Complete Works of Emile Zola (426 page)

And amidst the greasy hangings and soiled, dusty wood­work, Clorinde still indulged in the most extraordinary caprices. She would often receive her friends wrapt round with a rug, and lying on a couch, while complaining of the strangest disorders — of a dog, for instance, which was gnawing at her foot, or of a pin which she had accidentally swallowed, and the point of which must be trying to force its way out through her leg. At other times she would close the shutters at three o’clock in the afternoon, light all the candles, and begin to dance with Antonia, the one facing the other, and indulging in such paroxysms of laughter that when Rougon arrived the maid had to stand panting by the door for five minutes before she could leave the room. One day too Clorinde determined to remain invisible; she sewed her bed curtains together from top to bottom, and sat up on the bolster inside the cage she had thus formed, talking to Rougon for more than an hour, as calmly as though they had been sitting on either side of the fire. These extrava­gancies seemed quite natural to her. When Rougon chided her for them, she appeared quite surprised, and declared that she was doing nothing improper. It was in vain that he preached propriety to her, and promised to make her the most fascinating woman in Paris in a month’s time, if she would let herself be guided by him; she only grew angry, and exclaimed: ‘It’s my nature to be like this; I always go on like this. What harm does it do anybody?’ And some­times she would smile and say: ‘Oh, well, people love me all the same! Don’t preach!’

Delestang, indeed, worshipped her. To him she was quite unlike a wife, but for that very reason exercised the more influence. He shut his eyes to her caprices, smitten with a terrible fear lest she should leave him, as she had one day threatened to do. Beneath his meek submission there was probably a feeling that she was his superior, well able to do whatever she liked with him. In society he treated her almost like a child, and spoke to her with the complacency of a serious man. But when they were by themselves, this handsome fellow, with the haughty head, would burst into tears if she would not let him kiss her. The only check he put upon her was to take possession of the keys of the first floor rooms, in order that the reception apartments might be kept free from grease and dirt.

Rougon, though he failed in some things, managed to induce Clorinde to dress a little more like other people. With all her failings she was very shrewd, with the shrewdness of those lunatics who in lucid intervals manage to appear per­fectly rational before strangers. He met her at certain houses, looking very demure and reserved, allowing her husband to do all the talking, and remaining quite decorous amidst the admiration excited by her beauty. At her own house, Rougon frequently found M. de Plouguern, and Clorinde would sit between them making playful remarks, while they poured forth moral disquisitions for her benefit. Sometimes the old senator would familiarly pat the girl’s cheeks, much to Rougon’s annoyance, though he never ventured to express what he thought on the subject. He was more courageous with regard to Luigi Pozzo, Chevalier Rusconi’s secretary, whom he had frequently noticed leaving the house at unusual hours. When he hinted to the young woman that this might compromise her very seriously, she raised her eyes with a pretty look of surprise, and burst out laughing. She didn’t care for what people thought, she cried. Besides, Luigi counted for nothing. He was her cousin, and he brought her little Milanese cakes, which he purchased for her in the Passage Colbert.

It was with politics, however, that Clorinde’s mind was chiefly occupied. Since she had married Delestang, her brain had been busy with deep and intricate matters, of which no one knew the importance. She found in them, however, a means of satisfying her craving for intrigue, which had so long found scope in her attempts to ensnare those whom she thought to be coming men; and she seemed to be preparing herself in this way for some yet greater schemes which she had in contemplation. She kept up a regular correspondence with her mother, who was now settled at Turin; and went almost every day to the Sardinian legation, where Chevalier Rusconi took her apart, and talked to her in low tones. Then too she went on mysterious errands to all parts of Paris, making furtive visits to great personages, and keeping appointments in the most out-of-the-way places. All the Venetian refugees, the Brambillas, and the Staderinos, and the Viscardis, came to see her secretly, and gave her scraps of paper covered with memoranda. She had bought a large red morocco case, a genuine ministerial portfolio with a steel lock, and in it she stowed away a wonderful collection of documents. When she drove out, she kept it on her knees like a muff; and wherever she called she carried it about with her under her arm; and she might even be met early in the morning, on foot, clasping it against her breast with both her hands. The case soon began to look worn, and it split at the seams. Then she buckled straps round it. And ever laden as she was with this shapeless leather case bursting with papers, she looked like some money-grubbing solicitor running from one police-court to another in the hope of picking up a petty fee.

Rougon had made several attempts to discover what it was that so engrossed Clorinde’s thoughts. One day when he was left alone for a few moments with her famous port­folio, he had not scrupled to pull out some letters which pro­truded through its gaps. But all that he could find out in one fashion or another seemed to him so incoherent and dis­connected that he smiled at the young woman’s pretensions to politics. One afternoon, however, she quietly began to expound to him a vast scheme. She was working to bring about an alliance between France and Italy, in view of a speedy campaign against Austria. Rougon, who for a moment was very much struck by this, ended by shrugging his shoul­ders at the heap of absurdities which found place in her plan. He had in no way modified his opinion about women. Clorinde, on her side, so far as he was concerned, seemed to accept the subordinate position of a disciple quite willingly. When she went to see him in the Rue Marbeuf, she assumed an air of submissive humility, and questioned him, and listened to him with the eagerness of a neophyte anxious for instruction. For his part, he frequently forgot to whom he was speaking, and unfolded his theory of government, and talked to her in the most unrestrained and confidential manner. In fact, their conversations gradually became a regular habit, and he made her his confidante, breaking the silence which he observed in the presence of his best friends, and treating her like a discreet pupil, whose respectful admira­tion had a great charm for him.

During the months of August and September, Clorinde increased the frequency of her visits. She would call on Rougon three or four times a week, and never had she shown herself so gentle and affectionate. She paid him the most flattering compliments, eulogised his genius, and spoke regretfully of the great things which he would have accom­plished if he had not retired. One day, as an idea flashed through his mind, he said to her with a laugh: ‘There’s something you want me to do for you?’

‘Yes,’ she replied candidly.

But she quickly reassumed her expression of admiring wonder. Politics were much more interesting than novels, she declared. However, whenever Rougon turned his back for a moment, she would open her eyes quite widely, and a momentary gleam would flash from them, suggesting some old feeling of bitterness which still lived on. She often let her hands linger in his, as though she still felt too weak for what she was contemplating, and was waiting till she had drained away sufficient of his strength to be able to throttle him.

However, his increasing lassitude at this juncture was really a source of much uneasiness to her. He seemed to be falling fast asleep amidst his boredom. She had made, at first, full allowance for all possible pretence which there might be in his demeanour, but was at length forced to believe that he really did feel discouraged. His move­ments had grown sluggish, and his voice languid; and some­times he seemed so listless and indifferent that the young woman felt quite alarmed, and seriously wondered if he were not going to abide by his relegation to the Senate as a played-out politician.

Towards the end of September, however, Rougon seemed very thoughtful. At last, in one of his customary conversa­tions with Clorinde, he told her that he was maturing a great scheme. He was growing weary of Paris, and needed fresh air. Then all at once he spoke out. It was a great scheme of an altogether fresh life: a voluntary exile to the Landes of Gascony, the clearing of several square leagues of ground, and the founding of a new town amidst the conquered territory. Clorinde turned quite pale as she listened to him.

‘But your position here!’ she cried; ‘your prospects!’

‘Bah! castles in the air!’ he said disdainfully. ‘I have come to the conclusion that I am not cut out for politics.’

Then he reverted to his pet idea of being a great land­owner, with herds of cattle which he would rule in all sovereignty. But his ambition was now greater. In the Landes of Gascony he would be like the conquering king of a new territory. He would have a people under him. He gave Clorinde all kinds of particulars. For the last fortnight, without saying a word to anyone, he had been reading tech­nical treatises. And in imagination he had been reclaiming marshes, clearing the soil of stones with the aid of powerful machines, checking the advance of the sandhills by planta­tions of pines, and dowering France with a tract of wondrously fertile country. All his dormant activity, all his latent giant’s strength, awoke within him at the thought of this undertaking. He clenched his fists as though he were already face to face with rebellious rocks. In imagination he turned the whole soil over at a single stroke; carried houses completely built on his shoulders, and dropped them as his fancy listed on the banks of some river, whose bed he had hollowed out by a single kick of his foot. It all seemed so easy, and it would give him the work he so much desired. The Emperor, no doubt, still retained sufficient good-will towards him to let him reclaim those waste lands. And erect, bracing up his big form, and with his cheeks aglow, he burst into a proud laugh: ‘It is a magnificent idea!’ he cried. ‘I shall give my name to the town, and I, too, shall found a little Empire!’

Clorinde imagined that it was all a mere caprice, a whim born of the boredom in which he was struggling. But when they subsequently met, Rougon again spoke of his scheme with even greater enthusiasm than before. Each time she came to see him, she found him amidst a litter of maps strewn over the desk, the chairs, and the carpet alike. One afternoon she was not able to see him, as he was conferring with two engineers. Thereupon she began to feel really alarmed. Could he really mean to give her the slip like that and go off and found this town of his in the wilderness? Wasn’t it rather some new stratagem he was arranging? However, she relinquished her endeavours to ascertain the truth, and thought it best to give the alarm to the whole band.

There was great consternation. Du Poizat flew into a passion. For more than a year now he had been living by shifts, and on his last journey to La Vendee his father had hastily taken a pistol from a drawer on his venturing to ask him for ten thousand francs to float a magnificent specula­tion. So now the ex-sub-prefect was half-starving again just as in 1848. M. Kahn showed equal anger. His blast­furnaces at Bressuire were being threatened with speedy ruin, and he felt that he would be lost if he could not obtain the railway grant within the next six months. All the others, M. Béjuin, the colonel, the Bouchards, and the Charbonnels, were similarly upset. Things could not possibly be allowed to end like that, they cried. Really, such conduct on Rougon’s part was not reasonable. They must talk to him about it.

A fortnight, however, went by. Clorinde, whose ideas were approved by the whole band, had come to the conclusion that it would be hazardous to make an open attack on the great man. They must wait for a fitting opportunity. This they did, and one Sunday evening, towards the middle of October, when they were all assembled in the drawing-room in the Rue Marbeuf, Rougon smilingly remarked to them: ‘You’d never guess what I received to-day.’

Then he took a pink card from behind the timepiece and showed it to them. ‘An invitation to Compiègne, from the Emperor,’ he said.

At this moment his valet quietly opened the door, and told him that the gentleman he was expecting had arrived. Rougon excused himself and left the room. Clorinde had risen to her feet and stood there listening. Then, as silence fell, she exclaimed, energetically: ‘He must go to Com­piègne!’

The friends glanced round suspiciously; but they were quite alone. Madame Rougon had gone off some minutes previously. And so in low voices, and with their eyes fixed on the doors, they began to speak their minds. The ladies were gathered in a circle in front of the fire-place, where a huge log was smouldering. M. Bouchard and the colonel were busy with their everlasting piquet, while the other men had wheeled their chairs into a corner to isolate themselves. Clorinde alone remained standing in the middle of the room, her head bent as if deep in thought.

‘He was expecting somebody, then?’ began Du Poizat. ‘Who can it be, I wonder?’

The others shrugged their shoulders, as if to say that they did not know.

‘Something to do with this idiotic scheme of his, perhaps,’ continued the ex-sub-prefect. ‘One of these evenings, you’ll see, I shall tell him plainly what I think of him.’

‘Hush!’ exclaimed M. Kahn, raising his finger to his lips.

Du Poizat had raised his voice in an alarming way. For a moment they all strained their ears to listen. Then M. Kahn himself said in a very low tone: ‘There is no doubt but what he has pledged himself to us.’

‘Say, rather, that he has contracted a debt,’ interposed the colonel, laying down his cards.

‘Yes, yes; a debt; that is the word,’ declared M. Bouchard. ‘We didn’t mince matters that last day at the Council of State.’

All the others nodded assent. There was a general lamentation. Rougon had ruined them. M. Bouchard added, that if it had not been for his fidelity, he would have got his promotion long ago; and, to hear the colonel talk, anyone would have imagined that he had been offered a commander’s cross, and a post for his son Auguste, on the part of M. de Marsy, and that he had simply refused them out of friendship for Rougon. M. d’Escorailles’ parents, said pretty Madame Bouchard, were much disappointed at seeing their son remain a mere auditor when for the last six months they had been expecting his promotion to higher rank. Even those who said nothing, Delestang, M. Béjuin, Madame Correur, and the Charbonnels, bit their lips and raised their eyes to heaven with the expression of martyrs whose patience was at last beginning to fail them.