French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – His Excellency Eugène Rougon – Contents
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Chapter IX
IN OFFICE
One morning in March, Rougon sat in his room at the Ministry of the Interior, drawing up a confidential circular which was to be received by the prefects on the following day. He kept stopping, and puffing, and dashing his pen into the paper. ‘Jules, give me a synonym for authority,’ he said. ‘This language of ours is horrid. I keep putting authority in every line.’
‘Well, there’s power, government, empire,’ the young man answered with a smile.
M. Jules d’Escorailles, whom Rougon had appointed his secretary, was opening the ministerial correspondence at a corner of the writing-table. He carefully cut the envelopes with a penknife, glanced over the letters and then classified them. Meantime, the colonel, M. Kahn and M. Béjuin sat in front of the grate where a large fire was burning. They were all three reclining in their chairs and toasting their feet in silence. M. Kahn read a newspaper, but the two others placidly twiddled their thumbs and looked at the flames.
All at once Rougon rose from his chair, poured out a glassful of water at a side table, and gulped it down at a draught. ‘I don’t know what I can have eaten yesterday,’ he said, ‘but I feel as though I could drink the Seine dry this morning.’
He did not immediately resume his seat, but began to pace the room and stretch his burly frame. His heavy step shook the parqueterie underneath the thick carpet. He drew back the green velvet window curtains to let in more light, and then, coming back to the middle of the room, which displayed the gloomy, faded magnificence of some palace turned into a lodging-house, he remained there with his hands clasped behind his neck, revelling, as it were, in the official perfume, the odour of power which he inhaled there. He even broke into an involuntary laugh, which grew louder and louder as it pealed forth his sense of triumph. The colonel and the others turned upon hearing this outburst of gaiety, and questioned him with their eyes.
‘Ah! it’s very nice, all the same,’ were the only words he would say.
However, as he sat down again at the huge rosewood writing-table, Merle came into the room. The usher was irreproachably dressed in black, with a white tie. Not a hair remained upon his dignified face. He was again clean-shaven.
‘I beg your excellency’s pardon,’ he said, ‘but the prefect of the Somme——’
‘Tell him to go to the deuce! I’m busy,’ Rougon answered roughly. ‘It’s quite preposterous that I am never to be allowed a moment to myself.’
Merle seemed in no way disconcerted, however. ‘The prefect,’ he resumed, ‘says that your excellency is expecting him. There are also the prefects of the Nièvre, the Cher, and the Jura.’
‘Well, let them wait! That’s what they’re made for,’ rejoined Rougon loudly.
The usher left the room. M. d’Escorailles had broken into a smile; while the others who were warming themselves at the fire lolled back more freely than ever in their chairs, and seemed amused by the minister’s reply. He was flattered by his success.
‘It is true,’ he said, ‘that I have been going through the prefects for the last month. It was necessary that I should have them all here. A nice lot they are, too; some rare stupids amongst them. However, they are very obedient. But I feel that I have had enough of them. And, besides, it’s for their benefit that I’m working this morning.’
Then he turned to his circular again. The warm silence of the room was only broken by the scratching of his quill-pen and the slight rustling of the envelopes which M. d’Escorailles opened. M. Kahn had taken up another newspaper, and the colonel and M. Béjuin were half asleep.
Outside, France was hushed in fear. The Emperor, in summoning Rougon to power, had been desirous of making examples. He knew the great man’s iron hand, and had said to him on the morning after the attempt on his life, with all the anger of one who has just escaped assassination, ‘No moderation, mind! They must be made to fear you.’ He had just armed him, too, with that terrible Law of General Safety, which authorised the confinement in Algeria or the expulsion from the empire of anyone who might be convicted of a political offence. Although no single Frenchman had taken part in the crime of the Rue Le Peletier, the Republicans were about to be hunted down and transported; there was to be a general sweeping away of the ten thousand ‘suspects’ who had been passed over at the time of the coup d’état. There were rumours of contemplated action by the revolutionary party. The authorities were said to have made a seizure of weapons and treasonable documents. Already in the middle of March, three hundred and eighty persons had been shipped at Toulon for Algeria, and now every week a fresh contingent was sent off. The whole country trembled in the terror which like a black storm-cloud rolled forth from the room with the green velvet curtains where Rougon laughed aloud while stretching his arms.
The great man had never before tasted such complete contentment. He felt well and strong, and was putting on flesh. Health had come back to him with his return to power. When he walked about the room he dug his heels into the carpet, as though he wanted his heavy tread to resound throughout France. He would have liked to shake the country by merely putting his empty glass down on the side-table or casting aside his pen. It delighted him to be a source of fear, to forge thunderbolts amidst the smiling gratification of his friends, and to crush a whole nation with his swollen parvenu fists. In one of his circulars he had written: ‘It is for the good to feel confidence, and for the wicked only to tremble.’ He revelled in playing this part of a divinity, damning some, and saving others. He was filled with mighty pride; his idolatry of his own strength and intelligence was becoming a real religion with him.
Among the new men who had sprung up with the Second Empire, Rougon had long been known as a partisan of strong government. His name was a synonym for stern repression, the refusal of all liberties; despotic rule, in fact. All knew therefore what they had to expect when they saw him called to office. To his intimate friends, however, Rougon unbosomed himself. He did not, he said, so much hold opinions as feel a craving for power. Power had too much attraction for him, and was too essential to his appetite for him to refuse it, whatever the conditions on which it might be offered to him.
To rule, to set his foot on the neck of the crowd, was his first and immediate ambition; the rest was merely secondary matter to which he could easily accommodate himself. The one thing which he really wanted was to be chief. It so happened, however, that the circumstances under which he was now returning to power made his success very pleasant. The Emperor had given him complete liberty of action, and he was at last in a position to realise his old dream of driving the multitude with a whip like a herd of cattle. Nothing filled him with greater satisfaction than to know that he was feared and disliked. And sometimes when his friends told him that he was a tyrant, he smiled, and said with deep meaning: ‘If I should become a liberal some day, people will say that I have changed.’
Rougon’s very greatest joy was to stand triumphant amidst those friends of his. He forgot France and the obsequious functionaries and the crowd of petitioners who besieged his doors, to regale himself with the perpetual admiration of his ten or twelve intimate associates. His office was open to them at any hour, he allowed them to make it a home, to take possession of his chairs, and even of his desk itself; he told them that it was a pleasure to have them always about him like a pack of faithful dogs. It was not he alone, but the whole coterie, that was the minister. The bonds between them seemed to be drawn closer now that success had come, and Rougon began to love his followers with a jealous love, keeping them in constant communion with him, feeling as if his greatness were increased by their several ambitions. He forgot his secret contempt for them, and began to consider them very intelligent and able, similar to himself. He particularly desired, moreover, that he himself should be respected in their persons, and defended them passionately as he might have defended the fingers of his hands. He made their quarrels his own, and, smiling at the recollection of their long endeavours on his behalf, he even ended by believing that he was greatly indebted to them. Desiring nothing for himself, he lavished upon them all the fruits of office, indulging to repletion in the pleasure of enhancing the brilliancy of his fortune by thus scattering the gifts at his disposal.
However, the big warm room remained silent for some time. Then M. d’Escorailles, after glancing at the address on one of the envelopes before him, handed it to Rougon without opening it. ‘Here is a letter from my father,’ he said.
Writing in a strain of excessive humility, the Marquis thanked the minister for having appointed Jules to be his secretary. There were two pages of fine writing which Rougon carefully read. Then he folded the letter and slipped it into his pocket. And before turning to his work again he asked: ‘Hasn’t Du Poizat written?’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered the secretary, picking a letter out from among the others. ‘He is beginning to find his way about in his prefecture. He says that Deux-Sèvres, and the town of Niort in particular, want guiding with a firm hand.’
Rougon glanced over the letter, and remarked: ‘Certainly; he shall have all the authority he requires. There is no occasion to send him any reply. My circular will be sufficient.’
Then he took up his pen again, and cudgelled his brains for some suitable concluding sentences. Du Poizat had particularly wished to be prefect at Niort, in his own native district, and the minister, when taking any important decision, invariably thought of the department of Deux-Sèvres, and governed France in accordance with the opinions and necessities of his old comrade in poverty. Just as he was at last finishing his circular to the prefects, something seemed to irritate M. Kahn.
‘It is abominable!’ the latter exclaimed; and, rapping the newspaper he was reading, he turned to Rougon, and cried: ‘Have you read this? There is a leading article here appealing to the basest passions. Just listen to this: “The hand that punishes should be impeccable, for, if justice miscarries, the very bonds which unite society loosen of their own accord.” You understand the insinuation, eh? And, here again, among the miscellaneous paragraphs, there’s a story about a Countess eloping with the son of a corn-factor. The papers ought not to be allowed to publish such things. It tends to destroy the people’s respect for the upper classes.’
‘But the serial story is still more odious,’ interposed M. d’Escorailles. ‘It’s all about a wife, a woman of good breeding, who betrays her husband. And the author does not even make her feel any remorse.’
Rougon made an angry gesture. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘my attention has already been called to that number. You will see that I have marked certain passages with a red pencil. And it is one of our own papers, too! Every day I am obliged to go over it line by line. Ah! the best of them are bad; we ought to suppress them all!’ Then, compressing his lips, he added, in a lower tone: ‘I have sent for the editor, and am expecting him here presently.’
The colonel had taken the paper from M. Kahn. He also soon vented expressions of indignation, and then handed the print to M. Béjuin, who likewise showed his disgust Rougon, in the meanwhile, was resting his elbows on his table and reflecting, with eyes half-closed.
‘By the way,’ he said, turning to his secretary, ‘that poor Huguenin died yesterday. That leaves an inspectorship vacant. We shall have to appoint somebody to it.’ Then, as the three friends sitting before the fire briskly raised their heads, he continued: ‘Oh, it’s a post of no importance. Six thousand francs a year. But it’s true that there’s absolutely nothing to do——’
However, he was interrupted by a person opening the door of an adjoining room.
‘Oh, come in, Monsieur Bouchard, come in!’ he cried, ‘I was just going to call for you.’
Bouchard, who had been appointed head of department a week previously, had brought with him a memorandum about the mayors and prefects who had asked for the crosses of chevalier and officer in the Legion of Honour. Rougon had twenty-five crosses to dispose of among the most meritorious of the applicants. He took the memorandum, read over the names and consulted various papers, while M. Bouchard went up to the fire and shook hands with the three others. Then, with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tails raised in order that he might warm his legs, the chief of department said: ‘A miserably wet day, isn’t it? We shall have a late spring.’
‘It’s awful,’ replied the colonel, ‘I feel one of my attacks coming on. I had shooting pains in my left foot all night.’
‘And how is your wife?’ asked M. Kahn after a short pause.
‘Thank you, she is very well,’ replied M. Bouchard. ‘I am expecting to see her here this morning.’
Then there was another pause. Rougon was still examining the papers. As he came to a certain name, he stopped. ‘Isidore Gaudibert—that isn’t the man who writes verses, is it?’
‘Yes, that is the man,’ M. Bouchard answered. ‘He has been Mayor of Barbeville since 1852. On every happy event, the Emperor’s marriage, the Empress’s confinement, and the Prince Imperial’s baptism, he has sent charming verses to their Majesties.’
The minister pouted scornfully. The colonel, however, asserted that he had read the odes and thought them very fine. He referred to one in particular, in which the Emperor was compared to a piece of fireworks. Then without any transition the friends began to eulogise the Emperor. They were all enthusiastic Bonapartists now. The two cousins, the colonel and M. Bouchard, were completely reconciled, and, instead of throwing the Orleans Princes and the Count de Chambord at each other’s head, rivalled in singing their sovereign’s praise.
‘Oh, no! not this one!’ Rougon suddenly exclaimed. ‘This Jusselin is a creature of Marsy’s. There is no call for me to reward the friends of my predecessor.’ Then with a stroke of his pen, that cut through the paper, he effaced the name. ‘But we must find some one,’ he resumed. ‘It is an officer’s cross.’
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 ante-room 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 ante-chamber. 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.’
‘I thank your excellency a thousand times,’ said Merle, with a low bow.
As he was going out, a charming blonde head, surmounted by a pink bonnet, peeped in at the door, and a fluty voice inquired: ‘Can I come in?’
Then, without waiting for a reply, Madame Bouchard entered the room. She had not seen the usher in the ante-chamber, so she had come straight on. Rougon, who addressed her as ‘my dear child,’ asked her to sit down, after momentarily detaining her little gloved hands within his own. ‘Have you come about anything important?’ he asked.
‘Yes, very important,’ answered Madame Bouchard with a smile.
Rougon thereupon told Merle to admit nobody. M. d’Escorailles, who had just finished trimming his nails, had advanced to greet Madame Bouchard. She signed to him to stoop, and immediately whispered a few words to him. He nodded assent, and then, taking his hat, turned to Rougon, saying: ‘I’m going to breakfast. There doesn’t seem to be anything else of importance excepting that matter of the inspectorship. We shall have to give it to someone.’
The minister looked perplexed. ‘Yes, certainly,’ he said, ‘we shall have to appoint somebody. A whole heap of men have already been suggested to me; but I don’t care to appoint people whom I don’t know.’
Then he glanced round the room as though trying to find somebody, and his eye fell upon M. Béjuin, still silently lounging before the fire, with an expression of complete unconcern upon his face.
‘Monsieur Béjuin,’ said Rougon.
M. Béjuin opened his eyes, but remained quite still.
‘Would you like to be an inspector?’ added the minister. ‘I may tell you that it’s a post worth six thousand francs a year. There is nothing to do, and the place is quite compatible with your position as a deputy.’
M. Béjuin nodded gently. Yes, yes, he would accept the post. And so the matter was settled. However, he still lingered before the fire for a few more minutes, when it probably struck him that there was no likelihood of his picking up any more crumbs that morning, for with a dragging step he took himself off in the rear of M. d’Escorailles.
‘There! we are alone now! Come, my dear child, what’s the matter?’ said Rougon to pretty Madame Bouchard.
He wheeled up an easy-chair and sat down in front of her in the centre of the room. And then for the first time he noticed her dress. It was of very soft pale rose cashmere, and hung round her in close, clinging folds. There seemed, also, to be something very bewitching about her appearance that morning.
‘Well, what’s the matter?’ repeated Rougon.
Madame Bouchard smiled without making any immediate answer. She sat back in her chair, with parted lips showing her pearly white teeth. Little curls peeped from under her pink bonnet, and there was a coaxing expression on her little face, an air of mingled supplication and submission.
‘It is something I want to ask of you,’ she murmured at last; and then, in an animated way, she added: ‘Promise me that you’ll do it.’
But Rougon would promise nothing. He wanted to know what it was first. He mistrusted ladies. And as she bent towards him, he said to her: ‘Is it something very unusual, that you daren’t tell me? Well, I must get it out of you by questions. Let us set about it methodically. Is it something for your husband?’
But Madame Bouchard shook her head, while still continuing to smile.
‘No! Is it for Monsieur d’Escorailles, then? You were plotting something together in whispers a little while ago.’
But Madame Bouchard again shook her head; and pulled a pretty little face which clearly signified that it had been necessary for her to get rid of M. d’Escorailles. Then, as Rougon was wondering what it could be that she wanted, she drew her chair still nearer to him. ‘You won’t scold me, will you?’ she said. ‘You do like me a little, don’t you? Well, it’s for a young man. You don’t know him, but I’ll tell you his name directly, when you have promised to give him the post. Oh, it’s quite an insignificant one that I want for him. You will only have to say a word and we shall be very, very grateful to you.’
‘Is he a relation of yours?’ Rougon inquired.
Madame Bouchard sighed deeply, glanced at him with languishing eyes, and then let her hands slip down so that Rougon might take them in his own. And finally in a very low voice, she replied: ‘No, he’s a friend of mine—a particular friend—Oh! I am very unhappy!’
Her eyes added all that she left unsaid.
‘But this is very shocking!’ exclaimed the minister, and then, as she still leant towards him, raising her little gloved hand to his lips to silence him, he roughly repulsed her, compelling her to rise to her feet. She remained before him with pale lips and downcast eyes. ‘Yes, it is disgraceful! abominable!’ he continued. ‘Monsieur Bouchard is an excellent man. He worships you. He trusts you with blind confidence. No, no, indeed! I will certainly not help you to deceive him. I refuse, refuse absolutely, do you hear? It is of no use mincing words with you, my pretty young woman!’
Then he checked himself, and, gradually becoming calmer, assumed an air of great dignity. Seeing that Madame Bouchard had begun to tremble, he made her sit down again while he himself remained erect, lecturing her severely. It was a real sermon that he preached to her. He told her that she was offending against all laws, both human and divine; that she was standing on the brink of a precipice, and preparing for herself an old age full of remorse. Then, fancying that he could detect a faint smile hovering round the corners of her lips, he proceeded to draw a picture of the old age he predicted, when her beauty would be in ruins, her heart for ever empty, and her brow flushed with shame beneath her white hair. And afterwards he discussed her conduct from a social point of view, in this respect showing much severity, and he went on to rail at modern licentiousness, at the disgraceful dissoluteness of the times. Then he spoke of himself. He was the guardian of the laws, he said, and could never abuse his power by lending himself to the encouragement of vice. Without virtue it seemed to him that government was impossible. Finally, he concluded by defying his enemies to name a single act of nepotism in his administration, a single favour granted by him that, was due to intrigue.
Pretty Madame Bouchard listened with downcast head, huddling herself up in her chair and letting her delicate neck show from under the ribbons of her pink bonnet. When Rougon had at last finished speaking, she rose and made her way to the door, without saying a word. But as she laid her fingers upon the handle, she raised her head and began to smile again. ‘He is named Georges Duchesne,’ she murmured. ‘He is principal clerk in my husband’s division, and wants to be assistant——’
‘No, no!’ cried Rougon.
Then she slowly left the room, casting a long contemptuous glance at the minister, who came back from the door with an expression of weariness on his face. He had beckoned to Merle to follow him. The door remained ajar.
‘The editor of the Vœu National, whom your excellency sent for, has just arrived,’ said the usher in a low tone.
‘Very good,’ replied Rougon; ‘but I’ll see the officials who have been waiting so long first.’
Just at that moment, however, a valet appeared at the door which led to the minister’s private apartments, and announced that déjeuner was ready, and that Madame Delestang was waiting for his excellency in the drawing room.
At this Rougon stepped forward. ‘Tell them to serve at once,’ he replied briskly. ‘So much the worse for the gentlemen; I will see them afterwards. I’m frightfully hungry.’
Then he just popped his head through the doorway and gave a glance round the ante-room, which was still full. Not a functionary or a petitioner had moved. The three prefects were still talking together in their corner. The two ladies by the table were leaning upon their finger-tips, as if a little weary. The same people sat motionless and silent in the red velvet chairs along the walls. Then Rougon left his room, giving Merle orders to detain the prefect of the Somme and the editor of the Vœu National.
Madame Rougon, who was not very well, had left on the previous evening for the South of France, where she was going to stay for a month. She had an uncle living in the neighbourhood of Pau. On the other hand, Delestang had been in Italy for the last six weeks, on an important mission connected with agriculture. And thus it came about that the minister had invited Clorinde, who wanted to have a long talk with him, to partake of déjeuner at his official residence.
Patiently waiting for him, she was beguiling the time by glancing through a law-treatise which she had found upon a table.
‘You must be getting dreadfully hungry,’ he said to her gaily as he entered the drawing-room. ‘I’ve had a tremendous lot to do this morning.’
Then he gave her his arm and conducted her into the dining-room, an immense apartment where the little table, laid for two, near a window, seemed quite lost. A couple of tall footmen waited upon them. Rougon and Clorinde, who both preserved a very serious demeanour, ate rapidly. Their meal consisted of a few radishes, a slice of cold salmon, some cutlets with mashed potatoes, and a little cheese. They took no wine—Rougon drank nothing but water of a morning—and they scarcely exchanged a dozen words. Then, when the two footmen had cleared the table and brought in the coffee and liqueurs, Clorinde glanced at Rougon and gave a slight twitch of her eyebrows which he perfectly understood.
‘That will do; you can go now,’ he said to the footmen. ‘I will ring if I require anything.’
The servants left the room, and Clorinde, rising from her chair, tapped her skirt to remove the crumbs which had fallen on it. She was wearing that day a black silk dress, somewhat too large for her and laden with flounces, a very elaborate dress which so enveloped her figure as to make her look like a mere bundle.
‘What a tremendous place this is!’ she remarked, going to the end of the room. ‘It’s the kind of place for a wedding feast, this dining-room of yours.’ Then she came back and said: ‘I should very much like to smoke a cigarette, do you know?’
‘The deuce,’ replied Rougon; ‘there’s no tobacco. I never smoke myself.’
But Clorinde winked and drew from her pocket a little tobacco pouch, of red silk, embroidered with gold, and scarcely larger than a purse. She rolled a cigarette with the tips of her tapering fingers, and then, as they did not wish to ring, they began to search the room for matches. At last they found three on a sideboard, and Clorinde carefully carried them off. With her cigarette between her lips, she sat back in her chair and began to sip her coffee, while gazing smilingly at Rougon.
‘Well, I am entirely at your service now,’ he remarked, with an answering smile. ‘You want to talk to me; so let us talk.’
Clorinde made a gesture as though to express that what she had to say was of no consequence. ‘Yes,’ she rejoined; ‘I have had a letter from my husband. He is feeling very bored at Turin. Of course, he is much pleased at having got this mission, thanks to you, but he doesn’t want to be forgotten while he is away. However, we can talk of all that presently. There’s no hurry about it.’
Then she again began to smoke and look at Rougon with her irritating smile. The minister had gradually accustomed himself to seeing her, without worrying about those questions which had formerly so disturbed him. Clorinde had now become a feature of his daily life, and he accepted her as though he understood her, as though her eccentricities no longer caused him the faintest surprise. As a matter of fact, however, he knew nothing certain about her even yet: she was as great a mystery to him as she had been in the first days of their acquaintance. She constantly varied, sometimes acting childishly, sometimes showing herself very deep and knowing; for although, as a rule, she seemed very foolish, she occasionally manifested singular shrewdness. And now, too, she was very gentle, and now extremely spiteful. When she surprised Rougon by some word or gesture which he could not understand, he shrugged his shoulders with an expression of superiority, opining that all women behaved in that fantastic way. He fancied that he thus manifested a supreme contempt for the sex, but his manner merely sharpened Clorinde’s smile, a smile which had an expression of crafty cruelty about it, revealing as it did her eager teeth between her ruby lips.
‘Why are you looking at me in that way?’ Rougon asked her at length, feeling disturbed by the steady gaze of her large eyes. ‘Is there anything about me which displeases you?’
Some hidden thought had just brought a gleam from the depths of Clorinde’s eyes, and her lips had assumed a hard expression. But she quickly put on a charming smile again, and began to puff out little whiffs of smoke while saying: ‘Oh, dear no, you’re very nice. I was thinking about something, my dear fellow. Do you know that you have been very lucky?’
‘How’s that?’
‘Why, yes. Here you are on the pinnacle which you were so anxious to reach. Everybody has helped to lift you to it, and events themselves have worked for you.’
Rougon was about to reply when there came a knock at the door. Clorinde instinctively hid her cigarette behind her skirts. It was a clerk with an urgent telegram for his excellency. Rougon read the despatch with an air of displeasure, and after telling the clerk what reply was to be made to it, hastily closed the door with a bang and took his seat again.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have certainly had some devoted friends, and am now trying to remember them. And you are right, too, in saying that I owe something to events. It often happens that men are powerless, unless they are helped by events.’
As he spoke these words in slow deliberate tones he glanced at Clorinde, lowering his heavy eyelids so as to conceal the fact that he was trying to penetrate her meaning. Why had she spoken of his luck? he wondered. What did she know of the favourable events to which she had referred? Had Du Poizat been saying anything to her? But when he saw the smiling, dreamy look of her face, which had suddenly softened, he felt sure that she knew nothing whatever upon the subject. He himself, too, was trying to forget certain things, and did not care to stir up the inner chambers of his memory. There was an hour of his life which now seemed hazy and confused to him, and he was beginning to believe that he really owed his high position solely to the devotion of his friends.
‘I didn’t want anything,’ he continued; ‘I was driven into it in spite of myself. Well, I suppose things have turned out for the best. If I succeed in doing any good, I shall be quite satisfied.’
Then he finished his cup of coffee, while Clorinde rolled another cigarette.
‘Do you remember,’ she inquired, ‘my asking you, two years ago, when you were leaving the Council of State, your reason for your sudden whim? You were very reserved then, but surely you can speak out now. Come, between ourselves, tell me frankly if you had a definite plan in your mind.’
‘One always has a plan,’ he answered shrewdly. ‘I felt that I was falling, and preferred to jump down of my own accord.’
‘And has your plan been realised? Have events happened just as you anticipated?’
‘Well, hardly that. Things never turn out exactly as one calculates. One must be satisfied if one attains one’s end somehow.’ Then he paused to offer Clorinde a glass of liqueur. ‘Which will you have, curaçoa or chartreuse?’ She chose chartreuse; and, as Rougon was pouring it out, there came another knock at the door. Clorinde again hid her cigarette with a gesture of impatience, whilst Rougon got up angrily, still holding the decanter. This time it was a letter bearing a large seal which was brought for his inspection. When he had glanced at it, he put it into his pocket.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Don’t let me be disturbed again.’
When he came back to Clorinde, the young woman was steeping her lips in the chartreuse, slowly sipping it, while glancing upward at him with glistening eyes. There was a tender look upon her face again.
Then, putting down her glass and leaning on the table, she said, in a low voice: ‘No, my dear fellow, you will never know all that was done for you.’
Rougon drew his chair closer to hers and, in his turn, rested his elbows on the table. ‘Ah, you will tell me all about that now, won’t you?’ he cried with animation. ‘Don’t let us have any more mysteries, eh? Tell me all that you yourself did.’
She shook her head, however, while pressing her cigarette between her lips.
‘What, is it something dreadful?’ Rougon asked. ‘Are you afraid that I shouldn’t be able to repay you? Wait a moment, now; I’m going to try to guess. You wrote to the Pope and you dropped a bit of consecrated wafer into my water jug without letting me know?’
Clorinde seemed vexed by this jesting, and threatened to leave him if he continued it. ‘Don’t scoff at religion,’ she said. ‘It will bring you misfortune.’
Then, waving away the smoke which she was puffing from her lips and which seemed to inconvenience Rougon, she continued in an expressive tone: ‘I saw a great many people indeed, and I won you several friends.’
She experienced a strong, an evil, inclination to tell him everything, for she did not want him to remain ignorant of the fact that she had done much for his advantage. Her confession would be a first instalment towards the satisfaction of her patiently hoarded rancour. ‘Yes, yes,’ she continued significantly; ‘I won over to your side several men who were strongly opposed to you. And I destroyed the influence of others.’
Rougon had turned very pale, for he understood her only too well. ‘Ah!’ was all he said, as if to avoid the subject; but Clorinde defiantly fixed her large black eyes upon him, and giving way he began to question her. ‘Monsieur de Marsy, eh?’
Clorinde nodded assent and then blew a whiff of smoke over her shoulder.
‘Chevalier Rusconi?’
Again she nodded.
‘Monsieur Lebeau, Monsieur de Salneuve, Monsieur Guyot-Laplanche?’
She nodded at each name, and then finished her glass of chartreuse in little sips, with an expression of triumph on her face.
Rougon had risen from his seat. He walked to the end of the room as if pondering, and then came back and stood behind Clorinde. She could hear him panting. And all at once she turned sharply, fearing he was going to kiss her hair. ‘I know your thoughts,’ said she, ‘but remember, I had no need to plead your cause with yourself.’
Then, as he looked at her, white with anger, she burst into a laugh. ‘Oh! how simple you are!’ she cried. ‘If I just joke a little, you believe all I say. Really, you are very amusing.’
Rougon stood there for a moment quite nonplussed. The ironical fashion in which she contradicted herself made her more irritating and provoking. Her whole person, her rippling laugh and glistening eyes, confirmed her confessions and repeated them. However, just then there came a third knock at the door.
‘Well, I don’t care, I shall stick to my cigarette this time,’ said Clorinde.
An usher came into the room, quite out of breath, and stammered that the Minister of Justice wanted to speak to his excellency. Then he cast a furtive glance at the lady he saw smoking.
‘Say that I have gone out!’ retorted Rougon. ‘I am not at home to any one, do you hear!’
When the usher had bowed and retired backwards from the room, Rougon vented his anger and brought his fist down upon the table. He was scarcely allowed to breathe! he cried. Why, on the previous day they had pursued him even to his dressing-room where he had gone to shave.
Clorinde, however, rose from her chair and deliberately walked to the door. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said; ‘they sha’n’t disturb us again.’ And then she quietly turned the key in the lock. ‘There!’ she resumed. ‘They may knock as much as they like now.’
She began to roll a third cigarette as she stood near the window. Rougon stepped up to her and whispered close to her neck: ‘Clorinde.’
She stood still, and he continued in deeper tones: ‘Clorinde, don’t you know that I love you?’
She remained perfectly unruffled. She shook her head, but so feebly that it seemed as if she wished to encourage him, and he ended by planting a rough kiss on the back of her neck, just beneath her hair. Then, however, she swung herself round, and with scorn in her eyes and her voice she cried: ‘Ah! so you’ve got another attack, my friend? I thought you were cured of that. What a strange man you are! You kiss a woman after eighteen months’ consideration!’
Rougon remained for a moment with downcast head, but then sprang towards her, caught hold one of her hands and began to cover it with kisses. She made no attempt to withdraw it, but continued to jeer at him.
‘Please don’t bite my fingers. As long as you don’t do that, I don’t mind. I should really never have believed it of you! You had become so serious and steady when I went to see you in the Rue Marbeuf. And now you’re turned quite crazy again! Truly, you’re a nice kind of man! I can’t keep up a passion as you do. It’s all quite over with me. Remember that I offered to be your wife, but you refused me then and now it is too late.’
‘Hear me,’ he murmured, ‘I will do anything, everything, you want.’
But the young woman shook her head, punishing him for his old contempt, and enjoying, in so doing, a first instalment of her vengeance. She had wanted to see him all-powerful in order that she might in her turn treat him with contempt.
Then Rougon fell ignominiously at her feet and began to kiss her skirts, grovelling there, humbling himself, he who could be so haughty with others. As he gradually grew bolder, however, she said to him in a quiet voice: ‘Take care!’ and as he disregarded her caution, she suddenly touched his forehead with the burning end of her cigarette. He recoiled with a faint cry, and she on her side darted away and caught hold of the bell-rope which hung against the wall beside the mantelpiece. ‘I shall ring,’ she said, ‘and I shall say it was you who locked the door!’
At this Rougon swung himself round, holding his hands to his temples, and shaken by a violent tremor. Then for a moment he remained quite still, feeling as though his head were going to split. He stiffened himself in the hope of calming his feverishness. There was a ringing in his ears, and his eyes were blinded by ruddy fires.
‘I am a brute,’ he murmured at last. ‘It is folly.’
Clorinde laughed triumphantly, and began to point a moral. He did wrong to despise women, said she. Later on, he would find that there were such things as very clever women. Then she relapsed into a good-natured playful tone. ‘You are not vexed with me, are you? You must never try to make love to me again, you know. I don’t want you to do it. I don’t like to think of it.’
Rougon paced up and down, full of shame; while she let go of the bell-rope, sat down at the table again, and compounded herself a glass of sugar and water.
‘Well, I got a letter from my husband yesterday,’ she quietly resumed. ‘I had so much to do this morning that I should probably have broken my promise to come and lunch with you if I hadn’t wanted to show you that letter. See, here it is! It reminds you of your promises.’
Rougon took the letter and read it as he walked about the room. Then he threw it on the table in front of Clorinde with a gesture expressive of weariness.
‘Well?’ she asked.
He made no immediate reply, but stretched himself and yawned. ‘He is a simpleton,’ he said at last.
Clorinde was greatly offended. For some time past she had not tolerated any doubt of her husband’s capabilities. She bent her head for a moment and repressed the rebellious twitchings of her hands. She was gradually emerging from her disciple-like submissiveness, draining, as it were, from Rougon sufficient of his strength to enable her to confront him as a formidable foe.
‘If we were to show this letter, it would be all over with him,’ said the minister, impelled by Clorinde’s disdain to avenge himself upon her husband. ‘Ah! it isn’t so easy as you suppose to find a place that he’s fit for.’
‘You are exaggerating, my friend,’ replied Clorinde, after a short pause. ‘You used to say that he had a great future before him. He possesses some sterling good qualities; and it isn’t always the sharpest men who go furthest!’
Rougon, however, still paced the room, and shrugged his shoulders.
‘It is to your interest that he should join the ministry,’ continued Clorinde. ‘You would have a supporter in him. If it is true, as is reported, that the Minister of Commerce and Agriculture is in bad health and wishes to retire, the opportunity is a splendid one. My husband is quite competent to perform the duties of the office, and his mission to Italy would make his selection quite natural. You know that the Emperor is very fond of him, and that they get on very well together. They have the same ideas on many subjects. A word from you would settle the matter.’
Rougon took two or three more turns before replying. Then, halting in front of Clorinde, he said: ‘Well, after all, I am agreeable. He won’t be the only simpleton in office. But I’m doing this solely for your sake, remember. I want to disarm you. I am afraid you haven’t a good heart. You’re too vindictive, aren’t you?’
He spoke playfully, and Clorinde laughed as she replied: ‘Oh, yes, indeed; I’m very vindictive. I remember things a long time.’
Then, as she was about to leave him, he detained her for a moment by the door, and twice squeezed her fingers, but did not say another word.
Directly Clorinde had gone, Rougon returned to his private office. The spacious room was empty. He sat down at the writing-table and rested his elbows on his blotting-pad, breathing heavily in the surrounding silence. His eyelids dropped, and a deep reverie lulled him to a state of drowsiness for the next ten minutes. Then he suddenly started, stretched himself, and rang the bell.
Merle made his appearance.
‘The prefect of the Somme is still here, isn’t he?’ asked Rougon. ‘Show him in.’
Bracing up his short figure, the prefect entered the room with a pale, smiling face. He greeted the minister with all due deference. Rougon, who felt little energy, waited till he had finished. Then he asked him to be seated.
‘I must tell you why I have sent for you, Monsieur le préfet,’ he began. ‘There are certain instructions which must be given by word of mouth. You are not ignorant of the fact that the revolutionary party is raising its head. We have been within an ace of a frightful catastrophe. The country requires to be reassured, to feel that it can rely upon the energetic protection of the Government. His Majesty the Emperor, on his side, has come to the conclusion that some examples must be made, for hitherto his kindness has been strangely abused.’
Rougon spoke slowly, reclining in his arm-chair and playing the while with a large agate seal. The prefect expressed his approval of each sentence by a brisk nod.
‘Your department,’ continued the minister, ‘is one of the worst. The republican ulcer——’
‘I make every effort——’ interposed the prefect.
‘Don’t interrupt me. It is necessary that strong repressive steps should be taken there; and it was to express my views to you on the subject that I wished to see you. We have been drawing up a list——’
Then he began to search among his papers, took up a bundle of documents, and turned them over one by one.
‘It is a return for the whole of France of the number of arrests that are considered necessary. The number for each department is proportionate to the blow which it is intended to strike. I want you to understand our object thoroughly. In the Haute-Marne, for instance, where the Republicans are in a very small minority, there are to be only three arrests. In the Meuse, on the other hand, there will be fifteen. As for your department, the Somme—isn’t it?—well, for the Somme, we think——’
He turned the papers over again, blinking his heavy eyelids; then raised his head and looked the prefect in the face. ‘Monsieur le préfet, you have twelve arrests to make,’ said he.
The pale little man bowed. ‘Twelve arrests,’ he repeated. ‘I understand your excellency perfectly.’
He seemed perplexed, however, as though affected by some slight misgivings which he would have preferred to conceal. However, after a few minutes’ general conversation, just as the minister rose to dismiss him, he made up his mind to ask: ‘Could your excellency tell me the persons who are to be arrested?’
‘Oh! arrest anybody you like!’ Rougon replied. ‘I can’t trouble myself about the details. I should never get through the work if I did. Leave Paris this evening and begin your arrests to-morrow. I advise you, however, to strike high. Down in your department you have some lawyers and merchants and druggists who busy themselves with politics. Just lock all those fellows up. It will have a good effect.’
The prefect passed his hand across his brow in an anxious way. He was already searching his memory, trying to think of certain lawyers, merchants, and druggists. However, he still nodded his head approvingly. But Rougon was not altogether pleased with his hesitating demeanour. ‘I won’t conceal from you,’ he said, ‘that his Majesty is by no means satisfied just now with the administrative staff. There will probably soon be a great change amongst the prefects. We need very devoted men in the present grave circumstances.’
This affected the prefect like a cut from a whip.
‘Your excellency may rely on me,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have already fixed upon my men. There is a druggist at Péronne, a cloth merchant and a paper maker at Doullens; and, as for the lawyers, there’s no lack of them; there’s a perfect plague of them. Oh, I assure your excellency that I shall have no difficulty in making up the dozen. I am an old servant of the Empire.’
For another moment he chattered on about devoting himself to the saving of the country, and then took his leave with a very low bow. When he had closed the door behind him, the minister swayed his heavy frame with an air of doubt. He did not believe in little men. Then, without sitting down again, he drew a red line through La Somme upon his list. The names of more than two-thirds of the departments were already scored out in the same way.
When Rougon again rang for Merle, he was annoyed to see that the ante-room was as full as ever. He fancied he could recognise the two ladies still standing by the table. ‘I told you to send everybody away!’ he cried. ‘I am going out, and cannot see anybody else.’
‘The editor of the Vœu National is there,’ murmured the usher.
Rougon had forgotten the editor. He clasped his hands behind his back, and ordered Merle to admit him. The journalist was a man of some forty years of age, with a heavy face, and was very carefully dressed.
‘Ah! here you are, sir!’ said the minister roughly. ‘Things cannot go on like this, I warn you of it.’
Then he began to pace the room, inveighing hotly against the press. It was demoralising everything, bringing about general disorganisation, and inciting to disorder of every kind. The very robbers who stabbed wayfarers on the high-roads were preferable to journalists, said he. A man might recover from a knife-thrust, but pens were poisoned. Then he went on to make even more odious comparisons; and gradually worked himself into a state of excitement, gesticulating angrily, and thundering forth his words. The editor, who had remained standing, bent his head to the storm, while his face wore an expression of submissive consternation.
‘If your excellency would condescend to explain to me,’ he at last ventured to say; ‘I don’t quite understand——’
‘What?’ roared Rougon furiously. Then he sprang forward, spread out the newspaper on his table, and pointed to the columns that were marked with red pencil. ‘There are not ten lines free from offence!’ he exclaimed. ‘In your leading article, you appear to cast a doubt upon the government’s capacities in the matter of repressive measures. In this paragraph on the second page you appear to allude to me when you speak of the insolent triumph of parvenus. Among your miscellaneous items there are a lot of filthy stories, brainless attacks upon the upper classes.’
The editor clasped his hands in great alarm, and tried to get in a word. ‘I assure your excellency—I am quite in despair that your excellency could suppose for a moment—I, too, who have such very warm admiration for your excellency——’
Rougon, however, paid no attention to this. ‘And the worst of the matter is, sir,’ he continued, ‘that everyone is aware of your connection with the administration. How is it likely that the other newspapers will respect us, when those in our own pay do not? All my friends have been denouncing these abominations to me this morning.’
Then the editor joined Rougon in declaiming against the incriminated matter. He had read none of those articles and paragraphs, he said. But he would at once dismiss all his contributors. If his excellency wished it, he would send him a proof-copy of the paper every morning. Rougon, who had relieved his feelings, declined this offer. He had not the time to examine a proof-copy, he said. Just as he was dismissing the editor, however, a fresh thought seemed to strike him. ‘Oh, I was forgetting,’ he said. ‘That well-bred woman who betrays her husband in the novel you are publishing serially supplies a detestable argument against good education. It ought not to be alleged that a woman of that kind could possibly commit such a sin.’
‘The serial has had a great success,’ murmured the editor, again feeling alarmed. ‘I have read it, and have found it very interesting.’
‘Ah! you’ve read it, have you? Well, now, does this wretched woman feel any remorse in the end?’
The editor carried his hand to his forehead, amazed, and trying to remember. ‘Remorse? No, I think not,’ he replied. Rougon had already opened the door, and as he closed it upon the journalist, he called after him: ‘It is absolutely necessary that she should feel remorse! Insist upon the author filling her with remorse!’
< < < Chapter VIII
Chapter X > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – His Excellency Eugène Rougon – Contents
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