A Love Episode. Emile Zola
"What lady?" he asked, surprised by the violence of the attack.
"A fine choice, indeed! I compliment you on it. A girl whom the whole of Paris knows—"
She suddenly paused, remembering Pauline's presence.
"Pauline," she said, "go into the garden for a minute."
"Oh no," retorted the girl indignantly. "It's so tiresome; I'm always being sent out of the way."
"Go into the garden," repeated Juliette, with increased severity in her tone.
The girl stalked off with a sullen look, but stopped all at once, to exclaim: "Well, then, be quick over your talk!"
As soon as she was gone, Madame Deberle returned to the charge. "How can you, a gentleman, show yourself in public with that actress Florence? She is at least forty. She is ugly enough to frighten one, and all the gentlemen in the stalls thee and thou her on first nights."
"Have you finished?" called out Pauline, who was strolling sulkily under the trees. "I'm not amusing myself here, you know."
Malignon, however, defended himself. He had no knowledge of this girl Florence; he had never in his life spoken a word to her. They had possibly seen him with a lady: he was sometimes in the company of the wife of a friend of his. Besides, who had seen him? He wanted proofs, witnesses.
"Pauline," hastily asked Madame Deberle, raising her voice, "did you not meet him with Florence?"
"Yes, certainly," replied her sister. "I met them on the boulevards opposite Bignon's."
Thereupon, glorying in her victory over Malignon, whose face wore an embarrassed smile, Madame Deberle called out: "You can come back, Pauline; I have finished."
Malignon, who had a box at the Folies-Dramatiques for the following night, now gallantly placed it at Madame Deberle's service, apparently not feeling the slightest ill-will towards her; moreover, they were always quarreling. Pauline wished to know if she might go to see the play that was running, and as Malignon laughed and shook his head, she declared it was very silly; authors ought to write plays fit for girls to see. She was only allowed such entertainments as La Dame Blanche and the classic drama could offer.
Meantime, the ladies had ceased watching the children, and all at once Lucien began to raise terrible shrieks.
"What have you done to him, Jeanne?" asked Helene.
"I have done nothing, mamma," answered the little girl. "He has thrown himself on the ground."
The truth was, the children had just set out for the famous glaciers. As Jeanne pretended that they were reaching the mountains, they had lifted their feet very high, as though to step over the rocks. Lucien, however, quite out of breath with his exertions, at last made a false step, and fell sprawling in the middle of an imaginary ice-field. Disgusted, and furious with child-like rage, he no sooner found himself on the ground than he burst into tears.
"Lift him up," called Helene.
"He won't let me, mamma. He is rolling about."
And so saying, Jeanne drew back, as though exasperated and annoyed by such a display of bad breeding. He did not know how to play; he would certainly cover her with dirt. Her mouth curled, as though she were a duchess compromising herself by such companionship. Thereupon Madame Deberle, irritated by Lucien's continued wailing, requested her sister to pick him up and coax him into silence. Nothing loth, Pauline ran, cast herself down beside the child, and for a moment rolled on the ground with him. He struggled with her, unwilling to be lifted, but she at last took him up by the arms, and to appease him, said, "Stop crying, you noisy fellow; we'll have a swing!"
Lucien at once closed his lips, while Jeanne's solemn looks vanished, and a gleam of ardent delight illumined her face. All three ran towards the swing, but it was Pauline who took possession of the seat.
"Push, push!" she urged the children; and they pushed with all the force of their tiny hands; but she was heavy, and they could scarcely stir the swing.
"Push!" she urged again. "Oh, the big sillies, they can't!"
In the pavilion, Madame Deberle had just felt a slight chill. Despite the bright sunshine she thought it rather cold, and she requested Malignon to hand her a white cashmere burnous that was hanging from the handle of a window fastening. Malignon rose to wrap the burnous round her shoulders, and they began chatting familiarly on matters which had little interest for Helene. Feeling fidgety, fearing that Pauline might unwittingly knock the children down, she therefore stepped into the garden, leaving Juliette and the young man to wrangle over some new fashion in bonnets which apparently deeply interested them.
Jeanne no sooner saw her mother than she ran towards her with a wheedling smile, and entreaty in every gesture. "Oh, mamma, mamma!" she implored. "Oh, mamma!"
"No, no, you mustn't!" replied Helene, who understood her meaning very well. "You know you have been forbidden."
Swinging was Jeanne's greatest delight. She would say that she believed herself a bird; the breeze blowing in her face, the lively rush through the air, the continued swaying to and fro in a motion as rythmic as the beating of a bird's wings, thrilled her with an exquisite pleasure; in her ascent towards cloudland she imagined herself on her way to heaven. But it always ended in some mishap. On one occasion she had been found clinging to the ropes of the swing in a swoon, her large eyes wide open, fixed in a vacant stare; at another time she had fallen to the ground, stiff, like a swallow struck by a shot.
"Oh, mamma!" she implored again. "Only a little, a very, very little!"
In the end her mother, in order to win peace, placed her on the seat. The child's face lit up with an angelic smile, and her bare wrists quivered with joyous expectancy. Helene swayed her very gently.
"Higher, mamma, higher!" she murmured.
But Helene paid no heed to her prayer, and retained firm hold of the rope. She herself was glowing all over, her cheeks flushed, and she thrilled with excitement at every push she gave to the swing. Her wonted sedateness vanished as she thus became her daughter's playmate.
"That will do," she declared after a time, taking Jeanne in her arms.
"Oh, mamma, you must swing now!" the child whispered, as she clung to her neck.
She took a keen delight in seeing her mother flying through the air; as she said, her pleasure was still more intense in gazing at her than in having a swing herself. Helene, however, asked her laughingly who would push her; when she went in for swinging, it was a serious matter; why, she went higher than the treetops! While she was speaking it happened that Monsieur Rambaud made his appearance under the guidance of the doorkeeper. He had met Madame Deberle in Helene's rooms, and thought he would not be deemed presuming in presenting himself here when unable to find her. Madame Deberle proved very gracious, pleased as she was with the good-natured air of the worthy man; however, she soon returned to a lively discussion with Malignon.
"Bon ami[*] will push you, mamma! Bon ami will push you!" Jeanne called out, as she danced round her mother.
[*] Literally "good friend;" but there is no proper equivalent for the expression in English.
"Be quiet! We are not at home!" said her mother with mock gravity.
"Bless me! if it will please you, I am at your disposal," exclaimed Monsieur Rambaud. "When people are in the country—"
Helene let herself be persuaded. When a girl she had been accustomed to swing for hours, and the memory of those vanished pleasures created a secret craving to taste them once more. Moreover, Pauline, who had sat down with Lucien at the edge of the lawn, intervened with the boldness of a girl freed from the trammels of childhood.
"Of course he will push you, and he will swing me after you. Won't you, sir?"
This determined Helene. The youth which dwelt within her, in spite of the cold demureness of her great beauty, displayed itself in a charming, ingenuous