Pot Luck

by Emile Zola

  Meanwhile the architect had taken off his coat, whistling and singing like a merry schoolboy, and spent the whole afternoon arranging the cousin’s room. She helped him to push the furniture into place, unpack the bed-linen, and shake out the clothes, while Rose, who did not leave her armchair for fear of tiring herself, made various suggestions for putting the washstand here or the bed there, so that everyone might find it convenient. It was then that Octave became aware that he was inhibiting their general enthusiasm; he felt out of place in such a close-knit household, and so he told them that he was going to dine out that evening. He was determined, moreover, that the next day he would thank Madame Campardon for her hospitality and invent some story to explain why he had no further need to abuse it.

  At about five o’clock, regretting that he did not know where to find Trublot, he suddenly thought he would invite himself to dinner at the Pichons’, so as not to spend the evening by himself. No sooner had he entered their apartment, however, than he found himself in the middle of a deplorable family scene. The Vuillaumes were there, trembling with rage and indignation.

  ‘It’s disgraceful, sir!’ the mother was saying, standing erect as she wagged her finger at her son-in-law, who was sitting crushed on a chair. ‘You gave me your word of honour.’

  ‘And you,’ added the father, making his daughter retreat in terror to the sideboard, ‘don’t make excuses for him, you’re just as much to blame. You both want to starve, do you?’

  Madame Vuillaume had put on her bonnet and shawl again, saying solemnly:

  ‘Goodbye! At least we won’t encourage your dissolute behaviour by our presence. Since you no longer pay the least attention to our wishes, we have no reason to stay here. Goodbye!’

  As Jules, from force of habit, rose to accompany them, she added:

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself, we’re quite able to catch the bus without you. Come on, Monsieur Vuillaume. Let them eat their dinner, and much good may it do them, because they won’t always have one!’

  Octave, quite bewildered, stood aside to let them pass. When they had gone he looked at Jules, still prostrate in his chair, and at Marie, standing by the sideboard as pale as a ghost. Both were speechless.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  Without answering him, Marie dolefully began to scold her husband.

  ‘I told you what would happen. You should’ve waited until you could’ve broken it to them gently. There was no hurry, it doesn’t show yet.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Octave asked again.

  Then, not even looking away, she blurted out in her emotion, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of them!’ cried Jules indignantly, rising from his chair. ‘I thought it right to tell them straight away about this little problem. Do they think it amuses me? It concerns me much more than it does them, especially as it’s through no fault of mine. We can’t think how it’s happened, can we, Marie?’

  ‘No, we can’t!’ said the young woman.

  Octave made a calculation. She was five months gone—from the end of December to the end of May. His calculation was correct; it shook him. Then he preferred to doubt; but, as his emotion persisted, he felt a longing to do the Pichons a good turn of some sort. Jules went on grumbling. They would look after the child, of course; but, all the same, it would have been far better if the pregnancy had never occurred. Marie, usually so quiet, became quite excited too, siding with her mother, who never forgave disobedience. A quarrel was developing, each blaming the other for the baby’s appearance, when Octave gaily interposed:

  ‘There’s no point in quarrelling, now that it’s on the way. I suggest that we dine out; it’s too dismal here. I’ll take you both to a restaurant. Will you come?’

  Marie blushed. Dining at a restaurant was her delight. But she mentioned her little girl, who always prevented her from enjoying herself. However, they agreed that this time Lilitte should come too. They had a most pleasant evening. Octave took them to the Boeuf à la Mode, where they had a private room, to be more at their ease, as he said. Here he plied them with all sorts of food, never thinking about the bill, but only gratified at seeing them eat. When dessert came, and they laid Lilitte down on two sofa-cushions, he even called for champagne, and they sat there dreaming, their elbows on the table and their eyes moist, sentimentally drowsy in the suffocating warmth of the dining-room. Finally, at eleven o’clock, they talked of going home; their cheeks were flushed and the cool night air seemed intoxicating. Then, as Lilitte, exhausted for want of sleep, refused to walk, Octave, wishing to end the evening with a flourish, insisted on taking a cab, though the Rue de Choiseul was close by. In the cab he scrupulously avoided squeezing Marie’s legs between his own. But upstairs, while Jules was tucking Lilitte up in bed, he kissed the young woman’s forehead; it was like the parting kiss of a father surrendering his daughter to her husband. Then, as he saw them looking at each other lovingly, in a drunken sort of way, he sent them to bed, wishing them through the door a very good night and lots of pleasant dreams.

  ‘Well,’ he thought, as he slipped between the sheets, ‘it’s cost me fifty francs, but I owed them at least as much as that. My only wish, after all, is that her husband will make her happy, poor little woman!’

  And quite overcome by his own benevolence, before falling asleep he resolved to make his grand attempt the following morning.

  Every Monday, after dinner, Octave helped Madame Hédouin to check the orders of the week. For this purpose they both withdrew to a little parlour at the back, a narrow room which only contained a safe, a desk, two chairs, and a sofa. It so happened that on this particular Monday the Duveyriers were going to take Madame Hédouin to the Opéra-Comique. Accordingly, she sent for the young man at about three o’clock. In spite of the bright sunshine they had to burn the gas, as the room was only faintly lit by windows overlooking the dismal inner courtyard. He bolted the door, and noticing her surprised look he said gently:

  ‘Now nobody can come and disturb us.’

  She nodded, and they set to work. The new summer goods were going splendidly; business was constantly increasing. That week, in particular, the sale of little woollen goods had looked so promising that she heaved a sigh.

  ‘Ah, if we only had enough room!’

  ‘But you know,’ he said, beginning the attack, ‘that depends on you. For some time I’ve had an idea, and I’d like to talk to you about it.’

  It was a bold stroke of this kind that he had been waiting for. His idea was to buy the adjoining shop, in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, give the umbrella-maker and the toyshop man notice to quit, and then enlarge the shop, to which several extensive departments could be added. He talked enthusiastically about it all, full of disdain for the old way of doing business in the depths of damp, dark shops, with no display in their window-fronts. With a grand gesture he spoke of creating an entirely new type of commerce, providing every kind of luxury for women in huge palaces of crystal, amassing millions in broad daylight, and at nighttime being brilliantly illuminated as if for some princely festival.

  ‘You’ll crush all the other drapers in the Saint-Roch area,’ he said, ‘and you’ll win over all the small customers. For instance, Monsieur Vabre’s silk shop does you quite a lot of harm at present, but if you enlarge your shopfront and have a special department for silks, you’ll bankrupt him in less than five years. And there’s still talk of opening the Rue du Dix-Décembre from the new opera house to the Bourse. My friend Campardon talks about it from time to time. It would increase business in the neighbourhood tenfold.’

  Madame Hédouin listened to him, her elbow on a ledger, her beautiful, grave face resting on her hand. She had been born at the Ladies’ Paradise, founded by her father and her uncle. She loved the shop and imagined it expanding, swallowing up the neighbouring shops, and displaying a magnificent frontage. It was a dream that suited her keen intelligence, her strong will, her woman’s intuition of the Paris of the future.

  �
��Uncle Deleuze would never consent to such a thing,’ she murmured. ‘Besides, my husband is too unwell.’

  Seeing that she was wavering, Octave assumed his seductive voice—the voice of an actor, soft and musical. At the same time he looked ardently at her with his eyes the colour of old gold, which some women said were irresistible. But, though the flaring gas-jet was close to the back of her neck, she remained as cool as ever, falling into a reverie, half dazed by the young man’s eloquence. He had even worked out the figures, calculating the probable cost with the passionate air of a page making a declaration of long-hidden love. Emerging suddenly from her reverie, she found herself in his arms. He thrust her on to the sofa, believing that now at last she would succumb.

  ‘Dear, dear! So that was what it was all about!’ she said sadly, shaking him off as if he were some tiresome child.

  ‘Well, yes, I’m in love with you!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t repulse me. With you, I could do great things …’

  And so he went on to the end of his grand speech, which somehow rang false. She did not interrupt him, but stood turning over the leaves of the ledger. Then, when he had finished, she replied:

  ‘I know all that; I’ve heard it all before. But I thought that you, Monsieur Octave, had more sense than the others. I’m really very sorry, for I had counted on you. However, all young men are foolish. A shop like this needs a great deal of order, and you’re starting off by wanting things that would unsettle us from morning to night. I’m not a woman here; there’s far too much for me to do. How is it that, with all your intelligence, you couldn’t see that it’s impossible: first, because it’s stupid; secondly, because it’s useless; and thirdly, because, luckily for me, I’m not in the least interested!’

  He would have preferred to see her full of wrath and indignation, overflowing with exalted sentiments. Her calm voice, her quiet way of reasoning like a practical, self-possessed woman, disconcerted him. He felt that he was becoming ridiculous.

  ‘Have pity, madam,’ he stammered. ‘You can see how miserable I am!’

  ‘Nonsense! You’re not miserable at all. Anyway, you’ll soon get over it. Listen! There’s somebody knocking; you’d better open the door.’

  He was thus obliged to draw the bolt. It was Mademoiselle Gasparine, who wanted to know if they were expecting some lace-trimmed chemises. She had been surprised to find the door bolted. But she knew Madame Hédouin too well, and when she saw her standing with her glacial air before Octave, who looked thoroughly ill at ease, there was something in her smile that seemed to mock him. It exasperated him and made him feel that she was responsible for his failure.

  ‘Madam,’ he declared suddenly, when Gasparine had gone, ‘I will leave your employ this evening.’

  Madame Hédouin looked at him in surprise.

  ‘But why? I haven’t dismissed you. Oh, it won’t make any difference! I’m not afraid.’

  These words infuriated him. He would leave at once; he could not endure his martyrdom a moment longer.

  ‘Very well, Monsieur Octave,’ she continued, in her calm way. ‘I’ll settle with you directly. All the same, the firm will be sorry to lose you—you were a good assistant.’

  Once in the street, Octave realized that he had acted like a fool. It was striking four, and the bright May sunshine lit up a whole corner of the Place Gaillon. Furious with himself, he walked blindly along the Rue Saint-Roch, debating how he should have acted. First of all, why had he not pinched that Gasparine’s bottom? Probably that was what she wanted but, unlike Campardon, he did not care for hips as scrawny as that. Perhaps, though, he might be mistaken, for she looked like one of those women who are strictly virtuous with Sunday gentlemen when they have a weekday friend to lay them on their backs from Monday to Saturday. Then again, what a stupid idea to try to become his employer’s lover! Could he not have earned his money in the firm, without demanding at one and the same time both bread and bed? He was so upset that for a moment he was on the point of returning to the Ladies’ Paradise and admitting his error. But the thought of Madame Hédouin, so proud and calm, aroused his wounded vanity, and he walked on in the direction of Saint-Roch. Too bad! It was done now. He would go and see if Campardon was in the church, and take him to the café and have a glass of Madeira. It would take his mind off things. He went in by the vestibule into which the vestry door opened. It was a dark, dirty passage, like that of a brothel.

  ‘Perhaps you’re looking for Monsieur Campardon?’ said a voice beside him as he stood hesitating, gazing intently along the nave.

  It was Father Mauduit, who had just recognized him. Since the architect was away, he insisted on showing Octave the Calvary restorations himself; he was most enthusiastic about them. He took him behind the choir, first showing him the Chapel of the Holy Virgin, with its walls of white marble and its altar surmounted by the manger group, a rococo representation of Jesus between Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary. Then, further back still, he took him through the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration, with its seven golden lamps, gold candelabra, and gold altar shining in the dim light that came through the gold-coloured windows. There, to left and right, wooden boards fenced off the rear section of the apse; and amid the silence, above the black kneeling shadows mumbling prayers, resounded the blows of pickaxes, the voices of workmen, all the deafening noise of a building-site.

  ‘Come in,’ said Father Mauduit, lifting up his cassock. ‘I’ll explain it all to you.’

  On the other side of the boards plaster kept falling from a corner of the church open to the outside air; it was white with lime, and damp with water that had been spilt in various places. To the left the Tenth Station could still be seen, with Jesus nailed to the Cross, while on the right there was the Twelfth, showing the women grouped round Christ. But in between, the Eleventh Station, the group with Jesus on the Cross, had been removed and placed against a wall; it was here that the men were at work.

  ‘Here it is,’ continued the priest. ‘It was my idea to light up the central group of the Calvary by making an opening in the cupola. You see the effect I wanted to get?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ murmured Octave, who had forgotten his troubles during his tour of the restorations.

  Talking at the top of his voice, the priest seemed like a stage-carpenter, directing the artistic arrangement of some gorgeous set.

  ‘It must look absolutely bare, of course; nothing but stone walls, no paint at all, and not a trace of gold. We must imagine that we’re in a crypt, in some desolate underground chamber. The great effect will be the Christ on the Cross, with the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene at His feet. I’ll place the group on a rock, with the white statues standing out against a grey background; and the light from the cupola, like some invisible ray, will illuminate them so brilliantly that they’ll seem to be breathing with the breath of supernatural life! Ah, you’ll see, you’ll see!’

  Then he turned round and called out to a workman:

  ‘Move the Virgin! You’ll smash her thigh if you’re not careful.’

  The workman called one of his mates. Between them they held the Virgin by the hips and carried her to one side, as if she were a tall white girl, stiff and prostrate because of some nervous seizure.

  ‘Mind what you’re doing!’ repeated the priest, following them amid all the rubbish. ‘Her robe’s cracked already. Wait a second!’

  He gave them a hand, seized the Virgin Mary round the waist, and then, white with plaster, relinquished his embrace. Turning to Octave, he said:

  ‘Now, just imagine that the two bays of the nave there, in front of us, are open, and go and stand in the Chapel of the Holy Virgin. Above the altar, through the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration, right at the back, you’ll see the Calvary. You can imagine what an effect that’ll make, those three great figures, the bare simple drama in the dim tabernacle, beyond the mysterious twilight from the painted windows, with the lamps and the gold candelabra. Ah, I think it will be irresistible!’

  He was waxing eloquent and la
ughed with pleasure, very proud of this idea of his.

  ‘The most unbelieving will surely be moved,’ said Octave, just to please him.

  ‘Indeed they will,’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m anxious to see it all finished.’

  On coming back to the nave he forgot to lower his voice, as he swaggered about like some successful entrepreneur, alluding to Campardon in terms of high praise as a fellow who, in the Middle Ages, would have had very remarkable religious feeling.

  He led Octave out through the small doorway at the back, keeping him for a moment longer in the courtyard of the vicarage, from which one could see the main body of the church buried amid the surrounding buildings. This was where he lived, on the second floor of a tall house, the façade of which was all decayed. All the clergy of Saint-Roch lived in it. An odour as of discreet clerics and the hushed whisperings of the confessional seemed to come from the vestibule, adorned by an image of the Holy Virgin, and from the high windows, veiled by thick curtains.

  ‘I’ll come and see Monsieur Campardon this evening,’ said Father Mauduit. ‘Please ask him to wait for me. I need to talk to him about some further restorations without being disturbed.’

  He bowed with the easy grace of a man of the world. Octave was calmer now; Saint-Roch, with its cool vaulted aisles, had soothed his nerves. He looked with curiosity at this entrance to a church through a private house, at this porter’s lodge, where at night the latch had to be lifted to let the Almighty pass, at all this convent corner lost in the black, seething neighbourhood. On reaching the pavement he looked up once more at the bare frontage of the house with its barred, curtainless windows. The windowsills on the fourth floor, however, were bright with flowers, while on the ground floor were little shops which the clergy found handy—a cobbler’s, a watchmaker’s, an embroiderer’s, and even a wineshop where undertakers used to meet whenever there was a funeral. Octave, still smarting from his treatment by Madame Hédouin, felt in a mood to renounce the world, and thought regretfully of the peaceful existence which the priest’s servants must lead up there in those rooms bedecked with verbena and sweet-peas.