Читать книгу The Complete Early Novels - Emile Zola - Страница 21

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JACQUES’ SUPPER.

LAST evening, there was a grand fête at Jacques’ apartment. Pâquerette came in the afternoon to tell us that our neighbors expected us to supper at. eleven o’clock. Imprisoned as I was for lack of clothing, I did not refuse the invitation, being desirous of procuring some amusement for Laurence.

After Pâquerette’s departure, we debated the important question of pantaloons. It was decided that Laurence should cut me out a pair of short breeches from a piece of green serge, which had long lain about upon the floor. She went to work, and, two hours afterwards, I was costumed like a lighterman in a shirt of doubtful whiteness, with a strip of damask around my waist to support my breeches.

Laurence then cleaned her blue silk dress, as much as possible, with a dampened rag. She brightened it up by stretching the stuff over one of her knees and rubbing it; she even pushed the repairs so far as to sew around the sleeves and corsage a little lace, which had once been white but was now yellow and rumpled.

Our entrance was triumphal. Jacques and Marie pretended to believe that a bit of pleasantry was intended; they applauded us, as actors are applauded who attain the effect they desire to produce. I was a trifle ashamed; I did not feel at ease until no one paid any further attention to my short breeches of green serge.

We found Pâquerette installed in an armchair. I know not how that little old woman ever managed to get into the apartment of Jacques, who is a cold young man and but little of a talker. She has the suppleness of a serpent and a honeyed and trembling voice which force the best closed doors. She appeared perfectly at home; she spread herself out carefully, passing her dry hands over her skirts, partially throwing back her head, opening and shutting her gray eyes lost among the wrinkles of her face. She seemed to taste in advance the delicacies placed beside her on a table.

Marie, who had arisen on our arrival, seated herself again in a corner of the sofa; the flushes on her cheeks shone more brightly than usual, and she laughed, displaying her white teeth. Jacques, standing before the mantelpiece, politely listened to what she had to say, always grave but affectionate, almost smiling.

They had brought forward chairs for us. The chamber was brilliantly lighted by two candelabra, each containing five candles, placed upon the table. This table, loaded with bottles and plates, had been pushed against the wall to make room, there to await its opportunity to occupy the middle of the apartment. The curtains of the bed were drawn; the floor, the hangings and the furniture seemed to have been brushed and washed with care. We were in the midst of luxury, in the midst of festivity.

I was about to participate, for the first time, in one of those suppers of which I had formerly dreamed in Provence. I was calm and self-possessed. Laurence smiled and I was happy in her joy. There is in the brightness of candles, in the sight of bottles red with wine, of plates full of cakes and cold meats, in the sensation produced by a close chamber, luminous and saturated with indefinable perfumes, a sort of physical comfort which puts thought to sleep. My companion, her lips parted, had, doubtless, again found well-known odors in that apartment. As for me, I felt the blood flow with increased warmth and rapidity in my veins; I experienced an inclination to laugh and drink, urged on by my now thoroughly awakened nature.

Besides, the chamber was quiet, the bursts of gayety softened, the entertainment decent and orderly. We drank a glass of Madeira, talking with the utmost calmness. This tranquility made me impatient, I was tempted to cry out. The two young women had taken places beside Pâquerette, and the trio were conversing in low tones. I heard the broken voice of the old woman like a murmur, while Jacques was explaining to me the reason of the festival. He had just passed an examination successfully and was celebrating the event. He was more expansive and less the practical man than usual; he abandoned his customary gravity further, forgetting to talk of his future position, going even so far as to speak of his youth. Jacques, to tell the plain truth, was intoxicated with joy; he consented to play the fool, because he was a step higher up on the ladder leading to wisdom.

Finally we went to table. I had waited for this moment. I filled my glass and drank. I was exceedingly hungry, as was natural with a man who lived on crusts; but I disdained the cakes and the cold meats; I turned my attention to the wine, white or red. I did not drink from need of intoxication, I drank for the sake of drinking, because it seemed to me that I was there to empty my glass. I acquitted myself of that task most conscientiously, and I experienced a sensation of joy on feeling my limbs grow weaker little by little and my ideas become confused.

At the expiration of half an hour, the flames of the candles paled and spread out, the chamber grew red in every part, a dim and vacillating red. My reason, which had been wavering, was strengthened in a strange fashion; it had acquired a frightful lucidity. I was intoxicated; I must have had upon my countenance the stupid mask and idiotic smile of drunkards; but, within me, in the depths of my intelligence, I felt myself calm and sensible, I reasoned in full liberty. It was a terrible species of drunkenness; I suffered from the weakening of my body, which was greatly overcome, and from the vigor of my mind, which saw and judged.

Amid the clatter of glasses and forks, I looked at the women and Jacques, who were laughing and chatting among themselves. Their visages and their words came to me sharply and clearly, producing a sensation painful in its sharpness and penetration. My love was still in me, troubling and transforming my being; but the man of other days, the philosophical reasoner, had been again awakened. I took delight in my intoxication and in Laurence, at the same time thoroughly comprehending the nature of these two disgraces.

Jacques was seated at my left; I know not if he had succeeded in intoxicating himself; however, he feigned to be under the influence of liquor. Seated opposite to me were the three women, Marie on my right, then Pâquerette, then Laurence, who was on Jacques’ left. My looks were fixed upon these women, who seemed to me to possess new visages and tones of voice.

I had not seen Marie since the day I had found her upon the sofa, white and languishing. Then, she looked like a young girl in the last stage of consumption. Now, her flaxen locks hanging loosely, her face flushed with excitement, her cheeks tinged with a pale violet, she agitated her bare arms with the fever of an ignorant child who is marching to her first delight. I was bewildered by the brightness of her youthful countenance.

I cannot describe the painful sensation produced in me by this creature, who had thrown off her agony to laugh and drink, to try to enjoy the delicious anguish of that life which she had unconsciously lived in her childish innocence. As I stared at her, quivering and with her hair thus dishevelled, her eyes flashing and her lips humid, it seemed to me, in the bewilderment of my intoxication, that I was gazing upon some expiring creature, who, on her death bed, suddenly hears the voice of her senses and her heart, and who, hesitating, not knowing what to do at that supreme moment, nevertheless does not wish to die before having satisfied her vague longings.

Laurence also had grown exceedingly animated. She was almost beautiful amid her unwonted excitement. Her visage had assumed a terrible expression of frankness and abandonment, which imparted to each of her features a look of the utmost insolence; her entire countenance had become lengthened; broad, square sections, crossed by deep lines, divided in a marked manner her cheeks and throat into firm and disdainful masses. She was pale, and several beads of perspiration stood on her forehead at the roots of her hair which was puffed straight up on her low, flat head. Reclining in her armchair, her face dead and distorted, her eyes black and glowing, she appeared to me like the frightful image of a woman who has weighed in her hand all the delights of the world and who now refuses them, finding them too light. At times, I fancied that she looked at me, shrugging her shoulders, that she smiled on me in pity, and that I heard her say to me, in a hoarse and horrid whisper: “So you love me, do you? What do you want of me? Physically I am no more than a corpse, and as for a heart, I never had one!”

Pâquerette looked thinner and more wrinkled than I had ever seen her before. Her face, like a dried apple, seemed to be more wasted than usual and had acquired a faint tinge of brick red. Her eyes were no longer anything but two brilliant points. She wagged her head in a mild and amiable way, chattering like a sharp-toned bird organ. She enjoyed, besides, perfect calmness, although she alone had eaten and drunk as much as all the rest of us together.

I stared at all three of them. The confusion of my brain, which exaggerated their dimensions, made them oscillate strangely before me. I said to myself that every species of dissipation was represented at this festival: youthful and careless dissipation, dissipation ripe in its frankness, dissipation which has grown old and lives amid its whitened locks on the remembrance of its follies of other days. For the first time, I saw these women together, side by side. They alone were a whole world in themselves. Pâquerette ruled, as became her old age; she presided; she called the two unfortunates who caressed her “my daughters.” There was, however, intense cordiality between them; they talked to each other like sisters, without thinking of the difference in their ages. My bewildered glances confounded the three heads; I knew no longer above which forehead was the white hair.

Jacques and I were opposite to these women. We were young; we were celebrating a success of intelligence. I was on the point of quitting the apartment, brothers, and running to you. Then, I indulged in a burst of laughter, a very loud one, without doubt, for the women stared at me in astonishment. I said to myself that this was the kind of society amid which I was destined, for the future, to live. I closed my eyes and saw angels, clad in long blue robes, who were ascending in a pale light, full of sparks.

The supper had been exceedingly gay. We had sung and we had talked. It seemed to me that the chamber was filled with a thick smoke, which stopped up my throat and stung my eyes. Then, everything whirled about; I thought that I was going to sleep, when I heard a distant voice, which cried out, with the sound of a cracked bell:

“We must embrace each other! we must embrace each other!”

I half opened my eyes, and saw that the cracked bell was Pâquerette, who had just climbed upon her chair. She was shaking her arms and giggling.

“Jacques! Jacques!” cried she, “embrace Laurence! She is a good girl, and I give her to you to drive away your weariness! And you, Claude, poor sleepy child, embrace Marie, who loves you and offers you her lips! Come, let us embrace each other, let us embrace each other and amuse ourselves a trifle!”

And the little old woman sprang from her armchair to the floor.

Jacques leaned over and gave a kiss to Laurence, who immediately returned it. Then, I turned towards Marie, who, with outstretched arms and head thrown back, was waiting for me. I was about to kiss her on the forehead, when she threw her head still further back and offered me her mouth. The light of the candles fell upon her face. My eyes were fixed on her eyes, and I noticed in the depths of her glance a brightness of a pure blue tint which seemed to me to be her soul.

As I bent down, still contemplating Marie’s soul, I felt the touch of cold lips on my neck. I turned instantly; Pâquerette was there, laughing, clapping her dry hands. She had embraced Jacques and had come to embrace me in my turn. I wiped my neck, with a shiver of disgust.

Seven o’clock struck; a wan brightness announced the advent of day. All was over; we had now nothing to do but to separate. As I was leaving the room, Jacques threw across my shoulder a coat and a pair of pantaloons which I did not even think of refusing. Pâquerette ascended the stairs in front of us, bearing a candle in her hand and holding aloft her thin arm that she might the better illuminate our way.

When we had reached our garret, I thought of the embraces we had exchanged. I looked at Laurence; I imagined that I saw her lips red from contact with Jacques’ lips. I had still before me, in the gloom, the blue glimmer which had burned in the depths of Marie’s eyes. I trembled, I knew not why, at the vague thoughts which came to me; then, I fell into a restless and feverish slumber. As I slept, I again felt on my neck the cold and painful sensation produced by Pâquerette’s mouth; I dreamed that I passed my hand over my skin, but that I could not free myself from those frightful lips which were freezing me.