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

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СКАЧАТЬ once more; he led the cotillon with renewed grace. As to M. de Saffré, he remained the fastest and most amiable sceptic in the world. Renée saw him urging his horse towards the carriage-door of the Comtesse Vanska, with whom he was said to have been infatuated ever since the day when he had seen her as Coral at the Saccard’s.

      All the ladies were there besides: the Duchesse de Sternich in her everlasting chariot, Madame de Lauwerens in a landau, with the Baronne de Meinhold and little Madame Daste in front of her; Madame Teissière and Madame de Guende in a victoria. Among these ladies, Sylvia and Laure d’Aurigny displayed themselves on the cushions of a magnificent calash. Even Madame Michelin passed by, ensconced in a brougham; the pretty brunette had been on a visit to M. Hupel de la Noue’s departmental town, and on her return she had appeared in the Bois in this brougham, to which she hoped soon to add an open carriage. Renée also perceived the Marquise d’Espanet and Madame Haffner, the inseparables, hidden beneath their sunshades, stretched side by side, laughing amorously into each other’s eyes.

      Then the gentlemen drove by. M. de Chibray in a drag; Mr. Simpson in a dogcart; the Sieurs Mignon and Charrier, keener than ever after work despite their dream of approaching retirement, in a brougham which they left at the corner of the drives in order to go a bit of the way on foot; M. de Mareuil, still in mourning for his daughter, looking out for bows in acknowledgment of his first interruption uttered the day before at the Corps Législatif, airing his political importance in the carriage of M. Toutin-Laroche, who had once more saved the Crédit Viticole after bringing it to the verge of ruin, and who was being made still thinner and still more imposing by his work on the Senate.

      And to close the procession, as a last display of majesty, came the Baron Gouraud, lolling in the sun on the two pillows with which his carriage was furnished. Renée was surprised and disgusted to recognize Baptiste seated by the coachman’s side, with his pale face and his solemn air. The tall lackey had taken service with the baron.

      The copses sped past, the water of the lake grew iridescent under the more slanting rays, the line of carriages stretched out its dancing lights. And Renée, herself caught up and carried away amid this enjoyment, was vaguely conscious of all these appetites rolling along through the sunlight. She felt no indignation with these devourers of the hounds’ fee. But she hated them by reason of their joy, of this triumph which showed them full in the golden dusk that fell from the sky. They were gorgeous and smiling; the women displayed themselves white and plump; the men had the quick glances, the enamoured deportment of successful lovers. And she, down in her empty heart, found nought but lassitude, but repressed envy. Was she better, then, than others, that she should thus give way under the weight of pleasure? or was it the others who were to be praised for having stronger loins than hers? She did not know, she longed for new desires with which to begin life afresh, when, turning her head, she perceived beside her, on the side-path edging the coppice, a sight that rent her with a supreme blow.

      Saccard and Maxime were walking along with short steps, arm-in-arm. The father must have been to see the son, and together they had come down from the Avenue de l’Impératrice to the lake, chatting as they went.

      “Listen to me,” said Saccard, “you’re a simpleton…. A man like you, with money, doesn’t let it lie idle at the bottom of his drawers. There is a hundred per cent, to be made in the business I am telling you of. It’s a safe investment. You know very well I wouldn’t let you be done.”

      But the young man seemed wearied by this persistence. He smiled in his pretty way, he looked at the carriages.

      “Do you see that little woman over there, the woman in violet?” he said suddenly. “That’s a washer-girl whom that ass of a Mussy has brought out.”

      They looked at the woman in violet. Then Saccard took a cigar from his pocket, and turning to Maxime, who was smoking:

      “Give me a light.”

      Then they stopped for a moment, facing each other, bringing their faces close together. When the cigar was alight:

      “Look here,” continued the father, once more taking his son’s arm, pressing it tightly under his own, “you’re a fool if you don’t take my advice. Well! is it agreed? Will you bring me the hundred thousand francs tomorrow?”

      “You know I no longer go to your house,” replied Maxime, compressing his lifts.

      “Bah! rubbish! it’s time at last there was end to all that!”

      And as they took a few steps in silence, at the moment when Renée, feeling about to faint away, pressed back her head against the padding of the brougham so as not to be seen, a growing rumour ran along the line of carriages. The pedestrians on the side-paths halted, turned round, openmouthed, following with their eyes something that approached. There was a quicker sound of wheels, carriages drew aside respectfully, and two outriders appeared, clad in green, with round caps on which danced golden tassels with their cords outspread all round; leaning slightly forward, they trotted on upon the backs of their large bay horses. Behind them they left an empty space. Then, in this empty space, the Emperor appeared.

      He occupied alone the back seat of a landau. Dressed in black, with his frockcoat buttoned up to his chin, he wore, a little on one side, a very tall hat, whose silk glistened. In front of him, on the other seat, sat two gentlemen, dressed with that correct elegance which was in favour at the Tuileries, serious, their hands upon their knees, with the silent air of two wedding-guests taken for a drive amid the curiosity of the crowd.

      Renée thought the Emperor aged. His mouth opened more feebly under his thick waxed moustache. His eyelids fell more heavily to the point of half covering his lifeless eyes, the yellow grayness of which was yet more bleared. And his nose alone retained its look of a dry fish-bone set in the vagueness of his face.

      Meantime, while the ladies in the carriage smiled discreetly, the people on foot pointed the sovereign out to one another.

      A fat man asserted that the Emperor was the gentleman with his back to the coachman on the left. A few hands were raised to salute. But Saccard, who had taken off his hat even before the outriders had passed, waited till the imperial carriage was exactly in front of him; and then shouted in his thick Provençal voice:

      “Long live the Emperor!”

      The Emperor, surprised, turned round, seemed to recognize the enthusiast, returned the bow with a smile. And everything disappeared in the sunlight, the carriages closed up, Renée could only perceive, above the manes of the horses, between the backs of the lackeys, the outriders’ green caps dancing with their golden tassels.

      She remained for a moment with wide-open eyes, full of this vision, which reminded her of another moment in her life. It seemed to her as if the Emperor, by mingling with the line of carriages, had just set in it the last necessary ray, and given an intention to this triumphal procession. Now it was a glorification. All these wheels, all these men with decorations, all these women languidly reclining disappeared among the flash and the rumbling of the imperial landau. This sensation became so acute and so painful that Renée felt an imperious need to escape from this triumph, from that cry of Saccard’s, still ringing in her ears, from that sight of the father and son walking along with short steps, chatting arm-in-arm. She sought about, her hands folded on her breast, as though burnt with an internal fire; and it was with a sudden hope of relief, of healing coolness, that she leant forward and said to the coachman:

      “To the Hotel Béraud.”

      The courtyard retained its cloistral coldness; Renée went round the colonnades, happy in the dampness which fell upon her shoulders. She approached the basin, green with moss, its edges polished by wear; she looked at the lion’s head half worn away, СКАЧАТЬ