THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ is probable that this female usurer was not ignorant of their origin and that she even speculated on it. Holding the young woman in her clutches, able at any moment to lodge a complaint with the crown-attorney, relying, moreover, on those whose names were on the bills, and whose interest it was to avoid a scandal, she considered the forgeries she held in guarantee, as preferable to genuine bills. She based quite a fortune on her complacency, exacting enormous interest, embroiling the lorette’s affairs more and more, making her provide for her completely, acting a cunning and hypocritical part which she performed to perfection.

      Armande managed to get along for two years without being disturbed. She had made the bills payable at her residence, and provided the money for them when they fell due at any cost, taking a hundred francs from the first man she met, completing the amount by selling something, borrowing again and forging fresh bills. Madame Mercier continued to be humble and obliging; she desired to hold her prey in a close grip before showing her teeth and biting.

      Then the time came when Armande was positively unable to meet the forged acceptances. She cast herself into the gutter in vain. She went to the Châteaudes-Fleurs and still could not make the money she required to keep up her house.

      It was just then that she made Sauvaire’s acquaintance. For him she dismissed a Count she had ruined, under the impression that the master-stevedore was rich and generous. In other times when she was Queen of Marseille and insolently displayed her lace and velvet, she would have gazed down on Sauvaire from the height of the wealth and elegance of her admirers. But now there was no prey that she disdained; she set her batteries against the crowd and would willingly have received money from soiled hands. The former workman mistook the dire necessity which thrust the young woman into his arms, for tenderness. After a few months she perceived with alarm, that her new acquaintance had all the prudent, economical habits of an upstart and that he spent all his money on himself like an egotist. Two or three of the forged acceptances were not met and Madame Mercier began to get angry.

      Things were at that point when one evening Marius naïvely called. He expected to meet some of the numerous wealthy company in her drawingroom to whom his brother had introduced him. He had a vague idea of getting intimate with some young businessman who would come to his assistance; and he relied in a measure on Sauvaire, whose obliging disposition Fine had been careful to exaggerate.

      He was very much astonished to find the drawingroom empty. The large apartment was lit with a single lamp and appeared particularly bare. Sauvaire was reclining on a large divan and seemed to be making a great fuss about digesting the dinner he had just eaten, undoing some of the buttons of his waistcoat, and holding a toothpick between his fingers.

      Armande was seated beside him in an armchair, reading Graziella, with her forehead resting dreamily on the palm of her left hand. An Italian greyhound named Djali was lying at her feet, with its head reposing on her cherry-coloured slippers.

      One of Armande’s ways of seduction was to read the works of great modern poets before her admirers. She had a small bookcase containing the writings of Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, de Lamartine and Alfred de Musset.

      In the evening, in the pale light of the lamp, at an hour when she was still beautiful, she languidly spelt over pages of verse or poetical prose. This placed a sort of halo round her head. Her admirers thought they had an ignorant girl to deal with, and they found an educated, almost a lettered, lady, who read books that they had never had either the time or energy to look into.

      Sauvaire, especially, felt crushed and overshadowed on the day when his lady friend took up a book of verses, and quietly began turning over the pages of it before him. It was a rare event with him when he glanced through a newspaper. A woman opening a volume of poetry was in his eyes a superior creature. Each time Armande read in his presence he collected himself and looked affected and charmed. It seemed to him that he was becoming wise himself.

      Marius slightly smiled when he saw Armande in an inclined attitude feigning ecstasy, and the position Sauvaire was in, lounging on the divan with his hands clasped across his stomach.

      The lorette welcomed the newcomer with her easy, sprightly grace. She had been more or less intimately connected with Philippe, and she treated Marius as an old acquaintance. She asked him to be seated, and reproached him with the rarity of his visits.

      “I know very well,” she added, “that you have had a great deal of trouble lately. Poor Philippe! I can fancy sometimes that I see him in his damp prison, he who was so fond of luxury and pleasure! That will teach him to place his affection in better hands.”

      Sauvaire had raised himself a little. One of his good qualities was that he was not jealous; on the contrary he showed himself quite proud of his companion’s past admirers. The fondness which Armande had formerly shown for others doubled, in his eyes, the value of his good fortune. Besides, Marius seemed to him so small that he was delighted to appear robust beside of him.

      The young woman introduced the two men.

      “Oh! We know each other,” said the master-stevedore, with the laugh of a happy man. “I also know M. Philippe Cayol. There’s a fine fellow for you!”

      The truth was that Sauvaire was delighted at being found alone with Armande. He began to talk to her familiarly, to lay stress on the pleasures they participated in together, and then resumed speaking of Philippe:

      “He often came to see you, didn’t he? Ah! never mind, don’t protest. I think you were in love with each other. I used to meet him sometimes at the Châteaudes-Fleurs. We went there yesterday. Eh! my dear, what a crowd, what dresses!”

      He turned to Marius.

      “In the evening,” he added, “we supped at a restaurant. It is very expensive. It is not everyone who can afford that.”

      Armande seemed to suffer. There was still some delicacy about the woman. She looked at Marius, shrugged her shoulders slightly, shot glances at him, scoffing at Sauvaire. The latter remained imperturbable and stretched himself out full of enjoyment.

      Marius then guessed how much the lorette was embarrassed and tormented. He felt something like pity at the sight of her deserted drawingroom, and when he understood down what a frightfully steep incline this woman, whom he had known happy and without a care, was rolling, he regretted having called.

      About ten o’clock he found himself alone with Sauvaire, who began to give him an account of his good fortune and joyous existence.

      A servant had come to tell Armande that Madame Mercier was in the antechamber and that she seemed very angry.

      CHAPTER III

      IN WHICH MADAME MERCIER SHOWS HER CLAWS

      MADAME MERCIER was a little round, fat old woman of fifty, who was for ever tearfully complaining about the hardness of the times. Attired in a gown of washed-out printed calico, always with an old straw basket on her arm which served as a safe, she trotted along with short steps and the sly movements of a cat. She was humble and wretched and gave herself poverty-stricken airs to make people pity her. Her fresh complexion, and the wrinkles on her face, resembling rolls of fat, were a standing protest against the tears that inundated it at every moment.

      This female usurer played her part admirably with Armande. She first of all acted the goodnatured woman. She gained absolute control over her with an infernal kind of art, showing herself in turn serviceable and egotistic, embroiling the accounts, allowing the interest to accumulate, making it impossible for her debtor to verify anything.

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