THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
young sparks marching into his wife’s room. One might have thought that he took a pleasure in showing off his contempt for mankind, his denial of every virtue, by thus tolerating the vices that were taking place under his own roof, and by seeming to accept debauch and adultery as quite usual and natural things. His silence, his cruelly derisive smile said plainly: “The world is a vile hole of filth; I have fallen into it, and I have to live there.”
Hélène did not stand on ceremony with her husband. She spoke to her lovers in his presence, in the most offhand, familiar way, convinced that he could not hear her. Monsieur de Rieu could read these familiar expressions on her lips, and he then displayed an exquisite politeness to the young men, amusing himself at their embarrassment, and obliging them to shout gracious answers into his ears. He never manifested the slightest astonishment at seeing his drawingroom filled with new faces every month; he welcomed Hélène’s boarders with a paternal good nature, which was a cloak to his terrible sarcasm. He asked them their ages, and made inquiries about their studies. “We are fond of children,” he would often say, in a tone of bantering kindness. When the drawingroom was empty, he would complain of the way in which young people forget their elders. One day even, as his wife’s court was not very well attended, he brought her a young fellow of seventeen, but ho was humpbacked, and Hélène speedily dismissed him. Sometimes Monsieur de Rieu would be even more cruel still; he would hurriedly enter his wife’s room, and keep her panting for an hour, talking to her about the fine weather or the rain, while some poor, simple creature was stifling under the bedclothes, which had been hastily pulled over him at the unexpected entrance of the husband. The title, (title, by the “way, which is found in every little town) of cuckolded husband was bestowed on him at Véteuil; having caught his wife in the very act with a collegian who had slipped out of bounds, he had simply said to this young lover, in his cold, polite voice: “Ah, sir, so young, and without being forced to it! you must be very courageous.” But Monsieur de Rieu was not the man to thrust his nose into a place where he was likely to catch his wife at this sort of thing; he tried to appear blind as well as deaf; for this allowed him to preserve his haughty bearing, and his terribly calm attitude. What made his enjoyment more delicious, was the stupidity of his wife, who thought him simple enough not to suspect anything. He pretended to he a goodnatured fellow, made scathing allusions with exquisite politeness, enjoying, like a connoisseur, the bitterness of the double-pointed words that he addressed to her, words the refined cruelty of which he alone understood. He played with this woman every hour, and would have been really annoyed if she had repented. At bottom, Monsieur de Rieu wished to know how far disdain can go.
There had been between this ironical nature and the disordered mind of Monsieur de Viargue, a sort of sympathy which explained the previous friendship of the two old men. Both had reached the same degree of disdain and denial; the philosopher, as he thought he had put his finger on nothingness; the deaf man, as he fancied he had discovered, beneath the human mask, the mouth of a lewd beast. During the count’s lifetime, Monsieur de Rieu was the only person who entered his laboratory, and they often spent a whole day there together. The suicide of the chemist did not appear to surprise his old friend. He came back the following year to La Noiraude, as unmoved as ever; only, he took the liberty of introducing his wife, accompanied by her young gentlemen.
William and Madeleine had been married a few months, when Hélène brought them her last conquest, a young fellow from Véteuil, whom she had taken into her house to wile away the leisures of her residence in the country. This youth’s name was Tiburce Rouillard: he was rather ashamed of the Rouillard, and very proud of the Tiburce. The son of a man who had been a cattle-dealer, and who was to leave him a pretty round sum, Monsieur Tiburce had an unbounded ambition: he was vegetating at Véteuil, and intended to go and push his way in Paris. Boorish, crafty, and capable of any act of cowardice likely to prove useful to him, he was already beginning to feel his strength. He was of those scamps who say to themselves, “I am a millionaire ten times over,” and who always end by getting their ten millions. Madame de Rieu, when she took him in his youth, had thought, as usual, that she was taking a child in hand. The truth was, the child was already steeped in vice; if he pretended ignorance and timidity, it was because he had an interest in showing himself ignorant and timid. Hélène had at last found a master. Tiburce, who had seemed to throw himself thoughtlessly in her way, had long calculated his thoughtlessness. He told himself that an intimacy with such a woman, carefully worked, would take him to Paris, where she would open every door to him; he made himself indispensable to the debauched appetites of his mistress; whether she would or not he would make her the instrument of his fortune the day he had her under his thumb as a submissive slave. If this scheme had not been the motive of his actions, he would have burst out laughing in Hélène’s face at their first meeting. This old woman, who had filthy tastes, and yet talked about the ideal, seemed to him a grotesque creature; her embraces took his breath away, but he was a youth with courage, who would have wallowed in a gutter, in order to pick up a twenty-franc-piece.
Madame de Rieu appeared delighted with her young friend. He charmed her as yet with his most delicate flattery and was remarkably docile. She had never found a candour more spiced with budding vice. She adored the rascal to such a degree that her husband had to take a thousand precautions so as not to catch them every minute with their arms round each other’s necks. She trotted Tiburce out like a young dog, calling for him, and coaxing him with look and voice. When she introduced him to La Noiraude, he looked upon that as a first service that she was rendering him. He had been at the school at the same time as William, and had shown himself one of his most cruel tormentors: younger than William by two or three years, he took advantage of the latter’s terrors as an outcast to enjoy the malicious delight of beating a boy bigger than himself. To-day, he was sorry for this error of his youth: for he had laid it down as a maxim that people ought to beat the poor only, those whose services they are not likely to want in after life. Before becoming acquainted with Hélène, he had schemed in vain to get into La Noiraude. William hardly returned his salute. When his mistress had brought him in the folds of her skirt, he humbled himself to the dust in the presence of his former victim; he called him “De Viargue” without the Monsieur, laying stress on the aristocratic “de,” just as formerly he had laid stress on the name Bastard which he had been so ready to cast in his face. His plan was to set up at Véteuil as a person living on familiar terras with the rich and noble in the country. He would not have objected besides to utilise William and Madeleine for his future career. He even tried to make love to the young wife: he knew, in an indistinct way, the history of her secret intimacy with William, which made him think her of easy virtue. If he had been able to seduce her, he would have had two women instead of one in his service. He dreamed already of turning their rivalry skilfully to account so as to stimulate their zeal and make them bid against each for his love. But Madeleine received his proposals with such disdain that he had to abandon his project.
The young couple saw with repugnance Tiburce Rouillard come to La Noiraude. There was, besides, at the bottom of this crafty nature, a provincial foolishness, and an obtrusive stupid pride which William could hardly tolerate. When the coxcomb called him his friend, with a sort of personal satisfaction, he could hardly resist his longing to show him the door. It would certainly have come to this, had he not been afraid of causing a scandal which would have affected Monsieur de Rieu. Madeleine and he then put up with the intrusion as patiently as they could. Besides, they scarcely had a thought for anything but the tranquillity of their affection, and they troubled their heads very little about their visitors and forgot them immediately the door was shut behind them.
Once a week, every Sunday, they were certain to see the three coming to spend the evening with them at La Noiraude. Hélène, leaning on Tiburce’s arm, would come first; while Monsieur de Rieu followed with a serious, uninterested look. Then they all went down to the park; and it was a sight to see, under the arbour of foliage where they sat, the languishing looks of the lady and the respectful attentions of the young man. The husband, in front of them, watched them with half-closed eyes. By certain despicable and cruel smiles, which curled Tiburce’s beardless lips, ho had guessed the vile character and evil designs of this youth. His science, as an observer, told him that his wife had fallen into the hands of a master who would beat her some day. The drama promised to be a curious one, and he enjoyed beforehand the rupture that was to take place between these two puppets; he fancied he could see the claws on the yet caressing fingers of the