Complete Works of Emile Zola (898 page)

He did not relax his hold on Claude’s arm, and they both continued their way towards the Madeleine, talking all the while. As a rule, Jory kept silent about his many love adventures, just as a drunkard keeps silent about his potations. But that morning he brimmed over with revelations, chaffed himself and owned to all sorts of scandalous things. After all he was delighted with existence, his affairs went apace. His miserly father had certainly cut off the supplies once more, cursing him for obstinately pursuing a scandalous career, but he did not care a rap for that now; he earned between seven and eight thousand francs a year by journalism, in which he was making his way as a gossipy leader writer and art critic. The noisy days of ‘The Drummer,’ the articles at a louis apiece, had been left far behind. He was getting steady, wrote for two widely circulated papers, and although, in his inmost heart he remained a sceptical voluptuary, a worshipper of success at any price, he was acquiring importance, and readers began to look upon his opinions as fiats. Swayed by hereditary meanness, he already invested money every month in petty speculations, which were only known to himself, for never had his vices cost him less than nowadays.

As he and Claude reached the Rue de Moscou, he told the painter that it was there that Irma Becot now lived. ‘Oh! she is rolling in wealth,’ said he, ‘paying twenty thousand francs a year rent and talking of building a house which would cost half a million.’ Then suddenly pulling up he exclaimed: ‘Come, here we are! In with you, quick!’

But Claude still objected. His wife was waiting for him to lunch; he really couldn’t. And Jory was obliged to ring the bell, and then push him inside the hall, repeating that his excuse would not do; for they would send the valet to the Rue de Douai to tell his wife. A door opened and they found themselves face to face with Irma Becot, who uttered a cry of surprise as soon as she perceived the painter.

‘What! is it you, savage?’ she said.

She made him feel at home at once by treating him like an old chum, and, in fact, he saw well enough that she did not even notice his old clothes. He himself was astonished, for he barely recognised her. In the course of four years she had become a different being; her head was ‘made up’ with all an actress’s skill, her brow hidden beneath a mass of curly hair, and her face elongated, by a sheer effort of will, no doubt. And from a pale blonde she had become flaringly carrotty; so that a Titianesque creature seemed to have sprung from the little urchin-like girl of former days. Her house, with all its show of luxury, still had its bald spots. What struck the painter were some good pictures on the walls, a Courbet, and, above all, an unfinished study by Delacroix. So this wild, wilful creature was not altogether a fool, although there was a frightful cat in coloured
biscuit
standing on a console in the drawing-room.

When Jory spoke of sending the valet to his friend’s place, she exclaimed in great surprise:

‘What! you are married?’

‘Why, yes,’ said Claude, simply.

She glanced at Jory, who smiled; then she understood, and added:

‘Ah! But why did people tell me that you were a woman-hater? I’m awfully vexed, you know. I frightened you, don’t you remember, eh? You still think me very ugly, don’t you? Well, well, we’ll talk about it all some other day.’

It was the coachman who went to the Rue de Douai with a note from Claude, for the valet had opened the door of the dining-room, to announce that lunch was served. The repast, a very delicate one, was partaken of in all propriety, under the icy stare of the servant. They talked about the great building works that were revolutionising Paris; and then discussed the price of land, like middle-class people with money to invest. But at dessert, when they were all three alone with the coffee and liqueurs, which they had decided upon taking there, without leaving the table, they gradually became animated, and dropped into their old familiar ways, as if they had met each other at the Cafe Baudequin.

‘Ah, my lads,’ said Irma, ‘this is the only real enjoyment, to be jolly together and to snap one’s fingers at other people.’

She was twisting cigarettes; she had just placed the bottle of chartreuse near her, and had begun to empty it, looking the while very flushed, and lapsing once more to her low street drollery.

‘So,’ continued Jory, who was apologising for not having sent her that morning a book she wanted, ‘I was going to buy it last night at about ten o’clock, when I met Fagerolles—’

‘You are telling a lie,’ said she, interrupting him in a clear voice. And to cut short his protestations—’Fagerolles was here,’ she added, ‘so you see that you are telling a lie.’

Then, turning to Claude, ‘No, it’s too disgusting. You can’t conceive what a liar he is. He tells lies like a woman, for the pleasure of it, for the merest trifle. Now, the whole of his story amounts simply to this: that he didn’t want to spend three francs to buy me that book. Each time he was to have sent me a bouquet, he had dropped it under the wheels of a carriage, or there were no flowers to be had in all Paris. Ah! there’s a fellow who only cares for himself, and no mistake.’

Jory, without getting in the least angry, tilted back his chair and sucked his cigar, merely saying with a sneer:

‘Oh! if you see Fagerolles now—’

‘Well, what of it?’ she cried, becoming furious. ‘It’s no business of yours. I snap my fingers at your Fagerolles, do you hear? He knows very well that people don’t quarrel with me. We know each other; we sprouted in the same crack between the paving-stones. Look here, whenever I like, I have only to hold up my finger, and your Fagerolles will be there on the floor, licking my feet.’

She was growing animated, and Jory thought it prudent to beat a retreat.

‘
My
Fagerolles,’ he muttered; ‘
my
Fagerolles.’

‘Yes,
your
Fagerolles. Do you think that I don’t see through you both? He is always patting you on the back, as he hopes to get articles out of you, and you affect generosity and calculate the advantage you’ll derive if you write up an artist liked by the public.’

This time Jory stuttered, feeling very much annoyed on account of Claude being there. He did not attempt to defend himself, however, preferring to turn the quarrel into a joke. Wasn’t she amusing, eh? when she blazed up like that, with her lustrous wicked eyes, and her twitching mouth, eager to indulge in vituperation?

‘But remember, my dear, this sort of thing cracks your Titianesque “make-up,”’ he added.

She began to laugh, mollified at once.

Claude, basking in physical comfort, kept on sipping small glasses of cognac one after another, without noticing it. During the two hours they had been there a kind of intoxication had stolen over them, the hallucinatory intoxication produced by liqueurs and tobacco smoke. They changed the conversation; the high prices that pictures were fetching came into question. Irma, who no longer spoke, kept a bit of extinguished cigarette between her lips, and fixed her eyes on the painter. At last she abruptly began to question him about his wife.

Her questions did not appear to surprise him; his ideas were going astray: ‘She had just come from the provinces,’ he said. ‘She was in a situation with a lady, and was a very good and honest girl.’

‘Pretty?’

‘Why, yes, pretty.’

For a moment Irma relapsed into her reverie, then she said, smiling: ‘Dash it all! How lucky you are!’

Then she shook herself, and exclaimed, rising from the table: ‘Nearly three o’clock! Ah! my children, I must turn you out of the house. Yes, I have an appointment with an architect; I am going to see some ground near the Parc Monceau, you know, in the new quarter which is being built. I have scented a stroke of business in that direction.’

They had returned to the drawing-room. She stopped before a looking-glass, annoyed at seeing herself so flushed.

‘It’s about that house, isn’t it?’ asked Jory. ‘You have found the money, then?’

She brought her hair down over her brow again, then with her hands seemed to efface the flush on her cheeks; elongated the oval of her face, and rearranged her tawny head, which had all the charm of a work of art; and finally, turning round, she merely threw Jory these words by way of reply: Look! there’s my Titianesque effect back again.’

She was already, amidst their laughter, edging them towards the hall, where once more, without speaking, she took Claude’s hands in her own, her glance yet again diving into the depths of his eyes. When he reached the street he felt uncomfortable. The cold air dissipated his intoxication; he remorsefully reproached himself for having spoken of Christine in that house, and swore to himself that he would never set foot there again.

Indeed, a kind of shame deterred Claude from going home, and when his companion, excited by the luncheon and feeling inclined to loaf about, spoke of going to shake hands with Bongrand, he was delighted with the idea, and both made their way to the Boulevard de Clichy.

For the last twenty years Bongrand had there occupied a very large studio, in which he had in no wise sacrificed to the tastes of the day, to that magnificence of hangings and nick-nacks with which young painters were then beginning to surround themselves. It was the bare, greyish studio of the old style, exclusively ornamented with sketches by the master, which hung there unframed, and in close array like the votive offerings in a chapel. The only tokens of elegance consisted of a cheval glass, of the First Empire style, a large Norman wardrobe, and two arm-chairs upholstered in Utrecht velvet, and threadbare with usage. In one corner, too, a bearskin which had lost nearly all its hair covered a large couch. However, the artist had retained since his youthful days, which had been spent in the camp of the Romanticists, the habit of wearing a special costume, and it was in flowing trousers, in a dressing-gown secured at the waist by a silken cord, and with his head covered with a priest’s skull-cap, that he received his visitors.

He came to open the door himself, holding his palette and brushes.

‘So here you are! It was a good idea of yours to come! I was thinking about you, my dear fellow. Yes, I don’t know who it was that told me of your return, but I said to myself that it wouldn’t be long before I saw you.’

The hand that he had free grasped Claude’s in a burst of sincere affection. He then shook Jory’s, adding:

‘And you, young pontiff; I read your last article, and thank you for your kind mention of myself. Come in, come in, both of you! You don’t disturb me; I’m taking advantage of the daylight to the very last minute, for there’s hardly time to do anything in this confounded month of November.’

He had resumed his work, standing before his easel, on which there was a small canvas, which showed two women, mother and daughter, sitting sewing in the embrasure of a sunlit window. The young fellows stood looking behind him.

‘Exquisite,’ murmured Claude, at last.

Bongrand shrugged his shoulders without turning round.

‘Pooh! A mere nothing at all. A fellow must occupy his time, eh? I did this from life at a friend’s house, and I am cleaning it a bit.’

‘But it’s perfect — it is a little gem of truth and light,’ replied Claude, warming up. ‘And do you know, what overcomes me is its simplicity, its very simplicity.’

On hearing this the painter stepped back and blinked his eyes, looking very much surprised.

‘You think so? It really pleases you? Well, when you came in I was just thinking it was a foul bit of work. I give you my word, I was in the dumps, and felt convinced that I hadn’t a scrap of talent left.’

His hands shook, his stalwart frame trembled as with the agony of travail. He rid himself of his palette, and came back towards them, his arms sawing the air, as it were; and this artist, who had grown old amidst success, who was assured of ranking in the French School, cried to them:

‘It surprises you, eh? but there are days when I ask myself whether I shall be able to draw a nose correctly. Yes, with every one of my pictures I still feel the emotion of a beginner; my heart beats, anguish parches my mouth — in fact, I funk abominably. Ah! you youngsters, you think you know what funk means; but you haven’t as much as a notion of it, for if you fail with one work, you get quits by trying to do something better. Nobody is down upon you; whereas we, the veterans, who have given our measure, who are obliged to keep up to the level previously attained, if not to surpass it, we mustn’t weaken under penalty of rolling down into the common grave. And so, Mr. Celebrity, Mr. Great Artist, wear out your brains, consume yourself in striving to climb higher, still higher, ever higher, and if you happen to kick your heels on the summit, think yourself lucky! Wear your heels out in kicking them up as long as possible, and if you feel that you are declining, why, make an end of yourself by rolling down amid the death rattle of your talent, which is no longer suited to the period; roll down forgetful of such of your works as are destined to immortality, and in despair at your powerless efforts to create still further!’

His full voice had risen to a final outburst like thunder, and his broad flushed face wore an expression of anguish. He strode about, and continued, as if carried away, in spite of himself, by a violent whirlwind:

‘I have told you a score of times that one was for ever beginning one’s career afresh, that joy did not consist in having reached the summit, but in the climbing, in the gaiety of scaling the heights. Only, you don’t understand, you cannot understand; a man must have passed through it. Just remember! You hope for everything, you dream of everything; it is the hour of boundless illusions, and your legs are so strong that the most fatiguing roads seem short; you are consumed with such an appetite for glory, that the first petty successes fill your mouth with a delicious taste. What a feast it will be when you are able to gratify ambition to satiety! You have nearly reached that point, and you look right cheerfully on your scratches! Well, the thing is accomplished; the summit has been gained; it is now a question of remaining there. Then a life of abomination begins; you have exhausted intoxication, and you have discovered that it does not last long enough, that it is not worth the struggle it has cost, and that the dregs of the cup taste bitter. There is nothing left to be learnt, no new sensation to be felt; pride has had its allowance of fame; you know that you have produced your greatest works; and you are surprised that they did not bring keener enjoyment with them. From that moment the horizon becomes void; no fresh hope inflames you; there is nothing left but to die. And yet you still cling on, you won’t admit that it’s all up with you, you obstinately persist in trying to produce — just as old men cling to love with painful, ignoble efforts. Ah! a man ought to have the courage and the pride to strangle himself before his last masterpiece!’