But at dinner the coalition weakened. Loiseau spoke three unfortunate
sentences. Each was racking his brains to find new examples and
did not find any, when the Countess, possibly without premeditation,
prompted by a vague desire to render homage to religion, questioned
the elder of the two nuns about the most noteworthy deeds in the
lives of the Saints.--Now, many Saints had committed acts which
would be crimes in our estimation; but the Church absolves readily
such transgressions when they are committed for the glory of God
and the love of our neighbors. This was a powerful argument; the
Countess made the most of it. Then, either by one of those tacit
understandings, those veiled complaisances in which whoever wears
the clerical garb excels, or through fortunate stupidity, serviable
foolishness, the old nun brought a formidable support to the
conspiracy. They thought she was timid; she showed herself bold,
talkative, violent. This one was not trouble by the hesitations of
casuistry; her doctrine seemed to be an iron bar; her faith never
hesitated; her conscience had no scruples. She found quite natural
Abraham's sacrifice, because she would immediately have killed her
father and mother if she had received an order from heaven to do so;
and in her opinion nothing could displease God if the motive were
laudable. The Countess taking advantage of the sacred authority
of her unexpected accomplice, led her on to make a kind of edifying
paraphrase of this axiom of morality: "The end justifies the
means."
She questioned her:
--"Then, Sister, you think that God accepts all methods and forgives
the act when the motive is pure?"
--"Who could doubt it, Madame? An action condemnable in itself
often becomes meritorious by the thought which inspires it."
And they continued in this way, unraveling God's intentions,
forecasting his judgments, and making Him take interest in things
that really did not concern Him at all.
All this was expounded in a veiled, clever, discreet and insinuating
manner. But each word of the holy woman in cornet made a breach in
the indignant resistance of the courtesan. Then the conversation
drifting somewhat, the woman with the hanging rosary spoke of the
Convents of her Order, of her Superior, of herself, and of her
lovely neighbor, the dear Sister Saint-Nicephore. They had been
called to Havre to nurse in the Hospitals hundreds of soldiers stricken
with small-pox. She described them, those wretched victims, and
gave details about their disease. And while they had been stopped
on their way by the caprices of this Prussian Officer, a large number
of Frenchmen, whom they would probably have saved, might die. It
was her specialty to nurse soldiers; she had been in Crimea,
in Italy, in Austria, and telling the story of her campaigns, she
unexpectedly revealed herself one of those Nuns fond of drums and
bugles, who seem to have been created to follow the armies in action,
to pick soldiers during the vicissitudes of battles, and, better
than a General, to tame with one word the rough and insubordinate
troopers; a genuine martial and bellicose Nun, whose wrinkled and
pitted face, looked like an image of the devastations of war.
No one uttered a word after she had concluded, so excellent seemed
to be the effect of her discourse.
As soon as the meal was over, they went up quickly to their rooms
and came down the next morning rather late.
Luncheon went off quietly. They were giving the seed that had been
sown time to germinate and come to fruition.
The Countess proposed to take a walk in the afternoon; then the
Count, as previously agreed, offered his arm to Boule de Suif and
walked with her at some distance behind.
He spoke to her in that familiar, paternal and slightly contemptuous
tone which sedate men assume when talking with women of loose morals,
calling her: "my dear child," treating her from the height of his
social position, his unquestionable honesty. He went straight to
the core of the matter:
--"So you prefer to leave us here exposed like yourself to all the
violence which would result from a defeat of the Prussian Army,
rather than consent to one of those complaisances which you have
had so often in your life"--
Boule de Suif did not answer.
He tried kindness, reasoning, sentiment. He managed to remain
"Monsieur le Comte" even while showing himself gallant, when necessary,
flattering, amiable. He praised to exaltation the services she
would render them, spoke of their gratitude, then suddenly, using
the familiar "thou," gaily: "And thou knowest, my dear, he might
be proud of having tasted the charms of a pretty girl such as he
won't find often in his own country."
Boule de Suif did not reply and joined the rest of the party.
As soon as they returned to the inn, she went up to her room and
was not seen again. There was extreme anxiety. What was she going
to do? If she resisted, what an embarrassment for them all?
The dinner hour struck; they waited for her in vain. Then Mr.
Follenvie came in and announced that Mademoiselle Rousset did not
feel well and that they might sit down to dinner. They all pricked
their ears. The Count came near the inn-keeper and whispered: "Is
it all right?"--"Yes."
For the sake of propriety, he did not say anything to his companions,
but nodded to them slightly. Immediately a great sigh of relief
went up from all breasts; joy brightened every face. Loiseau
exclaimed: "By Jove, I'll treat to champagne if any is left in
this house!"--And Madame Loiseau felt a pang when the inn-keeper
returned with four bottles in his hand. Every one had suddenly
become communicative and merry; a lively joy filled the hearts.
The Count seemed to notice that Madame Carré-Lamadon was charming;
the manufacturer paid compliments to the Countess; the conversation
was lively, gay and full of witticisms.
Suddenly Loiseau, with an alarmed face, raised his arms and
shouted: "Silence!" They all stopped talking, were surprised nay
even frightened. Then he listened, said "Hush!" signaling with his
two hands, raised his eyes to the ceiling, listened again and, in
his natural voice, he resumed: "Don't be afraid, everything is
all right!"
They hesitated to understand what he meant, but soon a smile lighted
up all the faces.
After a quarter of an hour, he started again the same farce and
repeated it often during the evening; he mimicked as if he were
calling a person on the second floor and giving her equivocal advices
drawn from his imagination of a commercial traveler. At times he
assumed a dismal air and sighed:--"Poor girl!"--or he muttered in
his teeth, with a peevish air:--"Rascal of a Prussian!"--Several
times, when the others did not think of it, he called out
repeatedly in a vibrating voice: "Enough! Enough!" and he added
as if soliloquizing:--"Provided that we see her again and that the
wretch does not kill her!"
Although such jokes were in very bad taste, they amused more than
they shocked the company, for indignation like everything else
depends on environment, and the atmosphere that had gradually
developed around them was laden with naughty thoughts.
At dessert, even the women indulged in witty and discreet allusions.
Their eyes were bright and gleaming; they had drunk considerably.
The Count who, even in his moments of relaxation, preserved
a dignified appearance, found a comparison with the end of winter
in the polar regions and the joy of the ship-wrecked mariners when
they see a way open to the South; and this comparison was greatly
appreciated.
Loiseau, warmed up, rose to his feet with a glass of champagne in
his hands:--"I drink to our deliverance!"--Everybody stood up; he
was acclaimed. Even the two good sisters, urged by the ladies,
consented to moisten their lips with the sparkling wine, which
they had never tasted. They declared that it tasted like sparkling
lemonade, but that it was finer.
Loiseau summed up the situation:
--"What a pity that there is no piano! We might have danced a
quadrille!"--
Cornudet had not said a single word, nor made a single gesture; he
even seemed to be plunged in very serious thoughts, and from time
to time tugged furiously at his long beard as if he wanted to
make it longer. Finally, toward midnight, as they were going to
separate, Loiseau, who was unsteady on his feet slapped him suddenly
on the stomach and spluttered:--"You are not in a gay mood to-night,
you don't talk much, citoyen?"--But Cornudet raised briskly his
head and casting a swift and terrible look at the company, fairly
shouted:--"I tell you all, that you have behaved infamously!"--He
got up, walked to the door and repeated once more: "Infamous!"
and he disappeared.
This threw a chill at first. Loiseau nonplused, stood looking
foolish; but he recovered his countenance and then suddenly began
to laugh and repeat:--"Sour grapes! my dear Sir, sour grapes!"--The
company did not understand what he meant; he explained the "mysteries
of the hall"--Then there was a resumption of formidable gayety.
The ladies were immensely amused. The Count and Mr. Carré-Lamadon
laughed to tears. They could hardly believe their ears.
--"Why! are you sure? He wanted"--"I tell you that I saw it with
my own eyes."
--"And she refused?"
--"Because the Prussian was in the next room."
--"Is it possible?"
--"I swear it is true!"--
The Count was choking with laughter. The manufacturer was compressing
his stomach with his hands.
--"And you understand, to-night he does not think it is funny at
all."--
And all three began to laugh again, choking, out of breath.
Thereupon they retired. But Madame Loiseau, who had the prickly
disposition of a nettle remarked to her husband, at the moment
they were going to bed:--"That stuck-up little Madame Carré-Lamadon
laughed deceitfully all evening."
"You know, for women, when they chase uniforms, it does not make
any difference whether the uniforms are French or Prussian. What
a pity, oh Lord!"--
And all night, in the darkness of the hall there were light sounds
like tremors, hardly audible, similar to murmurs, contacts of bare
feet, imperceptible crackings. And they fell asleep quite late,
certainly, because rays of light could be seen for a long time under
the doors. Champagne has such effects; I understand it disturbs
the sleep.
The next morning a bright winter sunshine made the snow dazzling.
The coach, finally harnessed, was waiting at the door, while
an army of white pigeons, ensconced in their white feathers, with
their pink eyes spotted in the middle with small black dots, were
walking leisurely between the legs of the six horses and picking
their food from the steaming manure which they were scattering.
The driver, wrapped up in his sheepskin cloak, was up on his seat,
smoking a pipe, and all the travelers, looking radiant, were having
provisions packed up for the rest of the trip.
Boule de Suif only had not come down. She appeared.
She seemed to be rather confused, bashful; shyly, she walked up to
her companions who, all with the same movement, turned away from
her as if they had not seen her. The Count, dignified, took his
wife by the arm and removed her from this impure contact.
The girl stood still, stupefied; then picking up all her courage
she accosted the manufacturer's wife with a--"Good morning,
Madame!"--humbly muttered. The other answered only with a short
and impertinent nod accompanied by a look of outraged virtue.
Everybody seemed to be busy and kept away from her as if she were
carrying some infectious germs in her skirt. Then they rushed up
to the coach, in which she entered last, without being helped by
anyone, and silently she took the seat she had occupied during the
final part of the journey.
They feigned not to see her, not to know her; but Mme. Loiseau,
looking at her indignantly from a distance, told her husband half
aloud:--"Fortunately I am not sitting next to her."--
The heavy coach started and the journey was resumed.
First nobody spoke. Boule de Suif did not dare raise her eyes.
At the same time she felt indignant at all her companions, and
humiliated for having yielded to the Prussian Officer into whose
arms she had been hypocritically forced by them.
But the Countess, turning to Madame Carré-Lamadon, broke soon this
painful silence.
--"I think you knew Madame d'Estrelles."
--"Yes, she is one of my friends."
--"What a charming woman!"
--"Fascinating! Really a select nature, besides highly educated,
and an artist to the tips of her fingers. She sings delightfully
and paints to perfection."
The manufacturer was talking with the Count, and in the middle of
the clatter of the window-panes, one could catch here and there a
word:--"Coupon--maturity--premium--term--"
Loiseau, who had stolen from the inn the old pack of cards, greasy
after five years friction on dirty tables, started a game of
"bezigue" with his wife.
The good sisters took from their belts the long rosaries, made
simultaneously the sign of the cross and suddenly their lips began
to move rapidly, becoming more and more accelerated, precipitating
their vague murmur as if in a race of "orisons;" and now and then
they kissed a medal, crossed themselves again, and resumed their
swift and continuous mutterings.
Cornudet sat still and deep in thoughts. After they had traveled
for three hours, Loiseau picked up his cards and said:--"I am
hungry." Then his wife reached out for a package from which she
drew a piece of cold veal. She cut it carefully in thin and neat
slices and both began to eat.
--"Why shouldn't we do the same?"--said the Countess. Upon general
consent, she unpacked the provisions prepared for the two couples.
In one of those oval dishes, the cover of which bears a china
hare, to show that a hare pie lies inside, there were exquisite
delicatessen, the white streams of lard crossing the brown meat of
the game, mixed with other fine chopped meats. A handsome piece of
Swiss-cheese, wrapped in a newspaper, had taken on its fat surface
the imprint:--"Sundry items."
The two sisters opened a hunk of sausage which smelled of garlic;
and Cornudet plunging at the same time both his hands in the large
pockets of his baggy overcoat, drew from one four hard-boiled eggs
and from the other the crust of a loaf of bread. He removed the
shells threw them under his feet, on the straw, and began to bite
the eggs voraciously, dropping on his large beard small pieces of
yellowish yolk which looked like stars.
Boule de Suif, in the haste and confusion of her departure, had not
thought of taking provisions; and exasperated, suffocating with
rage, she was looking on all those people who ate heartily. At
first a tumultuous anger shook her, and she opened her mouth to
tell them what she thought of them in a wave of insults that surged
to her lips; but she could not speak, so exasperated was she with
indignation.
Nobody looked at her, took notice of her. She felt drowned in the
scorn of those honest rascals who had first sacrificed her and then
cast her away like something unclean and of no further use. Then
she thought of her large basket full of good things, which they
had devoured greedily, of her two chickens shining in jelly, her
pastry, her pears, her four bottles of claret; and suddenly, her
furor having died out, like an over strung cord, she felt like
crying. She made terrible efforts; stiffened herself up, swallowed
her sobs like children, but the tears were surging, shining at the
border of her eyelids, and soon two big tears breaking away from
her eyes coursed slowly down her cheeks. Others followed them
more swiftly, running like drops of water filtering through rocks
and fell regularly on the rounded curve of her bosom. She remained
upright, her eyes motionless, her face rigid and pale, hoping that
the others would not notice her.
But the Countess noticed it and called her husband's attention
with a sign. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say:--"What can
I do? It is not my fault!"--Madame Loiseau had a silent laugh of
triumph and muttered: "She is weeping for shame!"--
The two good sisters had resumed their prayers after having rolled
up in a paper the rest of their sausage.
Then Cornudet, who was digesting the eggs, stretched his long legs
under the seat, sat back, crossed his arms, smiled like a man who
has thought of a good joke and began to whistle the Marseillaise.
The faces of all the others darkened. Decidedly the popular song
did not please his neighbors. They became nervous, fidgety, and
seemed ready to howl like dogs that hear a barrel-organ. He noticed
it, did not stop. At times he even pronounced the words:
Amour sacré del la patrie,
Conduis, soutiens, nos bras vengeurs,
Liberté, liberté chérie,
Combats avec tes défenseurs.
The snow being harder, the coach traveled more quickly, and as far
as Dieppe, during the long dreary hours of the trip, through the
jostles of the road, during the twilight, and later in the thick
darkness of the coach, he kept on with a fierce obstinacy his
monotonous and revengeful whistling, compelling the fagged and
exasperated hearers to follow the anthem from one end to the other,
to remember every word that went with each measure.
And Boule de Suif was still weeping; and at times a sob, which she
could not restrain, passed between two verses in the night.