THE COMPLETE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIES (All 20 Books in One Edition). Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ the shop, it never looked new; it was shabby, lost its sheen, looked a rag. She had also consented to leave off bringing her basket to the Saccards. By way of retaliation, her pockets bulged over with papers. She took an interest in Renée, of whom she was unable to make a reasonable client, resigned to the necessities of life. She called on her regularly, with the discreet smiles of a physician who does not care to frighten his patient by telling her the name of her complaint. She commiserated with her in her little worries, treating them as little aches and pains which she could cure in a minute if Renée wished it. The latter, who was in one of those moments when one feels the need of pity, received her only to tell her that she had intolerable pains in her head.

      “Why, my beautiful pet,” murmured Mme. Sidonie as she glided through the shade of the room, “but you’re stifling here!… Still your neuralgic pains, is it? It comes from worry. You take life too much to heart.”

      “Yes, I have a heap of anxiety,” replied Renée, languishingly.

      Night was falling. She had not allowed Céleste to light the lamp. The fire alone shed a great red glow that lighted her up fully, outstretched in her white peignoir, whose lace was assuming rose tints. At the edge of the shadow one could just see a corner of Mme. Sidonie’s black dress, and her two crossed hands, covered with gray cotton gloves. Her soft voice emerged from the darkness.

      “Money-troubles again?” she asked, as though she had said troubles of the heart, in a voice full of gentleness and compassion.

      Renée lowered her eyelids and nodded assent.

      “Ah! if my brothers would listen to me, we should all be rich. But they shrug their shoulders when I speak to them of that debt of three milliards, you know…. Still I have good hopes. For the last ten years I have been wanting to go across to England. I have so little time to spare!… At last I resolved to write to London, and I am waiting the reply.”

      And as the younger woman smiled:

      “I know you are an unbeliever yourself. Still you would be very pleased if I made you a present one of these days of a nice little million…. Look here, the story is quite simple: there was a Paris banker who lent the money to the son of the King of England, and as the banker died without direct heirs, the State is to-day entitled to claim payment of the debt with compound interest. I have worked it out, it comes to two milliards, nine hundred and forty-three millions, two hundred and ten thousand francs…. Never fear, it will come, it will come.”

      “In the meantime,” said Renée, with a dash of irony, “I wish you would get some one to lend me a hundred thousand francs…. I could then pay my tailor, who is making himself a great nuisance.”

      “A hundred thousand francs can be found,” replied Mme. Sidonie, tranquilly. “It is only a question of what you will give in exchange.”

      The fire was glowing; Renée, still more languid, stretched out her legs, showed the tips of her slippers at the edge of her dressing-gown. The agent resumed her sympathetic voice:

      “My poor dear, you are really not reasonable. I know many women, but I have never seen one so little careful of her health as you. That little Michelin, for instance, see how well she manages! I cannot help thinking of you whenever I see her in good health and spirits…. Do you know that M. de Saffré is madly in love with her, and that he has already given her close upon ten thousand francs’ worth of presents? I believe her dream is to have a house in the country.”

      She grew excited, she fumbled in her pocket. “I have here again a letter from a poor young married woman…. If it was light enough, I would let you read it…. Just think, her husband takes no notice of her. She had accepted some bills, and was obliged to borrow the money from a gentleman I know. I went myself and rescued the bills from the bailiff’s clutches, and it was no easy matter…. Those poor children, do you think they do wrong? I receive them at my place as though they were my son and daughter.”

      “Do you know anyone who would lend me the money?” asked Renée, casually.

      “I know a dozen…. You are too kindhearted. One can say anything between women, can’t one? and it’s not because your husband is my brother that I would excuse him for running after the hussies and leaving a love of a woman like you to mope at the fireside…. That Laure d’Aurigny costs him heaps and heaps. I should not be surprised to hear that he had refused you money. He has refused you, has he not?… Oh, the wretch!”

      Renée listened complacently to this mellifluous voice, that issued from the shadow like the echo, vague as yet, of her own dreams. With eyelids half-closed, lying almost at length in her easy-chair, she was no longer conscious of Mme. Sidonie’s presence, she thought she was dreaming of evil thoughts that came to her and tempted her very gently. The business-woman kept up a long prattle like the monotonous flow of tepid water.

      “It is Mme. de Lauwerens who has marred your life. You never would believe me. Ah! you wouldn’t be reduced to crying in your chimney-corner, if you hadn’t mistrusted me…. And I love you like my eyes, you beautiful thing. What a bewitching foot you have. You will laugh at me, but I must tell you how silly I am: when I have gone three days without seeing you, I feel absolutely obliged to come and admire you; yes, I feel I want something; I feel the need of feasting my eyes on your lovely hair, your face, so white, so delicate, your slender figure…. Really I have never seen such a figure.”

      Renée ended by smiling. Her lovers themselves did not display such warmth, such rapt ecstasy, in speaking to her of her beauty. Mme. Sidonie observed the smile.

      “Well then, it’s agreed,” she said, rising briskly…. “I run on and on, and forget that I am making your head split…. You will come tomorrow, will you not? We will talk of money, we will look about for a lender…. Understand, I want you to be happy.”

      Still motionless, enervated by the heat, Renée replied, after a pause, as though it had cost her a laborious effort to understand what was being said to her:

      “Yes, I will come, that’s agreed, and we will talk; but not tomorrow…. Worms will be satisfied with an installment. When he worries me again, we will see…. Don’t talk to me of all that any more. My head is shattered with business.”

      Mme. Sidonie seemed very much vexed. She was on the point of sitting down again, of resuming her caressing monologue; but Renée’s weary attitude decided her to postpone her attack until later. She drew a handful of papers from her pocket, and searched among them until she found an article enclosed in a sort of pink box.

      “I came to recommend to you a new soap,” she said, resuming her business voice. “I take a great interest in the inventor, who is a charming young man. It is a very soft soap, very good for the skin. You will try it, won’t you? and talk of it to your friends… I will leave it here, on the mantelpiece.”

      She had reached the door, when she returned once more, and standing erect in the crimson glow of the fire, with her waxen face, she began to sing the praises of an elastic belt, an invention intended to take the place of corsets.

      “It gives you a waist absolutely round, a genuine wasp’s waist,” she said….”I saved it from bankruptcy. When you come you can try on the samples if you like…. I had to run after the lawyers for a week. The documents are in my pocket, and I am going straight to my bailiff now to put a stop to a final opposition…. Goodbye for the present, darling. You know, I shall expect you: I want to dry those pretty eyes of yours.”

      She glided out of sight. Renée did not even hear her close the door. She stayed there before the expiring fire, continuing СКАЧАТЬ