Complete Works of Emile Zola (674 page)

“And now,” said Victoire, “she gets her husband’s assistant to give her a dusting!”

“Hush!” exclaimed Hippolyte softly.

“What for? Her jade of a servant isn’t there today. A sly hussy who’d eat you, when one speaks of her mistress! You know she’s a Jewess, and she murdered some one once. Perhaps the handsome Octave dusts her also, in the corners. The governor must have engaged him just to increase the family, the big ninny!”

Then Berthe, suffering indescribable anguish, raised her eyes to her lover. And, cast down, imploring some aid, she stammered in a painful voice:

“My God! my God!”

Octave took her hand and squeezed it tightly; he was choking with impotent rage. What was to be done?
he could not show himself and force those women to leave off. The foul words continued, words which the young woman had never heard before, all the overflow of a sewer which every morning found an outlet there, close to her, and of which she had never had the least suspicion. Their love, so carefully hidden as they thought, was now being dragged amidst the vegetable parings and the kitchen slops. These women knew all, without anyone having spoken. Lisa related how Saturnin held the candle. Victoire was highly amused by the husband’s headaches, and said that he would do well to get himself another eye and have it placed somewhere; even Adèle had a fling at her mistress’s young lady, whose ailments, private habits, and toilet secrets she ruthlessly exposed. And a filthy chaff soiled all that remained that was good and tender in their love.

“Look out below!” suddenly exclaimed Victoire, “here’s some of yesterday’s carrots which stink enough to poison one! They’ll do for that crapulous old Gourd!”

The servants, out of spite, threw all the filth they could into the inner courtyard, so that the doorkeeper should have it to sweep up.

“And here’s a bit of mouldy kidney!” said Adèle in her turn.

All the scrapings of the saucepans, all the muck from the washing-up basins, found their way there, whilst Lisa continued to pull Berthe and Octave to pieces. The pair remained standing, hand in hand, face to face, unable to turn away their eyes; and their hands became as cold as ice, and their looks acknowledged the impurity of their intimacy. This was what their love had come to, this fornication beneath a downpour of putrid meat and stale vegetables!

“And you know,” said Hippolyte, “the young gentleman doesn’t care a damn for the missis. He merely took her to help him along in the world. Oh! he’s a miser at heart in spite of his airs, an unscrupulous fellow, who, with his pretensions of loving women, is not above slapping them!”

Berthe, her eyes on Octave, saw him turn pale, his face so upset, so changed, that he frightened her.

“On my word! the two make a nice pair,” resumed Lisa. “I wouldn’t give much for her skin either. Badly brought up, with a heart as hard as a stone, caring for nothing except her own pleasure, and sleeping with fellows for the sake of their money, yes, for their money! for I know the sort of woman.”

The tears streamed from Berthe’s eyes. Octave beheld her features all distorted. It was as if they had been flayed before each other, laid utterly bare, without any possibility of protesting. Then, the young woman, suffocated by this open cesspool which discharged its exhalations full in her face, wished to fly. He did not detain her, for disgust with themselves made their presence a torture, and they longed for the relief of no longer seeing each other.

“You promise to come, next Tuesday, to my room?
”

“Yes, yes.”

And she hurried away, quite distracted. Left alone, he walked about the room, fumbling with his hands, putting the linen he had brought, into a bundle. He was no longer listening to the servants, when their last words attracted his attention.

“I tell you that Monsieur Hédouin died last night. If handsome Octave had foreseen that, he would have continued to cultivate Madame Hédouin, who’s worth a lot.”

This news learnt there, amidst those surroundings, re-echoed in the innermost recesses of his being. Monsieur Hédouin was dead! And he was seized with an immense regret. He thought out loud, he could not restrain himself from saying:

“Ah! yes, by Jove! I’ve been a fool!”

When Octave at length went down, with his bundle, he met Rachel coming up to her room. Had she been a few minutes sooner, she would have caught them there. Downstairs, she had again found her mistress in tears; but, this time, she had’ not got anything out of her, neither an avowal, nor a sou. And furious, understanding that they took advantage of her absence to see each other and thus to do her out of her little profits, she stared at the young man with a look black with menace. A singular schoolboy timidity prevented Octave from giving her ten francs; and, desirous of displaying perfect ease of mind, he went in to joke with Marie a while, when a grunt proceeding from a corner caused him to turn round: it was Saturnin who rose up saying, in one of his jealous fits:

“Take care! we’re mortal enemies!”

That morning was the 8th of October, and the boot-stitcher had to clear out before noon. For a week past, Monsieur Gourd had been watching her with a dread that increased hourly.

The boot-stitcher had implored the landlord to let her stay a few days longer, so as to get over her confinement; but had met with an indignant refusal. Pains were seizing her at every moment; during the last night, she had fancied she would be brought to bed all alone. Then, towards nine o’clock, she had begun her moving, helping the youngster whose little truck was in the courtyard, leaning against the furniture or sitting down on the stairs, whenever a formidable spasm, doubled her up.

Monsieur Gourd, however, had discovered nothing. Not a man! He had been regularly humbugged. So that, all the morning, he prowled about in a cold rage. Octave, who met him, shuddered at the thought that he also must know of their intimacy. Perhaps the doorkeeper did know of it, but he bowed to him as politely as ever; for what did not concern him, did not concern him, as he was in the habit of saying. That morning, he had also taken his cap off to the mysterious lady, as she glided from the room of the gentleman on the third floor, leaving nothing belonging to her in the staircase but an evaporated odour of verbena; he had also bowed to Trublot, to the other Madame Campardon, and to Valérie. They were all ladies and gentlemen, neither the young men seen coming from the maid-servants’ bedrooms, nor the ladies met on the stairs in incriminating dressing-gowns concerned him. But what did concern him, did concern him, and he did not lose sight of the few poor sticks of furniture belonging to the boot-stitcher, as though the man so long sought for was about to make off in one of the drawers.

At a quarter to twelve, the work-girl appeared, with her wax-like face, her perpetual sadness, her mournful despondency. She could scarcely move along. Monsieur Gourd trembled until she was safe out in the street. Just as she handed him her key, Duveyrier issued from the vestibule, so heated by his night’s work that the red blotches on his forehead seemed almost bleeding. He put on a haughty air, an implacable moral severity, when the creature passed before him. Ashamed and resigned, she bowed her head; and, following the little truck, she went off with the same despairing step as she had come, the day when she had been engulfed by the undertaker’s black hangings.

Then, only, did Monsieur Gourd triumph. As though this woman had carried off with her all the uneasiness of the house, the disreputable things with which the very walls shuddered, he called out to the landlord:

“A good riddance, sir! One will be able to breathe now, for, on my word of honour! it was becoming disgusting. It has lifted a hundredweight from off my chest. No, sir, you see, in a house which is to be respected, there should be no single women, and especially none of those women who work!”

CHAPTER XIV

On the following Tuesday, Berthe did not keep her promise to Octave. This time, she had warned him not to expect her, in a rapid explanation they had had that evening, after the warehouse closed; and she sobbed; she had been to confession the day before, feeling a want of religious comfort, and was still quite upset by Abbé Mauduit’s grievous exhortations. Since her marriage, she had thrown aside all religion; but, after the foul words with which the servants had sullied her, she had suddenly felt so sad, so abandoned, so unclean, that she had returned for an hour to the belief of her childhood, inflamed with a hope of purification and salvation. On her return, the priest having wept with her, her sin quite horrified her. Octave, impotent and furious, shrugged his shoulders.

Then, three days later, she again promised for the following Tuesday. At a meeting with her lover, in the Passage des Panoramas, she had seen some Chantilly lace shawls; and she was incessantly alluding to them, whilst her eyes were filled with desire. So that, on the Monday morning, the young man laughingly said to her, in order to soften the brutal nature of the bargain, that, if she at last kept her word, she would find a little surprise for herself up in his room. She understood him, and again burst into tears. No! no! she would not go now, he had spoilt all the pleasure she had anticipated from their being together. She had spoken of the shawl thoughtlessly, she no longer wanted it, she would throw it on the fire if he gave it her. However, on the morrow, they made all their arrangements: she was to knock three times at his door very softly, half an hour after midnight.

That day, when Auguste started for Lyons, he struck Berthe as being rather peculiar. She had caught him whispering with Rachel, behind the kitchen door; besides which, he was quite yellow, and shivering, with one eye closed up; but as he complained a good deal of his headache she thought he was ill, and told him that the journey would do him good. Directly he had left, she returned to the kitchen, still feeling slightly uneasy, and tried to sound the servant. The girl continued to be discreet and respectful, and maintained the stiff attitude of her early days. The young woman, however, felt that she was vaguely dissatisfied; and she thought that she had been very foolish to give her twenty francs and a dress, and then to stop all further gratuities, although compelled to do so, for she was for ever in want of a five franc piece herself.

“My poor girl,” said she to her, “I have not been very generous, have I? But it is not my fault. I have not forgotten you, and I shall recompense you by-and-by.”

“Madame owes me nothing,” answered Rachel in her cold way.

Then Berthe went and fetched two of her old chemises, wishing at least to show her good nature. But the servant, on receiving them, observed that they would do for rags for the kitchen.

“Thank you, madame, calico irritates my skin, I only wear linen.”

Berthe, however, found her so polite, that she became more easy. She made herself very familiar with her, told her she was going to sleep out, and even asked her to leave a lamp alight, in case she required it. The door leading on to the grand staircase could be bolted, and she would go out by way of the kitchen, the key of which she would take with her. The servant received these instructions as coolly as if it had been a question of cooking a piece of beef for the morrow’s dinner.

By a refinement of discretion, as his mistress was to dine with her parents that evening, Octave accepted an invitation to the Campardons’. He counted on staying there till ten o’clock, and then going and shutting himself up in his room, and waiting for half-past twelve with as much patience as possible.

The dinner at the Campardons’ was quite patriarchal. The architect, seated between his wife and her cousin, lingered over the dishes, regular family dishes, abundant and wholesome, as he described them. That evening, they had a fowl and rice, a joint of beef and stewed potatoes. Since the cousin had been managing everything, the household had been living in a continuous state of indigestion, she knew so well how to buy things, paying less and bringing home twice as much meat as any one else. And Campardon had three helps of fowl, whilst Rose stuffed herself with rice. Angèle reserved herself for the underdone beef; she liked blood, Lisa sometimes brought her spoonfuls of it on the sly. And Gasparine alone scarcely touched anything, her stomach having shrunk, so she said.

“Eat away,” cried the architect to Octave, “you may be eaten yourself some day.”

Madame Campardon, bending towards the young man’s ear, was once more congratulating herself on the happiness which the cousin had brought the household: an economy of quite cent per cent, the servants made to be respectful, Angèle looked after properly and receiving good examples.

“In short,” murmured she, “Achille continues to be as happy as a fish in water, and as for me I have absolutely nothing whatever left to do, absolutely nothing. Listen! she even washes me, now. I can live without moving either arms or legs, she has taken all the cares of the household on her own shoulders.”

Then, the architect related how “he had settled those jokers of the Ministry of Public Instruction.”

“Just fancy, my dear fellow, they made no end of a fuss about the work I’ve done at Evreux. You see, I wished above all to please the bishop. Only, the range for the new kitchens and the heating apparatus have come to more than twenty thousand francs. No credit was voted for them, and it is not easy to get twenty thousand francs out of the small sum allowed for repairs. Besides that, the pulpit, for which I had received three thousand francs, came to close upon ten thousand: making another seven thousand francs to provide somehow or other. So that they sent for me to the Ministry this morning, where a great stick of a fellow commenced by giving me a fine blowing up. Ah! but it was no go! I don’t care for that sort of thing! So I quietly shut him up by threatening to send for the bishop to explain the matter himself. And he at once became so polite, oh! so polite! see, it even makes me laugh now! You know they’ve an awful fear of the bishops just at present. When I’ve a bishop with me, I might demolish Notre-Dame and build it up again, I don’t care a straw for the government!”

They laughed all round the table, without the least respect for the Ministry, of which they spoke with disdain, their mouths full of rice. Rose declared that it was best to be on the side of religion. Ever since the works at Saint-Roch, Achille was overwhelmed with orders: the greatest families would employ no one else, it was impossible for him to attend to them all, he would have to work all night as well as all day. God wished them well, most decidedly, and the family returned thanks to Him, both night and morning.