Текст книги "The Kill"

Автор книги: Émile Zola

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

In sad moments she sometimes said to her, “Listen, my child, when the time comes to close my eyes, I want it to be you.”

Céleste never gave any answer to this other than a peculiar smile. One morning, she quietly informed her mistress that she was leaving, returning home to her native village. Renée’s body shook all over, as if some great misfortune had arrived. She uttered a cry and pummeled Céleste with questions. Why was she abandoning her when they got along so well together? And she offered to double the girl’s wages.

But the chambermaid dismissed all these fine words with a calm but insistent wave.

Finally she broke her silence. “Madame, if you offered me all the gold in Peru, I wouldn’t stay one week longer. You don’t know me at all! . . . I’ve been with you for eight years, haven’t I? Well, on my first day I said to myself, ‘As soon as I’ve saved up 5,000 francs, I’ll go back home. I’ll buy the house in Lagache and live quite happily.’ That’s the promise I made myself, you see. And yesterday, when you paid me my wages, I had those 5,000 francs.”

Renée’s blood ran cold. She had a vision of Céleste passing behind her and Maxime while they were kissing, and she recognized the maid’s indifference, her complete detachment, as she dreamt of her 5,000 francs. She nevertheless tried to dissuade her, terrified as she was of the void in which she would soon find herself living, dreaming in spite of everything of keeping with her this stubborn mule whom she had thought devoted but who had turned out to be merely selfish. The maid smiled, shook her head, and muttered, “No, it’s not possible. Even if you were my mother, I would refuse. . . . I’m going to buy two cows. I may open a small hat shop. . . . It’s a very nice town I come from. I’d be happy if you came to see me. It’s near Caen. I’ll leave you the address.”

Renée dropped her opposition. When she was alone, she cried hot tears. The next day, acting on a sick woman’s caprice, she insisted on driving Céleste to the Gare de l’Ouest in her coupé. She gave her one of her travel blankets as well as a sum of money and made a fuss over her as a mother might over a daughter about to embark on a long and difficult journey. In the coupé she gazed at her former maid with moist eyes. Céleste chatted about this and that and said how glad she was to be leaving. Then, feeling bold, she opened up and offered advice to her mistress.

“Personally, madame, I could never look at life the way you do. Plenty of times when I found you with M. Maxime, I used to say to myself, ‘How can any woman make such a fool of herself for a man!’ It always ends badly. . . . I’ve always been suspicious of them, but that’s me.”

She laughed and pressed herself back into a corner of the carriage.

“My money would have danced right out the door!” she went on. “And today I’d be crying my eyes out. So whenever I saw a man, I’d pick up a broomstick. . . . I never dared tell you any of that. Anyway, it was none of my business. You were free to do as you pleased, and for me it was an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

At the station, Renée insisted on paying for her ticket and bought her a seat in first class. Since they had arrived early, she wouldn’t let the servant go but held her by the hand and kept repeating, “Look after yourself, my good Céleste, take good care of yourself.”

Céleste allowed herself to be caressed. She remained happy though her mistress’s eyes filled with tears, and her face looked cool and radiant. Renée spoke again about the past. Then, suddenly, Céleste burst out, “I almost forgot. I haven’t told you the story of Baptiste, Monsieur’s manservant. . . . Nobody wanted to tell you.”

The young woman admitted that she knew nothing.

“Well, you remember his stuck-up airs and snotty looks? You’ve mentioned them to me. . . . Well, that was all a charade. . . . He didn’t like women. He never went down to the kitchen when we were there. And I can tell you this now, he even said that the drawing room was disgusting because of the low-cut gowns. I’m sure he didn’t care for women!”

And she leaned over to whisper in Renée’s ear. She made her mistress blush, yet her own placid sense of propriety remained unperturbed.

“When the new stable boy told Monsieur everything, Monsieur chose to dismiss Baptiste rather than press charges against him. It seems that disgusting things of that sort had been going on in the stables for years. . . . And to think that the big fellow pretended he liked horses! It was the grooms he was after.”

The bell interrupted her. She hastily gathered up the eight or ten packages she had not been willing to part with. She allowed herself to be kissed. Then she walked off without looking back.

Renée remained in the station until the locomotive blew its whistle. When the train pulled out, she felt desperate and didn’t know what to do. Her days seemed to stretch out before her as empty as the vast waiting room in which she was now left standing all alone. She climbed back in her coupé and told the coachman to drive home. On the way, however, she changed her mind. She was afraid of her room and of the boredom that awaited her there. She didn’t even have the heart to change clothes for her usual drive around the lake. She needed sun, and to be with people.

She ordered the coachman to go to the Bois.

It was four o’clock. The Bois was just awakening from the oppressive afternoon heat. Clouds of dust rose all along the avenue de l’Impératrice, and in the distance one could see expanses of greenery bordered by the slopes of Saint-Cloud and Suresnes and crowned by the gray mass of Mont-Valérien. ³ The sun, high on the horizon, flowed as if molten and filled the gaps in the foliage with a golden dust, setting the high branches ablaze and turning the ocean of leaves into an ocean of light. But beyond the fortifications, the carriageway that led to the lake had just been watered. The carriages rolled over the brown dirt as over a woolen carpet, enveloped in a cool fragrance of moist earth. On either side small trees drove their numerous young trunks into the low scrub and vanished into a sea of obscure greenery punctuated here and there by clearings aglow with yellow light. The nearer one got to the lake, the more numerous the chairs along the sidewalks became, and families sat on them and watched the endless parade of wheels with silent, tranquil faces. At the circle just before the lake a dazzling spectacle awaited. The sun’s oblique rays turned the round basin into a huge mirror of polished silver reflecting the star’s splendid face. Through squinting eyes it was hard to make out, on the left, near the bank, the dark outline of the excursion boat. The umbrellas of the carriages bowed in a gentle, uniform motion toward the source of the splendor and did not straighten up again until the carriages reached the carriageway that ran along the edge of the water, which from the height of the embankment took on a dark metallic hue with stripes of burnished gold. On the right, clumps of conifers lined up in regular colonnades, the soft violet tint of their straight, slender needles tinged red by the flames from the sky. On the left, expanses of lawn lay bathed in light like fields of emeralds all the way to the distant lace of the Porte de la Muette. Nearer the falls, the gloomy forest resumed on one side, while across the lake islands loomed against the blue sky with sunlit shores and shadowy slopes of vigorous fir, at the base of which the Chalet looked like a child’s toy lost in a corner of some virgin forest. The entire Bois shook with laughter in the sun.

On this splendid day Renée felt ashamed of her coupé and of her puce outfit, made of silk. She settled back a bit in the carriage and looked out through the open windows at the ripples of light on the water and greenery. At bends in the carriageway she caught glimpses of the line of wheels, revolving like golden stars in an endless stream of blinding flashes. The polished side panels, the glittering appurtenances of copper and steel, and the vividly colored outfits moved along at the regular pace of the trotting horses, so that it seemed that a large bar, a fallen ray of sunlight, was moving against the background of the Bois, stretching to wed the curves of the carriageway. By squinting from time to time, the young woman could make out within that ray the blonde bun of a woman’s hair, the dark back of a footman’s coat, or the white mane of a horse. The rounded contours of the watered-silk parasols shimmered like metal moons.

As Renée contemplated this bright day, these expanses of sunlight, she remembered the fine ash of dusk that had settled over the yellowing leaves one evening as she watched. Maxime was with her then. This was back when her desire for the boy had first been aroused. And she could still see the lawns drenched by the evening air, the darkening woods, and the deserted paths. The line of carriages had then made a mournful sound as it moved past the row of empty chairs, whereas today the rolling wheels and trotting horses sounded as joyful as a brass band. All her outings to the Bois now came back to her. She had lived in these woods, and Maxime had grown up here, sitting next to her on these cushions. The Bois had been their garden. The rain had surprised them here, the sun had brought them back, the night had not always driven them out. They had come here in all kinds of weather, and here they had experienced life’s tedium as well as its joys. In the emptiness of her existence and the melancholy caused by Céleste’s departure, these memories aroused a bitter joy in Renée. Her heart said: Never again! Never again! And as she conjured up that wintry landscape, that dull, frozen lake on which they had skated, she sat transfixed. The sky was the color of soot, the snow stitched veils of white lace onto the trees, and the north wind hurled a fine powder at their eyes and lips.

In the meantime she had recognized the duc de Rozan, M. de Mussy, and M. de Saffré on the path reserved for riders on the left. Larsonneau had killed the duke’s mother by presenting her with 150,000 francs’ worth of overdue notes signed by her son, and the duke was now squandering his second half-million with Blanche Muller after leaving the first 500,000 francs in the hands of Laure d’Aurigny. M. de Mussy, who had left the embassy in England for the embassy in Italy, had resumed his flirtatious ways. He led the cotillion with new-found grace. M. de Saffré for his part was still a skeptic as well as the most amiable bon vivant imaginable. Renée watched him urge his horse toward the door of Countess Wanska’s carriage. People said that he had fallen madly in love with her the day he saw her dressed up as Coral at the Saccards’.

All the ladies were in the Bois as well: Duchess von Sternich in her inevitable eight-spring; Mme de Lauwerens in a landau, with Baroness von Meinhold and little Mme Daste seated opposite her in front; and Mme Teissière and Mme de Guende in a victoria. In amongst these ladies, Sylvia and Laure d’Aurigny sat on the cushions of a magnificent calèche, showing themselves off. Even Mme Michelin drove by, sitting well back in a coupé. The pretty brunette had paid a visit to M. Hupel de la Noue’s district capital and upon her return had been seen in the Bois in this same coupé, to which she hoped soon to add an open carriage. Renée also spotted the marquise d’Espanet and Mme Haffner, the Inseparables, hiding under parasols and laughing affectionately, gazing into each other’s eyes as they stretched out side by side.

Then the gentlemen passed by: M. de Chibray in a drag; Mr. Simpson in a dog cart; Mignon and Charrier, keener than ever about their work despite their dream of impending retirement, in a coupé that they left by the side of one of the paths while they stretched their legs a bit; M. de Mareuil, still in mourning for his daughter, seeking plaudits for his first intervention in the legislature the night before, showing off his political importance in the carriage of M. Toutin-Laroche, who had just saved the Crédit Viticole once again after having brought it to the brink of ruin and whose waistline had contracted even while his influence had expanded as never before following his nomination to the Senate.

And bringing up the rear as the ultimate majesty in this procession, Baron Gouraud, taking the sun in his open carriage, weighed heavily on the two extra pillows that had been placed on the seat. Renée felt surprise and disgust at the sight of Baptiste sitting next to the coachman, his face white and solemn. The tall butler had entered the baron’s service.

The woods were still racing by, the water of the lake had turned iridescent as the slant of the sun’s rays increased, and the dancing glimmers of the line of carriages now stretched over an even greater distance than before. And in the grip of a kind of ecstasy and carried away by it, the young woman was only vaguely aware of the many appetites out that day for a drive in the sun. To these people had gone the spoils. If she felt no indignation toward them on that account, she nevertheless hated them for their happiness, for the triumph that revealed them to her as if powdered by gold dust fallen from on high. They were splendid and radiant. The women displayed themselves, white and plump. The men had the glint in the eye and bemused demeanor of satisfied lovers. And she found nothing in her empty heart but weariness, but aching want. Was she therefore better than the others for having given way under the burden of pleasure? Or was it the others who deserved praise for being made of sterner stuff? She had no idea. She wanted new desires with which to start life over. But just then she turned her head and saw alongside her, on the sidewalk that ran along the edge of the wood, a sight that tore through her with one final blow.

Saccard and Maxime were strolling slowly arm in arm. The father must have called on the son, and together they must have walked down the avenue de l’Impératrice to the lake, chatting as they went.

“You heard me,” Saccard was repeating. “You’re a fool. . . . When a fellow has the kind of money you have, he doesn’t stick it away in the bottom of a drawer. There’s a hundred percent profit to be made in the deal I’ve been telling you about. It’s a sure thing. You know very well I wouldn’t pull a fast one on you.”

But the young man seemed bored by his father’s insistence. He smiled prettily and looked at the carriages.

“See that little woman over there, the woman in violet?” he asked abruptly. “She’s a laundress that ass Mussy has set up.”

They looked at the woman in violet. Then Saccard pulled a cigar out of his pocket and turned to Maxime, who was smoking. “Give me a light.”

They stopped for a moment, face-to-face, and brought their heads together. When the cigar was lit, Saccard took his son’s arm, squeezed it tightly under his own, and continued with what he had been saying: “You know, you’re an imbecile if you don’t listen to me. So, do we have a deal? Will you bring me the 100,000 francs tomorrow?”

“You know I don’t go to your house anymore,” Maxime replied with a pout.

“Bah! Nonsense! It’s time to put an end to all that!”

As they walked on a few more steps in silence, and Renée, feeling faint, buried her head in the coupé’s upholstery so as not to be seen, a growing buzz raced along the line of carriages. On the sidewalks, pedestrians stopped and turned, mouths agape, eyes fixed on something coming toward them. The wheels made a scraping sound as carriages drew aside respectfully, and two outriders appeared, dressed in green and wearing round caps trimmed with golden tassels that formed a dancing curtain around their heads. Leaning slightly forward, they trotted past on big bay horses. Behind them, they left a void, and in that void the Emperor appeared.

He was riding in the back of a landau, alone on the rear seat. Dressed in black, with his frock coat buttoned up to his chin, he wore a very high top hat, slightly tilted to one side and made of shiny silk. Opposite him, on the front seat, dressed with the punctilious elegance that was then in favor at the Tuileries, two gentlemen sat gravely with their hands in their laps—two taciturn wedding guests exposed to a gawking crowd.

Renée found that the Emperor had aged. Under his thick waxed mustache, his jaw hung more listlessly than before. His eyelids drooped to the point where they half covered his lifeless eyes, whose hazel irises now seemed clouded. Only his nose remained unchanged, still looking like a dry fish bone sticking out of a rather nondescript face.

In the meantime, while the ladies in the carriages smiled discreetly, the people on foot pointed out the sovereign to one another. One fat man maintained that the Emperor was the gentleman with his back to the coachman on the left. A few hands were raised in salute. But Saccard, who had doffed his hat even before the outriders had passed, waited until the imperial carriage had reached a point just opposite him before shouting in his gruff Provençal voice, “Vive l’empereur!”

The Emperor, surprised, turned, no doubt recognized his enthusiastic subject, and returned the salute with a smile. Then everything vanished into the sunset, the carriages pulled back into line, and all Renée could see above the manes of the horses and between the backs of the footmen were the green caps of the outriders with their dancing tassels.

She sat a moment with her eyes wide open, full of what she had just seen, which reminded her of another time in her life. To her it seemed that the Emperor, by inserting himself into the line of carriages, had just added the last essential radiance to this triumphal procession and given it meaning. Now it was a glory to behold. All those wheels, all those decorated men, all those women lounging listlessly in their carriages vanished with the flash and rumble of the imperial landau. This sensation became so acute and painful that the young woman felt an imperious need to escape from this triumph, from Saccard’s shout, still ringing in her ears, and from the sight of the father and the son, arms linked, chatting as they ambled along. Looking for a way out, she brought her hands up to her chest, as if seared by a flame within. And it was with a sudden hope of relief, of a salutary cooling of a raging fever, that she leaned forward and told the coachman, “To the Hôtel Béraud.”

The courtyard, as always, had the chill of a cloister. Renée made her way around the arcade, reveling in the drops of moisture that fell on her shoulders. She walked over to the trough, covered with green moss, its edges worn smooth. She examined the half-vanished lion’s head, from whose gaping jaws a stream of water spurted through an iron tube. How many times had she and Christine as little girls taken that head in their arms, leaning forward to reach the stream of water, whose icy pressure they liked to feel against their little hands? Then she climbed the big silent staircase and spotted her father at the far end of the series of vast rooms. He pulled himself up to his full height and slowly moved deeper into the gloom of the old house and of that proud solitude in which he had completely cloistered himself since the death of his sister, while Renée thought of the men in the Bois and of that other elderly man, Baron Gouraud, who had had his carcass set upon pillows and driven around in the sun. She climbed still higher, explored the corridors and the service stairway, and made the trip up to the children’s bedroom. When she reached the very top of the house, she found the key hanging on the usual nail—a big, rusty key encased in a spider’s web. The lock gave a plaintive cry. How sad the children’s room looked! She felt a pang in her heart on finding it so empty, so gray, and so silent. She closed the door of the aviary, which had been left open, thinking that somehow this must be the door through which the joys of her childhood had flown away. In front of the planters, which were still filled with soil hardened and cracked like dried mud, she stopped and snapped the stem of a rhododendron with her fingers. This skeleton of a plant, withered and white with dust, was all that remained of their once-vibrant tubs of greenery. And the matting—the very matting—faded and gnawed by rats, beckoned with the melancholy of a winding sheet that had lain for years awaiting its intended corpse. Over in a corner, in the midst of this scene of silent desperation, this mournful abandonment that made silence itself seem to sob, she found one of her old dolls. All the stuffing had leaked out through a hole, and the porcelain head continued to smile with enameled lips above the wasted body, seemingly exhausted by the doll’s follies.

To Renée the stale air of her childhood was stifling. She opened the window and looked out at the vast landscape. Out there nothing was soiled. She rediscovered the eternal joys, the eternal youth, of open air. Behind her, the sun must have been going down. She saw only the rays of the setting orb as with infinite tenderness they gilded this section of the city that she knew so well. It was like daylight’s swan song, a joyful refrain that slowly laid everything to rest. Tawny flames lit up the floating pier below, while the iron cables of the Pont de Constantine stood out like black lace against the whiteness of the bridge’s pillars. Then, on the right, the shady groves of the Halle aux Vins and the Jardin des Plantes looked like large pools of stagnant green water whose surface almost blended with the hazy sky. On the left, the Quai Henri IV and Quai de la Rapée were lined with the same rows of houses the girls had looked out on twenty years earlier, with the same brown patches where warehouses stood and the same red smokestacks where there were factories. And above the trees the slate roof of the Salpêtrière, turned blue by the sun’s adieu, suddenly looked to her like an old friend. But what calmed her, what cooled her breast, were the long gray banks and above all the Seine, the giant, which she used to watch as it flowed all the way from the horizon straight to where she stood, in those happy days when it frightened her to think that the river might swell and climb all the way up to her window. She remembered the affection she and her sister felt for the river, their love for its colossal flow, for the thrill of roaring water spreading itself out in sheets at their feet, opening out around and behind them in two arms they could no longer see but whose vast and pure caress they felt. They were smart dressers already, and on fair days they used to say that the Seine had put on her beautiful gown of green silk streaked with white. And the currents where the water curled in eddies trimmed that gown with satin ruffles, while in the distance, beyond the belt of bridges, splashes of light greeted the eye like flaps of fabric the color of the sun.

And Renée, lifting up her eyes, stared at the vast expanse of pale blue sky slowly dissolving into the oblivion of dusk. She thought of the complicitous city, of blazing nights on the boulevards, of ardent afternoons in the Bois, of pale harsh days in big new town houses. Then, when she looked down again and gazed once more on the tranquil horizon of her childhood, on this neighborhood of bourgeois and workers in which she had once dreamt of a life of peace, a final bitterness came to her lips. Her hands clasped, she sobbed into the falling night.

The following winter, when Renée died of acute meningitis, it was her father who paid off her debts. The bill from Worms came to 257,000 francs.