Complete Works of Emile Zola (643 page)

“You see, sir, it is the children who are such a heavy weight.”

“No doubt,” said Madame Vuillaume. “If we had had another we should never have made both ends meet. Therefore, remember, Jules, what I insisted upon when I gave you Marie: one child and no more, or else we shall quarrel! It is only work-people who have children like fowls lay eggs, without troubling themselves as to what it will cost them. It is true that they turn the youngsters out on to the streets, like flocks of animals, which make me feel sick when I pass by.”

Octave had looked at Marie, thinking that this delicate subject would make her cheeks crimson; but she remained pale, approving her mother’s words with ingenuous serenity. He was feeling awfully bored, and did not know how to retire. In the little cold dining-room these people thus spent their afternoon, slowly muttering a few words every five minutes, and always about their own affairs. Even dominoes disturbed them too much.

Madame Vuillaume now explained her notions. At the end of a long silence, which left all four of them in no way embarrassed as though they had felt the necessity of rearranging their ideas, she resumed:

“You have no child, sir? It will come in time. Ah! it is a responsibility, especially for a mother! When my little one was born I was forty-nine, sir, an age when luckily one knows how to behave. A boy will get on anyhow, but a girl! And I have the consolation of knowing that I have done my duty, oh, yes!”

Then, she explained her plan of education, in short sentences. Honesty first. No playing on the stairs, the little one always kept at home and watched closely, for children think of nothing but evil. The doors and windows shut, never any draughts, which bring the wicked things of the street with them. Out of doors, never leave go of the child’s hand, teach it to keep its eyes lowered to avoid seeing anything wrong. With regard to religion, it should not be overdone, just sufficient as a moral restraint. Then, when she has grown up, engage teachers instead of sending her to school, where the innocent ones are corrupted; and assist also at the lessons, see that she does not learn what she should not know, hide all newspapers of course, and keep the bookcase locked.

“A young person always knows too much,” declared the old lady coming to an end.

Whilst her mother spoke, Marie kept her eyes vaguely fixed on space. She once more beheld the little convent-like lodging, those narrow rooms in the Rue Durantin, where she was not even allowed to lean out of a window. It was one prolonged childhood, all sorts of prohibitions which she did not understand, lines which her mother inked out on their fashion paper, the black marks of which made her blush, lessons purified to such an extent that even her teachers were embarrassed when she questioned them. A very gentle childhood, however, the soft warm growth of a greenhouse, a waking dream in which the words uttered by the tongue, and the facts of every day life acquired ridiculous meanings. And, even at that hour as she gazed vacantly, and was filled with these recollections, a childish smile hovered about her lips, as though she had remained in ignorance spite even of her marriage.

“You will believe me if you like, sir,” said Monsieur Vuillaume, “but my daughter had not read a single novel when she was past eighteen. Is it not true, Marie?”

“Yes, papa.”

“I have George Sand’s works very handsomely bound,” he continued, “and in spite of her mother’s fears I decided, a few months before her marriage, to permit her to read ‘André,’ a perfectly innocent work, full of imagination, and which elevates the soul. I am for a liberal education. Literature has certainly its rights. The book produced an extraordinary effect upon her, sir. She cried all night in her sleep: which proves that there is nothing like a pure imagination to understand genius.”

“It is so beautiful!” murmured the young woman, her eyes sparkling.

But Pichon having enunciated this theory: no novels before marriage, and as many as one likes afterwards — Madame Vuillaume shook her head. She never read, and was none the worse for it. Then, Marie gently spoke of her loneliness.

“Well! I sometimes take up a book. Jules chooses them for me at the library in the Passage Choiseul. If I only played the piano!”

For some time past, Octave had felt the necessity of saying something.

“What! madame,” exclaimed he, “you do not play!”

A slight awkwardness ensued. The parents talked of a succession of unfortunate circumstances, not wishing to admit that they had not been willing to incur the expense. Madame Vuillaume, moreover, affirmed that Marie sang in tune from her birth; when she was a child she knew all sorts of very pretty ballads, she had only to hear the tunes once to remember them; and the mother spoke of a song about Spain, the story of a captive weeping for her lover, which the child gave out with an expression that would draw tears from the hardest hearts. But Marie remained disconsolate. She let this cry escape her, as she extended her hand in the direction of the inner room, where her little one was sleeping:

“Ah! I swear that Lilitte shall learn to play the piano, even though I have to make the greatest sacrifices!”

“Think first of bringing her up as we brought you up,” said Madame Vuillaume, severely. “I certainly do not condemn music, it develops one’s feelings. But, above all, watch over your daughter, keep every foul breath from her, strive that she may preserve her innocence.”

She started off again, giving even more weight to religion, settling the number of times to go to confess each month, naming the masses that it was absolutely necessary to attend, all from the point of view of propriety. Then Octave, unable to bear any more of it, talked of an appointment which obliged him to go out. He had a singing in his ears, he felt that this conversation would continue in a like manner until the evening. And he hastened away, leaving the Vuillaumes and the Pichons telling one another, around the same cups of coffee slowly emptied, what they told each other every Sunday. As he was bowing a last time, Marie, suddenly and without any reason, became scarlet.

Ever since that afternoon, Octave hastened past the Pichons’ door whenever he heard the slow tones of Monsieur and Madame Vuillaume on a Sunday. Moreover, he was entirely absorbed in his conquest of Valérie. In spite of the fiery glances of which he thought himself the object, she maintained an inexplicable reserve; and in that he fancied he saw the play of a coquette. He even met her one day, as though by chance, in the Tuileries gardens, when she quietly began to talk of a storm of the day before;
which finally convinced him that she was devilish smart. And he was constantly on the staircase, watching for an opportunity of entering her apartments, decided if necessary upon being positively rude.

Now, every time that he passed her, Marie smiled and blushed. They exchanged the greetings of good neighbours. One morning, at lunch-time, as he brought her up a letter, which Monsieur Gourd had given him, to avoid having to go up the four flights of stairs himself, he found her in a sad way: she had seated Lilitte in her chemise on the round- table, and was trying to dress her again.

“What is the matter?” asked the young man.

“Why, this child!” replied she. “I foolishly took her things off, because she was complaining. And now I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do!”

He looked at her in surprise. She was turning a skirt over and over, looking for the hooks. Then, she added:

“You see, her father always helps me to dress her in the morning before he goes out. I can never manage it by myself. It bothers me, it annoys me.”

The child, meanwhile, tired of being in her chemise and frightened by the sight of Octave, was struggling and tumbling about on the table.

“Take care!” cried he, “she will fall.”

It was quite a catastrophe. Marie looked as though she dare not touch her child’s naked limbs. She continued contemplating her, with the surprise of a virgin, amazed at having been able to produce such a thing. However, assisted by Octave, who quieted the little one, she succeeded in dressing her again.

“How will you manage when you have a dozen?” asked he, laughing.

“But we shall never have any more!” answered she in a fright.

Then, he joked: she was wrong to be so sure, a child comes so easily!

“No! no!” repeated she obstinately. “You heard what mamma said, the other day. She forbade Jules to have any more. You do not know her; it would lead to endless quarrels, if another came.”

Octave was amused by the quiet way in which she discussed this question. He drew her out, without, however, succeeding in embarrassing her. She, moreover, did as her husband wished. No doubt, she loved children; had she been allowed to desire others, she would not have said no. And, beneath this complacency, which was restricted to her mother’s commands, the indifference of a woman whose maternity was still slumbering could be recognized. Lilitte occupied her like her home, which she looked after through duty. When she had washed up the breakfast things and taken the child for her walk, she continued her former young girl’s existence, of a somnolent emptiness, lulled by the vague expectation of a joy which never came. Octave having remarked that she must feel very dull, being always alone, she seemed surprised: no, she was never dull, the days passed somehow or other, without her knowing, when she went to bed, how she had employed her time. Then, on Sundays, she sometimes went out with her husband; or her parents called, or else she read. If reading did not give her headaches, she would have read from morning till night, now that she was allowed to read everything.

“What is really annoying,” resumed she, “is that they have scarcely anything at the library in the Passage Choiseul. For instance, I wanted ‘André,’ to read it again, because it made me cry so much the other time. Well! their copy has been stolen. Besides that, my father refuses to lend me his, because Lilitte might tear the pictures.”

“But,” said Octave, “my friend Campardon has all George Sand’s works. I will ask him to lend me ‘André’ for you.”

She blushed, and her eyes sparkled. He was really too kind! And, when he left her, she stood before Lilitte, her arms hanging down by her sides, without an idea in her head, in the attitude which she maintained for whole afternoons together. She detested sewing, she did crochet work, always the same piece, which she left lying about the room.

Octave brought her the book on the morrow, a Sunday. Pichon had had to go out, to leave his card on one of his superiors. And, as the young man found her dressed for walking, she having just been on some errand in the neighbourhood, he asked her out of curiosity whether she had been to church, having the idea that she was religious. She answered no. Before marrying her off, her mother used to take her regularly to mass. During the six first months of her married life, she continued going through force of habit, with the constant fear of being too late. Then, she scarcely knew why, after missing a few times, she left off going altogether. Her husband detested priests, and her mother never even mentioned them now. Octave’s question, however, disturbed her, as though it had awakened within her things that had been long buried beneath the idleness of her existence.

“I must go to Saint-Roch one of these mornings,” said she. “An occupation gone always leaves a void behind it.”

And, on the pale face of this late child, born of parents too old, there appeared the unhealthy regret of another existence, dreamed of once upon a time, in the land of chimeras. She could conceal nothing, everything was reflected in her face, beneath her skin, which had the softness and the transparency accompanying an attack of chlorosis. Then, she gave way to her feelings, and caught hold of Octave’s hands with a familiar gesture.

“Ah! let me thank you for having brought me this book! Come tomorrow after lunch. I will return it to you and tell you the effect that it produced on me. It will be amusing, will it not?”

On leaving her, Octave thought that she was funny all the same. She was beginning to interest him, he contemplated speaking to Pichon so as to make him rouse her up a bit; for the little woman, most decidedly, only wanted a shaking. It so happened that on the morrow he came across the clerk just as he was going off, and he accompanied him part of the way, at the risk of being late himself at “The Ladies’ Paradise.” But Pichon seemed to him to be even more benumbed than his wife, full of manias in their early stage, and entirely occupied with the dread of getting mud on his shoes in wet weather. He walked on his toes, and continually talked of the second head-clerk of his office. Octave, who was only animated by fraternal intentions in the matter, ended by leaving him in the Rue Saint-Honoré, after advising him to take Marie to the theatre frequently.

“Whatever for?” asked Pichon in amazement.

“Because it is good for women. It makes them nicer.”

“Ah! you really think so?”

He promised to give the matter his attention, and crossed the street, eyeing the cabs with terror, the only thing in life which worried him being the fear of getting splashed.

At lunch-time, Octave knocked at the Pichons’ door for the book. Marie was reading, her elbows on the table, her hands buried in her dishevelled hair. She had just eaten an egg cooked in a tin pan which was lying in the centre of the hastily laid table without any cloth. Lilitte, forgotten on the floor, was sleeping with her nose on the pieces of a plate which she had no doubt broken.

“Well?”

Marie did not answer at once. She was still wrapped in her morning dressing-gown, which, from the buttons being torn off, displayed her throat, in all the disorder of a woman just risen from her bed.

“I have scarcely read a hundred pages,” she ended by saying. “My parents came yesterday.”

And she spoke in a painful tone of voice, with a sourness about her mouth. When she was younger, she longed to live in the midst of the woods. She was for ever dreaming that she met a huntsman who was sounding his horn. He approached her and knelt down. This took place in a copse, very far away, where roses were blooming like in a park. Then, suddenly, they had been married, and afterwards lived there, wandering about till eternity. She, very happy, wished for nothing more; he, as tender and submissive as a slave, was continually at her feet.