Complete Works of Emile Zola (416 page)

‘You don’t look at my portrait, godfather,’ Clorinde said to him all at once.

She called him godfather by reason of their intimacy. The old man stepped behind Luigi, and screwed up his eyes with the air of a connoisseur. ‘Splendid!’ he exclaimed.

Rougon also came up, and Clorinde herself jumped off the table to get a better view. All three of them were delighted. The picture was excellent, they said. The artist had already covered the entire canvas with a thin coating of pink and white and yellow, as pale as though it were a mere water-colour wash. The face was wreathed into a pretty dollish smile, the lips were curved into a bow, and the eyebrows symmetrically arched, while the cheeks glowed with soft ver­milion. It was a Diana, fit for the lid of some box of sweetmeats.

‘Oh, just look at that little freckle close to the eye!’ cried Clorinde, clapping her hands in admiration: ‘Luigi forgets nothing!’

Rougon, whom pictures generally wearied, was charmed. Just then he appreciated art, and in a tone of earnest con­viction he pronounced this judgment: ‘It is admirably drawn.’

‘And the colouring is excellent,’ added M. de Plouguern. ‘Those shoulders look like real flesh. And what arms! But the dear child has really got the most wonderful arms! I admire that full roundness below the bend of the arm im­mensely; it is perfect.’ Then, turning to the artist, he added: ‘Pray accept my compliments, Monsieur Pozzo. I have already seen a picture of a woman bathing by you. But this portrait will certainly excel it. Why don’t you exhibit? I knew a diplomatist who played marvellously well upon the violin, and yet it didn’t prevent him from attaining great success in his profession.’

Luigi bowed, feeling highly flattered. The daylight was now fast waning, and so, saying that he wished to finish an ear, he begged Clorinde to resume her position for another ten minutes. Meantime, M. de Plouguern and Rougon went on discussing art. The latter confessed that his special studies had prevented him from following the artistic move­ment of recent years, but he expressed great admiration for fine productions. He went on to say that he was not much affected by colour, but preferred good drawing — drawing which was capable of elevating the soul and inspiring it with great thoughts. M. de Plouguern, on his side, only cared about the old masters. He had visited all the galleries in Europe, and could not understand, said he, how the moderns had the hardihood to go on painting. All the same, he confessed that only the previous month he had had a little room of his decorated by an artist who was quite unknown, but who certainly possessed great genius.

‘He has painted me some little cupids and flowers and foliage with extraordinary skill. You might positively think you could pluck the flowers. And there are some insects on them, butterflies, cockchafers, and flies, which you could almost swear were alive. It is very amusing. I like amusing pictures.’

‘Art should not weary one,’ retorted Rougon.

Just at this moment, as they were slowly pacing the room side by side, one of M. de Plouguern’s boot-heels crushed something which gave out a sharp sound. ‘Hallo! What’s that?’ he cried.

Then he picked up a chaplet, which had slipped off an arm-chair into which Clorinde had doubtless emptied her pockets. One of the glass beads near the cross had been shivered to atoms, and an arm of the cross itself, a very small silver one, was bent and flattened. The old man dangled the chaplet in his hand, and said with a slight snigger: ‘My dear, why do you leave these playthings of yours lying about?’

Clorinde, however, had turned quite crimson. She sprang off the table, with swollen lips, and tears of anger welling into her eyes, and, as she rapidly covered up her shoulders, she stammered: ‘Oh, the wretch! the wretch! he has broken my chaplet!’

She snatched it from him, and then burst into sobs like a child.

‘There! there!’ said M. de Plouguern, still laughing. ‘Just look at my little devotee! The other day she nearly tore my eyes out because I noticed a branch of palm over her bed and asked her what she used that little besom for. There now, don’t cry, you great goose! I haven’t broken your Divinity.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she cried,’ you have injured it.’ With trembling hands she removed the fragments of the bead, and then, with a fresh outburst of sobs, she tried to put the cross right again. She wiped it with her finger tips, as though she saw drops of blood oozing through the metal.

‘It was the Pope who gave me this,’ she sobbed, ‘the first time I went with mother to see him. He knows me very well, and he calls me his “fair apostle,” because I told him one day that I should be glad to die for him. It was a chaplet that brought me good luck. But now it has lost its virtue, and it will attract the devil — ‘

‘Here, give it to me!’ interrupted M. de Plouguern, ‘you will only break your nails by trying to straighten it. Silver is hard, my dear.’

He took the chaplet from her and tried to straighten the arm of the cross, using great care so as not to break it. Clorinde had ceased crying, and watched him attentively. Rougon, too, smilingly craned his head forward. He was deplorably irreligious; so much so, indeed, that the girl had twice all but broken with him on account of his ill-considered pleasantries.

‘The deuce!’ muttered M. de Plouguern, ‘this divinity of yours isn’t very tender! I’m afraid of snapping it in two, and then you would have to get another one.’

He made a fresh attempt and this time the arm of the cross broke off. ‘Oh! so much the worse!’ he cried; ‘it is broken this time.’

At this Rougon began to laugh again. But Clorinde, with angry eyes and convulsed face, sprang back glaring at them, and then fell upon them furiously with her fists, as though she wished to drive them out of the room. She railed at them in Italian, quite beside herself.

‘She’s giving it us! she’s giving it us!’ cried M. de Plouguern gaily.

‘Such are the fruits of superstition,’ muttered Rougon between his teeth.

The old man ceased his jesting and suddenly assumed a grave expression; and then as Rougon continued to declaim in conventional phraseology against the detestable influence of the priesthood, the shocking training of Catholic women, and the degradation of priest-ridden Italy, the other drily exclaimed: ‘Religion makes the greatness of states.’

‘When it doesn’t eat them away like an ulcer,’ replied Rougon. ‘It’s matter of history. If the Emperor doesn’t keep the Bishops in check, he will soon have them all on his back.’

Thereupon M. de Plouguern in his turn grew angry. He defended Rome, and talked of what had been the convictions of his whole life. Without religion, he protested, men would return to the condition of brutes. Then he went on to plead the great cause of family ties. The times were becoming full of abomination. Never before had vice been so impudently paraded; never before had impiety worked such woe in men’s consciences.

‘Don’t talk to me of your Empire!’ he ended by crying; ‘it is the bastard son of the Revolution. Oh! we are quite aware that your Empire dreams of humiliating the Church. But we are wide-awake, and we shall not allow ourselves to be slaughtered like mere sheep. Just try to ventilate those doctrines of yours in the Senate, my dear Monsieur Rougon.’

‘Oh, don’t talk to him any more,’ retorted Clorinde. ‘If you push him too far, he will spit on the crucifix. He is doomed.’

Rougon bowed, quite overcome by this onset. Then there was a fresh pause, while the girl searched on the floor for the arm that had fallen from the cross. When she had found it, she carefully wrapt it with the chaplet in a piece of newspaper. She was growing calmer.

‘Ah now, my dear!’ M. de Plouguern suddenly exclaimed, ‘I haven’t told you why I came to see you. I have got a box at the Palais Royal for this evening, and I’m going to take you and your mother with me.’

‘Oh, you dear godfather!’ cried Clorinde, turning quite rosy again with pleasure. ‘I’ll send to have mother awakened.’

Then she gave the old man a kiss, by way of reward, she said; and afterwards turning to Rougon with a smile, and, offering her hand, she said with the sweetest little pout: ‘You don’t bear me a grudge, do you? Please don’t make me angry again with your pagan talk. I lose my head when anyone makes fun of religion: I should quarrel with my best friends over it.’

Luigi had by this time pushed his easel into a corner, having lost all hope of getting the ear finished that day. He took up his hat, and tapped the girl on the shoulder to apprize her of his departure. She accompanied him on to the landing, closing the door behind her as she left the room. However, they took leave of one another very noisily, for a slight scream of Clorinde’s rang out, drowned in a burst of smothered laughter. When she returned to the room, she said: ‘I’ll go to dress now, unless my godfather would like to take me to the Palais Royal as I am.’

They all laughed at the notion. It was now dusk. When Rougon took his leave, Clorinde went downstairs with him, leaving M. de Plouguern by himself while she went to dress. It was already dark on the staircase as Clorinde descended it in front of Rougon without speaking a word, and so slowly that he felt the rustle of her gauze costume. When she reached the door of her bedroom she took a step or two forward before turning round. Rougon had followed her to the threshold. ‘You won’t bear me a grudge, will you?’ she repeated in a low tone, again offering him her hands.

He assured her that he would not; but as he once more took hold of her hands his grip was so rough, so threatening almost, that Clorinde made all haste to escape from him, and while he stood panting there he heard her calling through an inner door which had been left open: ‘Antonia, bring a light and get me my grey dress.’

When Rougon reached the avenue of the Champs Elysées he felt dazed, and stood still for a moment to inhale the fresh breeze which was blowing down from the Arc de Triomphe. The gas-lamps of the avenue, where now not a vehicle re­mained, were being lighted one by one, spangling the dark­ness with a trail of vivid sparks. Rougon felt as if he had just had an apoplectic fit, and rubbed his face with his hands.

‘Ah, no!’ he suddenly exclaimed aloud, ‘no, no — it would be too foolish!’

CHAPTER IV

AN IMPERIAL CHRISTENING

The baptismal procession was to start from the Pavilion de l’Horloge — the central pavilion of the Tuileries palace — at five o’clock. It was to wend its way along the main avenue of the Tuileries gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the Rue de Rivoli, the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, the Arcole bridge, the Rue d’Arcole and the Place du Parvis.

By four o’clock there was an immense crowd assembled near the Arcole bridge. There, in the breach which the river made in the midst of the city, a whole people could find accommodation. The view expanded, with the Ile Saint Louis in the distance barred by the black line of the Louis-Philippe bridge. The narrow arm of the Seine on the left vanished amid a mass of low buildings; while the broader one on the right afforded a far-reaching prospect bathed in purplish vapour, through which the trees of the Port aux Vins showed in a green patch. On both sides of the river, from the Quai Saint Paul to the Quai de la Mégisserie, from the Quai Napoléon to the Quai de l’Horloge, were long foot-pavements and roadways; while, in front of the bridge, the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville afforded a large, open, level space. And over all the wide expanse, the sky, a bright, warm June sky, spread a vault of blue.

When the half hour struck, there were people everywhere. All along the footways endless lines of eager spectators were pressed against the quay parapets. A sea of human heads, which was continually surging, filled the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Opposite, in the dark gaps of the open windows of the old houses on the Quai Napoléon, faces were thickly crowding, and even in the gloomy alleys leading to the river, the Rue Colombe, the Rue Saint Landry and the Rue Glatigny, women’s caps, with ribbons streaming in the breeze, could be seen leaning forward. The bridge of Notre Dame displayed a serried row of sight-seers, whose elbows rested on the stone parapet, as on the balustrade of some colossal balcony. Further down, the Louis Philippe bridge swarmed with little black figures; and even the most distant windows streaking the grey and yellow house-fronts were every now and then brightened by some gay dress. There were men on the roofs among the chimney stacks. People, who could not be dis­tinguished, were looking through telescopes from their terraces on the Quai de la Tournelle. And the sunlight spreading over all seemed like the very quiver of the crowd; it bore afar the laughter of those surging heads, while gay, mirror-like parasols reflected the glow, showing as planets amidst all the medley of skirts and coats.

But there was one thing that was visible from every side, from the quays and bridges and windows, and that was a fresco painting of a colossal grey overcoat on the blank wall of a six-storeyed house on the isle of St. Louis. The sleeve of this coat was bent at the elbow as though the garment still retained the shape and attitude of a body that had disappeared from within it. In the bright sunshine, above all the swarming sight-seers, this gigantic advertisement presented a most con­spicuous appearance.
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A double line of troops kept the roadway clear for the procession. National Guards were drawn up on the right hand, and infantrymen of the Line on the left. At one end, this military cordon expended to the Rue d’Arcole, which was gaudy with banners, while from the windows hung costly draperies which flapped languidly against the dingy house-fronts. The bridge, to which the crowd had not been admitted, was the only clear spot amidst the general invasion, and it presented a strange appearance, thus deserted. But, lower down, on the river banks, the crowding began again. Shopkeepers in Sunday clothes had spread out their pocket-handkerchiefs and seated themselves beside their wives to rest after a whole afternoon of lounging idleness. On the other side of the bridge, where the river expanded, showing a deep blue shot with green just where its arms united, there were some boatmen in red jackets who were working their oars to keep their boat on a level with the Port aux Fruits. By the Quai de Gèvres, too, there was a floating laundry, with wooden walls green with moisture, in which washerwomen could be heard laughing and beating their clothes. And all the teeming sight-seers, numbering from three to four hundred thousand people, now and again raised their heads to glance at the towers of Notre Dame which rose up square and mas­sive above the houses of the Quai Napoléon. Gilded by the declining sun, so that they looked ruddy against the clear sky, the towers resounded with the clanging peals of their bells, which sent a quiver through the atmosphere.