THE COMPLETE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIES (All 20 Books in One Edition). Ðмиль ЗолÑ
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the crowd that had jostled him on the pavement. Never had he known an appetite so vast, an eagerness so pressing for enjoyment.
At daybreak the next morning he was at his brother’s. Eugène lived in two large, cold, barely-furnished rooms, that chilled Aristide to the marrow. He had looked to find his brother wallowing in the lap of luxury. Eugène was working at a small black table. All he said was, with a smile, in his slow voice:
“Ah! there you are, I was expecting you.”
Aristide was very bitter. He accused Eugène of leaving him to vegetate, of not even having had the charity to give him a word of good advice while he was floundering about in the country. He could never forgive himself for remaining a Republican up to the 2 December; it was an open sore with him, an everlasting confusion. Eugène had quietly taken up his pen. When the other had finished:
“Bah!” he said. “All mistakes can be set right. You have a career before you full of promise.”
He spoke these words in so decided a voice, with a look so piercing, that Aristide lowered his head, feeling that his brother was penetrating into the very depths of his nature. The latter continued with friendly bluntness:
“You have come here to ask me to find you an appointment, have you not? I have been thinking of you, but I have heard of nothing yet. You understand, I must be careful where I put you. What you want is a place where you can feather your nest without danger either to yourself or to me…. Don’t trouble to protest, we are quite alone, we can say what we like….”
Aristide thought it best to laugh.
“Oh, I know you have your wits about you,” Eugène continued, “and that you are not likely to make a fool of yourself for no purpose…. As soon as a good opportunity presents itself, I will give you the berth. Meantime, whenever you want twenty francs or so, come and ask me for it.”
They talked an instant of the rising in the South, through which their father had gained his appointment as receiver of taxes. Eugène dressed himself while they were talking. As he was about to take leave of his brother downstairs in the street, he detained him a moment longer, and said to him in a lower tone of voice:
“You will do me a favour by not seeking work on your own account, but by waiting at home quietly for the appointment which I promise you…. I should not like to see my brother hanging about in people’s waiting-rooms.”
Aristide had a certain respect for Eugène, whom he looked upon as an uncommonly smart chap. He could not forgive his distrustfulness, nor his candour, which was a trifle blunt; still he went home obediently and shut himself up in the Rue Saint-Jacques. He had arrived with five hundred francs which had been lent him by his wife’s father. After paying the expenses of the journey, he made the three hundred francs that remained last him a month. Angèle was a great eater; moreover she thought it necessary to trim her Sunday dress with a fresh set of mauve ribbons. That month of waiting seemed endless to Aristide. He was consumed with impatience. When he sat at his window and watched the gigantic labour of Paris seething beneath him, he was struck with an insane desire to hurl himself straightway into the furnace, in order with his fevered hands to mould the gold like soft wax. He inhaled the breath, vague as yet, that rose from the great city, that breath of the budding Empire, laden already with the odours of alcoves and financial hells, with the warm effluvia of sensuality. The faint fumes that reached him told him that he was on the right scent, that the game was scudding before him, that the great imperial hunt, the hunt after adventures, women, and millions, was at last about to commence. His nostrils quivered, his instinct, the instinct of a famished beast, dexterously seized upon the slightest indications of the division of spoil of which the city was to be the arena.
Twice he called on his brother, to urge him to greater activity. Eugène received him gruffly, told him again that he was not forgetting him, but that he must have patience. He at last received a letter asking him to call at the Rue Penthièvre. He went, his heart beating violently, as though he was on his way to an assignation. He found Eugène sitting before his everlasting little black table in the great bleak room which he used as a study. So soon as he saw him, the lawyer handed him a document, and said:
“There, I got your business settled yesterday. This is your appointment as an assistant surveying-clerk at the Hotel de Ville. Your salary will be two thousand four hundred francs.”
Aristide remained where he stood. He turned pale, and did not take the document, thinking that his brother was making fun of him. He had expected an appointment of at least six thousand francs. Eugène, suspecting what was passing in his mind, turned his chair round, and, folding his arms, exclaimed, with a show of anger:
“So you are a fool, then, are you?…. You indulge in dreams like a girl. You want to live in a handsome flat, to keep servants, to eat well, to sleep in silken sheets, to take your pleasure in the arms of the first woman that comes, in a boudoir furnished in a couple of hours…. You and your sort, if you had your way, would empty the coffers even before they were full. But, good God, why can’t you be patient? See how I live, and in order to pick up your fortune at least take the trouble to stoop.”
He spoke with a profound contempt for his brother’s schoolboy impatience. One could feel, through his rude speech, a higher ambition, a desire for unmitigated power; this candid craving for money must have seemed common to him, and puerile. He continued in a gentler voice, with a subtle smile:
“No doubt you have excellent propensities, and I have no wish to thwart them. Men like you are worth much to us. We fully intend to choose our best friends from among the hungriest. Set your mind at rest, we shall keep open table, and the most unbounded appetites shall be satisfied. It is, after all, the easiest way of governing…. But for Heaven’s sake wait till the cloth is laid; and, if you take my advice, you will go to the kitchen yourself and fetch your own knife and fork.”
Aristide still remained sullen. His brother’s metaphorical humour in no way raised his spirits. And Eugène once more gave vent to his anger.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “I was right in my first opinion: you are a fool…. Why, what did you expect, what did you imagine I was going to do with your illustrious person? You have not even had the spirit to finish your law studies; you bury yourself for ten years in a miserable clerkship in a sous-préfecture; and you come down upon me with the odious reputation of a Republican whom the Coup d’État alone was able to convert …. Do you think there is the making of a minister in you, with a record like that?…. Oh, I know you have in your favour your savage desire to succeed by any possible means. It is a great point, I admit, and it is that which I had in my mind when I got you this appointment in the Hotel de Ville.”
And rising, he thrust the nomination into Aristide’s hands, and continued:
“Take it, and some day you’ll thank me! I chose the place for you myself, and I know what you’ll be able to get out of it…. You have only to look about you and to keep your ears open. If you know your way about, you will understand, and act accordingly…. Now remember carefully what I am about to add. We are entering upon a period when fortune will be within the reach of anyone. Make as much money as you like: I give you leave; only no folly, no flagrant scandal, or I’ll exterminate you.”
This threat produced the effect which his promises had not been able to bring about. All Aristide’s ardour was rekindled at the thought of the fortune of which his brother spoke. It seemed to him that he was at last let loose in the fray, authorized to cut throats, provided he did so legally, and without causing too much commotion. Eugène gave him two hundred francs to keep him till the end of the month. Then he paused, reflecting.
“I am thinking of changing my name,” he said at last; “you should do the same…. We should be less in each other’s way.”
“As you like,” answered Aristide quietly.
“You need take no trouble in the matter, I will attend to the formalities…. Would you like to call yourself Sicardot, your wife’s name?”
Aristide raised his eyes to the ceiling, repeating the name and listening to the sound of the syllables:
“Sicardot….