Читать книгу The Complete Early Novels - Emile Zola - Страница 28

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THE FAIR

LAST evening, in order to obtain partial relief from my sufferings, I strolled upon a fair ground. The faubourg was all gayety and the people in their Sunday clothes were noisily passing through the streets.

The lamps had just been lighted. The avenue, at regular distances, was ornamented with yellow and blue posts, which were garnished with small, colored pots, and in these pots were burning smoky wicks, the flame and smoke being whirled about by the wind. In the trees Venetian lanterns swung. Canvas booths bordered the sidewalks, allowing the fringe of their red curtains to trail in the gutters. The gilded faïences, the freshly painted bonbons and the tinsel everywhere displayed shone in the raw light of the lamps.

There was in the atmosphere an odor of dust, of spiced cake and of greasy waffles; the powdered girls who led reckless lives laughed and wept beneath a hailstorm of kisses, blows and kicks. A hot and stifling mist hung over and weighed down upon this scene of riotous joy.

Above this mist, above these noises, spread out a cloudless sky, with pure and melancholy depths. An angel had lighted up the azure fields of the heavens for some divine fête, some majestically calm fête of the infinite.

Lost amid the crowd, I felt the solitude of my heart. I walked on, following with my glances the giddy young girls who smiled upon me as they went by, and I said to myself that I should never again see their smiles. This thought of so many loving lips, dimly seen for an instant and then lost forever, gave my sad soul, already tortured by my uncertainty in regard to Laurence, an additional pang of anguish.

In this wretched frame of mind, I reached a point where a street crossed the avenue. To the left, supported by an elm tree, stood an isolated booth. In front of it, a few badly joined planks formed a species of staging, and two lanterns illuminated the door, which was simply a bit of canvas raised like a curtain. As I came to a stop, a man wearing a magician’s costume, a flowing black robe and a pointed hat sown with stars, was haranguing the crowd from the plank platform.

“Enter,” cried he, “enter my fine Messieurs, enter my beautiful Demoiselles! I have come in hot haste from the furthest extremity of India to make young hearts rejoice. It was there that I conquered, at the peril of my life, the Mirror of Love, which was watched over by a horrible dragon. My fine Messieurs, my beautiful Demoiselles, I have brought you the realization of your dreams. Enter, enter, and see the person who loves you! For two sous you can behold the person who loves you!”

An old woman, clad like a bayadère, lifted the canvas door. She looked around upon the crowd with a stupid glance; then, she cried out, in a thick voice:

“For two sous, for two sous, you can behold the person who loves you! Enter and see the person who loves you!”

The magician beat a furious fantaisie upon a huge drum. The bayadère bent over a bell and accompanied him.

The people hesitated. A learned ass playing cards excited lively interest; a Hercules lifting weights of a hundred livres each was a spectacle of which no one would ever weary; neither is it to be denied that a half-clad giant was made to agreeably amuse those of all ages. But to see the person who loves you appeared to be the thing of which the crowd thought the least, and which they imagined did not promise them the lightest emotion.

As for me, I had eagerly listened to the summons of the man with the flowing robe. His promises responded to the desire of my heart; I saw a Providence on the chance which had directed my steps hither. The miserable mountebank had acquired a singular importance in my eyes, from the astonishment which I felt at hearing him read my most secret thoughts. It seemed to me that I saw him fix flaming glances upon me, beating the huge drum with a diabolical fury, crying out to me to enter in a voice which rose above the clash of the bell.

I had placed my foot upon the first plank step when I felt myself stopped. Turning around, I saw in front of the platform a man who had grasped me by the coat. This man was tall and thin; he had large hands covered by thread gloves larger still, and wore a hat which had grown rusty, a black coat whitened at the elbows, and deplorable cassimere pantaloons, yellow with grease and mud. He bowed almost to the ground, in a long and exquisite reverence; then, in a soft, 6weet voice, he addressed to me this discourse:

“I am very sorry, Monsieur, that a well-bred young man like you should set the crowd such a bad example. It is a great shame to encourage in his impudence that wretch there, who is speculating upon our evil instincts, for I find profoundly immoral those words screamed out in the open air which summon the girls and the lads to mental and visual dissipation. Ah! Monsieur, the people are weak. We, the men whom instruction has made strong, have, believe me, grave and imperious duties to perform. Let us not yield to culpable curiosity, let us be worthy in all things. The morality of society depends upon us, Monsieur.”

I listened to his speech. He had not released my coat and could not decide to finish his reverence. With his hat in his hand, he spoke with such polite calmness that I could not think of getting angry with him. I contented myself, when he paused, with staring him in the face without replying. He saw a question in this silence.

“Monsieur,” resumed he, with a new bow, “I am the friend of the people and my mission is the well-being of humanity.”

He uttered these words with a modest pride, suddenly lifting himself to his full height. I turned my back upon him and mounted the platform. Before entering, as I lifted up the canvas curtain, I looked at him again. He had delicately taken in his right hand the fingers of his left, striving to efface the folds of his gloves which seemed upon the point of slipping off.

Then, folding his arms, the friend of the people tenderly contemplated the bayadére.

I let the curtain fall and found myself within the temple. It was a sort of long and narrow chamber, without a single chair, with walls of canvas, lighted by a single lamp. A few persons — curious girls and lads making a great noise — were already assembled there. Setting aside the noise, the utmost propriety was observed: a rope, stretched across the middle of the apartment, separated the men from the women.

The Mirror of Love, to tell the truth, consisted simply of two looking-glasses without amalgam, one on each side of the rope, small round glasses through which could be seen the interior of the booth. The promised miracle was accomplished with admirable simplicity: it sufficed to apply the right eye to one of the glasses, and beyond, without either thunder or sulphur, appeared the loving person. Who could refuse to believe in a vision so natural!

I did not feel the strength to try the power of the Mirror of Love immediately after entering. I had a vague fear that I would see Marie. As I passed into the booth, the bayadère threw a glance at me which froze my heart. What awaited me behind that glass? Should I see Laurence, who on the instant would change to some horrible monster, with sunken eyes and violet lips, a terrible vampire thirsting for youthful blood, one of those frightful creatures which I see at night in my evil dreams?

I was afraid, brothers; I retired into a corner. To recover courage, I looked at those who, bolder than myself, consulted destiny without so much hesitation.

II — experienced a singular pleasure at the sight of those different faces, the right eye wide open and the left closed with two fingers, having each its smile according as the vision pleased more or less. The glass was placed a little low; it was necessary to bend slightly, in order to look through it. I could not imagine anything more grotesque than the men coming up in single file to see the mates of their souls through a circular glass a few centimeters in circumference.

First, two soldiers advanced: a sergeant, browned by the sun of Africa, and a young conscript, having still the odor of the fields about him, his arms embarrassed by a cloak three times too large for him. The sergeant gave a skeptical laugh. The conscript remained bent for a long while, singularly flattered by having a sweetheart.

Then came a fat man in a white vest, with a red and bloated face, who gazed tranquilly without a grimace either of joy or displeasure, as if he thought it altogether natural that he should be loved by some one.

He was followed by three schoolboys, youths from fifteen to sixteen years old, with brazen mien, pushing each other to make people think that they had the honor to be intoxicated. All three of them swore that they saw their aunts in the Mirror of Love.

Thus, brothers, the curious followed each other before the mirror, and I cannot now recall the different expressions of countenance which struck me then. Oh! oh! vision of the well-beloved! what rude truths you spoke to those wide open eyes! They were the true Mirrors of Love, mirrors in which woman’s grace was reflected in a dubious light, where luxury spread out into folly.

The girls, on the other side of the rope, amused themselves in a most genuine fashion. I read only intense curiosity upon their faces, I did not see the indication of the least wicked thought. They came, turn by turn, to throw an astonished glance upon the mirror and retired, some a trifle thoughtful, others laughing like so many fools.

To speak the truth, I know not what business I had there. If I were a woman, provided I was pretty, I would never entertain the foolish idea of putting myself out to go see the man who loved me. The days when my heart should weep at being alone, if those days were days of spring and golden sunlight, I would go into a flowery path that each passerby might gaze at and adore me. In the evening, I would return rich with love.

The curious girls before me were not all equally pretty. The handsome ones derided the science of the magician; for a long time past they had had no need of him. The ugly ones, on the contrary, had never found themselves at such a fête as this. There came one of these, with thin hair and large mouth, who could not tear herself away from the magic mirror; she kept upon her lips the joyous and heartrending smile of a poor wretch satisfying her hunger after a long fast.

I asked myself what fine ideas had been awakened in these foolish heads. This was not an easy problem to solve. All of them had, without doubt, seen in their dreams princes cast themselves at their feet; all of them desired to become better acquainted with the lovers whom they remembered so confusedly on awaking. There were, certainly, many deceptions; princes are becoming rare, and the eyes of our souls, which open at night upon a better world, are eyes much more accommodating than those we employ during the day. There were also great delights: the dream was realized; the lover had the handsome moustache and the black hair seen in the vision.

Thus each one, in a few seconds, lived a life of love, innocent romances, swift as hope, which one guessed from the blushes on the cheeks and the quivers of the corsages.

After all, these girls were, perhaps, fools, and I was a fool myself to have seen so many things where there was, doubtless, nothing whatever visible. Nevertheless, I completely reassured myself by studying them. I noticed that both men and women seemed in general thoroughly satisfied with the apparition. The magician, certainly, had never been malicious enough to give the least displeasure to these good folks who had paid him two sous.

I approached, brothers; I applied, without too much emotion, my right eye to the Mirror of Love. I perceived, between two huge red curtains, a woman leaning against the back of an armchair. She was brilliantly illuminated by lamps which I could not see, and stood out in relief against a piece of painted canvas, stretched across the end of the booth; this canvas, cut in places, must formerly have represented a fine grove of blue trees I Brothers, I saw neither Marie nor Laurence. She who loved me, according to the magician’s glass, wore, like a well-bred vision, a long white robe slightly fastened at the waist, flowing upon the floor like a cloud. She had across her forehead a wide veil, also white, held in place by a crown of hawthorn flowers. Thus clad, the dear angel was all whiteness, all innocence.

She leaned coquettishly against the back of the armchair, turning towards me large, caressing blue eyes. She seemed to me superb beneath the veil: she had flaxen tresses which were lost amid the muslin, a frank and pure forehead, delicate lips, dimples which were nests for kisses. At the first glance, brothers, I took her for a saint; at the second, I saw she had the air of a good girl and was not in the least conceited.

She lifted three fingers to her lips, and sent me a kiss, with a courtesy which did not in the least suggest the realm of shadows. Observing that she was not disposed to fly away, I fixed her features in my memory and retired from the mirror.

As I was quitting the booth, I saw my acquaintance, the friend of the people, enter. This grave moralist, who seemed to shun me, hastened to set the bad example of culpable curiosity. His long spine, bent in a semicircle, shook with emotion; then, being unable to get nearer, he kissed the magic glass.

I descended the three plank steps of the platform; I found myself again in the crowd, decided to seek the girl who loved me now that I knew her smile.

The lamps smoked, the tumult was increasing, the people pushed along with such reckless haste that they nearly overturned the booths. The fête was at that hour of ideal joy in which, in order to be happy, one risks being suffocated.

On straightening myself up, I had before me a horizon of linen caps and silk hats. I advanced, pushing the men, cautiously getting around the great skirts of the women. Perhaps the girl who loved me was wrapped in that pink cloak; perhaps her head was beneath that tulle hood ornamented with mauve ribbons; perhaps she wore that delicious straw hat with an ostrich feather in it. Alas! the owner of the cloak was sixty; the hood, which concealed an abominably ugly face, leaned lovingly upon the shoulder of a sapper; she who wore the hat was laughing heartily, opening widely the most beautiful eyes in the world — but I did not recognize those beautiful eyes.

Brothers, above crowds hover I know not what anguish and what sorrow, as if the multitude had sent up a breath of terror and pity. Never do I find myself amid a great assemblage of people without experiencing a vague uneasiness. It seems to me that some frightful misfortune menaces these assembled men, that a single flash of lightning will suffice, amid the excitement of their gestures and voices, to strike them with motionlessness, with eternal silence.

Little by little, I decreased my pace, looking at this joy which wounded me. At the foot of a tree, in the full yellow light of the lamps, an old beggar was standing, his body stiffened, horribly twisted by paralysis. He lifted towards the passersby his pale face, winking his eyes in a lamentable fashion the better to excite pity. He gave to his limbs sudden quivers of fever which shook him like a withered branch. The young girls, fresh and blushing, passed laughingly before this hideous spectacle.

Further away, at the door of an inn, two workmen were fighting. In the struggle, the glasses had been overturned, and to see the wine flowing over the pavement one might have thought it blood from great wounds.

The laughter seemed to me to be changed into sobs, the lights became a vast conflagration, the crowd whirled as if stricken with terror. I walked on, with a feeling of horrible sadness at my heart, staring at the faces of the young girls but never finding the person who loved me.

I saw a man standing before one of the posts which bore the lamps, considering it with a profoundly absorbed air. From his disturbed looks, I thought he was seeking the solution of some grave problem. This man was the friend of the people.

Having turned his head, he noticed me.

“Monsieur,” said he to me, “the oil employed in fêtes like this costs twenty sous a litre. In a litre is enough to fill twenty lamps like those which you see there: hence each lamp consumes a sou’s worth of oil. Now, this post has sixteen rows of eight lamps each: a hundred and twenty-eight lamps in all. Besides — follow my calculations closely — I have counted sixty similar posts in the avenue, which makes seven thousand six hundred and eighty lamps and, consequently, seven thousand six hundred and eighty sous, or, in other words, three hundred and eighty-four francs.” While speaking thus, the friend of the people gesticulated, emphasizing the figures, bending down his tall body as if to bring himself within the reach of my feeble understanding. When he paused, he threw himself back triumphantly; then, he folded his arms, looking me in the face with a penetrating air.

“Three hundred and eighty-four francs’ worth of oil,” cried he, putting a pause between each syllable, “and the poor people are without bread, Monsieur! I ask of you, and I ask it of you with tears in my eyes, if it would not be more honorable for humanity to distribute these three hundred and eighty-four francs among the three thousand indigent people contained in this faubourg? Such a charitable measure would give to each one of them about two sons and a halfs worth of bread. This thought is well calculated to make tender souls reflect, Monsieur.”

Seeing that I stared at him curiously, he continued, in a drawling voice, the while securing his gloves on his hands:

“The poor man should not laugh, Monsieur. He is altogether dishonest if he forgets his poverty for an hour. Who then will weep over the misfortunes of the people, if the government often gives such saturnalias as this?”

He wiped away a tear and left me. I saw him enter the shop of a wine merchant, where he drowned his emotion in five or six glasses of claret, taking one after the other over the counter.

The last light of the fair had just been extinguished; the crowd had dispersed. In the vacillating brightness of the street lamps, I now saw wandering beneath the trees only a few dark forms, couples of belated lovers, drunkards and sergents de ville airing their melancholy. The booths stretched away, gray and silent, on both borders of the avenue, like the tents of a deserted encampment.

Brothers, the morning breeze, damp with dew, imparted a quiver to the leaves of the elm trees. The biting emanations of the evening had given place to a delicious coolness. The softened silence, the transparent gloom of the infinite, fell slowly from the depths of the sky, and the fête of the stars followed the fête of the lamps. Honest people, at last, could amuse themselves a little.

I felt myself thoroughly rejuvenated, brothers, the hour of solitude having arrived. I walked with a firm step, ascending and descending the neighboring streets; then, I saw a gray shadow glide along the houses. This shadow came rapidly towards me, without seeming to see me; from the lightness of the step and the rhythmical rustle of the garments, I recognized a woman. She was about to run against me, when she instinctively raised her eyes. Her visage was revealed to me by the glimmer of a neighboring lantern, and I recognized it immediately as belonging to the girl who loved me: she was not the immortal in the white muslin cloud as I had seen her in the booth, but a poor daughter of this earth clad in faded calico. In her poverty, she seemed to me more charming than before, though pale and fatigued. I could not doubt the evidence of my senses: I saw before me the large eyes, the caressing lips of the vision, and, besides, I distinguished, on inspecting her thus closely, that sweetness of the features imparted by suffering.

As she stopped for a second, brothers, I seized her hand and kissed it, forgetting Laurence. She raised her head and smiled vaguely upon me, without seeking to withdraw her fingers. Seeing me remain silent, emotion having choked the words in my throat, she shrugged her shoulders and resumed her rapid walk.

I ran after her, caught her by the arm, and walked beside her. She laughed almost silently; then, she shivered and said, in a low voice:

“I am cold: let us hasten along.”

Poor child, she was cold! Beneath her thin black shawl, her shoulders trembled in the cool morning breeze. I said to her, gently:

“Do you know me?”

Again she raised her eyes, and, without hesitating, replied: “No.”

I know not what rapid thought shot through my mind. In my turn, I shivered.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, and said to me, in a childish voice, with a little, careless pout:

“I am going home.”

We walked along down the avenue.

I saw upon a bench two soldiers, one of whom was discoursing gravely, while the other listened with respect. These soldiers were the sergeant and the conscript. The sergeant, who seemed to me greatly moved, made me a mocking salute, murmuring:

“The rich lend, sometimes, Monsieur.”

The conscript, a tender and innocent soul, said to me, in a tone full of grief:

“I had only her, Monsieur: you are stealing from me the girl who loves me!”

I crossed the thoroughfare, and took another street., Three youths came towards us, holding each other by the arm and singing very loudly. I recognized the schoolboys. The little wretches had no further need to feign intoxication. They stopped, almost bursting with laughter; then, they followed me a few steps, crying after me, each one in an uncertain voice:

“Ho! Monsieur, Madame is deceiving you: Madame is the person who loves me!”

I felt a cold sweat moisten my temples. I hastened my steps in my eagerness to flee, thinking no more of the woman I was dragging along on my arm. At the end of the avenue, as I was about at last to quit this accursed spot, on stepping down from the sidewalk, I ran against a man who was sitting at his ease upon the curbstone. He was leaning his head against a lamppost, his face turned towards the sky, and was executing with the aid of his fingers a very complicated calculation.

He turned his eyes, and, without moving his head from his pillow, stammered out:

“Ah! it is you, Monsieur! You must help me to count the stars. I have already found several millions of them, but I am afraid I have forgotten one somewhere. The welfare of humanity, Monsieur, depends upon statistics alone!”

A hiccough interrupted him. He resumed, with tears in his eyes:

“Do you know what a star costs? Surely, the great God has gone to vast expense on high, and the people lack bread, Monsieur! Of what good are those lamps up there? Can they be eaten? What is the practical application of them, I beg of you? We have no need whatever of this eternal fête!”

He had succeeded in turning his body around; he gazed about him with perplexed looks, tossing his heap with an indignant air. It was then that he noticed my companion. He gave a start, and, with purple visage, greedily stretched out his arms.

“Ah! ah!” he stuttered, “it is the person who loves me!”

The girl and I walked on a short distance.

“Listen,” said she: “I am poor; I do what I can to get something to eat. Last winter, I spent fifteen hours a day bent over my work, an honest trade, and yet I was sometimes without bread. In the spring, I threw my needle out of the window. I had found an occupation less fatiguing and more lucrative.

“I dress myself every evening in white muslin. Alone in a sort of nook, leaning against the back of an armchair, I have nothing to do but smile from six o’clock until midnight. From time to time, I make a courtesy, I send a kiss into space. For this I am paid three francs a sitting.

“Opposite me, behind a little glass enclosed in the partition, I incessantly see an eye looking at me. Sometimes it is black, sometimes blue. Without this eye, I should be perfectly happy; it spoils the business for me. At times, from always finding it alone and steadily fixed there, I am filled with wild terror, I am tempted to cry out and flee!

“But one must work for one’s living. I smile, I courtesy, I send my kiss. At midnight, I wash off my rouge and resume my calico dress. Bah! how many women, without being forced to do so, air their graces before a mirror!”

By this time, we had reached the wretched abode in which this girl dwelt. I left her at the door, and returned to my mansarde and my misery.