So soon as the fish was served, skate of doubtful freshness with black
butter, which that bungler Adèle had drowned in a flood of vinegar,
Hortense and Berthe, seated on the right and left of uncle Bachelard,
incited him to drink, filling his glass one after the other, and
repeating:
“It’s your saint’s-day, drink now, drink! Here’s your health, uncle!”
They had plotted together to make him give them twenty francs. Every
year, their provident mother placed them thus on either side of her
brother, abandoning him to them. But it was a difficult task, and
required all the greediness of two girls prompted by dreams of Louis
XV. shoes and five button gloves. To get him to give the twenty francs,
it was necessary to make the uncle completely drunk. He was ferociously
miserly whenever he found himself amongst his relations, though out of
doors he squandered in crapulous boozes the eighty thousand francs he
made each year out of his commission business. Fortunately, that
evening, he was already half fuddled when he arrived, having passed the
afternoon with the wife of a dyer of the Faubourg Montmartre, who kept
a stock of Marseilles vermouth expressly for him.
“Your health, my little ducks!” replied he each time, with his thick
husky voice, as he emptied his glass.
Covered with jewellery, a rose in his button-hole, enormous in build,
he filled the middle of the table, with his broad shoulders of a
boozing and brawling tradesman, who has wallowed in every vice. His
false teeth lit up with too harsh a whiteness his ravaged face, the big
red nose of which blazed beneath the snowy crest of his short cropped
hair; and, now and again, his eyelids dropped of themselves over his
pale and misty eyes. Gueulin, the son of one of his wife’s sisters,
affirmed that his uncle had not been sober during the ten years he had
been a widower.
“Narcisse, a little skate, I can recommend it,” said Madame Josserand,
smiling at her brother’s tipsy condition, though at heart it made her
feel rather disgusted.
She was sitting opposite to him, having little Gueulin on her left, and
another young man on her right, Hector Trublot, to whom she was
desirous of showing some politeness. She usually took advantage of
family gatherings like the present to get rid of certain invitations
she had to return; and it was thus that a lady living in the house,
Madame Juzeur, was also present, seated next to Monsieur Josserand. As
the uncle behaved very badly at table, and it was the expectation of
his fortune alone which enabled them to put up with him without
absolute disgust, she only had intimate acquaintances to meet him or
else persons whom she thought it was no longer worth while trying to
dazzle. For instance, she had at one time thought of finding a
son-in-law in young Trublot, who was employed at a stockbroker’s,
whilst waiting till his father, a wealthy man, purchased him a share in
the business; but, Trublot having professed a determined objection to
matrimony, she no longer stood upon ceremony with him, even placing him
next to Saturnin, who had never known how to eat decently. Berthe, who
always had a seat beside her brother, was commissioned to subdue him
with a look, whenever he put his fingers too much into the gravy.
After the fish came a meat pie, and the young ladies thought the moment
arrived to commence their attack.
“Take another glass, uncle!” said Hortense. “It is your saint’s day.
Don’t you give anything when it’s your saint’s-day?”
“Dear me! why of course,” added Berthe naively. “People always give
something on their saint’s-day. You must give us twenty francs.”
On hearing them speak of money, Bachelard at once exaggerated his tipsy
condition. It was his usual dodge; his eyelids dropped, and he became
quite idiotic.
“Eh? what?” stuttered he.
“Twenty francs. You know very well what twenty francs are, it is no use
your pretending you don’t,” resumed Berthe. “Give us twenty francs, and
we will love you, oh! we will love you so much!”
They threw their arms round his neck, called him the most endearing
names, and kissed his inflamed face without the least repugnance for
the horrid odour of debauchery which he exhaled. Monsieur Josserand,
whom these continual fumes of absinthe, tobacco and musk upset, had a
feeling of disgust on seeing his daughters’ virgin charms rubbing up
against those infamies gathered in the vilest places.
“Leave him alone!” cried he.
“Why?” asked Madame Josserand, giving her husband a terrible look.
“They are amusing themselves. If Narcisse wishes to give them twenty
francs, he is quite at liberty to do so.”
“Monsieur Bachelard is so good to them!” complacently murmured little
Madame Juzeur.
But the uncle struggled, becoming more idiotic than ever, and
repeating, with his mouth full of saliva:
“It’s funny. I don’t know, word of honour! I don’t know.”
Then, Hortense and Berthe, exchanging a glance, released him. No doubt
he had not had enough to drink. And they again resorted to filling his
glass, laughing like courtesans who intend robbing a man. Their bare
arms, of an adorable youthful plumpness, kept passing every minute
under the uncle’s big flaming nose.
Meanwhile, Trublot, like a quiet fellow who takes his pleasures alone,
was watching Adèle as she turned heavily round the table. Being very
short-sighted he thought her pretty, with her pronounced Breton
features and her hair the colour of dirty hemp. When she brought in the
roast, a piece of veal, she leant right over his shoulder, to reach the
centre of the table; and he, pretending to pick up his napkin, gave her
a good pinch on the calf of her leg. The servant, not understanding,
looked at him, as though he had asked her for some bread.
“What is it?” said Madame Josserand. “Did she knock against you, sir?
Oh! that girl! she is so awkward! But, you know, she is quite new to
the work; she will be better when she has had a little training.”
“No doubt, there is no harm done,” replied Trublot, stroking his bushy
black beard with the serenity of a young Indian god.
The conversation was becoming more animated in the diningroom, at first
icy cold, and now gradually warming with the fumes of the dishes.
Madame Juzeur was once more confiding to Monsieur Josserand the
dreariness of her thirty years of solitary existence. She raised her
eyes to heaven, and contented herself with this discreet allusion to
the drama of her life: her husband had left her after ten days of
married bliss, and no one knew why; she said nothing more. Now, she
lived by herself in a lodging that was as soft as down and always
closed, and which was frequented by priests.
“It is so sad, at my age!” murmured she languishingly, cutting up her
veal with delicate gestures.
“A very unfortunate little woman,” whispered Madame Josserand in
Trublot’s ear, with an air of profound sympathy.
But Trublot glanced indifferently at this clear-eyed devotee, so full
of reserve and hidden meanings. She was not his style.
Then there was a regular panic. Saturnin, whom Berthe was not watching
so closely, being too busy with her uncle, had amused himself by
cutting up his meat into various designs on his plate. This poor
creature exasperated his mother, who was both afraid and ashamed of
him; she did not know how to get rid of him, not daring through pride
to make a workman of him, after having sacrificed him to his sisters by
having removed him from the school where his slumbering intelligence
was too long awakening; and, during the years he had been hanging about
the house, useless and stinted, she was in a constant state of fright
whenever she had to let him appear before company. Her pride suffered
cruelly.
“Saturnin!” cried she.
But Saturnin began to chuckle, delighted with the mess he had made in
his plate. He did not respect his mother, but called her roundly a
great liar and a horrid nuisance, with the perspicacity of madmen who
think out loud. Things certainly seemed to be going wrong. He would
have thrown his plate at her head, if Berthe, reminded of her duties,
had not looked him straight in the face. He tried to resist; then the
fire in his eyes died out; he remained gloomy and depressed on his
chair, as though in a dream, until the end of the meal.
“I hope, Gueulin, that you have brought your flute?” asked Madame
Josserand, trying to dispel her guests’ uneasiness.
Gueulin was an amateur flute-player, but solely in the houses where he
was treated without ceremony.
“My flute! Of course I have,” replied he.
He was absent-minded, his carroty hair and whiskers were more bristly
than usual, as he watched with deep interest the young ladies’
manoeuvres around their uncle. Employed at an assurance office, he
would go straight to Bachelard on leaving off work, and stick to him,
visiting the same cafés and the same disreputable places. Behind the
big, ill-shaped body of the one, the little pale face of the other was
sure always to be seen.
“Cheerily, there! stick to him!” said he, suddenly, like a true
sportsman.
The uncle was indeed losing ground. When, after the vegetables, French
beans swimming in water, Adèle placed a vanilla and currant ice on the
table, it caused unexpected delight amongst the guests; and the young
ladies took advantage of the situation to make the uncle drink half of
the bottle of champagne, which Madame Josserand had bought for three
francs of a neighbouring grocer. He was becoming quite affectionate,
and forgetting his pretended idiocy.
“Eh, twenty francs! Why twenty francs? Ah! you want twenty francs! But
I have not got them, really now. Ask Gueulin. Is it not true, Gueulin,
that I forgot my purse, and that you had to pay at the café? If I had
them, my little ducks, I would give them to you, you are so nice.”
Gueulin was laughing in his cool way, making a noise like a pulley that
required greasing. And he murmured:
“The old swindler!”
Then, suddenly, unable to restrain himself, he cried:
“Search him!”
So Hortense and Berthe again threw themselves on the uncle, this time
without the least restraint. The desire for the twenty francs, which
their good education had hitherto kept within bounds, bereft them of
their senses in the end, and they forgot everything else. The one, with
both hands, examined his waistcoat pockets, whilst the other buried her
fingers inside the pockets of his frock-coat. The uncle, however,
pressed back on his chair, still struggled; but he gradually burst out
into a laugh—a laugh broken by drunken hiccoughs.
“On my word of honour, I haven’t a sou! Leave off, do; you’re tickling
me.”
[Illustration]
“In the trousers!” energetically exclaimed Gueulin, excited by the
spectacle.
And Berthe resolutely searched one of the trouser pockets.
Their hands trembled; they were both becoming exceedingly rough, and
could have smacked the uncle. But Berthe uttered a cry of victory: from
the depths of the pocket she brought forth a handful of money, which
she spread out in a plate; and there, amongst a heap of coppers and
pieces of silver, was a twenty-franc piece.
“I have it!” said she, her face all red, her hair undone, as she tossed
the coin in the air and caught it again.
There was a general clapping of hands, every one thought it very funny.
It created quite a hubbub, and was the success of the dinner. Madame
Josserand looked at her daughters with a mother’s tender smile. The
uncle, who was gathering up his money, sententiously observed that,
when one wanted twenty francs, one should earn them. And the young
ladies, worn out and satisfied, were panting on his right and left,
their lips still trembling in the enervation of their desire.
A bell was heard to ring. They had been eating slowly, and the other
guests were already arriving. Monsieur Josserand, who had decided to
laugh like his wife, enjoyed singing some of Béranger’s songs at table;
but as this outraged his better half’s poetic tastes, she compelled him
to keep quiet. She got the dessert over as quickly as possible, more
especially as, since the forced present of the twenty francs, the uncle
had been trying to pick a quarrel, complaining that his nephew, Léon,
had not deigned to put himself out to come and wish him many happy
returns of the day. Léon was only coming to the evening party. At
length, as they were rising from table, Adèle said that the architect
from the floor below and a young man were in the drawing-room.
“Ah! yes, that young man,” murmured Madame Juzeur, accepting Monsieur
Josserand’s arm. “So you have invited him? I saw him to-day talking to
the doorkeeper. He is very good-looking.”
Madame Josserand was taking Trublot’s arm, when Saturnin, who had been
left by himself at the tableland who had not been roused from
slumbering with his eyes open by all the uproar about the twenty
francs, kicked back his chair, in a sudden outburst of fury, shouting:
“I won’t have it, damnation! I won’t have it!”
It was the very thing his mother always dreaded. She signalled to
Monsieur Josserand to take Madame Juzeur away. Then she freed herself
from Trublot, who understood, and disappeared; but he probably made a
mistake, for he went off in the direction of the kitchen, close upon
Adèle’s heels. Bachelard and Gueulin, without troubling themselves
about the maniac, as they called him, chuckled in a corner, whilst
playfully slapping one another.
“He was so peculiar, I felt there would be something this evening,”
murmured Madame Josserand, uneasily. “Berthe, come quick!”
But Berthe was showing the twenty-franc piece to Hortense. Saturnin had
caught up a knife. He repeated:
“Damnation! I won’t have it! I’ll rip their stomachs open!”
“Berthe!” called her mother in despair.
And, when the young girl hastened to the spot, she only just had time
to seize him by the hand and prevent him from entering the
drawing-room. She shook him angrily, whilst he tried to explain, with
his madman’s logic.
“Let me be, I must settle them. I tell you it’s best. I’ve had enough
of their dirty ways. They’ll sell the whole lot of us.”
“Oh! this is too much!” eried Berthe. “What is the matter with you?
what are you talking about?”
He looked at her in a bewildered way, trembling with a gloomy rage, and
stuttered:
“They’re going to marry you again. Never, you hear! I won’t have you
hurt.”
The young girl eould not help laughing. Where had he got the idea from
that they were going to marry her? But he nodded his head: he knew it,
he felt it. And as his mother intervened to try and calm him, he
grasped his knife so tightly that she drew back. However, she trembled
for fear he should be overheard, and hastily told Berthe to take him
away and lock him in his room; whilst he, becoming crazier than ever,
raised his voice:
“I won’t have you married, I won’t have you hurt. If they marry you,
I’ll rip their stomachs open.”
Then Berthe put her hands on his shoulders, and looked him straight in
the face.
“Listen,” said she, “keep quiet, or I will not love you any more.”
He staggered, despair softened the expression of his face, his eyes
filled with tears.
“You won’t love me any more, you won’t love me any more. Don’t say
that. Oh! I implore you, say that you will love me still, say that you
will love me always, and that you will never love any one else.”
She had seized him by the wrist, and she led him away as gentle as a
child.
In the drawing-room Madame Josserand, exaggerating her intimacy, called
Campardon her dear neighbour. Why had Madame Campardon not done her the
great pleasure of coming also? and on the architect replying that his
wife still continued poorly, she exelaimed that they would have been
delighted to have received her in her dressing-gown and her slippers.
But her smile never left Octave, who was conversing with Monsieur
Josserand; all her amiability was directed towards him, over
Campardon’s shoulder. When her husband introduced the young man to her,
her cordiality was so great that the latter felt quite uncomfortable.
Other guests were arriving; stout mothers with skinny daughters,
fathers and uncles scarcely roused from their office drowsiness,
pushing before them flocks of marriageable young ladies. Two lamps,
with pink paper shades, lit up the drawingroom with a pale light, which
only faintly displayed the old, worn, yellow velvet covered furniture,
the scratched piano, and the three smoky Swiss views, which looked like
black stains on the cold, bare, white and gold panels. And, in this
miserly light, the guests—poor, and, so to say, worn-out figures,
without resignation, and whose attire was the cause of much pinching
and saving—seemed to become obliterated. Madame Josserand wore her
fiery costume of the day before; only, with a view of throwing dust in
people’s eyes, she had passed the day in sewing sleeves on to the body,
and in making herself a lace tippet to cover her shoulders; whilst her
two daughters, seated beside her in their dirty cotton jackets,
vigorously plied their needles, rearranging with new trimmings their
only presentable dresses, which they had been thus altering bit by bit
ever since the previous winter.
After each ring at the bell, the sound of whispering issued from the
ante-chamber. They conversed in low tones in the gloomy drawing-room,
where the forced laugh of some young lady jarred at times like a false
note. Behind little Madame Juzeur, Bachelard and Gueulin were nudging
each other, and making smutty remarks; and Madame Josserand watched
them with an alarmed look, for she dreaded her brother’s vulgar
behaviour. But Madame Juzeur might hear anything; her lips quivered,
and she smiled with angelic sweetness as she listened to the naughty
stories. Uncle Bachelard had the reputation of being a dangerous man.
His nephew, on the contrary, was chaste. No matter how splendid the
opportunities were, Gueulin declined to have anything to do with women
upon principle, not that he disdained them, but because he dreaded the
morrows of bliss: always very unpleasant, he said.
Berthe at length appeared, and went hurriedly up to her mother.
“Ah, well! I have had a deal of trouble!” whispered she in her ear. “He
would not go to bed, so I double-locked the door. But I am afraid he
will break everything in the room.”
Madame Josserand violently tugged at her dress. Octave, who was close
to them, had turned his head.
“My daughter, Berthe, Monsieur Mouret,” said she, in her most gracious
manner, as she introduced them. “Monsieur Octave Mouret, my darling.”
And she looked at her daughter. The latter was well acquainted with
this look, which was like an order to clear for action, and which
recalled to her the lessons of the night before. She at once obeyed,
with the complaisance and the indifference of a girl who no longer
stops to examine the person she is to marry. She prettily recited her
little part with the easy grace of a Parisian already weary of the
world, and acquainted with every subject, and she talked
enthusiastically of the South, where she had never been. Octave, used
to the stiffness of provincial virgins, was delighted with this little
woman’s cackle and her sociable manner.
Presently, Trublot, who had not been seen since dinner was over,
entered stealthily from the dining-room; and Berthe, catching sight of
him, asked thoughtlessly where he had been. He remained silent, at
which she felt very confused; then, to put an end to the awkward pause
which ensued, she introduced the two young men to each other. Her
mother had not taken her eyes off her; she had assumed the attitude of
a commander-in-chief, and directed the campaign from the easy-chair in
which she had settled herself. When she judged that the first
engagement had given all the result that could have been expected from
it, she recalled her daughter with a sign, and said to her, in a low
voice:
“Wait till the Vabre’s are here before commencing your music. And play
loud.”
Octave, left alone with Trublot, began to engage him in conversation.
“A charming person.”
“Yes, not bad.”
“The young lady in blue is her elder sister, is she not? She is not so
good-looking.”
“Of course not; she is thinner!”
Trublot, who looked without seeing with his near-sighted eyes, had the
broad shoulders of a solid male, obstinate in his tastes. He had come
back from the kitchen perfectly satisfied, crunching little black
things which Octave recognised with surprise to be coffee berries.
“I say,” asked he abruptly, “the women are plump in the South, are they
not?”
Octave smiled, and at once became on an excellent footing with Trublot.
They had many ideas in common which brought them closer together. They
exchanged confidences on an out-of-the-way sofa; the one talked of his
employer at “The Ladies’ Paradise,” Madame Hédouin, a confoundedly fine
woman, but too cold; the other said that he had been put on to the
correspondence, from nine to five, at his stockbroker’s, Monsieur
Desmarquay, where there was a stunning maid servant. Just then the
drawing-room door opened, and three persons entered.
“They are the Vabres,” murmured Trublot, bending over towards his new
friend. “Auguste, the tall one, he who has a face like a sick sheep, is
the landlord’s eldest son—thirty-three years old, ever suffering from
headaches which make his eyes start from his head, and which, some
years ago, prevented him from continuing to learn Latin; a sullen
fellow who has gone in for trade. The other, Théophile, that abortion
with carroty hair and thin beard, that little old-looking man of
twenty-eight, ever shaking with fits of coughing and of rage, tried a
dozen different trades, and then married the young woman who leads the
way, Madame Valérie—”
“I have already seen her,” interrupted Octave. “She is the daughter of
a haberdasher of the neighbourhood, is she not? But how those veils
deceive one! I thought her pretty. She is only peculiar, with her
shrivelled face and her leaden complexion.”
“She is another who is not my ideal,” sententiously resumed Trublot.
“She has superb eyes, and that is enough for some men. But she’s a thin
piece of goods.”
Madame Josserand had risen to shake Valérie’s hand.
“How is it,” cried she, “that Monsieur Vabre is not with you? and that
neither Monsieur nor Madame Duveyrier have done us the honour of
coming? They promised us though. Ah! it is very wrong of them!”
The young woman made excuses for her father-in-law, whose age kept him
at home, and who, moreover, preferred to work of an evening. As for her
brother and sister-in-law, they had asked her to apologise for them,
they having received an invitation to an official party, which they
were obliged to attend. Madame Josserand bit her lips. She never missed
one of the Saturdays at home of those stuck-up people on the first
floor, who would have thought themselves dishonoured had they ascended,
one Tuesday, to the fourth. No doubt her modest tea was not equal to
their grand orchestral concerts. But, patience! when her two daughters
were married, and she had two sons-in-law and their relations to fill
her drawing-room, she also would go in for choruses.
“Get yourself ready,” whispered she in Berthe’s ear.
They were about thirty, and rather tightly packed, for the parlour,
having been turned into a bedroom for the young ladies, was not thrown
open. The new arrivals distributed handshakes round. Valérie seated
herself beside Madame Juzeur, whilst Bachelard and Gueulin made
unpleasant remarks out loud about Théophile Vabre, whom they thought it
funny to call “good for nothing.” Monsieur Josserand—who in his own
home kept himself so much in the background that one would have taken
him for a guest, and whom one would fail to find when wanted, even
though he were standing close by—was in a corner listening in a
bewildered way to a story related by one of his old friends, Bonnaud.
He knew Bonnaud, who was formerly the general accountant of the
Northern railway, and whose daughter had married in the previous
spring? Well! Bonnaud had just discovered that his son-in-law, a very
respectable-looking man, was an ex-clown, who had lived for ten years
at the expense of a female circus-rider.
“Silence! silence!” murmured some good-natured voices. Berthe had
opened the piano.
“Really!” explained Madame Josserand, “it is merely an unpretentious
piece, a simple reverie. Monsieur Mouret, you like music, I think. Come
nearer then. My daughter plays pretty fairly—oh! purely as an amateur,
but with expression; yes, with a great deal of expression.”
“Caught!” said Trublot in a low voice. “The sonata stroke.” Octave was
obliged to leave his seat and stand up beside the piano. To see the
caressing attentions which Madame Josserand showered upon him, it
seemed as though she were making Berthe play solely for him.
“‘The Banks of the Oise,’” resumed she. “It is really very pretty. Come
begin, my love, and do not be confused. Monsieur Mouret will be
indulgent.”
The young girl commenced the piece without being in the least confused.
Besides, her mother kept her eyes upon her like a sergeant ready to
punish with a blow the least theoretical mistake. Her great regret was
that the instrument, worn-out by fifteen years of daily scales, did not
possess the sonorous tones of the Duveyriers’ grand piano; and her
daughter never played loud enough in her opinion.
After the sixth bar, Octave, looking thoughtful and nodding his head at
each spirited passage, no longer listened. He looked at the audience,
the politely absent-minded attention of the men, and the affected
delight of the women, all that relaxation of persons for a moment at
rest, but soon again to be harassed by the cares of every hour, the
shadows of which, before long, would be once more reflected on their
weary faces. Mothers were visibly dreaming that they were marrying
their daughters, whilst a smile hovered about their mouths, revealing
their fierce-looking teeth in their unconscious abandonment; it was the
mania of this drawing-room, a furious appetite for sons-in-law, which
consumed these worthy middle-class mothers to the asthmatic sounds of
the piano.
The daughters, who were very weary, were falling asleep, with their
heads dropping on to their shoulders, forgetting to sit up erect.
Octave, who had a certain contempt for young ladies, was more
interested in Valerie—she looked decidedly ugly in her peculiar yellow
silk dress, trimmed with black satin—and feeling ill at ease, yet
attracted all the same, his gaze kept returning to her; whilst she,
with a vague look in her eyes, and unnerved by the discordant music,
was smiling like a crazy person.
At this moment quite a catastrophe occurred. A ring at the bell was
heard, and a gentleman entered the room without the least regard for
what was taking place.
“Oh! doctor!” said Madame Josserand angrily.
Doctor Juillerat made a gesture of apology, and stood stockstill.
Berthe, at this moment, was executing a little passage with a slow and
dreamy fingering, which the guests greeted with flattering murmurs. Ah!
delightful! delicious! Madame Juzeur was almost swooning away, as
though being tickled. Hortense, who was standing beside her sister,
turning the pages, was sulkily listening for a ring at the bell amidst
the avalanche of notes; and, when the doctor entered, she made such a
gesture of disappointment that she tore one of the pages on the stand.
But, suddenly, the piano trembled beneath Berthe’s weal: fingers,
thrumming away like hammers; it was the end of the reverie, amidst a
deafening uproar of clangorous chords.
There was a moment of hesitation. The audience was waking up again..
Was it finished? Then the compliments burst out on all sides. Adorable!
a superior talent!
“Mademoiselle is really a first-rate musician,” said Octave,
interrupted in his observations. “No one has ever given me such
pleasure.”
“Do you really mean it, sir?” exclaimed Madame Josserand delighted.
“She does not play badly, I must admit. Well! we have never refused the
child anything; she is our treasure! She possesses every talent she
wished for. Ah! sir, if you only knew her.”
A confused murmur of voices again filled the drawing-room. Berthe very
calmly received the praise showered upon her, and did not leave the
piano, but sat waiting till her mother relieved her from fatigue-duty.
The latter was already speaking to Octave of the surprising manner in
which her daughter dashed off “The Harvesters,” a brilliant gallop,
when some dull and distant thuds created a stir amongst the guests. For
several moments past there had been violent shocks, as though some one
was trying to burst a door open. Everybody left off talking, and looked
about inquiringly.
“What is it?” Valérie ventured to ask. “I heard it before, during the
finish of the piece.”
Madame Josserand had turned quite pale. She had recognised Saturnin’s
blows. Ah! the wretched lunatic! and in her mind’s eye she beheld him
tumbling in amongst the guests. If he continued hammering like that, it
would be another marriage done for!
“It is the kitchen door slamming,” said she with a constrained smile.
“Adèle never will shut it. Go and sec, Berthe.”
The young girl had also understood. She rose and disappeared. The noise
ceased at once, but she did not return immediately. Uncle Bachelard,
who had scandalously disturbed “The Banks of the Oise” with reflections
uttered out loud, finished putting his sister out of countenance by
calling to Gueulin that he felt awfully bored and was going to have a
grog. They both returned to the dining-room, banging the door behind
them.
“That dear old Narcisse, he is always original!” said Madame Josserand
to Madame Juzeur and Valérie, between whom she had gone and seated
herself. “His business occupies him so much! You know, he has made
almost a hundred thousand francs this year!”
Octave, at length free, had hastened to rejoin Trublot, who was half
asleep on the sofa. Near them, a group surrounded Doctor Juillerat, the
old medical man of the neighbourhood, not over brilliant, but who had
become in course of time a good practitioner, and who had delivered all
the mothers in their confinements and had attended all the daughters.
He made a speciality of women’s ailments, which caused him to be in
great demand of an evening, the husbands all trying to obtain a
gratuitous consultation in some corner of the drawing-room. Just then,
Théophile was telling him that Valérie had had another attack the day
before; she was for ever having a choking fit and complaining of a lump
rising in her throat; and he, too, was not very well, but his complaint
was not the same. Then he did nothing but speak of himself, and relate
his vexations: he had commenced to read for the law, had engaged in
manufactures at a foundry, and had tried office management at the
Mont-de-Piété; then he had busied himself with photography, and thought
he had found a means of making vehicles supply their own motive power;
meanwhile, out of kindness, he was travelling some piano-flutes, an
invention of one of his friends. And he complained of his wife: it was
her fault if nothing went right at home; she was killing him with her
perpetual nervous attacks.
“Do pray give her something, doctor!” implored he, coughing and
moaning, his eyes lit up with hatred, in the querulous rage of his
impotency.
Trublot watched him, full of contempt; and he laughed silently as he
glanced at Octave. Doctor Juillerat uttered vague and calming words: no
doubt, they would relieve her, the dear lady. At fourteen, she was
already stifling, in the shop of the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; he had
attended her for vertigo which always ended by bleeding at the nose;
and, as Théophile recalled with despair her languid gentleness when a
young girl, whilst now, fantastic and her temper changing twenty times
in a day, she absolutely tortured him, the doctor merely shook his
head. Marriage did not succeed with all women.
“Of course!” murmured Trublot, “a father who has gone off his chump by
passing thirty years of his life in selling needles and thread, a
mother who has always had her face covered with pimples, and that in an
airless hole of old Paris, no one can expect such people to have
daughters like other folks!”
Octave was surprised. He was losing some of his respect for that
drawing-room which he had entered with a provincial’s emotion.
Curiosity was awakened within him, when he observed Campardon
consulting the doctor in his turn, but in whispers, like a sedate
person desirous of letting no one become acquainted with his family
mishaps.
“By the way, as you appear to know everything,” said Octave to Trublot,
“tell me what it is that Madame Campardon is suffering from. Every one
puts on a very sad face whenever it is mentioned.”
“Why, my dear fellow,” replied the young man, “she has—”
And he whispered in Octave’s ear. Whilst he listened, the latter’s face
first assumed a smile, and then became very long with a look of
profound astonishment.
“It is not possible!” said he.
Then, Trublot gave his word of honour. He knew another lady in the same
state.
“Besides,” resumed he, “it sometimes happens after a confinement that—”
And he began to whisper again. Octave, convinced, became quite sad. He
who had fancied all sorts of things, who had imagined quite a romance,
the architect occupied elsewhere and drawing him towards his wife to
amuse her! In any case he now knew that she was well guarded. The young
men pressed up against each other, in the excitement caused by these
feminine secrets which they were stirring up, forgetting that they
might be overheard.
Madame Juzeur was just then confiding to Madame Josser-and her
impressions of Octave. She thought him very becoming, no doubt, but she
preferred Monsieur Auguste Vabre The latter, standing up in a corner of
the drawing-room, remained silent, in his insignificance and with his
usual evening headache.
“What surprises me, dear madame, is that you have not thought of him
for your Berthe. A young man set up in business, who is prudence
itself. And he is in want of a wife, I know that he is desirous of
getting married.”
Madame Josserand listened, surprised. She would never herself have
thought of the linendraper. Madame Juzeur, however, insisted, for in
her misfortune, she had the mania of working for the happiness of other
women, which caused her to busy herself with everything relating to the
tender passions of the house. She affirmed that Auguste never took his
eyes off Berthe. In short, she invoked her experience of men: Monsieur
Mouret would never let himself be caught, whilst that good Monsieur
Vabre would be very easy and very advantageous. But Madame Josserand,
weighing the latter with a glance, came decidedly to the conclusion
that such a son-in-law would not be of much use in filling her
drawing-room.
“My daughter detests him,” said she, “and I would never oppose the
dictates of her heart.”
A tall thin young lady had just played a fantasia on the “Dame
Blanche.” As uncle Bachelard had fallen asleep in the dining-room,
Gueulin reappeared and imitated the nightingale on his flute. No one
listened, however, for the story about Bonnaud had spread. Monsieur
Josserand was quite upset, the fathers held up their arms, the mothers
were stifling. What! Bonnaud’s son-in-law was a clown! Then who could
one believe in now? and the parents, in their appetites for marriages,
suffered regular nightmares, like so many distinguished convicts in
evening dress. The fact was, that Bonnaud had been so delighted at the
opportunity of getting rid of his daughter that he had not troubled
much about references, in spite of his rigid prudence of an
over-scrupulous general accountant.
“Mamma, the tea is served,” said Berthe, as she and Adèle opened the
folding doors.
And, whilst the company passed slowly into the dining-room, she went up
to her mother and murmured:
“I have had enough of it! He wants me to stay and tell him stories, or
he threatens to smash everything!”
On a grey cloth which was too narrow, was served one of those teas
laboriously got together, a cake bought at a neighbouring baker’s, with
some mixed sweet biscuits, and some sandwiches on either side. At
either end of the table quite a luxury of flowers, superb and costly
roses, withdrew attention from the ancient dust on the biscuits, and
the poor quality of the butter. The sight caused a commotion, and
jealousies were kindled: really those Josserands were ruining
themselves in trying to marry off their daughters. And the guests,
having but poorly dined, and only thinking of going to bed with their
bellies full, casting side glances at the bouquets, gorged themselves
with weak tea and imprudently devoured the hard stale biscuits and the
heavy cake. For those persons who did not like tea, Adèle handed round
some glasses of red currant syrup. It was pronounced excellent.
Meanwhile, the uncle was asleep in a corner. They did not wake him,
they even politely pretended not to see him. A lady talked of the
fatigues of business. Berthe went from one to another, offering
sandwiches, handing cups of tea, and asking the men if they would like
any more sugar. But she was unable to attend to every one, and Madame
Josserand was looking for her daughter Hortense, when she caught sight
of her standing in the middle of the deserted drawing-room, talking to
a gentleman, of whom one could only see the back.
“Ah! yes! he has come at last,” she permitted, in her anger, to escape
her.
There was some whispering. It was that Verdier, who had been living
with a woman for fifteen years past, whilst waiting to marry Hortense.
Every one knew the story, the young ladies exchanged glances; but they
bit their lips, and avoided speaking of it, out of propriety. Octave,
being made acquainted with it, examined the gentleman’s back with
interest. Trublot knew the mistress, a good girl, a reformed
streetwalker, who was better now, said he, than the best of wives,
taking care of her man, and looking after his clothes; and he was full
of a fraternal sympathy for her. Whilst they were being watched from
the dining-room, Hortense was scolding Verdier with all the sulkiness
of a badly brought up virgin for having come so late.
“Hallo! red currant syrup!” said Trublot, seeing Adèle standing before
him, a tray in her hand.
He sniffed it and declined. But, as the servant turned round, a stout
lady’s elbow pushed her against him, and he pinched her back. She
smiled, and returned to him with the tray.
“No, thanks,” said he. “By-and-by.”
[Illustration]
Women were seated round the table, whilst the men were eating, standing
up behind them. Exclamations were, heard, an enthusiasm, which died
away as the mouths were filled with food. The gentlemen were appealed
to. Madame Josserand cried:
“Ah! yes, I was forgetting. Come and look, Monsieur Mouret, you who
love the arts.”
“Take care, the water-colour stroke!” murmured Trublot, who knew the
house.
It was better than a water-colour. As though by chance, a porcelain
bowl was standing on the table; right at the very bottom of it,
surrounded by the brand new varnished bronze mounting, Greuze’s “Young
girl with the broken Pitcher” was painted in light colours, passing
from pale lilac to faint blue. Berthe smiled in the midst of the
praise.
“Mademoiselle possesses every talent,” said Octave with his
good-natured grace. “Oh! the colours are so well blended, and it is
very accurate, very accurate!”
“I can guarantee that the design is!” resumed Madame Josserand,
triumphantly. “There is not a hair too many or few. Berthe copied it
here, from an engraving. There are really such a number of nude
subjects at the Louvre, and the people there are at times so mixed!”
She had lowered her voice when giving this last piece of information,
desirous of letting the young man know that, though her daughter was an
artist, she did not let that carry her beyond the limits of propriety.
She probably, however, thought Octave rather cold, she felt that the
bowl had not met with the success she had anticipated, and she watched
him with an anxious look, whilst Valérie and Madame Juzeur, who were
drinking their fourth cup of tea, examined the painting and gave vent
to little cries of admiration.
“You are looking at her again,” said Trublot to Octave, on seeing him
with his eyes fixed on Valérie.
“Why, yes,” replied he, slightly confused. “It is funny, she looks
pretty just at this moment. A warm woman, evidently. I say, do you
think one might venture?”
“Warm, one never knows. It is a peculiar fancy! Anyhow, it would be
better than marrying the girl.”
“What girl?” exclaimed Octave, forgetting himself. “What! you think I
am going to let myself be hooked’ Never! My dear fellow, we don’t marry
at Marseilles!” Madame Josserand had drawn near. The words came upon
her like a stab in the heart. Another fruitless campaign, another
evening party wasted! The blow was such, that she was obliged to lean
against a chair, as she looked with despair at the now despoiled table,
where all that remained was a burnt piece of the cake. She had given up
counting her defeats, but this one should be the last; she took a
frightful oath, swearing that she would no longer feed persons who came
to see her solely to gorge. And, upset and exasperated, she glanced
round the dining-room, seeking into what man’s arms she could throw her
daughter, when she caught sight of Auguste resignedly standing against
the wall and not having partaken of anything.
Just then, Berthe, with a smile on her face, was moving towards Octave,
with a cup of tea in her hand. She was continuing the campaign,
obedient to her mother’s wishes. But the latter caught her by the arm
and called her a silly fool under her breath.
“Take that cup to Monsieur Vabre, who has been waiting for an hour
past,” said she, graciously and very loud.
Then, whispering again in her daughter’s ear, and giving her another of
her warlike looks, she added:
“Be amiable, or you will have me to deal with!”
Berthe, for a moment put out of countenance, soon recovered herself. It
often changed thus three times in an evening. She carried the cup to
Auguste, with the smile which she had commenced for Octave; she was
amiable, talked of Lyons silks, and did the engaging young person who
would look very well behind a counter. Auguste’s hands trembled a
little, and he was very red, as he was suffering a good deal from his
head that evening.
Out of politeness, a few persons returned and sat down for some moments
in the drawing-room. Having fed, they were all going off. When they
looked for Verdier, he had already taken his departure; and some young
ladies, greatly put out, only carried away an indistinct view of his
back. Campardon, without waiting for Octave, retired with the doctor,
whom he detained on the landing, to ask him if there was really no more
hope. During the tea, one of the lamps had gone out, emitting a stench
of rancid oil, and the other lamp, the wick of which was all charred,
lit up the room with so poor a light that the Vabres themselves rose to
leave in spite of the attentions with which Madame Josserand
overwhelmed them. Octave had preceded them into the ante-room, where he
had a surprise: Trublot, who was looking for his hat, suddenly
disappeared. He could only have gone off by the passage leading to the
kitchen.
“Well! wherever has he got to? does he leave by the servants’
staircase?” murmured the young man.
But he did not seek to clear up the mystery. Valérie was there, looking
for a lace neckerchief. The two brothers, Théophile and Auguste, were
going downstairs, without troubling themselves about her. Octave,
having found the neckerchief, handed it to her, with the air of
admiration he put on when serving the pretty lady customers of “The
Ladies’ Paradise.” She looked at him, and he felt certain that her
eyes, on fixing themselves on his, had flashed forth flames.
“You are too kind, sir,” said she, simply.
Madame Juzeur, who was the last to leave, enveloped them both in a
tender and discreet smile. And when Octave, highly excited, had reached
his cold chamber, he looked at himself for an instant in the glass, and
he thought it worth while to make the attempt!
Meanwhile, Madame Josserand was wandering about the deserted room,
without saying a word, and as though carried away by some gale of wind.
She had violently closed the piano and turned out the last lamp; then,
passing into the diningroom, she began to blow out the candles so
vigorously that the chandelier quite shook. The sight of the despoiled
table covered with dirty plates and empty cups, increased her rage; and
she turned round it, casting terrible glances at her daughter Hortense,
who, quietly sitting down, was devouring the piece of burnt cake.
“You are putting yourself in a fine state again, mamma,” said the
latter. “Is it not going on all right, then? For myself, I am
satisfied. He is purchasing some chemises for her to enable her to
leave.”
The mother shrugged her shoulders.
“Eh? you say that this proves nothing. Very good, only steer your ship
as well as I steer mine. Here now is a cake which may flatter itself it
is a precious bad one! They must be a wretched lot to swallow such
stuff.”
Monsieur Josserand, who was always worn out by his wife’s parties, was
reposing on a chair; but he was in dread of an encounter, he feared
that Madame Josserand might drive him before her in her furious
promenade; and he drew close to Bachelard and Gueulin, who were seated
at the table in front of Hortense. The uncle, on awaking, had
discovered a decanter of rum. He was emptying it, and bitterly alluding
to the twenty francs.
“It is not for the money,” he kept repeating to his nephew, “it is the
way the thing was done. You know how I behave to women: I would give
them the shirt off my back, but I do not like them to ask me for
anything. The moment they begin to ask, it annoys me, and I don’t even
chuck them a radish.”
And, as his sister was about to remind him of his promises: “Be quiet,
Eléonore! I know what I have to do for the child. But, you see, when a
woman asks, it is more than I can stand. I have never been able to keep
friends with one, have I now, Gueulin? And besides, there is really
such little respect shown me! Léon has not even deigned to wish me many
happy returns of the day.”
Madame Josserand resumed her walk, clinching her fists. It was true,
there was Léon too, who promised and then disappointed her like the
others. There was one who would not sacrifice an evening to help to
marry off his sisters! She had just discovered a sweet biscuit, fallen
behind one of the flower vases, and was locking it up in a drawer when
Berthe, who had gone to release Saturnin, brought him back with her.
She was quieting him, whilst he, haggard and with a mistrustful look in
his eyes, was searching the corners, with the feverish excitement of a
dog that has been long shut up.
“How stupid he is!” said Berthe, “he thinks that I have just been
married. And he is seeking for the husband! Ah! my poor Saturnin, you
may seek. I tell you that it has come to nothing! You know very well
that it never comes to anything.”
Then, Madame Josserand’s rage burst all bounds.
“Ah! I swear to you that it sha’n’t come to nothing next time, even if
I have to tie him to you myself! There is one who shall pay for all the
others. Yes, yes, Monsieur Josserand, you may stare at me, as though
you did not understand: the wedding shall take place, and without you,
if it does not please you. You hear, Berthe! you have only to pick that
one up!” Saturnin appeared not to hear. He was looking under the table.
The young girl pointed to him; but Madame Josserand made a gesture
which seemed to imply that he would be got out of the way. And Berthe
murmured:
“So then it is decidedly to be Monsieur Vabre? Oh! it is all the same
to me. To think though that not a single sandwich has been saved for
me?”