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

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СКАЧАТЬ know to whom to attend of this band of well-bred men, whose outstretched arms expressed the one fear of arriving too late and finding the dishes empty. An old gentleman grew angry because there was no claret, and champagne, he maintained, kept him awake.

      “Gently, messieurs, gently,” said Baptiste, in his serious voice. “There will be enough for every one.”

      But nobody listened. The dining-room was full, and anxious dress-coats stood on tiptoe at the door. Before the sideboards stood groups, eating quickly, crowding together. Many swallowed their food without drinking, not having been able to lay their hands on a glass. Others, on the contrary, drank and sought fruitlessly for a morsel of bread.

      “Listen,” said M. Hupel de la Noue, whom the Mignon and Charrier couple, sick of mythology, had dragged to the supper-room, “we shan’t get a thing if we don’t club together…. It’s much worse at the Tuileries, and I’ve gained experience there…. You look after the wine, I’ll see to the solids.”

      The préfet had his eye on a leg of mutton. He stretched out his arm at the right moment through a break in the shoulders, and quietly carried it off, after stuffing his pockets with rolls. The contractors returned on their side, Mignon with one bottle, Charrier with two bottles of champagne; but they had only been able to find two glasses; they said that didn’t matter, they would drink out of the same. And the party supped off the corner of a flower-stand, at the end of the room. They did not even take off their gloves, but put the slices already cut from the leg of mutton between their bread, and kept the bottles under their arms. And standing up, they talked with their mouths full, stretching out their chins beyond their waistcoats so as to let the gravy fall on the carpet.

      Charrier, having finished his wine before his bread, asked a servant to get him a glass of champagne.

      “You will have to wait, monsieur!” angrily replied the scared domestic, losing his head, forgetting that he was not in the kitchen. “They have drunk up three hundred bottles already.”

      Meantime the notes of the band could be heard swelling with sudden gusts. They were dancing the Kisses Polka, famous at public balls, the rhythm of which each dancer had to mark by saluting his partner. Mme. d’Espanet appeared at the door of the dining-room, flushed, her hair a little disarranged, trailing her long silver dress with a charming air of lassitude. Hardly any one moved aside, she was obliged to push with her elbows to effect a passage. Then she came straight up to M. Hupel de la Noue, who had finished, and who was wiping his mouth with his handkerchief.

      “It would be so good of you, monsieur,” she said with a bewitching smile, “if you would find me a chair. I have been all round the table in vain….”

      The prefet had a grudge against the marquise, but his gallantry gave him no alternative: he bustled about, found the chair, installed Mme. d’Espanet, and stayed behind her to wait on her. She would only take a few prawns, with a little butter, and half a glass of champagne. She ate daintily amid the gluttony of the men. The table and the chairs were reserved exclusively for the ladies. But an exception was always made in favour of the Baron Gouraud. There he was, comfortably seated in front of a piece of game-pie of which his jaws were slowly munching the crust. The marquise re-subjugated the préfet by telling him that she would never forget her artistic emotions in Les Amours du Beau Narcisse et de la Nymphe Écho. She even explained to him why they had not waited for him, in a way that completely consoled him: the ladies, on learning that the minister was there, thought it would not be very proper to prolong the entr’acte. She ended by begging him to go and look for Mme. Haffner, who was dancing with Mr. Simpson, a brute of a man, she said, whom she disliked. And when Suzanne had come, she no longer had an eye for M. Hupel de la Noue.

      Saccard, followed by MM. Toutin-Laroche, de Mareuil, Haffner, had taken possession of a sideboard. As there was no room at the table, and M. de Saffré passed with Madame Michelin on his arm, he stopped them and insisted that the pretty brunette should join his party. She nibbled at some pastry, smiling, raising her bright eyes to the five men who surrounded her. They leant over her, touched her alme’s veils embroidered with threads of gold, drove her up against the sideboard against which she ended by leaning, taking cakes from every hand, very gently and very caressing, with the amorous docility of a slave amid her masters. M. Michelin, all alone at the other end of the room, was finishing up a pot of pâté de foie gras which he had succeeded in capturing.

      Meantime Mme. Sidonie, who had been prowling about ever since the first strokes of the bow had opened the ball, entered the dining-room and beckoned to Saccard with a glance.

      “She is not dancing,” she said, in a low voice. “She seems restless. I believe she is meditating something desperate…. But I have not yet been able to discover the spark…. I must have something to eat and return to the watch.”

      And standing up, like a man, she ate a wing of a chicken which she got M. Michelin, who had finished his pâté, to give her. She poured herself out a large champagne-glass full of malaga, and then, after wiping her lips with her fingers, she returned to the drawingroom. The train of her sorceress’s dress seemed already to have gathered up all the dust of the carpets.

      The ball grew languid, the band was showing signs of fatigue, when a murmur circulated: “The cotillon! the cotillon!” putting fresh life into the dancers and the brass. Couples came from all the shrubberies in the hothouse; the large drawingroom filled up as for the first quadrille; and there was a discussion among the awakened crowd. It was the last flicker of the ball. The men who were not dancing watched with limp goodnature from the depths of the window-recesses the talkative group swelling in the middle of the room; while the supper-eaters in the next room stretched out their necks to see, without relinquishing their food.

      “M. de Mussy says he won’t,” said a lady. “He swears he never leads the cotillon now…. Come, just once more, Monsieur de Mussy, only this little once. Do, to oblige us.”

      But the young attaché remained stiff and serious in his stick-up collar. It was really impossible, he had taken a vow. Disappointment followed. Maxime refused also, saying that he could not possibly, that he was worn out. M. Hupel de la Noue dared not offer his services; his frivolity stopped at poetry. A lady suggesting Mr. Simpson was promptly silenced; Mr. Simpson was the most extraordinary cotillon-leader you ever saw; he gave himself over to fantastic and mischievous devices; at one dance where they had been so imprudent as to select him, it was said that he had compelled the ladies to jump over the chairs, and one of his favourite figures was to make everybody go round the room on all-fours.

      “Has M. de Saffré gone?” asked a childish voice.

      He was just going, he was saying goodbye to the beautiful Madame Saccard, with whom he was on the best of terms since she had refused to have anything to do with him. The amiable sceptic admired the caprices of others. He was brought back in triumph from the hall. He resisted, he said with a smile that they were compromising him, that he was a serious man. Then, in presence of all the white hands stretched out to him:

      “Come,” said he, “take your positions…. But I warn you, I belong to the old school. I haven’t two farthings’ worth of imagination.”

      The couples sat down around the room, on all the seats that could be gathered together; young men were even sent to fetch the iron chairs from the hothouse. It was a monster cotillon. M. de Saffré, who wore the rapt expression of a celebrant, chose for his partner the Comtesse Vanska, whose Coral dress fascinated him. When everybody was in position, he cast a long look at this circular row of skirts, each flanked by a dress-coat. And he nodded to the orchestra, whose brass resounded. Heads leaned forward along the smiling line of faces.

      Renée refused to take part in the cotillon. She had been nervously gay since the commencement of the СКАЧАТЬ