Complete Works of Emile Zola (1562 page)

Blaise, now the father of a little girl some ten months old, had been residing at the Beauchene works since the previous winter. He occupied the little pavilion where his mother had long previously given birth to his brother Gervais. His wife Charlotte had conquered the Beauchenes by her fair grace, her charming, bouquet-like freshness, to such a point, indeed, that even Constance had desired to have her near her. The truth was that Madame Desvignes had made adorable creatures of her two daughters, Charlotte and Marthe. At the death of her husband, a stockbroker’s confidential clerk, who had died, leaving her at thirty years of age in very indifferent circumstances, she had gathered her scanty means together and withdrawn to Janville, her native place, where she had entirely devoted herself to her daughters’ education. Knowing that they would be almost portionless, she had brought them up extremely well, in the hope that this might help to find them husbands, and it so chanced that she proved successful.

Affectionate intercourse sprang up between her and the Froments; the children played together; and it was, indeed, from those first games that came the love-romance which was to end in the marriage of Blaise and Charlotte. By the time the latter reached her eighteenth birthday and married, Marthe her sister, then fourteen years old, had become the inseparable companion of Rose Froment, who was of the same age and as pretty as herself, though dark instead of fair. Charlotte, who had a more delicate, and perhaps a weaker, nature than her gay, sensible sister, had become passionately fond of drawing and painting, which she had learnt at first simply by way of accomplishment. She had ended, however, by painting miniatures very prettily, and, as her mother remarked, her proficiency might prove a resource to her in the event of misfortune. Certainly there was some of the bourgeois respect and esteem for a good education in the fairly cordial greeting which Constance extended to Charlotte, who had painted a miniature portrait of her, a good though a flattering likeness.

On the other hand, Blaise, who was endowed with the creative fire of the Froments, ever striving, ever hard at work, became a valuable assistant to Maurice as soon as a brief stay in Morange’s office had made him familiar with the business of the firm. Indeed it was Maurice who, finding that his father seconded him less and less, had insisted on Blaise and Charlotte installing themselves in the little pavilion, in order that the former’s services might at all times be available. And Constance, ever on her knees before her son, could in this matter only obey respectfully. She evinced boundless faith in the vastness of Maurice’s intellect. His studies had proved fairly satisfactory; if he was somewhat slow and heavy, and had frequently been delayed by youthful illnesses, he had, nevertheless, diligently plodded on. As he was far from talkative, his mother gave out that he was a reflective, concentrated genius, who would astonish the world by actions, not by speech. Before he was even fifteen she said of him, in her adoring way: “Oh! he has a great mind.” And, naturally enough, she only acknowledged Blaise to be a necessary lieutenant, a humble assistant, one whose hand would execute the sapient young master’s orders. The latter, to her thinking, was now so strong and so handsome, and he was so quickly reviving the business compromised by the father’s slow collapse, that surely he must be on the high-road to prodigious wealth, to that final great triumph, indeed, of which she had been dreaming so proudly, so egotistically, for so many years.

But all at once the thunderbolt fell. It was not without some hesitation that Blaise had agreed to make the little pavilion his home, for he knew that there was an idea of reducing him to the status of a mere piece of machinery. But at the birth of his little girl he bravely decided to accept the proposal, and to engage in the battle of life even as his father had engaged in it, mindful of the fact that he also might in time have a large family. But it so happened that one morning, when he went up to the house to ask Maurice for some instructions, he heard from Constance herself that the young man had spent a very bad night, and that she had therefore prevailed on him to remain in bed. She did not evince any great anxiety on the subject; the indisposition could only be due to a little fatigue. Indeed, for a week past the two cousins had been tiring themselves out over the delivery of a very important order, which had set the entire works in motion. Besides, on the previous day Maurice, bareheaded and in perspiration, had imprudently lingered in a draught in one of the sheds while a machine was being tested.

That evening he was seized with intense fever, and Boutan was hastily summoned. On the morrow, alarmed, though he scarcely dared to say it, by the lightning-like progress of the illness, the doctor insisted on a consultation, and two of his colleagues being summoned, they soon agreed together. The malady was an extremely infectious form of galloping consumption, the more violent since it had found in the patient a field where there was little to resist its onslaught. Beauchene was away from home, travelling as usual. Constance, for her part, in spite of the grave mien of the doctors, who could not bring themselves to tell her the brutal truth, remained, in spite of growing anxiety, full of a stubborn hope that her son, the hero, the demi-god necessary for her own life, could not be seriously ill and likely to die. But only three days elapsed, and during the very night that Beauchene returned home, summoned by a telegram, the young fellow expired in her arms.

In reality his death was simply the final decomposition of impoverished, tainted, bourgeois blood, the sudden disappearance of a poor, mediocre being who, despite a facade of seeming health, had been ailing since childhood. But what an overwhelming blow it was both for the mother and for the father, all whose dreams and calculations it swept away! The only son, the one and only heir, the prince of industry, whom they had desired with such obstinate, scheming egotism, had passed away like a shadow; their arms clasped but a void, and the frightful reality arose before them; a moment had sufficed, and they were childless.

Blaise was with the parents at the bedside at the moment when Maurice expired. It was then about two in the morning, and as soon as possible he telegraphed the news of the death to Chantebled. Nine o’clock was striking when Marianne, very pale, quite upset, came into the yard to call Mathieu.

“Maurice is dead!...
Mon Dieu
! an only son; poor people!”

They stood there thunderstruck, chilled and trembling. They had simply heard that the young man was poorly; they had not imagined him to be seriously ill.

“Let me go to dress,” said Mathieu; “I shall take the quarter-past ten o’clock train. I must go to kiss them.”

Although Marianne was expecting her eleventh child before long, she decided to accompany her husband. It would have pained her to be unable to give this proof of affection to her cousins, who, all things considered, had treated Blaise and his young wife very kindly. Moreover, she was really grieved by the terrible catastrophe. So she and her husband, after distributing the day’s work among the servants, set out for Janville station, which they reached just in time to catch the quarter-past ten o’clock train. It was already rolling on again when they recognized the Lepailleurs and their son Antonin in the very compartment where they were seated.

Seeing the Froments thus together in full dress, the miller imagined that they were going to a wedding, and when he learnt that they had a visit of condolence to make, he exclaimed: “Oh! so it’s just the contrary. But no matter, it’s an outing, a little diversion nevertheless.”

Since Mathieu’s victory, since the whole of the estate of Chantebled had been conquered and fertilized, Lepailleur had shown some respect for his bourgeois rival. Nevertheless, although he could not deny the results hitherto obtained, he did not altogether surrender, but continued sneering, as if he expected that some rending of heaven or earth would take place to prove him in the right. He would not confess that he had made a mistake; he repeated that he knew the truth, and that folks would some day see plainly enough that a peasant’s calling was the very worst calling there could be, since the dirty land had gone bankrupt and would yield nothing more. Besides, he held his revenge — that enclosure which he left barren, uncultivated, by way of protest against the adjoining estate which it intersected. The thought of this made him ironical.

“Well,” he resumed in his ridiculously vain, scoffing way, “we are going to Paris too. Yes, we are going to install this young gentleman there.”

He pointed as he spoke to his son Antonin, now a tall, carroty fellow of eighteen, with an elongated head. A few light-colored bristles were already sprouting on his chin and cheeks, and he wore town attire, with a silk hat and gloves, and a bright blue necktie. After astonishing Janville by his success at school, he had displayed so much repugnance to manual work that his father had decided to make “a Parisian” of him.

“So it is decided; you have quite made up your mind?” asked Mathieu in a friendly way.

“Why, yes; why should I force him to toil and moil without the least hope of ever enriching himself? Neither my father nor I ever managed to put a copper by with that wretched old mill of ours. Why, the mill-stones wear away with rot more than with grinding corn. And the wretched fields, too, yield far more pebbles than crowns. And so, as he’s now a scholar, he may as well try his fortune in Paris. There’s nothing like city life to sharpen a man’s wits.”

Madame Lepailleur, who never took her eyes from her son, but remained in admiration before him as formerly before her husband, now exclaimed with an air of rapture: “Yes, yes, he has a place as a clerk with Maitre Rousselet, the attorney. We have rented a little room for him; I have seen about the furniture and the linen, and to-day’s the great day; he will sleep there to-night, after we have dined, all three, at a good restaurant. Ah! yes, I’m very pleased; he’s making a start now.”

“And he will perhaps end by being a minister of state,” said Mathieu, with a smile; “who knows? Everything is possible nowadays.”

It all typified the exodus from the country districts towards the towns, the feverish impatience to make a fortune, which was becoming general. Even the parents nowadays celebrated their child’s departure, and accompanied the adventurer on his way, anxious and proud to climb the social ladder with him. And that which brought a smile to the lips of the farmer of Chantebled, the bourgeois who had become a peasant, was the thought of the double change: the miller’s son going to Paris, whereas he had gone to the earth, the mother of all strength and regeneration.

Antonin, however, had also begun to laugh with the air of an artful idler who was more particularly attracted by the free dissipation of Paris life. “Oh! minister?” said he, “I haven’t much taste for that. I would much sooner win a million at once so as to rest afterwards.”

Delighted with this display of wit, the Lepailleurs burst into noisy merriment. Oh! their boy would do great things, that was quite certain!

Marianne, her heart oppressed by thought of the mourning which awaited her, had hitherto kept silent. She now asked, however, why little Therese did not form one of the party. Lepailleur dryly replied that he did not choose to embarrass himself with a child but six years old, who did not know how to behave. Her arrival had upset everything in the house; things would have been much better if she had never been born. Then, as Marianne began to protest, saying that she had seldom seen a more intelligent and prettier little girl, Madame Lepailleur answered more gently: “Oh! she’s sharp; that’s true enough; but one can’t send girls to Paris. She’ll have to be put somewhere, and it will mean a lot of trouble, a lot of money. However, we mustn’t talk about all that this morning, since we want to enjoy ourselves.”

At last the train reached Paris, and the Lepailleurs, leaving the Northern terminus, were caught and carried off by the impetuously streaming crowd.

When Mathieu and Marianne alighted from their cab on the Quai d’Orsay, in front of the Beauchenes’ residence, they recognized the Seguins’ brougham drawn up beside the foot pavement. And within it they perceived the two girls, Lucie and Andree, waiting mute and motionless in their light-colored dresses. Then, as they approached the door, they saw Valentine come out, in a very great hurry as usual. On recognizing them, however, she assumed an expression of deep pity, and spoke the words required by the situation:

“What a frightful misfortune, is it not? an only son!”

Then she burst out into a flood of words: “You have hastened here, I see, as I did; it is only natural. I heard of the catastrophe only by chance less than an hour ago. And you see my luck! My daughters were dressed, and I myself was dressing to take them to a wedding — a cousin of our friend Santerre is marrying a diplomatist. And, in addition, I am engaged for the whole afternoon. Well, although the wedding is fixed for a quarter-past eleven, I did not hesitate, but drove here before going to the church. And naturally I went upstairs alone. My daughters have been waiting in the carriage. We shall no doubt be a little late for the wedding. But no matter! You will see the poor parents in their empty house, near the body, which, I must say, they have laid out very nicely on the bed. Oh! it is heartrending.”

Mathieu was looking at her, surprised to see that she did not age. The fiery flame of her wild life seemed to scorch and preserve her. He knew that her home was now completely wrecked. Seguin openly lived with Nora, the governess, for whom he had furnished a little house. It was there even that he had given Mathieu an appointment to sign the final transfer of the Chantebled property. And since Gaston had entered the military college of St. Cyr, Valentine had only her two daughters with her in the spacious, luxurious mansion of the Avenue d’Antin, which ruin was slowly destroying.

“I think,” resumed Madame Seguin, “that I shall tell Gaston to obtain permission to attend the funeral. For I am not sure whether his father is in Paris. It’s just the same with our friend Santerre; he’s starting on a tour to-morrow. Ah! not only do the dead leave us, but it is astonishing what a number of the living go off and disappear! Life is very sad, is it not, dear madame?”