The Masterpiece

by Émile Zola

  ‘They’ll never be able to call you a charlatan, anyhow, Chaîne. You do at least paint as you feel, and that’s how it ought to be!’

  The door had opened again and a young man stepped into the shop. He was tall, with fair hair, a big pink nose and large blue eyes, and was obviously short-sighted. He was laughing.

  ‘That herbalist next door,’ he said. ‘There she is touting for customers … and with a face like that!’

  They all laughed then, except Mahoudeau, who appeared very embarrassed.

  ‘Jory, the prize brick-dropper!’ laughed Sandoz, as he shook the newcomer’s hand.

  ‘Why, what have I said now? Oh, you mean Mahoudeau here goes to bed with her!’ Jory went on, when he finally grasped the situation. ‘And why not? What’s wrong with that? Who ever said “No” to a woman?’

  ‘It looks as if you said something to yours,’ said Mahoudeau simply. ‘She’s taken a piece out of your cheek.’

  They all laughed again, but this time it was Jory’s turn to blush. He had indeed two long, deep scratches down his cheek. The son of a Plassans lawyer, Jory had driven his father to despair by his amorous adventures, which he had brought to a sensational climax by running away with a singer from a café-concert while pretending to be going to Paris to take up literature. For the past six months the pair of them had been camping out in a disreputable hotel in the Latin Quarter, and his companion literally skinned him alive every time he left her for some trollop or other he picked up on the street. That explained his perpetual scars, bloody noses, thick ears, and black eyes.

  While the others talked, Chaîne alone went on solidly painting, with the determination of an ox yoked to a plough. Jory went into ecstasies over the ‘Grape-Picker’. He, too, adored fat women. At Plassans he had made his literary debut by turning romantic sonnets to the ample bosom and ampler hips of a local butcher’s wife, the cause of many a restless night. In Paris, where he had joined up with the rest of the Plassans gang, he had branched out as an art critic, trying to make a living selling articles at twenty francs a time to an obstreperous little paper Le Tambour. One of his articles, a study of a picture of Claude’s exhibited by old Malgras, had just stirred up a terrific scandal by praising his friend at the expense of ‘the public’s favourites’ and proclaiming him the leader of a new school, the ‘open-air’ school. Fundamentally extremely practical, he had no use for anything which was not to his own advantage and simply repeated the theories he heard the others expound.

  ‘We must have an article on you now, Mahoudeau,’ he cried, ‘to launch this buxom wench of yours … God! Just look at those thighs! Talk about a treat, eh!’

  Then, suddenly changing the subject, he added:

  ‘By the way, my old skinflint of a father repented! He’s afraid I might blot the family copy-book, so he’s sending me a hundred francs a month. I’m paying my debts.’

  ‘Debts!’ said Sandoz with a quiet smile. ‘What do you know about debts?’

  Jory’s hereditary avarice was a standing joke with his friends. He never paid his women, and somehow managed his riotous living without money and without a slate. With his instinctive knowledge of how to get everything for nothing, he combined perpetual duplicity, the habit of lying he had contracted in the pious atmosphere of his home, where he was so anxious to conceal his vices that he lied all the time about everything, even when it was quite pointless. He had a superb reply for Sandoz, a reply worthy of a sage who has seen life:

  ‘And what do any of you know about the value of money?’

  The others booed, called him a ‘dirty bourgeois’ and were on the point of using even more powerful epithets when a gentle tapping on a window pane reduced them all to silence.

  ‘Damn that woman!’ growled Mahoudeau.

  ‘What woman?’ said Jory. ‘The herbalist next door? Let’s have her in. We’ll have some fun.’

  The door was open already and there on the doorstep was the woman, Madame Jabouille, known to them all as Mathilde. She was only thirty, but her thin, flat face was already deeply lined, while her eyes burned with passion under their dark blue lids. It was said that the priests had arranged her marriage to the little herbalist Jabouille, who was a widower and who did good business in that church-going neighbourhood. It was certainly possible, on occasion, to catch sight of a figure in a cassock gliding through the mysterious little shop which the herbs and spices filled with the fragrance of incense, where the sale of sprays was negotiated with discreetness worthy of the cloister and unction reminiscent of the vestry, and where customers whispered as devoutly as in a confessional, slipping the enemas unobtrusively into their reticules and departing with eyes cast modestly down. There had been unfortunate rumours of abortions, but right-minded people attributed them to the malice of the wine-merchant across the street. Since Jabouille had remarried, business had begun to decline. The coloured bottles seemed to be losing their brightness and the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling were falling to dust while Jabouille himself, reduced to little more than a shadow, was coughing himself to death. Even though Mathilde herself was a regular churchgoer, the church-going customers fell away, for they thought she made herself too obvious with other men now that Jabouille was worn out.

  She stood in the doorway for a moment, her sharp eyes taking everything in, and soon the room was filled with her all-pervading perfume, the strong smell of simples that impregnated her clothes and scented her greasy, always untidy hair—the sickly sweetness of mallow, the sharpness of elderberry, the bitterness of rhubarb, all dominated by that warm odour of strong peppermint which seemed to be the very breath of her lungs, the breath she breathed into the faces of her men.

  ‘Oh dear! You have visitors,’ she exclaimed, feigning surprise. ‘I didn’t know. I’ll come back later.’

  ‘Yes, do,’ replied Mahoudeau angrily. ‘I’m going out, anyhow. You can give me a sitting on Sunday.’

  In amazement, Claude looked first at Mathilde and then at the ‘Grape-Picker’.

  ‘What!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you mean to say it’s Madame Jabouille who poses for those muscles? Piling it on a bit, aren’t you?’

  The others laughed as Mahoudeau concocted an explanation. No, not for the bust or the legs, only the head and hands, and only for the odd details even then. But Mathilde shrieked with laughter too, for she had now come brazenly into the room, closed the door behind her and was quite at home with all the men, sidling up and sniffing them like a dog on the scent. When she laughed, she showed the gaps in her mouth where teeth were missing, and that, added to her generally wizened appearance, made her look frighteningly ugly. Jory, whom she had not seen before, was the one who attracted her; he was plump and fresh and there was something promising about his big pink nose. She nudged him; then, hoping to arouse his interest, dropped into Mahoudeau’s lap with all the abandon of a prostitute.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Mahoudeau as he rose to his feet. ‘I’m busy. … Isn’t that so, boys, somebody’s expecting us?’

  He gave them a wink. He was looking forward to a nice long walk in their company, so they all replied that somebody was expecting them and set to work helping him to cover up his sculpture with old wet dusters.

  Mathilde, meanwhile, looking rather quelled and disappointed, did not go, but stood about, moving when she found herself in the way. Chaîne, who had stopped painting, sat glaring at her over the top of his canvas, shy but greedy with pent-up desire. Until now he had not opened his lips, but as Mahoudeau was starting out with the other three he said in his thick, muffled voice:

  ‘Will you be back?’

  ‘Not till late. Get yourself some supper and don’t wait up. Goodbye.’

  So Chaîne was left alone with Mathilde in the damp shop among the heaps of clay and the pools of water, the poverty and disorder, under the crude and chalky daylight that poured in through the whitened windows.

  When they got outside, Claude and Mahoudeau walked on ahead, followed by Sandoz and Jory, who protested loudly
when Sandoz teased him by saying he had made a conquest of Mathilde.

  ‘Oh, no! She’s awful. Old enough to be mother to the lot of us. A toothless old bitch, that’s all she is, and stinks like a medicine-chest!’

  Sandoz laughed at Jory’s exaggerated picture:

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ he said. ‘Besides, you are not usually so fussy. She can probably still give points to some of your conquests.’

  ‘Which ones, I’d like to know? … Now we’re out of the way, you can bet she’s pounced on Chaîne. Just think of the fun they’re having, the pigs!’

  Mahoudeau, who, to all appearances, was deep in discussion with Claude, suddenly turned round in the middle of a sentence and said:

  ‘As if I cared!’

  He finished what he had been saying to Claude, then called again over his shoulder:

  ‘Besides, Chaîne’s too dense anyway!’

  The subject was dropped, and as the four of them strolled gently along they seemed to take up the whole width of the Boulevard des Invalides. The gang usually spread out like that, as friends tacked themselves on to it until it looked like a horde on the war-path. As they squared their broad young shoulders, these twenty-year-olds took possession of the entire pavement. Whenever they were together, fanfares cleared the way before them and they picked up Paris in one hand and put it calmly in their pocket. Victory was theirs for certain, so what did they care about down-at-heel boots and threadbare jackets when they could be conquerors at will? Their disdain went hand-in-hand with a boundless contempt for everything outside their art, for society, and, above all, for politics. What use had they for such sordid nonsense? Nothing but a lot of brainless old dodderers. Their youthful arrogance set them above all sense of justice and made them deliberately ignore all the claims of social life in their mad pursuit of their dreams of an artists’ Utopia. There were times when it turned their heads completely, but it also gave them both strength and courage.

  In the warmth of their hope and enthusiasm, Claude began to take heart and cheer up. All that remained of the morning’s tortures was a remote feeling of numbness as he launched into a discussion of his picture with Sandoz and Mahoudeau, swearing, of course, that he was certainly going to destroy it in the morning. Jory, flashing defiant though myopic glances at all the old ladies they encountered, was holding forth on his theories of artistic production. You should produce exactly as you feel, in the first burst of inspiration. He himself never crossed out so much as a line. As they talked the four friends made their way down the boulevard, and the quietness and the long endless rows of trees made a perfect setting for their arguments. But as they came out into the Esplanade des Invalides, their argument flared up into so violent a quarrel that they came to a halt in the very middle of that spacious thoroughfare, with Claude furiously telling Jory he was an idiot, arguing that it was better to destroy one’s work than sell third-rate stuff, and swearing that nothing disgusted him more than a mercenary commercial attitude, while Sandoz and Mahoudeau stood by, both talking at once at the tops of their voices. Passers-by, wondering what it was all about, first turned and stared, and finally began to gather round the four young men who looked as if they might fly at each other’s throats at any moment. But they had to turn away disappointed, feeling they had been fooled when the four friends suddenly forgot their quarrel and turned as one man to rhapsodize at the sight of a nursemaid in a light dress and long cherry-coloured ribbons. Well, they were damned! Just look at that for colour! They were enraptured. Half closing their eyes to appreciate the full effect, they moved off after the girl among the trees, like men suddenly aroused from a dream and surprised to be down to earth again. They adored the Esplanade, open as it was to the whole sky, bounded only on the south side by the Invalides, so quiet and yet so vast, allowing room for their expansive gestures; they looked on it as a kind of breathing space in a Paris that was too small, too stuffy for the ambition in their breasts.

  ‘Are you two going somewhere?’ Sandoz asked Mahoudeau and Jory.

  ‘No, not really,’ the latter answered. ‘We were going with you. Where are you going?’

  It was Claude who replied, with a strange, blank look in his eye:

  ‘I hadn’t thought … Along here.’

  And they turned and walked along the Quai d’Orsay as far as the Pont de la Concorde. As they passed the Corps Législatif, he added with a look of disgust:

  ‘Of all the filthy-looking buildings!’

  ‘That was a damned good speech Jules Favre made a couple of days ago,’ said Jory. ‘Old Rouher wasn’t half riled!’

  The three others refused to let him go on, and the quarrel broke out again. Who was Jules Favre, they wanted to know? Who ever heard of Rouher?* Did they even exist? Couple of windbags nobody would think of mentioning ten years after they were dead! And as they crossed over the bridge, they shook their heads pityingly at Jory. By the time they had reached the middle of the Place de la Concorde they were quiet again. It was Claude who broke the silence again.

  ‘That,’ he declared as he looked around him, ‘is not so filthy-looking.’

  It was four o’clock, and the day was just beginning to wane in a golden haze of glorious sunshine. To right and left, towards the Madeleine and the Corps Législatif, the lines of buildings stretched far into the distance, their rooftops cutting clean against the sky. Between them the Tuileries gardens piled up wave upon wave of round-topped chestnut trees, while between the two green borders of its side avenues the Champs-Élysées climbed up and up, as far as the eye could see, up to the gigantic gateway of the Arc de Triomphe, which opened on to infinity. The Avenue itself was filled with a double stream of traffic, rolling on like twin rivers, with eddies and waves of moving carriages tipped like foam with the sparkle of a lamp-glass or the glint of a polished panel, down to the Place de la Concorde with its enormous pavements and roadways like big, broad lakes, crossed in every direction by the flash of wheels, peopled by black specks which were really human beings, and its two splashing fountains breathing coolness over all its feverish activity.

  Claude was quivering with delight.

  ‘Ah! this Paris!’ he cried. ‘It’s ours! All ours for the taking!’

  Each one of them was thrilled almost beyond words as they looked on the scene with eyes that shone with desire. Did they not feel glory being wafted over the whole vast city from the top of that Avenue? Paris was here, and they meant it to be theirs.

  ‘And we’ll take it,’ asserted Sandoz, with his look of stubborn determination.

  ‘Of course we will!’ added Jory and Mahoudeau.

  They moved on again and, after walking some time at random, found themselves behind the Madeleine. As they came into the Place du Havre from the Rue Tronchet, Sandoz suddenly called out:

  ‘So we’re going to Baudequin’s, are we?’

  The others looked surprised, but agreed they must have been going to Baudequin’s.

  ‘What day is it?’ Claude asked. ‘Thursday? … Fagerolles and Gagnière’ll be there … Come on, let’s go to Baudequin’s.’

  So they turned up the Rue d’Amsterdam. They had just walked right across Paris, one of their favourite jaunts, although they had other favourites too; all along the riverside, for example, or over part of the fortifications, from the Porte Saint-Jacques, say, to Les Moulineaux; or perhaps out to Père-Lachaise and back round the outer boulevards. For a whole day at a time they would roam the streets and squares, as long as their legs would carry them, as if they wanted to conquer one district after another by flinging their startling theories in the face of its houses. The pavements they tramped were their battlefield, the very soil of which produced an ecstasy which drugged their fatigue.

  The Café Baudequin was on the Boulevard des Batignolles, at the corner of the Rue Darcet. The gang had made it its regular meeting-place; why, they could never say, for Gagnière was the only member who lived near it. There they met every Sunday evening, and on Thursdays about five o’clock any of them
who happened to be free usually looked in at least for a moment or two. On this particular Thursday, as it was so sunny, the little tables outside under the awning were all occupied and their double rank of customers filled the entire pavement. But the gang detested all such cheek-by-jowl ostentation, so they pushed their way through the crowd into the cool, deserted café.

  ‘Why, Fagerolles is all by himself!’ said Claude, as he made his way to their usual table and shook hands with its one occupant, a pale, slim young man with a girlish face and a waggish, inveigling look in his steely grey eyes. They all sat down and ordered beer, while Claude went on talking to Fagerolles.

  ‘I went looking for you at your father’s place this afternoon. I can’t say he welcomed me with open arms.’

  Fagerolles, who fancied himself as a tough, laughed and slapped his thigh.

  ‘Oh, he makes me sick, the old man!’ he said. ‘I cleared out this morning, after a bit of a dust-up. He will try to make me design a lot of junk for his damned zinc. As if I didn’t do enough junk at the Beaux-Arts!’

  His easy joke at the expense of his teachers delighted his friends. He amused them, and his ceaseless flow of both flattery and disparagement won their undying affection. He smiled disarmingly, first at one and then at another, while with inborn facility his long, supple fingers worked out intricate little sketches with the drops of beer spilled on the table. His art came easily to him and he had a happy knack of making a success of everything.

  ‘Where’s Gagnière?’ asked Mahoudeau. ‘Haven’t you seen him?’

  ‘No. And I’ve been here an hour.’

  Jory said nothing, but nudged Sandoz and motioned with his head in the direction of a girl sitting with her gentleman at a table at the far end of the room. There were only two other customers in the place, a couple of gendarmes busy playing cards. She looked little more than a child, a typical product of the Paris streets, where youngsters still look spare and immature even at eighteen. Her bang of short blonde hair, her delicate little nose and the big smiling mouth in her quaint, rosy face made her look rather like a well-brushed dog. She was turning over the pages of a picture-paper while her escort solemnly sipped his madeira. Every now and then she flashed a lively glance at the gang over the top of her paper.