Complete Works of Emile Zola (647 page)

“They sing too loud,” murmured Octave in Madame Hédouin’s ear.

She did not move. Then, as De Nevers’s and Valentine’s explanations bored him, more especially as the auditor attached to the Council of State was a false barytone, he corresponded by signs with Trublot who, whilst awaiting the entrance of the monks, drew his attention with a wink to the window where Berthe was continuing to keep Auguste imprisoned. Now, they were alone, in the fresh breeze from outside; whilst, with her ear pricked up, Hortense stood before them, leaning against the curtain and mechanically twisting the loop. No one was watching them now, even Madame Josserand and Madame Dambreville were looking away, after an instinctive exchange of glances.

Meanwhile, Clotilde, her fingers on the keys, carried away and unable to risk a gesture, stretched her neck and addressed to the music stand this oath intended for De Nevers:

“Ah! from today all my blood is yours!”

The aldermen had made their entrance, a substitute, two attorneys, and a notary. The quartette was well delivered, the line: “For this holy cause — “ returned, spread out, supported by half the chorus, in a continuous expansion. Campardon, his mouth opened wider and wider, gave the orders for the combat, with a terrible roll of syllables. And, suddenly, the chant of the monks burst forth: Trublot sang from his stomach, so as to reach the low notes.

Octave, having had the curiosity to watch him singing, was struck with surprise, when he again cast his eyes in the direction of the window. As though carried away by the chorus, Hortense had unfastened the loop, by a movement which might have been unintentional; and, in falling, the big crimson silk curtain had completely hidden Auguste and Berthe. They were there behind it, leaning against the window bar, without a movement betraying their presence. Octave no longer troubled himself about Trublot, who was just then blessing the daggers: “Holy daggers, by us be blessed.” Whatever could they be doing behind that curtain? The fugue was commencing; to the deep tones of the monks, the chorus replied: “Death! death! death!” And still they did not move; perhaps, feeling the heat too much, they were simply watching the cabs pass. But Saint-Bris’s melodious line had again returned, by degrees all the voices uttered it with the whole strength of their lungs, progressively and in a final outburst of extraordinary force. It was like a gust of wind burying itself in the farthest corners of the too narrow room, scaring the candles, making the guests turn pale and their ears bleed. Clotilde furiously strummed away on the piano, carrying the gentlemen along with her with a glance; then the voices quieted down, almost whispering: “At midnight, let there be not a sound!” and she continued on alone, using the soft pedal, and imitating the cadenced and distant footsteps of some departing patrol.

Then, suddenly, in the midst of this expiring music, of this relief after so much uproar, one heard a voice exclaim:

“You are hurting me!”

All the heads again turned towards the window. Madame Dambreville kindly made herself useful, by going and pulling the curtain aside. And the whole drawing-room beheld Auguste looking very confused and Berthe very red, still leaning against the bar of the window.

“What is the matter, my treasure?” asked Madame Josserand earnestly.

“Nothing, mamma. Monsieur Auguste knocked my arm with the window. I was so warm!”

She turned redder still. There were affected smiles and scandalized pouts. Madame Duveyrier, who, for a month past, had been trying to keep her brother out of Berthe’s way, turned quite pale, more especially as the incident had spoilt the effect of her chorus. However, after the first moment of surprise, the applause burst forth, she was congratulated, and some amiable things were said about the gentlemen. How delightfully they had sung! what pains she must have taken to get them to sing so well in time! Really, it could not have been rendered better at a theatre. But, beneath all this praise, she could not fail to hear the whispering which went round the drawing-room: the young girl was too much compromised, a marriage had become inevitable.

“Well! he is hooked!” observed Trublot as he rejoined Octave. “What a ninny! as though he could not have pinched her whilst we were all bellowing! I thought all the while that he was taking advantage of it. You know, in drawing-rooms where they go in for singing, one pinches a lady, and if she cries out it does not matter, no one hears!”

Berthe, now very calm, was again laughing, whilst Hortense looked at Auguste with her crabbed air of a girl who had taken a diploma; and, in their triumph, the mother’s lessons reappeared, the undisguised contempt for man. All the gentlemen had now invaded the drawing-room, mingling with the ladies, and raising their voices. Monsieur Josserand, feeling sick at heart through Berthe’s adventure, had drawn near his wife. He listened uneasily as she thanked Madame Dambreville for all her kindness to their son Léon, whom she had most decidedly changed to his advantage. But his uneasiness increased when he heard her again refer to her daughters. She pretended to converse in low tones with Madame Juzeur, though speaking all the while for Valérie and Clotilde, who were standing up close beside her.

“Well, yes! her uncle mentioned it in a letter again today; Berthe will have fifty thousand francs. It is not much, no doubt, but when the money is there, and as safe as the bank too!”

This lie roused his indignation. He could not help stealthily touching her shoulder. She looked at him, forcing him to lower his eyes before the resolute expression of her face. Then, as Madame Duveyrier turned round quite amiably, she asked her with great concern for news of her father.

“Oh! papa has probably gone to bed,” replied the young woman, quite won over. “He works so hard!”

Monsieur Josserand said that Monsieur Vabre had indeed retired, so as to have his ideas clear on the morrow. And he mumbled a few words: a most remarkable mind, extraordinary faculties; asking himself at the same time where he would get that dowry from, and thinking what a figure he would cut, the day the marriage contract had to be signed.

A great noise of chairs being moved now filled the drawing-room. The ladies passed into the dining-room, where the tea was ready served. Madame Josserand sailed victoriously in, surrounded by her daughters and the Vabre family. Soon only the group of serious men remained amidst the vacant chairs. Campardon had button-holed the Abbé Mauduit: there was a question of some repairs to the calvary at Saint-Roch. The architect said he was quite free, for the diocese of Evreux gave him very little to do. All he had in hand there were a pulpit and a heating apparatus, and also some new ranges to be placed in the bishop’s kitchen, which work his inspector was quite competent to see after. Then, the priest promised to have the matter definitely settled at the next meeting of the vestry. And they both joined the group where Duveyrier was being complimented on a judgment, of which he admitted himself to be the author; the presiding judge, who was his friend, reserved certain easy and brilliant tasks for him, so as to bring him to the fore.

“Have you read this last novel?” asked Léon, looking through a number of the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” lying on a table. “It is well written; but there is another adultery, it is really becoming wearisome!”

And the conversation turned upon morality. Campardon said that there were some very virtuous women. All the others agreed with him. Moreover, according to the architect, one could always live peacefully at home, if one only went the right way about it. Théophile Vabre observed that it depended on the woman, without explaining himself farther. They wished to have Doctor Juillerat’s opinion, but he smiled and begged to be excused: he considered virtue was a question of health. During this, Duveyrier had remained wrapped in thought

“Dear me!” murmured he at length, “these authors exaggerate; adultery is very rare amongst educated people. A woman who comes from a good family, has in her soul a flower — “

He was for grand sentiments, he uttered the word “ideal” with an emotion which brought a mist to his eyes. And he said that the Abbé Mauduit was right when the latter spoke of the necessity for the wife and mother having some religious belief. The conversation was thus brought back to religion and politics, at the point where these gentlemen had previously left it. The Church would never disappear, because it was the foundation of all families, the same as it was the natural support of governments.

“As a sort of police, perhaps it is,” murmured the doctor.

Duveyrier, however, did not like politics being discussed in his house, and he contented himself with severely declaring, as he glanced into the dining-room where Berthe and Hortense were stuffing Auguste with sandwiches:

“There is one fact, gentlemen, which settles everything: religion moralizes marriage.”

At the same moment, Trublot, seated on a sofa beside Octave, was bending towards the latter.

“By the way,” asked he, “would you like me to get you invited to a lady’s where there is plenty of amusement?”

And as his companion desired to know what kind of a lady, he added, indicating the counsellor by a sign:

“His mistress.”

“Impossible!” said Octave in amazement.

Trublot slowly opened and closed his eyes. It was so. When one married a woman who was disobliging and disgusted with one’s little ailments, and who strummed on her piano to the point of making all the dogs of the neighbourhood ill, one had to go elsewhere and be made a fool of!

“Let us moralize marriage, gentlemen, let us moralize marriage,” repeated Duveyrier in his rigid way, with his inflamed face, where Octave now distinguished the foul blood of secret vices.

The gentlemen were being called into the dining-room. The Abbé Mauduit, left for a moment alone in the middle of the empty drawing-room, looked from a distance at the crush of guests. His fat shrewd face bore an expression of sadness. He who heard all those ladies, both old and young, at confession, knew them all in the flesh, the same as Doctor Juillerat, and he had had to end by merely watching over appearances, like a master of the ceremonies throwing the mantle of religion over the corruption of the middle classes, trembling at the certainty of a final downfall, the day when the canker would appear in all its hideousness. At times, in his ardent and sincere faith of a priest, his indignation would overcome him. But his smile returned; he took the cup of tea which Berthe came and offered him, and conversed a minute with her so as to cover, as it were, the scandal of the window, with his sacred character; and he again became the man of the world, resigned to merely insisting upon a decent behaviour from those sinners, who were escaping him, and who would have compromised providence.

“Well, these are fine goings-on!” murmured Octave, whose respect for the house had received another shock.

And seeing Madame Hédouin move towards the ante-room, he wished to reach there before her, and followed Trublot, who was also leaving. His intention was to see her home. She refused;
it was scarcely midnight, and she lived so near. Then, a rose having fallen from the bouquet at her breast, he picked it up in spite and made a pretence of keeping it. The young woman’s beautiful eyebrows contracted; then, she said in her quiet way:

“Pray open the door for me, Monsieur Octave. Thank you.”

When she had departed, the young man, who was rather confused, looked for Trublot. But Trublot had disappeared, the same as he had done at the Josserands’. This time also he must have slipped along the passage leading to the kitchen.

Octave, greatly put out, went off to his room, his rose in his hand. Upstairs, he beheld Marie leaning over the balustrade, at the place where he had left her; she had been listening for his footstep, and had hastened to see him come up. And when she had made him enter her room, she said:

“Jules has not yet come home. Did you enjoy yourself? Were there any pretty dresses?”

But she did not give him time to answer. She had caught sight of the rose, and was seized with a childish delight.

“Is that flower for me? You have thought of me? Ah! how nice of you! how nice of you!”

And her eyes filled with tears, she became quite confused and very red. Then Octave, suddenly moved, kissed her tenderly.

Towards one o’clock, the Josserands withdrew in their turn. Adèle always left a candle and some matches on a chair. When the members of the family, who had not exchanged a word coming upstairs, had entered the dining-room, from whence they had gone down in despair, they suddenly yielded to a mad delirious joy, holding each others’ hands, and dancing like savages round the table;
the father himself gave way to the contagion, the mother cut capers, and the daughters uttered little inarticulate cries; whilst the candle in the middle of them showed up their huge shadows careering along the walls.

“At last, it is settled!” said Madame Josserand, out of breath, dropping on to a chair.

But she jumped up again at once, in a fit of maternal affection, and ran and imprinted two big kisses on Berthe’s cheeks.

“I am very pleased, very pleased indeed with you, my darling. You have just rewarded me for all my efforts. My poor girl, my poor girl it is true then, this time!”

Her voice was choking, her heart was in her mouth. She succumbed in her flaring dress, beneath the weight of a deep and sincere emotion, suddenly overwhelmed in the hour of her triumph by the fatigues of her terrible campaign which had lasted three winters. Berthe had to swear that she was not ill; for her mother thought she looked ill, and was full of little attentions, almost insisting on making her a cup of infusion. When the young girl was in bed, she went barefooted and carefully tucked her in, like in the already distant days of her childhood.

Meanwhile, Monsieur Josserand, his head on his pillow, awaited her. She blew out the light, and stepped over him, to reach the side of the bed nearest the wall. He was wrapped in thought, his uneasiness having returned, his conscience all upset by that promise of a dowry of fifty thousand francs. And he ventured to mention his scruples aloud. Why make a promise, when one has a doubt of being able to keep it?
It was not honest.