Complete Works of Emile Zola (656 page)

“He is all very fine, the parson! he does not know what it is!” murmured Théophile, whose head was completely upset by the sermon.

Valérie, who kept Madame Juzeur near her to help her to keep her countenance, listened with emotion to the conciliatory words which the Abbé Mauduit also considered it his duty to address to her. Then, as they were at length leaving the church, she paused before the two fathers, to allow Berthe to pass on her husband’s arm.

“You ought to be satisfied,” said she to Monsieur Josserand, wishing to show how free her mind was. “I congratulate you.”

“Yes, yes,” declared Monsieur Vabre in his clammy voice, “it is a very great responsibility the less.”

And, whilst Trublot and Gueulin rushed about seeing all the ladies to the carriages, Madame Josserand, whose shawl attracted quite a crowd, obstinately insisted on remaining the last on the pavement, publicly to display her maternal triumph.

The repast that evening at the Hôtel du Louvre was likewise marred by Théophile’s unlucky affair. The latter was quite a plague, it had been the topic of conversation all the afternoon in the carriages during the drive in the Bois de Boulogne; and the ladies always came to this conclusion, that the husband ought at least to have waited until the morrow before finding the letter. None but the most intimate friends of both families sat down to table. The only lively episode was a speech from uncle Bachelard, whom the Josserands could not very well avoid inviting, in spite of their terror. He was drunk, indeed, as early as the roast: he raised his glass, and commenced with these words: “I am happy in the joy I feel,” which he kept repeating, unable to say anything further. The other guests smiled complacently. Auguste and Berthe, already worn out, looked at each other every now and then, with an air of surprise at seeing themselves opposite one another; and, when they remembered how this was, they gazed in their plates in a confused way.

Nearly two hundred invitations had been issued for the ball. The guests began to arrive as early as half-past nine. Three chandeliers lit up the large red drawing-room, in which only some seats along the walls had been left, whilst at one end, in front of the fire-place, the little orchestra was installed; moreover, a bar had been placed at the farthest end of an adjoining room, and the two families also had a small apartment into which they could retire.

As Madame Duveyrier and Madame Josserand were receiving the first arrivals, that poor Théophile, who had been watched ever since the morning, was guilty of a most regrettable piece of brutality. Campardon was asking Valérie to grant him the first waltz. She laughed, and the husband took it as a provocation.

“You laugh! you laugh!” stammered he. “Tell me who the letter is from? It must be from somebody, that letter must.”

He had taken the entire afternoon to disengage that one idea from the confusion into which Octave’s answers had plunged him. Now, he stuck to it: if it was not Monsieur Mouret, it was then some one else, and he demanded a name. As Valérie was walking off without answering him, he seized hold of her arm and twisted it spitefully, with the rage of an exasperated child, repeating the while:

“I’ll break it. Tell me, who is the letter from?”

The young woman, frightened, and stifling a cry of pain, had become quite white. Campardon felt her abandoning herself against his shoulder, succumbing to one of those nervous attacks which would shake her for hours together. He had scarcely time to lead her into the apartment reserved for the two families, where he laid her on a sofa. Some ladies had followed him, Madame Juzeur, Madame Dambreville, who unlaced her, whilst he discreetly retired.

However, only three or four people at most in the drawing-room had noticed this brief display of violence. Madame Duveyrier and Madame Josserand continued to receive the guests, the stream of whom gradually filled the vast apartment with light costumes and black dress suits. A murmur of amiable words arose, and faces continually smiled around the bride: the broad countenances of fathers and mothers, the skinny profiles of young girls, the fine and compassionate heads of young women. At the end of the room a violinist was tuning his first string, which sent forth little plaintive cries.

“Sir, I beg your pardon,” said Théophile, going up to Octave, whose eyes he had encountered when twisting his wife’s arm. “Every one in my place would have suspected you, is it not so?
But I wish to shake hands with you, to prove to you that I admit myself to have been in the wrong.”

He shook hands with him, and led him on one side, tortured by a necessity to unbosom himself, to find a confidant for the outpourings of his heart:

“Ah! sir, if I were to tell you — “

And he talked for a long while of his wife. When a young girl, she was delicate, it was said jokingly that marriage would set her right. She had not sufficient air in her parents’ shop, where every evening for three months she had appeared to him very nice, obedient, of a rather sad disposition, but charming.

“Well! sir, marriage did not set her right, far from it. After a few weeks she became terrible, we could no longer agree together. There were quarrels about nothing at all. Changes of temper at every minute, laughing, crying, without my knowing why. And absurd sentiments, ideas that would knock a person down, a perpetual mania for making people wild. In short, sir, my home has become a hell.”

“It is very remarkable,” murmured Octave, who felt a necessity for saying something.

Then, the husband, ghastly pale, and drawing himself up on his short legs, to override the ridiculous, came to what he called the wretched woman’s bad behaviour. Twice he had suspected her; but he was too honourable, he could not retain such an idea in his head. This time, though, he was obliged to yield to evidence. It was not possible to doubt, was it?
And, with his trembling fingers, he felt the pocket of his waistcoat which contained the letter.

“If she did it for money, I might understand it,” added he. “But they never give her any, I am sure of that, I should know it. Then, tell me what it can be that she has in her skin?
I am very nice myself, she has everything at home, I cannot understand it. If you can understand it, sir, explain it to me, I beg of you.”

“It is very curious, very curious,” repeated Octave, embarrassed by all these disclosures, and trying to make his escape.

But the husband, in a state of fever, and tormented by a want of certitude, would not let him go. At this moment, Madame Juzeur reappearing, went and whispered a word to Madame Josserand, who was greeting the arrival of a big jeweller of the Palais-Royal with a grand curtsey; and she, quite upset, hastened to follow her.

“I think that your wife has a very violent attack,” observed Octave to Théophile.

“Never mind her!” replied the latter in a fury, vexed at not being ill so as to be coddled up also, “she is only too pleased to have an attack! It always puts everyone on her side. My health is no better than hers, yet I have never deceived her!”

Madame Josserand did not return. The rumour circulated among the intimate friends that Valérie was struggling in frightful convulsions. There should have been men present to hold her down; but, as they had been obliged to half undress her, they declined Trublot’s and Gueulin’s offers of assistance. The orchestra was now playing a quadrille, and Berthe was opening the ball with Duveyrier, who danced like a judge, whilst, not having been able to discover Madame Josserand, Auguste faced them with Hortense. The attack was kept a profound secret from the young married couple for fear of dangerous emotions. The ball was becoming lively, peals of laughter resounded in the brilliant light of the chandeliers. A polka, which the violins next gave out in a sprightly style, whirled the couples round the vast drawing-room, amidst an endless string of long trains.

“Doctor Juillerat! where is Doctor Juillerat?”
asked Madame Josserand, rushing back into the room.

The doctor had been invited, but no one had as yet seen him. Then she no longer strove to hide the slumbering rage which had been collecting within her since the morning. She spoke out before Octave and Campardon, without mincing her words.

“I am beginning to have enough of it. It is not very pleasant for my daughter, all this cuckoldom paraded before us!”

She looked about for Hortense, and at length caught sight of her talking to a gentleman, of whom she could only see the back, but whom she recognised by its breadth. It was Verdier. This increased her ill-humour. She sharply called the young girl to her, and, lowering her voice, told her that she would do better to remain at her mother’s disposal on such a day as that. Hortense did not listen to the reprimand. She was triumphant, Verdier had just fixed their marriage at two months from then, in June.

“Shut up!” said the mother.

“I assure you, mamma. He already sleeps out three nights a week so as to accustom the other to it, and in a fortnight he will stop away altogether. Then it will be all over, and I shall have him.”

“Shut up! I have already had more than enough of your romance! You will just oblige me by waiting near the door for Doctor Juillerat, and by sending him to me the moment he arrives. And, above all, not a word of all this to your sister!”

She returned to the adjoining room, leaving Hortense muttering that, thank goodness! she required no one’s approbation, and that they would all be nicely caught one day, when they saw her make a better marriage than the others. Yet, she went to the door, and watched for the doctor’s arrival.

The orchestra was now playing a waltz. Berthe was dancing with one of her husband’s young cousins, so as to dispose of the relations in turn. Madame Duveyrier had been unable to refuse uncle Bachelard, who inconvenienced her a great deal by breathing in her face. The heat increased, the refreshment bar was already crowded with gentlemen wiping their foreheads. Some little girls were jumping together in a corner,
whilst several mothers sat musing away from the dancers, thinking of the marriages their daughters had so often missed. Congratulations were showered upon the two fathers, Monsieur Vabre and Monsieur Josserand, who did not leave each other a moment, without their exchanging, however, a word. All the guests had an air of amusing themselves immensely, and expatiated before them on the liveliness of the ball. It was, according to Campardon, a liveliness of a good standard.

The architect, with an effusion of gallantry, concerned himself a great deal about Valérie’s condition, without, however, missing a dance. He had the idea to send his daughter Angèle for news in his name. The child, whose fourteen years had been burning with curiosity since the morning around the lady that everyone was talking about, was delighted at being able to penetrate into the little room. And, as she did not return, the architect was obliged to take the liberty of slightly opening the door and thrusting his head in. He beheld his daughter standing up beside the sofa, deeply absorbed by the sight of Valérie, whose bosom, shaken by spasms, had escaped from the unhooked bodice. Protestations arose, the ladies called to him not to come in; and he withdrew, assuring them that he merely wished to know how she was getting on.

“She is no better, she is no better,” said he, in a melancholy way to the persons who happened to be near the door. “There are four of them holding her. How strong a woman must be, to be able to bound about like that without hurting herself!”

A small group had formed there. They discussed, in an undertone, the slightest phases of the attack. Some ladies, hearing of what was taking place, would come between two quadrilles, enter the little room with an air of pity, and then return in a few minutes and give the gentlemen the latest particulars, and go and rejoin the dance. It was a regular corner of mystery, words whispered in each other’s ears, glances exchanged, in the midst of the increasing hubbub. And, alone and abandoned, Théophile walked up and down before the door, rendered quite ill by the fixed idea that he was being made a fool of, and that he ought not to suffer it.

But Doctor Juillerat quickly crossed the ballroom, accompanied by Hortense, who was explaining matters to him. Madame Duveyrier followed them. Some persons showed their surprise, more rumours circulated. Scarcely had the doctor disappeared than Madame Josserand left the little room with Madame Dambreville. Her rage was increasing; she had just emptied two water bottles over Valérie’s head; never before had she seen a woman as nervous as that. Then she had decided to make the round of the ballroom, so as to stop all remarks by her presence. Only, she walked with such a terrible step, she distributed such sour smiles, that everyone behind her was let into the secret.

Madame Dambreville did not leave her. Ever since the morning she had been speaking to her of Léon, making vague complaints, trying to bring her to speak to her son, so as to patch up their connection. She drew her attention to him, as he was conducting a tall, scraggy girl back to her place, and to whom he made a show of being very assiduous.

“He abandons us,” said she, with a slight laugh, trembling with suppressed tears. “Scold him now, for not so much as looking at us.”

“Léon!” called Madame Josserand.

When he came to her, she added roughly, not being in the temper to choose her words:

“Why are you angry with madame? She bears you no ill-will. Make it up with her. It does no good being ill-tempered,”

And she left them embarrassed before each other. Madame Dambreville took Léon’s arm, and they went and conversed in the recess of a window; then they tenderly left the ballroom together. She had sworn to arrange his marriage in the autumn.

Madame Josserand, who continued distributing smiles, was overcome by emotion when she found herself before Berthe, who was out of breath at having danced so much, and looked quite rosy in her white dress, which was becoming rumpled. She clasped her in her arms, and almost fainted away at a vague association of ideas, recalling, no doubt, the other one, whose face was so frightfully convulsed:

“My poor darling, my poor darling!” murmured she, giving her two big kisses.