Complete Works of Emile Zola (243 page)

“You know Blanche Muller’s figure; well, it’s like that, only ten times more supple. And then such hips! they have a curve, an elegance… !”

And he concluded by saying to the younger man, who was going off:

“You are like me, you have a heart, you will make your wife happy…. Good-night, my boy!”

When Maxime at last escaped from his father, he went quickly round the gardens. What he had just heard surprised him so greatly that he experienced an irresistible desire to see Renée. He wanted to beg forgiveness for his brutality, to know why she had told him that lie about M. de Saffré, to learn the story of her husband’s affection. But all this confusedly, with the one clear wish to smoke a cigar in her rooms and to resume their friendly relations. If she was in the right humour, he would even announce his marriage to her, to make her see that their love-affair must remain dead and buried. When he had opened the little gate, of which he had fortunately kept the key, he ended by convincing himself that his visit, after his father’s revelations, was necessary and absolutely proper.

In the conservatory he whistled as he had done the preceding evening; but he was not kept waiting. Renée came and unfastened the glass door of the small drawing-room, and led the way upstairs without a word. She had that instant come back from a ball at the Hotel de Ville. She still wore her dress of white puffed tulle, covered with satin bows; the skirts of the satin bodice were edged with a broad border of white bugles, which the light of the candles tinged with blue and pink. Upstairs, when Maxime looked at her, he was touched by her pallor and the deep emotion that stifled her utterance. She had evidently not expected him, she still quivered all over at seeing him arrive as usual, with his quiet, wheedling air. Céleste returned from the wardrobe-room, where she had been to fetch a nightdress, and the lovers remained silent, waiting for the girl to go. As a rule they did not mind what they said before her; but they felt ashamed of the things that were on their lips. Renée told Céleste to undress her in the bedroom, where there was a big fire. The lady’s-maid removed the pins, took off each article of finery separately, without hurrying herself. And Maxime, bored, mechanically took up the night-dress, which was lying on a chair beside him, and warmed it before the fire, leaning forward with arms outstretched. He had been used in happier times to do this little service for Renée. She felt moved when she saw him daintily holding, the night-gown to the fire. Then, as Céleste had not yet finished:

“Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?” he asked.

“Oh no, it’s always the same thing, you know,” she replied. “Far too many people, a regular crush.”

He turned the night-gown, which was hot on one side.

“What did Adeline wear?”

“Mauve, a badly thought-out dress…. She is short, and yet she dotes on flounces.”

They talked of the other women. Maxime was now burning his fingers with the chemise.

“But you’ll scorch it,” said Renée, whose voice sounded maternally caressing.

Céleste took the chemise from the young man’s hands. He rose and went over to the great pink-and-gray bed, fixing his eyes on one of the embroidered bouquets on the curtains, so as to turn away his head and not see Renée’s naked breasts. He did this by intuition. He no longer considered himself her lover, he had no longer the right to look. Then he took a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. Renée had given him permission to smoke in her room. At last Céleste withdrew, leaving the young woman by the fireside, all white in her night-dress.

Maxime walked about a few seconds longer, without speaking, glancing at Renée, who seemed to be seized with a fresh shudder. And stationing himself before the fire, with his cigar between his teeth, he asked abruptly:

“Why didn’t you tell me that it was my father who was with you last night?”

She raised her head, her eyes wide open, with a look of supreme anguish; then a rush of blood crimsoned her features, and, overwhelmed with shame, she hid her face in her hands, stammering:

“You know that? you know that?…”

She recovered herself, she tried to lie.

“It’s not true…. Who told you?”

Maxime shrugged his shoulders.

“Why, my father himself, who thinks you jolly well made and talked to me about your hips.”

He had allowed a little vexation to show itself. But he began walking about again, and continued in a scolding but friendly voice between two puffs at his cigar:

“Really, I can’t understand you. You’re a strange woman. It was your own fault if I behaved like a brute yesterday. You ought to have told me it was my father, and I should have gone away quietly, don’t you see? What right have I?… But you go and tell me it’s M. de Saffré!”

She sobbed, her hands over her face. He came up to her, knelt down before her, and forced her hands apart.

“Come, tell me why you said it was M. de Saffré!”

Then, still averting her head, she replied through her tears, in a low voice:

“I thought you would leave me if you knew that your father…”

He rose to his feet, took up his cigar, which he had laid on a corner of the mantelshelf, and contented himself with muttering:

“You’re a very funny woman, on my word!”

She no longer cried. The flames in the grate and the fire in her cheeks had dried her tears. The surprise of seeing Maxime so self-possessed in presence of a revelation which she thought would crush him made her forget her shame. She watched him walking up and down, she listened to his voice as though she were dreaming. Without abandoning his cigar he repeated to her that she was absurd, that it was quite natural that she should have connection with her husband, that he really could not think of resenting it. But to go and confess that she had a lover when it wasn’t true! And he kept on returning to this, to this point which he could not understand and which he looked upon as positively monstrous, talked of women’s “foolish fancies.”

“You’re not quite right in your mind, dear; you must be careful.”

He wound up by asking inquisitively:

“But why M. de Saffré more than another?”

“He makes love to me,” said Renée.

Maxime checked an impertinence; he was on the point of saying that she was doubtless only anticipating by a month when she owned to M. de Saffré as her lover. He only smiled wickedly at his spiteful idea, and throwing his cigar into the fire, sat down at the opposite side of the mantelpiece. There, he talked common-sense, he gave Renée to understand that they must remain good friends. Her fixed look embarrassed him, however, he had not the courage to tell her of his approaching marriage. She gazed at him, her eyes still swollen with tears. She thought him a poor creature, narrow-minded and contemptible, and yet she loved him, as she might love her lace. He looked handsome in the light of the candelabra standing at the corner of the mantel by his side. As he threw back his head, the light of the candles tinged his hair with gold and glided over the soft down on his cheeks with a charmingly blonde effect.

“I must really be off,” he said several times.

He had quite decided not to stay. Besides, Renée would not have let him. They both thought so, said so: they were now merely friends. And when Maxime at last pressed Renée’s hand and was on the point of leaving the room, she detained him for a moment longer and spoke to him of his father. She sang his praises loudly.

“You see, I felt too great a remorse. I prefer that this should have happened…. You don’t know your father; I was astonished to find him so kind, so disinterested. The poor man is so much worried at present.”

Maxime examined the tips of his boots without replying, with an air of uneasiness. She persisted:

“So long as he used not to come to this room, I did not care. But afterwards…. When I saw him here, so affectionate, bringing me money that he must have scraped together in every corner of Paris, ruining himself for me without a murmur, I became ill to think of it…. If you knew how carefully he has watched over my interests!”

The young man returned quietly to the mantelpiece, and leant against it. He stood there embarrassed, with bowed head, and a smile that slowly rose to his lips.

“Yes,” he muttered, “that’s my father’s strong point, to look after people’s interests.”

Renée was astonished at the tone of his voice. She looked at him, and he, as if to defend himself, added:

“Oh, I don’t know anything…. I only say my father is a clever man.”

“You would do wrong to talk ill of him,” she replied. “You evidently judge him a little superficially…. If I were to tell you all his troubles, if I repeated to you what he told me this very evening, you would see how mistaken people are when they think he cares for money….”

Maxime could not help shrugging his shoulders. He interrupted his stepmother with an ironical laugh.

“Believe me, I know him, I know him well…. He must have told you some fine tales. Let me hear what he said.”

This bantering tone offended her. Whereupon she increased her praises, she considered her husband quite great, she talked of the Charonne affair, of that swindle, of which she had understood nothing, as though it had been a catastrophe in which Saccard’s intelligence and kind-heartedness had been revealed to her. She added that she should sign the deed of transfer the next day, and that if it was really a disaster, she accepted the disaster as a punishment for her sins. Maxime let her go on, chuckling, looking at her from under his eyelids; then he said in an undertone:

“That’s it; that’s quite right….”

And louder, laying his hand on Renée’s shoulder:

“Thanks, dear, but I knew the story…. What soft stuff you must be made of!”

He moved away again as if to go. He felt a furious itching to tell everything. She had exasperated him with her eulogy of her husband, and he forgot that he had resolved not to speak, so as to avoid all unpleasantness.

“Why? what do you mean?” she asked.

“Well then, that my father has been having you as nicely as could be…. I am sorry for you, on my word; you are such a simpleton!”

And he told her what he had heard at Laure’s, told her basely, craftily, taking a secret delight in dwelling upon these infamies. It seemed to him that he was taking his revenge for a vague insult that he had received. His harlot’s temperament lingered rapturously over this denunciation, over this cruel gossip of what he had heard behind a door. He spared Renée no detail, neither the money her husband had lent her at usury, nor that which he meant to steal from her with the assistance of ridiculous fairytales fit to send children to sleep with. Renée listened, very pale, her lips compressed. Standing before the chimney-piece, she lowered her head a little, she looked into the fire. Her nightdress, the chemise which Maxime had warmed for her, opened out, revealing a motionless whiteness as of a statue.

“I am telling you all this,” the young man concluded, “so that you may not look a fool…. But you must not take it amiss of my father. He means well. He has his faults like all of us…. Till to-morrow, then.”

He retreated towards the door. Renée stopped him with a quick gesture.

“Stay!” she cried, imperiously.

And seizing him, drawing him to her, almost seating him on her knees before the fire, she kissed him on the lips, and said:

“Ah well, it would be too silly to put ourselves out after that…. I haven’t told you that since yesterday, when you wanted to break with me, I have been off my head. I feel half mad. At the ball to-night I had a mist before my eyes. The fact is that I can’t live without you now. When you leave me, I shall be done for…. Don’t laugh, I mean what I say.”

She gave him a look of infinite tenderness, as though she had not seen him for a long time.

“You were right, I was a simpleton, your father could have made me see stars in broad daylight to-day. What did I know about it? All the time he was telling his story, I heard nothing but a great buzzing, and I was so crushed that he could have made me go down on my knees, if he had wanted to, to sign his old papers. And I fancied I felt remorse!… Yes, I was silly enough to think that!”

She burst into laughter, a mad light shone in her eyes. Pressing her lover still more tightly, she continued:

“Do we sin, you and I? We are in love, and we amuse ourselves as we like. That’s what all of us have come to, have we not?… Look at your father, he does not put himself out. He is fond of money and he takes it when he can get it. He’s quite right, and it sets me at my ease…. To begin with, I sha’n’t sign a single thing, and then you must come back every evening. I was afraid you would refuse, you know, because of what I told you…. But you say you don’t mind…. Besides, I shall keep him out now, you understand.”

She rose and lit the night-light. Maxime hesitated in despair. He saw what a piece of folly he had perpetrated, and he reproached himself harshly for having talked too much. How could he now tell her of his marriage? It was his own fault, the rupture had been accomplished, there was no need for him to go up into that room again, nor above all to go and prove to Renée that her husband was swindling her. And his anger against himself increased when he found that he was not able to remember what had prompted him to act as he did. He thought for a moment of being brutal a second time, but the sight of Renée taking off her slippers filled him with insurmountable cowardice. He was frightened. He stayed.

The next day, when Saccard came to his wife to make her sign the deed of transfer, she replied quietly that she did not mean to do so, that she had thought better of it. On the other hand, she gave him no hint whatever; she had sworn to be discreet, not wishing to create worries for herself, eager only to enjoy the renewal of her amour in peace. The Charonne affair could arrange itself as it pleased; her refusal to sign was merely an act of vengeance; she did not care a scrap for the rest. Saccard was on the verge of flying into a passion. His whole dream crumbled away. His other affairs were going from bad to worse. He had come to the end of his resources, and only kept his balance by miracles of equilibrium: that very morning he had been unable to pay his baker’s bill. This did not prevent him from preparing a splendid entertainment for the Thursday in mid-Lent. In the presence of Renée’s refusal he experienced the white rage of a vigorous man that is hindered in his work by a child’s caprice. With the deed of transfer in his pocket he had relied on being able to raise cash while waiting for the indemnity. Then, when he had calmed down a little, and looked at things clearly, he was amazed at his wife’s sudden change of mind; some one must, undoubtedly, have advised her. He suspected a lover. He had so clear a presentiment, that he ran round to his sister to question her, to ask her if she knew anything of Renée’s private life. Sidonie displayed great acrimony. She had not forgotten the affront her sister-in-law had given her in refusing to see M. de Saffré. So when she understood from her brother’s questions that he accused his wife of having a lover, she cried out that she felt certain of it. And she offered of her own accord to spy on “the turtle-doves.” She would show the minx what sort of stuff she was made of. As a rule Saccard did not seek out disagreeable truths; his interest alone compelled him to open his discreetly-closed eyes. He accepted his sister’s offer.