Complete Works of Emile Zola (660 page)

He was waxing eloquent, and, proud of his idea, he laughed joyfully.

“The most sceptical will be moved,” observed Octave to please him.

“That is what I think!” cried he. “I am impatient to see everything in place.”

On returning to the nave he forgot himself, retaining his loud tone of voice and his mason’s bearing, and he spoke of Campardon in the highest terms — a fellow who, in the middle ages, said he, would have had a very remarkable religious feeling. He let Octave out by the little door at the back, detaining him a minute or two longer in the courtyard of the vicarage, whence one can see the apsis of the church buried amidst the neighbouring buildings. It was there that he lived, on the second-floor of a tall house with a mildewed frontage, occupied entirely by the clergy of Saint-Roch. A discreet priestly odour, the whispering hush of the confessional, issued from the vestibule surmounted by a statue of the Virgin, and from the tall windows veiled by thick curtains.

“I am going to see Monsieur Campardon this evening,” at length said the Abbé Mauduit. “Ask him to wait in for me. I wish to speak to him about an improvement without being disturbed.”

And he bowed with his worldly air. Octave was calmed now. Saint-Roch, with its cool vaults, had unbraced his nerves. He looked curiously at this entrance to a church through a private house, at the doorkeeper’s room from whence at night-time the door was often opened for the cause of the faith, at all that corner of a convent lost amidst the black conglomeration of the neighbourhood. Out in the street, he again raised his eyes; the house displayed its bare frontage, with its barred and curtainless windows; but boxes of flowers were fixed by iron supports to the windows of the fourth floor; and, down below, in the thick walls, were narrow shops, which helped to fill the coffers of the clergy — a cobbler’s, a clock-maker’s, an embroiderer’s, and even a wine-shop, where the mutes congregated whenever there was a funeral. Octave, who from his rebuff was in a mood to renounce the world, regretted the quiet lives which the priests’ servants led up there in those rooms enlivened with verbenas and sweet peas.

That evening, at half-past six, as he entered the Campardons’ apartments without ringing, he came suddenly upon the architect and Gasparine kissing each other in the anteroom. The latter, who had just come from the warehouse, had not even given herself time to close the door. Both stood stock-still.

“My wife is combing her hair,” stammered the architect for the sake of saying something.” Go in and see her.”

Octave, feeling as embarrassed as themselves, hastened to knock at the door of Rose’s room, where he usually entered like a relation. He really could no longer continue to board there, now that he caught them behind the doors.

“Come in!” cried Rose’s voice. “So it is you, Octave. Oh! there is no harm.”

She had not, however, donned her dressing-gown, and her arms and shoulders, as white and delicate as milk, were bare. Sitting attentively before the looking-glass, she was rolling her golden hair in little curls. Every day she thus passed hours together in the most minute details of her toilet; her sole care was a continuous study of the pores of her skin, a perpetual adornment of her person, and then to go and stretch herself out in an easy-chair in all the beauty and luxury of a sexless idol.

“So you are making yourself beautiful again to-night,” said Octave, smiling.

“Yes, for it is the only amusement I have,” replied she. “It occupies me. You know I have never been a good housewife; and, now that Gasparine will be here — Eh?
don’t you think that curl suits me?
It consoles me a little when I am well dressed and I feel that I look pretty.”

As the dinner was not ready, he told her of his having left “The Ladies’ Paradise.” He invented a story about some other situation he had long been on the look-out for; and thus reserved to himself a pretext for explaining his intention of taking his meals elsewhere. She was surprised that he could give up a berth which held out great promises for the future. But she was busy at her glass, and did not catch all he said.

“Look at this red place behind my ear. Is it a pimple?
”

He had to examine the nape of her neck, which she held towards him with her grand tranquillity of a sacred woman.

“It is nothing,” said he. “You must have dried yourself too roughly.”

And, when he had assisted her to put on her dressing-gown of blue satin embroidered with silver, they passed into the dining-room. As early as the soup, Octave’s departure from the Hédouins’ was discussed. Campardon did not repress his surprise, whilst Gasparine smiled faintly; they were quite at their ease together. The young man even ended by being touched by the tender attentions they showered upon Rose. Campardon poured out her wine, whilst Gasparine selected the best pieces from the dish for her. Was she pleased with the bread?
if not they would change the baker; would she like a pillow for her back?
And Rose, full of gratitude, begged them not to disturb themselves. She ate a good deal, throning herself between them, with her beautiful blonde’s delicate neck, arrayed in her queenly dressing-gown, having on her right her puffing husband, who was becoming thin, and on her left her dark dried-up cousin, whose shoulders were confined in a gloomy black dress, and whose flesh was melting away in the warmth of her desires.

At dessert Gasparine sharply rated Lisa, who had answered her mistress rudely respecting a piece of cheese that was missing. The maid became very humble. Gasparine had already taken the household arrangements in hand, and had mastered the servants;
with a word, she could make Victoire herself quake amongst her saucepans. So that Rose looked at her gratefully with moist eyes; she was respected, now that her cousin was there, and her longing was to get her also to leave “The Ladies’ Paradise,” and take charge of Angèle’s education.

“Come,” murmured she caressingly, “there is quite enough to occupy you here. Angèle, implore your cousin, tell her how pleased you will be.”

The young girl implored her cousin, whilst Lisa nodded her head approvingly. But Campardon and Gasparine remained grave; no, no, they must wait, one should not take a leap in life without having something to hold on to.

The evenings in the drawing-room were now delightful. The architect had altogether given up going out. That evening he had arranged to hang some engravings, which had come back from the framer, in Gasparine’s room: Mignon supplicating Heaven, a view of the fountain of Vaucluse, and several others. And he was full of a stout man’s jollity, with his yellow beard flying about, his cheeks red through having eaten too much, and feeling happy and contented in all his appetites. He called to the cousin to light him, and they heard him mount a chair and commence knocking in the nails. Then, Octave, finding himself alone with Rose, resumed his story, and explained that at the end of the month he would be obliged to take his meals away from them. She seemed surprised, but her thoughts were elsewhere; she returned at once to her husband and her cousin whom she heard laughing.

“Ah! how it amuses them to hang those pictures! What would you have! Achille no longer stays out; for a fortnight past he has not left me of an evening. No, no more going to the café, no more business meetings, no more appointments; and you remember how anxious I used to be, when he was out after midnight! Ah! it is a great ease to my mind now! I at least have him by me.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” murmured Octave.

And she continued speaking of the economy of the new arrangement. Everything went on better in the house, they laughed from morning to night.

“When I see Achille pleased,” resumed she, “I am satisfied.”

Then, returning to the young man’s affairs, she added:

“So you are really going to leave us? You should stay though as we are all going to be so happy.”

He recommenced his explanations. She comprehended, and lowered her eyes: the young fellow would indeed interfere with their family effusions, and she herself felt a certain relief at his departure, no longer requiring him moreover to keep her company of an evening. He had to promise to come and see her very often.

“There you are, Mignon supplicating Heaven!” cried Campardon joyously. “Wait a moment, cousin; I will help you down.”

They heard him take her in his arms and place her somewhere. There was a short silence, and then a faint laugh. But the architect was already entering the drawing-room; and he held his hot cheek to his wife.

“It is done, my duck. Kiss your old pet for working so well.”

Gasparine came with some embroidery and seated herself near the lamp. Campardon commenced cutting out a gilt cross of the Legion of Honour which he had found on some label; and he turned very red, when Rose persisted in pinning this paper cross on to his breast: some one had promised him the decoration, but they all made a great mystery about it. On the other side of the lamp, Angèle, who was learning some scripture history, raised her head now and then and darted a glance here and there, with her enigmatical air of a well-brought up young lady, taught to say nothing, and whose real thoughts are hidden. It was a peaceful evening, a very homely patriarchal corner.

But the architect suddenly became virtuously indignant. He had just noticed that instead of studying her scripture history, the child was reading the “Gazette de France,” lying on the table.

“Angèle,” said he severely, “what are you doing?
This morning, I crossed out that article with a red pencil. You know very well that you are not to read what is crossed out.”

“I was reading beside it, papa,” replied the young girl.

All the same, he took the paper away from her, complaining in low tones to Octave of the demoralization of the press. That number contained the report of another abominable crime. If families could no longer admit the “Gazette de France,” then what paper could they take in?
And he was raising his eyes to heaven, when Lisa announced the Abbé Mauduit.

“Ah! yes,” observed Octave, “he asked me to tell you he was coming.”

The priest entered smiling. As the architect had forgotten to take off his paper cross, he stammered in the presence of that smile. The Abbé Mauduit happened to be the person whose name was kept a secret and who had the matter in hand.

“The ladies did it,” murmured Campardon, preparing to take the cross off. “They are so fond of a joke.”

“No, no, keep it,” exclaimed the priest very amiably. “It is well where it is, and we will replace it by a more substantial one.”

He at once asked after Rose’s health, and greatly approved Gasparine’s coming to live with one of her relations. Single young ladies ran so many risks in Paris! He said these things with all his good priest’s unction, though fully aware of the real state of affairs. Then, he talked of the works, suggesting a rather happy alteration. And he seemed to have come to bless the good union of the family and thus save a delicate situation, which might otherwise be talked about in the neighbourhood. The architect of the Calvary should be sure of all honest persons’ respect.

When the Abbé Mauduit appeared, Octave had wished the Campardons good evening. As he crossed the anteroom, he heard Angèle’s voice in the now dark dining-room she having also made her escape.

“Was it about the butter that she was kicking up such a row?” asked she.

“Of course,” answered another voice, which was Lisa’s. “She’s as spiteful as can be. You saw how she went on at me at dinner-time. But I don’t care a fig! One must pretend to obey, with a person of that sort, but that doesn’t prevent our amusing ourselves all the same!”

Then, Angèle must have thrown her arms round Lisa’s neck, for her voice was drowned in the servant’s bosom.

“Yes, yes. And, afterwards, so much the worse! it’s you I love!”

Octave was going up to bed, when a desire for fresh air brought him down again. It was not more than ten o’clock, he would stroll as far as the Palais-Royal. Now, he was single again: both Valérie and Madame Hédouin had declined to have anything to do with his heart, and he had been too hasty in restoring Marie to Jules, the only woman he had succeeded in conquering, and without having done anything for it. He tried to laugh, but he felt sad; he bitterly recalled his successes at Marseilles and beheld a bad omen, a regular blow at his fortunes, in the rout that his seductions had experienced. A chill seemed to come over him when he had no skirts about him. Even Madame Campardon, who allowed him to go without shedding a tear! It was a terrible revenge to take. Was Paris going to refuse herself?

As he was placing his foot on the pavement, a woman’s voice called to him; and he recognised Berthe at the door of the silk warehouse, the shutters of which were being put up by the porter.

“Is it true, Monsieur Mouret?”
asked she, “have you really left ‘The Ladies’ Paradise?’”

He was surprised that it was already known in the neighbourhood. The young woman had called her husband. As he intended speaking to Monsieur Mouret on the morrow, he might just as well do so then. And Auguste abruptly offered Octave in a sour way a berth in his employ. The young man, taken unawares, hesitated and was on the point of refusing, thinking of the small importance of the house. But he caught sight of Berthe’s pretty face, as she smiled at him with her air of welcome, with the gay glance he had already twice encountered, on the day of his arrival and the day of the wedding.

“Well! yes,” said he resolutely.

CHAPTER X

Then, Octave found himself brought into closer contact with the Duveyriers. Often, when Madame Duveyrier returned from a walk, she would come through her brother’s shop, and stop to talk a minute with Berthe; and, the first time that she saw the young man behind one of the counters, she amiably reproached him for not keeping his word, reminding him of his long standing promise to come up and see her one evening, and try his voice at the piano. She wished to give a second performance of the “Benediction of the Daggers,” at one of her first Saturdays at home of the coming winter, but with two extra tenors, something very complete.

“If it does not interfere with your arrangements,” said Berthe one day to Octave, “you might go up to my sister-in-law’s after dinner. She is expecting you.”