French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – His Excellency Eugène Rougon – Contents
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Chapter VIII
RECALLED TO POWER
Some weeks went by. Rougon had relapsed into his life of lassitude and ennui. He never referred to the Emperor’s order that he should remain in Paris. He only spoke of his disappointment and of the alleged obstacles which stood in the way of his clearing some portion of the Landes. Upon this topic he talked continually. What obstacles could there possibly be? he asked. For his part, he could see none. He even went so far as to show some irritation against the Emperor, from whom it was impossible, he complained, to obtain any explanations. Perhaps, however, his Majesty felt afraid lest he should be obliged to come forward with a subvention for the proposed expedition.
As the days went by, Clorinde’s visits to the Rue Marbeuf increased in frequency. She seemed every afternoon to expect some great news from Rougon, and she gazed at him in surprise on finding him so silent. Ever since her visit to Compiègne she had been living in the hope of a sudden triumph. She had pictured a series of dramatic scenes: furious anger on the part of the Emperor, M. de Marsy’s utter fall and disgrace, and the great man’s immediate restoration to power. She no doubt imagined that her feminine wiles would have this result; and so her astonishment was unbounded when, at the end of a month, she still saw the Count in office. She began to feel contempt for the Emperor, who seemed incapable of avenging himself. What could he be thinking about in the everlasting silence he preserved?
However, Clorinde had not yet abandoned all hope. She had an intuition that some unforeseen turn of the wheel of chance would bring round the triumph she desired, for M. de Marsy’s influence was certainly shaken. Rougon now treated her with all the watchful attention of a jealous husband. Ever since his strange outbreaks at Compiègne, he had exercised a most fatherly surveillance over her, had plied her with moral dissertations, and expressed his desire to see her every day. The young woman smiled, feeling certain now that he would not leave Paris. Towards the middle of December, however, after weeks of drowsy listlessness, he again reverted to his great scheme. He had consulted some bankers, and had hopes of doing without the Emperor’s assistance. And once more he buried himself in maps and plans and technical treatises. Gilquin, he said, had already enrolled more than five hundred workmen who were willing to go out with him. They would form the first instalment of his future people. At this Clorinde, feeling quite provoked, again set the whole coterie of friends in motion.
It was a tremendous undertaking. Each of them took some special rôle; and whispered councils were held in the corners of Rougon’s own drawing-room on Sunday and Thursday evenings. They portioned out the various difficult matters, and every day they scattered through Paris, invincibly determined upon gaining some influence or other to their cause. No assistance was too insignificant for their acceptance; the most trifling help might be useful. They availed themselves of everything, they drew whatever advantage they could from the most trivial incidents, and worked and worked from the first thing in the morning until the last thing at night. They enlisted their friends as accomplices, and their friends enlisted others. All Paris seemed to share in the intrigue. In the most out-of-the-way districts people began to yearn for Rougon’s triumph, without being able to say why. The little band, though it only comprised some ten or twelve persons, was influencing the whole city.
‘We are the coming government,’ said Du Poizat, in all seriousness; and, establishing a parallel between themselves and the men who had made the Second Empire, he added: ‘I shall be Rougon’s Marsy.’
A pretender by himself was a mere name. A band of supporters was needed to establish a government. Twenty stout fellows of ambition are stronger than a mere principle, and when they can combine a principle with their ambition they become invincible. Such were Du Poizat’s views. He himself spent his time in perambulating Paris, often calling at newspaper offices, where he smoked his cigar and did what he could to undermine M. de Marsy’s reputation. He always had some secret little story to relate about the minister, whom he accused of ingratitude and egotism. Then, when he had managed to bring in Rougon’s name, he would drop vague hints and promises of the rewards and presents and subventions which the latter would shower down upon every one should he be in the position to do so. In this way Du Poizat contrived to supply numerous suggestions, anecdotes, and quotations to the newspapers, which continually brought the great man under the notice of the public. Two journals published an account of a visit to the house in the Rue Marbeuf, and others spoke of Rougon’s famous work on the English constitution and that of 1852. Thus, after a hostile silence of two years, a murmur of eulogy arose, and Rougon’s popularity seemed to be reviving. Du Poizat, too, devoted himself to other intrigues, very secret ones, such as the purchase of certain persons’ support by a kind of gambling on the prospects of Rougon’s return to office.
‘Let us only think of him,’ he often said, with that frankness of his which was distasteful to the more affected members of the band. ‘Later on, he will think of us.’
M. Beulin-d’Orchère was not a very subtle intriguer. When he unearthed a scandalous affair to the detriment of M. de Marsy it was immediately hushed up. He showed greater shrewdness in hinting that he might very well become Minister of Justice if ever his brother-in-law should return to power, an intimation which brought all his brother judges over to his side. M. Kahn meanwhile had put himself at the head of another company of auxiliaries, financiers, deputies, and functionaries, who helped to swell the army of malcontents. He had a docile lieutenant in M. Béjuin, and even availed himself of the services of M. de Combelot and M. La Rouquette, without those gentlemen having the faintest idea of the object for which he made them work. For his part, he acted in the official world, even its highest spheres, carrying his propaganda into the Tuileries, and covertly labouring for days at a time in order that some remark or other might be repeated from mouth to mouth till it reached the Emperor himself.
But it was the women who manifested the most passionate enthusiasm. There were some terribly strange underplots, some complicated intrigues among them, whose full scope was never known. Madame Correur began to call pretty Madame Bouchard ‘her little pet,’ and took her, she said, on a visit to the country; so that for a week M. Bouchard was left to lead a bachelor’s life, and M. d’Escorailles had to spend his evenings at the minor theatres. Du Poizat, however, met the two ladies one day in the company of some gentlemen who wore decorations, but he said nothing about having done so. Madame Correur now rented two flats: one in the Rue Blanche, and the other in the Rue Mazarine. The latter was very elegantly furnished, and Madame Bouchard would go there of an afternoon, taking the key from the doorkeeper of the house. It was said that the young woman had made an effectual conquest of a very high functionary.
Then, too, the minor members of the band bestirred themselves, doing all they could. Colonel Jobelin betook himself regularly to a café on the boulevards to catch his old army friends, whom he catechised between their games of piquet; and when he had enlisted the sympathies of half a dozen, he rubbed his hands gleefully in the evening and declared that the whole army had joined the good cause. M. Bouchard devoted himself to a like task in the government offices, and gradually instilled a strong feeling of enmity against M. de Marsy into the clerks. He even won over the messengers, and made the whole staff sigh for the golden age of which he hinted the advent. M. d’Escorailles, on his side, devoted himself to the wealthy young men he knew, extolling Rougon’s broad views, his tolerance of certain misdemeanours, and his love of daring. Even the Charbonnels, as they sat on the benches of the Luxembourg garden, whither they went each afternoon while awaiting the issue of their interminable lawsuit, found a means of enlisting the sympathy and support of the petty cits residing in the neighbourhood of the Odéon.
Clorinde was not content with being the guiding spirit of the band, but engaged in very elaborate operations of her own, of which she never spoke. She was to be seen more frequently than ever, hurrying through streets of questionable repute, carelessly dressed and tightly hugging her big official-looking portfolio, which was now so split at the seams that it was only kept together by means of string. She also gave her husband extraordinary commissions to perform, and he did her bidding with the docility of a sheep, never seeking to understand her even. Then, too, she sent Luigi Pozzo about carrying letters; asked M. de Plouguern to give her his escort, and then kept him waiting in the street for her by the hour. At one moment she even thought of getting the Italian government to interfere in Rougon’s favour. Her correspondence with her mother, who was still living at Turin, had become extremely active. She had dreams of turning Europe topsy-turvy, and would go twice a day to Chevalier Rusconi’s to meet his diplomatic acquaintances. In this strange campaign of hers, she also frequently remembered her beauty, and would go out on certain afternoons most superbly arrayed. And when her friends, quite surprised by the change, told her that she looked lovely, ‘I have need to be,’ she replied, with an air of resigned weariness.
On her return from Compiègne, Du Poizat, having heard of her adventure at the hunt, had tried to find out on what terms she was with M. de Marsy. He had some vague idea of betraying Rougon in favour of the Count were Clorinde likely to become the latter’s all-powerful mistress. She, however, with considerable irritation, denied the truth of any such supposition. He must think her very silly to suspect her of such a connection, she said. She even gave him to understand that she should never see M. de Marsy again. In her earlier days she might possibly have thought of becoming his wife. Now, however, she had other schemes in her head.
‘There are often many ways of getting at what you want,’ she sometimes said, ‘but there is never more than one of them that is pleasant. I myself have a craving to satisfy.’
When she said this she would keep her eyes fixed upon Rougon as though she dreamt of fattening him up for some future feast of her own. She still displayed a disciple-like submission, however, and kept herself in the background with cajoling humility. Rougon himself seemed quite unconscious of all that was going on about him. In his drawing-room, on Sundays and Thursdays, he still consulted playing cards like a fortune-teller, bending over them, and apparently hearing nothing of the talk that went on behind him. The members of the band discussed his affairs, made signs to each other over his head, and plotted by his fireside as though he were not in the room. He seemed so unconcerned with what they whispered that they at last began to chat in louder tones, smiling at his absent-mindedness. However, when they turned the conversation upon the subject of his return to power he flew into a tantrum, and swore that he would not move even if he knew that triumph awaited him at the end of the street; and indeed he shut himself up more than ever, and affected absolute ignorance of what went on in the world. The little house in the Rue Marbeuf, whence streamed such a flow of feverish propaganda, was itself a silent, drowsy home, on the threshold of which Rougon’s friends cast glances at one another as a warning to leave outside the scent of battle which they carried in the folds of their garments.
Du Poizat, however, would exclaim: ‘I tell you he’s drawing us all out. He listens to all we say. Just look at his ears in the evening; you can see that they are on the strain.’
This was frequently the subject of their conversation when they went away together at half-past ten. It really was impossible, they said, that the great man should be unaware of their devotion. The ex-sub-prefect repeated that he was playing the part of a Hindoo idol, squatting in a state of self-satisfaction with his hands across his abdomen, and smiling unctuously amidst a crowd of believers who cut themselves to pieces in his worship. And the others allowed that this comparison seemed a very true one.
‘But I will keep my eye on him, you may depend upon that,’ Du Poizat said in conclusion.
However, it was useless to study Rougon’s face. It remained blank and unruffled, almost child-like. Perhaps, after all, there was no deception about his appearance. Clorinde, for her part, much preferred that he should remain inactive. She was afraid that if they compelled him to open his eyes he might thwart their plans. They were working for his advancement, in spite of himself, as it were. By some means or other, forcibly if necessary, they meant to thrust him into a position of high authority. Then they would have a settlement.
Still matters seemed to advance very slowly, and the band began to grow impatient. Du Poizat’s views gained the mastery. They did not openly reproach Rougon with all that they were doing for him, but they assailed him with allusions and hints. The colonel would sometimes come to the evening receptions with his boots white with dust. He had not had time to go home and change them, he said. He was quite knocked up with running about on foolish errands for which he should probably never get any thanks. On other evenings M. Kahn, with heavy eyes, complained of the late hours he had been compelled to keep for a month past. He was going a great deal into society, he said, not for pleasure, indeed, but because it enabled him to meet certain people upon certain business. Then Madame Correur would relate affecting stories; telling them, for instance, of some poor young woman, a widow of the highest character, whom she visited, but was now unable to assist. If she were the government, she said, she would take good care to prevent injustice. Then the whole coterie would vent its own sorrows; each would lament his or her present situation, and compare it with what it would have been had they not behaved in the foolish, soft-hearted way they had done. And all these endless complaints were accentuated by meaning glances at Rougon. To rouse him they even went so far as to praise M. de Marsy. At first Rougon preserved unruffled tranquillity. He still showed no signs of understanding. But after a few evenings, when the talk was of this kind, slight twitchings would pass over his face at certain remarks made in his presence. He expressed no annoyance, but pressed his lips together as though he were pricked by some invisible needle. And at last he became so restless and uneasy that he gave up his card-tricks. He could no longer accomplish them successfully, and preferred to pace about the room, talking, and suddenly hastening away when his friends began to launch veiled reproaches at him. Every now and then he would turn white with anger, and seem to be forcibly holding his hands behind his back to restrain himself from turning the whole crew out of doors.
‘My children,’ said the colonel one evening, ‘I sha’n’t come here again for a fortnight. It will be good for us to sulk for a while and see how he can manage to amuse himself without us.’
Then Rougon, who had been thinking of closing his doors, felt very much hurt at the way in which he was abandoned. The colonel kept his word, and some of the others followed his example. The drawing-room looked very empty; there were always five or six of the circle absent. When one of them reappeared after a prolonged absence, and the great man asked him if he had been unwell, the other merely answered in the negative with an air of surprise, and gave no explanation. One Thursday not a single person came. Rougon spent the whole evening alone, pacing up and down the big room with his hands behind him and his head bent. For the first time he felt the strength of the chain which linked him to his band. He shrugged his shoulders to express his contempt for the stupidity of the Charbonnels, the envious rage of Du Poizat, and the suspicious affection of Madame Correur. Nevertheless, he felt a craving, the jealous craving of a master secretly pained by their slightest infidelities, to see and rule these friends of his, whom he held in such light esteem. Indeed at the bottom of his heart he was touched by their foolish behaviour and loved their faults. They seemed to be part of his being, so that he felt diminished and incomplete when they held aloof from him. As they continued to absent themselves he ended by writing to them, and even called at their residences to make peace with them after serious tiffs. Life at the house in the Rue Marbeuf was now so much chronic quarrelling—a series of constantly recurring ruptures and reconciliations.
Towards the end of December there was a particularly serious defection. One evening, without anyone quite knowing why, one bitter remark led to another, and it all ended by a very angry scene. For nearly three weeks afterwards the meetings ceased. The truth is that the band was beginning to lose hope. Their most earnest efforts seemed to have no appreciable result. It was unlikely that the general situation would change for a long time, and a sudden catastrophe, such as might render Rougon necessary, could hardly be anticipated. They had anxiously awaited the opening of the Corps Législatif, but this had gone off without any other incident than the refusal of two republican deputies to take the oath of allegiance. M. Kahn, who was the shrewd man of the group, no longer hoped for any advantage from the course of general politics.
Rougon, in his weary irritation, was occupying himself more energetically than ever with his Landes scheme, as though to conceal the feverish twitchings of his face, which he could no longer keep placid and sleepy as formerly. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ he sometimes said. ‘My hands tremble. My doctor has ordered me to take exercise. I am out-of-doors all day.’ He did, indeed, go out a great deal now, and was to be met in the streets with his hands swinging and his head in the air, absorbed in thought. When anyone stopped and questioned him he said he had been tramping about all day.
One morning when he returned home to déjeuner, after a walk in the direction of Chaillot, he found a gilt-edged visiting-card awaiting him, on which was written Gilquin’s name. The card was very dirty, and bore the marks of greasy fingers. Rougon rang for his servant. ‘Did the person who gave you this card leave any message?’ he asked.
The servant, who was new to the house, smiled. ‘It was a gentleman in a green overcoat,’ he replied. ‘He was very pleasant and offered me a cigar. He only said that he was a friend of yours.’ However, just as the servant was leaving the room he turned and added: ‘I think there’s something written on the back of the card.’ Rougon turned it over and read these words written in pencil: ‘Can’t wait. Will call again this evening. Very urgent; a strange business.’ Then he threw down the card with a careless air. After déjeuner, however, the expression ‘Very urgent; a strange business,’ recurred to his mind and haunted him, till it at last rendered him quite impatient. What could this ‘strange business’ of Gilquin’s be? Since Rougon had charged the ex-commercial traveller with sundry obscure and intricate commissions he had seen him regularly once a week in the evening. Never before had Gilquin called in the morning, so that the matter in hand must surely be something out of the common. Rougon, quite at a loss to guess its nature, found himself all aglow with impatience, and although he could not help feeling that it was ridiculous, he resolved to go out and try to discover Gilquin before the evening.
‘Some tipsy story, I dare say,’ he reflected as he went through the Champs Élysées. ‘Well, at any rate I shall satisfy myself.’
He was on foot, as he wished to carry out the directions of his doctor. It was a lovely day; a bright, sunny January noontide. Gilquin appeared to have removed from the Passage Guttin, for his card bore the address Rue Guisarde, Faubourg Saint-Germain.
Rougon had an immense amount of trouble to find this filthy street, which is situated near Saint-Sulpice’s. At the end of a dark passage he discovered a woman lying in bed, who called out to him in a voice which quavered with fever: ‘Monsieur Gilquin! I don’t know whether he’s in. It’s the door on the left on the fourth floor, right up at the top.’
When Rougon reached the fourth floor he saw Gilquin’s name inscribed on the door amidst some arabesques representing flaming hearts transpierced by arrows. However, he knocked to no purpose; he could hear nothing but the tick-tack of a cuckoo-clock and the mewing of a cat. He had expected that he was coming on a vain errand, still he was glad that he had come. His walk had relieved him. So he went downstairs again, feeling more composed, and reflecting that he could very well wait till the evening. When he got outside he slackened his steps, crossed the Saint-Germain market, and then went down the Rue de Seine, with no definite goal in view, but thinking that he would walk home, although he already felt a little tired. Then, as he reached the Rue Jacob, he remembered the Charbonnels, who lived there. He had not seen them for ten days. They were sulking with him. However, he resolved to call on them for a few minutes and offer them his hand. The afternoon was so warm that he felt quite tender-hearted.
The Charbonnels’ room at the Hôtel du Périgord overlooked the yard, a gloomy well of a place which smelt like a dirty sink. It was a large, dark room, with rickety mahogany furniture and curtains of faded red damask. When Rougon entered it Madame Charbonnel was folding up her dresses and laying them in a big trunk, while her husband perspired and strained his arms in cording another trunk, a smaller one.
‘Halloa! are you off?’ Rougon asked, with a smile.
‘Yes, indeed,’ answered Madame Charbonnel, drawing a deep sigh. ‘This time we’ve quite made up our minds.’
However, they gave him a hearty welcome, apparently quite flattered at seeing him in their room. All the chairs were littered with clothes, bundles of linen, and baskets with splitting sides. So Rougon sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Oh, don’t trouble yourselves!’ he said, good-naturedly; ‘I’m very comfortable here. Go on with what you’re doing; I don’t want to disturb you. Are you going by the eight o’clock train?’
‘Yes, by the eight o’clock train,’ M. Charbonnel replied. ‘That gives us just six more hours to spend in this beastly Paris. Ah! we sha’n’t forget it in a hurry, Monsieur Rougon!’
Then he, who generally spoke so little, launched into a flow of bitter invective, and even shook his fist at the window while declaiming against the horrid city, where one actually couldn’t see clearly in one’s room at two o’clock in the afternoon. That dirty light which filtered in through that narrow well of a yard was Paris! But, thank Heaven, he was going to see the sun again in his garden at Plassans! Then he looked round to make sure that he was forgetting nothing. He had bought a railway time-table in the morning, and he pointed to a cold roast fowl wrapt in some greasy paper, which they meant to take with them to eat on their journey.
‘Have you emptied everything out of the drawers, my dear?’ he asked. ‘My slippers were in the night-table. I think, too, that some papers fell behind the chest of drawers.’
Rougon felt pained as he watched the preparations of these disconsolate old folks, whose hands trembled as they made up their packages. Their emotion seemed to him like a silent reproach. It was he who had kept them in Paris, and their sojourn there was ending in complete failure, a veritable flight.
‘You are making a mistake,’ he said at last.
But Madame Charbonnel answered with a gesture of entreaty as if to beseech him to be silent. ‘Don’t make us any promises, Monsieur Rougon,’ she said sharply. ‘They could only bring all our unhappiness over again. When I think that we’ve been here for two years and a half! Two years and a half, good heavens, in this hole of a place! My left leg will never be free from pain again as long as I live. I have slept on the far side of the bed, and that wall behind you fairly streams with water at night. Oh, I couldn’t tell you all we’ve gone through! It would be too long a story. And we’ve spent a ruinous amount of money! Only yesterday I was obliged to buy this big trunk to carry away the things we have worn out while we have been in Paris; the wretchedly sewn clothes, which the shopkeepers charged us most extortionately for, and the linen which came back from the laundress’s in rags. Ah! I sha’n’t be sorry to have seen the last of your laundresses! They ruin everything with their acids.’
Then she threw a bundle of things into the trunk, and exclaimed: ‘No, this time we are certainly going. I think it would kill me to stay here an hour longer.’
Rougon, however, insisted upon talking about their lawsuit. Had they had any bad news? he asked. Then the Charbonnels told him, almost crying as they did so, that the property of their cousin Chevassu was certainly lost to them. The Council of State was on the point of authorising the Sisters of the Holy Family to receive the legacy of five hundred thousand francs. Their last remaining hope had expired on hearing of the arrival of Monseigneur Rochart in Paris, whither he had come, for the second time, to hurry the matter forward.
And all at once M. Charbonnel ceased to struggle with the cords of the smaller trunk and raised his arms convulsively, while crying in a broken voice: ‘Five hundred thousand francs! Five hundred thousand francs!’
They both seemed overwhelmed. They sat down, the husband on the trunk and the wife on a bundle of linen, amidst all the litter of the room. And they began to pity themselves in a mournful strain; as soon as one stopped the other began. They recalled their affection for their cousin Chevassu. How fond they had been of him! As a matter of fact, they had not seen him for more than seventeen years before his death. But, just now, they wept over him in all good faith, and really believed that they had shown him every kind attention during his illness. Then they began to accuse the Sisters of the Holy Family of disgraceful scheming. They had brought undue influence to bear on cousin Chevassu, they had kept him from his friends, and had exerted constant pressure on his mind, which illness had weakened. Madame Charbonnel, though she was really a very devout woman, went so far as to relate a dreadful story, according to which cousin Chevassu had died of fright after signing his will at the dictation of a priest, who had shewn him the devil standing at the foot of his bed. And as for the Bishop of Faverolles, she said, it was a dirty part that he was playing, in despoiling a couple of honest people, who were esteemed throughout Plassans for the integrity they had shown in getting a little competency together in the oil trade.
‘But perhaps the case isn’t hopeless yet,’ said Rougon, seeing that they were wavering. ‘Monseigneur Rochart isn’t the Divinity. I myself haven’t been able to do anything for you lately; I’ve had so much else to occupy me. But let me find out exactly how matters stand. I don’t mean to let them prey on us.’
The Charbonnels looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. ‘It’s really no use troubling about it, Monsieur Rougon,’ murmured the husband.
And as Rougon persisted, swearing that he would make every effort in their favour, and could not let them go off in this way, the wife in her turn said: ‘It’s really no use your troubling yourself about it. You would only give yourself a lot of bother for nothing. We spoke of you to our lawyer, but he only laughed at us, and said you had no power now against Monseigneur Rochart.’
‘And if you’ve no power, what’s the good of troubling yourself?’ asked M. Charbonnel. ‘We had much better give it up.’
Rougon had bent his head. These remarks cut him like lashes. Never before had his powerlessness brought him such cruel pain.
‘No; we are going back to Plassans,’ continued Madame Charbonnel. ‘It is much the wisest thing to do. But we are not going away with any grudge against you, Monsieur Rougon! When we see Madame Félicité, your mother, we shall tell her that you would have cut yourself in pieces for us. And if anyone else questions us you may be sure that we sha’n’t say a word against you. Nobody can be expected to do more than he’s able, can he?’
This was the last stroke. Rougon pictured the Charbonnels reaching their distant home in the provinces. As soon as they had told their news the little town would be yelping at him. It would be a personal defeat, from which it would take him years to recover.
‘But you must stay here!’ he exclaimed. ‘I will have you stay. We will see if Monseigneur Rochart can gobble me up at a mouthful!’
He broke into a threatening laugh which quite alarmed the Charbonnels. They continued to resist for some time, and then at last consented to remain in Paris for another week, but not a single day longer. And thereupon M. Charbonnel began to unknot the cords which he had fastened about the smaller trunk, and his wife lighted a candle, although it was scarcely three o’clock, in order that she might see to put the linen and clothes in the drawers again. When Rougon left them he pressed their hands affectionately and renewed his promises to do all he could.
Before he had gone ten yards down the street, however, he already began to repent of what he had done. Why had he persuaded the Charbonnels to stay when they were so anxious to be off? It would have been a first-rate opportunity to get rid of them. And now he was more committed than ever to bring about a successful issue of their suit. He was especially vexed with himself for the motives of vanity which, as he realised, had influenced him. They seemed unworthy of a man of strength. However, he had promised, and must do what he could. Thus thinking he went down the Rue Bonaparte, followed the quay, and then crossed the Saints-Pères bridge.
The weather was still mild, but a rather sharp breeze was blowing along the river. Rougon was half-way across and was buttoning his coat when he saw a stout lady in furs immediately in front of him. It was Madame Correur; he recognised her by her voice.
‘Ah! is it you?’ she said in a mournful tone. ‘Well, as I’ve met you I’ll shake hands with you; but you wouldn’t have seen me at your house for another week. You haven’t been acting like a friend.’
Then she began to reproach him for not having made an application which she had been asking of him for months past. It was still the case of that Mademoiselle Herminie Billecoq, a former pupil of Saint Denis, whom her seducer, an officer, was willing to marry, if some good soul would only give her the regulation dowry. Then, too, added Madame Correur, the other ladies gave her no peace. The widow Leturc was anxiously waiting for her tobacco shop, and the others, Madame Chardon, Madame Testanière, and Madame Jalaguier, called on her every day to relate their woes and remind her of the promises she had made them.
‘I was counting upon you when I made them,’ she said, in conclusion. ‘Oh, you’ve left me in a nice hole! Well, I’m now on my way to ask the Minister of Public Instruction for a scholarship for little Jalaguier. You promised me that scholarship, you know.’
She heaved a deep sigh as she continued: ‘We are obliged to go tramping about all over the place now that you refuse to do anything for us.’
Rougon, whom the wind was slightly inconveniencing, had bent his shoulders and begun to look at the Port Saint Nicholas below the bridge. As he listened to Madame Correur he watched some men unloading a barge laden with sugar-loaves, which they rolled down a gangway formed of a couple of planks. A crowd of three hundred people or so was viewing the operation from the quays.
‘I am nobody now, and I can do nothing,’ said the great man. ‘It is wrong of you to feel a grudge against me.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ replied Madame Correur scoffingly; ‘I know you well enough. Whenever you choose you can be what you like. Don’t be a humbug, Eugène!’
Rougon could not help smiling. The familiarity shown by Madame Mélanie, as he had called her in former days, brought back recollections of the Hôtel Vanneau, when he had no boots even to his feet, but was conquering France. He forgot all the reproaches which he had addressed to himself on leaving the Charbonnels. ‘Well, well,’ he said, good-naturedly, ‘what is it you have to tell me? But don’t let us stand here. It’s almost freezing. As you are going to the Rue de Grenelle I will walk with you to the end of the bridge.’
Then he turned and walked along beside Madame Correur, without, however, offering her his arm; and the lady began to tell him her troubles at great length. ‘After all,’ said she, ‘I don’t so much mind about the others. Those ladies can very well wait. I shouldn’t bother you, I should be as merry as I used to be—you remember, don’t you?—if I hadn’t such big troubles of my own. One can’t help getting bitter over them. I’m still dreadfully bothered about my brother. Poor Martineau! His wife has made him completely mad; he has no feelings left.’
Then she gave a minute account of a fresh attempt at reconciliation which she had made during the previous week. In order, said she, to find out exactly what her brother’s disposition towards her might be, she had sent him as ambassador one of her friends, that very Herminie Billecoq, whose marriage she had been trying to effect for the last two years.
‘Her travelling expenses cost me a hundred and seventeen francs,’ she continued. ‘But how do you think they received her? Why, Madame Martineau sprang between her and my brother, foaming at the mouth and crying out that I was sending a crew of street-walkers to them, and that she would have them arrested by the gendarmes. My poor Herminie was still in such a tremble when I met her on her return at the Montparnasse station that we were obliged to go into a café and drink something.’
They had now reached the end of the bridge. The passers-by were jostling them. Rougon tried to console Madame Correur, thinking of all the kind things that he could say. ‘It’s extremely annoying. But, you’ll see, your brother will make it up with you by-and-bye. Time puts everything straight.’
Then, as she still detained him at the corner of the footway, amidst the uproar of the passing vehicles, he slowly walked up the bridge again, she following and saying: ‘When Martineau dies, his wife is quite capable of burning any will he may leave behind him. The poor, dear fellow is nothing more than skin and bones. Herminie says that he looks dreadfully ill. I am terribly bothered about it all.’
‘Well, you can do nothing now,’ said Rougon, with a vague gesture; ‘you must wait.’
However, she stopped him again when he was half-way across the bridge, and, lowering her voice, continued: ‘Herminie told me a strange thing. It seems that Martineau has gone in for politics now. He is a Republican. At the last elections he threw the whole neighbourhood into excitement. That news gave me quite a shock. He might get into trouble, eh?’
There was a short pause, during which Madame Correur looked searchingly at Rougon. He had glanced at a passing carriage as though he wished to avoid her gaze. Then, with an innocent air, he responded: ‘Oh, don’t make yourself uneasy. You have friends, haven’t you? Well, rely on them.’
‘You are the only person I rely on, Eugène,’ she replied in a low, tender voice.
At this Rougon seemed moved. He glanced at her, and was stirred by the sight of her plump neck and painted face, which she struggled to keep beautiful. She personified his youth. ‘Yes, rely on me,’ he said, pressing her hands. ‘You know very well that I am always on your side.’
He again accompanied her as far as the Quai Voltaire. And when she had left him he at last made his way across the bridge, slackening his steps as he went in order to watch the landing of the sugar-loaves at the Port Saint-Nicholas. For a moment even he halted and let his elbows rest on the parapet. But the sugar-loaves rolling down the gangway, the greenish water flowing beneath the arches of the bridge, the crowd of idlers and the houses all soon grew hazy and disappeared, and he fell into a reverie. He became absorbed in dim, strange thoughts; it seemed to him as if he were descending with Madame Correur into some black abyss of human iniquity. However, he felt no regrets, no qualms; he dreamt of becoming very great and very powerful, so that he might satisfy the desires of those about him to an extent unnatural—even, as it were, impossible.
A shiver roused him from his quiescence. He was trembling with cold. The night was falling and the breeze from the river was stirring up cloudlets of white dust on the quays. He felt very tired as he made his way alongside the Tuileries, and suddenly lacked the courage to return home on foot. All the passing cabs were full, however, and he had almost relinquished the hope of securing one when he saw a driver pull up his horse just in front of him. A head was thrust out of the window of the vehicle. It was M. Kahn’s. ‘I was just going to your house. Get in. I will drive you home, and we can talk as we go.’
Rougon got into the cab, and was scarcely seated before the ex-deputy burst into tempestuous words amidst the jolting of the vehicle as its horse went on at a sleepy trot: ‘Ah, my friend,’ said M. Kahn, ‘I have just had such a proposal made to me! You would never be able to guess it! I feel as though I were choking!’ Then he lowered one of the windows, adding: ‘You have no objection, have you?’
Rougon lay back in a corner of the cab, watching the grey wall of the Tuileries gardens; while M. Kahn, very red in the face, and gesticulating spasmodically, continued: ‘I have been following your advice, you know. For the last two years I have been struggling persistently. I have seen the Emperor three times, and I have reached my fourth petition on the subject. If I haven’t succeeded in getting the railway grant for myself, I have, at any rate, prevented Marsy from getting it for the Western Company. Briefly, I manœuvred so as to keep matters at a standstill till we should be the stronger party again, as you advised me to do.’
He stopped for a moment, as his voice was drowned by the dreadful clatter made by a passing cart laden with iron. When the cab had got clear of this cart he continued: ‘Well, just now, while I was sitting in my study, a man whom I don’t know, but who is a big contractor, it appears, called on me and calmly proposed, in the name of Marsy and the directors of the Western Railway Company, that if I would make a million francs’ worth of shares over to those gentlemen I should be granted the necessary authorisation for my line. What do you think of that?’
‘The terms are a little high,’ said Rougon, with a smile.
M. Kahn jerked his head and crossed his arms.
‘Oh, you’ve no idea of the coolness of these people,’ he continued. ‘You ought to have heard the whole of my conversation with the contractor. In consideration of the million’s worth of shares Marsy undertakes to support me, and to bring my claim to a successful issue within a month’s time. When I began to speak of the Emperor the contractor only laughed, and told me plumply that if the Emperor was my support I might as well give the whole thing up at once.’
The cab was now turning into the Place de la Concorde, and Rougon emerged from his corner with a bright colour on his cheeks, as if suddenly warmed. ‘And did you show this fine gentleman the door?’ he asked.
The ex-deputy did not immediately answer, but looked at him with an expression of great surprise. M. Kahn’s anger had abruptly subsided. For a while he lay back in his corner of the cab and yielded to the jolts. Then he muttered: ‘Ah, no; one doesn’t show people like that to the door without a little reflection. And, besides, I wanted to take your advice. For my own part, I confess I am inclined to accept the offer.’
‘Never, Kahn!’ cried Rougon hotly. ‘Never!’
Then they began to discuss the matter. M. Kahn quoted figures. No doubt, said he, a commission of a million francs was an enormous one, but he showed that it might easily be balanced by following certain methods. Rougon, however, refused to listen, and waved his hand to silence him. He himself held money in little account; if he was unwilling that Marsy should pocket a million it was because the gift of that million would be a confession of his own powerlessness, an acknowledgment that he himself was beaten, and that the influence of his rival was so much greater than his own that it might really be priced at that exorbitant figure.
‘Can’t you see that Marsy is getting tired of the struggle?’ said he. ‘He’s coming round. Wait a little longer and we shall get the grant for nothing.’ Then, in almost threatening tones, he added: ‘I warn you that we shall quarrel if you accept. I cannot allow a friend of mine to be fleeced in that manner.’
A pause followed. The cab was now ascending the Champs Élysées. Both men, wrapped in thought, looked as though they were counting the trees in the side avenues. M. Kahn was the first to break the silence. ‘Listen to me now,’ he said in a low tone. ‘I ask nothing better than to keep on with you, but you must acknowledge that for the last two years——’
Then he stopped; and, instead of finishing the sentence he had begun, he gave another turn to his answer: ‘Well, it isn’t your fault. Just now your hands are tied. We had better give them the million; believe me, we had.’
‘Never!’ cried Rougon energetically. ‘In a fortnight you shall have your grant; in a fortnight, do you hear me?’
The cab had just stopped in front of the little house in the Rue Marbeuf. Neither of them alighted, however. For some moments they continued talking inside the vehicle, as though comfortably ensconced in their own home. M. Bouchard and Colonel Jobelin were coming to dine that evening with Rougon, and he pressed M. Kahn to join them; but the other, to his great regret, he said, was obliged to decline the invitation, as he was engaged elsewhere. The great man was now enthusiastically determined upon obtaining the railway grant. When he at length alighted from the cab he closed the door in a friendly way and gave the ex-deputy a parting nod.
‘Till next Thursday, then?’ cried the latter, thrusting his head out of the window as the cab drove off.
Rougon was feeling slightly feverish on his return. He could not even read the evening papers. Although it was scarcely five o’clock, he went straight to the drawing-room and began to walk up and down while waiting for his guests. The first sunshine of the year, though it was only a pale January sunshine, had given him a touch of headache. His afternoon had left a very vivid impression upon him. All his friends rose before him: those whom he put up with, those of whom he felt afraid, and those for whom he had a genuine affection. They all seemed to be goading him on, forcing him to some decisive step. And this did not displease him; he felt that their impatience was reasonable, and he realised that an anger akin to their own was rising up within himself. It was as though the ground in front of him had gradually diminished, as if the time was near when he would be compelled to make a formidable leap.
Then he suddenly thought of Gilquin, whom he had entirely forgotten. He rang for his servant to ask if ‘the gentleman in the green overcoat’ had called again during his absence. But the servant had seen no one. Then Rougon told him that if Gilquin should call during the evening he was to be shown into his study. ‘And you will let me know immediately,’ he added, ‘even if we are at table.’
His curiosity was again roused, and he went to look for Gilquin’s card. He read the inscription, ‘Very urgent; a strange business,’ several times over, without managing to make anything of it. When M. Bouchard and the colonel arrived he slipped the card into his pocket, feeling disturbed, even irritated, by those words, which kept buzzing in his brain.
The dinner was a very plain one. M. Bouchard had been a bachelor for the last two days, his wife having had to go into the provinces on a visit to a sick aunt, of whom, strangely enough, she had never previously spoken. The colonel, for whom there was always a cover laid at Rougon’s table, had that evening brought his son, whose holidays were on just then. Madame Rougon did the honours in her kindly silent fashion. Under her ever-vigilant eyes the repast was served, slowly, but most carefully, and without the slightest noise. The conversation turned upon the subjects of study in the public schools. The chief clerk quoted some lines from Horace, and spoke of the prizes he had gained in the examinations, about 1813. The colonel said he would have liked a more military form of discipline among the pupils; and then he went on to explain why Auguste had failed in his examination for a bachelor’s degree in November. The youth had such a lively intelligence, he said, that he always went beyond the questions asked by the examiners, and this had annoyed them. While his father was thus explaining his failure, Auguste himself was eating some fowl, with a sly smile on his beaming dunce’s face.
They were at dessert, when the sound of a bell in the hall caused Rougon the greatest emotion, and quite distracted his attention from his guests. He felt sure that the ring was Gilquin’s, and sharply raised his eyes to the door, already mechanically folding up his napkin in the expectation of being summoned from the room. But when the door opened, it was Du Poizat who appeared. The ex-sub-prefect dropped into a chair at a few feet from the table, as though he were quite at home. He often called like this early in the evening, immediately after his dinner, which he took at a little boarding-house in the Faubourg Saint Honoré.
‘I’m quite done up,’ he said, without giving any particulars of the intricate business which he had been transacting during the afternoon. ‘I should have gone straight to bed, but I felt an inclination to come and glance over the papers. They are in your room, I suppose, Rougon, aren’t they?’
He stayed where he was, however, and accepted a pear and half a glass of wine. The conversation then turned upon the high price of provisions, which had doubled, it was said, during the last twenty years; M. Bouchard mentioning that he could remember having seen pigeons sold at fifteen sous the couple when he was young. However, as soon as the liqueurs and coffee had been handed round, Madame Rougon quietly disappeared, and the men went into the drawing-room without her. They all seemed quite at home. The colonel and the chief-clerk carried the card-table in front of the fire, and began to shuffle the cards, already preparing some wonderful combinations. Auguste sat down at a side table and turned over some numbers of an illustrated newspaper. Du Poizat had disappeared.
‘Just look at the hand I hold,’ exclaimed the colonel abruptly. ‘Isn’t it a strange one?’
Rougon went up to the table and nodded. Then, when he had returned to his chair in silence, and was taking up the tongs to move some of the logs of the fire, the servant came in very quietly, and said in his ear: ‘The gentleman who called this morning is here.’
Rougon started. He had not heard the bell. When he went into his study, he found Gilquin standing there with a rattan cane under his arm, whilst, with a professional blinking of the eyes, he examined a somewhat poor engraving of Napoleon at Saint Helena. Gilquin’s long green overcoat was buttoned up to his chin, and he had not even doffed his black silk hat, which looked almost new, and was tilted very much on one side.
‘Well?’ asked Rougon hastily.
Gilquin, however, seemed in no hurry, but jogged his head while looking at the engraving, and saying: ‘It’s well expressed. How dreadfully bored he looks, doesn’t he?’
The room was lighted by a single lamp, which stood on a corner of the writing-table. As Rougon entered, a slight noise, a gentle rustling of paper, had come from behind a high-backed arm-chair which stood in front of the mantelpiece, but then such perfect silence had fallen that the previous sound might have been thought the mere cracking of some half-extinguished piece of firewood. Gilquin declined to take a seat; so he and Rougon remained standing near the door, in a patch of shadow cast by a bookcase.
‘Well?’ Rougon asked again; and then he mentioned that he had called in the Rue Guisarde during the afternoon.
At this Gilquin began to speak of his doorkeeper, an excellent woman, who was, unfortunately, dying of consumption, which she had contracted owing to the dampness of the ground floor of the house.
‘But this important piece of business of yours? What is it?’ asked the great man impatiently.
‘Oh, wait a moment,’ rejoined the other, ‘I have come about that. I’ll tell you about it directly. But did you go upstairs, and did you hear my cat? It’s a cat that came in by way of the roof. One night, when my window was open, I found her lying by my side. She was licking my beard. It seemed very droll, and so I kept her.’
Then, at last, he made up his mind to speak of the particular business which had brought him there. It was a long story.[12] He commenced by relating his amours with an ironing-girl, with whom he had fallen in love one evening, as he was coming out of the Ambigu Theatre. Poor Eulalie, he said, had been distrained upon by her landlord, when only five instalments of her rent were due. For the last ten days, therefore, she had been staying at a lodging-house in the Rue Montmartre, near her work, and it was there that he himself had been sleeping all the week, the room being on the second floor, a dark little place at the far end of a passage, which overlooked a yard.
All this did not interest Rougon, still he listened with patient resignation.
‘Well, three days ago,’ continued Gilquin, ‘I brought a cake and a bottle of wine with me in the evening. We ate the cake and drank the wine in bed. A little before midnight, Eulalie got up to shake out the crumbs; and then she went soundly to sleep. She sleeps like a log. I, myself, was lying awake. I had blown out the candle, and was staring up into the darkness, when I heard a dispute in the next room. I ought to tell you that between the two rooms there’s a door which has been fastened up. After a time the voices quieted down and peace seemed to have been made; but I still heard such singular sounds that at last I got out of bed and fixed my eye to a crack in the door. Well, you’ll never guess what I saw then!’
He stopped for a moment, and gazed at Rougon, revelling in the effect which he thought he was producing.
‘There were two men there: a young one of about five-and-twenty, who was fairly good looking; and another who must have turned fifty, short and thin, and of sickly appearance. Well, they were examining a collection of pistols and daggers and swords, all kinds of brand new weapons which glistened in the light. They were talking in a jargon which I did not recognise at first, but afterwards, by certain words I heard, I knew it was Italian. I’ve travelled in Italy, you know, in the macaroni trade. Well, I strained my ear to listen, and then I understood, my dear fellow. Those gentlemen have come to Paris to assassinate the Emperor! There, what do you think of that?’
Then he crossed his arms and pressed his cane to his breast as he kept on repeating: ‘It’s a funny business, isn’t it?’
So this was Gilquin’s strange affair! Rougon shrugged his shoulders. Twenty times before had various conspiracies been reported to him.
‘You told me to come and tell you all the gossip of the neighbourhood,’ resumed the ex-commercial traveller. ‘Well, I want to render you all the service I can, and so I tell you all I hear. It is wrong of you to shake your head like that. Do you think if I had gone to the prefecture that they would have sent me away without a nice little gratuity? But I prefer benefiting my friends. I tell you that the matter is really serious. So go and tell it to the Emperor, and just see how he embraces you.’
For the last three days, Gilquin had been keeping a watch over those fine gentlemen as he called them. During the daytime, two others made their appearance, a young man, and another of mature years, with a pale, handsome face and long black hair, who seemed to be the chief.[13] They all looked tired out when they entered the room, and they talked together in brief, guarded phrases. However, on the previous night, Gilquin had seen them filling some little iron ‘machines’ which he believed were bombs. He had got Eulalie’s key, and had taken off his boots and kept a careful watch in the room, listening to every sound. In the evening he so managed matters that Eulalie began to snore at about nine o’clock, which, he had thought, would prevent the others from feeling any suspicion; besides, it was never prudent, he added, to let a woman have any share in political matters.
As Gilquin went on speaking, a grave expression came over Rougon’s face. He was beginning to believe the story. Beneath the ex-bagman’s vinous hilarity, amid the odd details mingled with the narrative, he felt that there was a basis of positive truth. And then all his irksome expectation during the day, all his anxious curiosity appeared to him in the light of a presentiment, and he again experienced that inward trembling which he had felt every now and then since the morning; the involuntary emotion, as it were, of a strong man when he realises that his fortune depends upon a single card. However, he affected utter indifference: ‘A set of imbeciles who must have the whole detective force watching them,’ he said.
Gilquin began to grin. ‘The police had better lose no time, then,’ he rejoined.
Then he became silent, but he still smiled and gently tapped his hat. The great man realised that he had not been told everything, and looked at Gilquin searchingly. However, the other opened the door to take his leave. ‘Well, at any rate, I have given you warning,’ he said. ‘I’m going to dine now, my good fellow. I’ve had no dinner yet; I’ve been playing the spy on my men all the afternoon, and I’m tremendously hungry.’
At this Rougon stopped him, saying that he could let him have some cold meat; and forthwith he ordered a cover to be laid for him in the dining-room. Gilquin seemed quite touched by this attention. He once more closed the study door, and, lowering his voice so that the servant should not hear him, said to Rougon: ‘You are a good fellow. Listen to me, now. I don’t want to tell you any lies. If you had received me badly, I should have gone straight to the prefecture. But, now, I’ll tell you everything. That’s honest, isn’t it? I’m sure you won’t forget the service I’m rendering you. Friends are friends, whatever people may say.’ Then he leant forward and continued in a whisper: ‘It is to come off to-morrow night. They are going to blow Badinguet[14] up in front of the Opera-house when he arrives there. The carriage and the aides-de-camp and the whole lot will be clean swept away.’
While Gilquin sat down to his meal in the dining-room, Rougon remained standing in the middle of his study, perfectly still and with an ashy face. He was deep in thought, and seemed to be hesitating. At length he sat down at his writing-table and took up a sheet of paper, but he tossed it aside again almost immediately. For a moment it seemed as if he were going to rush to the door and give an order. Then he slowly came back and again became absorbed in thought, which cast a shrouding gloom over his face.
Just at that moment the high-backed arm-chair in front of the fire-place moved, and Du Poizat stood up, calmly folding a newspaper.
‘What! were you there?’ cried Rougon roughly.
‘Of course; I have been reading the papers,’ replied the ex-sub-prefect, with a smile which revealed his irregular white teeth. ‘You knew very well I was there; you saw me when you came in.’
This audacious falsehood cut all explanation short. The two men looked at each other for some moments in silence. Then, as Rougon seemed to consult him with his eyes, and again went towards the writing-table, Du Poizat made a little gesture, which plainly signified: ‘Wait a minute; there is no hurry. We must consider matters.’ Not a word was exchanged between them, they both went back to the drawing-room.
Such an angry dispute had broken out that evening between the colonel and M. Bouchard, on the subject of the Orleans Princes and the Count de Chambord, that they had banged their cards down, and sworn that they would never play with each other again. And then with glowering eyes they had seated themselves on either side of the fire-place. However, when Rougon returned, they were once more making friends by loudly singing the great man’s praises: that being the one subject on which they could agree.
‘Oh, I feel no constraint about it; I say it before his face,’ the colonel continued. ‘There is no one to equal him at the present time.’
‘We are speaking ill of you, you hear,’ said M. Bouchard, with a cunning smile.
Then the conversation went on:
‘A brain far above the average.’
‘A man of action, who has the coup d’œil of born conquerors.’
‘Ah! France wants his help sadly just now.’
‘Yes, indeed. He could do something to get us out of the mess. He is the only man who can save the Empire.’
As Rougon heard this his shoulders bent, and he affected a surly air by way of modesty. Such incense was, however, extremely pleasant to him. His vanity was never so delightfully titillated as when the colonel and M. Bouchard bandied laudatory phrases like these about for a whole evening. They talked a great deal of obvious nonsense, and their faces wore gravely ridiculous expressions; but the more they grovelled in their language the more did Rougon enjoy hearing their monotonous voices as they sang his praises and lavished altogether inapplicable commendation upon him. He sometimes made fun of them when they were not there, but, for all that, his pride and craving for power found gratification in their eulogies. They formed, as it were, a dunghill of praise in which his huge frame could wallow at its ease.
‘No, no; I am only a weak sort of man,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘If I were really all that you believe——’
He did not finish his sentence, but sat down at the card-table and began to consult the cards, a thing which he now seldom did. Meanwhile M. Bouchard and the colonel continued to belaud him. They declared that he was a great orator, a great administrator, a great financier, and a great politician. Du Poizat, who had remained standing, nodded his head assentingly; and presently, without looking at Rougon, and as though the latter had not been present, he remarked: ‘Mon Dieu! Only the least thing is needed to bring him into power again. The Emperor is most favourably disposed towards him. If some catastrophe were to happen to-morrow, and the Emperor should feel the need of an energetic hand, why by the day after to-morrow Rougon would be minister—that’s the long and short of it.’
The great man slowly raised his eyes. Then he dropped back in his chair, leaving his combinations with the cards unfinished, while his face again clouded over. But the untiring flattery of M. Bouchard and the colonel still rang out amidst his reverie as if to spur him on to some resolution from which he yet recoiled. And at last a smile appeared upon his face as young Auguste, who had just completed the abandoned réussite with the cards, exclaimed: ‘It has come out all right, Monsieur Rougon.’
‘Of course! things always come all right,’ said Du Poizat, repeating the great man’s favourite phrase.
However, at that moment a servant entered and told Rougon that a gentleman and a lady wished to see him. And he handed him a card, at the sight of which Rougon uttered a slight cry. ‘What! Are they in Paris?’
The visitors were the Marquis and Marchioness d’Escorailles. Rougon hastened to receive them in his study. They apologised for the lateness of their visit; and, in the course of conversation, gave him to understand that they had been in Paris for a couple of days past, but had feared lest a visit from them to one so closely connected with the Emperor might be misconstrued; hence they had preferred to make their call quite privately and at this somewhat unseemly hour. The explanation in no way offended Rougon. The presence of the Marquis and Marchioness under his roof was an unhoped-for honour. If the Emperor himself had knocked at his door, he would not have felt more gratification. Those old people coming to ask a favour of him typified all Plassans offering him its homage; that aristocratic, cold and haughty Plassans, which had ever seemed to him a sort of inaccessible Olympus. An old ambitious dream was at last being realised, and he felt that he was avenged for the scorn shown him by the little town when, as a briefless advocate, he had dragged his worn-down boots about its ill-paved streets.
‘We did not find Jules at home,’ said the Marchioness d’Escorailles. ‘We were looking forward with pleasure to giving him a surprise. But he has been obliged to go to Orleans on business, it seems.’
Rougon was not aware of the young man’s absence; however, he quite understood it on recalling the circumstance that the aunt whom Madame Bouchard had gone to see lived at Orleans. Nevertheless he justified Jules, saying that it was a serious matter, a question of abuse of power, which had necessitated his journey. Then he told them that their son was a very intelligent young man and had a great future before him.
‘It is necessary for him to make his way,’ said the Marquis, thus lightly alluding to the ruin of the family. ‘It was a great trial to us to part with him.’
Then he and his wife in discreet fashion began to deplore the necessities of those degenerate times which prevented sons from growing up in the faith of their parents. They themselves had never set foot in Paris since the fall of Charles X.; and they would not have come there now if it had not been a question of Jules’s future. Since their dear boy, with their secret consent, had taken service under the Empire, they had pretended to deny him before the world, but in reality they were continually striving for his advancement.
‘We make no pretence with you, Monsieur Rougon,’ said the Marquis, in a tone of charming familiarity. ‘We love our boy; it is natural we should. You have done a great deal for him already, and we thank you heartily for it. But we want you to do more still. We are friends and fellow-townsmen, are we not?’
Rougon bowed, feeling much moved. The humble demeanour of those old people whom he had seen so majestic when they repaired on Sundays to the church of Saint Marc, seemed to enhance his own importance. He gave them formal promises of help.
As they were going off, after twenty minutes’ friendly conversation, the Marchioness took Rougon’s hand and held it for a moment within her own. ‘Then we may rely upon you, dear Monsieur Rougon?’ she said. ‘We came from Plassans especially for this purpose. We were beginning to feel a little impatient. At our age you can’t wonder at it. Now, however, we shall go back feeling very happy. People told us there that you could no longer do anything.’
Rougon smiled. And with an air of decision that seemed prompted by some secret thoughts of his own, he replied: ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way; rely on me.’
When they had left him, however, a shadow of regret passed over his face. He was still tarrying in the ante-room, when he espied a neatly-dressed man, who, balancing a small round felt hat between his fingers, stood in a respectful attitude in a corner.
‘What do you want?’ Rougon curtly asked him.
The man, who was very tall and broad-shouldered, lowered his eyes and replied: ‘Don’t you recognise me, sir?’ And as Rougon declared that he did not, the other continued, ‘I’m Merle, your old usher at the Council of State.’
At this Rougon became somewhat softer: ‘Oh, yes! But you are wearing a full beard now. Well, my man, what do you want me to do for you?’
Then Merle proceeded to explain matters in studiously polite language. He had met Madame Correur in the afternoon, and she had advised him to see Monsieur Rougon that very evening. If it had not been for that, he, Merle, would never have presumed to disturb him at such an hour. ‘Madame Correur is extremely kind,’ he repeated several times. Then he went on to say that he was out of employment. If he now wore a full beard it was because he had left the Council of State some six months previously. When Rougon inquired the reason of his dismissal, he would not allow that he had been discharged for bad conduct, but bit his lip and said: ‘They all knew there how devoted I was to you, sir. After you went away, I had to put up with all sorts of unpleasantness, because I have never been able to conceal my real feelings. One day I almost struck a fellow-servant who was saying provoking things, and then they discharged me.’
Rougon looked at him searchingly. ‘And so, my man, it’s on my account that you are now out of place?’
Merle smiled slightly.
‘And I owe you another berth, eh? You want me to find you a situation somewhere?’
‘It would be very kind of you, sir.’
There was a short pause. Rougon tapped his hands together in a fidgety, mechanical way. But soon he began to smile, having made up his mind. He had too many debts; he must pay them and get rid of them.
‘Well, I will look after you,’ he said, ‘and get you a place somewhere. You did right to come to me, my man.’
Then he dismissed him. He now hesitated no longer. He went straight into the dining-room where Gilquin had just finished off a pot of jam, after eating a slice of pâté, the leg of a fowl, and some cold potatoes. Du Poizat, who had joined him, was sitting astride a chair and talking to him. They were discussing women in somewhat crude language. Gilquin had kept his hat on his head, and leant back, lounging in his chair and picking his teeth, under the impression that he was behaving in proper aristocratic style.
‘Well, I must be off now,’ he said, after gulping down the contents of his glass, which was full, and smacking his lips. ‘I am going to the Rue Montmartre to see what has become of my birds.’
Rougon, who seemed in high spirits, began, however, to joke at him. Now that he had dined, did he still believe in that story of a plot? Du Poizat, too, affected complete incredulity. He made an appointment for the next morning with Gilquin, to whom, he said, he owed a breakfast. Gilquin, with his cane under his arm, asked as soon as he could get a word in: ‘Then you are not going to warn——’
‘Yes, I am, of course,’ Rougon replied. ‘But they’ll merely laugh at me. In any case there’s no hurry. There will be plenty of time to-morrow morning.’
The ex-commercial traveller had already got his hand upon the handle of the door. However, he stepped back with a grin on his face. ‘For all I care,’ he said, ‘they may blow Badinguet to smithereens.’
‘Oh!’ replied the great man, with an air of almost religious conviction, ‘the Emperor has no cause for fear, even if your story is correct. These plots never succeed. There is a watchful Providence.’
That was the last word spoken on the matter. Du Poizat went off with Gilquin, chatting with him familiarly. An hour later, at half-past ten, when Rougon shook hands with M. Bouchard and the colonel as they took their leave, he stretched his arms and yawned, saying, as was often his wont: ‘I am quite tired out. I shall sleep well to-night.’
On the following evening three bombs exploded beneath the Emperor’s carriage in front of the Opera-house. A wild panic seized the serried crowd blocking up the Rue Le Peletier.[15] More than fifty people were struck. A woman in a blue silk dress was killed on the spot and stretched stark in the gutter. Two soldiers lay dying on the road. An aide-de-camp, wounded in the neck, left drops of blood behind him. But, under the crude glare of the gas, amidst the wreathing smoke, the Emperor descended unhurt from his riddled carriage, and saluted the throng. Only his hat was torn by a splinter from one of the bombs.
Rougon had spent the day at home. In the morning he had certainly felt a little restless, and had twice been on the point of going out. However, just as he was finishing déjeuner, Clorinde made her appearance; and then, in her society, in his study, where they remained till evening, he forgot everything. She had come to consult him on a matter of great intricacy, and appeared extremely discouraged. She could succeed in nothing, she said. But Rougon began to console her, seemingly much touched by her sadness. He gave her to understand that there was great reason for hope, and that things would altogether change. He was by no means ignorant of the devotion of his friends, and of all that they had done for him, and would make it his care to reward them, even the humblest of them. When Clorinde left him, he kissed her on the forehead. Then after dinner he had an irresistible longing for a walk. He left the house and took the shortest way to the quays, feeling suffocated and craving for the fresh breezes of the river. It was a mild winter evening, and the low, cloudy sky hung over the city in silent blackness. In the distance the rumbling traffic of the main streets could be faintly heard. Rougon walked along the deserted footways with a regular step, brushing the stone parapet with his overcoat. The lights which spread out in the far distance, twinkling through the darkness like stars that marked the boundaries of some dead heaven, brought him a sensation of the spreading magnitude of all those squares and streets, whose houses were now quite invisible. As he walked along Paris seemed to grow bigger, to expand more in harmony with his own huge form, and to be capable of giving him all the air he needed to inflate his lungs. From the inky river, flecked here and there with shimmering gold, there rose a gentle yet mighty breathing, like that of a sleeping giant—fit accompaniment to his colossal dream. Then as he came in front of the Palais de Justice, a clock struck the hour of nine. There was a tremulous throbbing in the air, and he turned to listen. Over the house-tops he fancied he could hear the sounds of a sudden panic, distant reports like those of explosions, and cries of terror. He suddenly pictured Paris in all the stupor born of some great crime. Then he called to mind that afternoon in June, that bright triumphant afternoon of the Baptism, when the bells had pealed out in the hot sunshine, and the quays had been filled with a serried multitude, when everything had told of the glory of the Empire at its apogee, that glory beneath which he had for a moment felt crushed and almost jealous of the Emperor. Now he seemed to be having his revenge. The sky was black and moonless; the city was terror-stricken and dumb; the quays were deserted and swept by a shudder which seemed to scare the very gas-lights, as though some weird evil lay in ambush, yonder, in the darkness of the night. Rougon drew in long breaths of air, and felt that he loved that cut-throat Paris, in whose terror-striking gloom he was regaining supreme power.
Ten days later, he became Minister of the Interior, in the place of M. de Marsy, who was called to the Presidency of the Corps Législatif.
< < < Chapter VII
Chapter IX > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – His Excellency Eugène Rougon – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
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