Complete Works of Emile Zola (1553 page)

Soon after Valentine had given birth to her daughter Andree, the novelist had again become a constant frequenter of the house in the Avenue d’Antin. He was intent on resuming the little intrigue that he had begun there and felt confident of victory. Valentine, on her side, after a period of terror followed by great relief, had set about making up for lost time, throwing herself more wildly than ever into the vortex of fashionable life. She had recovered her good looks and youthfulness, and had never before experienced such a desire to divert herself, leaving her children more and more to the care of servants, and going about, hither and thither, as her fancy listed, particularly since her husband did the same in his sudden fits of jealousy and brutality, which broke out every now and again in the most imbecile fashion without the slightest cause. It was the collapse of all family life, with the threat of a great disaster in the future; and Santerre lived there in the midst of it, helping on the work of destruction.

He gave a cry of rapture when Valentine at last made her appearance gowned in a delicious travelling dress, with a cavalier toque on her head. But she was not quite ready, for she darted off again, saying that she would be at their service as soon as she had seen her little Andree, and given her last orders to the nurse.

“Well, make haste,” cried her husband. “You are quite unbearable, you are never ready.”

It was at this moment that Mathieu called, and Seguin received him in order to express his regret that he could not that day go into business matters with him. Nevertheless, before fixing another appointment, he was willing to take note of certain conditions which the other wished to stipulate for the purpose of reserving to himself the exclusive right of purchasing the remainder of the Chantebled estate in portions and at fixed dates. Seguin was promising that he would carefully study this proposal when he was cut short by a sudden tumult — distant shouts, wild hurrying to and fro, and a violent banging of doors.

“Why! what is it? what is it?” he muttered, turning towards the shaking walls.

The door suddenly opened and Valentine reappeared, distracted, red with fear and anger, and carrying her little Andree, who wailed and struggled in her arms.

“There, there, my pet,” gasped the mother, “don’t cry, she shan’t hurt you any more. There, it’s nothing, darling; be quiet, do.”

Then she deposited the little girl in a large armchair, where she at once became quiet again. She was a very pretty child, but still so puny, although nearly four months old, that there seemed to be nothing but her beautiful big eyes in her pale little face.

“Well, what is the matter?” asked Seguin, in astonishment.

“The matter, is, my friend, that I have just found Marie lying across the cradle as drunk as a market porter, and half stifling the child. If I had been a few moments later it would have been all over. Drunk at ten o’clock in the morning! Can one understand such a thing? I had noticed that she drank, and so I hid the liqueurs, for I hoped to be able to keep her, since her milk is so good. But do you know what she had drunk? Why, the methylated spirits for the warmer! The empty bottle had remained beside her.”

“But what did she say to you?”

“She simply wanted to beat me. When I shook her, she flew at me in a drunken fury, shouting abominable words. And I had time only to escape with the little one, while she began barricading herself in the room, where she is now smashing the furniture! There! just listen!”

Indeed, a distant uproar of destruction reached them. They looked one at the other, and deep silence fell, full of embarrassment and alarm.

“And then?” Seguin ended by asking in his curt dry voice.

“Well, what can I say? That woman is a brute beast, and I can’t leave Andree in her charge to be killed by her. I have brought the child here, and I certainly shall not take her back. I will even own that I won’t run the risk of going back to the room. You will have to turn the girl out of doors, after paying her wages.”

“I! I!” cried Seguin. Then, walking up and down as if spurring on the anger which was rising within him, he burst forth: “I’ve had enough, you know, of all these idiotic stories! This house has become a perfect hell upon earth all through that child! There will soon be nothing but fighting here from morning till night. First of all it was pretended that the nurse whom I took the trouble to choose wasn’t healthy. Well, then a second nurse is engaged, and she gets drunk and stifles the child. And now, I suppose, we are to have a third, some other vile creature who will prey on us and drive us mad. No, no, it’s too exasperating, I won’t have it.”

Valentine, her fears now calmed, became aggressive. “What won’t you have? There is no sense in what you say. As we have a child we must have a nurse. If I had spoken of nursing the little one myself you would have told me I was a fool. You would have found the house more uninhabitable than ever, if you had seen me with the child always in my arms. But I won’t nurse — I can’t. As you say, we will take a third nurse; it’s simple enough, and we’ll do so at once and risk it.”

Seguin had abruptly halted in front of Andree, who, alarmed by the sight of his stern dark figure began to cry. Blinded as he was by anger, he perhaps failed to see her, even as he failed to see Gaston and Lucie, who had hastened in at the noise of the dispute and stood near the door, full of curiosity and fear. As nobody thought of sending them away they remained there, and saw and heard everything.

“The carriage is waiting,” resumed Seguin, in a voice which he strove to render calm. “Let us make haste, let us go.”

Valentine looked at him in stupefaction. “Come, be reasonable,” said she. “How can I leave this child when I have nobody to whom I can trust her?”

“The carriage is waiting for us,” he repeated, quivering; “let us go at once.”

And as his wife this time contented herself with shrugging her shoulders, he was seized with one of those sudden fits of madness which impelled him to the greatest violence, even when people were present, and made him openly display his rankling poisonous sore, that absurd jealousy which had upset his life. As for that poor little puny, wailing child, he would have crushed her, for he held her to be guilty of everything, and indeed it was she who was now the obstacle to that excursion he had planned, that pleasure trip which he had promised himself, and which now seemed to him of such supreme importance. And ‘twas so much the better if friends were there to hear him. So in the vilest language he began to upbraid his wife, not only reproaching her for the birth of that child, but even denying that the child was his. “You will only be content when you have driven me from the house!” he finished in a fury. “You won’t come? Well then, I’ll go by myself!”

And thereupon he rushed off like a whirlwind, without a word to Santerre, who had remained silent, and without even remembering that Mathieu still stood there awaiting an answer. The latter, in consternation at hearing all these things, had not dared to withdraw lest by doing so he should seem to be passing judgment on the scene. Standing there motionless, he turned his head aside, looked at little Andree who was still crying, and at Gaston and Lucie, who, silent with fright, pressed one against the other behind the armchair in which their sister was wailing.

Valentine had sunk upon a chair, stifling with sobs, her limbs trembling. “The wretch! Ah, how he treats me! To accuse me thus, when he knows how false it is! Ah! never more; no, never more! I would rather kill myself; yes, kill myself!”

Then Santerre, who had hitherto stood on one side, gently drew near to her and ventured to take her hand with a gesture of affectionate compassion, while saying in an undertone: “Come, calm yourself. You know very well that you are not alone, that you are not forsaken. There are some things which cannot touch you. Calm yourself, cease weeping, I beg you. You distress me dreadfully.”

He made himself the more gentle since the husband had been the more brutal; and he leant over her yet the more closely, and again lowered his voice till it became but a murmur. Only a few words could be heard: “It is wrong of you to worry yourself like this. Forget all that folly. I told you before that he doesn’t know how to behave towards a woman.”

Twice was that last remark repeated with a sort of mocking pity; and she smiled vaguely amid her drying tears, in her turn murmuring: “You are kind, you are. Thank you. And you are quite right.... Ah! if I could only be a little happy!”

Then Mathieu distinctly saw her press Santerre’s hand as if in acceptance of his consolation. It was the logical, fatal outcome of the situation — given a wife whom her husband had perverted, a mother who refused to nurse her babe. And yet a cry from Andree suddenly set Valentine erect, awaking to the reality of her position. If that poor creature were so puny, dying for lack of her mother’s milk, the mother also was in danger from her refusal to nurse her and clasp her to her breast like a buckler of invincible defence. Life and salvation one through the other, or disaster for both, such was the law. And doubtless Valentine became clearly conscious of her peril, for she hastened to take up the child and cover her with caresses, as if to make of her a protecting rampart against the supreme madness to which she had felt prompted. And great was the distress that came over her. Her other children were there, looking and listening, and Mathieu also was still waiting. When she perceived him her tears gushed forth again, and she strove to explain things, and even attempted to defend her husband.

“Excuse him, there are moments when he quite loses his head.
Mon Dieu
! What will become of me with this child? Yet I can’t nurse her now, it is too late. It is frightful to be in such a position without knowing what to do. Ah! what will become of me, good Lord?”

Santerre again attempted to console her, but she no longer listened to him, and he was about to defer all further efforts till another time when unexpected intervention helped on his designs.

Celeste, who had entered noiselessly, stood there waiting for her mistress to allow her to speak. “It is my friend who has come to see me, madame,” said she; “you know, the person from my village, Sophie Couteau, and as she happens to have a nurse with her—”

“There is a nurse here?”

“Oh! yes, madame, a very fine one, an excellent one.”

Then, on perceiving her mistress’s radiant surprise, her joy at this relief, she showed herself zealous: “Madame must not tire herself by holding the little one. Madame hasn’t the habit. If madame will allow me, I will bring the nurse to her.”

Heaving a sigh of happy deliverance, Valentine had allowed the servant to take the child from her. So Heaven had not abandoned her! However, she began to discuss the matter, and was not inclined to have the nurse brought there. She somehow feared that if the other one, who was drunk in her room, should come out and meet the new arrival, she would set about beating them all and breaking everything. At last she insisted on taking Santerre and Mathieu into the linen-room, saying that the latter must certainly have some knowledge of these matters, although he declared the contrary. Only Gaston and Lucie were formally forbidden to follow.

“You are not wanted,” said their mother, “so stay here and play. But we others will all go, and as softly as possible, please, so that that drunken creature may not suspect anything.”

Once in the linen-room, Valentine ordered all the doors to be carefully secured. La Couteau was standing there with a sturdy young person of five-and-twenty, who carried a superb-looking infant in her arms. She had dark hair, a low forehead, and a broad face, and was very respectably dressed. And she made a little courtesy like a well-trained nurse, who has already served with gentlefolks and knows how to behave. But Valentine’s embarrassment remained extreme; she looked at the nurse and at the babe like an ignorant woman who, though her elder children had been brought up in a room adjoining her own, had never troubled or concerned herself about anything. In her despair, seeing that Santerre kept to himself, she again appealed to Mathieu, who once more excused himself. And it was only then that La Couteau, after glancing askance at the gentleman who, somehow or other, always turned up whenever she had business to transact, ventured to intervene:

“Will madame rely on me? If madame will kindly remember, I once before ventured to offer her my services, and if she had accepted them she would have saved herself no end of worry. That Marie Lebleu is impossible, and I certainly could have warned madame of it at the time when I came to fetch Marie’s child. But since madame’s doctor had chosen her, it was not for me to speak. Oh! she has good milk, that’s quite sure; only she also has a good tongue, which is always dry. So if madame will now place confidence in me—”

Then she rattled on interminably, expatiating on the respectability of her calling, and praising the value of the goods she offered.

“Well, madame, I tell you that you can take La Catiche with your eyes shut. She’s exactly what you want, there’s no better in Paris. Just look how she’s built, how sturdy and how healthy she is! And her child, just look at it! She’s married, she even has a little girl of four at the village with her husband. She’s a respectable woman, which is more than can be said for a good many nurses. In a word, madame, I know her and can answer for her. If you are not pleased with her I myself will give you your money back.”

In her haste to get it all over Valentine made a great gesture of surrender. She even consented to pay one hundred francs a month, since La Catiche was a married woman. Moreover, La Couteau explained that she would not have to pay the office charges, which would mean a saving of forty-five francs, though, perhaps, madame would not forget all the trouble which she, La Couteau, had taken. On the other hand, there would, of course, be the expense of taking La Catiche’s child back to the village, a matter of thirty francs. Valentine liberally promised to double that sum; and all seemed to be settled, and she felt delivered, when she suddenly bethought herself of the other nurse, who had barricaded herself in her room. How could they get her out in order to install La Catiche in her place?