them as he turned round, he dropped his playful tones, bowed towards
them and said in a ceremonious voice: 'Signor Brambilla, Signor
Staderino, Signor Viscardi, all three political refugees.'
The three Venetians bowed without removing their cigars from their
lips. Chevalier Rusconi was returning to the piano when Clorinde
briskly called him back and reproached him with being a very careless
master of the ceremonies. Then, motioning towards Rougon, she just
said, though in a very significant and flattering tone: 'Monsieur
Eugène Rougon.'
Every one bowed again; and Rougon, who for a moment had been rather
afraid of some compromising pleasantry, felt surprised at the
unexpected tact and dignity shown by this girl, so scantily clad in
gauze. He took a seat and inquired after the Contessa Balbi, as was
his custom. He even pretended every time he came that his visit was
intended for the mother, as this seemed more consonant with strict
propriety.
'I should have been very glad to have paid my respects to her,'
he said, using the formula which he always employed under the
circumstances.
'But mother is there!' exclaimed Clorinde, pointing to a corner of the
room with her bow of gilded wood.
The Countess was indeed there, reclining in a deep easy chair behind a
variety of other furniture. This discovery came quite as a surprise.
The three political refugees had evidently been unaware of her
presence, for they at once rose from their couch and bowed. Rougon went
up and shook hands with her, standing while she, still lying back in
her chair, answered him in monosyllables with that perpetual smile of
hers which never left her, even when she was ill. Then she relapsed
into listless silence, glancing every now and then into the avenue
along which a stream of carriages was passing. She had probably taken
up her position there in order to watch the people. And so Rougon soon
left her.
Chevalier Rusconi, having again taken his seat at the piano, was trying
to recall a tune, gently striking the keys and humming some Italian
words in a low voice. La Rouquette, meantime, was fanning himself with
his handkerchief; Clorinde was again seriously impersonating Diana,
and Rougon, in the sudden calm which had come upon the room, took
short steps up and down while looking at the walls. The gallery was
crowded with an extraordinary collection of articles; a secrétaire, a
chest, and several chairs and tables, all pushed into the middle of the
apartment and forming a labyrinth of narrow passages. At one end of
the room some hot-house plants, crowded together and neglected, were
drooping and dying, their long, pendent leaves already turning yellow;
and at the other end there was a great heap of dried sculptor's clay,
in which one could still recognise the crumbling arms and legs of a
statue which Clorinde had roughly moulded one day when seized with the
whim of becoming an artist. Although the gallery was very large, there
was only one unencumbered spot in it, a patch in front of one of the
windows, a small square, which had been turned into a kind of little
drawing-room, furnished with a couch and three odd easy chairs.
'You are at liberty to smoke,' said Clorinde to Rougon. He thanked
her, but told her that he never smoked. Then, without turning round,
the girl cried out: 'Chevalier, make me a cigarette. The tobacco is in
front of you, on the piano.'
While the Chevalier was making the cigarette there was another interval
of silence. Rougon, vexed at finding all these people present, felt
inclined to take up his hat; however, he turned round and walked up to
Clorinde; then raising his head, he said with a smile: 'Didn't you ask
me to call because you had something to show me?'
She did not immediately reply, but maintained her serious pose; so he
continued: 'What is it that you want to show me?'
'Myself,' she answered.
She spoke this word in a majestic tone, not moving a limb as she stood
there on the table in her goddess-like posture. Rougon, in his turn
becoming grave, took a step backward and scrutinised her. She was truly
a superb creature, with her pure perfect profile, her slender neck,
and admirable classic figure. She rested one hand upon her bow, and
preserved all the antique huntress's expression of serene strength,
regardless of the scantiness of her attire, contemptuous of the love of
man, at once cold, haughty, and immortal.
'Charming, charming!' exclaimed Rougon, not knowing what else to say.
As a matter of fact he found her statuesque immobility rather
disturbing. She looked so triumphant, so convinced of her classical
beauty, that, if he had dared to express his thoughts, he would have
criticised her like some marble statue, certain details of which
displeased his unæsthetic eyes.
'Have you looked enough?' asked Clorinde, still serious and earnest.
'Wait a moment and you shall see something else.'
Then, of a sudden, she was no longer Diana. She dropped her bow and
assumed another, and more syren-like posture. Her hands were thrown
behind her head and clasped together in her hair; her bust bent
slightly backwards, and, as she half-opened her lips and smiled, a
stream of sunshine lighted up her face. And standing thus she looked
like the very goddess of love.
Signor Brambilla, Signor Staderino, and Signor Viscardi broke
into applause in all seriousness, never casting off their gloomy
conspirator-like mien.
'Brava! brava! brava!'
On his side M. La Rouquette was quite frantic with enthusiasm, and
Chevalier Rusconi, who had stepped up to the table to hand the girl the
cigarette which he had made for her, remained transfixed there, gazing
at her with ecstatic eyes and slightly jogging his head as though
beating time to his admiration.
Rougon said nothing, but clasped his hands so tightly together that
their joints cracked. A subtle tremor had just sped through him. He
no longer thought of going away, but dropped into a chair. Clorinde
had already resumed her easy, natural pose, and was laughing and
smoking her cigarette with a proud twist of her lips. It would have
delighted her, said she, to be an actress. She could personate anger,
tenderness, modesty, fright, and with a turn of her features or an
attitude hit off all sorts of different people.
'Monsieur Rougon,' she asked abruptly, 'would you like to see me
imitate you when you are addressing the Chamber?' And thereupon she
drew herself up to her full height, puffed herself out and thrust her
fists in front of her with such droll, yet truthful, mimicry, that they
all nearly killed themselves with laughing. Rougon roared like a boy.
He found Clorinde adorable, indeed exquisite, but also very disturbing.
'Clorinde, Clorinde!' cried Luigi, gently tapping his easel.
She was moving about so restlessly that he was obliged to desist from
his work. He had now laid his charcoal aside and was putting colour
on the canvas with an earnest air. He himself remained quite serious
amidst all the laughter, raising his glistening eyes to the young girl
and then glancing fiercely at the men with whom she was joking. It was
his own idea to paint her in the character of Diana, in a costume which
had been the talk of all Paris ever since the ball at the embassy. He
claimed to be her cousin, as they had both been born in the same street
in Florence.
'Clorinde!' he repeated almost angrily.
'Luigi is right,' she then exclaimed, 'you are not behaving properly,
gentlemen. What a noise you are making! Come, let us get on with our
work.'
Then she once more assumed her Olympian attitude, again presenting
the semblance of a beautiful marble image. The men remained where
they were, keeping perfectly still, as though rooted to the floor. La
Rouquette alone ventured to beat a gentle tattoo with his finger-tips
on the arms of his chair. Rougon, for his part, sat back and gazed
at Clorinde, and gradually fell into a dreamy state in which the
girl seemed to him to expand into gigantic proportions. A woman was
certainly a wonderful piece of mechanism, he reflected. It was a matter
that he had never before thought of studying; but now he began to have
vague mental glimpses of extraordinary intricacies. For a moment he
was filled with a distinct consciousness of the power of those bare
shoulders, which seemed strong enough to shake a world. All swam before
him, and Clorinde's figure seemed to grow larger and larger till it
appeared gigantic, and entirely hid the window from his sight. But he
blinked his eyes sharply, and then he again saw her clearly, standing
upon the table and much smaller than himself. At this his face broke
into a smile, and he felt surprised that he could have entertained a
moment's fear of her.
At the other end of the gallery some talk was now going on in low
tones. Rougon listened from force of habit, but could only distinguish
a rapid murmur of Italian syllables. Chevalier Rusconi, who had
just glided behind his chair, had laid one hand on the back of the
Countess's seat, and, bending over her respectfully, seemed to be
telling her some long story. The Countess said nothing, but nodded
every now and again. Once, however, she made an energetic gesture of
negation, whereupon the Chevalier bent still closer and tranquillised
her with his melodious voice, the murmur of which was like the warbling
of a song-bird. At last Rougon, through his knowledge of the dialect of
Provence, caught a few words which made him grave.
'Mother,' Clorinde cried abruptly, 'have you shown the Chevalier the
telegram you received last night?'
'A telegram!' exclaimed the Chevalier in a loud tone.
The Countess drew a bundle of letters from her pocket and began to
search amongst them. Then she handed the Chevalier a much crumpled
strip of blue paper.
As soon as he had glanced over it he made a gesture of anger and
astonishment. 'What!' he cried in French, forgetting the presence
of the others, 'you knew this yesterday! And I only learnt it this
morning!'
Clorinde indulged in a fresh burst of laughter, which increased his
irritation.
'And Madame la Comtesse allows me to tell her the whole story, as
though she knew nothing about it!' he continued. 'Well, as the
head-quarters of the legation seem to be here, I shall call every day
to see the correspondence.'
The Countess smiled. She again searched in her bundle of letters and
took out a second paper which she gave the Chevalier to read. This
time he seemed much pleased. Then they renewed their conversation in
whispers, the Chevalier's face once more wearing a respectful smile.
Before he left the Countess, he kissed her hand.
'There! we've done with business,' he said in a low voice as he took
his seat at the piano again.
Then he rattled off a vulgar air which was very popular in Paris that
year. But having ascertained what time it was, he suddenly sprang up to
get his hat.
'Are you going?' asked Clorinde. Then she beckoned him to her, and
leaning on his shoulder whispered something into his ear. He nodded and
smiled; and finally said: 'Capital, capital. I will write and mention
it.'
At last he bowed to the company and retired. Luigi tapped Clorinde, who
was squatting on the table, with his maul-stick, in order to make her
stand up again. The Countess appeared to have grown tired of watching
the stream of carriages in the avenue, for she pulled the bell-rope
that hung behind her as soon as she lost sight of the Chevalier's
brougham, which quickly disappeared among the crowd of landaus
coming back from the Bois. It was the big lanky man-servant with the
brigand's face who answered her summons, leaving the door wide open
behind him. Leaning heavily on his arm, she slowly crossed the room,
the men standing up and bowing as she passed. She acknowledged their
salutations with a smiling nod. When she reached the door, she turned
and said to Clorinde: 'I have got my headache again; I'm going to lie
down a little.'
'Flaminio,' called the young girl to the servant who was assisting her
mother, 'put a hot iron at her feet.'
The three political refugees did not sit down again. For a few moments
they remained standing in a row, finishing their cigars, the stumps of
which they then threw, each with the same precise gesture, behind the
heap of dry clay. And afterwards they filed past Clorinde, going off in
procession.
M. La Rouquette had just commenced a serious conversation with Rougon.
'Yes, indeed,' he remarked, 'I know very well that this question of
sugars is one of the greatest importance. It affects a whole branch of
French commerce. But unfortunately nobody in the Chamber seems to have
thoroughly studied the subject.'
Rougon, whom he bored, only answered with a nod. However, the young
deputy drew closer to him, an expression of sudden gravity coming over
his girlish face as he continued: 'I myself have an uncle in the sugar
trade. He has one of the largest refining-houses at Marseilles. I went
to stay with him for three months, and I took notes, very copious
notes. I talked to the workmen and made myself conversant with the
whole subject. I intended, you understand, to make a speech in the
Chamber on the matter.'
In this wise he tried to show off before Rougon, giving himself a deal
of trouble in order to talk to him on the only subjects which he
thought would interest him; and, at the same time, being anxious to
pass for a sound politician.
'And didn't you make a speech?' interposed Clorinde, who seemed to be
growing impatient of M. La Rouquette's presence.
'No, I didn't,' he replied; 'I thought I'd better not. At the last
moment I felt afraid that my figures might not be quite correct.'
Rougon eyed him keenly and then gravely asked him: 'Do you know how
many pieces of sugar are consumed every day at the Café Anglais?'
For a moment La Rouquette seemed quite confused and stared at the other
with a blank expression. Then he broke into a peal of laughter. 'Ah!
very good! very good!' he cried. 'I understand now. You are chaffing
me. But that's a question of sugar. What I was speaking about was a
question of sugars. Very good that, eh? You'll let me repeat the joke,
won't you?'
He wriggled on his chair with much self-satisfaction. The rosy hue
came back to his cheeks and he seemed quite at his ease again, once
more talking in his natural light manner. Clorinde attacked him on the
subject of women. She had seen him, she said, two nights previously at
the Variétés with a little fair person who was very plain and had hair
like a poodle's. At first the young man denied the accusation; but,
irritated by Clorinde's cruel remarks about the 'little poodle,' he
at last forgot himself and began to defend her, saying that she was a
highly respectable lady and not nearly so bad looking as Clorinde tried
to make out. The girl, however, grew quite scathing, and finally M. La
Rouquette cried out: 'She's expecting me now, and I must be off.'
As soon as he had closed the door behind him, Clorinde clapped her
hands triumphantly, and exclaimed: 'There, he's gone at last. Good
riddance to him.'
Then she jumped lightly from the table, ran up to Rougon, and gave
him both her hands. Assuming her most winning look, she expressed her
regret that he had not found her alone. What a lot of trouble she had
had to get all those people to go! Some people couldn't understand
anything! What a goose La Rouquette was with his sugars! Now, however,
there was no one to disturb them, and they could talk. She had led
Rougon to a couch as she was speaking, and he had sat down without
releasing her hands, when Luigi began to tap his easel with his
maul-stick, exclaiming in a tone of irritation: 'Clorinde! Clorinde!'
'Oh yes, of course, the portrait,' she cried, with a laugh.
Then she made her escape from Rougon, and bent down behind the artist
with a soft caressing expression. How pretty his work looked, she
cried. It was very good indeed; but, really, she felt rather tired
and would much like a quarter of an hour's rest. He could go on with
the dress in the meantime. There was no occasion for her to pose for
the dress. Luigi, however, cast fiery glances at Rougon, and muttered
disagreeable words. Thereupon Clorinde hastily said something to him
in Italian, knitting her brows the while, though still continuing to
smile. This reduced Luigi to silence, and he began to pass his brush
over the canvas again.
'It's quite true what I say,' declared the girl as she came back and
sat down beside Rougon; 'my left leg is quite numb.'
Then she slapped herself to make the blood circulate, she explained;
and she was bending towards Rougon, her bare shoulder touching his
coat, when she suddenly looked at herself and blushed deeply. And
forthwith she sprang up and fetched a piece of black lace which she
wrapped around her.
'I feel chilly,' she said, when she had wheeled an easy chair in front
of Rougon and sat down in it.
Nothing but her bare wrists now peeped out from beneath her lace
wrapper, which she had knotted round her neck. Her bust was completely
concealed in its folds, and her face had turned pale and grave.
'Well, what is it that has happened to you?' she exclaimed. 'Tell me
all about it.'
Then she questioned him about his fall from office with daughterly
curiosity. She was a foreigner, she told him, and she made him again
and again repeat certain details which she said she did not understand.
She also kept on interrupting him with Italian ejaculations, and he
could read in her dark eyes the interest she took in what he was
telling her. Why had he quarrelled with the Emperor? How could he
have brought himself to give up such a lofty position? Who were his
enemies, that he should have allowed himself to be worsted in that
way? And as he hesitated, unwilling to make the confessions which she
tried to extort from him, she looked at him with an expression of
such affectionate candour, that at last he threw off all reserve and
told her the whole story from beginning to end. She soon seemed to
have learnt all that she wanted to know, and then began to ask him
questions quite unconnected with the matter which had first engaged her
attention, questions so singular that Rougon was altogether surprised.
But at last she clasped her hands and lapsed into silence. Closing her
eyes she seemed buried in deep thought.
'Well?' said Rougon, with a smile.
'Oh, nothing,' she murmured, 'but this has made me quite sad.'
Rougon was touched, and tried to take hold of her hands again, but she
hid them away in her lace wrapper, and they both sat there in silence
for a minute or two, when she opened her eyes again and said: 'You have
formed some plans, I suppose?'
Rougon looked at her keenly, with a touch of suspicion. But she seemed
so adorable as she languidly reclined in that easy chair, as though the
troubles of her 'dear friend' had broken her down, that he dismissed
the chilling thought. Moreover, she plied him with flattery. She was
sure, said she, that he would not long be allowed to remain aloof, but
would be master again some day. She was confident that he had high
ambitions and trusted hopefully in his star, for she could plainly read
as much on his brow. Why wouldn't he take her for his confidante? She
was very discreet, and it would make her so happy to share his hopes
for the future. Rougon, quite infatuated by all this, and still trying
to grasp the little hands hidden away beneath the lace, thereupon kept
nothing back, but confessed everything to the girl, his hopes as well
as his certainties. He required no further urging from her, and she
had only to let him talk on, refraining even from a gesture for fear
of checking him. She kept her eyes upon him, examining him searchingly
limb by limb, fathoming his skull, weighing his shoulders and measuring
his chest. He was certainly a solid, well-built man, who, with a turn
of his wrist, could have tossed her, strong as she was, on to his back
and have carried her without the least difficulty to whatever height
she might have desired.
'Ah! my dear friend,' she exclaimed abruptly, 'it is not I who have
ever felt any doubts.'
Then she sprang from her seat, and, spreading out her arms, let the
lace wrapper slip off. A momentary all-alluring vision, a sort of
promise and reward, appeared to Rougon. 'Ah!' she cried, 'my lace has
fallen,' and quickly picking it up again, she knotted it round her more
tightly than before.
'Oh!' she next exclaimed, 'there's Luigi growling.'
Then she hastened back to the artist, bent over him a second time and
rapidly whispered to him. Rougon, now that she was no longer by his
side, roughly rubbed his hands together, feeling almost angry. That
girl had exercised a most extraordinary influence over him and he
resented it. If he had been a lad of twenty he could not have acted
more foolishly. She had wheedled him into a confession as though he
had been a mere child; whereas he, for the last two months, had been
doing his best to make her speak, but had only succeeded in extracting
peals of laughter from her. She, however, had merely had to deny him
her little hands for a moment, and he had foolishly forgotten all his
prudence and told her everything in order to gain possession of them.
Nevertheless, Rougon smiled a smile of conscious strength. He could
break her, he told himself, whenever he liked. Wasn't it she herself
who was challenging him? He certainly could not go on playing the part
of an imbecile with this girl who so freely showed him her shoulders.
He was by no means sure that the lace wrapper had slipped off without
her assistance.
'Would you say that my eyes were grey?' Clorinde now asked him,
stepping towards him again.
He rose and looked at her quite closely, but she bore his inspection
without even her eyelids quivering. However, when he stretched forth
his hands, she gave him a tap. There was no occasion to touch her. She
had become very cold, now. She wrapped herself yet more closely in her
strip of lace, and her modesty seemed to take alarm at the least hole
in it. In vain did Rougon joke and jest. She only covered herself the
more, and even refused to sit down again.
'I prefer walking about a little,' she said; 'it stretches my legs.'
Then Rougon followed her and they paced the room together. He tried,
in his turn, to extract a confession from her. As a rule, she could
not be got to answer questions. Her conversation usually consisted of
sudden starts and jumps, interspersed with ejaculations and snatches of
stories which she never finished. When Rougon adroitly questioned her
concerning the fortnight of the previous month which she and her mother
had spent away from Paris, she started on an interminable string of
anecdotes about her journeyings. She had been everywhere, to England,
Spain, and Germany; and she had seen everything. Then she vented a
series of trifling remarks upon food, and the fashions and the weather.
Now and then she began some story, in which she herself figured with
sundry well-known persons, whom she named; and, thereupon, Rougon
listened attentively, hoping that she was at last going to make some
real revelation; but she either turned the story off into some childish
nonsense or stopped short and left it unfinished altogether. That day,
as previously, he learnt absolutely nothing. Her face retained its
impenetrable smile, and she remained full of secretive reserve amidst
all her boisterous freedom. Rougon, quite confused by the different
extraordinary stories he had heard of her, each of which gave the lie
to the other, was utterly unable to determine whether he had before
him a mere girl whose innocence extended even to foolishness, or a
keen-witted woman who cunningly affected simplicity.
She was telling him of an adventure that had happened to her in a
little town in Spain, and of the gallantry of a traveller who had given
up his room to her, when she suddenly broke off and exclaimed: 'You
mustn't go back to the Tuileries. Make yourself missed.'
'Thank you, Mademoiselle Machiavelli,' he replied, with a laugh.