The Rougon-Macquart: Complete 20 Book Collection. Эмиль Золя
her from reading. Slanting upwards towards the ceiling, and written in a large, hideous hand, there was this declaration, signed Sylvia: “I love Maxime,” She bit her lips and drew her hood a little lower.
In the cab they experienced a horrible sense of awkwardness. They sat facing one another, as when driving down from the Parc Monceau. They could not think of a word to say to each other. The cab was full of opaque darkness, and Maxime’s cigar did not even mark it with a red dot, a glimmer of crimson charcoal. The young man, hidden again among the skirts in which he was “up to his eyes,” suffered from this gloom and this silence, from the silent woman he felt beside him, whose eyes he imagined he could see staring wide open into the night. To seem less stupid he ended by feeling for her hand, and when he held it in his own, he was relieved, and found the situation tolerable. Renée abandoned her hand languidly and dreamily.
The cab crossed the Place de la Madeleine. Renée reflected that she was not to blame. She had not desired the incest. And the deeper her introspection, the more innocent she thought herself at the commencement of her escapade, at the moment of her stealthy departure from the Parc Monceau, at Blanche Muller’s, on the boulevard, even in the private room at the restaurant. Then why had she fallen on her knees on the edge of that sofa? She could not think. She had certainly not thought of “that” for a moment. She would have angrily refused to give herself. It was for fun, she was amusing herself, nothing more. And in the rolling of the cab she found again the deafening orchestra of the boulevard, the coming and going of men and women, while bars of fire scorched her tired eyes.
Maxime, in his corner, was also pondering, with a certain annoyance. He was angry at the adventure. He laid the blame on the black satin domino. Whoever saw a woman rig herself out like that! You couldn’t even see her neck. He had taken her for a boy and romped with her, and it was not his fault that the game had become serious. He certainly would not have touched her with the tip of his fingers, if she had shown only a tiny bit of her shoulders. He would have remembered that she was his father’s wife. Then, as he did not care for disagreeable reflections, he forgave himself. So much the worse, after all! he would try and not do it again. It was a piece of nonsense.
The cab stopped, and Maxime got down first to assist Renée. But, at the little gate of the gardens, he did not dare to kiss her. They touched hands as was their habit. She was already on the other side of the railing, when, for the sake of saying something, unwittingly confessing a preoccupation that had vaguely filled her thoughts since leaving the restaurant:
“What is that comb,” she asked, “the waiter spoke of?”
“That comb,” repeated Maxime, embarrassed. “I’m sure I don’t know….”
Renée suddenly understood. The room, no doubt, had a comb that formed part of its apparatus, like the curtains, the bolt and the sofa. And without waiting for an explanation which was not forthcoming, she plunged into the darkness of the Parc Monceau, hastening her steps and thinking she could see behind her those tortoiseshell teeth in which Laure d’Aurigny and Sylvia had left fair hair and black. She was in a high fever. Céleste had to put her to bed and sit up with her till morning. Maxime stood for a moment on the pavement of the Boulevard Malesherbes, consulting with himself whether he should join the festive party at the Café Anglais; and then, with the idea that he was punishing himself, he determined that he ought to go home to bed.
The next morning Renée woke late from a heavy, dreamless sleep. She had a large fire lighted, and said she would spend the day in her room. This was her refuge at serious moments. Towards mid-day, as her husband did not see her come down to breakfast, he asked leave to speak with her for an instant. She was already refusing the request, with a touch of nervousness, when she thought better of it. The day before she had sent down to Saccard a bill of Worms’s for a hundred and thirty-six thousand francs, a rather high figure; and doubtless he wished to indulge in the gallantry of bringing her the receipt in person.
The thought came to her of yesterday’s little curls. Mechanically she looked in the glass at her hair, which Céleste had plaited into great tresses. Then she ensconced herself by the fireside, burying herself in the lace of her peignoir. Saccard, whose rooms were also on the first floor, corresponding to his wife’s, entered in his slippers, a husband’s privilege. He set foot barely once a month in Renée’s room, and always for some delicate question of money. That morning he had the red eyes and pallid complexion of a man who has not slept. He kissed his wife’s hand gallantly.
“Are you unwell, my dear?” he asked, sitting down on the opposite side of the fireplace. “A little headache, eh?… Forgive me for coming to worry you with my business jargon, but the thing is rather serious….”
He drew from the pocket of his dressing-gown Worms’s account, the cream-laid paper of which Renée recognized.
“I found this bill on my desk yesterday,” he continued, “and I’m more than sorry, but I am absolutely unable to pay it at present.”
With a sidelong look he watched the effect his words produced on her. She seemed profoundly astonished. He resumed with a smile:
“You know, my dear, I am not in the habit of finding fault with your expenses, though I confess that certain items of this bill have surprised me a little. As for instance, on the second page, I find: ‘Ball dress: material, 70 francs; making up, 600 francs; money lent, 5,000 francs; eau du Docteur Pierre, 6 francs.’ That seems pretty expensive for a seventy-franc dress…. But as you know I understand every kind of weakness. Your bill comes to a hundred and thirty-six thousand francs, and you have been almost moderate, comparatively speaking, I mean to say…. Only, as I said before, I can’t pay it, I am short of money.”
She held out her hand with a gesture of suppressed mortification.
“Very well,” she said, curtly, “give me back the bill. I will think it over.”
“I see you don’t believe me,” murmured Saccard, taking pleasure in his wife’s incredulity on the subject of his embarrassment as though in a personal triumph. “I don’t say that my position is threatened, but business is very shaky at present…. Allow me, although I may seem insistent, to explain to you how we stand; you have confided your dowry to me, and I owe you complete frankness.”
He laid the bill on the mantel, took up the tongs, and began to stir the fire. This passion for raking the cinders while talking business was with him a system that had ended by becoming a habit. Whenever he came to an irksome figure or phrase, he brought about a subsidence which subsequently he laboriously built up, bringing the logs together, collecting and heaping up the little splinters. At another time he almost disappeared into the fireplace in search of a stray piece of charcoal. His voice grew indistinct, you grew impatient, you became interested in his cunning constructions of glowing firewood, you omitted to listen to him, and as a rule you left his presence beaten and satisfied. Even at other people’s houses he despotically took possession of the tongs. In summer-time he played with a pen, a paper-knife, a penknife.
“My dear,” he said, giving a great blow that sent the fire flying, “I once more beg your pardon for entering into these details…. I have punctually made over to you the interest on the money you placed in my hands. I can even say, without hurting your feelings, that I have only looked upon that interest as your pocket-money for your private disbursements, and that I have never asked you to contribute your share to the common household expenses.”
He paused. Renée suffered, as she watched him making a large hole in the cinders to bury the end of a log. He was approaching a delicate confession.
“I have had, you understand, to make your money pay a high interest. You can be easy, the principal is in good hands…. As to the amounts coming from your property in the Sologne, they have partly gone to pay for the house we live in; the remainder is invested in an excellent company, the Société Générale of the Ports of Morocco…. We have not got to settle accounts yet, have we? But I want to show you that we poor husbands are sometimes not half appreciated.”
A powerful motive must have impelled him to lie less than usual. The truth was that Renée’s dowry had long ceased to exist; it had become a fictitious asset in Saccard’s