THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ due and Armande was without funds to meet it, Madame Mercier was greatly distressed, then she promised to borrow the money from someone, vowing she had not got it herself. She advanced the amount of the bill, but made the lorette immediately reimburse her, and thus there was fresh interest to pay.

      In all this coming and going of acceptances, in the constant increase in the rate of discount, Armande had lost all count of how she stood, what she had paid and what she still owed. In the meantime the debt increased without the usurer making any farther advances, and the older it became the more obscure it got. The young woman felt herself lost at the bottom of chaos.

      The female usurer maintained her despairing and coaxing manner. When she supplied money herself in order that Armande might pay her, she made her feel all her devotedness, all the heroism of her conduct.

      “Eh? You have never seen a creditor like me,” she would say. “I even go so far as to borrow the money you want. That is splendid, that is!”

      “But,” answered Armande, “it’s for yourself that you borrow the money, as I give it you.”

      “Not at all,” answered the old woman, “I am only seeking to do you a service.”

      So Madame Mercier in this way introduced herself little by little into the house. Every two or three days, she came and showed her cunning, coaxing face. Armande became her property, her slave. Sometimes she arrived all in a flutter, fell into a chair in despair and accused the young woman of wanting to run away without paying her; it was necessary to take her over the apartment and let her see that the trunks were not packed up. Sometimes she rang violently at the door, said she had been robbed, and reproached the lorette with her expenditure; she compared the one life with the other, accused her debtor of being insolvent, and crippled with debt, and ended by asking for fresh security.

      At other moments she came suddenly and demanded money; then she softened down, pleaded poverty, and on leaving shuffled along in a most lamentable way. She accompanied each of these visits with a deluge of tears. These came at her bidding, and she took advantage of that circumstance to embarrass people.

      Each complaint was followed by a sob. She twisted herself about pitifully on a chair, uttering the least word in a doleful tone of voice.

      Armande, weary and bewildered, generally stood before her without being able to pronounce a syllable. At times she would have sacrificed everything: linen, gowns, furniture, to have been freed from these continual lamentations.

      The usurer invented another kind of persecution. She would come with red eyes, declare she was in want of bread, and was dying. The young woman, aggravated and quite out of patience, would tell her to sit down and eat. Sometimes she would shed streams of tears to get sugar, coffee, or brandy.

      “Alas! My dear lady,” she snivelled, “I am very unhappy. This morning I had to take my coffee without sugar, and tomorrow I shall have neither sugar nor coffee. Be charitable. It is you who have brought me to this; if you were to give me my money, I should not be obliged to come and beg. For pity’s sake let me have a few pounds of coffee and sugar. That will count for all the services I have rendered you.”

      Armande did not dare refuse. She spent her last few sous trembling in the presence of certain savage, bantering looks of her creditor. If she happened to say she had no money the usurer would answer.

      “Very well, I shall present the bill you gave me to your lover — “

      The other would not allow her to proceed any further. She sent and sold something and purchased what her tormentor required. The unfortunate girl closed her eyes in order not to see the chasm gaping before her.

      She belonged to this woman who held such terrible proofs against her in her hands, and she obeyed her, inwardly irritated, inquiring of herself with despair, by what means she could escape from her claws.

      Madame Mercier wept for nearly two years and extracted from Armande all she could. She never went away with empty hands.

      The money she had lent her already brought her in two hundred and fifty per cent. If the capital was compromised, the interest covered it two or three times over. At last the usurer understood that she must change her tactics. Armande could not receive her without a nervous shudder which must inevitably bring about a crisis. Besides, she had no money and she had twice firmly refused to give her sugar.

      From that moment the old woman resolved to weep no more, but to have recourse to strong measures. It only remained to her to play all for all, to exact immediate payment of the arrears, from the lorette, by threatening to lodge a complaint with the crown attorney.

      She had had the prudence not to manifest the least suspicion anent the forged bills in her possession. Her plan was soon formed. She decided she would call on the young woman and put her in a fearful fright. If one of her protectors happened to be there, she would apply to him, she would create a scandal and manage to get back her money somehow. She wanted to devour her prey after having sucked all the blood from her veins.

      An acceptance for a thousand francs which Armande had signed with Sauvaire’s name, and which she had given Madame Mercier in exchange for another bill, had fallen due on the previous day. The old woman having a pretext to be angry resolved not to wait any longer. She called on the young woman just at the time when Marius and the master-stevedore were there.

      Armande was quite troubled when she met her in the antechamber. She dragged her to the farthest corner of a small boudoir which was only separated from the drawingroom by a thin door. She offered her a seat with the timid and beseeching look of an insolvent person to her creditor.

      “What do you mean,” shouted the usurer, refusing the chair, “you are making fun of me, my good lady! Another bill returned unpaid! I am tired of it all.”

      She had crossed her arms and spoke in a loud insolent voice. Her little fat, red face shone with anger. Armande would have preferred to have seen her crying and lamenting in her customary drawling tone of voice.

      “For mercy’s sake,” she exclaimed frightened, “speak lower. I have visitors. You know in what an embarrassed position I find myself. Grant me a few days’ grace.”

      Madame Mercier made a movement of impatience. She stood on tip-toe and spoke right in the lorette’s face.

      “What care I, if you have visitors?” she continued, without lowering her voice. “I mean to be paid, and immediately! Madame wears hats and bonnets, Madame goes to the Châteaudes-Fleurs, Madame has lovers who provide all sorts of amusement for her! Have I any lovers? I deprive myself, I eat dry bread and drink water, whereas you stuff yourself with good things. That can’t last, I must have my money, or I will take you somewhere. You know where, don’t you?”

      She accompanied these words with a threatening look and Armande turned quite pale.

      “Ah! That ruffles you,” continued the old woman, sneering. “You must have taken me for a donkey! If I have acted like one, it was no doubt because it was to my interest to do so.”

      She began laughing and shrugging her shoulders. Then she added violently:

      “If you don’t pay me tonight, I will write tomorrow to the crown attorney.”

      “I don’t know what you mean,” stammered Armande.

      The old woman sat down. She felt she was mistress of the situation, and she wanted to enjoy the pleasure of playing for a moment with her prey.

      “Ah! СКАЧАТЬ