Chapter IV (5)

"I have written a tragedy," said he, "and I only hit on the fifth act last night--I now mean to rest myself at the abodes of all the pretty women in Paris."

He laughed and enjoyed his allusions which he alone could understand. However, the only other persons now remaining in the drawing-room were Rozan and Larsonneau, on either corner of the mantelpiece. The Saccards rose up, as well as the fair-haired woman who lived in the house. The d'Aurigny then went to speak in a low tone to the duke. He seemed surprised and vexed. Seeing that he did not make up his mind to leave his arm-chair:

"No, really, not this evening," she said in an undertone, "I've a headache! To-morrow evening, I promise you."

Rozan had to obey. Laure waited till he was on the landing and then said quickly in Larsonneau's ear:

"Eh! big Lar, I keep my word. Shove him into his carriage."

When the fair-haired woman took leave of the gentlemen to return to her rooms on the floor above, Saccard was surprised that Maxime did not follow her.

"Well?" he asked him.

"Well, no," replied the young fellow. "I've reflected--"

And he had an idea which he thought a very funny one:

"I abandon my rights to you, if you like. Make haste, she hasn't yet shut her door."

But his father gently shrugged his shoulders, saying: "Thanks, youngster, I've something better than that for the time being."

The four men went down. Outside, the duke absolutely wished to take Larsonneau with him in his carriage. His mother lived in the Marais, and he would have dropped the expropriation agent at his door in the Rue de Rivoli. The latter refused, however, shut the carriage door himself, and told the coachman to drive off. And he then lingered on the side-walk of the Boulevard Haussmann, talking with the two others instead of going away.

"Ah, poor Rozan!" said Saccard, who suddenly understood the truth.

Larsonneau swore that it was not so, that he didn't care a fig for all that, that he was a practical man. And as the other two continued joking, and the cold was very keen, he finished by exclaiming:

"'Pon my word, so much the worse; I'm going to ring! You are indiscreet, gentlemen."

"Good night!" called Maxime, as the door closed again.

And taking his father's arm he went up the Boulevard with him. It was one of those clear, frosty nights when it is so agreeable to walk on the hard ground, in the icy atmosphere. Saccard remarked that Larsonneau was wrong, that it was preferable to be simply the d'Aurigny's comrade. He started from this point to declare that the love of these women was really pernicious. He showed himself moral, and hit upon sentences and advice of astonishing wisdom.

"You see," said he to his son, "all that only lasts for a time, my good fellow. A man loses his health at it, and doesn't taste real happiness. You know that I'm not a puritan. All the same, I've had quite enough of it; I'm going to settle down."

Maxime chuckled; he stopped his father and gazed at him by the moonlight, declaring that he had a fine head. But Saccard became still more grave.

"Joke as much as you like. I repeat to you that there is nothing like married life to preserve a man and make him happy."

Thereupon he spoke of Louise. And he began walking more slowly so as to settle that matter, he said, since they were talking of it. Everything was fully arranged. He even informed Maxime that he and Monsieur de Mareuil had fixed the signing of the contract for the Sunday following the Mid-Lent Thursday. On that Thursday there was to be a grand party at the mansion in the Parc Monceaux, and he could profit by the occasion to make a public announcement of the marriage. Maxime considered all this to be very satisfactory. He had rid himself of Renée, he saw no more obstacles, and he surrendered himself to his father, as he had surrendered himself to his stepmother.

"Well, it's understood," said he. "Only don't talk about it to Renée. Her friends would twit and tease me, and I prefer that they should know the news at the same time as everyone else."

Saccard promised him to keep silent. Then, as they approached the top of the Boulevard Malesherbes he again gave him a quantity of excellent advice. He told him how he ought to act to make his home a paradise.

"Above everything never break off with your wife. It's folly. A wife with whom you no longer have connection costs you a fortune. In the first place a man has to pay some harlot, hasn't he? Then the expenditure is much greater at home: there are dresses, madame's private pleasures, her dear friends, the devil and all his train."

He was in a moment of extraordinary virtue. The success of his Charonne affair had set idyllic tenderness in his heart.

"I," he continued, "was born to live happy and ignored in the depths of some village with all my family around me. People don't know me, my little fellow. I seem to be very flighty. But in reality not at all, I should adore remaining near my wife, I would willingly abandon my affairs for a modest income which would enable me to retire to Plassans. You are about to become rich, make yourself a home with Louise in which you will live like two turtle-doves. It's so nice! I will go to see you. It will do me good."

He ended by having sobs in his voice. Meanwhile they had reached the iron gate of the mansion, and stood talking on the curb of the side-walk. A sharp north-east wind swept over these Parisian heights. Not a sound arose in the pale night, white with frost. Maxime, surprised by his father's sentimentality, had for a moment past had a question on his lips.

"But you," he said at last, "it seems to me--"

"What?"

"As regards your wife!"

Saccard shrugged his shoulders.

"Eh! quite so! I was a fool. That's why I speak to you by experience--However we have become husband and wife again, oh! quite so. It happened nearly six weeks ago. I go and join her of an evening when I don't return home too late. To-night however the poor ducky must dispense with me; I have to work till daylight. She has such an awfully fine figure!"

As Maxime held out his hand to his father the latter detained him, and added in a lower key, in a confidential tone:

"You know Blanche Müller's figure, well, it's that, but ten times more supple. And such hips! They have a curve, a delicacy--"

And then he concluded by saying to the young fellow who was going off:

"You are like me, you have a heart, your wife will be happy. Good-bye youngster!"

When Maxime had at last rid himself of his father, he went rapidly round the park. What he had just heard surprised him so much, that he experienced an irresistible desire to see Renée. He wished to ask her forgiveness for his brutality, to find out why she had lied to him in naming Monsieur de Saffré, and to learn the story of her husband's tenderness. He thought of all this confusedly, however, with but the one distinct wish to smoke a cigar in her room and renew their comradeship. Providing she were well disposed he would even announce his marriage to her, so as to make her understand that their amours must remain dead and buried. When he had opened the little door, the key of which he had fortunately retained, he ended by saying to himself that after his father's confidential revelations, his visit was necessary and quite proper.

In the conservatory he whistled as he had done the night before; but he did not have to wait. Renée came to open the glass door of the little drawing-room, and went upstairs before him without speaking a word. She still wore a dress of white tulle forming puffs and covered with satin bows; the tails of the satin body were edged with a broad band of white jet which the light of the candelabra tinged with blue and pink. When Maxime looked at her upstairs he was touched by her pallor and the deep emotion which deprived her of her voice. She could not have been expecting him, she still quivered all over at seeing him arrive as quietly as usual, with his coaxing air. Céleste returned from the wardrobe, where she had gone to fetch a night-gown, and the lovers remained silent, deferring their explanation until the girl had withdrawn. As a rule they did not inconvenience themselves in her presence; but the things which they felt upon their lips filled them with a kind of shame. Renée would have Céleste undress her in the bedroom, where there was a large fire. The chambermaid removed the pins, took off each article of finery, one by one, without hurrying herself. And Maxime, feeling bored, mechanically took up the chemise which was lying on a chair beside him, and warmed it in front of the flames, leaning forward with his arms apart. It was he who used to render Renée this little service in happy times and she felt moved when she saw him delicately holding the gown to the fire. Then as Céleste showed no signs of finishing the young fellow asked:

"Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?"

"Oh! no, it's always the same thing you know," answered Renée. "A great deal too many people, a perfect crush."

Maxime turned the night-gown, which was now warm on one side.

"What did Adeline wear?" he asked.

"A mauve dress, rather awkwardly devised. Although she is short she is mad on flounces."

They then talked about the other women. Maxime was now burning his fingers with the gown.

"But you will scorch it," said Renée whose voice was maternally caressing.

Céleste took the gown from the young fellow's hands. He rose up, and went to look at the large pink and grey bed, fixing his eyes upon one of the bouquets embroidered on the curtains, so as to be able to turn his head, and not see Renée's bare bosom. It was instinctive. He no longer considered himself her lover, so he no longer had the right to look. Then he drew a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. Renée had given him permission to smoke in her apartments. At last Céleste retired, leaving the young woman by the fireside, quite white in her night attire.

Maxime walked about for a few moments longer, silent, and looking out of the corner of his eye at Renée who seemed to be again seized with a shudder. Then stationing himself in front of the mantelpiece with his cigar between his teeth, he asked in a curt voice:

"Why didn't you tell me that it was my father who was with you last night?"

She raised her head, his eyes dilated with supreme anguish; then a rush of blood crimsoned her face, and, overwhelmed with shame, she hid it with her hands and stammered:

"You know that? you know that?"

Regaining her self-possession she tried to lie:

"It's not true--Who told it you?"

Maxime shrugged his shoulders.

"Why my father himself, who considers you nicely formed, and talked to me about your hips."

He had allowed a little vexation to show itself while saying this; but he now began walking about again, continuing in a chiding but friendly voice, between two puffs of smoke:

"Really now I don't understand you. You are a singular woman. It was your fault if I was rude yesterday. If you had told me that it was my father, I should have gone off quietly, you understand? I have no right--But you go and name Monsieur de Saffré to me!"

She was sobbing, with her hands over her face. He drew near, knelt down before her, and forcibly drew her hands aside.

"Come, tell me why you named Monsieur de Saffré?" he said.

Then, still averting her head, she answered in a low tone, amid her tears:

"I thought that you would leave me, if you knew that your father--"

He rose to his feet, took up his cigar which he had laid on a corner of the mantelshelf, and contented himself with muttering: "You are very funny, really!"

She no longer cried. The flames of the grate and the fire of her cheeks were drying her tears. Her astonishment at seeing Maxime so calm in presence of a revelation which, she had thought, was bound to crush him, made her forget her shame. She looked at him as he walked about; she listened to him speaking, as if she had been in a dream. Without abandoning his cigar, he repeated to her that she was unreasonable, that it was quite natural she should have connection with her husband, and that he really could not think of resenting it. But to go and confess that she had a lover when it was not true! And he constantly returned to that point, which he could not understand, and which seemed really monstrous to him. He talked about women's "mad imaginations."

"You are a little bit cracked, my dear," he said, "you must take care."

Then he ended by asking inquisitively:

"But why Monsieur de Saffré rather than anyone else?"

"He courts me," said Renée.

Maxime restrained an impertinent remark; he had been on the point of saying that she had fancied herself a month older on owning that Monsieur de Saffré was her lover. However, he merely gave expression to the evil smile which this spiteful idea prompted, and throwing his cigar into the fire, he went and sat down on the other side of the mantelshelf. There he talked reason, and gave Renée to understand that they ought to remain good friends. The young woman's fixed gaze certainly embarrassed him somewhat; he did not dare to announce his marriage to her. She contemplated him for a long time, her eyes still swollen by her tears. She found him petty, narrow-minded, despicable, but she still loved him with the same tenderness that she felt for her lace. He looked pretty in the light of the candelabra placed on the corner of the mantelshelf beside him. As he threw his head back, the light of the candles gilded his hair and glided over his face, amid the soft down of his cheeks, with a charming aurulent effect.

"All the same I must be off," said he several times.

He had quite decided not to stop. Besides, Renée would not have allowed it. They both thought it, and said it: they were now nothing more than two friends. When Maxime had at last pressed the young woman's hand, and was on the point of leaving the room, she detained him for another moment by speaking to him about his father, upon whom she bestowed great praise.

"You see, I felt too much remorse," she said. "I prefer that this should have happened. You don't know your father; I was astonished to find him so kind, so disinterested. The poor fellow has such great worries just now!"

Maxime looked at the tips of his boots without replying, and with an embarrassed air. She dwelt on the subject.

"As long as he did not come into this room, it was all the same to me. But afterwards--When I saw him here so affectionate, bringing me money which he must have picked up in all the corners of Paris, ruining himself for me without a murmur, I felt ill--If you knew how carefully he has watched over my interests!"

The young fellow returned softly to the mantelpiece, and leant against it. He remained embarrassed, with bowed head and a smile gradually rising to his lips.

"Yes," muttered he, "my father is very skilful in watching over people's interests."

His tone of voice astonished Renée. She looked at him, and he, as if to defend himself, added:

"Oh! I know nothing. I only say that my father is a skilful man."

"You would do wrong to speak ill of him," she rejoined. "You must judge him rather superficially. If I acquainted you with all his worries, if I repeated to you what he confided to me again this evening, you would see how mistaken people are, when they think he cares for money."

Maxime could not restrain a shrug of the shoulders. He interrupted his stepmother with an ironical laugh.

"Ah, I know him, I know him well," he said. "He must have told you some very pretty things. Relate them to me."

This tone of raillery wounded her. She then enlarged upon her praises; she considered her husband quite a great man; she talked about the Charonne affair, that piece of jobbery of which she had understood nothing, as about a catastrophe in which Saccard's intelligence and kindness had been revealed to her. She added that she should sign the deed of cession on the morrow, and that if this affair were really a disaster, she accepted it in punishment for her sins. Maxime let her go on, sneering and looking at her slyly; then he said, in an undertone:

"That's it; that's just it."

And raising his voice, and settling his hand on Renée's shoulder:

"Thanks, my dear, but I already know the story. You are of nice composition!"

He again seemed to be on the point of leaving, but he felt a furious itching to tell Renée everything. She had exasperated him with her praises of her husband, and he forgot that he had promised himself not to speak, so as to avoid anything disagreeable.

"What! what do you mean?" she asked.

"Why, that my father has 'done' you in the prettiest way in the world. I really pity you--you are too much of a simpleton!"

And he then cowardly, craftily, related to her what he had heard at Laure's--tasting a secret delight in descending into these infamies. It seemed to him that he was taking his revenge for a vague insult which some one had just addressed to him. With his harlot's temperament he lingered beatifically over this denunciation, over this cruel chatter of what he had overheard behind a door. He spared Renée nothing, neither the money which her husband had lent her usuriously nor that which he meant to steal from her, with the help of ridiculous stories fit to send children to sleep. The young woman listened to him, very pale and with clinched teeth. Standing in front of the chimney-piece, she slightly lowered her head, and looked at the fire. Her night dress, the gown which Maxime had warmed, spread out, revealing the motionless, statue-like whiteness of her limbs.

"I tell all this," continued the young man, "so that you may not seem to be a fool. But you would do wrong to get angry with my father. He isn't wicked. He has his failings like every one. Till to-morrow, eh?"

He still advanced towards the door. But Renée stopped him with a sudden gesture:

"Stay!" she cried, imperiously.

And taking hold of him, drawing him to her, almost seating him on her knees in front of the fire, she kissed him on the lips, saying:

"Ah, well! it would be too stupid to put ourselves to inconvenience now. Don't you know that my head has no longer seemed to belong to me since yesterday, since you wanted to break off? I am like an idiot. At the ball to-night I had a fog before my eyes. It is because I cannot now live quite without you. When you leave me I shall be done for. Don't laugh; I tell you what I feel."

She looked at him with infinite tenderness, as if she had not seen him for a long time.

"You found the word," she continued. "I was a simpleton. Your father would have made me see stars in broad daylight. Did I know anything about it? While he was telling me his story, I only heard a loud buzzing, and I was so crushed that, if he had chosen, he could have made me go down on my knees to sign his papers. And I fancied to myself that I felt remorseful--I was really as stupid as that!"

She burst out laughing, and gleams of folly shone in her eyes. Pressing her lover still more tightly, she went on:

"Do we sin, we two? We love each other, we amuse ourselves as it pleases us. Everyone has come to that, eh? You see your father doesn't put himself out. He likes money, and he takes it wherever he finds it. He's right, it sets me at my ease. In the first place, I sha'n't sign anything, and then, you will come here every evening. I was afraid that you wouldn't, you know, on account of what I told you. But as you don't mind it--Besides, I shall close my door to him now, you understand?"

She rose up and lighted the night-light. Maxime hesitated in despair. He realised what a piece of folly he had perpetrated, and he harshly reproached himself for having said too much. How could he announce his marriage now? It was his fault. The rupture had been accomplished, there had been no need for him to go up into that room again, or especially to prove to the young woman that her husband deceived her. Maxime's anger with himself was increased, as he no longer knew what feeling he had first obeyed. But if for a moment he thought of being brutal a second time, of going away, the sight of Renée, who was letting her slippers fall, lent him invincible cowardice. He felt frightened. He remained.

On the morrow, when Saccard came to his wife's apartments to make her sign the deed of cession, she quietly answered him that she should not do so, that she had reflected. She did not, however, allow herself even an allusion to the truth; she had sworn that she would be discreet, for she did not want to create worries for herself, but rather wished to taste the renewal of her amours in peace. The Charonne affair would finish as it could; her refusal to sign was merely an act of vengeance; she did not care a fig for the rest. Saccard was on the point of flying into a passion. All his dream crumbled. His other affairs were going from bad to worse. He found himself at the end of his resources, and merely sustained himself by performing miraculous feats of equilibrity; that very morning he had been unable to pay his baker's bill. This did not prevent him, however, from preparing a splendid entertainment for the Mid-Lent Thursday. In presence of Renée's refusal he experienced the white rage of a vigorous man impeded in his work by a child's whim. With the deed of cession once in his pocket, he had relied upon raising funds pending the award of the indemnity. When he had slightly calmed down, and his intelligence had become clear again, his wife's sudden change astonished him; she must, undoubtedly, have been advised. He scented a lover. This was so clear a presentiment, that he hastened to his sister's to question her, to ask her if she did not know anything about Renée's private life. Sidonie showed herself very bitter. She had not forgiven her sister-in-law for the affront she had given her by refusing to see Monsieur de Saffré. So when, by her brother's questions, she understood that the latter accused his wife of having a lover, she cried out that she was certain of it. And of her own accord she offered to spy upon "the turtle doves." In that way, the haughty thing would see who it was she had to deal with. Saccard did not habitually seek after disagreeable truths; his interest alone compelled him to open his eyes, which, as a rule, he wisely kept closed. He accepted his sister's offer.

"Oh! be easy, I shall learn everything," said she to him in a voice full of compassion. "Ah! my poor brother! Angèle would never have betrayed you! So good, so generous a husband! These Parisian dolls have no hearts. And to think that I never cease giving her good advice!"