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

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      “Well then, that’s settled,” he said. “Only don’t talk about it to Renée. Her friends would chaff me and tease me, and I prefer that she should know of it at the same time as everybody else.”

      Saccard promised to be silent. Then, as they approached the top of the Boulevard Malesherbes, he again gave him a heap of excellent advice. He told him how he ought to set about in order to make his home a paradise.

      “Above all, never break off with your wife. It’s folly. A wife with whom you cease having connection costs you a fortune…. In the first place, you have to keep a woman, don’t you? And then the house expenses are much greater: there are dresses, madame’s private amusements, her dearest friends, the devil and all his retinue.”

      He was in a mood of extraordinary virtue. The success of his Charonne business had filled his heart with idyllic affection.

      “As for me,” he continued, “I was born to live in happy obscurity down in some village, with all my family around me…. People don’t know me, my boy…. I give the impression of being very frivolous. Well, that’s quite a mistake. I should love to be always near my wife, I would willingly exchange my business for a modest income that would enable me to retire to Plassans…. You are going to be a rich man; make yourself a home with Louise in which you will live like two turtle-doves. It’s so pleasant! I will come and see you. That will do me good.”

      He ended with tears in his voice. Meanwhile they had reached the gate of the house, and they stood talking on the kerbstone. A North wind was sweeping over the heights of Paris. No sound arose in the pale night, white with frost; Maxime, surprised at his father’s emotion, had had a question on his lips for the past minute.

      “But you,” he said at last, “it seems to me….”

      “What?”

      “Well, with your wife!”

      Saccard shrugged his shoulders.

      “Yes, just so! I was a fool. That is why I am able to speak to you from experience…. But we have come together again, oh, entirely! It is almost six weeks ago. I go into her at night when I don’t get home too late. Tonight the poor little dear will have to do without me; I have to work till daylight. I tell you, she’s jolly well made!…”

      As Maxime held out his hand to him, he kept him back, and added, in a confidential whisper:

      “You know Blanche Muller’s figure; well, it’s like that, only ten times more supple. And then such hips! they have a curve, an elegance… !”

      And he concluded by saying to the younger man, who was going off:

      “You are like me, you have a heart, you will make your wife happy…. Goodnight, my boy!”

      When Maxime at last escaped from his father, he went quickly round the gardens. What he had just heard surprised him so greatly that he experienced an irresistible desire to see Renée. He wanted to beg forgiveness for his brutality, to know why she had told him that lie about M. de Saffré, to learn the story of her husband’s affection. But all this confusedly, with the one clear wish to smoke a cigar in her rooms and to resume their friendly relations. If she was in the right humour, he would even announce his marriage to her, to make her see that their love-affair must remain dead and buried. When he had opened the little gate, of which he had fortunately kept the key, he ended by convincing himself that his visit, after his father’s revelations, was necessary and absolutely proper.

      In the conservatory he whistled as he had done the preceding evening; but he was not kept waiting. Renée came and unfastened the glass door of the small drawingroom, and led the way upstairs without a word. She had that instant come back from a ball at the Hotel de Ville. She still wore her dress of white puffed tulle, covered with satin bows; the skirts of the satin bodice were edged with a broad border of white bugles, which the light of the candles tinged with blue and pink. Upstairs, when Maxime looked at her, he was touched by her pallor and the deep emotion that stifled her utterance. She had evidently not expected him, she still quivered all over at seeing him arrive as usual, with his quiet, wheedling air. Céleste returned from the wardrobe-room, where she had been to fetch a nightdress, and the lovers remained silent, waiting for the girl to go. As a rule they did not mind what they said before her; but they felt ashamed of the things that were on their lips. Renée told Céleste to undress her in the bedroom, where there was a big fire. The lady’s-maid removed the pins, took off each article of finery separately, without hurrying herself. And Maxime, bored, mechanically took up the nightdress, which was lying on a chair beside him, and warmed it before the fire, leaning forward with arms outstretched. He had been used in happier times to do this little service for Renée. She felt moved when she saw him daintily holding, the nightgown to the fire. Then, as Céleste had not yet finished:

      “Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?” he asked.

      “Oh no, it’s always the same thing, you know,” she replied. “Far too many people, a regular crush.”

      He turned the nightgown, which was hot on one side.

      “What did Adeline wear?”

      “Mauve, a badly thought-out dress…. She is short, and yet she dotes on flounces.”

      They talked of the other women. Maxime was now burning his fingers with the chemise.

      “But you’ll scorch it,” said Renée, whose voice sounded maternally caressing.

      Céleste took the chemise from the young man’s hands. He rose and went over to the great pink-and-gray bed, fixing his eyes on one of the embroidered bouquets on the curtains, so as to turn away his head and not see Renée’s naked breasts. He did this by intuition. He no longer considered himself her lover, he had no longer the right to look. Then he took a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. Renée had given him permission to smoke in her room. At last Céleste withdrew, leaving the young woman by the fireside, all white in her nightdress.

      Maxime walked about a few seconds longer, without speaking, glancing at Renée, who seemed to be seized with a fresh shudder. And stationing himself before the fire, with his cigar between his teeth, he asked abruptly:

      “Why didn’t you tell me that it was my father who was with you last night?”

      She raised her head, her eyes wide open, with a look of supreme anguish; then a rush of blood crimsoned her features, and, overwhelmed with shame, she hid her face in her hands, stammering:

      “You know that? you know that?…”

      She recovered herself, she tried to lie.

      “It’s not true…. Who told you?”

      Maxime shrugged his shoulders.

      “Why, my father himself, who thinks you jolly well made and talked to me about your hips.”

      He had allowed a little vexation to show itself. But he began walking about again, and continued in a scolding but friendly voice between two puffs at his cigar:

      “Really, I can’t understand you. You’re a strange woman. It was your own fault if I behaved like a brute yesterday. You ought to have told me it was my father, and I should have gone away quietly, don’t you see? What right have I?… But you go and tell me it’s M. de Saffré!”

      She СКАЧАТЬ