Part 20

'Yes, indeed,' answered Madame Charbonnel, drawing a deep sigh. 'This time we've quite made up our minds.'

However, they gave him a hearty welcome, apparently quite flattered at seeing him in their room. All the chairs were littered with clothes, bundles of linen, and baskets with splitting sides. So Rougon sat down on the edge of the bed. 'Oh, don't trouble yourselves!' he said, good-naturedly; 'I'm very comfortable here. Go on with what you're doing; I don't want to disturb you. Are you going by the eight o'clock train?'

'Yes, by the eight o'clock train,' M. Charbonnel replied. 'That gives us just six more hours to spend in this beastly Paris. Ah! we sha'n't forget it in a hurry, Monsieur Rougon!'

Then he, who generally spoke so little, launched into a flow of bitter invective, and even shook his fist at the window while declaiming against the horrid city, where one actually couldn't see clearly in one's room at two o'clock in the afternoon. That dirty light which filtered in through that narrow well of a yard was Paris! But, thank Heaven, he was going to see the sun again in his garden at Plassans! Then he looked round to make sure that he was forgetting nothing. He had bought a railway time-table in the morning, and he pointed to a cold roast fowl wrapt in some greasy paper, which they meant to take with them to eat on their journey.

'Have you emptied everything out of the drawers, my dear?' he asked. 'My slippers were in the night-table. I think, too, that some papers fell behind the chest of drawers.'

Rougon felt pained as he watched the preparations of these disconsolate old folks, whose hands trembled as they made up their packages. Their emotion seemed to him like a silent reproach. It was he who had kept them in Paris, and their sojourn there was ending in complete failure, a veritable flight.

'You are making a mistake,' he said at last.

But Madame Charbonnel answered with a gesture of entreaty as if to beseech him to be silent. 'Don't make us any promises, Monsieur Rougon,' she said sharply. 'They could only bring all our unhappiness over again. When I think that we've been here for two years and a half! Two years and a half, good heavens, in this hole of a place! My left leg will never be free from pain again as long as I live. I have slept on the far side of the bed, and that wall behind you fairly streams with water at night. Oh, I couldn't tell you all we've gone through! It would be too long a story. And we've spent a ruinous amount of money! Only yesterday I was obliged to buy this big trunk to carry away the things we have worn out while we have been in Paris; the wretchedly sewn clothes, which the shopkeepers charged us most extortionately for, and the linen which came back from the laundress's in rags. Ah! I sha'n't be sorry to have seen the last of your laundresses! They ruin everything with their acids.'

Then she threw a bundle of things into the trunk, and exclaimed: 'No, this time we are certainly going. I think it would kill me to stay here an hour longer.'

Rougon, however, insisted upon talking about their lawsuit. Had they had any bad news? he asked. Then the Charbonnels told him, almost crying as they did so, that the property of their cousin Chevassu was certainly lost to them. The Council of State was on the point of authorising the Sisters of the Holy Family to receive the legacy of five hundred thousand francs. Their last remaining hope had expired on hearing of the arrival of Monseigneur Rochart in Paris, whither he had come, for the second time, to hurry the matter forward.

And all at once M. Charbonnel ceased to struggle with the cords of the smaller trunk and raised his arms convulsively, while crying in a broken voice: 'Five hundred thousand francs! Five hundred thousand francs!'

They both seemed overwhelmed. They sat down, the husband on the trunk and the wife on a bundle of linen, amidst all the litter of the room. And they began to pity themselves in a mournful strain; as soon as one stopped the other began. They recalled their affection for their cousin Chevassu. How fond they had been of him! As a matter of fact, they had not seen him for more than seventeen years before his death. But, just now, they wept over him in all good faith, and really believed that they had shown him every kind attention during his illness. Then they began to accuse the Sisters of the Holy Family of disgraceful scheming. They had brought undue influence to bear on cousin Chevassu, they had kept him from his friends, and had exerted constant pressure on his mind, which illness had weakened. Madame Charbonnel, though she was really a very devout woman, went so far as to relate a dreadful story, according to which cousin Chevassu had died of fright after signing his will at the dictation of a priest, who had shewn him the devil standing at the foot of his bed. And as for the Bishop of Faverolles, she said, it was a dirty part that he was playing, in despoiling a couple of honest people, who were esteemed throughout Plassans for the integrity they had shown in getting a little competency together in the oil trade.

'But perhaps the case isn't hopeless yet,' said Rougon, seeing that they were wavering. 'Monseigneur Rochart isn't the Divinity. I myself haven't been able to do anything for you lately; I've had so much else to occupy me. But let me find out exactly how matters stand. I don't mean to let them prey on us.'

The Charbonnels looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. 'It's really no use troubling about it, Monsieur Rougon,' murmured the husband.

And as Rougon persisted, swearing that he would make every effort in their favour, and could not let them go off in this way, the wife in her turn said: 'It's really no use your troubling yourself about it. You would only give yourself a lot of bother for nothing. We spoke of you to our lawyer, but he only laughed at us, and said you had no power now against Monseigneur Rochart.'

'And if you've no power, what's the good of troubling yourself?' asked M. Charbonnel. 'We had much better give it up.'

Rougon had bent his head. These remarks cut him like lashes. Never before had his powerlessness brought him such cruel pain.

'No; we are going back to Plassans,' continued Madame Charbonnel. 'It is much the wisest thing to do. But we are not going away with any grudge against you, Monsieur Rougon! When we see Madame Félicité, your mother, we shall tell her that you would have cut yourself in pieces for us. And if anyone else questions us you may be sure that we sha'n't say a word against you. Nobody can be expected to do more than he's able, can he?'

This was the last stroke. Rougon pictured the Charbonnels reaching their distant home in the provinces. As soon as they had told their news the little town would be yelping at him. It would be a personal defeat, from which it would take him years to recover.

'But you must stay here!' he exclaimed. 'I will have you stay. We will see if Monseigneur Rochart can gobble me up at a mouthful!'

He broke into a threatening laugh which quite alarmed the Charbonnels. They continued to resist for some time, and then at last consented to remain in Paris for another week, but not a single day longer. And thereupon M. Charbonnel began to unknot the cords which he had fastened about the smaller trunk, and his wife lighted a candle, although it was scarcely three o'clock, in order that she might see to put the linen and clothes in the drawers again. When Rougon left them he pressed their hands affectionately and renewed his promises to do all he could.

Before he had gone ten yards down the street, however, he already began to repent of what he had done. Why had he persuaded the Charbonnels to stay when they were so anxious to be off? It would have been a first-rate opportunity to get rid of them. And now he was more committed than ever to bring about a successful issue of their suit. He was especially vexed with himself for the motives of vanity which, as he realised, had influenced him. They seemed unworthy of a man of strength. However, he had promised, and must do what he could. Thus thinking he went down the Rue Bonaparte, followed the quay, and then crossed the Saints-Pères bridge.

The weather was still mild, but a rather sharp breeze was blowing along the river. Rougon was half-way across and was buttoning his coat when he saw a stout lady in furs immediately in front of him. It was Madame Correur; he recognised her by her voice.

'Ah! is it you?' she said in a mournful tone. 'Well, as I've met you I'll shake hands with you; but you wouldn't have seen me at your house for another week. You haven't been acting like a friend.'

Then she began to reproach him for not having made an application which she had been asking of him for months past. It was still the case of that Mademoiselle Herminie Billecoq, a former pupil of Saint Denis, whom her seducer, an officer, was willing to marry, if some good soul would only give her the regulation dowry. Then, too, added Madame Correur, the other ladies gave her no peace. The widow Leturc was anxiously waiting for her tobacco shop, and the others, Madame Chardon, Madame Testanière, and Madame Jalaguier, called on her every day to relate their woes and remind her of the promises she had made them.

'I was counting upon you when I made them,' she said, in conclusion. 'Oh, you've left me in a nice hole! Well, I'm now on my way to ask the Minister of Public Instruction for a scholarship for little Jalaguier. You promised me that scholarship, you know.'

She heaved a deep sigh as she continued: 'We are obliged to go tramping about all over the place now that you refuse to do anything for us.'

Rougon, whom the wind was slightly inconveniencing, had bent his shoulders and begun to look at the Port Saint Nicholas below the bridge. As he listened to Madame Correur he watched some men unloading a barge laden with sugar-loaves, which they rolled down a gangway formed of a couple of planks. A crowd of three hundred people or so was viewing the operation from the quays.

'I am nobody now, and I can do nothing,' said the great man. 'It is wrong of you to feel a grudge against me.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' replied Madame Correur scoffingly; 'I know you well enough. Whenever you choose you can be what you like. Don't be a humbug, Eugène!'

Rougon could not help smiling. The familiarity shown by Madame Mélanie, as he had called her in former days, brought back recollections of the Hôtel Vanneau, when he had no boots even to his feet, but was conquering France. He forgot all the reproaches which he had addressed to himself on leaving the Charbonnels. 'Well, well,' he said, good-naturedly, 'what is it you have to tell me? But don't let us stand here. It's almost freezing. As you are going to the Rue de Grenelle I will walk with you to the end of the bridge.'

Then he turned and walked along beside Madame Correur, without, however, offering her his arm; and the lady began to tell him her troubles at great length. 'After all,' said she, 'I don't so much mind about the others. Those ladies can very well wait. I shouldn't bother you, I should be as merry as I used to be--you remember, don't you?--if I hadn't such big troubles of my own. One can't help getting bitter over them. I'm still dreadfully bothered about my brother. Poor Martineau! His wife has made him completely mad; he has no feelings left.'

Then she gave a minute account of a fresh attempt at reconciliation which she had made during the previous week. In order, said she, to find out exactly what her brother's disposition towards her might be, she had sent him as ambassador one of her friends, that very Herminie Billecoq, whose marriage she had been trying to effect for the last two years.

'Her travelling expenses cost me a hundred and seventeen francs,' she continued. 'But how do you think they received her? Why, Madame Martineau sprang between her and my brother, foaming at the mouth and crying out that I was sending a crew of street-walkers to them, and that she would have them arrested by the gendarmes. My poor Herminie was still in such a tremble when I met her on her return at the Montparnasse station that we were obliged to go into a café and drink something.'

They had now reached the end of the bridge. The passers-by were jostling them. Rougon tried to console Madame Correur, thinking of all the kind things that he could say. 'It's extremely annoying. But, you'll see, your brother will make it up with you by-and-bye. Time puts everything straight.'

Then, as she still detained him at the corner of the footway, amidst the uproar of the passing vehicles, he slowly walked up the bridge again, she following and saying: 'When Martineau dies, his wife is quite capable of burning any will he may leave behind him. The poor, dear fellow is nothing more than skin and bones. Herminie says that he looks dreadfully ill. I am terribly bothered about it all.'

'Well, you can do nothing now,' said Rougon, with a vague gesture; 'you must wait.'

However, she stopped him again when he was half-way across the bridge, and, lowering her voice, continued: 'Herminie told me a strange thing. It seems that Martineau has gone in for politics now. He is a Republican. At the last elections he threw the whole neighbourhood into excitement. That news gave me quite a shock. He might get into trouble, eh?'

There was a short pause, during which Madame Correur looked searchingly at Rougon. He had glanced at a passing carriage as though he wished to avoid her gaze. Then, with an innocent air, he responded: 'Oh, don't make yourself uneasy. You have friends, haven't you? Well, rely on them.'

'You are the only person I rely on, Eugène,' she replied in a low, tender voice.

At this Rougon seemed moved. He glanced at her, and was stirred by the sight of her plump neck and painted face, which she struggled to keep beautiful. She personified his youth. 'Yes, rely on me,' he said, pressing her hands. 'You know very well that I am always on your side.'

He again accompanied her as far as the Quai Voltaire. And when she had left him he at last made his way across the bridge, slackening his steps as he went in order to watch the landing of the sugar-loaves at the Port Saint-Nicholas. For a moment even he halted and let his elbows rest on the parapet. But the sugar-loaves rolling down the gangway, the greenish water flowing beneath the arches of the bridge, the crowd of idlers and the houses all soon grew hazy and disappeared, and he fell into a reverie. He became absorbed in dim, strange thoughts; it seemed to him as if he were descending with Madame Correur into some black abyss of human iniquity. However, he felt no regrets, no qualms; he dreamt of becoming very great and very powerful, so that he might satisfy the desires of those about him to an extent unnatural--even, as it were, impossible.

A shiver roused him from his quiescence. He was trembling with cold. The night was falling and the breeze from the river was stirring up cloudlets of white dust on the quays. He felt very tired as he made his way alongside the Tuileries, and suddenly lacked the courage to return home on foot. All the passing cabs were full, however, and he had almost relinquished the hope of securing one when he saw a driver pull up his horse just in front of him. A head was thrust out of the window of the vehicle. It was M. Kahn's. 'I was just going to your house. Get in. I will drive you home, and we can talk as we go.'

Rougon got into the cab, and was scarcely seated before the ex-deputy burst into tempestuous words amidst the jolting of the vehicle as its horse went on at a sleepy trot: 'Ah, my friend,' said M. Kahn, 'I have just had such a proposal made to me! You would never be able to guess it! I feel as though I were choking!' Then he lowered one of the windows, adding: 'You have no objection, have you?'

Rougon lay back in a corner of the cab, watching the grey wall of the Tuileries gardens; while M. Kahn, very red in the face, and gesticulating spasmodically, continued: 'I have been following your advice, you know. For the last two years I have been struggling persistently. I have seen the Emperor three times, and I have reached my fourth petition on the subject. If I haven't succeeded in getting the railway grant for myself, I have, at any rate, prevented Marsy from getting it for the Western Company. Briefly, I manœuvred so as to keep matters at a standstill till we should be the stronger party again, as you advised me to do.'

He stopped for a moment, as his voice was drowned by the dreadful clatter made by a passing cart laden with iron. When the cab had got clear of this cart he continued: 'Well, just now, while I was sitting in my study, a man whom I don't know, but who is a big contractor, it appears, called on me and calmly proposed, in the name of Marsy and the directors of the Western Railway Company, that if I would make a million francs' worth of shares over to those gentlemen I should be granted the necessary authorisation for my line. What do you think of that?'

'The terms are a little high,' said Rougon, with a smile.

M. Kahn jerked his head and crossed his arms.

'Oh, you've no idea of the coolness of these people,' he continued. 'You ought to have heard the whole of my conversation with the contractor. In consideration of the million's worth of shares Marsy undertakes to support me, and to bring my claim to a successful issue within a month's time. When I began to speak of the Emperor the contractor only laughed, and told me plumply that if the Emperor was my support I might as well give the whole thing up at once.'

The cab was now turning into the Place de la Concorde, and Rougon emerged from his corner with a bright colour on his cheeks, as if suddenly warmed. 'And did you show this fine gentleman the door?' he asked.

The ex-deputy did not immediately answer, but looked at him with an expression of great surprise. M. Kahn's anger had abruptly subsided. For a while he lay back in his corner of the cab and yielded to the jolts. Then he muttered: 'Ah, no; one doesn't show people like that to the door without a little reflection. And, besides, I wanted to take your advice. For my own part, I confess I am inclined to accept the offer.'

'Never, Kahn!' cried Rougon hotly. 'Never!'

Then they began to discuss the matter. M. Kahn quoted figures. No doubt, said he, a commission of a million francs was an enormous one, but he showed that it might easily be balanced by following certain methods. Rougon, however, refused to listen, and waved his hand to silence him. He himself held money in little account; if he was unwilling that Marsy should pocket a million it was because the gift of that million would be a confession of his own powerlessness, an acknowledgment that he himself was beaten, and that the influence of his rival was so much greater than his own that it might really be priced at that exorbitant figure.

'Can't you see that Marsy is getting tired of the struggle?' said he. 'He's coming round. Wait a little longer and we shall get the grant for nothing.' Then, in almost threatening tones, he added: 'I warn you that we shall quarrel if you accept. I cannot allow a friend of mine to be fleeced in that manner.'

A pause followed. The cab was now ascending the Champs Élysées. Both men, wrapped in thought, looked as though they were counting the trees in the side avenues. M. Kahn was the first to break the silence. 'Listen to me now,' he said in a low tone. 'I ask nothing better than to keep on with you, but you must acknowledge that for the last two years----'

Then he stopped; and, instead of finishing the sentence he had begun, he gave another turn to his answer: 'Well, it isn't your fault. Just now your hands are tied. We had better give them the million; believe me, we had.'

'Never!' cried Rougon energetically. 'In a fortnight you shall have your grant; in a fortnight, do you hear me?'

The cab had just stopped in front of the little house in the Rue Marbeuf. Neither of them alighted, however. For some moments they continued talking inside the vehicle, as though comfortably ensconced in their own home. M. Bouchard and Colonel Jobelin were coming to dine that evening with Rougon, and he pressed M. Kahn to join them; but the other, to his great regret, he said, was obliged to decline the invitation, as he was engaged elsewhere. The great man was now enthusiastically determined upon obtaining the railway grant. When he at length alighted from the cab he closed the door in a friendly way and gave the ex-deputy a parting nod.

'Till next Thursday, then?' cried the latter, thrusting his head out of the window as the cab drove off.

Rougon was feeling slightly feverish on his return. He could not even read the evening papers. Although it was scarcely five o'clock, he went straight to the drawing-room and began to walk up and down while waiting for his guests. The first sunshine of the year, though it was only a pale January sunshine, had given him a touch of headache. His afternoon had left a very vivid impression upon him. All his friends rose before him: those whom he put up with, those of whom he felt afraid, and those for whom he had a genuine affection. They all seemed to be goading him on, forcing him to some decisive step. And this did not displease him; he felt that their impatience was reasonable, and he realised that an anger akin to their own was rising up within himself. It was as though the ground in front of him had gradually diminished, as if the time was near when he would be compelled to make a formidable leap.

Then he suddenly thought of Gilquin, whom he had entirely forgotten. He rang for his servant to ask if 'the gentleman in the green overcoat' had called again during his absence. But the servant had seen no one. Then Rougon told him that if Gilquin should call during the evening he was to be shown into his study. 'And you will let me know immediately,' he added, 'even if we are at table.'

His curiosity was again roused, and he went to look for Gilquin's card. He read the inscription, 'Very urgent; a strange business,' several times over, without managing to make anything of it. When M. Bouchard and the colonel arrived he slipped the card into his pocket, feeling disturbed, even irritated, by those words, which kept buzzing in his brain.

The dinner was a very plain one. M. Bouchard had been a bachelor for the last two days, his wife having had to go into the provinces on a visit to a sick aunt, of whom, strangely enough, she had never previously spoken. The colonel, for whom there was always a cover laid at Rougon's table, had that evening brought his son, whose holidays were on just then. Madame Rougon did the honours in her kindly silent fashion. Under her ever-vigilant eyes the repast was served, slowly, but most carefully, and without the slightest noise. The conversation turned upon the subjects of study in the public schools. The chief clerk quoted some lines from Horace, and spoke of the prizes he had gained in the examinations, about 1813. The colonel said he would have liked a more military form of discipline among the pupils; and then he went on to explain why Auguste had failed in his examination for a bachelor's degree in November. The youth had such a lively intelligence, he said, that he always went beyond the questions asked by the examiners, and this had annoyed them. While his father was thus explaining his failure, Auguste himself was eating some fowl, with a sly smile on his beaming dunce's face.