Pot Luck Read online

  ‘I swear I haven’t,’ he cried, forgetting himself so far as to raise his voice.

  There was a pause.

  ‘How is she now?’ asked the young woman.

  ‘She’s always the same, of course. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. She thinks it’s all over now, and that she’ll never be right again.’

  Then Gasparine, with pity in her voice, continued:

  ‘It’s you, my poor friend, who are to be pitied. However, as you’ve been able to manage in another way, do tell her how sorry I am to hear that she’s still unwell …’

  Campardon, without letting her finish her sentence, had seized her by the shoulders and was kissing her roughly on the lips, in the gas-heated air that grew ever more stuffy under the low ceiling. She returned his kiss, murmuring:

  ‘Tomorrow morning, then, at six, if you can manage it. I’ll stay in bed. Knock three times.’

  Octave, astonished, but beginning to understand, coughed and then stepped forward. Another surprise awaited him. His cousin Gasparine had become shrivelled, thin and angular, with a prominent jaw and coarse hair. All she had kept of her former beauty were the large, splendid eyes in her cadaverous face. With her anxious brow and intense, stubborn mouth, she distressed him as much as Rose had charmed him by her late development into an indolent blonde.

  Gasparine, if not effusive, was polite. She remembered Plassans, and talked to the young man of old times. As Campardon and he took their leave she shook them by the hand. Downstairs Madame Hédouin simply said to Octave:

  ‘Well, then, we’ll see you tomorrow.’

  When they were in the street, deafened by cabs and jostled by passers-by, Octave could not help observing that she was certainly a very handsome woman, if not particularly affable. The windows of newly painted shops, ablaze with gas,* threw squares of bright light across the black, muddy pavement, while the older shops, with their windows dimly lit by smoking lamps, like distant stars, made the streets more gloomy with their broad patches of shadow. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, just before turning into the Rue de Choiseul, Campardon bowed as he passed one of these shops.

  A young woman, slim and elegant, wearing a silk cape, was standing in the doorway, holding a little boy of three close to her so that he would not get run over. She was talking in a friendly way to an old, bareheaded woman, evidently the shopkeeper. It was too dark for Octave to distinguish her features in the flickering gaslight, but she seemed to be pretty; he only caught sight of two bright eyes, fixed upon him for a moment like two flames. The shop stretched back behind her, dank and cellar-like, giving off a faint odour of saltpetre.

  ‘That’s Madame Valérie, the wife of Monsieur Théophile Vabre, the landlord’s younger son; you know—the people on the first floor,’ said Campardon after they had gone a little further. ‘She’s a most charming person. She was born in that very shop, one of the best-paying linen-drapers in the neighbourhood, which her parents, Monsieur and Madame Louhette, still manage, just to have something to do. They’ve made quite a pile, I can tell you!’

  But trade of that sort was beyond Octave’s comprehension, in such dingy holes of old Paris, where they used to make do with a single piece of stuff displayed in the window for a shop-sign. He vowed that nothing on earth would ever make him agree to live in the bottom of a cellar like that. You’d die of rheumatism!

  Still chatting, they reached the top of the stairs. Madame Campardon was waiting for them. She had put on a grey silk dress, arranged her hair coquettishly, and appeared very neat and elegant. Campardon kissed her on the neck, with all the emotion of a dutiful husband.

  ‘Good evening, my darling; good evening, my pet.’

  They went into the drawing-room. The dinner was delightful. At first Madame Campardon talked about the Deleuzes and the Hédouins—families well known and respected throughout the neighbourhood. A cousin of theirs was a stationer in the Rue Gaillon; an uncle kept an umbrella-shop in the Passage Choiseul; while their nephews and nieces were all in business round about. Then the conversation turned to Angèle, who was sitting upright in her chair and eating listlessly. Madame Campardon said that she was being brought up at home because it was safer; and not wishing to say any more, she blinked her eyes in order to suggest that at boarding-schools young girls learnt the most awful things. Meanwhile, the child was slyly trying to balance her plate on her knife. Lisa, who was clearing away, just missed breaking it, and exclaimed:

  ‘That was your fault, mademoiselle!’

  Angèle could barely refrain from giggling, while her mother only shook her head. When Lisa had left the room to bring in the dessert, Madame Campardon began to sing her praises—very intelligent, very active, a real Parisienne, never at a loss. They might easily do without Victoire, the cook, who because of her great age was no longer very clean; but she had been in the service of her master’s father before Campardon was born. In short, she was a family ruin who commanded their respect. Then, as the maid came back with some baked apples, Madame Campardon continued, in Octave’s ear: ‘Conduct irreproachable. So far, I’ve found nothing to complain about. Just one day off a month, when she goes to see an old aunt, who lives a good way off.’

  Octave looked at Lisa. Noticing how nervous, flat-chested, and puffy-eyed she was, he thought to himself that she must have a high old time at that aunt’s. However, he declared himself fully in agreement with Madame Campardon, who continued to impart to him her views on education: a daughter was such a big responsibility, she had to be shielded from the very breath of the streets. In the meantime, whenever Lisa leaned across near Angèle’s chair to change a plate, the child would pinch her thighs in a kind of mad familiarity, though both remained as grave as could be, neither of them batting an eyelid.

  ‘Virtue is its own reward,’ said the architect sagely, as if to draw a conclusion from thoughts he had not expressed. ‘For my part, I don’t care a damn what people think; I’m an artist!’

  After dinner, they stayed in the drawing-room until midnight. It was a sort of orgy to celebrate Octave’s arrival. Madame Campardon seemed very tired, and gradually subsided on the sofa.

  ‘Are you in pain, my darling?’ asked her husband.

  ‘No,’ she replied in a faint voice. ‘It’s the usual thing.’

  Then, looking at him, she said softly:

  ‘Did you see her at the Hédouins?’

  ‘Yes! She asked how you were.’

  Tears came to Rose’s eyes.

  ‘She’s always well, she is!’

  ‘There, there,’ said Campardon as he lightly kissed her hair, forgetting that they were not alone. ‘You’ll make yourself worse again. You know I love you all the same, my poor darling!’

  Octave, who had discreetly moved to the window under the pretence of looking into the street, came back and scrutinized Madame Campardon’s face, for his curiosity was again aroused, and he wondered if she knew. But she wore her usual expression, a mixture of amiability and dolefulness, as she curled up on the sofa, like a woman who has to find her pleasure in herself as she submits resignedly to her share of caresses.

  At length Octave bade them goodnight. Candlestick in hand, he was still on the landing when he heard the rustle of silk dresses brushing the stairs. He politely stood to one side. Evidently these were the ladies who lived on the fourth floor, Madame Josserand and her two daughters, coming home from a party. As they passed, the mother, a stout, haughty-looking woman, stared him full in his face, while the elder of the daughters stepped aside with a petulant air, and her sister looked boldly up at him and smiled in the bright light of the candle. She was very pretty, with tiny features, fair skin, and auburn hair flecked with golden reflections; and there was about her a certain intrepid grace, the carefree charm of a young bride returning from a ball, in an elaborate gown covered with bows and lace such as unmarried girls never wear. Their trains disappeared at the top of the stairs, and a door closed behind them. Octave was greatly amused by the merry twinkle in her eye.

>   He went slowly upstairs in his turn. Only one gas-jet was alight; the staircase, in this heavy, heated air, seemed fast asleep. It appeared more venerable than ever, with its chaste portals of handsome mahogany that enclosed so many respectable hearths. Not a whisper was audible, it was a silence as of well-mannered people holding their breath. But now he heard a slight noise. Leaning over the banister, he saw Monsieur Gourd, in velvet cap and slippers, turning out the last gas burner. Then the whole house was enveloped in solemn darkness, as if obliterated in the refinement and propriety of its slumbers.

  However, Octave found it hard to get to sleep. He tossed about feverishly, his brain filled with all the new faces he had seen. What on earth made the Campardons so friendly towards him? Were they dreaming of marrying their daughter to him later on? Perhaps the husband had taken him in as a boarder to give his wife some company and cheer her up. And what could the strange complaint be from which the poor woman suffered? Then his ideas grew more confused; phantoms passed before him; little Madame Pichon, his neighbour, with her vacuous look; beautiful Madame Hédouin, serious and correct in her black dress; the fiery eyes of Madame Valérie, and the merry smile of Mademoiselle Josserand. How many he had encountered in just a few hours in Paris! It had always been his dream, ladies who would take him by the hand, and help him on in business. Their images kept returning and mingling in his mind with relentless insistence. He did not know which to choose, as he strove to keep his voice soft and his gestures seductive. Then, suddenly, exhausted, exasperated, he gave way to his brutal inner nature, to the ferocious disdain of women that lay behind his air of amorous devotion.

  ‘Are they ever going to let me go to sleep?’ he said out loud, throwing himself violently on his back. ‘I’ll take on the first one that wants it, it’s all the same to me; and straight away if they like! Sleep! Sleep!’

  II

  When Madame Josserand, preceded by her daughters, left Madame Dambreville’s party in the Rue de Rivoli, on the fourth floor at the corner of the Rue de l’Oratoire, she slammed the street door in a sudden outburst of the anger she had been holding back for the last two hours. Her younger daughter Berthe had again just missed getting a husband.

  ‘Well, what are you standing there for?’ she angrily asked the girls, who had stopped under the arcade and were watching the cabs go by. ‘Walk on! You needn’t think we’re going to take a cab and waste another two francs!’

  And when Hortense, the elder, grumbled:

  ‘Hmm! It’s nice walking through all this mud! It’ll ruin my shoes.’

  ‘Walk on!’ rejoined her mother, quite beside herself. ‘When your shoes are gone, you can stay in bed, that’s all! A lot of good it is, taking you out!’

  With bowed heads, Berthe and Hortense turned into the Rue de l’Oratoire. They held their long skirts as high as they could above their crinolines, their shoulders hunched, shivering in their opera cloaks. Madame Josserand followed, wrapped in an old fur cloak that looked like a shabby cat-skin. None of them wore bonnets, but had enveloped their hair in lace wraps, a headgear that made passers-by look round in surprise as they slipped past the houses, with backs bent and eyes fixed on the puddles. Madame Josserand grew even more exasperated as she thought of many similar homecomings over the last three winters, hampered by their smart gowns, in the black mud of the streets, sniggered at by men. No, she had certainly had enough of it, of carting her daughters all over Paris, without ever daring to enjoy the luxury of a cab for fear of having to remove a dish from the following day’s dinner!

  ‘So she’s a matchmaker, is she?’ she said out loud, as she thought of Madame Dambreville, talking to herself by way of solace, not even addressing her daughters, who had turned down the Rue Saint-Honoré. ‘Fine matches she makes! A lot of impertinent hussies who come from goodness knows where! Oh, if only we weren’t obliged to go through it all! … That was her last success, I suppose—that bride she brought out just to show us she isn’t always a failure! A fine example, too! A wretched child that had an unfortunate lapse and had to be sent back to the convent for six months to get another coat of whitewash!’

  As the girls crossed the Place du Palais-Royal a shower came on. This was the last straw. Slipping and splashing about, they stopped and again cast glances at the empty cabs that rolled past.

  ‘Walk on!’ cried the mother, ruthlessly. ‘We’re too close to home now; it’s not worth forty sous … And your brother Léon, who wouldn’t leave with us for fear of having to pay for the cab! If he can get what he wants at that woman’s, so much the better! But it isn’t at all decent. A woman over fifty who only invites young men to her house! An old tart that some eminent person made that idiot Dambreville marry by bribing him with a head-clerkship!’

  Hortense and Berthe trudged along in the rain, one in front of the other, without seeming to hear. When their mother let herself go like this, forgetting the strict rules she had laid down for their fine education, it was tacitly agreed that they would act as if they were deaf. But on reaching the dark, deserted Rue de l’Echelle, Berthe rebelled.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she cried. ‘My heel’s coming off! I can’t go another step!’

  Madame Josserand became utterly furious.

  ‘Just walk on! Do I complain? Do you think it’s right for me to be traipsing about the streets at this time of night, and in such weather? It would be different if you had a father like other people. But no, my lord must stay at home and take his ease! I’m the one who has to take you to parties; he can never be bothered! I can tell you I’ve had just about enough of it. Your father can take you out in future, if he likes; you can think again if you expect me to drag you about any more to places where I only get put out! A man who completely deceived me as to his capabilities, and who has never given me the least pleasure! Oh! If ever I married again, it wouldn’t be to a man like that!’*

  The girls stopped grumbling. They already knew so well this eternal chapter in the history of their mother’s blighted hopes. With their lace mantillas sticking to their faces, and their ball-shoes soaked through, they hurried along the Rue Sainte-Anne. In the Rue de Choiseul, at the door of her own house, Madame Josserand had to undergo a final humiliation, for the Duveyriers’ carriage splashed her all over as it drew up.

  Exhausted and furious, both mother and girls recovered some of their grace and poise when they had to pass Octave on the stairs. But as soon as their door was shut they rushed headlong through the dark apartment, bumping against the furniture, till they got to the dining-room where Monsieur Josserand was writing by the feeble light of a little lamp.

  ‘Another failure!’ cried Madame Josserand, as she sank into a chair.

  She roughly tore the lace covering from her head, threw off her fur cloak, and revealed a gaudy red dress, trimmed with black satin and cut very low. She looked enormous, though her shoulders were still shapely, and resembled the shining flanks of a mare. Her square face, with its big nose and flabby cheeks, expressed all the tragic fury of a queen striving to contain her desire to lapse into the language of the gutter.

  ‘Ah!’ said Monsieur Josserand simply, bewildered by this violent entrance.

  He kept blinking uneasily. His wife positively overwhelmed him when she displayed that mammoth bosom; it seemed as if he could feel its weight crushing the back of his neck. Dressed in a threadbare frock-coat he was wearing out at home, his face haggard and dingy from thirty-five years of office work, he looked at her for a moment with his large, lacklustre eyes. Pushing his grey locks back behind his ears, he was too disconcerted to speak, and attempted to go on writing.

  ‘But you don’t seem to understand!’ continued Madame Josserand in a shrill voice. ‘That’s another marriage that hasn’t come off—the fourth!’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know—the fourth,’ he murmured. ‘It’s annoying, very annoying.’

  To avoid his wife’s terrifying nudity he turned towards his daughters with a kindly smile. They also took off their lace wraps and their cloaks; the elder
was in blue, the younger in pink, and their dresses, too daring in cut and over-trimmed, were decidedly provocative. Hortense had a sallow complexion; her face was spoilt by a nose, like her mother’s, which gave her an air of stubborn disdain. She had just turned twenty-three, but looked twenty-eight. Berthe, however, who was two years younger, had kept all her childish grace, with the same features, only more delicate, and skin of dazzling whiteness, to be menaced only by the coarse family mask when she reached fifty.

  ‘What’s the point of staring at us?’ cried Madame Josserand. ‘For God’s sake put your writing away; it gets on my nerves!’

  ‘But, my dear, I’ve got these wrappers to do!’ he said gently.

  ‘Oh, yes, I know your wrappers—three francs a thousand! Perhaps you think that those three francs will be enough to marry your daughters!’

  By the faint light of the little lamp one could see that the table was strewn with large sheets of coarse paper, printed wrappers on which Monsieur Josserand was writing addresses for a well-known publisher who had several periodicals. He could not make ends meet with his cashier’s salary, he spent whole nights at this unprofitable sort of work, doing it in secret, afraid that someone might find out how poor they were.

  ‘Three francs are three francs,’ he replied in his slow, tired voice. ‘With those three francs you’ll be able to put ribbons on your dresses, and offer cakes to your guests on Tuesdays.’

  He regretted the remark as soon as he had made it, for he felt that with Madame Josserand it had gone straight home, and had wounded her pride in its most sensitive part. Her shoulders grew purple; she seemed about to burst out with some vengeful reply, but, with a majestic effort, she merely stammered:

  ‘Goodness gracious me! Really!’ And she looked at her daughters, shrugging her terrible shoulders in magisterial scorn, as if to say: ‘There! Did you hear that? What an idiot!’