The Rougon-Macquart: Complete 20 Book Collection. Эмиль Золя
I promise you.”
Rozan could not but obey. Laure waited till he was on the landing, and then said quickly in Larsonneau’s ear:
“See, big Lar? I keep my word…. Stuff him into his carriage.”
When the blonde lady took leave of the gentlemen to go up to her apartment, which was on the floor above, Saccard was astonished not to see Maxime follow her.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, no,” replied the young man. “I’ve thought better of it….”
Then he had an idea that struck him as very funny:
“I’ll resign in your favour if you like. Hurry up, she hasn’t shut her door yet.”
But the father shrugged his shoulders, and said:
“Thanks, I have something better than that at present.”
The four men went downstairs. Outside the duc insisted on taking Larsonneau in his carriage; his mother lived in the Marais, he could drop the expropriation-agent at his door in the Rue de Rivoli. The latter refused, closed the door himself, and told the coachman to drive on. And he remained on the pavement of the Boulevard Haussmann with the two others, talking, staying where he was.
“Ah! poor Rozan!” said Saccard, who suddenly understood.
Larsonneau swore that it was not so, that he didn’t care a rush for that, that he was a practical man. And as the two others continued to joke, and as the cold was very sharp, he ended by exclaiming:
“Upon my word, I don’t care, I’m going to ring…. You are two busybodies, messieurs.”
“Good night!” cried Maxime, as the door closed to.
And taking his father’s arm, he walked up the boulevard with him. It was one of those clear, frosty nights when it is so pleasant to walk on the hard ground through the icy atmosphere. Saccard said that Larsonneau made a mistake, that he ought merely to be the d’Aurigny’s friend. From there he went on to declare that the love of those women was really a bad thing. He assumed an air of morality, gave utterance to maxims and precepts of astonishing propriety.
“You see,” he said to his son, “that only lasts for a time, my boy…. You lose your health at it, and you don’t taste real happiness. You know I’m not a Puritan. Well, I tell you, I’ve had enough of it; I’m going to settle down.”
Maxime chuckled; he stopped his father, looked at him in the moonlight, and told him he was “an old fat-head.” But Saccard became still more serious:
“Joke as much as you like. I tell you again, there is nothing like marriage to keep a man in good condition and make him happy.”
Then he spoke to him of Louise. And he walked more slowly, to finish the business, he said, as they were once on the subject. The thing was completely arranged. He even informed him that he and M. de Mareuil had fixed the date for signing the contract for the Sunday following the Thursday in midLent. On that Thursday there was to be a great entertainment at the house in the Parc Monceau, and he would then take the opportunity publicly to announce the marriage. Maxime thought all this very satisfactory. He was rid of Renée, he saw no further obstacle, he surrendered himself to his father as he had surrendered himself to his stepmother.
“Well then, that’s settled,” he said. “Only don’t talk about it to Renée. Her friends would chaff me and tease me, and I prefer that she should know of it at the same time as everybody else.”
Saccard promised to be silent. Then, as they approached the top of the Boulevard Malesherbes, he again gave him a heap of excellent advice. He told him how he ought to set about in order to make his home a paradise.
“Above all, never break off with your wife. It’s folly. A wife with whom you cease having connection costs you a fortune…. In the first place, you have to keep a woman, don’t you? And then the house expenses are much greater: there are dresses, madame’s private amusements, her dearest friends, the devil and all his retinue.”
He was in a mood of extraordinary virtue. The success of his Charonne business had filled his heart with idyllic affection.
“As for me,” he continued, “I was born to live in happy obscurity down in some village, with all my family around me…. People don’t know me, my boy…. I give the impression of being very frivolous. Well, that’s quite a mistake. I should love to be always near my wife, I would willingly exchange my business for a modest income that would enable me to retire to Plassans…. You are going to be a rich man; make yourself a home with Louise in which you will live like two turtle-doves. It’s so pleasant! I will come and see you. That will do me good.”
He ended with tears in his voice. Meanwhile they had reached the gate of the house, and they stood talking on the kerbstone. A North wind was sweeping over the heights of Paris. No sound arose in the pale night, white with frost; Maxime, surprised at his father’s emotion, had had a question on his lips for the past minute.
“But you,” he said at last, “it seems to me….”
“What?”
“Well, with your wife!”
Saccard shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, just so! I was a fool. That is why I am able to speak to you from experience…. But we have come together again, oh, entirely! It is almost six weeks ago. I go into her at night when I don’t get home too late. Tonight the poor little dear will have to do without me; I have to work till daylight. I tell you, she’s jolly well made!…”
As Maxime held out his hand to him, he kept him back, and added, in a confidential whisper:
“You know Blanche Muller’s figure; well, it’s like that, only ten times more supple. And then such hips! they have a curve, an elegance… !”
And he concluded by saying to the younger man, who was going off:
“You are like me, you have a heart, you will make your wife happy…. Goodnight, my boy!”
When Maxime at last escaped from his father, he went quickly round the gardens. What he had just heard surprised him so greatly that he experienced an irresistible desire to see Renée. He wanted to beg forgiveness for his brutality, to know why she had told him that lie about M. de Saffré, to learn the story of her husband’s affection. But all this confusedly, with the one clear wish to smoke a cigar in her rooms and to resume their friendly relations. If she was in the right humour, he would even announce his marriage to her, to make her see that their love-affair must remain dead and buried. When he had opened the little gate, of which he had fortunately kept the key, he ended by convincing himself that his visit, after his father’s revelations, was necessary and absolutely proper.
In the conservatory he whistled as he had done the preceding evening; but he was not kept waiting. Renée came and unfastened the glass door of the small drawingroom, and led the way upstairs without a word. She had that instant come back from a ball at the Hotel de Ville. She still wore her dress of white puffed tulle, covered with satin bows; the skirts of the satin bodice were edged with a broad border of white bugles, which the light of the candles tinged with blue and pink. Upstairs, when Maxime looked at her, he was touched by her pallor and the deep emotion that stifled her utterance. She had evidently not expected him, she still quivered all over at seeing him arrive as usual, with his quiet, wheedling air. Céleste returned from the wardrobe-room, where she had been to fetch a nightdress, and the lovers remained silent, waiting for the girl to go. As a rule they did not mind what they said before her; but they felt ashamed of the things that were on their lips. Renée told Céleste to undress her in the bedroom, where there was a big fire. The lady’s-maid removed the pins, took off each article of finery separately, without hurrying herself. And Maxime, bored, mechanically took up the nightdress, which was lying on a chair beside him, and warmed it before the fire, leaning forward with arms outstretched. He had been used in happier times to do this little service for Renée. She felt moved when she saw him daintily holding, the nightgown to the fire.