Part 31

M. Kahn made a gesture of contempt. 'Well, for my part,' he said, 'I don't give him three weeks. Rougon, you see, is not cut out for governing He is too fond of power, and gets intoxicated with it; and then he strikes out right and left and treats people with revolting harshness. During these last five months he has been guilty of some most monstrous acts.'

'Yes, yes, indeed,' the colonel interrupted; 'all kinds of injustices and unfairnesses and absurdities. He abuses his power, most certainly he does.'

Madame Correur said nothing, but expressed, by a gesture, her opinion that Rougon's head was not particularly well balanced.

'Ah, yes, indeed,' said M. Kahn, noticing the gesture. 'He hasn't got a well-fixed head, has he?'

Then M. Béjuin observed that the others were looking at him, and felt called upon to say something. 'No! Rougon's not at all an able man,' he remarked; 'not at all.'

Clorinde lay back on her pillows, gazing at the luminous circle which the lamp cast on the ceiling, and letting the others talk on. When they paused, she said, with the intention of starting them again: 'There is no doubt that he has abused his power, but he asserts that the things with which people reproach him were done for the sole purpose of obliging his friends. I was talking to him on the subject the other day. The services which he has rendered you----'

'Rendered us! rendered us!' they all cried furiously. And they went on talking all together, eager to protest against any such insinuation. However, M. Kahn shouted the others down.

'The services which he has rendered me! That's a fine joke! I had to wait two years for my railway grant, with the result that the prospects of the scheme, once very brilliant, have suffered considerably. If he is such a friend of mine, why doesn't he come to my assistance now? I asked him to obtain the Emperor's sanction to a bill authorising the amalgamation of my company with the Western Company, and he told me that I must wait. Rougon's services to me, indeed! Well, I should like to know what they are! He has never done anything for me, and he _can't_ do anything now!'

'And I, and I, do you imagine that I am indebted to him for anything?' cried the colonel, breaking in before Madame Correur could speak. 'He surely doesn't take any credit to himself for that commander's cross, which had been promised to me for five years and more? He has taken Auguste into his office, it is true; but I bitterly regret now that I ever let the boy go there. If I had put him into business he would have been earning twice as much. That wretched Rougon told me only yesterday that he would not be able to increase Auguste's pay for another eighteen months. That is the way he ruins his credit for the sake of his friends!'

At last Madame Correur also was able to relieve her feelings. 'Did he mention my name?' she said, bending towards Clorinde. 'I never asked that much from him; and have yet to learn the nature of his services to me. He can't say as much with regard to my services to him; and if I liked to talk----But no matter. I certainly asked him for a few favours on behalf of my friends. I don't deny that. I delight in being of use to anyone. But I must say that everything he has a hand in turns out badly, and that his favours seem to bring ill-luck. There's that poor Herminie Billecoq, an old pupil of Saint Denis, who was wronged by an officer, and for whom Rougon procured a dowry. Well, the poor girl came to me with a dreadful story this morning. There's no chance of her getting married after all, for the officer has absconded, taking the dowry with him. And you understand me. Anything that Rougon has done at my request has been done for others, and not for myself. When I came back from Coulonges, after the settlement of my brother's affairs, I went to tell him of the tricks that Madame Martineau had been playing with respect to the division of the property. I wanted the house in which I was born as part of my share, but the wretched woman contrived to keep it herself. Well, do you know what was the only answer I could get from Rougon? He told me three times over that he couldn't trouble himself any further about the miserable business!'

While Madame Correur was speaking, M. Béjuin, in his turn, had begun to show signs of excitement, and he now stammered: 'I am exactly in the same position as Madame. I have never asked Rougon for anything--never, never! Anything that he may have done has been done in spite of me, and without my knowing anything about it. He avails himself of one's silence to take every advantage of one, yes, every advantage.'

His words died away in a mutter; and then all four remained for a moment silently wagging their heads.

Presently M. Kahn resumed, in a solemn voice: 'The truth of the matter is this. Rougon is an ungrateful fellow. You all remember how we used to scour Paris, working to get him back into office. We devoted ourselves to his cause to such a point as to take our meals anywhere and anyhow. And he then contracted a debt towards us which in his whole lifetime he could not fairly discharge. Now, however, he finds gratitude too heavy a burden for him, and so he casts us adrift. Well, we might have expected as much!'

'Yes, yes, indeed,' cried the others. 'He owes everything to us, and he's repaying us in a pretty fashion.'

Then for a while they completely overwhelmed Rougon with an enumeration of all the things they had done for him; whenever one of them became silent another brought forward some still more crushing detail. The colonel, however, suddenly felt uneasy about Auguste, who had disappeared from the bedchamber. Just then a peculiar noise was heard in the dressing-room--a sort of gentle, continuous dabbling sound--and the colonel hurried off to see what it could be. He then found Auguste apparently much interested in the bath, which Antonia had forgotten to empty. Some slices of lemon, which Clorinde had used for her nails, were floating on the water, and these Auguste was inquisitively examining.

'The boy is quite a nuisance,' murmured Clorinde. 'He goes poking about everywhere.'

'Really, now,' said Madame Correur, who seemed to have been waiting for the colonel's absence, 'the thing in which Rougon is most deficient is tact. Between ourselves, I may say, now that the gallant colonel can't hear us, that it was a great mistake on Rougon's part to take that young man into his office in defiance of the regulations. That is not the kind of service a man ought to render to his friends. It only brings him into discredit.'

However, Clorinde interrupted her. 'Do go, my dear madam,' said she, 'and see what they're doing in the bathroom.'

M. Kahn had begun to smile, and, when Madame Correur left the room, he also lowered his voice and put in a word. 'How fine it is to hear her talk,' he said. 'The colonel has, no doubt, been well looked after by Rougon, but she herself has no reason to complain. Rougon absolutely compromised himself on her account in that troublesome Martineau business. He showed himself very deficient in morality in that matter. Nobody ought to kill a man for the mere sake of pleasing an old friend, ought he?'

Then M. Kahn got up and began to stroll about the room, and ultimately he went back to the ante-room to get his cigar-case, which he had left in his overcoat. At that moment the colonel and Madame Correur came back.

'Hallo! has Kahn gone?' exclaimed the colonel; and, without any transition, he went on: 'Well, we others may have a right to run down Rougon, but Kahn, in my opinion, ought to remain dumb. I don't like heartless people. Just now I kept from saying anything, but in a café where I was this afternoon it was openly said that Rougon was falling through having lent his name to that swindling railway line from Niort to Angers. A man ought not to make such a blunder as that! To think of that big fat imbecile firing mines and delivering speeches a mile long, and even trying to make the Emperor responsible for the success of the line! Ah! it's Kahn, my good friends, who's made a mess of it for all of us! Don't you agree with me, Béjuin?'

M. Béjuin briskly nodded his head. He had already agreed with Madame Correur and M. Kahn. Meanwhile, Clorinde, still reclining on the couch, was amusing herself with biting the tassel of her girdle, which she kept drawing over her face, as though she wanted to tickle herself. Her eyes were wide open and smiling at the ceiling.

'Hush!' she said, all at once.

M. Kahn was just coming back, biting off the end of a cigar between his teeth. He lighted it and blew out two or three big puffs of smoke, for smoking was allowed in Clorinde's bedroom. Then, resuming the previous conversation, he said: 'Well, if Rougon asserts that he has weakened his power by serving us, I can truthfully declare that we have been dreadfully compromised by his patronage. He has such a rough, brutal way of pushing one forward that it's no wonder if one breaks one's nose against a wall. However, as a result of all these violent ways of his, he's now tumbling down again. For my part, I feel no desire to help to pick him up any more. If a man can't preserve his own credit, there must be something wrong with him. I tell you that he is seriously compromising us. I have got heavy enough responsibilities as it is, and I give him up.'

While saying this, however, M. Kahn spoke hesitatingly, and his voice grew faint. Madame Correur and the colonel bent their heads to escape the necessity of declaring themselves in the same peremptory fashion. In spite of everything, Rougon was still in office, and before abandoning him they wanted to secure some other powerful patron.

'The fat man isn't everybody,' said Clorinde carelessly.

At this they all looked at her, hoping that she was going to give them some formal promise. But she made a little gesture, as though to bid them have patience. This tacit hint of some new patronage which would shower benefits upon them was really the mainspring of their assiduous attendance at the young woman's Sundays and Thursdays. Among the strong odours of her room they scented a coming triumph; and, believing that they had exhausted Rougon in obtaining the satisfaction of their early desires, they looked forward to the advent of some new power that should realise their more recent dreams, which were far greater and more numerous than the others had been.

However, Clorinde at last raised herself up from her pillows, and, bending towards Pozzo, she blew into his neck, laughing loudly as she did so, as though thrilled with some wild impulse of merriment. When she felt pleased she often gave way to some such outburst of childish gaiety. Pozzo, whose hand seemed to have gone to sleep on his guitar, threw back his picturesque Italian head and showed his white teeth when he was thus roused, but Clorinde went on laughing and blowing with such force that at last he begged for mercy. Then, when she had scolded him in Italian, she turned towards Madame Correur. 'He must sing to us, mustn't he?' she said. 'If he will sing I won't blow any more. He has composed a very pretty song. You will like it.'

They all asked to hear the song, and Pozzo began to finger his guitar again. Then he sang, keeping his eyes fixed upon Clorinde all the time. The song was like a passionate murmur accompanied by short soft notes. The tremulous Italian words could not be distinguished; however, at the last couplet, which seemed to be expressive of the pains of love, Pozzo, while assuming a very mournful tone, began to smile with an expression of mingled joy and despair. When he finished, his audience enthusiastically applauded him. Why didn't he publish those charming songs of his? they asked. Surely his position in the diplomatic service could be no impediment.

'I once knew a captain who brought out a comic opera,' said Colonel Jobelin; 'and nobody in the regiment thought any the worse of him for it.'

'Ah, but in the diplomatic service----' murmured Madame Correur, shaking her head.

'Oh, I think you are wrong there,' remarked M. Kahn. 'Diplomatists are like other men, and many of them cultivate the social arts.'

However, Clorinde touched Pozzo lightly with her foot and whispered something to him, and thereupon the young man rose, laid his guitar on a heap of clothes, and left the room. When he returned, some five minutes afterwards, he was followed by Antonia, carrying a tray on which were a water-bottle and some glasses. Pozzo himself held a sugar-basin for which there was no room on the tray. Nothing stronger than sugared water was ever drunk at Clorinde's receptions, and her friends knew that she was well pleased if they simply took the water by itself.

'Hallo! what's that?' she suddenly exclaimed, turning towards the dressing-room, where a door could be heard creaking. Then, as though remembering, she added: 'Oh, it's my mother! She's been in bed.'

It was, indeed, Countess Balbi; who made her appearance in a black woollen dressing-gown, with a piece of lace tied round her head. Flaminio, the big footman with the long beard and brigand's face, was supporting her from behind, almost carrying her, in fact, in his arms. However, she did not appear to have aged, her pale face still smiled with the smile of one who had been a queen of beauty.

'Wait a moment, mother!' exclaimed Clorinde, 'I'll give you this couch. I'll lie down on the bed. I'm not feeling very well. I've got an insect inside me; and it's begun to bite me again.'

There was a general movement. Pozzo and Madame Correur assisted the young woman to her bed. They had to turn down the coverings, and flatten the pillows. Countess Balbi, meantime, lay down on the couch while Flaminio remained standing behind her, black and silent, though glaring ferociously at the visitors.

'You don't mind my lying down, do you?' said Clorinde to the others. 'I feel so much better when I'm lying down. I'm not going to send you away. You must stay where you are.'

She was stretched out at full length, her elbow resting on a pillow, while her spreading black blouse looked like a stream of ink upon the white counterpane. Nobody had had any idea of going away. Madame Correur was talking in a whisper to Pozzo about Clorinde's superb figure, while M. Kahn, M. Béjuin and the colonel paid their respects to the Countess, who nodded her head and smiled. Every now and then, without turning round, she would call in a soft voice: 'Flaminio!'

The tall footman knew what she meant, and at once raised a cushion or brought a stool, or took a scent bottle from his pocket, retaining, however, in all he did the ferocious air of a brigand in evening dress.

All at once Auguste happened to have an accident. After prowling through the three rooms, stopping to examine all the garments that were lying about, he had felt a little bored, and to amuse himself had begun to drink glassful after glassful of sugared-water. Clorinde kept her eye upon him, watching the sugar-basin gradually empty, when suddenly the youth broke his glass, against the side of which he had been pressing his spoon too violently.

'It's all because he puts too much sugar in!' cried Clorinde.

'Dunderhead!' exclaimed the colonel. 'You can't even drink water rationally! One big glassful every morning and every evening, that's the way. There is nothing better. It keeps away all diseases.'

Fortunately there was a diversion, for M. Bouchard now made his appearance. It was past ten o'clock. He had dined in town, which had caused him to be a little late. He seemed surprised at not finding his wife there. 'Monsieur d'Escorailles said he would bring her,' he remarked, 'and I promised to call for her and take her home.' Half an hour later Madame Bouchard at length arrived, accompanied by M. d'Escorailles and M. La Rouquette. After a coolness which had lasted a year, the young Marquis had returned to his allegiance to the pretty blonde. He and she, it appeared, had met M. La Rouquette as they were driving in an open cab to the Delestangs', and thereupon they had all three gone on to the Bois together, laughing loudly and indulging in somewhat broad pleasantries; indeed, M. d'Escorailles had even fancied for a moment that the deputy's arm was behind Madame Bouchard's waist. The trio brought a whiff of gaiety into Clorinde's room, something of the fresh air of the dark avenues of the Bois along which they had just passed so merrily.

'Yes, we've been to the lake,' said M. La Rouquette. 'They insisted upon taking me off. I was quietly going home to work.'

Then he suddenly became serious. During the previous session he had made a speech upon a financial question after a whole month's special study of his subject, and since then he had affected a very steady-going air, as though he had buried all his youthful frivolities.

'By the way,' began Kahn, taking him to the end of the room, 'you who are on such good terms with Marsy----'

Then he continued in such a low tone that nothing further could be heard. Pretty Madame Bouchard, who had bowed to the Countess, was now sitting beside the bed, holding Clorinde's hand, and sympathising with her in a fluty voice. Meantime, M. Bouchard, who remained standing in a prim and dignified attitude, suddenly began to speak aloud amidst all the surrounding buzz of conversation, 'I have something to tell you,' he said, 'our fat man is a nice sort of fellow.'

Before explaining himself, however, he began to rail at Rougon as the others had done. It was now impossible, he said, to ask him for anything, for he could not even return a polite answer; and he, M. Bouchard, considered that politeness came before everything. Then as they continued to ask him what Rougon had done, he at last told them.

'I can't bear injustice,' said he. 'I spoke to him about one of the clerks in my division. Georges Duchesne; you know him, don't you? You've met him at my house. Well, he's a young fellow of sterling merit, and we treat him as though he were our own son. My wife is very fond of him, as he comes from the same part of the country as herself. Well, we had lately been scheming to get Duchesne appointed assistant head clerk. It was my idea, but you approved of it, didn't you, Adèle?'

Madame Bouchard looked embarrassed, and bent yet more closely to Clorinde to escape the eyes of M. d'Escorailles, which she felt were fixed on her.

'Well,' continued the head of department, 'how do you think the fat man received my request? He glared at me in his offensive way for a full minute, and then he bluntly refused to make the appointment. When I pressed the matter, he said to me with a smile: "Monsieur Bouchard, don't press your request; you distress me. There are very grave reasons why I cannot accede to it." I couldn't get him to say another word. He saw, however, that I was very much put out, and so he begged me to remember him kindly to my wife.'

That very evening, as it happened, Madame Bouchard had had a rather lively passage of arms with M. d'Escorailles on the subject of this same Georges Duchesne. 'Oh well!' she now deemed it advisable to say in a rather petulant voice, 'Monsieur Duchesne will have to wait. I don't know that we need trouble ourselves about him.'

But her husband seemed quite determined. 'No, no,' he returned; 'he deserves to be assistant head clerk, and he shall be! My credit is involved. Oh, I really can't stand injustice!'

He grew so excited that some of the others had to soothe him. Clorinde, who appeared somewhat absent-minded, was in reality trying to hear the conversation between M. Kahn and M. La Rouquette, who had ensconced themselves at the foot of her bed. The former was explaining the state of his affairs. His great undertaking of a railway line between Niort and Angers was in a very critical position. The shares had at first been sold on the Bourse at a premium of eighty francs, before a single stroke of work had been done. Relying upon his much-talked-of English company, M. Kahn had indulged in the most reckless speculation, and now the whole business was on the verge of bankruptcy, and must collapse unless he could at once obtain some powerful support.

'Some time ago,' he said, 'Marsy offered to bring about a sale of the concern to the Western Company. For myself I'm quite ready to enter into negotiations. We should only want to get an Act passed.'

Clorinde heard this, and thereupon quietly beckoned to the two men, who drew near and began a long conversation with her. Marsy, said the young woman, bore no spite. She would speak to him on the subject, and would offer him the million francs for which he had asked, the previous year, as his price for supporting the grant. His position as President of the Corps Législatif would make it an easy matter for him to get the necessary Act passed.

'Marsy's the only man who's of any good in matters of this kind,' she added with a smile. 'If you try to manage without him, you always have to call him in later on to patch up the broken pieces.'

However, all the other visitors were now speaking at once, and the room was full of noise. Madame Correur was telling Madame Bouchard of her latest desire, which was to go to Coulonges and die there in the family home. She grew quite pathetic as she spoke of the neighbourhood where she had been born, and she declared that she would compel Madame Martineau to give up the house which was full of the associations of her childhood. Meantime, as was fatal, the men were again harping on the subject of Rougon. M. d'Escorailles was describing the anger of his father and mother, who had written to him upon learning how Rougon was abusing his power, bidding him break with the minister and return to the Council of State. The colonel, on his side, related how the fat man had flatly refused to ask the Emperor for a post for him in the imperial palaces. Even M. Béjuin complained that his Majesty had never visited the cut-glass works at Saint Florent upon the occasion of his journey to Bourges, although Rougon had solemnly promised to obtain that favour. And amidst all this babel, Countess Balbi reclined smiling, on her couch, looking the while at her still plump hands.

'Flaminio!' she said, softly. Then the tall footman took a little tortoise-shell box full of mint lozenges out of his waistcoat pocket, and the Countess crunched these lozenges with an air of quiet enjoyment.

It was nearly midnight when Delestang returned home. When they saw him raise the hangings of the doorway leading to the boudoir, they all became silent and turned anxiously towards him. But he let the curtain fall again; there was no one with him. Then, after a further pause, the visitors broke into various exclamations:

'Are you by yourself?'

'You haven't brought him with you then?'

'Have you lost the fat man on the way?'

Truth to tell, there was a general feeling of relief. Delestang explained that Rougon had felt very tired and had left him at the corner of the Rue Marbeuf.

'And a good thing, too!' exclaimed Clorinde, stretching herself out on the bed; 'he's by no means entertaining.'

This was the signal for a fresh outburst of complaint and accusation. Delestang protested and tried to get a word in; for he usually made a pretence of defending Rougon. 'There is no doubt that he might have acted better than he has done towards certain of his friends,' he slowly said as soon as he was allowed to speak. 'But, in spite of everything, he's a wonderfully clever fellow. I myself shall be eternally grateful to him.'

'Grateful for what?' cried M. Kahn, snappishly.

'For all that he has done----'

But the others angrily interrupted him. Rougon had never done anything for him, they cried. What was it that he supposed Rougon had done for him?