Chapter IX: Part 9

She began to laugh, but as he pressed his question, she replied: 'You will see presently.'

Then, by degrees, Rougon grew angry, and spoke harshly to the young woman. It was an outburst of real jealousy, and veiled allusions soon developed into direct accusations. She had made a perfect exhibition of herself on the previous evening, he said; she had let M. de Marsy hold her hand for more than two minutes. Delestang listened to all this, but, instead of showing any concern, quietly steeped some strips of toast in his coffee.

'Ah! if I were your husband!' Rougon cried at last.

Clorinde had just risen, and, standing behind Delestang, with her hands resting on his shoulders, she responded: 'Well, supposing you were my husband, what then?'

And stooping down, she stirred Delestang's hair with her warm breath, as she added: 'He would behave properly, wouldn't he, dear, just as you do?'

Delestang turned his head, and, by way of answer, kissed the hand that lay on his left shoulder. He looked at Rougon with an expression of emotion and embarrassment, blinking as though he wished him to understand that he was really going a little too far. Rougon nearly called him a fool. However, when Clorinde made a sign to him over her husband's head, he followed her to the open window, on the handrail of which she leant. For a moment she remained silent, her eyes fixed on the far-spreading prospect. Then she abruptly asked him: 'Why do you want to leave Paris? Don't you care for me any longer? Listen now; I will be quite steady, and follow your advice, if you will give up that plan of exiling yourself to that horrid, outlandish place.'

Rougon became very grave at this proposal. He began to dwell on the great motives which influenced him; besides, it was impossible now, he said, for him to withdraw. While he was speaking, Clorinde vainly tried to read the real truth in his face. He seemed quite determined to go.

'Very well, then; you don't care for me any longer,' resumed the young woman. 'So I am at liberty to follow my own inclinations. Well, you will see!'

Then she left the window, and once more began to laugh. Delestang, who still seemed to find the fire a source of great interest, was trying to calculate how many grates there might be in the château. Clorinde, however, broke in upon his meditations, saying that she had only just time to dress, unless she was to miss the hunt. Rougon accompanied her and her husband into the corridor, a long conventual passage with a thick green carpet. And as Clorinde went off she amused herself by reading the names of the guests, which were written on small cards in wooden frames which hung from the different doors. When she had got to the very end of the corridor, she turned, and, thinking that Rougon looked perplexed, as if he wished to call her back, she halted, and for a moment waited smiling. But he went back into his room, slamming the door behind him.

The second breakfast was served early that morning. There was much conversation concerning the weather, which was all that could be wished for the hunt. There was a good clear light, and the atmosphere was calm. The Court carriages set out shortly before noon; the meet being at the King's Well, a large open space where several roads met in the middle of the forest. The Imperial hunting-train had been waiting there for more than an hour; the mounted huntsmen in crimson breeches and great laced hats; the dog-keepers wearing black shoes with silver buckles to enable them to run with ease among the brushwood; while the carriages of the guests invited from the neighbouring châteaux were drawn up in a semicircle in front of the hounds, and in the centre were groups of ladies and gentlemen all in Court hunting-dress, like figures out of some old picture of the time of Louis XV. The Emperor and the Empress did not follow the hunt that day, and as soon as the hounds had been slipped their Majesties' char-à-bancs turned down a bye-road and came back to the château. Many others followed this example. Rougon had at first tried to keep up with Clorinde, but she spurred on her horse so wildly that he was left behind, and, thereupon, in disgust, determined to return, infuriated at seeing the young woman galloping in the distance down a long avenue, with M. de Marsy by her side.

Towards half-past five o'clock, Rougon received an invitation to take tea in the private apartments of the Empress. This was a favour which was usually granted to men of interesting and witty conversation. He found M. Beulin-d'Orchère and M. de Plouguern already there. The latter was relating a somewhat improper story in carefully-chosen words, and his narrative achieved enormous success. Only a few of the hunting-party had as yet returned. Madame de Combelot came in, saying that she felt dreadfully tired, and when the company asked her how matters had gone off, she replied with an affectation of semi-technical jargon: 'Oh, the animal beat us off for more than four hours. For a time he unharboured in the open. But at last he turned to bay near the Red Pool, and the death was superb.'

Then Chevalier Rusconi mentioned another incident with some uneasiness. 'Madame Delestang's horse bolted,' he said. 'She disappeared in the direction of Pierrefonds, and nothing has since been seen or heard of her.'

He was at once overwhelmed with questions, and the Empress seemed much distressed. He said that Clorinde had kept up a tremendous pace all the time, and had excited the admiration of the most experienced riders. All at once, however, her horse had bolted down a side lane.

'She had been dreadfully whipping the poor animal,' interposed M. La Rouquette, who was burning to get a word in. 'Monsieur de Marsy galloped off to her assistance, and he, also, has not been seen since.'

At this, Madame de Llorentz, who sat behind her Majesty, rose from her seat. She fancied that some of the company were looking at her and smiling, and she became quite livid. The conversation had turned upon the dangers of hunting. One day, said one of the guests, the stag had run into a farm-yard, and had then turned and charged the hounds so suddenly that a lady had her leg broken amidst the confusion. Then the company began to indulge in various suppositions. If M. de Marsy had succeeded in checking Madame Delestang's horse, they had, perhaps, both dismounted for a few minutes' rest; there were a large number of shelter places, huts and sheds and pavilions, in the forest. However, it seemed to Madame de Llorentz that this suggestion prompted more smiling, and that the others were stealthily eyeing her jealous anger. As for Rougon, he kept silent, but beat a feverish tattoo on his knees with his finger tips.

The Empress had given orders that Clorinde should be asked to come and have some tea as soon as she returned. And all at once there was a chorus of exclamations. The young woman appeared on the threshold, with a flushed, smiling, radiant face. She thanked her Majesty for the concern which she showed about her, and then calmly continued: 'I am so sorry. You really shouldn't have made yourselves uneasy. I made a bet with Monsieur de Marsy that I would be in at the death before he was. And so I should if it hadn't been for that provoking horse of mine.' Then she added gaily: 'Well, we neither of us lost, after all.' However, they made her tell them her adventure in detail, which she did, without the least sign of confusion. After a mad gallop of ten minutes or so, her horse had fallen, she said, but she herself had sustained no hurt. Then, as she was trembling a little from the excitement, M. de Marsy had taken her for a moment into a shed.

'Ah, we guessed that!' exclaimed M. La Rouquette. 'You said a shed, didn't you? I myself mentioned a pavilion.'

'It must have been a very uncomfortable place,' said M. de Plouguern mischievously.

Clorinde, without ceasing to smile, replied slowly: 'Oh, dear no, I assure you. There was some straw, and I sat down. It was a big shed full of spiders' webs. It was growing dark, too. Oh! it was very droll.' Then, looking in Madame de Llorentz's face, and speaking with still more deliberation, she added: 'Monsieur de Marsy was extremely kind to me.'

While Clorinde had been narrating this story, Madame de Llorentz had kept two fingers closely pressed to her lips, and on hearing the conclusion she shut her eyes as if dazed by anger. She remained thus for another minute; and then, feeling that she could contain herself no further, she left the room. M. de Plouguern, curious as to her intentions, slipped away after her. As for Clorinde, when she saw Madame de Llorentz disappear, an involuntary expression of victory appeared upon her face.

The conversation now turned upon other subjects. M. Beulin-d'Orchère began to speak of a scandalous lawsuit which was exciting a deal of public interest. It was a wife's application for a judicial separation from her husband; and he gave certain particulars of the affair in such delicately couched language that Madame de Combelot did not fully understand him, but asked for explanations. Chevalier Rusconi then afforded the company much pleasure by softly singing some popular Piedmontese love songs, which he afterwards translated into French. In the middle of one of these songs Delestang entered the room. He had just returned from the forest, which he had been scouring for the last two hours in search of his wife. His strange appearance excited a general smile. The Empress seemed to have taken a sudden friendship for Clorinde, for she had made her sit beside her and was talking to her about horses. Pyrame, the horse which the young woman had been riding, was a hard goer, said the Empress; and she promised that she should have César on the following day.

On Clorinde's arrival, Rougon had gone to one of the windows, feigning great interest in some lights which were gleaming in the distance to the left of the park. As he stood there no one could detect the slight quivering of his features. He remained thus, looking out into the darkness, for a long time, only turning when M. de Plouguern came back into the room and stepped up to him.

Rougon remained quite impassive as the other whispered in his ear, in a voice feverish with satisfied curiosity: 'There has been a terrible scene! I followed her out of the room. She met Marsy at the end of the corridor. They both went into a room together, and I heard Marsy telling her roundly that she bored him to death. She rushed out again like a mad woman, and went off towards the Emperor's study. I feel sure that she went to lay those famous letters on his desk.'

Just at that moment Madame de Llorentz reappeared. She was very pale; some of her hair strayed over her brow, and she panted. However, she resumed her seat behind the Empress with the despairing calmness of one who has just performed on herself some terrible operation which may have a fatal result.

'I'm sure she has taken the letters,' said M. de Plouguern, examining her.

Then, as Rougon did not seem to understand him, he left him; and, stooping behind Clorinde, began to tell her his story. She listened to him with delight, her eyes sparkling. It was not until the approach of the dinner-hour, when the company quitted the Empress's private room, that she appeared conscious of Rougon's presence. Then she took his arm and said to him, as Delestang followed on behind: 'Well now, you see----If you had been more amiable this morning, I shouldn't have nearly broken my legs.'

That evening the offal of the stag was distributed by torchlight to the hounds in the courtyard. As the guests left the dining-room, instead of immediately returning to the Gallery of the Maps, they dispersed through the reception rooms in the front part of the château, where the windows were all wide open. The Emperor took up position on the central balcony, which afforded accommodation for a score of other personages.

Down below, on either side of the courtyard, a row of footmen, in full livery and with hair powdered, was ranged from the steps to the gate. Each held a long staff surmounted by a blazing cresset, in which tow had been steeped in spirits of wine. The lofty greenish flames seemed to dance in the air, glaring through the darkness without illuminating it, brightening nothing except the scarlet waistcoats, to which they lent a purplish tinge. Behind the footmen, on both sides of the courtyard, there were numerous middle-class people of Compiègne, whose dim faces swarmed in the darkness, the flaring tow every now and then revealing some hideous verdurous countenance. In the centre, in front of the steps of the château, the offal of the stag lay in a heap. Over it was stretched the skin of the animal, the head and antlers lying in front. At the other end, near the gate, were the hounds in charge of the huntsmen; and some dog-keepers, in green livery and white cotton stockings, were waving torches. In the bright ruddy glow, broken by clouds of smoke which rolled away towards the town, the hounds could be seen crowding together, and panting heavily with distended mouths.

The Emperor remained standing. Every now and then a sudden flash of torchlight showed up his blank impenetrable face. Clorinde had watched his every movement during dinner without detecting anything more than a melancholy weariness, the moodiness of an invalid who suffers in silence. Only once had she fancied that she saw him casting a faint side-glance at M. de Marsy. And there on the balcony he still remained moody, stooping a little and twisting his moustache, while behind him the guests rose upon tip-toe in order to get a better view.

'Come, Firmin!' he said, almost impatiently. Then the huntsmen sounded the 'Royale.' The hounds threw tongue, straining their necks and rearing on their hind legs with uproarious efforts. And, as the keeper held up the stag's head in sight of the maddened pack, Firmin, the chief huntsman, who stood upon the steps, let his whip drop; the hounds, which had been waiting for this signal, bounded in three great leaps across the courtyard, quivering and panting with hungry excitement. Firmin, however, had picked up his whip again; and the hounds, suddenly checked within a few yards of the offal, squatted upon the pavement, while their backs shook with excitement and their throats seemed like to burst with barks of desire. But they were obliged to retreat--to return across the courtyard and assume their previous position by the gate.

'Oh, the poor animals!' said Madame de Combelot, with an air of languid compassion.

'Splendid!' cried M. La Rouquette.

Chevalier Rusconi applauded loudly. Several of the ladies were leaning forward in their excitement, while their lips quivered and their hearts throbbed with desire to see the hounds devour their prey. Would they not be allowed to have the bones at once? they asked.

'No, not just yet,' said several voices.

Firmin had again twice dropped and then raised his whip. The hounds were exasperated and foamed at the mouth. But the third time, Firmin did not raise his whip again. The valet rushed away, carrying off the stag's head and skin, while the dogs leapt forward and seized the offal. Their furious barking subsided into a low quivering growl of enjoyment. Bones could be heard cracking. Then general satisfaction was expressed upon the balcony and at the windows. The ladies smiled in chilly fashion and clenched their white teeth, and the men looked on with glistening eyes, while twisting the tooth-picks they had brought from the dining-room. In the courtyard came sudden brilliance. The huntsmen sounded a flourish on their horns; the dog-keepers waved their torches, and a blaze of coloured lights arose, setting the night aflare and then raining sanguineously on the placid heads of the townsfolk on either hand.

The Emperor, however, turned his back upon the scene, and on noticing Rougon close to him, he seemed to awake from the moody reverie in which he had been absorbed since dinner. 'Monsieur Rougon,' he said, 'I have been thinking about that scheme of yours. There are difficulties in the way--many difficulties.' Then, after a momentary pause, he opened his lips to speak again, but closed them without saying anything. However, as he went away, he added: 'You must remain in Paris, Monsieur Rougon.'

Clorinde, who heard him, made a gesture of triumph. The Emperor's remark immediately spread through the company, and the guests once more became grave and anxious, as Rougon slowly made his way through their midst, towards the Gallery of the Maps.

Down below in the courtyard, the hounds were finishing their bones. They flung themselves wildly atop of one another in order to reach the prey. With their writhing backs, white and black, all jumbled together, they were like a living wave, surging and struggling and roaring hungrily. Their jaws snapped, and they bolted mouthful after mouthful in their feverish eagerness to devour all. Quarrels, brief and sudden, ended in a loud howl. One large hound, a magnificent creature, finding himself too far away from the quarry, stepped back and then sprang into the very middle of the pack. He forced his way through the others, and soon gulped down a great strip of the stag's entrails.

VIII

RECALLED TO POWER

Some weeks went by. Rougon had relapsed into his life of lassitude and ennui. He never referred to the Emperor's order that he should remain in Paris. He only spoke of his disappointment and of the alleged obstacles which stood in the way of his clearing some portion of the Landes. Upon this topic he talked continually. What obstacles could there possibly be? he asked. For his part, he could see none. He even went so far as to show some irritation against the Emperor, from whom it was impossible, he complained, to obtain any explanations. Perhaps, however, his Majesty felt afraid lest he should be obliged to come forward with a subvention for the proposed expedition.

As the days went by, Clorinde's visits to the Rue Marbeuf increased in frequency. She seemed every afternoon to expect some great news from Rougon, and she gazed at him in surprise on finding him so silent. Ever since her visit to Compiègne she had been living in the hope of a sudden triumph. She had pictured a series of dramatic scenes: furious anger on the part of the Emperor, M. de Marsy's utter fall and disgrace, and the great man's immediate restoration to power. She no doubt imagined that her feminine wiles would have this result; and so her astonishment was unbounded when, at the end of a month, she still saw the Count in office. She began to feel contempt for the Emperor, who seemed incapable of avenging himself. What could he be thinking about in the everlasting silence he preserved?

However, Clorinde had not yet abandoned all hope. She had an intuition that some unforeseen turn of the wheel of chance would bring round the triumph she desired, for M. de Marsy's influence was certainly shaken. Rougon now treated her with all the watchful attention of a jealous husband. Ever since his strange outbreaks at Compiègne, he had exercised a most fatherly surveillance over her, had plied her with moral dissertations, and expressed his desire to see her every day. The young woman smiled, feeling certain now that he would not leave Paris. Towards the middle of December, however, after weeks of drowsy listlessness, he again reverted to his great scheme. He had consulted some bankers, and had hopes of doing without the Emperor's assistance. And once more he buried himself in maps and plans and technical treatises. Gilquin, he said, had already enrolled more than five hundred workmen who were willing to go out with him. They would form the first instalment of his future people. At this Clorinde, feeling quite provoked, again set the whole coterie of friends in motion.

It was a tremendous undertaking. Each of them took some special _rôle_; and whispered councils were held in the corners of Rougon's own drawing-room on Sunday and Thursday evenings. They portioned out the various difficult matters, and every day they scattered through Paris, invincibly determined upon gaining some influence or other to their cause. No assistance was too insignificant for their acceptance; the most trifling help might be useful. They availed themselves of everything, they drew whatever advantage they could from the most trivial incidents, and worked and worked from the first thing in the morning until the last thing at night. They enlisted their friends as accomplices, and their friends enlisted others. All Paris seemed to share in the intrigue. In the most out-of-the-way districts people began to yearn for Rougon's triumph, without being able to say why. The little band, though it only comprised some ten or twelve persons, was influencing the whole city.

'We are the coming government,' said Du Poizat, in all seriousness; and, establishing a parallel between themselves and the men who had made the Second Empire, he added: 'I shall be Rougon's Marsy.'

A pretender by himself was a mere name. A band of supporters was needed to establish a government. Twenty stout fellows of ambition are stronger than a mere principle, and when they can combine a principle with their ambition they become invincible. Such were Du Poizat's views. He himself spent his time in perambulating Paris, often calling at newspaper offices, where he smoked his cigar and did what he could to undermine M. de Marsy's reputation. He always had some secret little story to relate about the minister, whom he accused of ingratitude and egotism. Then, when he had managed to bring in Rougon's name, he would drop vague hints and promises of the rewards and presents and subventions which the latter would shower down upon every one should he be in the position to do so. In this way Du Poizat contrived to supply numerous suggestions, anecdotes, and quotations to the newspapers, which continually brought the great man under the notice of the public. Two journals published an account of a visit to the house in the Rue Marbeuf, and others spoke of Rougon's famous work on the English constitution and that of 1852. Thus, after a hostile silence of two years, a murmur of eulogy arose, and Rougon's popularity seemed to be reviving. Du Poizat, too, devoted himself to other intrigues, very secret ones, such as the purchase of certain persons' support by a kind of gambling on the prospects of Rougon's return to office.

'Let us only think of him,' he often said, with that frankness of his which was distasteful to the more affected members of the band. 'Later on, he will think of us.'

M. Beulin-d'Orchère was not a very subtle intriguer. When he unearthed a scandalous affair to the detriment of M. de Marsy it was immediately hushed up. He showed greater shrewdness in hinting that he might very well become Minister of Justice if ever his brother-in-law should return to power, an intimation which brought all his brother judges over to his side. M. Kahn meanwhile had put himself at the head of another company of auxiliaries, financiers, deputies, and functionaries, who helped to swell the army of malcontents. He had a docile lieutenant in M. Béjuin, and even availed himself of the services of M. de Combelot and M. La Rouquette, without those gentlemen having the faintest idea of the object for which he made them work. For his part, he acted in the official world, even its highest spheres, carrying his propaganda into the Tuileries, and covertly labouring for days at a time in order that some remark or other might be repeated from mouth to mouth till it reached the Emperor himself.

But it was the women who manifested the most passionate enthusiasm. There were some terribly strange underplots, some complicated intrigues among them, whose full scope was never known. Madame Correur began to call pretty Madame Bouchard 'her little pet,' and took her, she said, on a visit to the country; so that for a week M. Bouchard was left to lead a bachelor's life, and M. d'Escorailles had to spend his evenings at the minor theatres. Du Poizat, however, met the two ladies one day in the company of some gentlemen who wore decorations, but he said nothing about having done so. Madame Correur now rented two flats: one in the Rue Blanche, and the other in the Rue Mazarine. The latter was very elegantly furnished, and Madame Bouchard would go there of an afternoon, taking the key from the doorkeeper of the house. It was said that the young woman had made an effectual conquest of a very high functionary.

Then, too, the minor members of the band bestirred themselves, doing all they could. Colonel Jobelin betook himself regularly to a café on the boulevards to catch his old army friends, whom he catechised between their games of piquet; and when he had enlisted the sympathies of half a dozen, he rubbed his hands gleefully in the evening and declared that the whole army had joined the good cause. M. Bouchard devoted himself to a like task in the government offices, and gradually instilled a strong feeling of enmity against M. de Marsy into the clerks. He even won over the messengers, and made the whole staff sigh for the golden age of which he hinted the advent. M. d'Escorailles, on his side, devoted himself to the wealthy young men he knew, extolling Rougon's broad views, his tolerance of certain misdemeanours, and his love of daring. Even the Charbonnels, as they sat on the benches of the Luxembourg garden, whither they went each afternoon while awaiting the issue of their interminable lawsuit, found a means of enlisting the sympathy and support of the petty cits residing in the neighbourhood of the Odéon.

Clorinde was not content with being the guiding spirit of the band, but engaged in very elaborate operations of her own, of which she never spoke. She was to be seen more frequently than ever, hurrying through streets of questionable repute, carelessly dressed and tightly hugging her big official-looking portfolio, which was now so split at the seams that it was only kept together by means of string. She also gave her husband extraordinary commissions to perform, and he did her bidding with the docility of a sheep, never seeking to understand her even. Then, too, she sent Luigi Pozzo about carrying letters; asked M. de Plouguern to give her his escort, and then kept him waiting in the street for her by the hour. At one moment she even thought of getting the Italian government to interfere in Rougon's favour. Her correspondence with her mother, who was still living at Turin, had become extremely active. She had dreams of turning Europe topsy-turvy, and would go twice a day to Chevalier Rusconi's to meet his diplomatic acquaintances. In this strange campaign of hers, she also frequently remembered her beauty, and would go out on certain afternoons most superbly arrayed. And when her friends, quite surprised by the change, told her that she looked lovely, 'I have need to be,' she replied, with an air of resigned weariness.

On her return from Compiègne, Du Poizat, having heard of her adventure at the hunt, had tried to find out on what terms she was with M. de Marsy. He had some vague idea of betraying Rougon in favour of the Count were Clorinde likely to become the latter's all-powerful mistress. She, however, with considerable irritation, denied the truth of any such supposition. He must think her very silly to suspect her of such a connection, she said. She even gave him to understand that she should never see M. de Marsy again. In her earlier days she might possibly have thought of becoming his wife. Now, however, she had other schemes in her head.

'There are often many ways of getting at what you want,' she sometimes said, 'but there is never more than one of them that is pleasant. I myself have a craving to satisfy.'

When she said this she would keep her eyes fixed upon Rougon as though she dreamt of fattening him up for some future feast of her own. She still displayed a disciple-like submission, however, and kept herself in the background with cajoling humility. Rougon himself seemed quite unconscious of all that was going on about him. In his drawing-room, on Sundays and Thursdays, he still consulted playing cards like a fortune-teller, bending over them, and apparently hearing nothing of the talk that went on behind him. The members of the band discussed his affairs, made signs to each other over his head, and plotted by his fireside as though he were not in the room. He seemed so unconcerned with what they whispered that they at last began to chat in louder tones, smiling at his absent-mindedness. However, when they turned the conversation upon the subject of his return to power he flew into a tantrum, and swore that he would not move even if he knew that triumph awaited him at the end of the street; and indeed he shut himself up more than ever, and affected absolute ignorance of what went on in the world. The little house in the Rue Marbeuf, whence streamed such a flow of feverish propaganda, was itself a silent, drowsy home, on the threshold of which Rougon's friends cast glances at one another as a warning to leave outside the scent of battle which they carried in the folds of their garments.

Du Poizat, however, would exclaim: 'I tell you he's drawing us all out. He listens to all we say. Just look at his ears in the evening; you can see that they are on the strain.'

This was frequently the subject of their conversation when they went away together at half-past ten. It really was impossible, they said, that the great man should be unaware of their devotion. The ex-sub-prefect repeated that he was playing the part of a Hindoo idol, squatting in a state of self-satisfaction with his hands across his abdomen, and smiling unctuously amidst a crowd of believers who cut themselves to pieces in his worship. And the others allowed that this comparison seemed a very true one.

'But I will keep my eye on him, you may depend upon that,' Du Poizat said in conclusion.

However, it was useless to study Rougon's face. It remained blank and unruffled, almost child-like. Perhaps, after all, there was no deception about his appearance. Clorinde, for her part, much preferred that he should remain inactive. She was afraid that if they compelled him to open his eyes he might thwart their plans. They were working for his advancement, in spite of himself, as it were. By some means or other, forcibly if necessary, they meant to thrust him into a position of high authority. Then they would have a settlement.

Still matters seemed to advance very slowly, and the band began to grow impatient. Du Poizat's views gained the mastery. They did not openly reproach Rougon with all that they were doing for him, but they assailed him with allusions and hints. The colonel would sometimes come to the evening receptions with his boots white with dust. He had not had time to go home and change them, he said. He was quite knocked up with running about on foolish errands for which he should probably never get any thanks. On other evenings M. Kahn, with heavy eyes, complained of the late hours he had been compelled to keep for a month past. He was going a great deal into society, he said, not for pleasure, indeed, but because it enabled him to meet certain people upon certain business. Then Madame Correur would relate affecting stories; telling them, for instance, of some poor young woman, a widow of the highest character, whom she visited, but was now unable to assist. If she were the government, she said, she would take good care to prevent injustice. Then the whole coterie would vent its own sorrows; each would lament his or her present situation, and compare it with what it would have been had they not behaved in the foolish, soft-hearted way they had done. And all these endless complaints were accentuated by meaning glances at Rougon. To rouse him they even went so far as to praise M. de Marsy. At first Rougon preserved unruffled tranquillity. He still showed no signs of understanding. But after a few evenings, when the talk was of this kind, slight twitchings would pass over his face at certain remarks made in his presence. He expressed no annoyance, but pressed his lips together as though he were pricked by some invisible needle. And at last he became so restless and uneasy that he gave up his card-tricks. He could no longer accomplish them successfully, and preferred to pace about the room, talking, and suddenly hastening away when his friends began to launch veiled reproaches at him. Every now and then he would turn white with anger, and seem to be forcibly holding his hands behind his back to restrain himself from turning the whole crew out of doors.

'My children,' said the colonel one evening, 'I sha'n't come here again for a fortnight. It will be good for us to sulk for a while and see how he can manage to amuse himself without us.'

Then Rougon, who had been thinking of closing his doors, felt very much hurt at the way in which he was abandoned. The colonel kept his word, and some of the others followed his example. The drawing-room looked very empty; there were always five or six of the circle absent. When one of them reappeared after a prolonged absence, and the great man asked him if he had been unwell, the other merely answered in the negative with an air of surprise, and gave no explanation. One Thursday not a single person came. Rougon spent the whole evening alone, pacing up and down the big room with his hands behind him and his head bent. For the first time he felt the strength of the chain which linked him to his band. He shrugged his shoulders to express his contempt for the stupidity of the Charbonnels, the envious rage of Du Poizat, and the suspicious affection of Madame Correur. Nevertheless, he felt a craving, the jealous craving of a master secretly pained by their slightest infidelities, to see and rule these friends of his, whom he held in such light esteem. Indeed at the bottom of his heart he was touched by their foolish behaviour and loved their faults. They seemed to be part of his being, so that he felt diminished and incomplete when they held aloof from him. As they continued to absent themselves he ended by writing to them, and even called at their residences to make peace with them after serious tiffs. Life at the house in the Rue Marbeuf was now so much chronic quarrelling--a series of constantly recurring ruptures and reconciliations.

Towards the end of December there was a particularly serious defection. One evening, without anyone quite knowing why, one bitter remark led to another, and it all ended by a very angry scene. For nearly three weeks afterwards the meetings ceased. The truth is that the band was beginning to lose hope. Their most earnest efforts seemed to have no appreciable result. It was unlikely that the general situation would change for a long time, and a sudden catastrophe, such as might render Rougon necessary, could hardly be anticipated. They had anxiously awaited the opening of the Corps Législatif, but this had gone off without any other incident than the refusal of two republican deputies to take the oath of allegiance. M. Kahn, who was the shrewd man of the group, no longer hoped for any advantage from the course of general politics.

Rougon, in his weary irritation, was occupying himself more energetically than ever with his Landes scheme, as though to conceal the feverish twitchings of his face, which he could no longer keep placid and sleepy as formerly. 'I don't feel very well,' he sometimes said. 'My hands tremble. My doctor has ordered me to take exercise. I am out-of-doors all day.' He did, indeed, go out a great deal now, and was to be met in the streets with his hands swinging and his head in the air, absorbed in thought. When anyone stopped and questioned him he said he had been tramping about all day.

One morning when he returned home to _déjeuner_, after a walk in the direction of Chaillot, he found a gilt-edged visiting-card awaiting him, on which was written Gilquin's name. The card was very dirty, and bore the marks of greasy fingers. Rougon rang for his servant. 'Did the person who gave you this card leave any message?' he asked.

The servant, who was new to the house, smiled. 'It was a gentleman in a green overcoat,' he replied. 'He was very pleasant and offered me a cigar. He only said that he was a friend of yours.' However, just as the servant was leaving the room he turned and added: 'I think there's something written on the back of the card.' Rougon turned it over and read these words written in pencil: 'Can't wait. Will call again this evening. Very urgent; a strange business.' Then he threw down the card with a careless air. After _déjeuner_, however, the expression 'Very urgent; a strange business,' recurred to his mind and haunted him, till it at last rendered him quite impatient. What could this 'strange business' of Gilquin's be? Since Rougon had charged the ex-commercial traveller with sundry obscure and intricate commissions he had seen him regularly once a week in the evening. Never before had Gilquin called in the morning, so that the matter in hand must surely be something out of the common. Rougon, quite at a loss to guess its nature, found himself all aglow with impatience, and although he could not help feeling that it was ridiculous, he resolved to go out and try to discover Gilquin before the evening.

'Some tipsy story, I dare say,' he reflected as he went through the Champs Élysées. 'Well, at any rate I shall satisfy myself.'

He was on foot, as he wished to carry out the directions of his doctor. It was a lovely day; a bright, sunny January noontide. Gilquin appeared to have removed from the Passage Guttin, for his card bore the address Rue Guisarde, Faubourg Saint-Germain.

Rougon had an immense amount of trouble to find this filthy street, which is situated near Saint-Sulpice's. At the end of a dark passage he discovered a woman lying in bed, who called out to him in a voice which quavered with fever: 'Monsieur Gilquin! I don't know whether he's in. It's the door on the left on the fourth floor, right up at the top.'

When Rougon reached the fourth floor he saw Gilquin's name inscribed on the door amidst some arabesques representing flaming hearts transpierced by arrows. However, he knocked to no purpose; he could hear nothing but the tick-tack of a cuckoo-clock and the mewing of a cat. He had expected that he was coming on a vain errand, still he was glad that he had come. His walk had relieved him. So he went downstairs again, feeling more composed, and reflecting that he could very well wait till the evening. When he got outside he slackened his steps, crossed the Saint-Germain market, and then went down the Rue de Seine, with no definite goal in view, but thinking that he would walk home, although he already felt a little tired. Then, as he reached the Rue Jacob, he remembered the Charbonnels, who lived there. He had not seen them for ten days. They were sulking with him. However, he resolved to call on them for a few minutes and offer them his hand. The afternoon was so warm that he felt quite tender-hearted.

The Charbonnels' room at the Hôtel du Périgord overlooked the yard, a gloomy well of a place which smelt like a dirty sink. It was a large, dark room, with rickety mahogany furniture and curtains of faded red damask. When Rougon entered it Madame Charbonnel was folding up her dresses and laying them in a big trunk, while her husband perspired and strained his arms in cording another trunk, a smaller one.

'Halloa! are you off?' Rougon asked, with a smile.

'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.'