life afresh, and in a few days had grown accustomed to the new part
she was to play. She did not attempt to win Delestang by the same bold
tactics with which she had tried to subjugate Rougon. She quite changed
her manner, affected soft languor, guileless innocence, and such a
nervous disposition, that too tender a squeeze of the hand would upset
her. When Delestang told Rougon that she had fainted in his arms just
because he had kissed her wrist, the latter pretended to consider this
as a convincing proof of her purity of mind. So at last Delestang began
to think seriously about marrying her, and went to consult Rougon on
the subject. But when the latter found his plans so near realisation
he, just for a moment, felt so hurt and angry that he almost told
Delestang then and there of all that had passed between himself and
Clorinde. However, he refrained, and proceeded very cleverly to work
upon the other's feelings. He did not actually advise him to marry
Clorinde, but led him on to this determination by remarks that seemed
almost irrelevant to the subject. He had been much surprised, he
said, to hear the unpleasant stories which had been circulated about
Mademoiselle Balbi, but he did not believe them, for he had made
searching inquiries without discovering anything to her disadvantage.
Moreover, a man ought not to doubt the woman he loved. Those were his
last words.
Six weeks later, as Rougon came out of the Madeleine, where the
marriage had just been celebrated with great magnificence, he said to
a deputy who was expressing his astonishment at Delestang's choice:
'Well, what could you expect of him? I warned him a hundred times. But
he was sure to be taken in by a woman some day.'
Towards the end of the winter, when Delestang and his wife returned
from travelling in Italy, they learnt that Rougon was on the point of
marrying Mademoiselle Beulin-d'Orchère. When they went to see him,
Clorinde congratulated him very gracefully. He pretended that he was
really taking the step to please his friends. For the last three
months, he said, they had let him have no peace, but had constantly
repeated that a man in his position ought to be married. He added with
a laugh that when his friends came to see him in the evenings, there
wasn't even a woman in the house to pour out the tea.
'Oh! so it's a sudden decision of yours; you never thought of it
before, I suppose,' remarked Clorinde with a smile. 'You ought to have
got married at the same time as we did, so that we could all have gone
to Italy together.'
Then she began to question him playfully. No doubt it was his friend,
Du Poizat, who had suggested this pretty idea. But this was denied
by Rougon, who asserted that Du Poizat was strongly opposed to the
marriage, as he personally abominated M. Beulin-d'Orchère. All the
rest, however, M. Kahn, M. Béjuin, Madame Correur, and even the
Charbonnels, had never wearied of singing the praises of Mademoiselle
Véronique. According to them, she would bring every imaginable virtue,
prosperity and charm into his home. Then he concluded jocosely: 'She
seems to have been made on purpose for me, and so I really couldn't
refuse to take her.' And he added with a subtle smile: 'Besides, if we
are going to have war in the autumn, it is necessary to think about
making alliances.'
Clorinde expressed her perfect approval; and she, too, began to sing
Mademoiselle Beulin-d'Orchère's praises, though she had only seen her
once. Delestang, who had hitherto confined himself to nodding, without
ever taking his eyes off his wife, now commenced an enthusiastic
disquisition upon the advantages of marriage. And he was starting on a
detailed account of his own happiness, when his wife rose and said they
had another visit to make. As Rougon escorted them to the door, she
held him back for a moment, letting her husband go on in front.
'Didn't I tell you that you would be married within the twelvemonth?'
she whispered softly in his ear.
VI
IN RETIREMENT
Summer came round. Rougon was leading a life of perfect quietude. In
three months' time Madame Rougon had replaced the somewhat equivocal
tone of the house in the Rue Marbeuf by one of solemn respectability.
An atmosphere of propriety pervaded the rather chilly rooms, where all
was spick and span. The furniture, always in place, the closely drawn
curtains, allowing but little light to enter, and the thick carpets
muffling every sound, imparted an air of almost conventual austerity to
the house. Moreover, everything seemed to have acquired an appearance
of age; it was as if one had entered some ancient musty patriarchal
abode. That tall plain woman exercised an ever-watchful surveillance
over everything, gliding through the subdued stillness of the house
with noiseless steps; and she managed matters in such a discreet ready
way that it seemed as if she had spent twenty years in the place
instead of a few months.
Rougon smiled when people congratulated him. He still asserted that
he had got married on the advice of his friends, and that his bride
was their choice. She made him very happy. He had long desired to have
a quiet decorous home, which might stand forth as a material proof of
his respectability. It freed him from all his doubtful past and placed
him amongst honest men. There was still a deal of provincialism in
his nature, and certain substantially furnished drawing-rooms that he
remembered at Plassans, where the chairs and couches were kept swathed
in white coverings the whole year round, still formed his ideals.
When he called at Delestang's, where Clorinde made an extravagant
display of luxury, he showed his contempt by shrugging his shoulders.
Nothing seemed to him so ridiculous as throwing money, as it were,
out of the window; not that he was miserly, but he said that he could
find enjoyments far preferable to those that were to be purchased
with money. He had committed to his wife the care of their fortune.
Previously he had lived without calculating his expenses, but now
Madame Rougon attended to money matters with the same zealous care as
she showed in managing the house.
For the first few months after his marriage, Rougon lived a life of
seclusion, preparing for the contest which he dreamt of. He loved power
for its own sake, without any hankering for riches and honours. Very
ignorant, and of little skill in things which were not connected with
the management of men, it was only his keen craving for power that
elevated him to a position of superiority. The ambition of raising
himself above the crowd, which seemed to him to be compounded of fools
and knaves, and of leading and driving men by sheer force, developed
most energetic skill and cunning in his heavy nature. He believed only
in himself, took his convictions for reasons, and held everything
subordinate to the increase of his personal influence. Addicted to no
vice, he yet revelled as at some secret orgy in the idea of wielding
supreme power. Though he had inherited his father's massive shoulders
and heavy face, he had derived from his mother, the redoubtable
Félicité who governed Plassans, a strong fiery will and passion
for force which made him disdainful of petty means and commonplace
gratifications. He was certainly the greatest of the Rougons.
When he found himself solitary and unoccupied after years of active
life, his first feeling was one of delightful drowsiness. It was as
though he had had no sleep since the exciting days of 1851, and he
accepted his dismissal as a well-deserved holiday earned by long
service. He proposed to hold himself aloof for six months, which would
give him time to choose a better battle-ground, and then at his own
discretion he could join in the great fight again. But in a few weeks'
time he was already weary of resting. He had never before been so
clearly conscious of his own strength; and his head and limbs became
a source of embarrassment to him now that he was no longer actively
employing them. He spent whole days in pacing his little garden and
yawning wearily, like one of those caged lions whom one sees restlessly
stretching their stiffened limbs. And now he began to know a most
distasteful existence, the overwhelming weariness of which he carefully
strove to conceal. To his friends he professed himself perfectly happy,
and declared that he was well pleased to be 'out of the muddle,' but
his heavy eyelids would rise occasionally in order that he might watch
the course of events, and then again drop over his glistening eyes as
soon as he saw anyone looking at him. What helped more than anything
else to keep him erect was the unpopularity which he realised he had
incurred. His fall seemed to have caused much satisfaction. Not a day
passed without some newspaper attacking him; he was spoken of as the
personification of the _coup d'état_, the proscriptions, and of all the
other violent measures to which people referred in veiled language;
and some writers even went so far as to congratulate the Emperor upon
having severed his connection with a servant who had done his best to
compromise him.
At the Tuileries the feeling of hostility against Rougon was even more
marked. Marsy, now triumphant, assailed him with witticisms which
ladies retailed through the drawing-rooms of Paris. This bitterness,
however, actually comforted Rougon and confirmed him in his contempt
for the human flock of sheep. They had not forgotten him; they detested
him; and that seemed very sweet. Himself against the world! It was a
thought which had a peculiar charm for him; and he saw himself standing
alone, whip in hand, and forcing the yelping pack to keep their
distance. He revelled in the insults which were offered to him, and
held his head higher than ever in his haughty seclusion.
His brawny body, however, was suffering terribly from his enforced
inactivity. If he had dared, he would have seized a spade and dug up
his garden. However, he preferred to commence a long piece of writing
in which he would carefully compare the English constitution with the
Imperial constitution of 1852, with the idea of proving--all allowance
made for the history and political customs of the two nations--that
the French had as much liberty as the English. However, when he had
consulted all the necessary authorities and collected sufficient notes,
he had to force himself into taking up the pen. He could easily have
made a long speech on the subject before the Chamber, but to write a
treatise in which each sentence must be carefully thought out appeared
to him a task of immense difficulty; and one, too, of no immediate
usefulness. To express himself in good literary style had always
embarrassed him, and it was for this reason that he pretended to hold
style in contempt. He only got ten pages of his treatise written, still
he left the manuscript on his desk, though he did not add twenty lines
to it a week. On the other hand, whenever anybody asked him how he
employed his time, he explained his project at great length, and dwelt
on its great import. This was the excuse which he employed to conceal
the hateful emptiness of his life.
Months went on, and he turned a yet more serene and smiling face to
the world. Not a sign of the utter weariness he was suffering did he
allow to appear. When his intimates sympathised with him, he assured
them of his perfect felicity and gave them the most convincing reasons
for it. Had he not everything to make him happy? he asked. He delighted
in study, and now he could work as he listed, which was infinitely
preferable to the feverish agitation of public life. As the Emperor
had no need of his services, he did well to leave him in quietude in
his little corner. He never spoke of the Emperor in other terms than
those of profound devotion. Still, he frequently said that at a sign
from his master he was perfectly willing to take up the burden of power
again, adding, however, that he would not venture on a single step to
provoke that sign. To all appearances, indeed, he was very anxious to
keep aloof. Amidst the quietude of those early years of the Empire,
amidst the nation's strange stupor born of mingled dread and weariness,
he could hear faint sounds as of a coming awakening, and, as a supreme
hope, he reckoned on some catastrophe which would suddenly make him
necessary to the State. He was the man for critical situations, 'the
man with the big paws,' as M. de Marsy had put it.
The Rougons received their friends at their house in the Rue Marbeuf
on Sundays and Thursdays. They chatted in the big red drawing-room till
half-past ten o'clock, at which time Rougon pitilessly turned them out
of doors, for he held that late hours fogged the brain. Exactly at ten
o'clock, Madame Rougon herself served tea. Two plates of little cakes
accompanied the tea, but no one ever touched them.
On the Thursday in the July of that year which followed the general
elections, the whole band was assembled in the drawing-room at eight
o'clock. Madame Bouchard, Madame Charbonnel, and Madame Correur sat
in a circle near an open window to inhale the occasional whiffs of
fresh air which came in from the little garden, and in their midst M.
d'Escorailles related the pranks he had played in his Plassans days,
when he had often gone off to Monaco for twelve hours or so, on the
pretext of taking part in a shooting expedition with a friend. Madame
Rougon, who, dressed in black, sat half concealed behind a curtain,
paid no attention to all this, but would now and again quietly rise and
leave the room. She frequently disappeared for a quarter of an hour
at a time. M. Charbonnel, however, was perched at the edge of an easy
chair near the ladies, in amazement at hearing a young man of high
rank confessing such adventures. At the other end of the room stood
Clorinde, listening inattentively to a conversation on crops which her
husband and M. Béjuin had started. She wore a creamy dress, freely
trimmed with straw-coloured ribbons, and she gently tapped the palm of
her left hand with her fan while gazing at the bright globe of the one
lamp with which the drawing-room was lighted. Meantime, Colonel Jobelin
and M. Bouchard were playing piquet at a card-table, while Rougon, like
a fortune-teller, was consulting a pack of cards in a corner, setting
them out on the green cloth in a grave and methodical manner. This was
his favourite amusement on Thursdays and Sundays, affording occupation
both for his fingers and his mind.
'Well, will it come off?' Clorinde asked with a smile as she approached
him.
'It always comes off,' he replied quietly.
She remained standing on the other side of the table while he dealt the
pack into eight small heaps.
When he had turned the cards over and picked them up in pairs--two
aces, two kings, two queens, and so forth--she remarked, 'Yes, you have
managed it all right. But what did you want the cards to tell you?'
Rougon slowly raised his eyes as though surprised at the question.
'What kind of weather we shall have to-morrow,' he said at length.
Then he began to deal the cards afresh. Delestang and M. Béjuin had
now ceased talking, and the silence was only broken by pretty Madame
Bouchard's rippling laugh. Clorinde stepped up to a window and stood
there for a moment peering into the deepening twilight.
'Is there any news of poor Monsieur Kahn?' she asked, without turning
her head.
'I've had a letter from him,' said Rougon. 'I am expecting him this
evening.'
Then the conversation turned upon M. Kahn's ill-fortune. During the
last session of the Corps Législatif, he had been imprudent enough
to criticise a government bill rather sharply, as, by authorising a
very dangerous competition in a neighbouring district, it threatened
the Bressuire blast-furnaces with ruin. In this, M. Kahn had not for
a moment imagined that he had exceeded the bounds of permissible
opposition; but on going down to Deux-Sèvres, to prepare for his
re-election, he had been informed by the prefect himself that he was
no longer the official candidate. He had lost favour, and the minister
had just nominated a Niort attorney, a man of most mediocre abilities.
This, of course, was a crushing blow.
Rougon was giving particulars of the matter, when M. Kahn himself came
into the room, followed by Du Poizat. They had both arrived by the
seven o'clock train, and had only taken sufficient time to dine before
coming on to Rougon's.
'Well, what do you think of it?' said M. Kahn, standing in the middle
of the room, while everyone pressed round him. 'Fancy me being a
revolutionist!'
Du Poizat had thrown himself into an easy chair with a weary air. 'A
nice campaign!' he cried. 'A pretty muddle! It's enough to disgust all
decent people!'
However, the company insisted upon M. Kahn telling them the story in
detail. He related that on his arrival in Deux-Sèvres he had noticed a
sort of embarrassment among even his best friends. The prefect of the
department, M. de Langlade, was a man of dissolute character, whom he
accused of paying attentions to the wife of the new deputy, the Niort
attorney. However, this Langlade had told him of the disfavour into
which he had fallen in a kind enough fashion while they were smoking
their cigars after a breakfast at the prefecture. Then M. Kahn repeated
the conversation which had passed between himself and M. de Langlade.
The worst of the matter, said he, was that his addresses and other
bills were already being printed. He had felt so indignant at first
that he had been inclined to stand all the same.
'Ah! if you hadn't written to us,' interposed Du Poizat, turning to
Rougon, 'we should have taught the government a pretty lesson!'
Rougon shrugged his shoulders. 'You would have failed, and have
compromised yourselves for ever,' said he, as he shuffled his cards.
'That would have been a fine feat!'
'I don't know what you're made of!' retorted Du Poizat, jumping up with
a gesture of indignation. 'For my part, that fellow Marsy is getting
past all bearing. It was you that he was aiming at when he struck our
friend Kahn. Have you seen his circulars to the prefects? A pretty
business his elections have been! He settled them all with bits of
rhetoric! Don't smile! If you had been Minister of the Interior, you
would have managed matters in a very different fashion.'
Then, seeing that Rougon still smiled as he looked at him, he added
yet more violently: 'We were on the spot and saw the whole business.
One unlucky fellow, an old comrade of mine, had the temerity to come
forward as a Republican candidate. You can't imagine the abominable way
in which he was treated. The prefect, the mayors, the gendarmes, the
whole clique, fell foul of him. They defaced and tore his bills and
threw his bulletins into the ditches; they arrested the few poor devils
who distributed his circulars; and they couldn't even leave his poor
aunt alone, a most estimable woman, who was obliged to beg him not to
come to her house any more, as he only compromised her. And as for the
newspapers, they spoke of him as though he were a cut-throat, and now,
whenever he passes through a village, all the women cross themselves.'
Du Poizat noisily drew breath, then flung himself into his chair again
and continued: 'Well, although Marsy has got a majority in all the
departments, Paris at any rate has returned five opposition deputies.
That's the awakening. If the Emperor goes on leaving power in the
hands of that big coxcomb of a minister and those wanton prefects, who
send husbands off to the Chamber so that they may make love to their
wives, why, in five years from now the Empire will be on the verge of
ruin. For my part, I'm delighted with the elections in Paris. They have
avenged us, I think.'
'So, if you had been a prefect----' began Rougon quietly, with such a
slight touch of irony that his thick lips barely curled.
Du Poizat showed his irregular white teeth, and grasped the arms of
his chair with his frail, delicate hands as though he wished to twist
them. 'Oh!' said he, 'if I had been prefect----' But he did not finish.
He again fell back in his chair, and exclaimed: 'It's getting quite
sickening. Besides, in reality, I have always been a Republican.'
The ladies by the window had now turned their heads towards the others,
and were listening to what was being said. M. d'Escorailles held a
large fan, with which he was fanning pretty Madame Bouchard, who looked
quite overcome by the heat. The colonel and M. Bouchard, who had just
commenced a fresh game, ceased playing every now and then to express
their approval or disapproval of what was being said by nodding or
shaking their heads. A wide circle of chairs had been drawn up around
Rougon. Clorinde, listening attentively with her chin resting upon her
hand, did not venture even on a gesture. Delestang, dwelling upon some
tender recollection, sat smiling at his wife; while M. Béjuin, with
his hands clasped on his knees, looked at the ladies and gentlemen in
succession with a scared face. The sudden arrival of Du Poizat and M.
Kahn had stirred up a perfect storm in the quiet drawing-room. They
seemed to have brought with them an odour of opposition.
'Well, in the end I followed your advice and retired,' resumed M. Kahn.
'I was warned that if I persisted I should receive even worse treatment
than the Republican candidate--I who have served the Empire with such
devotion! You must admit that such ingratitude is enough to damp the
enthusiasm of the firmest supporters.'
Then he bitterly complained of a whole string of annoyances and
vexations. He had been anxious to start a newspaper which should
support his scheme of a railway line from Niort to Angers, and which
later on would have become a very useful financial weapon in his hands;
but he had been refused the necessary authorisation. M. de Marsy had
suspected that Rougon was behind him, and that the proposed journal
would be used for attacking his administration.
'They are afraid lest some one should at last write the truth about
them,' said Du Poizat. 'Ah! I would have furnished you with some sweet
articles! It is disgraceful to have such a press as we have, gagged and
threatened with suppression at the first word of complaint it dares
to print. A friend of mine, who is bringing out a novel serially, was
recently summoned to the Ministry, where a head clerk requested him
to change the colour of his hero's waistcoat, as the colour he had
assigned to it was distasteful to the minister. Oh! it's perfectly
true. It's no invention.'
He cited other facts, and told them of terrible stories which
circulated among the people; of the suicides of a young actress and a
relation of the Emperor's, and of an alleged duel between two generals,
one of whom had killed the other, in one of the corridors of the
Tuileries, as the outcome of some story of robbery.[9] 'Would such
stories ever have found any credence if the press had been allowed
to speak freely?' asked Du Poizat; and he added: 'I am a Republican,
decidedly I am.'
'You are very fortunate,' remarked M. Kahn; 'I no longer know what I
am.'
Rougon, bending his broad shoulders, had just then commenced a very
elaborate _réussite_. His aim, after dealing his thirty-two cards three
times, first into seven heaps, then into five, and finally into three,
was to bring the eight clubs together. He seemed completely absorbed in
what he was doing, still he pricked up his ears at certain words.
'The parliamentary system afforded us reliable guarantees,' remarked
the colonel. 'Ah! if we could only have the princes back!'
When his fits of opposition were on, Colonel Jobelin was an Orleanist.
He often recounted the engagement of Mouzaïa, when he had fought by the
side of the Duc d'Aumale, at that time a captain in the fourth regiment
of the Line. 'We all got on very well under Louis Philippe,' he
continued, noticing the silence with which his expression of regret was
received. 'Don't you believe that, if we had a responsible cabinet, our
friend here would be at the head of the government within six months?'
M. Bouchard, however, showed signs of impatience. He professed himself
a Legitimist, probably because his grandfather had had some connection
with the Court in former days. Thus, he and his cousin Jobelin often
had heated discussions upon politics. 'Nonsense!' he exclaimed, 'your
July monarchy only existed by dint of expedients. There is only one
real principle, as you know very well.'