LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

Malesherbes. In the presence of this autumnal melancholy, Renée felt her heart once more fill with sadness. She fancied herself a child in her father’s house, in that still house in the Île Saint-Louis, where for two centuries the Bérauds du Châtel had sheltered their grim, magisterial gravity. Then she thought of the suddenness of her marriage, of that widower who had sold himself to become her husband and bartered his name of Rougon for that of Saccard, the two dry syllables of which, when she first heard them, had sounded in her ears with the brutal cadence of two rakes gathering up gold; he took her and cast her into this life of excess, in which her poor head was becoming more and more disordered every day. Then she fell to dreaming, with childlike joy, of the pleasant games of battledore she had played with her little sister Christine in the old days. And how some morning she would wake from her dream of enjoyment of the past ten years, mad, soiled by one of her husband’s speculations, in which he himself would go under. It came to her as a quick foreboding. The trees soughed more loudly. Renée, distressed by these thoughts of shame and punishment, yielded to the instincts, slumbering within her, of the honest old middle-class; she made a promise to the black night that she would reform, spend less on her dress, seek some innocent amusement, as in the happy school-days, when the girls sang “Nous n’irons plus aux bois,” as they danced sweetly under the plane-trees.

      At this moment, Céleste, who had been downstairs, returned, and murmured in her mistress’s ear:

      “Monsieur begs madame to go down. There are several people already in the drawingroom.”

      Renée shivered. She had not noticed the keen air that had frozen her shoulders. As she passed before the mirror, she stopped, glanced at herself automatically. She smiled involuntarily, and went downstairs.

      Most of the guests had, in fact, arrived. She found downstairs her sister Christine, a young girl of twenty, very simply dressed in white muslin; her aunt Elisabeth, the widow of Aubertot the notary, in black satin, a little old woman of sixty, of an exquisite charm of manner; her husband’s sister, Sidonie Rougon, a lean, mealy-mouthed woman, of uncertain age, with a face like soft wax, which the dull hue of her dress threw even more in the shade; then the Mareuils; the father, M. de Mareuil, who had just left off mourning for his wife, a tall, handsome man, shallow and serious, bearing a striking resemblance to the valet, Baptiste; and the daughter, that poor Louise, as she was called, a child of seventeen, puny, a little humpbacked, wearing with a sickly grace a white foulard dress with red spots; then a whole group of serious men, men with many decorations, official gentlemen with silent, sallow faces, and, further on, another group, young men these, with vicious looks and low-cut waistcoats, standing round five or six ladies of extreme elegance, foremost among whom were the two inseparables, the little Marquise d’Espanet, in yellow, and the fair-haired Mme. Haffner, in violet. M. de Mussy, the horseman whose bow Renée had not acknowledged, was there too, with the restless look of a lover who feels his dismissal coming. And, among the long trams spread over the carpet, two contractors, two bricklayers who had made money, Mignon and Charrier, with whom Saccard was to settle a matter of business on the morrow, moved about heavily in their clumsy boots, their hands behind their backs, wretchedly unhappy in their dress-clothes.

      Aristide Saccard, standing by the door, managed to greet each new arrival while holding forth to the group of serious men with his Southern twang and sprightliness. He shook his guests by the hand, with a cordial word of welcome. Short, mean in appearance, he bent and bowed like a puppet; and the most salient feature of all his shrill, cunning, swarthy little person was the red splash of the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, which he wore very wide.

      Renée’s entrance provoked a murmur of admiration. She was really divine. Upon a tulle skirt, garnished behind with a flow of flounces, she wore a body of pale-green satin, bordered with English lace, caught up and fastened with large bunches of violets; a single flounce adorned the front of the skirt, and bunches of violets, held together by garlands of ivy, fastened a light muslin drapery. Her head and bust appeared adorably gracious above these petticoats of regal fulness and richness overloaded. Her neck was uncovered down to the points of her breasts, her arms were bare and had clusters of violets at the shoulders: she seemed to emerge quite naked from her case of tulle and satin, similarly to one of those nymphs whose busts issue from the sacred oaks. Her white neck and shoulders, her supple body, seemed so happy already in their semi-freedom, that the eye expected every moment to see the bodice and skirts glide down, like the dress of a bather enraptured with her flesh. Her fine yellow hair, gathered up high, helmet-shaped, with trailing through it a sprig of ivy retained by a knot of violets, still further accentuated her nudity by uncovering the nape of her neck, which was lightly shaded by little wanton curls, like threads of gold. Round her throat was a necklace with pendants, of brilliants of wonderful water, and on her forehead an aigrette made of sprigs of silver set with diamonds. And so she stood for some seconds on the threshold, erect in the magnificence of her dress, her shoulders shimmering in the hot light like watered silk. She had come down quickly, and was a little out of breath. Her eyes, which the blackness of the Parc Monceau had filled with shadow, blinked in that quick flood of light, giving her that air of hesitation of the shortsighted which in her was so gracious.

      On perceiving her, the little marquise sprang from her seat, came running up to her, took her by both hands, and, examining her from head to foot, murmured in fluted tones:

      “You dear, beautiful creature….”

      Meanwhile there was much moving about; all the guests came and did homage to the beautiful Mme. Saccard, as Renée was known to everyone in society. She touched hands with most of the men. Then she kissed Christine, and asked after her father, who never came to the house in the Parc Monceau. And smiling, still bowing, her arms languidly rounded, she remained standing before the circle of ladies, who examined anxiously the necklace and the aigrette.

      The fair-haired Mme. Haffner could no longer withstand the temptation. She drew nearer, and after a wistful look at the gems, asked with envy in her voice:

      “That is the necklace and aigrette, is it not?”

      Renée nodded. Thereupon all the women burst out into praise; the jewels were delicious, divine; then they proceeded to discuss, with admiration full of envy, Laure d’Aurigny’s sale, at which Saccard had bought them for his wife; they complained that those creatures got the prettiest of everything: soon there would be no diamonds left for the honest women. And through their complaints there filtered the longing to feel on their bare skins some of the jewellery that all Paris had seen on the shoulders of a noted courtesan, that might perhaps whisper in their ears scandals of the alcoves in which the thoughts of these great ladies so gladly lingered. They knew of the high prices, they mentioned a gorgeous cashmere shawl, some magnificent lace. The aigrette had cost fifteen thousand francs, the necklace fifty thousand. These figures roused Mme. d’Espanet to enthusiasm. She called Saccard over, exclaiming:

      “Come and let me congratulate you! What a good husband you are!”

      Aristide Saccard came up, bowed, made little of it. But his grinning features betrayed a lively satisfaction. And he watched from the corner of his eye the two contractors, the two bricklayers who had made their fortunes, as they stood a few steps off, listening with evident respect to the sound of such figures as fifteen and fifty thousand francs.

      At this moment Maxime, who had just come in, charmingly pinched in his dress-clothes, leant familiarly on his father’s shoulder, and whispered to him as to a schoolfellow, glancing towards the bricklayers. Saccard wore the discreet smile of an actor called before the curtain.

      Some more guests arrived. There were at least thirty persons in the drawingroom. Conversation was resumed; in intervals of silence the faint clatter of silver and crockery was heard through the walls. At last Baptiste opened the folding-doors, and majestically pronounced the sacramental phrase:

      “Dinner is served, madame.”

      Then, slowly, the procession formed. Saccard gave his arm to the little marquise; Renée took the arm of an old gentleman, a senator, the Baron Gouraud, before whom everybody bowed down with great humility; as to Maxime, he was obliged to offer his arm to Louise de Mareuil; then followed the rest of the guests, in double file; and right at the end, the two contractors, swinging their

Скачать книгу