Complete Works of Emile Zola (1264 page)

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” she cried at last. “M. Grandguillot has gone away!”

Pascal did not at first comprehend.

“Well, my girl, there is no hurry,” he said; “you can go back another day.”

“No, no! He has gone away; don’t you hear? He has gone away forever—”

And as the waters rush forth in the bursting of a dam, her emotion vented itself in a torrent of words.

“I reached the street, and I saw from a distance a crowd gathered before the door. A chill ran through me; I felt that some misfortune had happened. The door closed, and not a blind open, as if there was somebody dead in the house. They told me when I got there that he had run away; that he had not left a sou behind him; that many families would be ruined.”

She laid the receipt on the stone table.

“There! There is your paper! It is all over with us, we have not a sou left, we are going to die of starvation!” And she sobbed aloud in the anguish of her miserly heart, distracted by this loss of a fortune, and trembling at the prospect of impending want.

Clotilde sat stunned and speechless, her eyes fixed on Pascal, whose predominating feeling at first seemed to be one of incredulity. He endeavored to calm Martine. Why! why! it would not do to give up in this way. If all she knew of the affair was what she had heard from the people in the street, it might be only gossip, after all, which always exaggerates everything. M. Grandguillot a fugitive; M. Grandguillot a thief; that was monstrous, impossible! A man of such probity, a house liked and respected by all Plassans for more than a century past. Why people thought money safer there than in the Bank of France.

“Consider, Martine, this would not have come all of a sudden, like a thunderclap; there would have been some rumors of it beforehand. The deuce! an old reputation does not fall to pieces in that way, in a night.”

At this she made a gesture of despair.

“Ah, monsieur, that is what most afflicts me, because, you see, it throws some of the responsibility on me. For weeks past I have been hearing stories on all sides. As for you two, naturally you hear nothing; you don’t even know whether you are alive or dead.”

Neither Pascal nor Clotilde could refrain from smiling; for it was indeed true that their love lifted them so far above the earth that none of the common sounds of existence reached them.

“But the stories I heard were so ugly that I didn’t like to worry you with them. I thought they were lies.”

She was silent for a moment, and then added that while some people merely accused M. Grandguillot of having speculated on the Bourse, there were others who accused him of still worse practises. And she burst into fresh sobs.

“My God! My God! what is going to become of us? We are all going to die of starvation!”

Shaken, then, moved by seeing Clotilde’s eyes, too, filled with tears, Pascal made an effort to remember, to see clearly into the past. Years ago, when he had been practising in Plassans, he had deposited at different times, with M. Grandguillot, the twenty thousand francs on the interest of which he had lived comfortably for the past sixteen years, and on each occasion the notary had given him a receipt for the sum deposited. This would no doubt enable him to establish his position as a personal creditor. Then a vague recollection awoke in his memory; he remembered, without being able to fix the date, that at the request of the notary, and in consequence of certain representations made by him, which Pascal had forgotten, he had given the lawyer a power of attorney for the purpose of investing the whole or a part of his money, in mortgages, and he was even certain that in this power the name of the attorney had been left in blank. But he was ignorant as to whether this document had ever been used or not; he had never taken the trouble to inquire how his money had been invested. A fresh pang of miserly anguish made Martine cry out:

“Ah, monsieur, you are well punished for your sin. Was that a way to abandon one’s money? For my part, I know almost to a sou how my account stands every quarter; I have every figure and every document at my fingers’ ends.”

In the midst of her distress an unconscious smile broke over her face, lighting it all up. Her long cherished passion had been gratified; her four hundred francs wages, saved almost intact, put out at interest for thirty years, at last amounted to the enormous sum of twenty thousand francs. And this treasure was put away in a safe place which no one knew. She beamed with delight at the recollection, and she said no more.

“But who says that our money is lost?” cried Pascal.

“M. Grandguillot had a private fortune; he has not taken away with him his house and his lands, I suppose. They will look into the affair; they will make an investigation. I cannot make up my mind to believe him a common thief. The only trouble is the delay: a liquidation drags on so long.”

He spoke in this way in order to reassure Clotilde, whose growing anxiety he observed. She looked at him, and she looked around her at La Souleiade; her only care his happiness; her most ardent desire to live here always, as she had lived in the past, to love him always in this beloved solitude. And he, wishing to tranquilize her, recovered his fine indifference; never having lived for money, he did not imagine that one could suffer from the want of it.

“But I have some money!” he cried, at last. “What does Martine mean by saying that we have not a sou left, and that we are going to die of starvation!”

And he rose gaily, and made them both follow him saying:

“Come, come, I am going to show you some money. And I will give some of it to Martine that she may make us a good dinner this evening.”

Upstairs in his room he triumphantly opened his desk before them. It was in a drawer of this desk that for years past he had thrown the money which his later patients had brought him of their own accord, for he had never sent them an account. Nor had he ever known the exact amount of his little treasure, of the gold and bank bills mingled together in confusion, from which he took the sums he required for his pocket money, his experiments, his presents, and his alms. During the last few months he had made frequent visits to his desk, making deep inroads into its contents. But he had been so accustomed to find there the sums he required, after years of economy during which he had spent scarcely anything, that he had come to believe his savings inexhaustible.

He gave a satisfied laugh, then, as he opened the drawer, crying:

“Now you shall see! Now you shall see!”

And he was confounded, when, after searching among the heap of notes and bills, he succeeded in collecting only a sum of 615 francs — two notes of 100 francs each, 400 francs in gold, and 15 francs in change. He shook out the papers, he felt in every corner of the drawer, crying:

“But it cannot be! There was always money here before, there was a heap of money here a few days ago. It must have been all those old bills that misled me. I assure you that last week I saw a great deal of money. I had it in my hand.”

He spoke with such amusing good faith, his childlike surprise was so sincere, that Clotilde could not keep from smiling. Ah, the poor master, what a wretched business man he was! Then, as she observed Martine’s look of anguish, her utter despair at sight of this insignificant sum, which was now all there was for the maintenance of all three, she was seized with a feeling of despair; her eyes filled with tears, and she murmured:

“My God, it is for me that you have spent everything; if we have nothing now, if we are ruined, it is I who am the cause of it!”

Pascal had already forgotten the money he had taken for the presents. Evidently that was where it had gone. The explanation tranquilized him. And as she began to speak in her grief of returning everything to the dealers, he grew angry.

“Give back what I have given you! You would give a piece of my heart with it, then! No, I would rather die of hunger, I tell you!”

Then his confidence already restored, seeing a future of unlimited possibilities opening out before him, he said:

“Besides, we are not going to die of hunger to-night, are we, Martine? There is enough here to keep us for a long time.”

Martine shook her head. She would undertake to manage with it for two months, for two and a half, perhaps, if people had sense, but not longer. Formerly the drawer was replenished; there was always some money coming in; but now that monsieur had given up his patients, they had absolutely no income. They must not count on any help from outside, then. And she ended by saying:

“Give me the two one-hundred-franc bills. I’ll try and make them last for a month. Then we shall see. But be very prudent; don’t touch the four hundred francs in gold; lock the drawer and don’t open it again.”

“Oh, as to that,” cried the doctor, “you may make your mind easy. I would rather cut off my right hand.”

And thus it was settled. Martine was to have entire control of this last purse; and they might trust to her economy, they were sure that she would save the centimes. As for Clotilde, who had never had a private purse, she would not even feel the want of money. Pascal only would suffer from no longer having his inexhaustible treasure to draw upon, but he had given his promise to allow the servant to buy everything.

“There! That is a good piece of work!” he said, relieved, as happy as if he had just settled some important affair which would assure them a living for a long time to come.

A week passed during which nothing seemed to have changed at La Souleiade. In the midst of their tender raptures neither Pascal nor Clotilde thought any more of the want which was impending. And one morning during the absence of the latter, who had gone with Martine to market, the doctor received a visit which filled him at first with a sort of terror. It was from the woman who had sold him the beautiful corsage of old point d’Alencon, his first present to Clotilde. He felt himself so weak against a possible temptation that he trembled. Even before the woman had uttered a word he had already begun to defend himself — no, no, he neither could nor would buy anything. And with outstretched hands he prevented her from taking anything out of her little bag, declaring to himself that he would look at nothing. The dealer, however, a fat, amiable woman, smiled, certain of victory. In an insinuating voice she began to tell him a long story of how a lady, whom she was not at liberty to name, one of the most distinguished ladies in Plassans, who had suddenly met with a reverse of fortune, had been obliged to part with one of her jewels; and she then enlarged on the splendid chance — a piece of jewelry that had cost twelve hundred francs, and she was willing to let it go for five hundred. She opened her bag slowly, in spite of the terrified and ever-louder protestations of the doctor, and took from it a slender gold necklace set simply with seven pearls in front; but the pearls were of wonderful brilliancy — flawless, and perfect in shape. The ornament was simple, chaste, and of exquisite delicacy. And instantly he saw in fancy the necklace on Clotilde’s beautiful neck, as its natural adornment. Any other jewel would have been a useless ornament, these pearls would be the fitting symbol of her youth. And he took the necklace in his trembling fingers, experiencing a mortal anguish at the idea of returning it. He defended himself still, however; he declared that he had not five hundred francs, while the dealer continued, in her smooth voice, to push the advantage she had gained. After another quarter an hour, when she thought she had him secure, she suddenly offered him the necklace for three hundred francs, and he yielded; his mania for giving, his desire to please his idol, to adorn her, conquered. When he went to the desk to take the fifteen gold pieces to count them out to the dealer, he felt convinced that the notary’s affairs would be arranged, and that they would soon have plenty of money.

When Pascal found himself once more alone, with the ornament in his pocket, he was seized with a childish delight, and he planned his little surprise, while waiting, excited and impatient, for Clotilde’s return. The moment she made her appearance his heart began to beat violently. She was very warm, for an August sun was blazing in the sky, and she laid aside her things quickly, pleased with her walk, telling him, laughing, of the good bargain Martine had made — two pigeons for eighteen sous. While she was speaking he pretended to notice something on her neck.

“Why, what have you on your neck? Let me see.”

He had the necklace in his hand, and he succeeded in putting it around her neck, while feigning to pass his fingers over it, to assure himself that there was nothing there. But she resisted, saying gaily:

“Don’t! There is nothing on my neck. Here, what are you doing? What have you in your hand that is tickling me?”

He caught hold of her, and drew her before the long mirror, in which she had a full view of herself. On her neck the slender chain showed like a thread of gold, and the seven pearls, like seven milky stars, shone with soft luster against her satin skin. She looked charmingly childlike. Suddenly she gave a delighted laugh, like the cooing of a dove swelling out its throat proudly.

“Oh, master, master, how good you are! Do you think of nothing but me, then? How happy you make me!”

And the joy which shone in her eyes, the joy of the woman and the lover, happy to be beautiful and to be adored, recompensed him divinely for his folly.

She drew back her head, radiant, and held up her mouth to him. He bent over and kissed her.

“Are you happy?”

“Oh, yes, master, happy, happy! Pearls are so sweet, so pure! And these are so becoming to me!”

For an instant longer she admired herself in the glass, innocently vain of her fair flower-like skin, under the nacre drops of the pearls. Then, yielding to a desire to show herself, hearing the servant moving about outside, she ran out, crying:

“Martine, Martine! See what master has just given me! Say, am I not beautiful!”

But all at once, seeing the old maid’s severe face, that had suddenly turned an ashen hue, she became confused, and all her pleasure was spoiled. Perhaps she had a consciousness of the jealous pang which her brilliant youth caused this poor creature, worn out in the dumb resignation of her servitude, in adoration of her master. This, however, was only a momentary feeling, unconscious in the one, hardly suspected by the other, and what remained was the evident disapprobation of the economical servant, condemning the present with her sidelong glance.