Complete Works of Emile Zola (57 page)

“I know very well,” she added, “that you have had a great deal of trouble lately. Poor Philippe! I can fancy sometimes that I see him in his damp prison, he who was so fond of luxury and pleasure! That will teach him to place his affection in better hands.”

Sauvaire had raised himself a little. One of his good qualities was that he was not jealous; on the contrary he showed himself quite proud of his companion’s past admirers. The fondness which Armande had formerly shown for others doubled, in his eyes, the value of his good fortune. Besides, Marius seemed to him so small that he was delighted to appear robust beside of him.

The young woman introduced the two men.

“Oh! We know each other,” said the master-stevedore, with the laugh of a happy man. “I also know M. Philippe Cayol. There’s a fine fellow for you!”

The truth was that Sauvaire was delighted at being found alone with Armande. He began to talk to her familiarly, to lay stress on the pleasures they participated in together, and then resumed speaking of Philippe:

“He often came to see you, didn’t he? Ah! never mind, don’t protest. I think you were in love with each other. I used to meet him sometimes at the Château-des-Fleurs. We went there yesterday. Eh! my dear, what a crowd, what dresses!”

He turned to Marius.

“In the evening,” he added, “we supped at a restaurant. It is very expensive. It is not everyone who can afford that.”

Armande seemed to suffer. There was still some delicacy about the woman. She looked at Marius, shrugged her shoulders slightly, shot glances at him, scoffing at Sauvaire. The latter remained imperturbable and stretched himself out full of enjoyment.

Marius then guessed how much the lorette was embarrassed and tormented. He felt something like pity at the sight of her deserted drawing-room, and when he understood down what a frightfully steep incline this woman, whom he had known happy and without a care, was rolling, he regretted having called.

About ten o’clock he found himself alone with Sauvaire, who began to give him an account of his good fortune and joyous existence.

A servant had come to tell Armande that Madame Mercier was in the ante-chamber and that she seemed very angry.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH MADAME MERCIER SHOWS HER CLAWS

MADAME MERCIER was a little round, fat old woman of fifty, who was for ever tearfully complaining about the hardness of the times. Attired in a gown of washed-out printed calico, always with an old straw basket on her arm which served as a safe, she trotted along with short steps and the sly movements of a cat. She was humble and wretched and gave herself poverty-stricken airs to make people pity her. Her fresh complexion, and the wrinkles on her face, resembling rolls of fat, were a standing protest against the tears that inundated it at every moment.

This female usurer played her part admirably with Armande. She first of all acted the good-natured woman. She gained absolute control over her with an infernal kind of art, showing herself in turn serviceable and egotistic, embroiling the accounts, allowing the interest to accumulate, making it impossible for her debtor to verify anything.

Thus, when one of the acceptances fell due and Armande was without funds to meet it, Madame Mercier was greatly distressed, then she promised to borrow the money from someone, vowing she had not got it herself. She advanced the amount of the bill, but made the lorette immediately reimburse her, and thus there was fresh interest to pay.

In all this coming and going of acceptances, in the constant increase in the rate of discount, Armande had lost all count of how she stood, what she had paid and what she still owed. In the meantime the debt increased without the usurer making any farther advances, and the older it became the more obscure it got. The young woman felt herself lost at the bottom of chaos.

The female usurer maintained her despairing and coaxing manner. When she supplied money herself in order that Armande might pay her, she made her feel all her devotedness, all the heroism of her conduct.

“Eh? You have never seen a creditor like me,” she would say. “I even go so far as to borrow the money you want. That is splendid, that is!”

“But,” answered Armande, “it’s for yourself that you borrow the money, as I give it you.”

“Not at all,” answered the old woman, “I am only seeking to do you a service.”

So Madame Mercier in this way introduced herself little by little into the house. Every two or three days, she came and showed her cunning, coaxing face. Armande became her property, her slave. Sometimes she arrived all in a flutter, fell into a chair in despair and accused the young woman of wanting to run away without paying her; it was necessary to take her over the apartment and let her see that the trunks were not packed up. Sometimes she rang violently at the door, said she had been robbed, and reproached the lorette with her expenditure; she compared the one life with the other, accused her debtor of being insolvent, and crippled with debt, and ended by asking for fresh security.

At other moments she came suddenly and demanded money; then she softened down, pleaded poverty, and on leaving shuffled along in a most lamentable way. She accompanied each of these visits with a deluge of tears. These came at her bidding, and she took advantage of that circumstance to embarrass people.

Each complaint was followed by a sob. She twisted herself about pitifully on a chair, uttering the least word in a doleful tone of voice.

Armande, weary and bewildered, generally stood before her without being able to pronounce a syllable. At times she would have sacrificed everything: linen, gowns, furniture, to have been freed from these continual lamentations.

The usurer invented another kind of persecution. She would come with red eyes, declare she was in want of bread, and was dying. The young woman, aggravated and quite out of patience, would tell her to sit down and eat. Sometimes she would shed streams of tears to get sugar, coffee, or brandy.

“Alas! My dear lady,” she snivelled, “I am very unhappy. This morning I had to take my coffee without sugar, and tomorrow I shall have neither sugar nor coffee. Be charitable. It is you who have brought me to this; if you were to give me my money, I should not be obliged to come and beg. For pity’s sake let me have a few pounds of coffee and sugar. That will count for all the services I have rendered you.”

Armande did not dare refuse. She spent her last few sous trembling in the presence of certain savage, bantering looks of her creditor. If she happened to say she had no money the usurer would answer.

“Very well, I shall present the bill you gave me to your lover — “

The other would not allow her to proceed any further. She sent and sold something and purchased what her tormentor required. The unfortunate girl closed her eyes in order not to see the chasm gaping before her.

She belonged to this woman who held such terrible proofs against her in her hands, and she obeyed her, inwardly irritated, inquiring of herself with despair, by what means she could escape from her claws.

Madame Mercier wept for nearly two years and extracted from Armande all she could. She never went away with empty hands.

The money she had lent her already brought her in two hundred and fifty per cent. If the capital was compromised, the interest covered it two or three times over. At last the usurer understood that she must change her tactics. Armande could not receive her without a nervous shudder which must inevitably bring about a crisis. Besides, she had no money and she had twice firmly refused to give her sugar.

From that moment the old woman resolved to weep no more, but to have recourse to strong measures. It only remained to her to play all for all, to exact immediate payment of the arrears, from the lorette, by threatening to lodge a complaint with the crown attorney.

She had had the prudence not to manifest the least suspicion anent the forged bills in her possession. Her plan was soon formed. She decided she would call on the young woman and put her in a fearful fright. If one of her protectors happened to be there, she would apply to him, she would create a scandal and manage to get back her money somehow. She wanted to devour her prey after having sucked all the blood from her veins.

An acceptance for a thousand francs which Armande had signed with Sauvaire’s name, and which she had given Madame Mercier in exchange for another bill, had fallen due on the previous day. The old woman having a pretext to be angry resolved not to wait any longer. She called on the young woman just at the time when Marius and the master-stevedore were there.

Armande was quite troubled when she met her in the ante-chamber. She dragged her to the farthest corner of a small boudoir which was only separated from the drawing-room by a thin door. She offered her a seat with the timid and beseeching look of an insolvent person to her creditor.

“What do you mean,” shouted the usurer, refusing the chair, “you are making fun of me, my good lady! Another bill returned unpaid! I am tired of it all.”

She had crossed her arms and spoke in a loud insolent voice. Her little fat, red face shone with anger. Armande would have preferred to have seen her crying and lamenting in her customary drawling tone of voice.

“For mercy’s sake,” she exclaimed frightened, “speak lower. I have visitors. You know in what an embarrassed position I find myself. Grant me a few days’ grace.”

Madame Mercier made a movement of impatience. She stood on tip-toe and spoke right in the lorette’s face.

“What care I, if you have visitors?” she continued, without lowering her voice. “I mean to be paid, and immediately! Madame wears hats and bonnets, Madame goes to the Château-des-Fleurs, Madame has lovers who provide all sorts of amusement for her! Have I any lovers? I deprive myself, I eat dry bread and drink water, whereas you stuff yourself with good things. That can’t last, I must have my money, or I will take you somewhere. You know where, don’t you?”

She accompanied these words with a threatening look and Armande turned quite pale.

“Ah! That ruffles you,” continued the old woman, sneering. “You must have taken me for a donkey! If I have acted like one, it was no doubt because it was to my interest to do so.”

She began laughing and shrugging her shoulders. Then she added violently:

“If you don’t pay me tonight, I will write tomorrow to the crown attorney.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” stammered Armande.

The old woman sat down. She felt she was mistress of the situation, and she wanted to enjoy the pleasure of playing for a moment with her prey.

“Ah! You don’t know what I mean, when I speak to you of the crown attorney,” she said, making a frightful grimace as if overcome with sudden merriment. “But you lie, my good lady! Look at yourself in that glass: you are pallid, own that you’re a hussy.”

At that word Armande rose. It seemed to her that she had just received a cut with a whip across the face. Her self-possession returned to her, and showing Madame Mercier the door, she exclaimed in a loud voice:

“Walk out at once!”

“No, I’ll not go out,” answered the old woman, sitting back in an arm-chair. “I want my money. If you touch me I’ll shout murder, and the persons who are in your drawing-room will come to my assistance. I told you I was not a fool. Pay me at once and I’ll leave you alone.”

“I have no money,” answered Armande coldly.

This reply exasperated the old woman. For more than a year it had been given her regularly at each of her visits. She had ended by taking it for mockery.

“You have no money! You always say that,” she exclaimed. “Give me your furniture and gowns. But no, I prefer sending you to prison. I will go and lodge a complaint, I will accuse you of forgery. We shall see, my beautiful lady, if you find lovers among your gaolers, who will treat you to silk gowns and tasty meals.”

Armande staggered, losing all her assurance, fearing the cries of the old woman might be heard by Marius and Sauvaire. Her creditor saw her fright, and began shouting still louder.

“Yes,” she said, “I can send you to the assizes tomorrow. You know that, don’t you? I have over ten false acceptances in my possession on which you have imitated your lovers’ signatures. That’s nice work. I shall go and find each of these gentlemen; I will tell them what you are, and they will cast you into the street. You will die in the gutter.”

She took breath, while the young woman, all of a tremble, thought of strangling her to make her silent.

“But that reminds me,” she continued, “you have visitors. Perhaps in your drawing-room there is one of those gentlemen whose name you have stolen to make money out of. I’ll go and see. It is necessary I should find out. Let me pass.”

She moved towards the door. Armande placed herself in front of her, with extended arms, ready to strike her if she advanced.

“You want to strike me, I who have fed you, who have lent you my money,” stammered the female usurer suffocating with rage.

And she stepped backward shouting:

“Help! Help!”

Armande faced sharply round to turn the key in the lock. But it was too late. The door had just opened and she found herself face to face with Marius and Sauvaire, who were gazing into the boudoir in an anxious and curious manner.

CHAPTER IV

WHICH SHOWS THAT THE POSITION OF A LORETTE IS NOT WITHOUT ITS TROUBLES

SAUVAIRE and Marius had been about half-an-hour alone in the drawing-room. The young man would willingly have withdrawn, but he considered it uncivil to do so without first of all taking leave of the mistress of the house. He therefore feigned to be listening to the stevedore’s stories.

The sound of loud voices soon reached them. Little by little the noise increased to such a pitch that both of them lent the ear, being unable to appear discreet any longer.

Just then the shout: “Help! Help!” made them start up and open the door communicating with the boudoir.

A strange sight awaited them. As soon as they made their appearance Armande stepped back staggering, and let herself fall into an arm-chair. With her head between her hands she burst out sobbing, quite broken down, without raising her face or uttering a word.