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.'