by Emile Zola
‘He doesn’t have any vices, then?’ asked Bachelard. ‘I thought he speculated on the Bourse.’
Madame Josserand loudly protested at this. Such a quiet old man, absorbed in such important work! He, at least, had shown that he could make a fortune! She smiled bitterly as she glanced at her husband, who lowered his head.
As for Vabre’s three children, Auguste, Clotilde, and Théophile, they had each had a hundred thousand francs on their mother’s death. Théophile, after certain ruinous enterprises, was living as best he could on the remains of this inheritance. Clotilde, whose only passion was her piano, had probably invested her share. Auguste had just bought the business on the ground floor, and had started in the silk trade with his hundred thousand francs, which he had long been keeping in reserve.
‘Of course, the old boy won’t give his children anything when they marry,’ remarked Bachelard.
Well, he wasn’t very keen on giving; that was very clear. When Clotilde married he had undertaken to give her a dowry of eighty thousand francs; but Duveyrier had never received more than ten thousand. He had never asked for the balance, but even gave his father-in-law free board and lodging—flattering his avarice, no doubt in the hope of one day acquiring his whole fortune. In the same way, after promising Théophile fifty thousand francs when he married Valérie, at first he had merely paid the interest, and since then had not parted with a single penny, even going so far as to demand rent from the young couple, which they paid for fear of being struck out of his will. Thus it was not possible to count too much on the fifty thousand francs Auguste was to receive when the marriage contract was signed; he would be lucky enough if his father let him have the ground-floor shop rent free for a few years.
‘Well,’ declared Bachelard, ‘it’s always hard on the parents, you know. Dowries are never really paid.’
‘Let’s go back to Auguste,’ continued Madame Josserand. ‘I’ve told you what his expectations are; the only possible danger is from the Duveyriers, and Berthe will do well to keep a close eye on them when she becomes one of the family. As things stand, Auguste, having bought the business for sixty thousand francs, has started with the other forty thousand. But that isn’t really enough; besides which, he’s single and wants a wife, so he means to marry. Berthe’s pretty, and he can see already how nice she would look in his counting-house; and as for her dowry, fifty thousand francs is a respectable sum, and that’s helped him to make up his mind.’
Uncle Bachelard did not bat an eyelid. At last he said, with a tender air, that he had dreamed of something better. And he began to criticize the future son-in-law. A charming fellow, certainly, but too old, much too old, over thirty-three in fact; and he was always ill, with constant migraines, a sorry sight, certainly not lively enough to be a tradesman.
‘Have you got anybody else?’ asked Madame Josserand, whose patience was running out. ‘I hunted all over Paris before I found him.’
However, she had no illusions about him; and in her turn she too picked him to pieces.
‘Oh, he’s nothing special, its true; in fact, I think he’s rather stupid. And I always distrust men who’ve never had their fling when young, and have to reflect for years before taking the slightest risky step in life. When he left school, after his headaches put a stop to his studies, he stayed a clerk for fifteen years before daring to touch his hundred thousand francs, while his father, so it seems, cheated him out of the interest on it. No, he’s not brilliant.’
So far, Monsieur Josserand had remained silent. He now ventured to remark:
‘But, my dear, why insist on this marriage if the young man is in such bad health …?’
‘Oh,’ interjected Bachelard, ‘bad health is no reason against it. Berthe would find it easy enough to marry again.’
‘But suppose he’s impotent,’ said Monsieur Josserand. ‘Suppose he makes our daughter unhappy?’
‘Unhappy!’ cried Madame Josserand. ‘Why don’t you say at once that I’ve thrown my girl into the arms of the first-comer? Among ourselves, surely, we can discuss him, and say he’s this, or he’s that—not young, not good-looking, not clever. It’s only natural that we should talk the matter over like this, isn’t it? But he’s not too bad, we won’t find anybody better! And, let me tell you, it’s a most unexpected match for Berthe. I was going to give it all up as a bad job, I really was!’
She rose; and Monsieur Josserand, reduced to silence, pushed back his chair.
‘I’m only afraid of one thing,’ she continued, resolutely planting herself in front of her brother, ‘and it’s that he may break it off if the dowry isn’t forthcoming on the day the contract is to be signed. That’s understandable; he’s short of money, you know.’
Just then she heard the sound of heavy breathing close behind her, and turned round. It was Saturnin, who had stuck his head round the door and was glaring at her with wolfish eyes. They were all panic-stricken, for he had stolen a spit from the kitchen, to spit the geese, so he said. Uncle Bachelard, who was feeling very uncomfortable at the turn the conversation was taking, took advantage of the general alarm.
‘Don’t disturb yourselves,’ he called out from the anteroom. ‘I’m off; I’ve got a midnight appointment with one of my clients, who’s come over specially from Brazil.’
When they had managed to put Saturnin to bed, Madame Josserand, in her exasperation, declared that it was impossible to keep him any longer. He would do someone an injury if he was not shut up in an asylum. It was intolerable to have to keep him out of the way all the time. His sisters would never get married as long as he was there to disgust and terrify everybody.
‘Let’s wait a bit longer,’ muttered Monsieur Josserand, whose heart bled at the thought of this separation.
‘No, no,’ declared his wife. ‘I don’t want to end up being spitted. I’d just got my brother cornered, and was going to get him to make a commitment. Never mind. We’ll go with Berthe tomorrow, and have it out with him at his place, and then we’ll see if he’s got the cheek not to keep his promises. Besides, Berthe owes her godfather a visit. It’s only proper.’
The following day all three—mother, father, and daughter—paid an official visit to the uncle’s premises, which occupied the basement and the ground floor of an enormous house in the Rue d’Enghien. The entrance was blocked by large vans. In the covered courtyard a gang of packers was nailing up cases, and through open doorways they caught sight of piles of goods, dried vegetables, remnants of silk, stationery, and tallow, all accumulated in executing the thousands of commissions given by customers, and by buying in advance when prices were low. Bachelard was there, with his big red nose, his eyes still inflamed by the previous night’s drinking, but with his head clear, as his business acumen returned the moment he sat down to his account-books.
‘Hullo! What are you doing here?’ he said, annoyed to see them. He took them into a little office, from which he could keep an eye on his men from a window.
‘I’ve brought Berthe to see you,’ explained Madame Josserand. ‘She knows how much she owes you.’
Then, when Berthe, responding to a glance from her mother, had kissed her uncle and gone off to look at the goods in the courtyard, Madame Josserand resolutely broached the subject of the dowry.
‘Listen, Narcisse, this is the situation we’re in. Relying on your kind-heartedness and your promises, I’ve committed us to a dowry of fifty thousand francs. If I don’t produce it, the marriage will be broken off. Now that things have gone so far, that would be a disgrace. You simply can’t leave us in such an awkward position.’
Bachelard’s eyes had glazed over, and he stammered out, as if quite drunk:
‘Eh? What? You promised? You should never make promises; bad thing to promise.’
Then he pleaded poverty. For instance, he had bought a whole lot of horsehair, thinking that the price would go up. Not a bit of it; the price had fallen, and he had been obliged to get rid of it at a loss. Rushing to his books, he opened his ledger a
nd insisted on showing them the invoices. An absolute disaster.
‘Rubbish!’ exclaimed Monsieur Josserand at last, losing all patience. ‘I know all about your business, and that you’re making plenty of money. You’d be rolling in it, if you didn’t squander it as you do. Mind, I’m not asking you for anything myself. It was Eléonore’s idea to come here like this. But allow me to tell you, Bachelard, that you’ve been fooling us. Every Saturday, for the last fifteen years, when I went through your books for you, you always promised that …’
The uncle interrupted him, violently slapping his chest.
‘Promised? Quite impossible! No, no! Leave me alone, and we’ll see later on. I don’t like to be asked; it annoys me and upsets me. We’ll see later on.’
Even Madame Josserand could extract nothing further from him. Shaking them by the hand, he brushed away a tear, spoke of his kind-heartedness and of his affection for the family, and begged them to pester him no more, as, by God! they would never have cause to regret it. He knew his duty, and would do it to the uttermost. Later on Berthe would find out how much her uncle was attached to her.
‘And what about the dotal insurance?’ he asked, resuming his natural tone of voice. ‘The fifty thousand francs for which you insured the girl’s life?’
Madame Josserand shrugged her shoulders.
‘That was killed off fourteen years ago. We’ve told you a hundred times that when the fourth premium fell due we couldn’t pay the two thousand francs.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ he murmured with a wink. ‘The important thing is to talk about the insurance to the family, and take your time paying the dowry money. You should never pay a dowry.’
Monsieur Josserand rose in disgust.
‘So that’s all you have to say to us, is it?’
Pretending not to understand, the uncle insisted that never paying a dowry was normal.
‘You should never pay, I tell you. You pay something on account, and then the interest. Look at Monsieur Vabre! Did my father ever pay for Eléonore’s dowry? Of course not! People just don’t want to part with their money.’
‘So you’re advising me to do something really abominable!’ cried Monsieur Josserand. ‘It would be a lie! I would be committing forgery if I produced the life policy of that insurance …’
Madame Josserand cut him short. On hearing her brother’s suggestion she had become very serious. She was wondering why she had never thought of this before.
‘Dear me! You’re very touchy, my dear! Narcisse never told you to forge anything!’
‘Of course not,’ muttered Bachelard. ‘There’s no need to show any papers.’
‘The point is to gain time,’ she continued. ‘Promise the dowry, we’ll manage to give it later on.’
Then the worthy man spoke out. No! He refused; never again would he venture to approach such a precipice. They were always taking advantage of his easygoing nature, getting him gradually to consent to things which afterwards made him quite ill, so much did he take them to heart. Since he had no dowry to give, it was impossible for him to promise one.
Bachelard was drumming on the windowpane and whistling a tune, as if to show his utter contempt for such scruples. While Madame Josserand had been listening to her husband, her face had grown livid with pent-up fury that suddenly burst forth:
‘Very well, sir, since that’s so, the marriage shall take place. It’s my daughter’s last chance. I’d rather cut off my right hand than lose it. So much the worse for the others! When you’re pushed far enough, you’re capable of anything.’
‘So I presume, madam, you would commit murder to get your daughter married?’
She drew herself up to her full height.
‘Yes!’ she said furiously.
Then she smiled. Bachelard was obliged to quell the storm. What was the use of wrangling? It was far better to come to some amicable arrangement. Thus, worn out and trembling from the effects of the quarrel, Monsieur Josserand agreed to talk matters over with Duveyrier, on whom, according to Madame Josserand, everything depended. In order to get hold of the magistrate when he was in good humour, Bachelard offered to arrange for his brother-in-law to meet him at a house where he could refuse nothing.
‘It’s just an interview,’ said Josserand, still protesting. ‘I swear I won’t make any commitments.’
‘Of course not, of course not,’ said Bachelard. ‘Eléonore doesn’t want you to do anything dishonourable.’
Then Berthe came back. She had spotted some tins of preserved fruits and tried to coax her uncle into giving her one. But he again became afflicted by his stammer. He couldn’t possibly give her one; they were all counted, and had to be sent off to St Petersburg that very night. He gradually got them out into the street, while his sister, at the sight of these huge warehouses packed to the roof with every sort of merchandise imaginable, lingered behind, mortified to think that such a fortune should have been made by a man totally devoid of principle, comparing it bitterly with her husband’s impotent honesty.
‘Well, tomorrow night then, about nine o’clock, at the Café de Mulhouse,’ said Bachelard, as he shook Monsieur Josserand’s hand when they got into the street.
It so happened that the next day Octave and Trublot, who had dined together before going to see Clarisse, Duveyrier’s mistress, went into the Café de Mulhouse so as not to call too early, though she lived a good way off, in the Rue de la Cerisaie. It was hardly eight o’clock. On entering, they heard a loud noise of quarrelling at the far end of the room. There they saw Bachelard already drunk, with flaming cheeks and seeming enormous, having a row with a little, pale-faced, testy gentleman.
‘You’ve been spitting in my beer again,’ he thundered. ‘I won’t stand for it, sir!’
‘Leave me alone, or I’ll give you something to think about!’ said the little man, standing on tiptoe.
Then Bachelard raised his voice to an exasperating pitch, without yielding an inch. ‘Just you dare, sir! Just you dare!’
When the other man knocked his hat off, which he always wore cocked on one side of his head, even in cafés, he repeated, with fresh energy:
‘Just you dare, sir! Just you dare!’
Then, picking up his hat, he sat down majestically, and called out to the waiter:
‘Alfred, change this beer!’
Octave and Trublot, greatly astonished, had noticed Gueulin sitting next to his uncle, with his back to the wall, smoking away with utter indifference. They asked him what the quarrel was about.
‘Don’t know,’ he replied, watching the cigar-smoke curling upwards. ‘There’s always some row or other. A rare one for getting his head punched! He never gives in!’
Bachelard shook hands with the newcomers. He adored young people. He was delighted to hear that they were going to see Clarisse, for so was he, with Gueulin; only he had to keep an appointment first with Monsieur Josserand, his brother-in-law. And the little room resounded with his voice as he ordered every conceivable sort of drink for his young friends, with the wild prodigality of a man who, when out for a spree, pays no attention to the cost. Uncouth, with glittering false teeth, and his nose aflame below his snowy, close-cropped hair, he chatted away familiarly with the waiters and ran them off their legs, while he became so unbearable to his neighbours that the proprietor twice asked him to leave if he could not be quiet. The night before he had been thrown out of the Café de Madrid.
Just then a girl came in, and went out again after walking round the room with a tired look in her eyes. This set Octave talking about women. Bachelard, spitting sideways, hit Trublot, but he did not even apologize. Women had cost him too much money; he flattered himself that he had had the best to be got in all Paris. In his line of work one never bargained about such things; you had to show yourself independent of your business. But he was giving all that up; he wanted to be loved for his own sake. And as Octave watched Bachelard throwing banknotes about, he thought with surprise of the uncle who exaggerated his drunken stutt
er to escape family extortion.
‘Stop bragging, uncle,’ said Gueulin. ‘We can all have more women than we want.’
‘Then why don’t you ever have any, you silly fool?’ retorted Bachelard.
Gueulin shrugged his shoulders with a look of profound disdain.
‘Why not? Well, only yesterday I dined with a friend and his mistress. She began kicking me under the table straight away. I had a chance there, didn’t I? Well, when she asked me to see her home I took off, and I haven’t been near her since. Oh! I don’t deny that it would have been very pleasant for a little while. But afterwards, uncle, afterwards! She might have been one of those women you just can’t get rid of! No, I’m not such a fool!’
Trublot nodded approvingly, for he too had given up society women, through fear of the problems that always came afterwards. Then Gueulin, throwing off his phlegmatic manner, proceeded to cite examples. One day, in the train, a splendid brunette whom he did not know went to sleep on his shoulder; but then he thought about what he would have done with her when he got to the station. Another time, after a wedding, he found a neighbour’s wife in his bed. A bit much, wasn’t it? And he would certainly have done something foolish, had he not been haunted by the idea that she would certainly ask him to buy her some boots.
‘Talk about opportunities, uncle!’ he said, in conclusion, ‘nobody has had such opportunities as I have! But I restrained myself. In fact, everyone does, being far too afraid of what might happen afterwards. If it weren’t for that, it would be very pleasant. Day and night, you’d see nothing but that going on in the streets!’
But Bachelard, dreaming, was no longer listening to him. His bluster had subsided; there was a mist before his eyes.
‘If you’re very good,’ he said suddenly, ‘I’ll let you see something.’
And, after paying, he led them out.
Octave reminded him of his appointment with Monsieur Josserand. That did not matter; they would come back for him. Before leaving the room Bachelard looked round furtively, and then stole the lumps of sugar left by a customer at an adjoining table.