Complete Works of Emile Zola (640 page)

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-loooking 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 Valérie — 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 stock-still. 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 weak 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 see, 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.