patience was at an end. He shook himself free of the aunt, and turned towards Bachelard whoso noisy despair was calming down.

“I came to ask you for Duveyrier’s new address. I suppose you know it.”

“Duveyrier’s address, Duveyrier’s address,” stammered the uncle.” You mean Clarisse’s address. Wait a moment.”

And he went and opened the door of Fifi’s bedroom. Auguste was greatly surprised on seeing Gueulin, whom the old man had locked in, come forth. He had wished to give him time to dress himself, and also to detain him, so as to decide afterwards what he would do with him. The sight of the young man looking all upset, his hair still unbrushed, revived his anger.

“What! wretch! it’s you, my nephew, who dishonours me! You soil your family, you drag my white hairs in the mire? Ah! you’ll end badly, we shall see you one of these days in the dock of the assize-court!”

Gueulin listened with bowed head, feeling at once both embarrassed and furious.

“I say, uncle, you’re going too far,” murmured he. “There’s a limit to everything. I don’t think it funny either. Why did you bring me to see mademoiselle? I never asked you. You dragged me here. You drag everybody here.”

But Bachelard, again overcome with tears continued:

“You’ve taken everything from me, I had only her left. You’ll be the cause of my death, and I won’t leave you a sou, not a sou!”

Then Gueulin, quite beside himself, burst out:

“Go to the deuce! I’ve had enough of it! Ah! it’s as I’ve always told you! here they come, here they come, the annoyances of the morrow! See how it succeeds with me, when for once in a way I’ve been fool enough to take advantage of an opportunity. Of course! the night was very pleasant; but, afterwards, go to blazes! one will be blubbering like a calf for the rest of one’s life.”

Fifi had dried her tears. When having nothing to do she at once felt bored, and so had taken up her needle again and was embroidering the stole, raising her large pure eyes from time to time to look at the two men, and feeling quite bewildered by their anger.

“I am in a great hurry,” Auguste ventured to observe. “Please give me the address, just the name of the street and the number, I require nothing further.”

“The address,” said the uncle, “wait a bit, directly.”

And, carried away by his feelings which were overflowing, he caught hold of Gueulin’s hands,

“You ungrateful fellow, I was keeping her for you, on my word of honour! I said to myself: If he’s good, I’ll give her to him. Oh! in a proper manner, with a dowry of fifty thousand francs. And, you dirty beast! you can’t wait, you go and take her like that, all on a sudden!”

“No, let me be!” said Gueulin, affected by the old chap’s kindness of heart. “I see very well that the annoyances are going to continue.”

But Bachelard dragged him before the young girl and asked her:

“Come now, Fifi, look at him: would you have loved him?”

“If it would have pleased you, uncle,” answered she.

This kind reply quite broke his heart. He wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and almost choked. Well! he would see. He had always wished to make her happy. And he suddenly sent Gueulin off about his business.

“Be off. I will think about it.”

Meanwhile, aunt Menu had again taken Auguste aside to explain her ideas to him. Was it not true? a workman would have beaten the child, and a clerk would have given her no end of children. With Monsieur Narcisse, on the contrary, she had the chance of having a dowry which would enable her to marry decently. Thank goodness, they belonged to too good a family; the aunt would never have allowed the niece to misconduct herself, to fall from the arms of one lover into the arms of another. No, she wished her to be in a proper sort of position.

Just as Gueulin was leaving, Bachelard called him back.

“Kiss her on the forehead, I permit it.”

And then he went himself and put him outside the door, after which he returned to Auguste, and placing his hand on his heart, he said:

“It’s no joke; I give you my word of honour that I intended giving her to him, later on.”

“And the address?” asked the other, losing all patience.

The uncle appeared surprised, as though he thought he had answered him before.

“Eh, what? Clarisse’s address? Why, I don’t know it.”

Auguste made an angry gesture. Everything was going wrong; there seemed to be a regular plot to render him ridiculous! Seeing him so upset, Bachelard made a suggestion. No doubt, Trublot knew the address, and they might find him at his employer’s, the stockbroker Desmarquay. And the uncle, with the obliging manner of one accustomed to knock about, offered to accompany his young friend. The latter accepted.

“Listen!” said the uncle to Fifi, after kissing her in his turn on the forehead, “here’s the sugar from the café all the same, and three four-sou bits for your money-box. Behave well whilst awaiting my orders.”

The young girl, looking very modest, continued drawing her needle with exemplary application. A ray of sunshine, coming from over a neighbouring roof, enlivened the little room, gilded this nook of innocence, into which the noise of the passing vehicles did not even penetrate. All the poetry of Bachelard’s nature was stirred.

“May God bless you, Monsieur Narcisse!” said aunt Menu to him as she saw him to the door. “I am more easy now. Only listen to the dictates of your heart, for it will inspire you.”

The driver had again fallen asleep, and he grumbled when the uncle gave him Monsieur Desmarquay’s address in the Rue Saint-Lazare. No doubt the horse was asleep also, for it required quite a hail of blows to get him to move. At length, the cab rolled painfully along.

“It’s hard all the same,” resumed the uncle after a pause. “You can’t imagine the effect it had on me when I saw Gueulin in his shirt. No, one must have gone through such a thing to understand it.”

And he went on, entering into every detail, without noticing Auguste’s increasing uneasiness. At length the latter, feeling his position becoming falser and falser, told him why he was in such a hurry to find Duveyrier.

“Berthe with that counter-jumper!” cried the uncle. “You astonish me, sir!”

And it seemed that his astonishment was especially on account of his niece’s choice. However, after a little reflection, he became very indignant. His sister Eléonore had a great deal to reproach herself with. He would have nothing more to do with the family. Of course, he was not going to mix himself up with the duel; but he considered it indispensable.

“Thus, just now, when I saw Fifi with a man, my first thought was to murder every one. If the same thing should ever happen to you — “

A painful start of Auguste’s caused him to interrupt himself.

“Ah! true, I was forgetting. My story does not interest you.”

Another pause ensued, whilst the cab swayed in a melancholy fashion. Auguste, whose valour grew less and less at each turn of the wheel, abandoned himself to the jolts, a cadaverous look on his face, his left eye half closed with a headache. Why ever did Bachelard consider the duel indispensable? It was not the place of the culprit’s uncle to urge one to shed blood. And his brother’s words rang in his ear: “It’s stupid, you’ll get yourself spitted;” an obstinate and importunate phrase, which seemed to end by assimilating itself with the very pain of his neuralgia. He would certainly be killed; he had a presentiment he would; and this lugubrious attack of feeling completely annihilated him. He fancied himself dead, and wept over his own corpse.

“I told you Rue Saint-Lazare,” called out the uncle to the driver. “It isn’t at Chaillot. Turn to the left.”

At length the cab stopped. Out of prudence they sent up for Trublot, who came down bareheaded to talk to them in the doorway.

“You know Clarisse’s address?” asked Bachelard.

“Clarisse’s address?
Why, of course! Rue d’Assas.”

They thanked him, and were about to re-enter their cab, when Auguste asked in his turn:

“What’s the number?
”

“The number?
Ah! I don’t know the number.”

At this, the husband declared that he preferred to give up seeing Duveyrier altogether. Trublot did all he could to try and remember. He had dined there once, it was just behind the Luxembourg; but he could not recollect whether it was at the end of the street, or on the right or the left. But he knew the door well; oh! he could have said at once, “That’s it.” Then the uncle had another idea: he begged him to accompany them in spite of Auguste’s protestations, and his talking of returning home and not wishing to disturb any one any further. Trublot, however, refused in a constrained manner. No, he would not trust himself in that hole again. And he avoided giving the real reason, a most amazing adventure, a jolly hard slap he had received from Clarisse’s new cook, one evening he had gone and pinched her before her range. Could anybody understand such a thing? a slap for a polite attention, just for the sake of becoming acquainted! Such a thing had never happened to him before; he was quite bewildered by it.

“No, no,” said he, seeking an excuse, “I don’t intend putting my feet again inside a place where one’s bored as one is there. You know Clarisse has become unbearable, something abominable, and more the lady than ladies themselves! Besides that, she has had her family with her, since her father’s death — quite a tribe of hawkers, the mother, two sisters, a big scoundrel of a brother, and even an invalid aunt; you know, the sort of people who sell dolls in the streets. You’ve no idea how dirty and unhappy Duveyrier looks amongst them all!”

And he related that on the rainy day, when the counsellor found Clarissa waiting in a doorway, she had been the first to complain, reproaching him, with tears in her eyes, with never having respected her. Yes, she had left the Rue de la Cerisaie exasperated by the suffering which her personal dignity had undergone, and which she had for a long while repressed. Why did he always take his decoration off when he came to see her? Did he happen to think that she would soil his decoration? She was willing to be friends with him again; but first of all he would have to swear to her on his honour that he would keep his decoration on, for she required his esteem; she would not have her feelings hurt every moment in that way. And Duveyrier, discomfited by this quarrel, completely regained, confused and affected, had sworn: she was right; he considered her very noble-minded.

“He no longer takes his ribbon off,” added Trublot.”I think that she makes him sleep with it on. It flatters the girl in the presence of her family. Moreover, fat Payan, having devoured her twenty-five thousand francs’ worth of furniture, she has gone in this time for thirty thousand francs’ worth. Oh, it’s all over; she’s got him down on the ground, under her foot, and his nose in her skirts. What a liking some people have for buttered bun!”

“Well, I’m off, as Monsieur Trublot can’t come,” said Auguste, whose worries were increased by all these stories.

But Trublot then declared that he would accompany them all the same; only, he would not go up; he would merely show them the door. And, after fetching his hat, and giving a pretext for going out, he joined them in the cab.

“Rue d’Assas,” said he to the driver. “Straight down the street; I’ll tell you when to stop.”

The driver swore. Rue d’Assas, by Jove! there were people who liked going about. However, they would get there when they did get there. The big white horse steamed away without making hardly any progress, his neck dislocated in a painful bow at every step.

Bachelard was already relating his misfortune to Trublot. Such things always made him talkative. Yes, with that pig Gueulin, a most delicious little thing! He had found them both in dishabille. But at this point of his story he recollected Auguste, who, gloomy and doleful, was sitting in a heap in a corner of the cab.

“Ah! true; I beg your pardon!” murmured he; “I keep forgetting.”

And, addressing Trublot, he added:

“Our friend has met with a misfortune in his home also, and that is why we are trying to find Duveyrier. Yes, he found his wife last night — “

He finished with a gesture, then added simply:

“Octave, you know.”

Trublot, always plain-spoken, was about to say that it did not surprise him. Only, he caught back his words, and replaced them by others, full of disdainful anger, and the explanation of which the husband did not dare to ask him for:

“What an idiot that Octave is!” said he.

At this appreciation of adultery there ensued another pause. Each of the three men was buried in his own reflections. The cab scarcely moved at all. It seemed to have been rolling for hours over a bridge, when Trublot, who was the first to emerge from his thoughts, ventured on making this judicious remark:

“This cab doesn’t get along very fast.”