Complete Works of Emile Zola (682 page)

“Poor woman!” Berthe was unable to help exclaiming.

“How, poor woman!” cried Hortense sourly. “It’s easy to see that you also have things to reproach yourself with!”

She at once regretted her cruelty, and taking her sister in her arms, kissed her and swore that she did not mean it. Then they were silent. But still they could not sleep, so continued the story, their eyes wide open in the darkness.

The next morning, Monsieur Josserand did not feel very well. Up till two o’clock, he had persisted in addressing wrappers, in spite of a lowness of spirits, and of a gradual loss of strength, of which he had been complaining for some time. He got up, however, and dressed himself; but, when he was on the point of starting for his office, he felt so feeble that he sent a messenger with a letter to inform the brothers Bernheim of his indisposition.

The family were about to have their breakfast. They took the meal without any tablecloth, in the dining-room, still full of the fumes of the dinner of the previous evening. The ladies would come in anyhow, still wet from recent washing of themselves, and their hair simply gathered up in a knot. On seeing her husband remain, Madame Josserand decided not to hide Berthe any longer; she was already sick of all the mystery, and was moreover expecting every minute to see Auguste come up and create a disturbance.

“What! you’re going to breakfast with us! whatever is the matter?” asked the father in great surprise, on beholding his daughter, her eyes heavy with sleep, her bosom half bursting through Hortense’s too tight dressing-gown.

“My husband has written to say that he is obliged to stay at Lyons,” answered she, “so I thought of spending the day with you.”

It was a story which had been arranged between the two sisters. Madame Josserand, who maintained her stiffness of a schoolmistress, did not give her the lie. But the father looked at Berthe, in a confused way, and as though foreboding some misfortune; and the story appearing rather extraordinary to him, he was about to ask how the shop would get on without her, when she went and kissed him on both cheeks, in the gay and wheedling way of other days.

“Is it really true?
You are not hiding anything from me?” murmured he.

“What an idea! why should I hide anything from you?”

Madame Josserand merely allowed herself to shrug her shoulders. What was the use of all those precautions?
to gain an hour, perhaps;
it was not worth while: the father would always have to receive the blow in the end. The breakfast, however, passed off most pleasantly. Monsieur Josserand, delighted at finding himself between his two daughters again, fancied they were back in the old days, when, scarcely awake, they used to amuse him with the recital of their girlish dreams. To him, they still retained their delightful odour of youth, as, with their elbows on the table, they dipped their bread into their coffee, and laughed with their mouths full. And all the past seemed to return, when, opposite to them, he beheld the inflexible countenance of their mother, enormous and overflowing in an old green silk dress, which she was wearing out on a morning without stays.

But a regrettable scene spoilt the end of the breakfast. All on a sudden, Madame Josserand addressed the servant:

“Whatever are you eating?”

For some little while past she had been watching her. Adèle, dragging her shoes after her, turned clumsily round the table.

“Nothing, madame,” replied she.

“How! nothing! You’re chewing; I’m not blind. See! you’ve still got your mouth full of it. Oh! it’s no use drawing in your cheeks;
its easy to see in spite of that. And you’ve got some in your pocket, haven’t you?
”

Adèle became confused, and tried to draw back. But Madame Josserand caught hold of her by the skirt

“For a quarter of an hour past, I’ve been watching you take something out of there and thrust it under your nose, after hiding it in your hand. It must be something very good. Let me see what it is.”

She dived into the pocket in her turn, and withdrew a handful of cooked prunes. The juice was still trickling from them.

“What is this?”
cried she furiously.

“Prunes, madame,” said the servant, who, seeing herself caught, became insolent.

“Ah! you eat my prunes! So that’s why they go so quickly and never again appear on the table! I could never have believed it possible; prunes! in a pocket!”

And she also accused her of drinking her vinegar. Everything disappeared; one could not even leave a potato about without being certain of never seeing it again.

“You’re a regular gulf, my girl.”

“Give me sufficient to eat,” retorted Adèle boldly, “and then I won’t touch your potatoes.”

This was too much. Madame Josserand rose from her seat, majestic and terrible.

“Hold your tongue, and don’t answer me! Oh! I know, it’s the other servants who’ve spoilt you. Directly a simpleton arrives in a house from the country, all the hussies in the place at once put her up to all sorts of horrors. You no longer go to mass, and now you steal!”

Adèle, who had indeed been worked up by Lisa and Julie, did not yield.

“When I was a simpleton, as you say, you should not have taken advantage of me. It’s ended now.”

“Leave the room, I discharge you!” cried Madame Josserand, pointing to the door with a tragical gesture.

She sat down quite shaken, whilst the maid, without hurrying herself, dragged her shoes after her and swallowed another prune before returning to the kitchen. She was discharged in this way regularly once a week, so that it no longer caused her the least emotion. A painful silence ensued at the table. At length Hortense observed that it was no good always discharging her if she was always kept.No doubt she stole, and was becoming insolent; but it might just as well be her as another, for she at least consented to wait upon them, whereas any one else would not have put up with them for a week, even though she were allowed to drink the vinegar and to stuff her pockets full of prunes.

The breakfast, however, finished in the most affectionate intimacy. Monsieur Josserand, deeply moved, spoke of poor Saturnin, who had had to be taken away the day before during his absence from home; and as he believed in a sudden fit of raving madness, with which his son had been seized in the middle of the shop, for such was the story that had been told him. Then, as he complained of never seeing Léon, Madame Josserand, who had become dumb again, curtly declared that she was expecting him that very day, perhaps he would come to lunch. For a week past the young man had broken off his relations with Madame Dambreville, who, to keep her promise, wished to marry him to a dry and swarthy widow; but he was determined to marry a niece of Monsieur Dambreville, a very rich and lovely créole, who had arrived at her uncle’s in the month of September, after the death of her father in the West Indies. And there had been terrible scenes between the two lovers; Madame Dambreville, devoured by jealousy, refused to give her niece to Léon, not caring to find herself supplanted by that adorable flower of youth.

“How is the marriage getting on?
”
asked Monsieur Josserand discreetly.

At first the mother replied in well-chosen phrases, on account of Hortense. Now, she was at the feet of her son, a young fellow who was sure to succeed; and she would even throw his name in the father’s face at times, saying that, thank goodness! he took after her, and would never leave his wife without a pair of shoes. She little by little warmed with her subject.

“In short, he’s had enough of it! It was all very well for a while, and did him no harm. But, if the aunt doesn’t give him the niece, good night! he’ll cut off all supplies. I think he’s quite right.”

Hortense, out of decency, sipped her coffee, making a show of obliterating herself behind the cup; whilst Berthe, who for the future might hear anything, gave a slight pout of repugnance at her brother’s successes. The family were about to rise from table, and Monsieur Josserand, who was more cheerful and feeling much better, was talking of going to his office all the same, when Adèle brought in a card. The person was waiting in the drawing-room.

“What, it’s her! and at this hour of the morning!” exclaimed Madame Josserand. “And I who haven’t got my stays on! So much the worse! it’s time I gave her a piece of my mind!”

The visitor was Madame Dambreville. The father and his two daughters remained talking in the dining-room, whilst the mother directed her steps to the drawing-room. But she stopped at the door before opening it, and anxiously examined her old green silk dress, trying to button it up, picking off the threads gathered from the floors, and driving in her immense bosom with a tap.

“Excuse me, dear madame,” said the visitor with a smile. “I was passing, so could not resist calling to see how you were.”

She was all laced up, and had her hair done in the most correct style, while she conversed in the easy way of an amiable woman, who had just come up to wish a friend good day. Only, her smile trembled, and behind her society graces one could detect a frightful anguish, with which her whole frame quivered. She at first talked of all sorts of things, avoiding any mention of Léon’s name, but at length she took from her pocket a letter which she had just received from him.

“Oh! such a letter, such a letter,” murmured she, in an altered voice, half-broken with sobs. “Whatever is it he has to complain of, dear madame? He says he will never come to our house again!”

And her feverish hand held out the letter, which quite shook as she offered it to Madame Josserand. The latter read it coldly. It was a breaking off of the acquaintance in three lines of most cruel conciseness.

“Really!” said she as she returned the letter, “Léon is not perhaps altogether wrong — “

But Madame Dambreville at once began to praise up the widow — a woman scarcely thirty-five years old, most accomplished and sufficiently rich, who would make a Minister of her husband, she was so active. In short, she had kept her promises, she had found a fine match for Léon; whatever had he to be angry about? And, without waiting for a reply, making up her mind with a nervous start, she named Raymonde, her niece. Really now, was it possible? a chit of sixteen, a young savage who knew nothing of life!

“Why not?” Madame Josserand kept repeating at each interrogation, “why not, if he loves her?”

No! no! he did not love her — he could not love her!

Madame Dambreville struggled, and gradually abandoned herself.

“Come,” cried she, “I only ask him for a little gratitude. It’s I who have made him, it’s thanks to me that he is an auditor, and he will receive a higher appointment on his wedding-day. Madame, I implore you, tell him to return to me, tell him to do me that pleasure. I appeal to his heart, to your motherly heart, yes, to all that is noble in your nature — “

She clasped her hands, her words became inarticulate. A pause ensued, during which they were standing face to face. Then suddenly she burst out into the most bitter sobs, vanquished, and no longer mistress of herself.

“Not with Raymonde,” stuttered she, “oh! no, not with Raymonde!”

It was the rage of love, the cry of a woman who refuses to become old, who hangs on to the last man in the ardent crisis of the change of life. She had seized hold of Madame Josserand’s hands, she bathed them with her tears, owning everything to the mother, humbling herself before her, repeating that she alone had any influence over her son, swearing to be as devoted as a servant, if she would only make him return to her. Of course, she had not come to say all this; she had promised herself, on the contrary, to let none of it be known; but her heart was breaking — it was not her fault.

“Keep quiet, my dear, you make me quite ashamed,” replied Madame Josserand, angrily. “I have daughters who might hear you. I know nothing, and I don’t wish to know anything. If you have affairs with my son, you must settle them together. I will never place myself in a questionable position.”

Yet she loaded her with advice. At her age, one should resign oneself to the inevitable. God would be of great help to her. But she must yield up her niece, if she wished to offer her sacrifice to heaven as an expiation. Moreover, the widow did not suit Léon at all; he required a wife with a pleasant face to preside at his dinner-table. And she spoke admiringly of her son, flattered in her pride, minutely detailing him, and showing him to be worthy of the loveliest women.

“Just think, dear friend, he is not yet thirty. I should be grieved to appear unkind, but you might be his mother. Oh, he knows what he owes you, and I myself am filled with gratitude. You will remain his guardian angel. Only, when a thing is ended, it is ended. You could not possibly have hoped to have kept him always!”

And as the wretched woman refused to listen to reason, wishing simply to have him back, and at once, the mother grew quite angry.

“Do have done, madame! It is kind on my part to be so obliging. The boy will have no more of it! it is easily to be understood. Look at yourself, pray! It is I now who would call him back to his duty, if he submitted again to your exactions; for, I ask you, what good can there be in it for both of you in future?
It so happens that he is coming here, and if you have counted on me — “

Of all these words, Madame Dambreville only heard the last phrase. For a week past she had been running about after Léon, without succeeding in seeing him. Her face brightened up; she uttered this cry from her heart:

“As he is coming, I shall stay!”

From that moment she made herself at home, seating herself like a heavy mass in an arm-chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy, declining any further questioning with the obstinacy of an animal which will not yield, even when beaten. Madame Josserand, bitterly regretting having said too much, exasperated with this sort of mile-stone which had become a fixture in her drawing-room, yet not daring to turn her out, ended by leaving her to herself. Moreover, some sounds coming from the dining-room made her feel uneasy. She fancied she recognised Auguste’s voice.

“On my word of honour! madame, one never heard of such a thing before!” said she, violently slamming the door. “It is most indiscreet!”