Complete Works of Emile Zola (677 page)

“Oh!” she simply exclaimed.

“It’s nothing, go back to bed!” cried her father.

Then, understanding that some sort of story was necessary, he related the first that came into his head; but it was really too ludicrous.

“Madame sprained her ankle coming downstairs, so she’s come here for assistance. Go back to bed, you’ll catch cold!”

Lisa choked back a laugh on encountering Angèle’s wide open eyes, as the latter returned to her bed, all rosy and quite delighted at having seen such a sight. For some minutes past, Madame Campardon had been calling from her room. She had not put her light out, being so interested in her Dickens, and she wished to know what had happened. What did it all mean? who was there? why did not some one come to set her mind at rest?

“Come, madame,” said the architect, taking Berthe with him. “And you, Lisa, wait a minute.”

In the bedroom, Rose was still spread out in the middle of the big bed. She throned there with her queenly luxury, her quiet serenity of an idol. She was deeply affected by what she had read, and she had placed the book on her breast, with the heavings of which it gently rose and fell. When the cousin in a few words had made her acquainted with what had taken place, she also appeared to be scandalized. How could one go with a man who was not one’s husband? and she was filled with disgust for that which was denied to her. But the architect now cast confused glances at the young woman; and this ended by making Gasparine blush.

“It is shocking!” cried she. “Cover yourself up, madame, for it is really shocking! Pray cover yourself up!”

And she herself threw a shawl of Rose’s over Berthe’s shoulders, a large knitted woollen shawl which was lying about. It did not reach to her knees, however, and in spite of himself, the architect’s eyes wandered over the young woman’s person.

Berthe was still trembling. Though she was in safety, she kept starting and looking towards the door. Her eyes were full of tears, and she beseeched this lady who seemed so calm and comfortable as she lay in bed:

“Oh! madame, keep me, save me. He wants to kill me.”

A pause ensued. The three were consulting one another with their eyes, without hiding their disapproval of such culpable conduct. Besides, it was not proper to come in a state of nudity and wake people up after midnight, and perhaps put them to great inconvenience. No, such a thing was not right; it showed a want of discretion, besides placing them in a very awkward position.

“We have a young girl here,” said Gasparine at length. “Think of our responsibility, madame.”

“You would be better with your parents,” insinuated the architect, “and if you will allow me to see you to their door — “

Berthe was again seized with terror.

“No, no, he is on the stairs, he would kill me.”

And she implored him to let her remain: a chair was all she needed to wait on till morning; on the morrow, she would go quietly away. The architect and his wife would have consented, he won over by such tender charms, she interested by the drama of this surprise in the middle of the night. But Gasparine remained inflexible. Yet she had her curiosity to satisfy, and she ended by asking:

“Wherever were you?”

“Upstairs, in the room at the end of the passage, you know.”

At this, Campardon held up his arms and exclaimed:

“What! with Octave, it isn’t possible!”

With Octave, with that bean-stalk, such a pretty plump little woman! He was annoyed. Rose, also, felt vexed, and was now inclined to be severe. As for Gasparine, she was quite beside herself, stung to the heart by her instinctive hatred of the young man. He again! she knew very well that he had them all; but, she was certainly not going to be so stupid as to keep them warm for him in her home.

“Put yourself in our place,” resumed she harshly. “I tell you again we have a young girl here.”

“Besides,” said Campardon in his turn, “there is the house to be considered, there is your husband, with whom I have always been on the best of terms. He would have a right to be surprised. It will never do for us to appear to publicly approve your conduct, madame, oh! a conduct which I do not permit myself to judge, but which is rather — what shall I say? — rather indiscreet, is it not?”

“We are certainly not going to cast stones at you,” continued Rose. “Only, the world is so wicked! People will say that you had your meetings here. And, you know, my husband works for some very strait-laced people. At the least stain on his morality, be would lose everything. But, allow me to ask you, madame: how is it you were not restrained by religion?
The Abbé Mauduit was talking to us of you quite paternally, only the day before yesterday.”

Berthe turned her head about between the three of them, looking at the one who spoke, in a bewildered sort of way. In the midst of her fright, she was beginning to understand, she felt surprised at being there. Why had she rang, what was she doing amongst these people whom she disturbed?
She saw them clearly now, the wife occupying the whole width of the bed, the husband in his drawers and the cousin in a thin skirt, the pair of them white with the feathers of the same pillow. They were right, it was not proper to tumble amongst people in that way. And, as the architect pushed her gently towards the anteroom, she went off without even answering Rose’s religious regrets.

“Shall I accompany you as far as your parents’ door?” asked Campardon.” Your place is with them.”

She refused, with a terrified gesture.

“Then wait a moment, I will take a look up and down the stairs, for I should deeply regret if the least harm happened to you.”

Lisa had remained in the middle of the anteroom, with her candle. He took it, went out on to the landing, and returned almost immediately.

“I assure you there is no one. Run up quick.”

Then Berthe, who had not again opened her lips, hastily took off the woollen shawl, and threw it on the floor saying:

“Here! this is yours. It’s no use keeping it as he’s going to kill me!”

And she went out into the darkness, with nothing on but her chemise, the same as when she came. Campardon double locked the door in a fury, murmuring the while:

“Eh! go and get tumbled elsewhere!”

Then, as Lisa burst out laughing behind him, he added:

“It’s true, they’d be coming every night, if one received them. Every one for himself. I would have given her a hundred francs, but my reputation! no, by Jove?”

In the bedroom, Rose and Gasparine were recovering themselves. Had any one ever seen such a shameless creature?
to walk about the staircase with nothing on! Really! there were women who respected nothing, at certain times! But it was close upon two o’clock, they must get to sleep. And they embraced again: good-night my darling, good-night my duck. Eh?
was it not nice to love each other, and to always agree together, when one beheld such catastrophes occurring in other families? Rose again took up her Dickens; he supplied all her requirements; she would read a few more pages, then let the book slip into the bed, the same as she did every night, and fall off asleep, weary with emotion. Campardon followed Gasparine, made her get into bed first, and then laid himself down beside her. They both grumbled: the sheets had become cold again, they were not at all comfortable, it would take them another half hour to get warm.

And Lisa, who before going upstairs had returned to Angèle’s room, was saying to her:

“The lady has sprained her ankle. Come, show me how she sprained it.”

“Why! like this!” replied the child, throwing herself on the maid’s neck, and kissing her on her lips.

Berthe was on the stairs shivering. It was cold, the heating apparatus was not lighted till the beginning of November. Her fright had at length abated. She had gone down and listened at her door: nothing, not a sound. Then she had gone up, not daring to venture as far as Octave’s room, but listening from a distance: there was a death-like silence, unbroken by a murmur. Then, she had squatted down on her parents’ mat, where she vaguely thought of waiting for Adèle, for the idea of confessing everything to her mother, upset her as much as if she had still been a little girl. But, by degrees, the solemnity of the staircase filled her with a fresh anguish. It was black, it was severe. No one saw her, and yet she was seized with confusion at having nothing on but her chemise amidst the gilded zinc and the imitation marble. From behind the tall mahogany doors, the conjugal dignity of the alcoves seemed to exhale a reproach. Never before had the house breathed with so virtuous a breath. Then, a moonbeam glided through the windows of the landings, and one might have thought the place a church: a peacefulness ascended from the vestibule to the servants’ rooms, all the virtues of the middle-classes smouldered in the shadow of the different storeys, whilst her semi-nakedness shone out all white in the pale light. She felt she was a scandal to the walls, she gathered her chemise around her, dreading to see the ghost of Monsieur Gourd appear in his velvet cap and slippers.

Suddenly, a noise affrighted her, causing her to jump up, and she was about to hammer with both her fists on her mother’s door, when some one calling out stopped her.

It was a voice almost as faint as a zephyr.

“Madame — madame — “

She looked downstairs, but saw nothing.

“Madame — madame — it’s I.”

And Marie showed herself in her chemise also. She had heard all the disturbance, and had slipped out of bed, leaving Jules asleep, whilst she remained listening in her little dining-room without a light.

“Come in. You are in trouble. I am a friend.”

She gently reassured her, and told her all that had taken place. The men had not hurt each other: he had cursed and swore, and pushed the chest of drawers up against his door, to shut himself in; whilst the other had gone downstairs with a bundle in his hand, the things she had left behind, her shoes and petticoat, which he must have rolled up mechanically in her dressing-gown, on seeing them lying about. In short, it was all over. It would be easy enough to prevent them fighting on the morrow.

But Berthe remained standing on the threshold with a remnant of fear and shame at thus entering the abode of a lady whom she did not habitually frequent. Marie was obliged to lead her in by the hand.

“You will sleep there, on that sofa. I will lend you a shawl, and I will go and see your mother. Good heavens! what a misfortune! When one is in love, one does not stop to think.”

“Ah! for the little pleasure we had!” said Berthe, with a sigh, which was full of the cruelty and stupidity of her unprofitable night. “He does right to swear. If he’s like me, he’s had more than enough of it!”

They were on the point of speaking of Octave. They said nothing further, but suddenly fell sobbing into each other’s arms in the dark. Their limbs clasped with a convulsive passion, their bosoms, hot with tears, were pressed close together beneath their crumpled chemises. It was a final weariness, an immense sadness, the end of everything. They did not say another word, whilst their tears flowed, flowed without ceasing, in the midst of the darkness and of the profound slumber of that house so full of decency.

CHAPTER XV

That morning, the house awoke with a great middle-class dignity. Nothing of the staircase preserved a trace of the scandals of the night, neither the imitation marble which had reflected that gallop of a woman in her chemise, nor the Wilton carpet from which all the odour of her semi-nudity had evaporated. Monsieur Gourd alone, when he went upstairs towards seven o’clock to give his look round, sniffed at the walls; but what did not concern him, did not concern him; and as, on going downstairs again, he saw two of the servants in the courtyard, Lisa and Julie, who were no doubt discussing the catastrophe, for they seemed deeply interested, he stared at them so fixedly that they at once separated. Then he went outside to make sure of the tranquillity of the street. It was calm. Only, the servants must already have been talking, for some of the neighbours’ wives stopped, tradespeople came to their shop doors, looking up in the air, examining and searching the different floors, in the gaping way in which the crowd scrutinizes houses where a crime has been committed. In the presence of the rich frontage, however, people held their tongues and politely passed on.

At half-past seven, Madame Juzeur appeared in a dressing-gown, to look after Louise, she said. Her eyes sparkled, and her hands wore feverishly hot. She stopped Marie, who was going up with her milk, and endeavoured to get her to talk; but she could draw nothing out of her, and did not even learn how the mother had received her guilty daughter. Then, under the pretence of waiting a minute for the postman, she entered the Gourds’ room, and ended by asking why Monsieur Octave did not come down;
perhaps he was ill. The doorkeeper replied that he did not know;
moreover, Monsieur Octave never came down before ten minutes past eight. At this moment, the other Madame Campardon, pale and erect, passed by; every one bowed to her. And Madame Juzeur, obliged to go upstairs again, had the luck, on reaching her landing, to meet the architect just starting off and putting on his gloves. At first, they both looked at each other in a dejected sort of way;
then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Poor things!” murmured she.

“No, no, it serves them right!” said he ferociously. “An example must be made of them. A fellow whom I introduce into a respectable house, beseeching him not to bring any women there, and who, to humbug me, goes and sleeps with the landlord’s sister-in-law! I look like a fool in it all!”

No more was said. Madame Juzeur entered her apartments, whilst Campardon continued on his way downstairs, in such a state of fury that he tore one of his gloves.

Just as eight o’clock was striking, Auguste, looking very dejected, his features contracted by an atrocious headache, crossed the courtyard to go to his warehouse. Filled with shame, and dreading to meet any one, he had come down by way of the servants’ staircase. However, he could not leave his business to take care of itself. When in the midst of his counters, and before the pay-desk where Berthe usually sat, his emotion almost choked him. The porter was taking down the shutters, and Auguste was giving the orders for the day, when the abrupt appearance of Saturnin coming up from the basement gave him an awful fright. The madman’s eyes were like flames of fire, his white teeth resembled a famished wolfs. He went straight up to the husband, clenching his fists.