Pot Luck Page 40

  ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ he enquired.

  ‘Well, my lad,’ replied Bachelard, in familiar fashion, ‘if you like we’ll settle the whole thing for you. It’s stupid to fight a duel about it.’

  At this conclusion no one seemed surprised. Duveyrier nodded approvingly. Bachelard went on:

  ‘I’ll go with Monsieur Duveyrier and see the chap, and make the brute apologize, or my name isn’t Bachelard. The mere sight of me will make him cave in, just because I’m an outsider to all this. I don’t care a damn for anybody!’

  Auguste shook him by the hand but did not seem much relieved, for he had such a splitting headache. At length they left the private room. Beside the kerb the driver was still having his lunch inside the cab. He was quite drunk and had to shake all the crumbs out, while giving Trublot a friendly poke in the stomach. But the poor horse, which had had nothing, refused to budge, and merely gave a despairing wag of the head. After a few slaps and pushes, however, it reeled forward, along the Rue de Tournon.

  It had struck four before they stopped in the Rue de Choiseul. Auguste had had the cab for seven hours. Trublot, who stayed inside, said that he would hire it himself and would wait for Bachelard, whom he was going to invite to dinner.

  ‘Well, you’ve been a long while!’ said Théodore to his brother as he ran to meet him. ‘I was beginning to think you were dead!’

  As soon as the others had gone into the shop, he related the day’s events. Ever since nine o’clock he had been watching the house, but nothing had happened. At two o’clock Valérie had gone with Camille to the Tuileries. Then, at about half-past three, he had seen Octave go out. That was all; no sign of life, even at the Josserands’, so that Saturnin, who had been looking under all the furniture for his sister, had at last gone up to ask for her, when Madame Josserand, to get rid of him, had slammed the door in his face, saying that Berthe was not there. Since then the madman had been prowling about, grinding his teeth.

  ‘All right!’ said Bachelard, ‘we’ll wait for the gentleman. We’ll see him come back from here.’

  Auguste, his head in a whirl, was struggling to keep on his feet, until Duveyrier advised him to go to bed. It was the only cure for migraine.

  ‘Just go upstairs; we don’t need you any more. We’ll let you know the result. My dear fellow, it’s no good being upset about it—there’s no point.’

  So the husband went upstairs to bed. At five o’clock the two others were still waiting for Octave. He had gone out for no particular reason, except to get a little fresh air and forget the disagreeable adventures of the night, and had walked past the Ladies’ Paradise. Madame Hédouin, in deep mourning, stood at the door, and he stopped to bid her good-day. On telling her that he had left the Vabres, she quietly asked why he did not come back to her. Without a second thought the whole thing was settled there and then, in a moment. After bidding her farewell, and promising to come the next day, he went strolling along, full of vague regrets. Chance always seemed to upset his calculations. Absorbed by various schemes, he wandered about the neighbourhood for more than an hour when, looking up, he saw that he was in the dark alley leading out of the Passage Saint-Roch. In the darkest corner, opposite him, at the door of a cheap lodging-house, Valérie was bidding farewell to a gentleman with a black beard. She blushed and tried to get away through the padded door of the church. Then, seeing that Octave smilingly followed her, she decided to wait for him in the porch, where they chatted cordially to each other.

  ‘You’re avoiding me,’ he said. ‘Are you angry with me?’

  ‘Angry?’ she rejoined. ‘Why should I be angry with you? They can scratch each other’s eyes out, if they like; I really don’t care.’

  She was alluding to her relations. She immediately gave vent to her old resentment towards Berthe, at first sounding the young man out by various allusions. Then, feeling that he was secretly tired of his mistress and furious still at the events of the previous night, she no longer restrained herself but poured out her heart. To think that that woman had accusd her of sellling herself, she who never accepted a sou, not even a present! Well, a few flowers sometimes, a bunch or two of violets. But now everybody knew which of them sold herself. She had prophesied that one day they would find out how much it cost to have her.

  ‘It cost you more than a bunch of violets, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it did,’ he muttered.

  Then, in his turn, he let out some rather disagreeable things about Berthe, saying how spiteful she was, even asserting that she was too fat, as if avenging himself for all the worry she had caused him. All day long he had been expecting her husband’s seconds, and he was now going home to see if anybody had called. A stupid business altogether; she could easily have prevented a duel of this sort. And he ended by giving an account of their absurd assignation, their quarrel, and Auguste’s arrival on the scene before they had so much as kissed each other.

  ‘By all that I hold most sacred!’ he said, ‘I hadn’t even touched her.’

  Valérie laughed. She was getting quite excited, for she was being allowed to share his confidences in the most tender, intimate way, and she drew closer to him as if to some woman friend who knew all. Several times some devout worshipper coming out of the church disturbed them; then the door closed again gently and they found themselves alone, safely shrouded in the green baize hangings of the porch as if in some secure and saintly haven of refuge.

  ‘I can’t think why I live with such people,’ she continued, referring to her relatives. ‘Oh, I’m sure I’m not blameless! But, frankly, I don’t feel at all guilty as I care so little for them. And if you only knew how boring all these love affairs are!’

  ‘Come now, it’s not as bad as all that,’ cried Octave gaily. ‘People aren’t always as idiotic as we were yesterday. They have a good time now and then!’

  Then she made a clean breast of it. It was not merely hatred for her husband, the fever that perpetually shook him to pieces, his impotence, and his eternal whimpering—it was not all this that drove her to be unfaithful six months after her marriage. No, she often did it without wanting to, simply because things came into her head for which she could give no sort of explanation. She went to pieces, and felt so ill that she could almost have killed herself. Since there was nothing to hold her back, she might as well take that plunge as any other.

  ‘But do you really never enjoy it?’ asked Octave again, who apparently was only interested in this particular point.

  ‘Well, not as people describe,’ she answered. ‘I swear I don’t!’

  He looked at her full of sympathy and pity. All for nothing, and without getting any pleasure out of it! Surely it was not worth all the trouble she took, in her perpetual fear of being caught. He especially felt soothed in his wounded pride, for her old scorn of him still rankled. So that was why she would not let him have her one evening! He reminded her of the incident.

  ‘Do you remember, after one of your fits of hysterics?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I remember. I didn’t dislike you, but I felt so uninterested in that sort of thing! And it was better that way, because we would have hated each other by now.’

  She gave him her little gloved hand. Squeezing it, he repeated:

  ‘You’re right; it was better that way. In fact, one only has feelings for the women one has never had!’

  It was quite a touching scene. Hand in hand they stood there for a moment, deeply affected. Then, without another word, they pushed open the padded church-door, as she had left her son Camille inside in the charge of the woman who let out the chairs. The child had fallen asleep. She made him kneel down, and knelt down herself for a moment, her head in her hands, as if immersed in a fervent prayer. Just as she was about to rise Father Mauduit, coming out of a confessional, greeted her with a fatherly smile.

  Octave had simply passed through the church. When he got home the whole house was in a flutter. Only Trublot, asleep in the cab, did not see him. Tradespeople at their shop-d
oors eyed him gravely. The stationer opposite still stared at the house-front, as if to scrutinize the very stones themselves. The charcoal-dealer and the greengrocer, however, had grown calmer and the neighbourhood had relapsed into its frigidly dignified state. Lisa was gossiping with Adèle in the doorway and, as Octave passed, was obliged to be satisfied with staring at him; then they both went on complaining about the high price of poultry, while Monsieur Gourd eyed them sternly as he greeted the young man. While he was going upstairs Madame Juzeur, on the watch ever since the morning, gently opened her door and, catching hold of his hands, drew him into her hall, where she kissed him on the forehead, murmuring:

  ‘Poor boy! There, I won’t keep you now. But come back for a chat after it’s all over.’

  He had hardly got to his apartment when Duveyrier and Bachelard called. Astonished at seeing the latter, he sought at first to give the names of two of his friends. But, without replying, these gentlemen spoke of their age and gave him a lecture about his bad behaviour. Then, as in the course of conversation he announced his intention to leave the house as soon as possible, his two visitors both solemnly declared that this proof of his tact would suffice. There had been scandal enough; it was time for him to make a sacrifice of his passions in the interest of respectable folk. Duveyrier accepted Octave’s notice to quit on the spot and departed, while Bachelard, behind his back, asked the young man to dine with him that evening.

  ‘I’m counting on you. We’re going on a spree. Trublot’s waiting for us downstairs. I don’t care a damn about Eléonore. But I don’t want to see her, and I’ll go down first so that they don’t catch us together.’

  He went downstairs. Five minutes later Octave joined him, delighted at the way in which the matter had been settled. He slipped into the cab, and the melancholy horse, which for seven hours had been dragging the husband about, now limped along with them to a restaurant at the Halles known for its astonishingly good tripe.

  Duveyrier had gone back to Théophile in the shop. Just then Valérie came in, and they were all chatting when Clotilde herself appeared, on her return from some concert. She had gone there, however, in a perfectly calm frame of mind, for, she said, she was certain that some arrangement satisfactory to everyone would be made. Then there was a silence, a moment of embarrassment for both families. Théophile, seized with a fearful fit of coughing, almost spat out his teeth. As it was in their mutual interest to make it up, they at last took advantage of the emotion occasioned by these fresh family troubles. The two women embraced; Duveyrier declared to Théophile that the Vabre inheritance was ruining him. However, by way of indemnity he promised to remit his rent for three years.

  ‘I must go up and pacify poor Auguste,’ said Duveyrier at last.

  He was climbing the stairs when he heard some hideous cries, like those of an animal about to be slaughtered, coming from the bedroom. Saturnin, armed with his kitchen-knife, had silently crept into the apartment and, with eyes like gleaming coals and frothing lips, had just leapt on Auguste.

  ‘Tell me where you’ve hidden her!’ he cried. ‘Give her back to me, or I’ll bleed you like a pig!’

  Startled thus from his painful slumber, Auguste tried to flee. But the madman, with the strength of his obsession, caught him by the tail of his shirt and, throwing him backwards, placed his neck at the edge of the bed, over a basin that happened to be there, and held him in that position as if he were an animal in a slaughterhouse.

  ‘I’ve got you this time. I’m going to bleed you; I’m going to bleed you like a pig!’

  Fortunately the others arrived in time to release the victim. Saturnin had to be shut up, for he was raving mad. Two hours later, the superintendent of police having been summoned, they took him for the second time to the Asile des Moulineaux, with the consent of his family. Poor Auguste, still trembling, remarked to Duveyrier, who had told him of the arrangement made with Octave:

  ‘No, I’d rather have fought a duel. You can’t protect yourself from a maniac. Why on earth is he so obsessed with bleeding me, the ruffian, after his sister had made a cuckold of me? I’ve had enough of it all, my good fellow, upon my word I have!’

  XVI

  On the Wednesday morning, when Marie took Berthe to see Madame Josserand, the latter, outraged at a scandal which touched her pride, turned very pale and said not a word. She took her daughter’s hand as brutally as if she were a schoolmistress dragging some naughty pupil into a dark closet. Leading her to Hortense’s bedroom, she pushed her in and exclaimed:

  ‘Stay here, and don’t show yourself. You’ll be the death of your father.’

  Hortense, who was washing, was taken completely by surprise. Crimson with shame, Berthe threw herself on the unmade bed, sobbing violently. She had expected a stormy reception and had prepared her defence, having resolved to shout too as soon as her mother went too far. But this mute severity, this way of treating her like a naughty little girl who had been eating jam on the sly, entirely upset her, recalling all the terrors of her childhood and the tears shed in corners when she penitently made solemn vows of obedience.

  ‘What’s the matter? What have you done?’ asked her sister, whose amazement increased on seeing that she was wrapped in the old shawl lent by Marie. ‘Has poor Auguste been taken ill in Lyons?’

  But Berthe would not answer. No, she would tell her later; there were things she could not say, and she begged Hortense to leave her alone to weep there quietly by herself. Thus the day went by. Monsieur Josserand had gone to his office, never dreaming that anything had occurred, and when he came home that evening Berthe was still in hiding. Having refused all food, she at last avidly devoured the little dinner which Adèle secretly brought her. The maid stopped to watch her and, noticing her appetite, said:

  ‘Don’t take on so; you must keep up your strength. The house is quiet enough, and as for any one being killed or wounded, there’s nobody hurt at all.’

  ‘Oh!’ said the young woman.

  Then she questioned Adèle, who gave her a lengthy account of the day’s proceedings, telling her of the duel that never happened and what the Duveyriers and the Vabres had done. Berthe, listening, began to feel much better, devoured everything, and asked for some more bread. It was really too silly to let the thing distress her so much when the others had apparently got over it already.

  So when Hortense joined her at about ten o’clock she greeted her very cheerfully, dry-eyed. Smothering their laughter, they had great fun, especially when Berthe tried on one of her sister’s dressing-gowns and found it too tight for her. Her breasts, which marriage had developed, almost split the fabric. Never mind, by moving the buttons she would be able to put it on the next day. They both seemed to have gone back to their girlhood days, there in the old room where for years they had lived together. This touched them, and drew them closer to one another in an affection that for a long while they had not felt. They were obliged to sleep together, for Madame Josserand had got rid of Berthe’s old bed. As they lay there side by side, with the candle blown out, their eyes wide open in the dark, they talked on and on, for they were quite unable to sleep.

  ‘So you won’t tell me?’ asked Hortense once more.

  ‘But my dear,’ replied Berthe, ‘you’re not married. I really can’t. I had an argument with Auguste. He came back, you see, and …’

  Then, as she hesitated, her sister broke in impatiently.

  ‘Don’t be silly! What rubbish! I’m quite old enough to know what you’re talking about!’

  So then Berthe confessed everything, choosing her words carefully at first, but finally telling everything about Octave and Auguste. Lying there on her back in the dark, Hortense listened, uttering a word or two every now and then to question her sister or express an opinion: ‘Well, what did he say then?’ ‘And how did you feel?’ ‘That was rather odd; I wouldn’t have liked that!’ ‘Oh, really! So that’s how you do it, is it?’ Midnight struck, then one o’clock, then two o’clock, and still they kept talking the t
hing over as their legs grew warmer under the bedclothes, though sleep did not come. In this sort of trance Berthe forgot she was with her sister and began to think aloud, relieving both mind and body of the most delicate confidences.

  ‘As for Verdier and me,’ said Hortense abruptly, ‘I’ll just do what he likes.’

  At the mention of Verdier Berthe gave a start of surprise. She thought the engagement had been broken off, for the woman with whom he had lived for fifteen years had had a child just as he was on the point of getting rid of her.

  ‘Do you mean you’re thinking of marrying him after all?’ she asked.

  ‘Well why shouldn’t I? I was a fool to wait so long. The child won’t live. It’s a girl, and full of scrofula.’

  Then, in her disgust, she spat out the word ‘mistress’, revealing all her hatred, as a respectable bourgeois spinster, for a creature like that who had been living all that time with a man. It was just a manoeuvre, nothing else, her having a baby—a pretext she had invented on discovering that Verdier, after buying some nightdresses for her so that she wouldn’t be sent away without a rag on her back, was trying to get her used to a separation by sleeping out more and more often. Ah, well! she would wait and see.

  ‘Poor thing!’ exclaimed Berthe.

  ‘Poor thing, indeed!’ cried Hortense bitterly. ‘It’s clear that you’re not exactly blameless either!’