Complete Works of Emile Zola (645 page)

“I shall wait for you,” resumed she holding up her forehead. “Do not come up too late; you can tell me how you amused yourself.”

Octave had to deposit a kiss on her hair. Though relations were established between them, according to his fancy, whenever a desire or want of something to do drew him to her, they did not as yet address each other very familiarly. He at length went downstairs; and she, leaning over the balustrade, followed him with her eyes.

At the same minute, quite a drama was enacting at the Josserands’. In the mind of the mother, the Duveyriers’ party to which they were going, was to decide the question of a marriage between Berthe and Auguste Vabre. The latter, who had been vigorously attacked for a fortnight past, still hesitated, evidently entertaining doubts with respect to the dowry. So Madame Josserand, for the purpose of striking a decisive blow, had written to her brother, informing him of the contemplated marriage and reminding him of his promises, with the hope that, in his answer, he might say something that she could turn to account. And all the family were awaiting nine o’clock before the dining-room stove, dressed ready to go down, when Monsieur Gourd brought up a letter from uncle Bachelard which had been forgotten under Madame Gourd’s snuff-box since the last delivery.

“Ah! at last!” said Madame Josserand, tearing open the envelope.

The father and the two daughters watched her anxiously as she read. Adèle, who had had to dress the ladies, was moving heavily about, clearing the table still covered with the dirty crockery from the dinner. But Madame Josserand turned ghastly pale.

“Nothing! nothing!” stuttered she, “not a clear sentence! He will see later on, at the time of the marriage. And he adds that he loves us very much all the same. What a confounded scoundrel!”

Monsieur Josserand in his evening dress sank into a chair. Hortense and Berthe also sat down, their legs feeling worn out; and they remained there, the one in blue, the other in pink, in their eternal costumes, altered once again.

“I have always said,” murmured the father, “that Bachelard is imposing upon us. He will never give a sou.”

Standing up in her flaring dress, Madame Josserand was reading the letter over again. Then, her anger burst out.

“Ah! men! men! That one, one would think him an idiot, he leads such a life. Well! not a bit of it! Though he never seems to be in his right mind, he opens his eye the moment any one speaks to him of money. Ah! men! men!”‘ She turned towards her daughters, to whom this lesson was addressed.

“It has come to the point, you see, that I ask myself why it is you have such a mania for getting married. Ah! if you had been worried out of your lives by it as I have! Not a fellow who loves you for yourselves and who would bring you a fortune without haggling! Millionaire uncles who, after having been fed for twenty years, will not even give their nieces a dowry! Husbands who are quite incompetent, oh! yes, sir, incompetent!”

Monsieur Josserand bowed his head. Adèle, who was not even listening, was quietly finishing clearing the table. But Madame Josserand suddenly turned angrily upon her.

“What are you doing there, spying upon us? Go into your kitchen and see if I am there!”

And she wound up by saying:

“In short, everything for those wretched beings, the men;
and for us, not even enough to satisfy our hunger. Listen! they are only fit for being taken in! Remember my words!”

Hortense and Berthe nodded their heads, as though deeply penetrated by what their mother had been saying. For a long time past she had completely convinced them of man’s utter inferiority, his unique part in life being to marry and to pay. A long silence ensued in the smoky dining-room, where the remainder of the things left on the table by Adèle emitted a stuffy smell of food. The Josserands, gorgeously arrayed, scattered on different chairs and overwhelmed, were forgetting the Duveyriers’ concert as they reflected on the continual deceptions of life. From the depths of the adjoining chamber, one could hear the snoring of Saturnin, whom they had sent to bed early.

At length, Berthe spoke:

“So it is all up. Shall we take our things off?”

But, at this, Madame Josserand’s energy at once returned to her. Eh? what? take their things off! and why pray! were they not respectable people, was not an alliance with their family as good as with any other?
The marriage should take place all the same, she would die rather. And she rapidly distributed their parts to each: the two young ladies were instructed to be very amiable to Auguste, and not to leave him until he had taken the leap; the father received the mission of overcoming old Vabre and Duveyrier, by agreeing with everything they said, if his intelligence was sufficient to enable him to do such a thing; as for herself, desirous of neglecting nothing, she undertook the women, she would know how to get them all on her side. Then, collecting her thoughts and casting a last glance round the dining-room, as though to make sure that no weapon had been forgotten, she put on the terrible look of a man of war about to lead his daughters to massacre, and uttered these words in a powerful voice:

“Let us go down!”

And down they went. In the solemnity of the staircase, Monsieur Josserand was full of uneasiness, for he foresaw many disagreeable things for the too narrow conscience of a worthy man like himself.

When they entered, there was already a crush at the Duveyriers’. The enormous grand piano occupied one entire end of the drawing-room, the ladies being seated in front of it on rows of chairs, like at the theatre; and two dense masses of black coats filled up the doorways leading to the dining-room and the parlour. The chandelier and the candelabra, and the six lamps standing on side-tables, lit up with a blinding light the white and gold room in which the red silk of the furniture and of the hangings showed up vividly. It was very warm, the fans produced a breeze at regular intervals, impregnated with the penetrating odours of bodices and bare shoulders.

Just at that moment, Madame Duveyrier was taking her seat at the piano. With a gesture, Madame Josserand smilingly begged she would not disturb herself; and she left her daughters in the midst of the men, as she accepted a chair for herself between Valérie and Madame Juzeur. Monsieur Josserand had made for the parlour, where the landlord, Monsieur Vabre, was dozing at his usual place, in the corner of a sofa. There were also Campardon, Théophile and Auguste Vabre, Doctor Juillerat and the Abbé Mauduit, forming a group; whilst Trublot and Octave, who had rejoined each other, had flown from the music to the end of the dining-room. Near them, and behind the stream of black coats, Duveyrier, thin and tall of stature, was looking fixedly at his wife seated at the piano waiting for silence. In the button-hole of his coat he wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in a neat little rosette.

“Hush! hush! silence!” murmured some friendly voices.

Then, Clotilde Duveyrier commenced one of Chopin’s most difficult serenades. Tall and handsome, with magnificent red hair, she had a long face, as pale and cold as snow; and, in her grey eyes, music alone kindled a flame, an exaggerated passion on which she existed without any other desire either of the flesh or the spirit. Duveyrier continued watching her; then, after the first bars, a nervous exasperation contracted his lips, he drew aside and kept himself at the farthest end of the dining-room. On his clean-shaven face, with its pointed chin and eyes all askew, large red blotches indicated a bad blood, quite a pollution festering just beneath the skin.

Trublot, who was examining him, quietly observed:

“He does not like music.”

“Nor I either,” replied Octave.

“Oh! the unpleasantness is not the same for you. A man, my dear fellow, who was always lucky. Not a whit more intelligent than another, but who was helped along by every one. Belonging to an old middle-class family, the father an ex-presiding judge, called to the bar the moment he had completed his studies, then appointed deputy judge at Reims, from whence he was removed to Paris and made judge of the Court of First Instance, decorated, and now a counsellor before he is forty-five years of age. It’s stiff, isn’t it?
But he does not like music, that piano has been the bane of his life. One cannot have everything.”

Meanwhile, Clotilde was knocking off the difficult passages with extraordinary composure. She handled her piano like a circus-rider her horse. Octave’s attention was solely occupied with the furious working of her hands.

“Just look at her fingers,” said he, “it is astonishing! A quarter of an hour of that must hurt her immensely.”

And they both fell to talking of women without troubling themselves any further with what she was playing. Octave felt rather embarrassed on catching sight of Valérie: what line of conduct should he pursue?
ought he to speak to her or pretend not to see her? Trublot affected a great disdain: there was still not one to take his fancy; and, as his companion protested, looking about, and saying that there was surely one amongst the number who would suit him, he learnedly declared:

“Well! take your choice, and you will see afterwards, when the gloss is off. Eh? not the one with the feathers over there; nor the blonde in the mauve dress; nor that old party, though she at least has the merit of being fat. I tell you, my dear fellow, it is absurd to seek for anything of the kind in society. Plenty of airs, but not a particle of pleasure!”

Octave smiled. He had to make his position in the world; he could not afford merely to consider his taste, like Trublot, whose father was so rich. The sight of those rows of women set him musing, he asked himself which among them he would have chosen for his fortune and his pleasure, if he had been allowed to take one of them away. As he was weighing them with a glance, one after the other, he suddenly exclaimed:

“Hallo! my employer’s wife! She visits here then?”

“Did you not know it?” asked Trublot. “In spite of the difference in their ages, Madame Hédouin and Madame Duveyrier are two school friends. They used to be inseparable, and were called the polar bears, because they were always fully twenty degrees below freezing point. They are some more of the ornamental class! Duveyrier would be in a sad plight if he had not some other hot water-bottle for his feet in winter time!”

But Octave had now become serious. For the first time, he beheld Madame Hédouin in a low neck dress, her shoulders and arms bare, with her black hair plaited in front; and she appeared in the ardent light as the realisation of his desires: a superb woman, extremely healthy and calmly beautiful, who would be a benefit in every way to a man. Complicated plans were already absorbing him, when an awful din awoke him from his dream.

“What a relief! it is finished!” said Trublot.

Compliments were being showered upon Clotilde. Madame Josserand, who had hastened to her, was pressing her hands; whilst the men resumed their conversation, and the ladies fanned themselves more vigorously. Duveyrier then ventured back into the parlour, where Trublot and Octave followed him. Whilst in the midst of the skirts, the former whispered into the latter’s ear:

“Look on your right. The angling has commenced.”

It was Madame Josserand who was setting Berthe on to Auguste. He had imprudently gone up to the ladies to wish them good evening. His head was not bothering him so much just then; he merely felt a touch of neuralgia in his left eye; but he dreaded the end of the party, for there was going to be singing, and nothing was worse for him than this.

“Berthe,” said the mother, “tell Monsieur Vabre of the remedy you copied for him out of that book. Oh! it is a sovereign cure for headaches!”

And, having started the affair, she left them standing beside a window.

“By Jove! they are going in for chemistry!” murmured Trublot.

In the parlour, Monsieur Josserand, desirous of pleasing his wife, had remained seated before Monsieur Vabre, feeling very embarrassed, for the old gentleman was asleep, and he did not dare awake him to do the amiable. But, when the music ceased, Monsieur Vabre raised his eye-lids. Short and stout, and completely bald, save for two tufts of white hair over his ears, he had a ruddy face, with thick lips, and round eyes almost at the top of his head. Monsieur Josserand having politely inquired after his health, the conversation began. The retired notary, whose four or five ideas always followed the same order, commenced by making an observation about Versailles, where he had practiced during forty years; then, he talked of his sons, once more regretting that neither the one nor the other had shown himself capable of carrying on the practice, so that he had decided to sell it and inhabit Paris; after which he came to the history of his house, the building of which was the romance of his life.

“I have buried three hundred thousand francs in it, sir. A superb speculation, my architect said. But today I have great difficulty in getting the value of my money; more especially as all my children have come to live here, with the idea of not paying me, and I should never have a quarter’s rent, if I did not apply for it myself on the fifteenth. Fortunately, I have work to console me.”

“Do you still work much?” asked Monsieur Josserand.

“Always, always, sir!” replied the old gentleman with the energy of despair. “Work is life to me.”

And he explained his great task. For ten years past, he had every year waded through the official catalogue of the exhibition of paintings, writing on tickets each painter’s name, and the paintings exhibited. He spoke of it with an air of weariness and anguish; the whole year scarcely gave him sufficient time, the task was often so arduous, that it sometimes proved too much for him; for instance, when a lady artist married, and then exhibited under her husband’s name, how was he to see his way clearly?

“My work will never be complete, it is that which is killing me,” murmured he.

“You take a great interest in art, do you not?” resumed Monsieur Josserand, to flatter him.

Monsieur Vabre looked at him, full of surprise.

“No, I do not require to see the paintings. It is merely a matter of statistics. There now! I had better go to bed, my head will be all the clearer tomorrow. Good-night, sir.”