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

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      The group amid which Saccard was standing was clustered behind the last row of chairs. An armchair had even been drawn out of the row for the Baron Gouraud, whose legs had been swelling for some time past. There were there M. Toutin-Laroche, whom the Emperor had just created a senator; M. de Mareuil, whose second election the Chamber had deigned to confirm; M. Michelin, newly decorated; and, a little further back, the Mignon and Charrier couple, of whom one wore a big diamond in his necktie, while the other displayed a still bigger one on his finger. The gentlemen chatted together. Saccard left them for a moment to go and exchange a whispered word with his sister, who had just come in and was sitting between Louise de Mareuil and Madame Michelin. Madame Sidonie was disguised as a sorceress; Louise was jauntily attired in a page’s dress that made her look quite an urchin; the little Michelin, dressed as an alme, smiled amorously through her veils embroidered with threads of gold.

      “Have you learnt anything?” Saccard softly asked his sister.

      “No, not yet,” she replied. “But the spark must be here…. I’ll catch them tonight, make yourself easy.”

      “Let me know at once, won’t you?”

      And Saccard, turning to right and left, complimented Louise and Madame Michelin. He compared the latter to one of Mahomet’s houris, the former to a favourite of Henry III. His Provençal accent seemed to make the whole of his spare, strident figure sing with delight. When he returned to the group of serious men, M. de Mareuil took him aside and spoke to him of their children’s marriage. Nothing was altered, the contract was still to be signed on the following Sunday.

      “Quite so,” said Saccard. “I intend even to announce the match to our friends this evening, if you see no objection…. I am only waiting for my brother the minister, who has promised to come.”

      The new deputy was delighted. Meantime, M. Toutin-Laroche was raising his voice as though seized with lively indignation.

      “Yes, messieurs,” he said to M. Michelin and the two contractors, who drew near, “I was goodnatured enough to allow my name to be mixed up in an affair like that.”

      And as Saccard and Mareuil came up to them:

      “I was telling these gentlemen the regrettable catastrophe of the Société Générale of the Ports of Morocco; you know, Saccard?”

      The latter did not flinch. The company in question had just collapsed amid a terrible scandal. Over-inquisitive shareholders had insisted on learning what progress had been made with the establishment of the famous commercial stations on the Mediterranean sea-board, and a judicial enquiry had shown that the Ports of Morocco existed only on the plans of the engineers: very handsome plans hung on the walls of the Company’s offices. Since then M. Toutin-Laroche had been clamouring more loudly than the shareholders, waxing indignant, demanding that his name should be restored to him without a stain. And he made so much noise that the Government, in order to calm this useful man and restore him in the eyes of public opinion, decided to send him to the Senate. It was thus that he fished up the so greatly coveted seat, in an affair that had very nearly involved him in a criminal trial.

      “It is very kind of you to be interested in that,” said Saccard, “when you can point to your great work, the Crédit Viticole, a concern that has emerged triumphantly from every crisis.”

      “Yes,” murmured Mareuil, “that is an answer to everything.”

      As a matter of fact the Crédit Viticole had just issued from a serious but carefully concealed embarrassment. A minister who was very tenderly disposed towards this financial institution, which held the Municipality of Paris by the throat, had forced on a bulling operation which M. Toutin-Laroche had turned to wonderfully good account. Nothing flattered him more sweetly than the praise bestowed upon the prosperity of the Crédit Viticole. As a rule he provoked it. He thanked M. de Mareuil with a glance, and bending over the Baron Gouraud, on whose armchair he was familiarly leaning, he asked him:

      “Are you comfortable? You’re not too warm?”

      The baron gave a slight grunt.

      “He is breaking up, he is breaking up day by day,” added M. Toutin-Laroche, in an undertone, turning towards the other gentlemen.

      M. Michelin smiled, threw down his eyelids from time to time, gently, so as to look at his red ribbon. The Mignon and Charrier couple, planted squarely upon their big feet, seemed much more at their ease in their dress-clothes since they had taken to wearing diamonds. However, it was nearly midnight, and the company was growing impatient; it was not so illbred as to murmur, but the fans fluttered more nervously, and the sound of conversations increased.

      At last M. Hupel de la Noue reappeared. He had passed one shoulder through the narrow opening when he perceived Madame d’Espanet at length ascending the platform; the other ladies, already posed for the first picture, were only waiting for her. The préfet turned round, showing his back to the audience, and he could be seen talking to the marquise, who was concealed by the curtains. He lowered his voice, and with compliments blown from his fingertips, said:

      “My congratulations, marquise. Your costume is delicious.”

      “I have a much prettier one underneath!” replied she, bluntly, laughing in his face, so funny did he seem to her, buried as he was in draperies.

      “Ah, charming, charming!” he murmured, with an air of rapture.

      He dropped the corner of the curtain, he went and joined the group of serious men, desiring to enjoy his work. He was no longer the man running with haggard face in search of Echo’s girdle of leaves. He beamed, and panted, and wiped his forehead. He still had the mark of the little white hand on the sleeve of his coat; and moreover the thumb of his right-hand glove was stained with red at the tip; he had no doubt dipped his thumb into one of those ladies’ make-up boxes. He smiled, he fanned himself, he stammered out:

      “She is adorable, enchanting, astounding!”

      “Who is?” asked Saccard.

      “The marquise. What do you think she said to me just now…?”

      And he told the story. It was considered quite perfect. The gentlemen repeated it to one another. Even the dignified M. Haffner, who had drawn nearer, could not prevent himself from applauding. Meanwhile, a piano, which few of the people had noticed, began to play a waltz. Then there came a great silence. The waltz had endless, capricious variations; and a very soft phrase ever mounted from the keyboard, finishing in a nightingale’s trill; then deeper notes took up the theme, more slowly. It was very voluptuous. The ladies, their heads a little to one side, smiled. On the other hand the piano had put a sudden stop to M. Hupel de la Noue’s merriment. He looked anxiously towards the red velvet curtains, he said to himself that he ought to have posed Madame d’Espanet himself, as he had posed the others.

      The curtains opened slowly, the piano resumed the waltz, with the soft pedal down. A murmur sped through the drawingroom. The ladies leant forward, the men stretched out their necks, whilst admiration displayed itself here and there by a word too loudly spoken, an unconscious sigh, a stifled laugh. This lasted for fully five minutes, under the glare of the three chandeliers.

      M. Hupel de la Noue, relieved, beamed beatifically upon his poem. He could not resist the temptation to repeat to the people around him what he had been saying for a month past:

      “I did think of doing it in verse…. But, don’t you agree with me, it’s more dignified like this….”

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