The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (14 page)

She quickly shut the bag, and instinctively made it disappear under her chair. All the ladies began to laugh. She blushed at her haste, and put the bag back on her lap, saying that men never understood and that there was no need for them to know.

‘Monsieur de Boves, Monsieur de Vallagnosc,’ the servant announced.

This was a surprise. Madame de Boves herself had not expected her husband. The latter, a handsome man, with moustaches and an imperial,
*
and with the stiff military bearing favoured at the Tuileries, kissed the hand of Madame Desforges, whom he had known as a girl in her father’s house. He stood aside so that the other visitor, a tall pale fellow with an anaemically distinguished look, could in his turn greet the mistress of the house. But the conversation had hardly started up again when two slight exclamations were uttered.

‘What! It’s you, Paul!’

‘Good Lord! Octave!’

Mouret and Vallagnosc shook hands. It was Madame Desforges’s turn to show surprise. So they knew each other? Yes, indeed, they had grown up together, at the same school in Plassans;
*
and it was quite by chance that they had never met at her house before.

Still hand in hand they went into the small drawing-room, joking as they did so, just as the servant brought in the tea, a Chinese service on a silver tray, which he placed near Madame Desforges in the centre of a marble pedestal table with a light brass mounting. The ladies drew up their chairs and began talking more loudly, all speaking at once, producing an endless cross-fire of remarks; Monsieur de Boves, standing behind them, leaned forward from time to time to say a few words, with the
charm and courtesy which were part of his profession. The vast room, so elegantly and cheerfully furnished, was made even gayer by these chattering voices mingled with laughter.

‘Well, Paul, old man!’ repeated Mouret.

He was sitting close to Vallagnosc, on a settee. Left alone at the far end of the small drawing-room—a very elegant boudoir hung with buttercup-coloured silk—out of earshot, and with the ladies only visible through the open door, they sat face to face, laughing and slapping each other on the knee. They began to recall the whole of their youth, the old college at Plassans with its two courtyards, its damp classrooms, the refectory where they used to eat so much cod, and the dormitories where the pillows used to fly from bed to bed as soon as the junior master was snoring. Paul, who belonged to an old parliamentary family, noble, poor, and proud, had been quite a bookworm, always top of the class, always being held up as an example by the teacher, who had predicted a brilliant future for him; whereas Octave remained at the bottom of the class, wasting away among the dunces, fat and jolly, expending all his energy on violent pleasures outside school. In spite of their different natures, a close comradeship had made them inseparable until the
baccalauréat
,
*
which they passed, one with distinction, the other just scraping through after two failed attempts. Then they had gone out into the world, and were now meeting again, after ten years, already altered and aged.

‘Tell me,’ Mouret asked, ‘what are you up to?’

‘Oh, nothing at all.’

In spite of his delight at their meeting, Vallagnosc still retained his tired and disillusioned manner; and his friend, in surprise, insisted, saying:

‘Yes, but you must do something, after all … What do you do?’

‘Nothing,’ he replied.

Octave began to laugh. Nothing, that wasn’t enough. He finally succeeded in extracting Paul’s story from him, sentence by sentence. It was the usual story of boys without money who think they are obliged by their birth to remain in the liberal professions and bury themselves under their arrogant mediocrity,
happy to escape starvation despite having their drawers full of diplomas. He had followed the family tradition and read law; after that he had gone on being supported by his widowed mother, who was already finding it difficult to marry off her two daughters. He had finally begun to feel ashamed and, leaving the three women to live as best they could on the remains of their fortune, he had taken up a minor post in the Ministry of the Interior, where he had buried himself like a mole in its burrow.

‘And how much do you earn?’ Mouret resumed.

‘Three thousand francs.’

‘But that’s a pittance! My poor chap, I’m really sorry for you … You were so good at school; you left us all behind! And they only give you three thousand francs, when they’ve had you rotting away there for five years! No, it’s not fair.’

He broke off, and started to talk about himself.

‘I turned my back on all that… You know what I’m doing now?’

‘Yes,’ said Vallagnosc. ‘I heard you’d gone into business. You’ve got that big shop in the Place Gaillon, haven’t you?’

‘That’s right… Calico, old chap!’

Mouret raised his head, slapped him on the knee again, and with the hearty gaiety of a fellow quite unashamed of the trade which was making him rich, repeated:

‘Calico, masses of it! You know, I never really took to school, although I never thought I was any stupider than anyone else. When I’d passed the
bac
to please my family, I could easily have become a lawyer or a doctor like the rest of them; but professions like that frightened me, you see so many people become utterly frustrated in them … So, I ignored all that—with no regrets!—and pitched head first into business.’

Vallagnosc was smiling in a rather embarrassed way. Finally he murmured:

‘It’s true that your
bac
can’t be much use to you for selling calico.’

‘Well!’ replied Mouret blithely, ‘all I ask is that it shouldn’t get in the way … And you know, when you’ve burdened yourself like that, it’s not easy to get rid of it. You go through life at
a tortoise’s pace, while the others, those who are barefoot, run like hares.’

Then, noticing that his friend seemed troubled, he took his hands in his, and went on:

‘Come, come, I don’t want to hurt you, but you must admit that your diplomas haven’t satisfied any of your needs … Do you know that the head of my silk department will get more than twelve thousand francs this year? Yes, really! A lad of very sound intelligence, who never got beyond spelling and the four rules …
*
The ordinary salesmen at my place make three to four thousand francs, more than you earn yourself; and their education didn’t cost what yours did, they weren’t launched into the world with a signed promise that they’d conquer it… Of course, making money isn’t everything. But, between the poor devils with a smattering of learning who clutter up the professions without earning enough to keep themselves from starving, and the practical fellows equipped for life, who know their trade backwards, my word! I wouldn’t hesitate, I’m for the latter against the former; I think fellows like that understand their age very well!’

He had become quite excited; Henriette, who was serving tea, looked round. When he saw her smile at the end of the large drawing-room and also noticed two other ladies listening, he was the first to laugh at his own words.

‘Anyway, old chap, any counter-jumper who’s just beginning has a chance of becoming a millionaire nowadays.’

Vallagnosc was leaning back indolently on the sofa. He had half closed his eyes, in an attitude of fatigue and disdain, in which a touch of affectation added to the real effeteness of his breed.

‘Bah!’ he murmured, ‘life isn’t worth the trouble. Nothing’s any fun.’

And as Mouret, shocked, looked at him in surprise, he added:

‘Everything happens and nothing happens. One may as well sit and do nothing!’

Then he went on to explain his pessimism, his sense of the pettiness and frustrations of existence. At one time he had dreamed of literature, but his association with certain poets had left him with a feeling of universal despair. He always came back
to the uselessness of effort, the boredom of hours all equally empty, and the ultimate stupidity of the world. All enjoyment was a failure, and there was not even any pleasure in doing wrong.
*

‘Now tell me, do you enjoy yourself?’ he asked finally. Mouret was now in a state of dazed indignation. He exclaimed:

‘What! Do I enjoy myself! What’s this nonsense you’re saying? You’re in a sorry state! Of course I enjoy myself, even when things go wrong, because then I’m furious at seeing them go wrong. I’m a passionate fellow; I don’t take life calmly, and perhaps that’s just why I’m interested in it.’

He glanced towards the drawing-room and lowered his voice.

‘Oh! Some women have been an awful nuisance to me, I must confess. But when I’ve got hold of one, I keep her, damn it! It doesn’t always fail, and I don’t give my share to anyone else, I assure you … But it isn’t just a question of women, for whom I don’t really care much, actually. You see, it’s a question of willing something and acting, it’s a question of creating … You have an idea, you fight for it, you hammer it into people’s heads, you watch it grow and carry all before it… Ah! yes, old chap, I enjoy myself!’

All the joy of action, all the gaiety of existence resounded in his words. He repeated that he was a man of his own time. Really, people would have to be deformed, they must have something wrong with their brains and limbs to refuse to work in an age which offered so many possibilities, when the whole century was pressing forward into the future. And he laughed at the hopeless, the disillusioned, the pessimists, all those made sick by our budding sciences, who assumed the tearful air of poets or the superior look of sceptics, amidst the immense activity of the present day. Yawning with boredom at other people’s work was a fine part to play, a proper and intelligent one indeed!

‘It’s my only pleasure, yawning at other people,’ said Vallagnosc, smiling in his cold way.

At this Mouret’s passion subsided. He became affectionate once more.

‘Ah, Paul, you haven’t changed, you’re as paradoxical as ever! We haven’t met again in order to quarrel, have we? Everyone has his own ideas, fortunately. I must show you my machine in
action; you’ll see that it isn’t really such a bad thing … But tell me your news. Your mother and sisters are well, I hope? And weren’t you going to get married at Plassans, about six months ago?’

Vallagnosc made a sudden movement which stopped him short; and as the former had looked anxiously round the drawing-room, Octave also turned round and noticed that Mademoiselle de Boves was staring at them. Tall and buxom, Blanche was like 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 met the girl at Madame Desforges’s house, where he had been a frequent visitor in the past winter, but where he now only rarely made an appearance, which explained why he had not met Octave there. The de Boves had invited him in their turn, and he was particularly fond of the father, who had once been something of a man about town, but had now retired and worked in the civil service. On the other hand, they had no money: Madame de Boves had brought her husband nothing but her Junoesque beauty, and the family was living on a last, mortgaged farm, the modest income from which was, fortunately, supplemented by the nine thousand francs which the Count received as Inspector-General of the Stud. The ladies, mother and daughter, were kept very short of money by the Count, who was impoverished by amorous escapades away from home, and they were sometimes reduced to turning their dresses themselves.

‘So why marry?’ Mouret asked simply.

‘Well! I can’t go on like this for ever,’ said Vallagnosc, with a weary movement of his eyelids. ‘In any case, we have prospects, we’re waiting for an aunt to die soon.’

Mouret was still staring at Monsieur de Boves, who was sitting next to Madame Guibal and paying her a great deal of attention, laughing affectionately like a man on an amorous campaign. Octave turned towards his friend and winked in such a meaningful way that the latter added:

‘No, not her … Not yet, at any rate … The fortunate thing is that his work takes him all over France, to different stud-farms, and so he always has pretexts for disappearing. Last
month, when his wife thought he was in Perpignan, he was living in an hotel in an out of the way district of Paris, with a piano teacher.’

There was a silence. Then the young man, who was now also watching the Count’s attentions to Madame Guibal, went on in an undertone:

‘I think you’re right… Especially as the dear lady is not exactly shy, if what they say is true. There’s a very funny story about her and an officer … But just look at him! Isn’t he comical, hypnotizing her out of the corner of his eye! There’s the old France for you, my friend! I really adore that man, and if I marry his daughter he can say I did it for his sake!’

Mouret laughed, greatly amused. He questioned Vallagnosc again, and when he discovered that the idea of a marriage between him and Blanche had originally come from Madame Desforges, he thought the story better still. Dear Henriette took a widow’s pleasure in marrying people off; so much so that when she had taken care of the daughters, she would sometimes let the fathers choose their mistresses from her circle; but this was done in such a natural and becoming way that no one ever found any food for scandal. And Mouret, who loved her with the love of an active, busy man, calculating in his affections, would then forget all his ulterior motives for seduction, and have feelings of purely comradely friendship for her.

At that moment she appeared at the door of the small drawing-room followed by an old man of about sixty, whose entrance the two friends had not noticed. Now and again the ladies’ voices became shrill, and the light tinkle of spoons in china teacups formed an accompaniment to them; from time to time, in the middle of a short silence, the sound of a saucer being put down too roughly on the marble of the pedestal table could be heard. The setting sun was just coming out from behind a thick cloud, and a sudden ray gilded the tops of the chestnut trees in the garden and shone through the windows in reddish-gold dust, illuminating the brocade and the brasswork of the furniture with its fire.