by Emile Zola
‘Ah, I swear that Lilitte will learn to play the piano, even if I have to make the greatest sacrifices!’*
‘Think first of bringing her up as we brought you up,’ said Madame Vuillaume severely. ‘Of course, I’m not condemning music; it develops one’s feelings. But, above all, watch over your daughter; keep every foul breath from her; and do all you can to ensure that she remains ignorant.’
Then she began all over again, giving further stress to religion, stating the appropriate number of confessions each month, naming the masses it was essential to attend, and making all these pronouncements from the standpoint of propriety. Octave could bear it no longer, and mentioned an appointment which obliged him to leave. His ears buzzed from sheer boredom; it was plain that they would go on talking like this until the evening. So he escaped, leaving the Vuillaumes and the Pichons to their tedious chit-chat over their coffee-cups, which they slowly emptied, as they did every Sunday. As he made his final bow, Marie, for no reason whatever, suddenly blushed violently.
After this encounter, on Sundays Octave would always hurry past the Pichons’ door, especially if he heard the clipped tones of the Vuillaumes. Besides, he was wholly bent on the conquest of Valérie. Despite the burning glances, of which he believed himself the object, she maintained an unaccountable reserve; this was a form of coquetry, he thought. One day he met her by chance in the Tuileries gardens, and she began to talk calmly about a storm the previous night; this was enough to convince him that she had a devilish amount of nerve. He was constantly on the staircase, watching for an opportunity to pay her a visit, determined to make an immediate assault.
Now, every time he passed, Marie smiled and blushed. They nodded to each other in neighbourly fashion. One morning, at lunchtime, as he was bringing her a letter that Monsieur Gourd had entrusted to him so as to avoid the climb up to the fourth floor, he found her in an agitated state. She had just put Lilitte on the round table in her chemise, and was trying to dress her.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked the young man.
‘Oh, it’s this child!’ she replied. ‘I was silly enough to take her things off, because she was complaining, and now I don’t know how to get them back on!’
He looked at her in astonishment. She kept turning the child’s petticoat over and over, trying to find the hooks and eyes. Then she added:
‘You see, her father always helps me to dress her in the morning before he leaves. I never have to do it on my own. It’s such a bother, it quite upsets me!’
The little girl, tired of being in her chemise, and frightened at seeing Octave, struggled and turned over on the table.
‘Be careful,’ he cried, ‘or she’ll fall off.’
It was dreadful. Marie looked as though she dared not touch her child’s naked limbs. She gazed at her, as if with the innocence of a virgin, amazed at having been able to produce such a thing. Besides the fear of hurting the child, there was in her awkwardness a certain vague repugnance at its bodily presence. However, helped by Octave, who managed to calm the little girl, she was able to dress her again.
‘How will you manage when you’ve got a dozen?’ he asked, laughingly.
‘But we’ll never have any more!’ she replied, in a frightened tone.
Then he teased her a little, telling her it was a mistake to be so sure; it was so easy to make a little baby!
‘No, no,’ she repeated obstinately. ‘You heard what mamma said the other day. She told Jules she wouldn’t allow it. You don’t know what she’s like; there would be endless quarrels if another baby came along.’
Octave was amused at the serious way in which she discussed this question. Though he kept drawing her out, he could not succeed in embarrassing her. Moreover, she just did as her husband wished. She was fond of children, of course, and if he wanted any more she would not say no; and under all her complacent submission to her mother’s orders, one could note the indifference of a woman whose maternal instinct had not yet been roused. Lilitte had to be cared for in the same way that her home had to be looked after—a duty that must be done. When she had washed the dishes and taken the child for a walk, she continued to live her former life as a girl—a somnolent, empty existence, lulled by vague expectations of a joy that never came. When Octave remarked that she must find it very dull to be always alone, she seemed surprised. Oh, no, it was never dull, the days passed without her knowing, when she went to bed, how she had spent her time. Then, on Sundays, she sometimes went out with her husband, or her parents called, or she read a book. If reading did not give her headaches, she would have read from morning till night, now that she was allowed to read every sort of book.
‘The annoying thing is’, she continued, ‘that they haven’t got anything at the lending library in the Passage Choiseul. For instance, I wanted to read André again, because it made me cry so much when I read it the first time. Well, their copy has been stolen, and my father won’t lend me his copy because Lilitte might tear the pictures.’
‘Well, my friend Campardon has got George Sand’s complete works,’ said Octave. ‘I’ll ask him to lend me André for you.’
She blushed again, and her eyes sparkled. It was really too kind of him! And when he left her she stood there, in front of Lilitte, her arms hanging loosely by her sides, without an idea in her head, in the position she often remained in for whole afternoons at a stretch. She hated sewing, but used to do crochet; always the same little scrap of wool, which was left lying about the room.
The following day, which was a Sunday, Octave brought her the book. Pichon had been obliged to go out, to leave a card with one of his superiors. Finding her dressed for outdoors, as she had just come back from an errand in the neighbourhood, Octave asked her out of curiosity if she had been to mass, thinking that she was religious. She said no. Before her marriage her mother used to take her to church regularly, and for six months after her marriage she used to go from sheer force of habit, always afraid of arriving late. Then, without really knowing why, after missing two or three times she stopped going altogether. Her husband could not bear priests, and her mother now never mentioned the subject. Octave’s question, however, disturbed her, as if it had awakened within her emotions long since buried beneath the apathy of her existence.
‘I must go to Saint-Roch one of these days,’ she said. ‘When you stop doing something you’ve been used to, you always miss it.’
And over the pallid features of this girl born of elderly parents there appeared an expression of sickly regret, of longing for some other existence, dreamed of in her imagination. She could hide nothing; everything was revealed in her face, with her skin as tender and delicate as that of some chlorotic* patient. Suddenly she seemed moved, and caught hold of Octave’s hand.
‘Oh, I’m so grateful that you brought me the book! Call in tomorrow, after lunch. I’ll give it back to you, and tell you what effect it’s had on me. That’ll be interesting, won’t it?’
There was something funny about her, thought Octave, as he came away. She was beginning to interest him, and he thought of speaking to Pichon, so as to get him to wake her up a bit, for there was no doubt that this was what she wanted. It so happened that he met Pichon the very next day as he was going out, and he walked some part of the way with him, at the risk of being a quarter of an hour late at the Ladies’ Paradise. Pichon, however, appeared to be even less wide-awake than his wife, full of incipient manias, and entirely concerned not to dirty his boots, as it was going to rain. He walked along on tiptoe, talking incessantly about his boss’s deputy. As Octave’s motive in this matter was a purely brotherly one, he left him at last in the Rue Saint-Honoré, after advising him to take Marie as often as possible to the theatre.
‘Whatever for?’ asked Pichon in amazement.
‘Because it does women good. It makes them nicer.’
‘Do you really think so?’
He promised to think about it, and crossed the street, looking about in terror lest the cabs should splash him
, this being his one and only torment in life.
At lunchtime Octave knocked at the Pichons’ door to fetch the book. Marie was reading, her elbows on the table, her hands buried in her dishevelled hair. She had just eaten an egg out of a tin pan, which now lay on the untidy table on which she had not bothered to put a cloth. Lilitte, forgotten, was asleep on the floor, her nose touching the fragments of a plate which she had no doubt smashed.
‘Well?’ said Octave, quizzically.
Marie did not reply at once. She was still in her dressing-gown, which, having lost its buttons, left her neck and shoulders bare, in all the disorder of a woman who has just got out of bed.
‘I’ve only read about a hundred pages,’ she said at last. ‘My parents were here yesterday.’
Her voice was hard as she said this, her mouth twisted. When she was younger she had longed to live in the depths of a forest, and was forever dreaming that she would meet a huntsman there sounding his horn. He would come and kneel down before her. The scene took place in a distant coppice, where roses bloomed as in a park. Then, all at once, they were married, and lived on there, wandering about together eternally. She, in her perfect happiness, desired nothing more; while he, tender and submissive as a slave, remained forever at her feet.
‘I had a chat with your husband this morning,’ said Octave. ‘You don’t go out enough, and I’ve persuaded him to take you to the theatre.’
But she shook her head, pale and trembling. There was a silence. The chilly, narrow dining-room reappeared before her, and the dull, decorous figure of Jules suddenly blotted out the huntsman of her romance, the distant sound of whose horn still rang in her ears. At times she would listen; perhaps he was coming. Her husband had never taken her feet in his hands and kissed them, nor had he ever knelt down to tell her he adored her. And yet, she was very fond of him; but she was surprised that love did not possess more sweetness.
‘What moves me most in novels’, she said, coming back to the book, ‘are the parts where lovers tell each other of their love.’
Octave sat down at last. He wanted to treat the whole thing as a joke, caring little for such sentimental stuff.
‘I hate speechifying,’ he said. ‘If two people adore each other, the best thing is for them to prove it straight away.’
But she did not seem to understand, as she looked at him with shining eyes. Stretching out his hand, he lightly touched hers, and leant close to her to look at a passage in the book, so closely that his breath warmed her bare shoulder. But she gave no reaction. Then he got up to go, full of contempt touched with pity. As he was leaving, she said:
‘I read very slowly; I won’t finish it until tomorrow. That’s when it’ll be interesting! So do drop in in the evening.’
Octave certainly had no designs on the woman; and yet he felt angry with her. He had formed a curious attachment to this young couple, who exasperated him, however, because they were content to lead such a dull life. He resolved to do them a good turn, in spite of themselves. He would take them out to dinner, make them drunk, and then amuse himself by pushing them into each other’s arms. When such fits of kindness came over him, he, who was loath to lend anyone ten francs, delighted in spending his money in bringing lovers together and giving them joy.
However, the coldness of little Madame Pichon reminded Octave of the ardent Valérie, who would surely not need her neck to be breathed upon twice. He had made advances in her favour. One day, as she was going upstairs in front of him, he had ventured to compliment her on her legs without her showing any signs of displeasure.
At length the long-awaited opportunity came. It was the evening that Marie had made him promise to call in to talk about the novel, as they would be alone, for her husband was not coming home until very late. Octave would have preferred to go out, since the mere thought of this literary treat appalled him. However, at about ten o’clock he thought he would try it when, on the first-floor landing, he bumped into Valérie’s maid, who said, with a scared look:
‘Madame is in hysterics, master is out, and everyone opposite has gone to the theatre. Please come in, I’m all alone and I don’t know what to do.’
Valérie was in her bedroom, stretched out in an armchair, her limbs rigid. The maid had unlaced her stays, freeing her breasts from her corset. The attack was over almost at once. She opened her eyes, seemed surprised to see Octave standing there, and behaved just as if he were the doctor.
‘I do beg your pardon, sir,’ she murmured, in a choking voice. ‘The girl only arrived yesterday, and she lost her head.’
Her perfect composure in taking off her stays and buttoning up her dress disconcerted Octave. He remained standing, resolved not to go yet not daring to sit down. She had sent away the maid, the sight of whom seemed to irritate her, and went to the window to breathe in the cool night air, which she gulped in with her mouth wide open. After a pause they began to talk. She had starting having these attacks when she was fourteen, and Doctor Juillerat was tired of prescribing for her; sometimes she had them in her arms, and sometimes in her back. However, she was getting used to them; she might as well suffer from them as from anything else, for nobody had perfect health, of course. As she talked, her limbs languidly stretched out, the sight of her began to excite him and he thought her tempting in all her disorder, with her leaden complexion and her features drawn, as if she were exhausted by a night of lovemaking. Behind the dark mass of her hair, which fell over her shoulders, he fancied he beheld the small, beardless face of her husband. Then, stretching out his arms, he caught her round the waist, as he would have grabbed some tart.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, in surprise.
Now, in her turn, she looked at him, her eyes so cold, her body so impassive that he felt frozen and let his hands fall awkwardly by his side. The absurdity of his gesture did not escape him. Then, stifling a last nervous yawn, she slowly murmured:
‘Ah, my dear sir, if you only knew!’
She shrugged her shoulders, showing no sign of anger, but merely of overwhelming contempt and weariness of men. Octave thought she was about to have him turned out when he saw her move towards the bell-pull, trailing her petticoats as she went. But she only wanted some tea, and this she ordered to be very weak and very hot. Utterly nonplussed, he muttered some excuse and made for the door, while she lay back in her armchair, as if she were feeling chilly and in desperate need of sleep.
As he went upstairs, Octave stopped on each landing. So she did not care for that, then? He had just seen how indifferent she was, without desire and without resentment, as disobliging as his employer, Madame Hédouin. Why, then, did Campardon say she was hysterical? It was stupid to have deceived him with such a nonsensical tale! But for the architect’s lie he would never have risked such an adventure. The whole episode quite bewildered him, and his ideas as to hysteria became confused as he thought of the various stories that circulated about Valérie. He remembered Trublot’s remark that you never knew what to expect from this sort of crazy woman with eyes like burning coals.
On reaching his own floor Octave, now feeling thoroughly exasperated with women, walked as softly as he could. But the Pichons’ door opened and he was obliged to resign himself to his fate. Marie stood waiting for him in the little, dimly lit room. She had pulled the cot close to the table, and Lilitte lay asleep in the yellow circle of light made by the lamp. The dishes which had been used at lunchtime must have been kept on the table for dinner, for the closed book lay close to a dirty plate full of radish ends.
‘Have you finished it?’ asked Octave, surprised at the young woman’s silence.
She looked like someone who was drunk, her cheeks were puffy as if she had just awakened from a heavy sleep.
‘Yes, yes!’ she exclaimed with difficulty. ‘I’ve spent the whole day reading it! When you lose yourself in a book like that you hardly know where you are. Oh, my neck aches!’
She was so exhausted that she was unable to say anything more about the novel; th
e emotions, the confused reveries it had aroused in her, seemed to have overwhelmed her. Her ears were still ringing with the clarion call of her ideal huntsman, whom she could see in the blue haze of her dreams. Then, without reason, she said that she had been to the nine o’clock mass at Saint-Roch. She had wept a great deal; religion replaced everything.
‘Oh, I feel better now!’ she said, sighing deeply and standing still in front of Octave.
There was a pause. She smiled at him innocently. Never had she seemed to him so useless, with her short hair and drawn features. Then, as she continued to gaze at him, she became very pale and almost fell, so that he had to hold out his hands to save her.
‘My God! My God!’ she sobbed.
He continued to hold her, feeling embarrassed.
‘You should have a cup of tea. You’ve clearly been reading too much.’
‘Yes, I was upset when I closed the book and found myself alone. You’re very kind, Monsieur Mouret! If it hadn’t been for you I might have hurt myself.’
Octave looked round for a chair on which to sit her down.
‘Would you like me to light a fire?’
‘No, thank you; it would make your hands dirty. I’ve noticed that you always wear gloves.’
The idea brought back the choking sensation in her throat and, half swooning, she clumsily launched a kiss into the air, as if in her dream. It just touched Octave’s ear.
The kiss amazed him. Her lips were as cold as ice. Then, as she fell forward on his breast, yielding up her whole body, he was seized with a sudden desire and was going to pick her up and carry her into the bedroom. But this abrupt advance roused Marie from her swoon; her womanly instincts revolted. Struggling, she called out for her mother, forgetting her husband who would soon be home, and her daughter who was asleep at her side.