Complete Works of Emile Zola (438 page)

The friends sat perfectly still. M. d’Escorailles, notwith­standing his extreme youth, had received the chevalier’s cross a week previously. M. Kahn and M. Bouchard were already officers, and the colonel had just been named commander.

‘Well, let us see: an officer’s cross,’ said Rougon, beginning to refer to his papers again. But he stopped short as if struck by a sudden idea. ‘Aren’t you mayor of some place or other, Monsieur Béjuin?’ he inquired.

M. Béjuin contented himself with nodding twice, but M. Kahn answered more fully for him. ‘Yes,’ said he; ‘he is Mayor of Saint Florent, the little commune where his glass works are.’

‘Well, then, that’s settled!’ said the minister, delighted to have an opportunity of advancing one of his friends. ‘You never ask for anything for yourself, Monsieur Béjuin, so I must look after you.’

M. Béjuin smiled and expressed his thanks. It was quite true that he never asked for anything, but he was always there, silent and modest, on the look-out for such crumbs as might fall, and ready to pick them up.

‘Léon Béjuin, isn’t it? — in the place of Pierre François Jusselin,’ continued Rougon, as he altered the names.

‘Béjuin, Jusselin; they rhyme,’ observed the Colonel.

This remark struck the company as being very witty, and caused a deal of laughter. At last M. Bouchard took the signed documents away, and Rougon rose. His legs were paining him a little, he said. The wet weather affected him.

However, the morning was wearing on; a hum of life came from the various offices; quick steps resounded in the neighbouring rooms; doors were opened and closed, and whispers half-stifled by the velvet hangings were wafted hither and thither. Several clerks came into the room to obtain the minister’s signature to other documents. It was a continual coming and going, the administrative machine was in full work, throwing out an enormous number of documents which were carried from office to office. And amidst all this hurrying to and fro, a score of people were wearily waiting in the ante­room till his excellency should be graciously pleased to receive them. Rougon, meantime, began to display feverish activity and energy; giving orders in a whisper in one corner of his room, then suddenly storming at some official in another, allotting some task, or deciding a knotty question with a word, while he stood there, huge and domineering, his neck swollen, and his face a picture of strength.

However, Merle came into the room again with that quiet composure which no rebuffs could ruffle. ‘The prefect of the Somme — ‘ he began.

‘Again!’ interrupted Rougon violently.

The usher bowed and then resumed, ‘The prefect of the Somme has begged me to ask your excellency if you can receive him this morning. If your excellency cannot, then he would be much obliged to your excellency if you would kindly fix a time for to-morrow.’

‘I will see him this morning. Confound it all, let him have a little patience!’

Merle had left the door open, and the ante-room could be seen. It was a spacious apartment, with a large table in the centre and a line of arm-chairs, covered with red velvet, along the walls. All the chairs were occupied, and there were even two ladies standing by the table. Every face was turned towards the minister’s room, with a wistful, supplicating expression, as if seeking permission to enter. Near the door, the prefect of the Somme, a pale little man, was talking with his colleagues from the Jura and the Cher. He was on the point of rising, in the expectation that he was at last about to be received in audience, when Rougon again spoke. ‘In ten minutes,’ he said to Merle. ‘Just at present I cannot see anyone.’

While he was speaking, however, he caught sight of M. Beulin-d’Orchère crossing the ante-chamber, and thereupon he darted forward, and drew him by the hand into his private room.

‘Come in, my friend, come in!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have just come, haven’t you? You haven’t been waiting? Well, what news have you brought?’

Then Merle closed the door, and the occupants of the ante-­chamber were left in silence and consternation. Rougon and M. Beulin-d’Orchère talked together in whispers near one of the windows. The judge, who had recently been appointed first president of the Court of Paris, was ambitious of holding the Seals; but the Emperor, when sounded on the matter, had shown himself quite impenetrable.

‘Very good, very good,’ said Rougon, suddenly raising his voice. ‘Your information is excellent. I will take steps, I promise you.’

He was just showing the judge out by way of his private room, when Merle appeared once more. ‘Monsieur La Rouquette,’ he announced this time.

‘No, no! I am busy, and he bores me,’ said Rougon, signing energetically to the usher to close the door.

M. La Rouquette distinctly heard what was said; still, this did not prevent him from entering the minister’s room with a smiling face. ‘How is your excellency?’ he said, offering his hand. ‘It’s my sister who has sent me. You seemed a little tired at the Tuileries yesterday. You know that a proverb is to be acted in the Empress’s apartments next Monday. My sister is taking a part in it. Combelot has designed the costumes. You will come, won’t you?’

He stood there for a whole quarter of an hour prattling away in wheedling fashion, addressing Rougon sometimes as ‘your excellency,’ and sometimes as ‘dear master.’ He dragged in a few stories of the minor theatres, praised a ballet girl, and begged for a line to the director of the tobacco manufactory so that he might get some good cigars. And he concluded by saying some abominable things about M. de Marsy, though still continuing to jest.

‘Well, he’s not such a bad fellow, after all,’ remarked Rougon, when the young deputy had taken himself off. ‘I must go and dip my face in the basin. My cheeks feel as if they were burning.’

He disappeared for a moment behind a curtain, and then a great splashing of water, accompanied by snorting and blowing, was heard. Meantime, M. d’Escorailles, who had finished classifying his letters, took a little file with a tortoise-shell handle from his pocket, and began to trim his nails. M. Béjuin and the colonel were still gazing up at the ceiling, so buried in their easy-chairs that it seemed doubtful whether they would ever be able to get out of them again. M. Kahn, however, was going through a heap of newspapers on a table near him. He just turned them over, glanced at their titles, and then threw them aside. Then he got up.

‘Are you going?’ asked Rougon, who now reappeared, wiping his face with a towel.

‘Yes,’ replied M. Kahn, ‘I’ve read the papers, so I’m off.’

Rougon, however, asked him to wait a moment. And then, taking him aside, he told him that he hoped to go down to Deux-Sèvres during the following week, to attend the inauguration of the operations for the new line from Niort to Angers. He had several reasons, he said, for wishing to visit the district. At this M. Kahn manifested great delight. He had succeeded in getting the grant early in March, and was now floating the scheme. And he was conscious of the addi­tional importance which the minister’s presence would lend to the initial ceremony, the details of which he was already arranging.

‘Then I may reckon upon you to fire the first mine?’ he said, as he took his leave.

Rougon had returned to his writing-table, where he was consulting a list of names. The crowd in the ante-room was now growing more and more impatient. ‘I’ve barely got a quarter of an hour,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll see such as I can.’

Then he rang his bell, and, when Merle appeared, he said to him: ‘Show in the prefect of the Somme.’ But he imme­diately added, still keeping his eyes on the list of names: ‘Wait a moment. Are Monsieur and Madame Charbonnel there? Show them in.’

The usher’s voice could be heard calling out, ‘Monsieur and Madame Charbonnel.’ And thereupon the couple from Plassans appeared, followed by the astonished eyes of the other occupants of the ante-chamber. M. Charbonnel wore a dress-coat with square tails and a velvet collar, and Madame Charbonnel was dressed in puce silk, with a bonnet trimmed with yellow ribbons. They had been patiently waiting for two hours.

‘You ought to have sent your card in to me,’ said Rougon. ‘Merle knows you.’ Then, interrupting their stammering greeting, in which the words ‘your excellency’ again and again recurred, he gaily exclaimed: ‘Victory! The Council of State has given judgment. We have beaten that terrible bishop!’

The old lady’s emotion upon hearing this was so great that she was obliged to sit down, while her husband leant for support against an arm-chair.

‘I learned this good news yesterday evening,’ the minister continued. ‘And as I was anxious to tell it to you, myself, I asked you to come here. It’s a pretty little windfall, five hundred thousand francs, eh?’

He began to jest, feeling quite happy at the sight of the emotion on their faces. Some time elapsed before Madame Charbonnel, in a choking timorous voice, could ask: ‘Is it really all over, then? Really? Can’t they start the suit again?’

‘No, no; be quite easy about it,’ answered Rougon. ‘The fortune is yours.’

Then he gave them certain particulars. The Council of State had refused to allow the Sisters of the Holy Family to take possession of the bequest upon the ground that natural heirs were living, and that the will did not present the neces­sary appearances of genuineness. Monseigneur Rochart was in a terrible rage, said Rougon; he had met the bishop the previous day at the Ministry of Public Instruction, and still laughed at the recollection of his angry looks. He seemed, indeed, quite delighted with his triumph over the prelate.

‘His Grace hasn’t been able to gobble me up, you see,’ he continued; ‘I am too big a mouthful for him. I don’t think, though, that it’s all over between us. I could see that by the look of his eyes. He is a man who never forgets anything, I should imagine. However, the rest will be my own business.’

The Charbonnels were profuse in their expressions of gratitude and respect. They should leave Paris that same evening, they said; for all at once great anxiety had come upon them. Their cousin Chevassu’s house, at Faverolles, had been left in the charge of a bigoted old woman who was extremely devoted to the Sisters of the Holy Family, and on learning the issue of the trial she might perhaps strip the house of its contents and go off with them. The Sisters, said the Charbonnels, were capable of anything.

‘Yes, get off this evening,’ the minister advised. ‘If any­thing should happen to bother you down there, just write and let me know about it.’

Then on opening the door to show them out, he noticed the marked astonishment of the occupants of the ante­chamber. The prefect of the Somme was exchanging a smile with his colleagues of the Jura and the Cher, while an ex­pression of scorn wreathed the lips of the two ladies standing by the table. And thereupon Rougon raised his voice, say­ing: ‘You will write to me, won’t you? You know how devoted I am to you. When you get to Plassans tell my mother that I am in good health.’

Thus speaking, he crossed the ante-chamber with them, accompanying them to the outer door so as to exalt them before all the waiting people, feeling in no wise ashamed of them, but proud, rather, of having come himself from their little town, and of now being able to raise them as high as he pleased. And the favour-seekers and the functionaries bowed low, doing reverence, as it were, to the puce silk gown and square-tailed coat of the Charbonnels.

When Rougon returned to his own room, he found that the colonel had risen from his chair.

‘Good-bye till this evening,’ said Jobelin. ‘It’s getting rather too warm in here.’

Then he bent forward to whisper a few words concerning his son Auguste, whom he was about to remove from college, as he quite despaired of the young fellow ever passing his examination. Rougon had promised to take him into his office, although according to the regulations all the clerks ought to hold a bachelor’s degree.

‘Very well, bring him here,’ said the minister. ‘I will have the regulation relaxed; I will manage it somehow. And he shall have a salary at once, as you are anxious about it.’

Thereupon the colonel went off, and M. Béjuin remained alone in front of the fire. He wheeled his chair into a central position, and seemed quite unaware that the room was growing empty. He always remained in this fashion till every one else had gone, in the hope of being offered something which had been hitherto forgotten.

Merle now received orders to introduce the prefect of the Somme. Instead of going to the door, however, he stepped up to the writing-table. ‘If your excellency will kindly permit me,’ he said, with a pleasant smile, ‘I will at once acquit myself of a little commission.’

Rougon rested his elbows on his blotting-pad and listened.

‘It is about poor Madame Correur,’ continued Merle. ‘I went to see her this morning. She was in bed. She has got a nasty boil in a very awkward place; such a big one too; and although there is nothing dangerous about it, it gives her a great deal of pain.’

‘Well?’ said the minister.

‘Well, the poor lady very much wanted to come and see your excellency to get the answers you had promised her. Just as I was coming away, she asked me if I would bring her them after my day’s work. Would your excellency be so good as to let me do so?’

The minister quietly turned and said: ‘Monsieur d’Escorailles, give me those papers there, in that cupboard.’

It was to a collection of documents concerning Madame Correur that he referred. They were tightly packed in a large case of stout grey paper. There were letters, and plans, and petitions, in all kinds of writing and spelling; requests for tobacco-agencies, for licenses to sell stamps, petitions for pecuniary assistance, grants and pensions. Each sheet bore a marginal note of five or six lines, followed by Madame Correur’s big masculine-looking signature.

Rougon turned the papers over and glanced at some brief memoranda which he himself had written on them with a red pencil: ‘Madame Jalaguier’s pension is raised to eighteen hundred francs,’ he said. ‘A tobacco-agency is granted to Madame Leturc. Madame Chardon’s tender is accepted. Nothing has yet been done in Madame Testanière’s matter. Ah! you can say, too, that I have been successful in Mademoiselle Herminie Billecoq’s case. I have mentioned it to some ladies who will provide the dowry necessary for her marriage with the officer who seduced her.’