an ecstatic expression on his face, as if lost in a reverie. Madame
Correur wheeled a chair up to Clorinde's side, and M. Kahn and M.
Béjuin, after a little searching, also succeeded in finding seats.
It was not an easy matter to do so, for the five or six chairs were
hidden beneath a litter of dresses and petticoats, so that when Colonel
Jobelin and his son Auguste arrived five minutes later, they had to
remain standing.
'Little one,' said Clorinde to Auguste, whom she still treated quite
familiarly in spite of his seventeen years, 'go and bring two chairs
out of my dressing-room.'
These were cane-seated chairs, with all the varnish worn away by the
damp linen which was constantly hung over their backs. The bedroom
was lighted by a single lamp with a shade of pink paper. There was
another in the dressing-room and a third in the boudoir, which,
seen through the doorways, seemed to be full of dusky shadow, as
though merely illuminated by a night-light. The bedroom itself, with
hangings of a tender mauve that had now turned to a pale grey, was
full of a floating haze, in which one could scarcely distinguish the
rents in the coverings of the easy-chairs, the dust-marks on the
furniture and the big ink-stain in the middle of the carpet where
some inkstand had fallen with such force that even the wainscotting
was splashed. The bed-curtains had been drawn, probably in order to
conceal the untidiness of the bed. And amidst this hazy gloom, there
rose a powerful scent as though all the bottles and flasks in the
dressing-room had remained uncorked. Clorinde obstinately refused to
have any of the windows open, even in warm weather.
'What a nice scent you've got here,' said Madame Correur,
complimentarily.
'Oh, it's I who smell so nice,' the young woman naïvely replied.
Then she began to talk of the essences which she obtained direct from
the perfumer to the Sultanas, and even held her arm under Madame
Correur's nose. Her black velvet blouse had got a little disarranged,
and her feet, in their little red slippers, showed below it. Pozzo,
languid and intoxicated by the strong perfumes which she exhaled, was
tapping his instrument gently with his thumb.
However, after a few minutes, the conversation turned of necessity
on Rougon, as was invariably the case every Thursday and Sunday. The
band seemed to come together for the sole purpose of discussing this
one everlasting subject. Its members felt an ever-growing rancour
against the great man, a craving to relieve themselves by ceaseless
recrimination. Clorinde no longer had any trouble to set them
going. They always arrived with a fresh burden of grievances, ever
discontented and jealous, actually embittered by what Rougon had done
for them, and burning with a violent fever of ingratitude.
'Have you seen the fat man to-day?' the colonel asked.
Rougon was no longer 'the great man.'
'No,' said Clorinde; 'but we may see him here this evening. My husband
persists in bringing him to see me.'
'I was in a café this afternoon, where they were criticising him very
severely,' the colonel continued, after a pause. 'They say that his
position is very shaky, and that he won't last another two months.'
M. Kahn made a gesture of contempt. 'Well, for my part,' he said,
'I don't give him three weeks. Rougon, you see, is not cut out for
governing He is too fond of power, and gets intoxicated with it; and
then he strikes out right and left and treats people with revolting
harshness. During these last five months he has been guilty of some
most monstrous acts.'
'Yes, yes, indeed,' the colonel interrupted; 'all kinds of injustices
and unfairnesses and absurdities. He abuses his power, most certainly
he does.'
Madame Correur said nothing, but expressed, by a gesture, her opinion
that Rougon's head was not particularly well balanced.
'Ah, yes, indeed,' said M. Kahn, noticing the gesture. 'He hasn't got a
well-fixed head, has he?'
Then M. Béjuin observed that the others were looking at him, and felt
called upon to say something. 'No! Rougon's not at all an able man,' he
remarked; 'not at all.'
Clorinde lay back on her pillows, gazing at the luminous circle which
the lamp cast on the ceiling, and letting the others talk on. When they
paused, she said, with the intention of starting them again: 'There
is no doubt that he has abused his power, but he asserts that the
things with which people reproach him were done for the sole purpose
of obliging his friends. I was talking to him on the subject the other
day. The services which he has rendered you----'
'Rendered us! rendered us!' they all cried furiously. And they went on
talking all together, eager to protest against any such insinuation.
However, M. Kahn shouted the others down.
'The services which he has rendered me! That's a fine joke! I had to
wait two years for my railway grant, with the result that the prospects
of the scheme, once very brilliant, have suffered considerably. If he
is such a friend of mine, why doesn't he come to my assistance now?
I asked him to obtain the Emperor's sanction to a bill authorising
the amalgamation of my company with the Western Company, and he told
me that I must wait. Rougon's services to me, indeed! Well, I should
like to know what they are! He has never done anything for me, and he
_can't_ do anything now!'
'And I, and I, do you imagine that I am indebted to him for anything?'
cried the colonel, breaking in before Madame Correur could speak. 'He
surely doesn't take any credit to himself for that commander's cross,
which had been promised to me for five years and more? He has taken
Auguste into his office, it is true; but I bitterly regret now that I
ever let the boy go there. If I had put him into business he would have
been earning twice as much. That wretched Rougon told me only yesterday
that he would not be able to increase Auguste's pay for another
eighteen months. That is the way he ruins his credit for the sake of
his friends!'
At last Madame Correur also was able to relieve her feelings. 'Did he
mention my name?' she said, bending towards Clorinde. 'I never asked
that much from him; and have yet to learn the nature of his services to
me. He can't say as much with regard to my services to him; and if I
liked to talk----But no matter. I certainly asked him for a few favours
on behalf of my friends. I don't deny that. I delight in being of use
to anyone. But I must say that everything he has a hand in turns out
badly, and that his favours seem to bring ill-luck. There's that poor
Herminie Billecoq, an old pupil of Saint Denis, who was wronged by an
officer, and for whom Rougon procured a dowry. Well, the poor girl came
to me with a dreadful story this morning. There's no chance of her
getting married after all, for the officer has absconded, taking the
dowry with him. And you understand me. Anything that Rougon has done at
my request has been done for others, and not for myself. When I came
back from Coulonges, after the settlement of my brother's affairs, I
went to tell him of the tricks that Madame Martineau had been playing
with respect to the division of the property. I wanted the house in
which I was born as part of my share, but the wretched woman contrived
to keep it herself. Well, do you know what was the only answer I could
get from Rougon? He told me three times over that he couldn't trouble
himself any further about the miserable business!'
While Madame Correur was speaking, M. Béjuin, in his turn, had begun to
show signs of excitement, and he now stammered: 'I am exactly in the
same position as Madame. I have never asked Rougon for anything--never,
never! Anything that he may have done has been done in spite of me,
and without my knowing anything about it. He avails himself of one's
silence to take every advantage of one, yes, every advantage.'
His words died away in a mutter; and then all four remained for a
moment silently wagging their heads.
Presently M. Kahn resumed, in a solemn voice: 'The truth of the matter
is this. Rougon is an ungrateful fellow. You all remember how we
used to scour Paris, working to get him back into office. We devoted
ourselves to his cause to such a point as to take our meals anywhere
and anyhow. And he then contracted a debt towards us which in his
whole lifetime he could not fairly discharge. Now, however, he finds
gratitude too heavy a burden for him, and so he casts us adrift. Well,
we might have expected as much!'
'Yes, yes, indeed,' cried the others. 'He owes everything to us, and
he's repaying us in a pretty fashion.'
Then for a while they completely overwhelmed Rougon with an enumeration
of all the things they had done for him; whenever one of them became
silent another brought forward some still more crushing detail.
The colonel, however, suddenly felt uneasy about Auguste, who had
disappeared from the bedchamber. Just then a peculiar noise was heard
in the dressing-room--a sort of gentle, continuous dabbling sound--and
the colonel hurried off to see what it could be. He then found Auguste
apparently much interested in the bath, which Antonia had forgotten to
empty. Some slices of lemon, which Clorinde had used for her nails,
were floating on the water, and these Auguste was inquisitively
examining.
'The boy is quite a nuisance,' murmured Clorinde. 'He goes poking about
everywhere.'
'Really, now,' said Madame Correur, who seemed to have been waiting for
the colonel's absence, 'the thing in which Rougon is most deficient
is tact. Between ourselves, I may say, now that the gallant colonel
can't hear us, that it was a great mistake on Rougon's part to take
that young man into his office in defiance of the regulations. That is
not the kind of service a man ought to render to his friends. It only
brings him into discredit.'
However, Clorinde interrupted her. 'Do go, my dear madam,' said she,
'and see what they're doing in the bathroom.'
M. Kahn had begun to smile, and, when Madame Correur left the room, he
also lowered his voice and put in a word. 'How fine it is to hear her
talk,' he said. 'The colonel has, no doubt, been well looked after by
Rougon, but she herself has no reason to complain. Rougon absolutely
compromised himself on her account in that troublesome Martineau
business. He showed himself very deficient in morality in that matter.
Nobody ought to kill a man for the mere sake of pleasing an old friend,
ought he?'
Then M. Kahn got up and began to stroll about the room, and ultimately
he went back to the ante-room to get his cigar-case, which he had left
in his overcoat. At that moment the colonel and Madame Correur came
back.
'Hallo! has Kahn gone?' exclaimed the colonel; and, without any
transition, he went on: 'Well, we others may have a right to run down
Rougon, but Kahn, in my opinion, ought to remain dumb. I don't like
heartless people. Just now I kept from saying anything, but in a café
where I was this afternoon it was openly said that Rougon was falling
through having lent his name to that swindling railway line from Niort
to Angers. A man ought not to make such a blunder as that! To think of
that big fat imbecile firing mines and delivering speeches a mile long,
and even trying to make the Emperor responsible for the success of the
line! Ah! it's Kahn, my good friends, who's made a mess of it for all
of us! Don't you agree with me, Béjuin?'
M. Béjuin briskly nodded his head. He had already agreed with Madame
Correur and M. Kahn. Meanwhile, Clorinde, still reclining on the couch,
was amusing herself with biting the tassel of her girdle, which she
kept drawing over her face, as though she wanted to tickle herself. Her
eyes were wide open and smiling at the ceiling.
'Hush!' she said, all at once.
M. Kahn was just coming back, biting off the end of a cigar between his
teeth. He lighted it and blew out two or three big puffs of smoke, for
smoking was allowed in Clorinde's bedroom. Then, resuming the previous
conversation, he said: 'Well, if Rougon asserts that he has weakened
his power by serving us, I can truthfully declare that we have been
dreadfully compromised by his patronage. He has such a rough, brutal
way of pushing one forward that it's no wonder if one breaks one's
nose against a wall. However, as a result of all these violent ways of
his, he's now tumbling down again. For my part, I feel no desire to
help to pick him up any more. If a man can't preserve his own credit,
there must be something wrong with him. I tell you that he is seriously
compromising us. I have got heavy enough responsibilities as it is, and
I give him up.'
While saying this, however, M. Kahn spoke hesitatingly, and his
voice grew faint. Madame Correur and the colonel bent their heads to
escape the necessity of declaring themselves in the same peremptory
fashion. In spite of everything, Rougon was still in office, and before
abandoning him they wanted to secure some other powerful patron.
'The fat man isn't everybody,' said Clorinde carelessly.
At this they all looked at her, hoping that she was going to give them
some formal promise. But she made a little gesture, as though to bid
them have patience. This tacit hint of some new patronage which would
shower benefits upon them was really the mainspring of their assiduous
attendance at the young woman's Sundays and Thursdays. Among the strong
odours of her room they scented a coming triumph; and, believing that
they had exhausted Rougon in obtaining the satisfaction of their early
desires, they looked forward to the advent of some new power that
should realise their more recent dreams, which were far greater and
more numerous than the others had been.
However, Clorinde at last raised herself up from her pillows, and,
bending towards Pozzo, she blew into his neck, laughing loudly as she
did so, as though thrilled with some wild impulse of merriment. When
she felt pleased she often gave way to some such outburst of childish
gaiety. Pozzo, whose hand seemed to have gone to sleep on his guitar,
threw back his picturesque Italian head and showed his white teeth when
he was thus roused, but Clorinde went on laughing and blowing with such
force that at last he begged for mercy. Then, when she had scolded him
in Italian, she turned towards Madame Correur. 'He must sing to us,
mustn't he?' she said. 'If he will sing I won't blow any more. He has
composed a very pretty song. You will like it.'
They all asked to hear the song, and Pozzo began to finger his guitar
again. Then he sang, keeping his eyes fixed upon Clorinde all the time.
The song was like a passionate murmur accompanied by short soft notes.
The tremulous Italian words could not be distinguished; however, at
the last couplet, which seemed to be expressive of the pains of love,
Pozzo, while assuming a very mournful tone, began to smile with an
expression of mingled joy and despair. When he finished, his audience
enthusiastically applauded him. Why didn't he publish those charming
songs of his? they asked. Surely his position in the diplomatic service
could be no impediment.
'I once knew a captain who brought out a comic opera,' said Colonel
Jobelin; 'and nobody in the regiment thought any the worse of him for
it.'
'Ah, but in the diplomatic service----' murmured Madame Correur,
shaking her head.
'Oh, I think you are wrong there,' remarked M. Kahn. 'Diplomatists are
like other men, and many of them cultivate the social arts.'
However, Clorinde touched Pozzo lightly with her foot and whispered
something to him, and thereupon the young man rose, laid his guitar
on a heap of clothes, and left the room. When he returned, some five
minutes afterwards, he was followed by Antonia, carrying a tray on
which were a water-bottle and some glasses. Pozzo himself held a
sugar-basin for which there was no room on the tray. Nothing stronger
than sugared water was ever drunk at Clorinde's receptions, and her
friends knew that she was well pleased if they simply took the water by
itself.
'Hallo! what's that?' she suddenly exclaimed, turning towards the
dressing-room, where a door could be heard creaking. Then, as though
remembering, she added: 'Oh, it's my mother! She's been in bed.'
It was, indeed, Countess Balbi; who made her appearance in a black
woollen dressing-gown, with a piece of lace tied round her head.
Flaminio, the big footman with the long beard and brigand's face, was
supporting her from behind, almost carrying her, in fact, in his arms.
However, she did not appear to have aged, her pale face still smiled
with the smile of one who had been a queen of beauty.
'Wait a moment, mother!' exclaimed Clorinde, 'I'll give you this couch.
I'll lie down on the bed. I'm not feeling very well. I've got an insect
inside me; and it's begun to bite me again.'
There was a general movement. Pozzo and Madame Correur assisted the
young woman to her bed. They had to turn down the coverings, and
flatten the pillows. Countess Balbi, meantime, lay down on the couch
while Flaminio remained standing behind her, black and silent, though
glaring ferociously at the visitors.
'You don't mind my lying down, do you?' said Clorinde to the others.
'I feel so much better when I'm lying down. I'm not going to send you
away. You must stay where you are.'
She was stretched out at full length, her elbow resting on a pillow,
while her spreading black blouse looked like a stream of ink upon
the white counterpane. Nobody had had any idea of going away. Madame
Correur was talking in a whisper to Pozzo about Clorinde's superb
figure, while M. Kahn, M. Béjuin and the colonel paid their respects
to the Countess, who nodded her head and smiled. Every now and then,
without turning round, she would call in a soft voice: 'Flaminio!'
The tall footman knew what she meant, and at once raised a cushion or
brought a stool, or took a scent bottle from his pocket, retaining,
however, in all he did the ferocious air of a brigand in evening dress.
All at once Auguste happened to have an accident. After prowling
through the three rooms, stopping to examine all the garments that were
lying about, he had felt a little bored, and to amuse himself had begun
to drink glassful after glassful of sugared-water. Clorinde kept her
eye upon him, watching the sugar-basin gradually empty, when suddenly
the youth broke his glass, against the side of which he had been
pressing his spoon too violently.
'It's all because he puts too much sugar in!' cried Clorinde.
'Dunderhead!' exclaimed the colonel. 'You can't even drink water
rationally! One big glassful every morning and every evening, that's
the way. There is nothing better. It keeps away all diseases.'
Fortunately there was a diversion, for M. Bouchard now made his
appearance. It was past ten o'clock. He had dined in town, which had
caused him to be a little late. He seemed surprised at not finding
his wife there. 'Monsieur d'Escorailles said he would bring her,' he
remarked, 'and I promised to call for her and take her home.' Half
an hour later Madame Bouchard at length arrived, accompanied by M.
d'Escorailles and M. La Rouquette. After a coolness which had lasted a
year, the young Marquis had returned to his allegiance to the pretty
blonde. He and she, it appeared, had met M. La Rouquette as they were
driving in an open cab to the Delestangs', and thereupon they had all
three gone on to the Bois together, laughing loudly and indulging in
somewhat broad pleasantries; indeed, M. d'Escorailles had even fancied
for a moment that the deputy's arm was behind Madame Bouchard's waist.
The trio brought a whiff of gaiety into Clorinde's room, something of
the fresh air of the dark avenues of the Bois along which they had just
passed so merrily.
'Yes, we've been to the lake,' said M. La Rouquette. 'They insisted
upon taking me off. I was quietly going home to work.'
Then he suddenly became serious. During the previous session he
had made a speech upon a financial question after a whole month's
special study of his subject, and since then he had affected a very
steady-going air, as though he had buried all his youthful frivolities.
'By the way,' began Kahn, taking him to the end of the room, 'you who
are on such good terms with Marsy----'
Then he continued in such a low tone that nothing further could be
heard. Pretty Madame Bouchard, who had bowed to the Countess, was now
sitting beside the bed, holding Clorinde's hand, and sympathising with
her in a fluty voice. Meantime, M. Bouchard, who remained standing in a
prim and dignified attitude, suddenly began to speak aloud amidst all
the surrounding buzz of conversation, 'I have something to tell you,'
he said, 'our fat man is a nice sort of fellow.'
Before explaining himself, however, he began to rail at Rougon as
the others had done. It was now impossible, he said, to ask him for
anything, for he could not even return a polite answer; and he, M.
Bouchard, considered that politeness came before everything. Then as
they continued to ask him what Rougon had done, he at last told them.
'I can't bear injustice,' said he. 'I spoke to him about one of the
clerks in my division. Georges Duchesne; you know him, don't you?
You've met him at my house. Well, he's a young fellow of sterling
merit, and we treat him as though he were our own son. My wife is very
fond of him, as he comes from the same part of the country as herself.
Well, we had lately been scheming to get Duchesne appointed assistant
head clerk. It was my idea, but you approved of it, didn't you, Adèle?'
Madame Bouchard looked embarrassed, and bent yet more closely to
Clorinde to escape the eyes of M. d'Escorailles, which she felt were
fixed on her.
'Well,' continued the head of department, 'how do you think the fat
man received my request? He glared at me in his offensive way for a
full minute, and then he bluntly refused to make the appointment. When
I pressed the matter, he said to me with a smile: "Monsieur Bouchard,
don't press your request; you distress me. There are very grave reasons
why I cannot accede to it." I couldn't get him to say another word.
He saw, however, that I was very much put out, and so he begged me to
remember him kindly to my wife.'
That very evening, as it happened, Madame Bouchard had had a rather
lively passage of arms with M. d'Escorailles on the subject of this
same Georges Duchesne. 'Oh well!' she now deemed it advisable to say in
a rather petulant voice, 'Monsieur Duchesne will have to wait. I don't
know that we need trouble ourselves about him.'
But her husband seemed quite determined. 'No, no,' he returned; 'he
deserves to be assistant head clerk, and he shall be! My credit is
involved. Oh, I really can't stand injustice!'
He grew so excited that some of the others had to soothe him. Clorinde,
who appeared somewhat absent-minded, was in reality trying to hear the
conversation between M. Kahn and M. La Rouquette, who had ensconced
themselves at the foot of her bed. The former was explaining the state
of his affairs. His great undertaking of a railway line between Niort
and Angers was in a very critical position. The shares had at first
been sold on the Bourse at a premium of eighty francs, before a single
stroke of work had been done. Relying upon his much-talked-of English
company, M. Kahn had indulged in the most reckless speculation, and now
the whole business was on the verge of bankruptcy, and must collapse
unless he could at once obtain some powerful support.
'Some time ago,' he said, 'Marsy offered to bring about a sale of the
concern to the Western Company. For myself I'm quite ready to enter
into negotiations. We should only want to get an Act passed.'
Clorinde heard this, and thereupon quietly beckoned to the two men,
who drew near and began a long conversation with her. Marsy, said the
young woman, bore no spite. She would speak to him on the subject, and
would offer him the million francs for which he had asked, the previous
year, as his price for supporting the grant. His position as President
of the Corps Législatif would make it an easy matter for him to get the
necessary Act passed.
'Marsy's the only man who's of any good in matters of this kind,' she
added with a smile. 'If you try to manage without him, you always have
to call him in later on to patch up the broken pieces.'