THE COMPLETE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIES (All 20 Books in One Edition). Ðмиль ЗолÑ
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serious.
She was stifling. She went to the window, drew back the curtains, and leant out. The orchestra was hushed; her sin had been committed amid the last quiver of the basses and the distant chant of the violins, the vague, soft music of the boulevard asleep and dreaming of love. The roadway and pavement below stretched out and merged into gray solitude. All the growling cab-wheels seemed to have departed, carrying with them the lights and the crowd. Beneath the window, the Café Riche was closed; no shred of light gleamed through the shutters. Across the road, shimmering lights alone lit up the front of the Café Anglais, and one half-open window in particular, whence issued a faint laughter. And all along this riband of darkness, from the turn at the Rue Drouot to the other extremity, as far as her eyes could reach, she saw nothing but the symmetrical blurs of the kiosks staining the night red and green, without illuminating it, and resembling night-lights spaced along a giant dormitory. She raised her head. The trees outlined their tall branches against a clear sky, while the irregular line of the houses died away, assuming the clustering appearance of a rocky coast on the shore of a faint blue sea. But this belt of sky saddened her still more, and only in the darkness of the boulevard could she find consolation. What lingered on the surface of the deserted road of the noise and vice of the evening made excuses for her. She thought she could feel the heat of the footsteps of all those men and women ascend from the pavement that was growing cold. The shamefulness that had lingered there, momentary lusts, whispered offerings, prepaid weddings of a night, was evaporating, was floating in a heavy mist dissipated by the breath of morning. Leaning out into the darkness, she inhaled this quivering silence, that alcove fragrance, as an encouragement that reached her from below, as an assurance of shame shared and accepted by an approving city. And when her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, she saw the woman in the blue dress trimmed with lace standing in the same place, alone in the gray solitude, waiting and offering herself to the empty night.
On turning round, Renée perceived Charles, who was looking around for what he could see. He ended by discovering Renée’s blue ribbon, lying rumpled and forgotten on a corner of the sofa. And with his civil air he hastened to take it to her. Then she realized all her shame. Standing before the glass, with awkward hands she endeavoured to refasten the ribbon. But her chignon had slipped down, her little curls had flattened on her temples, and she was unable to tie the bow. Charles came to her assistance, saying, as though he were offering an everyday thing, a finger-bowl or a toothpick:
“Would madame like the comb?…”
“Oh no, don’t trouble,” interrupted Maxime, giving the waiter an impatient look. “Go and call a cab.”
Renée decided simply to pull down the hood of her domino. And as she was about to leave, she again lightly raised herself to see the words which Maxime’s embrace had prevented her from reading. Slanting upwards towards the ceiling, and written in a large, hideous hand, there was this declaration, signed Sylvia: “I love Maxime,” She bit her lips and drew her hood a little lower.
In the cab they experienced a horrible sense of awkwardness. They sat facing one another, as when driving down from the Parc Monceau. They could not think of a word to say to each other. The cab was full of opaque darkness, and Maxime’s cigar did not even mark it with a red dot, a glimmer of crimson charcoal. The young man, hidden again among the skirts in which he was “up to his eyes,” suffered from this gloom and this silence, from the silent woman he felt beside him, whose eyes he imagined he could see staring wide open into the night. To seem less stupid he ended by feeling for her hand, and when he held it in his own, he was relieved, and found the situation tolerable. Renée abandoned her hand languidly and dreamily.
The cab crossed the Place de la Madeleine. Renée reflected that she was not to blame. She had not desired the incest. And the deeper her introspection, the more innocent she thought herself at the commencement of her escapade, at the moment of her stealthy departure from the Parc Monceau, at Blanche Muller’s, on the boulevard, even in the private room at the restaurant. Then why had she fallen on her knees on the edge of that sofa? She could not think. She had certainly not thought of “that” for a moment. She would have angrily refused to give herself. It was for fun, she was amusing herself, nothing more. And in the rolling of the cab she found again the deafening orchestra of the boulevard, the coming and going of men and women, while bars of fire scorched her tired eyes.
Maxime, in his corner, was also pondering, with a certain annoyance. He was angry at the adventure. He laid the blame on the black satin domino. Whoever saw a woman rig herself out like that! You couldn’t even see her neck. He had taken her for a boy and romped with her, and it was not his fault that the game had become serious. He certainly would not have touched her with the tip of his fingers, if she had shown only a tiny bit of her shoulders. He would have remembered that she was his father’s wife. Then, as he did not care for disagreeable reflections, he forgave himself. So much the worse, after all! he would try and not do it again. It was a piece of nonsense.
The cab stopped, and Maxime got down first to assist Renée. But, at the little gate of the gardens, he did not dare to kiss her. They touched hands as was their habit. She was already on the other side of the railing, when, for the sake of saying something, unwittingly confessing a preoccupation that had vaguely filled her thoughts since leaving the restaurant:
“What is that comb,” she asked, “the waiter spoke of?”
“That comb,” repeated Maxime, embarrassed. “I’m sure I don’t know….”
Renée suddenly understood. The room, no doubt, had a comb that formed part of its apparatus, like the curtains, the bolt and the sofa. And without waiting for an explanation which was not forthcoming, she plunged into the darkness of the Parc Monceau, hastening her steps and thinking she could see behind her those tortoiseshell teeth in which Laure d’Aurigny and Sylvia had left fair hair and black. She was in a high fever. Céleste had to put her to bed and sit up with her till morning. Maxime stood for a moment on the pavement of the Boulevard Malesherbes, consulting with himself whether he should join the festive party at the Café Anglais; and then, with the idea that he was punishing himself, he determined that he ought to go home to bed.
The next morning Renée woke late from a heavy, dreamless sleep. She had a large fire lighted, and said she would spend the day in her room. This was her refuge at serious moments. Towards mid-day, as her husband did not see her come down to breakfast, he asked leave to speak with her for an instant. She was already refusing the request, with a touch of nervousness, when she thought better of it. The day before she had sent down to Saccard a bill of Worms’s for a hundred and thirty-six thousand francs, a rather high figure; and doubtless he wished to indulge in the gallantry of bringing her the receipt in person.
The thought came to her of yesterday’s little curls. Mechanically she looked in the glass at her hair, which Céleste had plaited into great tresses. Then she ensconced herself by the fireside, burying herself in the lace of her peignoir. Saccard, whose rooms were also on the first floor, corresponding to his wife’s, entered in his slippers, a husband’s privilege. He set foot barely once a month in Renée’s room, and always for some delicate question of money. That morning he had the red eyes and pallid complexion of a man who has not slept. He kissed his wife’s hand gallantly.
“Are you unwell, my dear?” he asked, sitting down on the opposite side of the fireplace. “A little headache, eh?… Forgive me for coming to worry you with my business jargon, but the thing is rather serious….”
He drew from the pocket of his dressing-gown Worms’s account, the cream-laid paper of which Renée recognized.
“I found this bill on my desk yesterday,” he continued, “and I’m more than sorry, but I am absolutely unable to pay it at present.”
With a sidelong look he watched the effect his words produced on her. She seemed profoundly astonished. He resumed with a smile:
“You know, my dear, I am not in the habit of finding fault with your expenses, though I confess that certain items of this bill have surprised me a little. As for instance, on the second page, I find: ‘Ball dress: material, 70 francs; making up, 600 francs; money lent, 5,000 francs; eau du Docteur Pierre, 6 francs.’ That seems pretty expensive for a