Complete Works of Emile Zola (701 page)

“Well,” said Mouret, “what’s become of you?”

“Nothing at all,” replied the other.

Vallagnosc, in the joy of their meeting, retained his tired and disenchanted air; and as his friend, astonished, insisted, saying: “But you must do something. What do you do?”

“Nothing,” replied he.

Octave commenced to laugh. Nothing! that wasn’t enough. Little by little he succeeded in drawing Paul out to tell his story. It was the usual story of penniless younger sons, who think themselves obliged by their birth to choose a liberal profession, burying themselves in a sort of vain mediocrity, happy to escape starvation, notwithstanding their numerous degrees. He had studied law by a sort of family tradition; and had since remained a burden on his widowed mother, who even then hardly knew how to dispose of her two daughters. Having at last got quite ashamed, he left the three women to vegetate on the remnants of their fortune, and accepted an appointment in the Ministry of the Interior, where he buried himself like a mole in its hole.

“What do you get there?” resumed Mouret.

“Three thousand francs.”

“But that’s pitiful pay! Ah! old man, I’m really sorry for you. What! a clever fellow like you, who floored all of us! And they only give you three thousand francs a year, after having already ground you down for five years! No, it isn’t right!” He interrupted himself, and returned to his own doings. “As for me, I made them a humble bow. You know what I’m doing?”

“Yes,” said Vallagnosc, “I heard you were in business. You’ve got that big place in the Place Gaillon, haven’t you?”

“That’s it. Counter-jumper, my boy!”

Mouret raised his head, again slapped him on the knee, and repeated, with the solid gaiety of a fellow who did not blush for the trade by which he was making his fortune:

“Counter-jumper, and no mistake! You remember, no doubt, I didn’t bite much at their machines, although at heart I never thought myself duller than the others. When I took my degree, just to please the family, I could have become a barrister or a doctor quite as easily as any of my school-fellows, but those trades frightened me. I saw so many who were starving at them that I just threw them over without the least regret, and pitched head-first into business.”

Vallognosc smiled with an awkward air, and ultimately said: “It’s very certain your degree can’t be much good to you for selling calico.”

“Well!” replied Mouret, joyously, “all I ask is, that it shall not stand in my way, and you know, when one has been stupid enough to burden one’s self with it, it is difficult to get rid of it. One goes at a tortoise’s pace through life, whilst those who are bare-footed run like madmen.” Then, noticing that his friend seemed troubled, he took his hand in his, and continued: “Come, come, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but confess that your degrees have not satisfied any of your wants. Do you know that my manager in the silk department will draw more than twelve thousand francs this year. Just so! a fellow of very clear intelligence, whose knowledge is confined to spelling, and the first four rules. The ordinary salesmen in my place make from three to four thousand francs a year, more than you can earn yourself; and their education was not so expensive as yours, nor were they launched into the world wjth a written promise to conquer it. Of course, it is not everything to make money; but between the poor devils possessed of a smattering of science who now block up the liberal professions, without earning enough to keep themselves from starving, and the practical fellows armed for life’s struggle, knowing every branch of their trade, by Jove! I don’t hesitate a moment, I’m for the latter against the former, I think they thoroughly understand the age they live in!”

His voice had become impassioned. Henriette, who was pouring out the tea, turned her head. When he caught her smile, at the further end of the large drawing-room, and saw the other ladies were listening, he was the first to make merry over his own big phrases.

“In short, old man, every counter-jumper who commences, has, at the present day, a chance of becoming a millionaire.”

Vallagnosc threw himself back on the sofa indolently, half-closing his eyes in a fatigued and disdainful attitude, in which a suspicion of affectation was added to his real hereditary exhaustion.

“Bah!” murmured he, “life isn’t worth all that trouble. There is nothing worth living for.” And as Mouret, shocked, looked at him with an air of surprise, he added: “Everything happens and nothing happens; one may as well stay with one’s arms folded.”

He then explained his pessimism — the mediocrities and the abortions of existence. For a time he had thought of literature, but his intercourse with certain poets had filled him with universal despair. He always arrived at the conclusion that all effort was useless, every hour equally weary and empty, and the world incurably stupid and dull. All enjoyment was a failure, and there was no pleasure in wrong-doing even.

“Just tell me, do you enjoy life yourself?” asked he at last.

Mouret was now in a state of astonished indignation, and exclaimed: “What? Do I enjoy myself? What are you talking about? Why, of course I do, my boy, and even when things give way, for then I am furious at hearing them cracking. I am a passionate fellow myself, and don’t take life quietly; that’s what interests me in it perhaps.” He glanced towards the drawing-room, and lowered his voice. “Oh! there are some women who’ve bothered me awfully, I must confess. But when I’ve got hold of one, I keep her. She doesn’t always escape me, and then I take my share, I assure you. But it is not so much the women, for to speak truly, I don’t care a hang for them; it’s the wish to act — to create, in short. You have an idea; you fight for it, you hammer it into people’s heads, and you see it grow and triumph. Ah! yes, my boy, I enjoy life!”

All the joy of action, all the gaiety of existence, resounded in these words. He repeated that he went with the times. Really, a man must be badly constituted, have his brain and limbs out of order, to refuse to work in an age of such vast undertakings, when the entire century was pressing forward with giant strides. And he laughed at the despairing ones, the disgusted ones, the pessimists, all those weak, sickly members of our budding sciences, who assumed the weeping airs of poets, or the minting ways of skeptics, amidst the immense activity of the present day. A fine part to play, proper and intelligent, that of yawning before other people’s labor!

“That’s my only pleasure, yawning in other’s faces,” said Vallagnosc, smiling with his cold look.

At this Mouret’s passion subsided, and he became affectionate again. “Ah, Paul, you’re not changed. Just as paradoxical as ever! However, we’ve not met to quarrel. Each one has his own ideas, fortunately. But you must come and see my machine at work; you’ll see it isn’t a bad idea. Come, what news? Your mother and sisters are quite well, I hope? And weren’t you supposed to get married at Plassans, about six months ago?”

A sudden movement made by Vallagnosc stopped him; and as the former was looking round the drawing-room with an anxious expression, Mouret also turned round, and noticed that Mademoiselle de Boves was closely watching them. Blanche, tall and stout, resembled her mother; but her face was already puffed out, her large, coarse features swollen with unhealthy fat. Paul, in reply to a discreet question, intimated that nothing was yet settled; perhaps nothing would be settled. He had made the young person’s acquaintance at Madame Desforges’s, where he had visited a good deal last winter, but where he very rarely came now, which explained why he had not met Octave there sooner. In their turn, the De Boves invited him, and he was especially fond of the father, a very amiable man, formerly well known about town, who had retired into his present position. On the other hand, no money. Madame de Boves having brought her husband nothing but her Juno-like beauty as a marriage portion, the family were living poorly on the last mortgaged farm, to which modest revenue was added, fortunately, the nine thousand francs a year drawn by the count as Inspector-General of the Stud. And the ladies, mother and daughter, kept very short of money by him, impoverished by tender escapades outside, were sometimes reduced to turning their dresses themselves.

“In that case, why marry?” was Mouret’s simple question.

“Well! I can’t go on like this forever,” said Vallagnosc, with a weary movement of the eyelids. “Besides, there are certain expectations; we are waiting the death of an aunt.”

However, Mouret still kept his eye on Monsieur de Boves, who, seated next to Madame Guibal, was most attentive, and laughing tenderly like a man on an amorous campaign; he turned to his friend with such a significant twinkle of the eye that the latter added:

“Not that one. At least not yet. The misfortune is, that his duty calls him to the four corners of France, to the breeding depots, so that he has continual pretexts for absenting himself. Last month, whilst his wife supposed him to be at Perpignan, he was living at an hotel, in an out-of-the-way neighborhood, with a music-mistress.”

There ensued a pause. Then the young man, who was also watching the count’s gallantries towards Madame Guibal, resumed in a low tone: “Really, I think you are right. The more so as the dear lady is not exactly a saint, if all they say is true. There’s a very amusing story about her and an officer. But just look at him! Isn’t he comical, magnetizing her with his eyes? The old-fashioned gallantry, my dear fellow! I adore that man, and if I marry his daughter, he can safely say it’s for his sake!”

Mouret laughed, greatly amused. He questioned Vallagnosc again, and when he found that the first idea of a marriage between him and Blanche came from Madame Desforges, he thought the story better still. That good Henriette took a widow’s delight in marrying people, so much so, that when she had provided for the girls, she sometimes allowed their fathers to choose friends from her company; but all so naturally, with such a good grace, that no one ever found any food for scandal. And Mouret, who loved her with the love of an active, busy man, accustomed to reducing his tenderness to figures, forgot all his calculations of captivation, and felt for her a comrade’s friendship.

At that moment she appeared at the door of the little drawing-room, followed by a gentleman, about sixty years old, whose entry had not been observed by the two friends. Occasionally the ladies’ voices became sharper, accompanied by the tinkling of the small spoons in the china cups; and there was heard, from time to time, in the interval of a short silence, the noise of a saucer laid down too roughly on the marble table. A sudden gleam of the setting sun, which had just emerged from behind a thick cloud, gilded the top of the chestnut-trees in the gardens, and streamed through the windows in a red, golden flame, the fire of which lighted up the brocatel and brass-work of the furniture.

“This way, my dear baron,” said Madame Desforges. “Allow me to introduce Monsieur Octave Mouret, who is longing to express the admiration he feels for you.” And turning round towards Octave, she added: “Baron Hartmann.”

A smile played on the old man’s lips. He was a short, vigorous man, with a large Alsatian head, and a heavy face, which lighted up with a gleam of intelligence at the slightest curl of his mouth, the slightest movement of his eyelids. For the last fortnight he had resisted Henriette’s wish that he should consent to this interview; not that he felt any immoderate jealousy, accepting, like a man of the world, his position of father; but because it was the third friend Henriette had introduced to him, and he was afraid of becoming ridiculous at last. So that on approaching Octave he put on the discreet smile of a rich protector, who, if good enough to show himself charming, does not consent to be a dupe.

“Oh! sir,” said Mouret, with his Southern enthusiasm, “the Crédit Immobilier’s last operation was really astonishing! You cannot think how happy and proud I am to know you.”

“Too kind, sir, too kind,” repeated the baron, still smiling.

Henriette looked at them with her clear eyes without any awkwardness, standing between the two, lifting her head, going from one to the other; and, in her lace dress, which revealed her delicate neck and wrists, she appeared delighted to see them so friendly together.

“Gentlemen,” said she at last, “I leave you to your conversation.” Then, turning towards Paul, who had got up, she resumed: “Will you accept of a cup of tea, Monsieur de Vallagnosc?”

“With pleasure, madame,” and they both returned to the drawing-room.

Mouret resumed his place on the sofa, when Baron Hartmann had sat down; the young man then broke out in praise of the Crédit Immobilier’s operations. From that he went on to the subject so near his heart, speaking of the new thoroughfare, of the lengthening of the Rue Reaumur, of which they were going to open a section under the name of the Rue du Dix-Décembre, between the Place de la Bourse and the Place de l’Opera. It had been declared a work of public utility eighteen months previously; the expropriation jury had just been appointed. The whole neighborhood was excited about this new opening, anxiously awaiting the commencement of the work, taking an interest in the condemned houses. Mouret had been waiting three years for this work — first, in the expectation of an increase of business; secondly, with certain schemes of enlargement which he dared not openly avow, so extensive were his ideas. As the Rue du Dix-Décembre was to cut through the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de la Michodière, he saw The Ladies’ Paradise invading the whole block, surrounded by these streets and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; he already imagined it with a princely frontage in the new thoroughfare, lord and master of the conquered city. Hence his strong desire to make Baron Hartmann’s acquaintance, when he learnt that the Crédit Immobilier had made a contract with the authorities to open and build the Rue du Dix-Décembre, on condition that they received the frontage ground on each side of the street.

“Really,” repeated he, trying to assume a naïve look, “you’ll hand over the street ready-made, with sewers, pavements, and gas lamps. And the frontage ground will suffice to compensate you. Oh! it’s curious, very curious!”