Part 27

The servant who opened the door was seized with childish terror at the sight of the uniforms, and rushed away, crying at the top of her voice: 'Madame! Madame! Madame!'

A short plump woman, whose face maintained an expression of perfect calm, came slowly down the staircase.

'Madame Martineau, I presume?' said Gilquin rapidly. 'I have a painful duty to perform, madame. I have come to arrest your husband.'

Madame Martineau clasped her short hands, while her pale lips began to quiver. But she uttered no cry. She remained standing on the bottom step, blocking the way with her skirts. Then she asked Gilquin to show her his warrant, and required explanations, doing all she could to cause a delay.

'Be careful! He'll slip through our fingers if we don't mind,' the corporal murmured in the commissary's ear.

Madame Martineau probably heard this remark, for she looked at the two men with her calm eyes, and said: 'Come upstairs, gentlemen.'

She went up in front of them and took them into a room, in the middle of which stood M. Martineau in his dressing gown. Upon hearing the servant's cries of alarm he had risen from the arm-chair in which he spent most of his time. He was very tall; his hands seemed quite dead; his face was as pale as wax; and only his eyes--dark, soft, and yet determined eyes--appeared to retain any life. Madame Martineau pointed to him in silence.

'I regret to say, sir,' began Gilquin, 'that I have a painful duty to perform.'

When he had explained his errand, the notary nodded but did not speak. A slight quiver, however, shook the dressing-gown which covered his attenuated limbs. At last, with great politeness, he replied: 'Very well, gentlemen, I will follow you.'

Then he began to walk about the room, putting in order several articles, which were lying on different pieces of furniture. For instance, he moved a parcel of books to another place. Then he asked his wife for a clean shirt. The trembling which was affecting him had now become more pronounced. Madeline Martineau, seeing him totter, followed him with outstretched arms, ready to catch him should he fall, just as one follows a little child.

'Come, sir, make haste!' repeated Gilquin.

The notary took another couple of turns round the room, and then suddenly snatched at the air with his hands, and let himself fall into an arm-chair, distorted and stiffened by a paralytic seizure. At this his wife shed big silent tears.

Gilquin took out his watch. 'Confound it all!' he cried. It was half-past five, and he felt that he must now relinquish all hope of being back at Niort in time for the dinner at the prefecture. It would take at least another half hour to get this man into a carriage. He tried to console himself with the thought that at any rate he would not miss the ball, and just then he recollected that the head-master's wife had promised him the first waltz.

'He's shamming,' the corporal now whispered to Gilquin. 'Shall I lift him on to his feet?' And without waiting for a reply, he stepped up to the notary and advised him not to attempt to deceive justice. Martineau, however, was as rigid as a corpse; his eyes were closed and his lips pinched. Thereupon the corporal lost his temper, and indulged in strong language, till at last he laid his heavy hand on the collar of the notary's dressing-gown. But at this Madame Martineau, who had hitherto remained passive, energetically pushed him aside, and planted herself in front of her husband, clenching her fists with an air of devoted resolution.

'He's shamming, I tell you!' the corporal repeated.

Gilquin shrugged his shoulders. He had made up his mind to carry the notary off whether he were dead or alive. 'Send one of your men to get the carriage from the Golden Lion,' he said to the corporal. 'I have spoken to the landlord about one.'

When the corporal had left the room, Gilquin stepped up to the window, and looked complacently at the apricot trees which were blossoming in the garden. He was growing quite absorbed in his thoughts, when he felt a touch upon his shoulder. Madame Martineau stood behind him. Her cheeks were quite dry now, and she spoke in a calm steady voice. 'You mean a carriage for yourself, don't you?' she asked. 'You surely can't think of dragging my husband to Niort, in his present state.'

'I have a painful duty to perform, madame--' Gilquin began for the third time.

'But it is a crime! You will kill him!' Madame Martineau interrupted. 'You have not been ordered to kill him, have you?'

'I am acting under orders,' Gilquin replied in a rougher tone, for he wished to curtail the entreaties which he thought were coming.

But a gleam of desperate anger flashed across Madame Martineau's plump face, and her eyes glanced round the room, as though she were trying to discover some possible means of saving her husband. However, she calmed herself by an effort, and reverted to her previous demeanour, like a strong-minded woman who realises that tears can be of no service.

'God will punish you, sir,' she quietly said, after a short pause, during which she had kept her eyes fixed on Gilquin.

Then, without a tear or entreaty she turned to lean over the chair in which her husband lay dying. Gilquin had merely smiled.

Just at this moment the corporal, who had gone in person to the Golden Lion, came back to say that the landlord asserted he had not got a vehicle of any sort. The arrest of the notary, who was extremely popular in the neighbourhood, must have been noised abroad, and the landlord was doubtless concealing his conveyances; for two hours previously, when the commissary had questioned him on the subject, he had promised to let him have an old brougham which he let out for drives in the neighbourhood.

'Go and search the inn!' cried Gilquin, enraged by this fresh obstacle. 'Search every house in the village! Do they think they will have a game with us? And be quick, I have an engagement to keep, and have no time to spare. I give you a quarter of an hour.'

The corporal hurried off again, taking his men with him; and each went in a different direction. Three-quarters of an hour passed, however, and then another quarter, and then another. At the end of an hour and a half one of the gendarmes returned with a very long face. All his searching had been futile. Gilquin, who had grown feverishly excited, kept rushing about and looking out of the window into the twilight. The ball would certainly begin without him, he reflected, and the head-master's wife would consider him guilty of great discourtesy. Each time that he went past the notary's chair he almost choked with anger. Never had any criminal caused him so much trouble as that man who lay there perfectly motionless, becoming ever paler and colder.

It was past seven o'clock when the corporal returned with a beaming countenance. He had at last discovered the landlord's old brougham, concealed in a shed half a mile from the village. The horse was harnessed and between the shafts, and it was the animal's snorting which had enabled him to discover it. However, when the vehicle was at the door, it became necessary to dress M. Martineau, and this took a very long time. His wife very slowly and deliberately put him on some clean white stockings and a clean white shirt. Then she dressed him in black from head to foot; black trousers, frock-coat and waistcoat. She would not allow the gendarmes to render her the slightest assistance. The notary quietly yielded to her touch. A lamp had been lighted, and Gilquin stood tapping his hands together impatiently, while the corporal remained perfectly still, his three-cornered hat casting a huge shadow upon the ceiling.

'Come, come, haven't you done now?' Gilquin repeated.

For the last five minutes Madame Martineau had been searching in a drawer. At last she produced a pair of black gloves which she put into her husband's pocket. 'I hope, sir,' she said, 'that you will allow me to come in the carriage. I should much like to go with my husband.'

'That is impossible,' replied Gilquin roughly.

She restrained herself instead of pressing her request. 'At any rate,' she said, 'you will allow me to follow him?'

'The roads are free to every one,' answered the commissary, 'but you won't be able to get a vehicle, as there are none in the neighbourhood.'

At this Madame Martineau shrugged her shoulders slightly, and left the room to give an order. Ten minutes afterwards a gig drew up in front of the door, behind the brougham. It was now necessary to get the notary downstairs. The two gendarmes carried him, while his wife supported his head. Whenever the dying man uttered the slightest groan, Madame Martineau imperiously ordered the gendarmes to stop, which they did, notwithstanding the angry glances of the commissary. In this way they halted for a moment on each successive step. The notary looked like a corpse in their arms, and he was quite unconscious when they seated him in the carriage.

'Half-past eight!' exclaimed Gilquin angrily, looking at his watch for the last time. 'Confound it all! I shall never get there!'

There was no doubt about that. He would be fortunate if he arrived before the ball was half over. However, he sprang on his horse with an oath and ordered the coachman to drive as fast as he could. The brougham led the way, the gendarmes riding at each side of it; then, a few yards behind, followed the commissary, and the corporal, and last of all came the gig with Madame Martineau. The night air was very sharp. The little _cortège_ passed over the long grey road through all the sleeping country, accompanied by a rumbling of wheels and the monotonous footfalls of the horses. Not a word was spoken during the journey. Gilquin was thinking of what he should say when he met the head-master's wife. Every now and then, however, Madame Martineau sprang to her feet in the gig, fancying that she heard a death-rattle, but she could scarcely distinguish the brougham as it rolled on before her through the black night.

It was half-past ten when they reached Niort. The commissary, to avoid passing through the town, directed the driver of the brougham to go round by the ramparts. When they reached the gaol, they had to ring loudly. As soon as the gatekeeper saw the white, stiffened prisoner they were bringing him, he went off to rouse the governor. The latter, who was not very well, soon made his appearance in his slippers. And when he saw Martineau, he became quite angry, and absolutely refused to receive a man in such a condition. Did they take the gaol for an hospital? he asked them.

'The man has been arrested, and what do you expect us to do with him?' cried Gilquin, losing his temper at this fresh impediment.

'Whatever you like, monsieur le commissaire, except bring him here,' replied the governor. 'I again tell you that I refuse to receive him. I won't take such a responsibility upon myself.'

Madame Martineau had profited by this discussion to get into the brougham with her husband. And she now proposed that he should be taken to the hotel.

'Very well, to the hotel or the devil, or wherever you like!' cried Gilquin. 'I've had quite enough of him! Take him along!'

He conformed sufficiently to his duty, however, to accompany the notary to the Hôtel de Paris, which Madame Martineau herself fixed upon. The Place de la Préfecture was now becoming empty, and only some children were left playing on the footways; while the middle-class couples slowly disappeared into the darkness of the neighbouring streets. However, the bright glow from the six windows of the prefecture still made the square almost as light as day. The band's brass instruments were blaring, and the ladies' bare shoulders and curled chignons could be seen between the open curtains, circling round the room. As the notary was being carried to the first floor, Gilquin raised his head and caught sight of Madame Correur and Mademoiselle Billecoq, who were still gazing at the festivities. The elder lady, however, must have noticed her brother, for, leaning out so far as to risk a fall, she made an energetic sign to Gilquin to come upstairs. He did so.

Towards midnight the ball at the prefecture reached its zenith. The doors of the dining-room, where a cold supper had been laid, had just been thrown open. The ladies, with hot, flushed faces, fanned themselves as they stood up and ate, amidst a deal of gay laughter. Others were still dancing, unwilling to lose a single quadrille, and contenting themselves with glasses of syrup and water, which gentlemen brought to them. The room was full of a hazy glitter of women's hair and skirts and braceleted arms. There seemed to be too much gold, too much music, and too much heat; and Rougon, who felt half suffocated, was glad indeed to make his escape on being discreetly summoned by Du Poizat.

Madame Correur and Mademoiselle Herminie Billecoq were waiting for him in the small adjoining salon where he had seen them on the previous evening. They were both crying bitterly.

'My poor brother! my poor Martineau!' stammered Madame Correur, while wiping her tears away with her handkerchief. 'Ah! I felt sure that you could do nothing for him. Oh, why couldn't you have saved him?'

Rougon was going to say something, but she would not give him time.

'He has been arrested to-day,' she continued. 'I have just seen him. Oh dear! oh dear!'

'Don't distress yourself,' replied Rougon, at last. 'The matter shall be looked into, and I hope that we shall be able to obtain his release.'

Thereupon Madame Correur ceased dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. She looked at Rougon and exclaimed in her natural voice: 'But he is dead!' Then again she relapsed into a disconsolate tone and buried her face in her handkerchief. 'Oh dear! Oh dear! my poor, poor Martineau!'

Dead! A sudden tremor passed through Rougon's body. He could not find a word to say. For the first time he became conscious of a pit before him, a dark gloomy pit into which he was being gradually driven. To think that the man was dead! He had never intended that anything of that kind should happen. Things had gone too far.

'Alas! yes, the poor dear man is dead,' said Mademoiselle Herminie Billecoq, with a deep, long-drawn sigh. 'It seems that they refused to receive him at the gaol. Then, when we saw him arriving at the hotel in such a pitiable condition, madame went down and insisted upon being admitted, saying that she was his sister. A sister may surely claim to receive her brother's last breath. That is what I said to that hussy of a Madame Martineau, who threatened to turn us out of the room. But we forced her to let us remain by the bedside. _Mon Dieu_! it was soon all over. The death agony only lasted an hour. The poor man was lying on the bed dressed all in black. Anyone would have thought that he was a notary just going to a marriage. And he died out just like a candle-flame, with a little twist of his face. He couldn't have had much pain.'

'And then--would you believe it?--Madame Martineau actually tried to pick a quarrel with me,' cried Madame Correur. 'I don't know what she was driving at, but she spoke about my brother's property, and accused me of having given him the last stroke. I said to her, "If I had been there, madame, I would never have allowed him to be taken away, I would have let the gendarmes hew me in pieces sooner!" And they _should_ have hewn me in pieces sooner! I told you so, didn't I, Herminie?'

'Yes, yes, indeed,' said the tall girl.

'Well, I know my tears won't bring him to life again,' continued Madame Correur; 'but I'm crying because I can't help it. Oh, my poor Martineau!'

Rougon felt very ill at ease. He drew back his hands which Madame Correur had grasped. Still he could not think of anything to say, shocked as he was by the story of this death which seemed so abominable to him.

'Look!' exclaimed Herminie, who was standing in front of the window, 'you can see the room from here in this bright light. It is the third window to the left, on the first floor. There is a light behind the curtains.'

However, Rougon dismissed them, while Madame Correur in return apologised for having troubled him, calling him her friend, and saying that her first impulse had been to come and tell him the fatal news.

'It is a very annoying business,' Rougon whispered to Du Poizat, when he returned to the ball-room, with his face still pale.

'It is all that idiot Gilquin's doing!' replied the prefect, shrugging his shoulders.

The ball was still going on merrily. In the dining-room, a part of which could be seen through the open door, the mayor's assessor was stuffing the three daughters of the conservator of rivers and forests with sweetmeats; while the colonel of the seventy-eighth was drinking punch and listening attentively to the cutting remarks of the chief surveyor of bridges and highways, who was munching sugared almonds. M. Kahn, near the door, was repeating to the President of the Civil Tribunal the speech which he had delivered in the afternoon on the advantages of the new railway line; and round them stood a group of grave-faced men, the comptroller of taxes, the two justices of the peace, and the delegates from the consultative Chamber of Agriculture and the Statistical Society, all with gaping mouths. Then around the ball-room, in the glow of the chandeliers, the dancers revolved to the music of a waltz, which the band blared forth. The son of the receiver-general was dancing with the mayor's sister; one of the public prosecutor's assessors was with a girl in blue; and the other with a girl in pink. But one couple excited particular admiration, that composed of the commissary of police and the head-master's wife, who slowly revolved in a close embrace. Gilquin had hurried off to array himself irreproachably in black dress-coat, patent-leather boots and white gloves, and the beautiful blonde, having forgiven him for his tardy arrival, was now nestling against his shoulder, with languishing eyes. Gilquin threw his chest forward, and brought the motion of his hips into strong prominence, a vulgarism which seemed to delight the spectators as if it had been something very tasteful. And as the pair revolved round the room they all but came into collision with Rougon, who had to step back to the very wall to let them pass him in a whirling cloud of tarlatan, spangled with golden stars.

XI

IN COUNCIL AT ST. CLOUD

Rougon had at last succeeded in obtaining the portfolio of Agriculture and Commerce for Delestang. One morning, early in May, he went to the Rue du Colisée to fetch his new colleague, for there was to be a ministerial council at Saint Cloud, where the Court had just gone to reside.

'What! are you coming with us?' Rougon exclaimed in surprise, as he saw Clorinde taking her place in the landau which was standing in front of the steps.

'Yes,' she answered, with a laugh; 'yes, I'm going to the council, too.' Then, when she had arranged the flounces of her long gown of pale cherry-coloured silk, she added, more seriously: 'I have an appointment with the Empress. I am treasurer of a society for assisting young work-girls in which she is interested.'

In their turn the two men took their places. Delestang sat down by his wife's side. He had with him a brown morocco portfolio, which he kept upon his knees. Rougon sat opposite Clorinde, and carried nothing. It was nearly half-past nine, and the council was fixed for ten, so the coachman was ordered to drive as quickly as he could. To make a short cut, therefore, he went along the Rue Marbeuf, and thence through the Chaillot district, which the demolishers were already ripping up. There were deserted streets fringed with gardens and wooden shanties, steep winding passages and little neglected squares, planted with sickly-looking trees. It was a strange patch of the great city, a medley of villas and cabins, basking on a hill-side in the bright morning sunshine.

'How hideous it is here!' said Clorinde, lying back in the landau.

Then, half-turning, she glanced at her husband, at first gravely, but afterwards, as though she could not help it, she began to smile. Delestang, with his frock coat buttoned round him, was sitting primly erect. His handsome, thoughtful face, and premature baldness, which gave an appearance of great height to his brow, attracted the attention of the passers-by. Clorinde noticed that no one looked at Rougon, whose heavy face seemed to be asleep. Presently, in a sort of maternal manner, she pulled her husband's left wristband forward a little, as it had slipped back inside his sleeve.

'What were you doing last night?' she then asked of the great man, as she saw him yawning behind his fingers.

'I was working very late,' he said. 'There were a lot of tiresome things to see to.'

There was another pause, and Clorinde began to study Rougon. He yielded unresistingly to the slight jolting of the carriage. His frock-coat was strained out of shape by his broad shoulders, and his hat was badly brushed, and bore marks of old rain stains. He reminded Clorinde of a jobber from whom she had bought a horse a month previously, and a smile, with which was mingled a touch of contempt, appeared upon her lips.

'Well?' said Rougon, at last, feeling somewhat annoyed by Clorinde's prolonged scrutiny.

'Well,' she replied, 'I'm looking at you. It isn't forbidden to do so, is it? You're not afraid that I shall eat you, are you?'

She spoke these last words with a provoking air, showing her white teeth. Rougon, however, began to joke. 'I'm too big for that,' he said; 'you wouldn't be able to get me down.'

'Oh, I don't know that, if I were very hungry,' she gravely answered, after apparently considering her appetite.

The landau was now reaching the Porte de la Muette. Here, on emerging from the narrow streets of the Chaillot district, the horizon suddenly spread out over the light verdure of the Bois de Boulogne. It was a lovely morning, and the distant turf was steeped in golden light, while the young leaves on the trees rustled gently in the warm air. They left the deer-park on their right, and took the gravelled avenue leading to Saint Cloud. The landau now rolled on without a jolt, as lightly and softly as a sledge gliding through the snow.

'How nasty those streets were!' said Clorinde, as she lolled back. 'Well, we can breathe here, and talk. Have you any news of our friend Du Poizat?'

'Yes, he's very well,' Rougon replied.

'And does he still like his department?'

Rougon made a vague gesture, not wishing to give her any definite reply. She was aware, however, that the prefect of Deux-Sèvres was becoming a source of some trouble to him, on account of the severity of his administration. Without pressing the point she next began to talk of M. Kahn, and Madame Correur, and finally, with a touch of mischievous curiosity, she asked Rougon about his visit to Niort. Then she broke off to say: 'By the way, I met Colonel Jobelin and his cousin Monsieur Bouchard yesterday. We talked about you. Yes, we talked about you.'

Rougon still kept silent, with his shoulders bowed. To rouse him, Clorinde began to speak of the past. 'Do you remember our pleasant little evenings in the Rue Marbeuf?' she inquired. 'Now you are so busy that we can't get near you. Your friends complain about it. They say that you are forgetting them. I'm always quite frank, you know, and conceal nothing. Well, to tell the truth, they say that you are deserting them, my dear fellow.'

At this moment, the carriage, which had just passed between the two lakes, encountered a brougham on its way back to Paris, and through the window of the latter vehicle a glimpse was caught of a sulky-looking face, which hastily withdrew, as if to avoid the necessity of bowing.

'Why, it's your brother-in-law!' exclaimed Clorinde.

'Yes, he's not very well,' replied Rougon, with a smile. 'His doctor has ordered him to take morning drives.'