Complete Works of Emile Zola (638 page)

“My child,” said the father, raising his head once more, “I begged you not to think of this marriage. You know the situation.”

She stopped sucking her bone, and said with an air of impatience:

“What of it? Verdier has promised me he will leave her. She is a fool.”

“You are wrong, Hortense, to speak in that way. And if he should also leave you one day to return to her whom you would have caused him to abandon?
”

“That is my business,” sharply retorted the young woman.

Berthe listened, fully acquainted with this matter, the contingencies of which she discussed daily with her sister. She was, besides, like her father, all in favour of the poor woman, whom it was proposed to turn out into the street, after having performed a wife’s duties for fifteen years. But Madame Josserand intervened.

“Leave off, do! those wretched women always end by returning to the gutter. Only, it is Verdier who will never bring himself to leave her. He is fooling you, my dear. In your place, I would not wait a second for him; I would try and find some one else.”

Hortense’s voice became sourer still, whilst two livid spots appeared on her cheeks.

“Mamma, you know how I am. I want him, and I will have him. I will never marry any one else, even though he kept me waiting a hundred years.”

The mother shrugged her shoulders.

“And you call others fools?”

But the young girl rose up, quivering with rage.

“Here! don’t go pitching into me!” cried she. “I have finished my rabbit. I prefer to go to bed. As you are unable to find us husbands, you must let us find them in our own way.”

And she withdrew, violently slamming the door behind her.

Madame Josserand turned majestically towards her husband, and uttered this profound remark:

“That, sir, is the result of your bringing up!”

Monsieur Josserand did not protest;
he was occupied in dotting his thumb nail with ink, whilst waiting till they allowed him to resume his writing. Berthe, who had eaten her bread, dipped a finger in the glass to finish up her syrup. She felt comfortable, with her back nice and warm, and did not hurry herself, being undesirous of encountering her sister’s quarrelsome temper in their bedroom.

“Ah! and that is the reward!” continued Madame Josserand, resuming her walk to and fro across the dining-room. “For twenty years one wears oneself out for these young ladies, one goes in want of everything in order to make them accomplished women, and they will not even let one have the satisfaction of seeing them married according to one’s own fancy. It would be different, if they had ever been refused a single thing! But I have never kept a sou for myself, and have even gone without clothes to dress them as though we had an income of fifty thousand francs. No, really, it is too absurd! When those hussies have had a careful education, have got just as much religion as is necessary, and the airs of rich girls, they leave you in the lurch, they talk of marrying barristers, adventurers, who lead lives of debauchery!”

She stopped before Berthe, and, menacing her with her finger, said:

“As for you, if you follow your sister’s example, you will have me to deal with.”

Then she recommenced stamping round the room, speaking to herself, jumping from one idea to another, contradicting herself with the brazenness of a woman who will always be in the right.

“I did what I ought to do, and were it to be done over again I should do the same. In life, it is only the most shamefaced who lose. Money is money; when one has none, one may as well retire. Whenever I had twenty sous, I always said I had forty; for that is real wisdom, it is better to be envied than pitied. It is no use having a good education if one has not good clothes to wear, for then people despise you. It is not just, but it is so. I would sooner wear dirty petticoats than a cotton dress. Feed on potatoes, but have a chicken when you have any one to dinner. And only fools would say the contrary!”

She looked fixedly at her husband, to whom these last reflections were addressed. The latter, worn out, and declining another battle, had the cowardice to declare:

“It is true; money is everything in our days.”

“You hear,” resumed Madame Josserand, returning towards her daughter. “Go straight ahead and try to give us satisfaction. How is it you let this marriage fall through?”

Berthe understood that her turn had come.

“I don’t know, mamma,” murmured she

“A second head-clerk in a government office,” continued the mother; “not yet thirty, with a splendid future before him. Every month he would be bringing you his money;
it is something substantial that, there is nothing like it. You have been up to some tomfoolery again, just the same as with the others.”

“I have not, mamma, I assure you. He must have obtained some information — have heard that I had no money.”

But Madame Josserand cried out at this.

“And the dowry that your uncle is going to give you! Every one knows about that dowry. No, there is something else;
he withdrew too abruptly. When dancing you passed into the parlour.”

Berthe became confused.

“Yes, mamma. And, as we were alone, he even tried to do some naughty things; he kissed me, seizing hold of me like that. Then I was frightened;
I pushed him up against the furniture — “

Her mother, again overcome with rage, interrupted her.

“Pushed him up against the furniture, ah! the wretched girl pushed him up against the furniture!”

“But, mamma, he held me — “

“What of it?
He held you, that was nothing! A fat lot of good it is sending such fools to school! Whatever did they teach you, eh?”

A rush of colour rose to the young girl’s cheeks and shoulders. Tears filled her eyes, whilst she looked as confused as a violated virgin.

“It was not my fault; he looked so wicked. I did not know what to do.”

“Did not know what to do! she did not know what to do! Have I not told you a hundred times that your fears are ridiculous? It is your lot to live in society. When a man is rough, it is because he loves you, and there is always a way of keeping him in his place in a nice manner. For a kiss behind a door! in truth now, ought you to mention such a thing to us, your parents? And you push people against the furniture, and you drive away your suitors!”

She assumed a doctoral air as she continued:

“It is ended; I despair of doing anything with you, you are too stupid, my girl. One would have to coach you in everything, and that would be awkward. As you have no fortune, understand at least that you must hook the men by some other means. One should be amiable, have loving eyes, abandon one’s hand occasionally, allow a little playfulness, without seeming to do so; in short, one should angle for a husband. You make a great mistake, if you think it improves your eyes to cry like a fool!”

Berthe was sobbing.

“You aggravate me — leave off crying. Monsieur Josserand, just tell your daughter not to spoil her face by crying in that way. It will be too much if she becomes ugly!”

“My child,” said the father, “be reasonable; listen to your mother’s good advice. You must not spoil your good looks, my darling.”

“And what irritates me is that she is not so bad when she likes,” resumed Madame Josserand. “Come, wipe your eyes, look at me as if I was a gentleman courting you. You smile, you drop your fan, so that the gentleman, in picking it up, slightly touches your fingers. That is not the way. You are holding your head up too stifly, you look like a sick hen. Lean back more, show your neck; it is too young to be hidden.”

“Then, like this, mamma?”

“Yes, that is better. And never be stiff, be supple. Men do not care for planks. And, above all, if they go too far do not play the simpleton. A man who goes too far is done for, my dear.”

The drawing-room clock struck two; and, in the excitement of that prolonged vigil, in her desire now become furious for an immediate marriage, the mother forgot herself in thinking out loud, making her daughter turn about like a papier-maché doll. The latter, without spirit or will, abandoned herself; but she felt very heavy at heart, fear and shame brought a lump to her throat.Suddenly, in the midst of a silvery laugh which her mother was forcing her to attempt, she burst into sobs, her face all upset:

“No! no! it pains me!” stammered she.

For a second, Madame Josserand remained incensed and amazed. Ever since she left the Dambrevilles’, her hand had been itching, there were slaps in the air. Then, she landed Berthe a clout with all her might.

“Take that! you are too aggravating! What a fool! On my word, the men are right!”

In the shock, her Lamartine, which she had kept under her arm, fell to the floor. She picked it up, wiped it, and without adding another word, she retired into the bedroom, royally drawing her ball-dress around her.

“It was bound to end thus,” murmured Monsieur Josserand, not daring to detain his daughter, who went off also, holding her cheek and crying louder than ever.

But, as Berthe felt her way across the ante-room, she found her brother Saturnin up, barefooted and listening. Saturnin was a big, ill-formed fellow of twenty-five, with wild-looking eyes, and who had remained childish after an attack of brain-fever. Without being mad, he terrified the household by attacks of blind violence, whenever he was thwarted. Berthe, alone, was able to subdue him with a look. He had nursed her when she was still quite a child, through a long illness, obedient as a dog to her little invalid girl’s caprices; and, ever since he had saved her, he was seized with an adoration for her, into which entered every kind of love.

“Has she been beating you again?” asked he in a low and ardent voice.

Berthe, uneasy at finding him there, tried to send him away.

“Go to bed, it is nothing to do with you.”

“Yes, it is. I will not have her beat you! She woke me up, she was shouting so. She had better not try it on again, or I will strike her!”

Then, she seized him by the wrists, and spoke to him as to a disobedient animal. He submitted at once, and stuttered, crying like a little boy:

“It hurts you very much, does it not? Where is the sore place, that I may kiss it?”

And, having found her cheek in the dark, he kissed it, wetting it with his tears, as he repeated:

“It is well, now, it is well, now.”

Meanwhile, Monsieur Josserand, left alone, had laid down his pen, his heart was so full of grief. At the end of a few minutes, he got up gently to go and listen at the doors. Madame Josserand was snoring. No sounds of crying issued from his daughters’ room. All was dark and peaceful. Then he returned, feeling slightly relieved. He saw to the lamp which was smoking, and mechanically resumed his writing. Two big tears, unfelt by him, dropped on to the wrappers, in the solemn silence of the slumbering house.

CHAPTER III

So soon as the fish was served, skate of doubtful freshness with black butter, which that bungler Adèle had drowned in a flood of vinegar, Hortense and Berthe, seated on the right and left of uncle Bachelard, incited him to drink, filling his glass one after the other, and repeating:

“It’s your saint’s-day, drink now, drink! Here’s your health, uncle!”

They had plotted together to make him give them twenty francs. Every year, their provident mother placed them thus on either side of her brother, abandoning him to them. But it was a difficult task, and required all the greediness of two girls prompted by dreams of Louis XV. shoes and five button gloves. To get him to give the twenty francs, it was necessary to make the uncle completely drunk. He was ferociously miserly whenever he found himself amongst his relations, though out of doors he squandered in crapulous boozes the eighty thousand francs he made each year out of his commission business. Fortunately, that evening, he was already half fuddled when he arrived, having passed the afternoon with the wife of a dyer of the Faubourg Montmartre, who kept a stock of Marseilles vermouth expressly for him.

“Your health, my little ducks!” replied he each time, with his thick husky voice, as he emptied his glass.

Covered with jewellery, a rose in his button-hole, enormous in build, he filled the middle of the table, with his broad shoulders of a boozing and brawling tradesman, who has wallowed in every vice. His false teeth lit up with too harsh a whiteness his ravaged face, the big red nose of which blazed beneath the snowy crest of his short cropped hair; and, now and again, his eyelids dropped of themselves over his pale and misty eyes. Gueulin, the son of one of his wife’s sisters, affirmed that his uncle had not been sober during the ten years he had been a widower.

“Narcisse, a little skate, I can recommend it,” said Madame Josserand, smiling at her brother’s tipsy condition, though at heart it made her feel rather disgusted.

She was sitting opposite to him, having little Gueulin on her left, and another young man on her right, Hector Trublot, to whom she was desirous of showing some politeness. She usually took advantage of family gatherings like the present to get rid of certain invitations she had to return; and it was thus that a lady living in the house, Madame Juzeur, was also present, seated next to Monsieur Josserand. As the uncle behaved very badly at table, and it was the expectation of his fortune alone which enabled them to put up with him without absolute disgust, she only had intimate acquaintances to meet him or else persons whom she thought it was no longer worth while trying to dazzle. For instance, she had at one time thought of finding a son-in-law in young Trublot, who was employed at a stockbroker’s, whilst waiting till his father, a wealthy man, purchased him a share in the business; but, Trublot having professed a determined objection to matrimony, she no longer stood upon ceremony with him, even placing him next to Saturnin, who had never known how to eat decently. Berthe, who always had a seat beside her brother, was commissioned to subdue him with a look, whenever he put his fingers too much into the gravy.

After the fish came a meat pie, and the young ladies thought the moment arrived to commence their attack.

“Take another glass, uncle!” said Hortense. “It is your saint’s day. Don’t you give anything when it’s your saint’s-day?”