the Empire, and each installed in its place the government of his
particular choice. Would the Orleans family, cried Jobelin, have ever
made the decoration of an old soldier a matter of bargain? Would the
Legitimist kings, retorted Bouchard, ever have been guilty of such
unjust favouritism as was now to be seen every day in the government
offices? Thus they went on till they covertly alluded to one another
as fools, when all at once the colonel, angrily picking up his cards,
exclaimed: 'Make less noise, do you hear, Bouchard, and please attend
to the game!'
Delestang, whom the dispute had awakened from his reverie, now felt
bound to defend the Empire. Certainly, said he, it was not everything
that he could wish. He would have liked a government of broader
sympathies. And he attempted to explain his aspirations, which embraced
a somewhat involved form of socialism, with such desiderata as the
extinction of pauperism and the co-operation of the working classes, a
system, in fact, much like that of his model farm of Chamade, but on a
large scale. While her husband spoke, wagging his handsome head with an
official air, Clorinde kept her eyes on him, and slightly pouted.
'Yes, certainly I'm a Bonapartist,' he repeated; 'a liberal
Bonapartist, if you like.'
'And you, Béjuin?' M. Kahn suddenly inquired.
'Oh, I am one too,' replied M. Béjuin; 'there are shades and
distinctions of course, but I am certainly a Bonapartist.'
Du Poizat burst into a shrill laugh. 'Of course, you are!' he
exclaimed. And as they pressed him to explain himself, he continued:
'Oh! you amuse me. You haven't been turned out, you see. Delestang
is still a member of the Council of State, and Béjuin has just been
re-elected.'
'That was a matter of course,' said Béjuin; 'the prefect of the Cher--'
'Oh, you are not responsible, I don't accuse you. We all know how these
matters are worked. Combelot, too, is re-elected, and La Rouquette
also. So, of course, the Empire is a magnificent institution!'
M. d'Escorailles, who was still fanning pretty Madame Bouchard, now
felt constrained to put in a word. He defended the Empire from another
point of view. He had adhered to it, he said, because it seemed to
him that the Emperor had a grand mission to fulfil. 'The salvation of
France before everything else!'
'You have retained your berth as auditor, haven't you?' asked Du
Poizat, raising his voice. 'Well, then, there's no difficulty in
guessing your opinions. You all seem terribly scandalised by what I'm
saying; but it is a very simple matter. Kahn and I, you see, are no
longer paid to keep our eyes shut.'
At this the others began to show a little temper. It was disgraceful
to take such a view of politics, they said. There were other things
besides personal interests to be considered. Even the colonel and M.
Bouchard, although they were not Bonapartists themselves, admitted that
a man might be a Bonapartist in all good faith; and they waxed hot in
support of their own principles, as though an attempt was being made
to wrench them from them. As for Delestang, he seemed much offended.
He complained that he had been quite misunderstood, and went on to
point out how he differed from the blind partisans of the Empire. This
led him into fresh explanations of the democratic developments which
he thought compatible with the Emperor's government. Then both M.
Béjuin and M. d'Escorailles objected to be looked upon as Bonapartists
pure and simple. They spoke of many different shades of opinion, each
clinging to his own particular, but somewhat vaguely defined, views.
And thus in ten minutes or so the whole company had gone over to the
opposition. Voices rang out in dispute, and such terms as 'Legitimist,'
'Orleanist,' and 'Republican,' were bandied about amidst repeated
declarations of political faith. Madame Rougon looked in at one of the
doors for a moment, as if somewhat uneasy, and then quietly disappeared
again.
Rougon, however, had now just succeeded in getting his clubs into
proper sequence, whereupon Clorinde stooped and asked him amidst the
general uproar: 'Well, have you managed it?'
'Certainly,' he replied, with his quiet smile. Then, as if he had only
just become aware of the war of words that was going on, he shook his
hand, remarking: 'You are making a lot of noise.'
Thinking that he wanted to say something, the others then ceased
talking, and perfect silence ensued. However, while they waited, Rougon
simply spread thirteen cards upon the table, reckoned them over, and
finally, amidst general attention, exclaimed: 'Three queens, the sign
of a quarrel. A dark woman, who is not to be trusted----'
But Du Poizat impatiently interrupted him. 'Well, Rougon, and what is
your opinion?'
The great man thereupon threw himself back in his chair and stretched
his legs, while raising his hand to his mouth to conceal a slight yawn.
And he raised his chin as though his neck were paining him.
'Oh, I,' he said, with his eyes turned to the ceiling, 'I believe in
the principle of authority. It is a necessity with me. It was born
with me. It is very foolish of you to wrangle. In France, whenever one
gets five men together, it is certain that five different kinds of
government are represented. But that doesn't prevent a man from loyally
serving the established government. That is so, is it not? You're
talking just for the sake of talking.'
Then he let his chin drop and glanced slowly round the room, as he
resumed: 'Marsy has managed the elections very well. You did wrong to
blame his circulars. The last one was an extremely good one. And as for
the press, I think that it has too much liberty already. What kind of
state should we be in, if any one could write everything he liked? I
should have taken the same course as Marsy in refusing to grant Kahn
permission to start a newspaper. It is always unwise to provide your
opponents with weapons. Soft-hearted Empires invariably come to grief.
France requires an iron hand, and is none the worse for being grasped a
little tightly.'
Delestang felt bound to protest against this. 'But, at any rate, there
are certain necessary liberties----' he commenced.
Clorinde, however, made him stop. She had expressed her approval of
all Rougon had said by ostentatious nods. She had even brought herself
forward so that he might see her better, submissive and convinced
before him. And it was at her that he cast a quick glance as he
exclaimed: 'Oh, yes! the necessary liberties! I was expecting that they
would be dragged in! Well, if the Emperor took my advice, he would
never grant a single liberty.'
Then as Delestang again showed an inclination to protest, his wife
reduced him to silence by a threatening frown of her beautiful brow.
'_Never_!' repeated Rougon energetically. And he sprang from his chair
and looked so formidable that no one ventured to speak a word. Then,
however, he dropped down again, and his limbs seemed to grow limp as he
muttered: 'You've made me shout as well----However, I'm only a simple
private citizen now, and have no occasion to mix myself up in it all,
thank goodness. Heaven grant that the Emperor may have no further
occasion for my services!'
Just at that moment the door of the drawing-room was opened, and
Rougon, raising his finger to his mouth, added in a whisper: 'Hush!'
It was M. La Rouquette who entered. Rougon suspected that he came to
the Rue Marbeuf at the instigation of his sister, Madame de Llorentz,
to spy upon what went on there. M. de Marsy, although he had only been
married six months, had just renewed his intimacy with this lady,
whose name had been associated with his own for nearly two years. And
so as soon as the young deputy made his appearance, politics were
set aside and the drawing-room resumed its decorous quietude. Rougon
himself went to fetch a large shade which he placed over the lamp, and
then one saw only the withered hands of the colonel and M. Bouchard
throwing down their cards in the circle of yellow light. At the window
Madame Charbonnel was now telling her troubles in a low voice to Madame
Correur, while M. Charbonnel punctuated each detail with a deep sigh.
They would soon have been two years in Paris, the lady was saying
sadly, and their wretched lawsuit seemed as though it would never end.
On the day before she had been obliged to buy herself six new chemises
and her husband six new shirts, having learnt that the matter had been
again adjourned. Somewhat in the rear of this group, near a curtain,
was Madame Bouchard, who had apparently dropped asleep, rendered drowsy
by the heat. M. d'Escorailles approached her again, and then, as no
one was looking, he had the calm impudence to print a kiss upon her
half-closed lips. At this, she opened her eyes, looking very solemn,
but she kept quite still.
'Oh dear, no!' M. La Rouquette was saying just at that moment; 'I
haven't been to the Variétés. I saw the full-dress rehearsal of the
piece. It's a tremendous success; the music is wonderfully gay. It
will draw all Paris. But to-day I had some work to finish, something I
am preparing.'
He had shaken hands with the men, and had gallantly kissed Clorinde's
wrist above her glove. And he remained standing, smiling and leaning
against the back of an arm-chair. He was irreproachably dressed, and
there was an assumption of solemn gravity in the way in which his
frock-coat was buttoned up.
'By-the-bye,' he said, addressing himself to the master of the house,
'_à propos_ of your great work, I should like to call your attention
to a most interesting paper on the English constitution which has
just appeared in a Vienna review. Are you making progress?'
'Oh, I'm getting on very slowly,' Rougon replied. 'I have got to a
chapter which gives me a great deal of trouble.'
As a rule he delighted to make the young deputy talk, for through
him he learnt all that went on at the Tuileries. He felt sure that
La Rouquette had been sent to his house that evening to find out
what he thought about the success of the official candidates, and he
succeeded in worming a large amount of information out of him, though
he himself did not make a remark that was worth repeating. He began
by congratulating the young man upon his own election, and then kept
up the conversation by occasional nods. La Rouquette, who was fond of
talking, rattled on without a pause. The Court was delighted, he said.
The Emperor had learnt the result of the elections, at Plombières, and
it was said that on the arrival of the telegram he had been obliged to
sit down, as his legs gave way with emotion. But there was one great
source of uneasiness amidst the victory. Paris had shown monstrous
ingratitude.
'Pooh! Paris can be muzzled!' said Rougon, stifling another yawn, as
though bored at finding nothing of interest in all M. La Rouquette's
chatter.
Ten o'clock struck, and Madame Rougon, having placed a small round
table in the centre of the room, began to serve the tea. The company
scattered in little groups about the room. M. Kahn was standing cup in
hand in front of Delestang, who never took tea because it affected his
nerves, and was giving him some additional particulars of his journey
to La Vendée. His great scheme for a railway from Niort to Angers was
no further advanced, he said. However, that scamp of a Langlade, the
prefect of Deux-Sèvres, had audaciously availed himself of it to
influence the constituency in favour of the new official candidate.
Meantime. M. La Rouquette, who had slipped behind the ladies, was
whispering remarks which made them smile; while Madame Correur,
screened by a rampart of chairs, talked somewhat excitedly to Du
Poizat. She asked him about her brother Martineau, the notary at
Coulonges, and the other told her that he had seen him for a moment in
front of the church, looking just the same as ever, with his hard face
and solemn air. Then, as she started on her usual recriminations, he
mischievously advised her never to go home again, as Madame Martineau
had sworn she would fling her out of doors. Madame Correur finished her
tea, feeling quite choked.
'Come, my children, it's time to go to bed,' said Rougon paternally.
It was now twenty-five minutes past ten, and he gave them five minutes
longer. Some of the company, however, withdrew at once. Rougon went
to the door with M. Kahn and M. Béjuin, whom Madame Rougon invariably
charged with compliments for their wives, though she saw the ladies
twice a year at the utmost. Then Rougon gently pushed the Charbonnels
towards the door. They were always greatly embarrassed about taking
their leave. And afterwards, as pretty Madame Bouchard was going
off between M. d'Escorailles and M. La Rouquette, he turned to the
card-table and exclaimed: 'Come, Monsieur Bouchard, they are carrying
off your wife!'
But the chief-clerk, without appearing to hear, went on calling out his
points: 'A major quint in clubs! That's good, eh? Three kings; they are
good too.'
However, Rougon gathered up the cards. 'Come, you've had enough!' said
he. 'Get away home with you. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for
getting so excited over it. Come, colonel, come.'
It was just the same every Thursday and Sunday. He had to stop them in
the middle of a game, and sometimes even turn the lamp out before they
would give up their play. And they went off, disputing with each other.
Delestang and Clorinde were the last to go, and while her husband was
hunting about the room for her fan, the young woman said to Rougon in
an undertone: 'It is foolish of you not to take a little exercise; you
will make yourself ill.'
However he made a gesture of indifference and resignation: Madame
Rougon was already gathering together the cups and teaspoons. Then as
Delestang shook hands with him, the great man frankly yawned in his
face. In order, however, that they might not think his evening had
bored him, he excused himself by saying: 'Ah! dash it, I shall sleep
well to-night.'
The evenings always passed away in this manner. There was a sombre
atmosphere about the room, and Du Poizat even said that 'it smelt
too much of cant.' Clorinde called very frequently. She often came
by herself in the afternoon to fulfil some commission with which she
had charged herself. She would playfully tell Madame Rougon that she
had come to make love to her husband, and the wife, with a smile
on her pale lips, would leave them together for hours at a time.
They conversed familiarly, without appearing to recollect the past,
exchanging friendly grasps of the hand in the very room where but a
year before Rougon had paced up and down, so restless with passion. But
they seemed to have forgotten all that, and gave themselves up to quiet
friendship. Rougon would push back the young woman's straying hair,
which always seemed to be blowing loose, or help her with the train of
her dress, which was invariably very long and apt to become entangled
among the chairs. One day, as they went through the garden, she had
the curiosity to push the stable-door open. She even entered, giving a
glance at Rougon and laughing lightly. But he merely remarked with a
smile, as he stood with his hands in his pockets: 'How foolish people
can be sometimes!'
Whenever she came to see him, he always gave her good advice. He spoke
much in favour of Delestang, who, on the whole, made a very good
husband. Clorinde said that she had great esteem for him, and he did
not appear to have any cause of complaint against her. She said that
she never flirted, and this was quite true. Her slightest remarks
seemed tinged with indifference, almost with contempt, for men. When
any one spoke of a woman with more lovers than could be counted, an
expression of surprise would come into her big child-like eyes, and she
would ask what pleasure any one could find in such conduct. For weeks
together she seemed unconscious of her beauty, and only recollected it
in some emergency, when she availed herself of it as a weapon. One day
when Rougon, who harped upon the subject with singular pertinacity,
was advising her to keep faithful to Delestang, she ended by getting
angry and exclaiming: 'Oh, leave me alone. I'm quite aware of all
you're saying. Really, you are becoming offensive.' And on another day
she added bluntly: 'After all, it is no concern of yours.'
Rougon blushed, and for some time afterwards said nothing more on
the subject of her duties and the proprieties. A persistent thrill
of jealousy was all that now remained to him of his old passion. He
watched her in the drawing-rooms which she frequented; and, if he had
scented any intrigue, he would probably have warned her husband. As a
matter of fact, when he was alone with the latter, he did try to put
him on his guard, by speaking of his wife's extraordinary beauty. But
Delestang always laughed with an air of fatuous confidence, and it
was Rougon who really endured all the jealous torments of a betrayed
husband.
His other counsels, practical ones, testified to his great affection
for Clorinde. It was he who by degrees persuaded her to send her mother
back to Italy. Countess Balbi, left alone in her little house in the
Champs Élysées, had begun to lead a careless life which gave rise to
much talk. Rougon took upon himself to settle the delicate question of
an allowance. The house was next sold, and thus the young woman's past
was wiped out. Then Rougon tried to cure her of her eccentricities,
but in this matter he found himself confronted by utter _naïveté_ and
resolute feminine obstinacy. Clorinde, now that she was married and
wealthy, squandered money lavishly, though she was subject to sudden
impulses of sordid avarice. She had kept her little maid, the dusky
Antonia, who sucked oranges from morning till night; and between them
they made an abominable mess of Clorinde's rooms in the big house in
the Rue du Colisée. When Rougon went to see the young woman, he would
find dirty plates on the chairs, and bottles of syrup strewn along
the floor beside the wall. Beneath the furniture too he could espy an
untidy accumulation of things which had been hastily thrust out of
sight when he was announced.
And amidst the greasy hangings and soiled, dusty wood-work, Clorinde
still indulged in the most extraordinary caprices. She would often
receive her friends wrapt round with a rug, and lying on a couch,
while complaining of the strangest disorders--of a dog, for instance,
which was gnawing at her foot, or of a pin which she had accidentally
swallowed, and the point of which must be trying to force its way
out through her leg. At other times she would close the shutters at
three o'clock in the afternoon, light all the candles, and begin to
dance with Antonia, the one facing the other, and indulging in such
paroxysms of laughter that when Rougon arrived the maid had to stand
panting by the door for five minutes before she could leave the room.
One day too Clorinde determined to remain invisible; she sewed her bed
curtains together from top to bottom; and sat up on the bolster inside
the cage she had thus formed, talking to Rougon for more than an hour,
as calmly as though they had been sitting on either side of the fire.
These extravagancies seemed quite natural to her. When Rougon chided
her for them, she appeared quite surprised, and declared that she was
doing nothing improper. It was in vain that he preached propriety to
her, and promised to make her the most fascinating woman in Paris in a
month's time, if she would let herself be guided by him; she only grew
angry, and exclaimed: 'It's my nature to be like this; I always go on
like this. What harm does it do anybody?' And sometimes she would smile
and say: 'Oh, well, people love me all the same! Don't preach!'
Delestang, indeed, worshipped her. To him she was quite unlike a wife,
but for that very reason exercised the more influence. He shut his eyes
to her caprices, smitten with a terrible fear lest she should leave
him, as she had one day threatened to do. Beneath his meek submission
there was probably a feeling that she was his superior, well able to do
whatever she liked with him. In society he treated her almost like a
child, and spoke to her with the complacency of a serious man. But when
they were by themselves, this handsome fellow, with the haughty head,
would burst into tears if she would not let him kiss her. The only
check he put upon her was to take possession of the keys of the first
floor rooms, in order that the reception apartments might be kept free
from grease and dirt.
Rougon, though he failed in some things, managed to induce Clorinde
to dress a little more like other people. With all her failings she
was very shrewd, with the shrewdness of those lunatics who in lucid
intervals manage to appear perfectly rational before strangers. He met
her at certain houses, looking very demure and reserved, allowing her
husband to do all the talking, and remaining quite decorous amidst the
admiration excited by her beauty. At her own house, Rougon frequently
found M. de Plouguern, and Clorinde would sit between them making
playful remarks, while they poured forth moral disquisitions for her
benefit. Sometimes the old senator would familiarly pat the girl's
cheeks, much to Rougon's annoyance, though he never ventured to express
what he thought on the subject. He was more courageous with regard to
Luigi Pozzo, Chevalier Rusconi's secretary, whom he had frequently
noticed leaving the house at unusual hours. When he hinted to the young
woman that this might compromise her very seriously, she raised her
eyes with a pretty look of surprise, and burst out laughing. She didn't
care for what people thought, she cried. Besides, Luigi counted for
nothing. He was her cousin, and he brought her little Milanese cakes,
which he purchased for her in the Passage Colbert.
It was with politics, however, that Clorinde's mind was chiefly
occupied. Since she had married Delestang, her brain had been busy with
deep and intricate matters, of which no one knew the importance. She
found in them, however, a means of satisfying her craving for intrigue,
which had so long found scope in her attempts to ensnare those whom she
thought to be coming men; and she seemed to be preparing herself in
this way for some yet greater schemes which she had in contemplation.
She kept up a regular correspondence with her mother, who was now
settled at Turin; and went almost every day to the Sardinian legation,
where Chevalier Rusconi took her apart, and talked to her in low tones.
Then too she went on mysterious errands to all parts of Paris, making
furtive visits to great personages, and keeping appointments in the
most out-of-the-way places. All the Venetian refugees, the Brambillas,
and the Staderinos, and the Viscardis, came to see her secretly, and
gave her scraps of paper covered with memoranda. She had bought a large
red morocco case, a genuine ministerial portfolio with a steel lock,
and in it she stowed away a wonderful collection of documents. When
she drove out, she kept it on her knees like a muff; and wherever she
called she carried it about with her under her arm; and she might even
be met early in the morning, on foot, clasping it against her breast
with both her hands. The case soon began to look worn, and it split at
the seams. Then she buckled straps round it. And ever laden as she was
with this shapeless leather case bursting with papers, she looked like
some money-grubbing solicitor running from one police-court to another
in the hope of picking up a petty fee.