Pot Luck

by Emile Zola

Then, turning to Octave, he added:

  ‘You see, sir. I’ve been decorated, you know. Well, I can assure you that, in order not to spoil too many ribbons, I never wear my decorations at home. So, if I’m prepared to deprive my wife and myself of the pleasure of being decorated at home, I’m sure our children can deprive themselves of the pleasure of having babies. No, sir, there are no half-measures.’

  The Pichons declared that they would obey. It wasn’t likely that they’d be up to that game any more.

  ‘And go through what I’ve been through again!’ cried Marie, who was still very pale.

  ‘I’d rather have my leg cut off,’ declared Jules.

  The Vuillaumes gave a nod of satisfaction. Since they had promised, they would forgive them. Then, as it was just striking ten, they all embraced one another affectionately and Jules put on his hat to see them to their omnibus. So touching, indeed, was their return to their old habits that on the landing they kissed again. When they had left, Marie, who with Octave leant over the banisters to see them go, took him back with her to the parlour, saying:

  ‘Mamma doesn’t mean any harm; and after all, she’s right. Children are no joke!’

  She closed the door and began to remove the glasses, which were left on the table. The small room, with its smoking lamp, was still quite warm from this little family get-together. Lilitte slept on, her head resting on a corner of the oil-cloth.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ said Octave.

  But he sat down, feeling thoroughly relaxed.

  ‘What! Already!’ she replied. ‘You don’t often keep such respectable hours. Have you got something to do early in the morning?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ he said. ‘I’m sleepy, that’s all. But I can stay another ten minutes or so.’

  Then he remembered that Berthe would not be coming until half-past twelve. There was plenty of time. Although consumed for weeks by the thought of having her in his arms for one whole night, the prospect now no longer excited him. The feverish impatience of the day, his torments of desire as he counted every moment that brought him closer to his long-coveted delight—all this now vanished, dissipated by such wearisome delay.

  ‘Will you have another glass of cognac?’ asked Marie.

  ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do.’

  He thought it might set him up a bit. As she took the glass from him he seized her hands and held them in his. She laughed, without becoming in the least alarmed. Pale as she was after physical suffering, he found her full of charm, and all his latent affection for her surged up again within him. As, one evening, he had given her back to her husband after placing a fatherly kiss upon her brow, so now he felt impelled to repossess her—a sudden, sharp desire which extinguished all his longing for Berthe, for whom his passion now seemed remote.

  ‘So you’re not afraid today?’ he asked, as he squeezed her hands tighter.

  ‘No, since it has now become impossible. But we shall always be good friends.’

  She gave him to understand that she knew everything. Saturnin must have told her. Moreover, she always noticed on which nights Octave received a certain person in his room. Seeing him turn pale with anxiety, she immediately assured him that she would never tell anyone. She was not displeased; on the contrary, she wished him every happiness.

  ‘Well, I’m married, you know,’ she said. ‘So I can hardly bear you any ill-will.’

  Taking her on his knee, he exclaimed:

  ‘But it’s you I love!’

  He spoke the truth, for at that moment it was her he loved, with deep, absolute passion. All his new intrigue and the two months spent in pursuit of another had vanished. Once more he saw himself in the little apartment, kissing Marie on the neck when Jules’s back was turned, she as gentle and complacent as ever. That was real happiness. Why had he ever disdained it? It filled him with regret. He still desired Marie; if he no longer had her he felt that he would be eternally miserable.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she murmured, trying to get away from him. ‘You’re unreasonable, and in the end you’ll make me unhappy. Now that you’re in love with somebody else, what’s the point of teasing me?’

  She tried to resist him in this gentle, languid way, feeling actual disgust for what afforded her no sort of amusement. But he was losing control and squeezed her more vigorously, kissing her breast through her coarse woollen bodice.

  ‘It’s you I love. Can’t you see that? I swear by all that’s sacred that I’m not telling you a lie. Open my heart, and you’ll see. Oh please, be nice to me! Just this once, and then never, never again, if you don’t want to. You really are too cruel; if you don’t let me, I’ll die!’

  Marie felt powerless, paralysed by the dominating force of this man’s will. In her, good nature, fear, and stupidity were equally blended. She moved away, as if anxious first of all to carry the sleeping Lilitte into the bedroom. But he held her fast, fearing that she would wake the child. Then she abandoned herself, in the same place where a year ago she had fallen into his arms like a woman who must obey. There was a sort of buzzing silence throughout the little apartment as the whole house lay in midnight peace. Suddenly the lamp faded, and they were about to find themselves in the dark when Marie rose and turned up the wick just in time.

  ‘Are you cross with me?’ asked Octave with tender gratitude, still exhausted by sensual excitement such as he had never yet experienced.

  She let go of the lamp and with her cold lips gave him one last kiss, as she said:

  ‘No, because you enjoy it. But, all the same it’s not right, on account of the person I mentioned. Doing it with me doesn’t mean anything now.’

  Her eyes were filled with tears and, though not annoyed, she seemed sad. After leaving her he felt dissatisfied, and would have liked to go straight to bed and sleep. He had gratified his passion, but it had an unpleasant aftertaste, a touch of lechery that left him almost bitter. The other woman was now coming, and he would have to wait for her; it was a thought that weighed terribly upon him, and having spent whole nights scheming how to possess her, to keep her, if only for an hour, in his room, he now hoped that some accident might prevent her from coming. Perhaps she would again fail to keep her word. He did not dare seek comfort in such a hope.

  Midnight struck. Tired as he was, Octave sat up and waited, dreading to hear the rustle of her skirts along the narrow corridor. By half-past twelve he became positively anxious, and at one o’clock he thought he was safe, though there was a kind of vague irritation mixed with his relief, the annoyance of a man made a fool of by a woman. Then, just as he was about to undress, yawning vigorously, there came three gentle taps at the door. It was Berthe. Half annoyed, half flattered, he met her with outstretched arms, but she motioned him aside, trembling, and stood listening at the door, which she had hastily closed behind her.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked in a whisper.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she stammered, ‘but I’m frightened. It’s so dark on the stairs; I thought somebody was following me. This is all quite mad. I’m sure something awful’s going to happen.’

  These words had a chilling effect on them. They did not even kiss. However, she looked captivating in her white dressing-gown, with her long golden hair twisted up into a coil at the back of her head. Gazing at her, she seemed to him far prettier than Marie; but he no longer desired her; the whole thing was a bore. She sat down to get her breath back, and gave a sudden feigned start of annoyance at noticing a box on the table, which she guessed must contain the lace shawl she had been talking about for the last week.

  ‘I’m going back,’ she said, without moving from her chair.

  ‘What, you’re going?’

  ‘Do you think I’m going to sell myself? You always manage to hurt my feelings. Tonight you’ve spoilt all my pleasure. Whatever did you buy it for, after I told you not to?’

  However, she got up and finally consented to look at it. But so great was her disappointment on opening the box that she could not restrain an angry exc
lamation:

  ‘It’s not Chantilly at all, it’s llama!’

  Octave, becoming less liberal with his presents, had had a miserly idea. He tried to explain to her that some llama was splendid, quite as handsome as Chantilly, and he extolled the beauties of the shawl just as if he were standing behind the counter, making her feel the lace while assuring her that it would last for ever. But she shook her head disdainfully, and reduced him to silence by saying:

  ‘The fact is, this only cost one hundred francs, while the other would have cost three hundred.’

  Then, noticing that he had turned pale, she sought to mend matters by adding:

  ‘Of course it’s very kind, and I’m very grateful. It’s not what a gift costs but the spirit in which it’s given that makes it valuable.’

  She sat down again and there was a pause. After a while he asked if she was coming to bed. Of course she was; but she still felt so upset by her silly fright on the stairs. Then she mentioned her fears about Rachel, telling how she had caught Auguste whispering with her behind the door. It would have been so easy for them to bribe the girl by giving her a five-franc piece now and again. One had to have the five-franc pieces first, though; she never had a single one herself. As she spoke her voice grew harsher; the despised llama shawl, which she no longer alluded to, exasperated her to such a pitch that at last she started with her lover the quarrel she was always picking with her husband.

  ‘I ask you, is this a life? Never to have a penny, always to be under an obligation for the least thing! I’m sick to death of it all!’

  Octave, who was pacing up and down the room, stopped short and said:

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

  ‘The point, sir? The point? Well, there are certain things which delicacy alone ought to tell you to do, without making me blush by having to explain to you. Don’t you think that some time ago you should have made me feel better by bribing that girl?’

  She paused, and then ironically added:

  ‘It wouldn’t have ruined you, I’m sure!’

  There was another pause. Octave went on pacing up and down. At last he said:

  ‘I’m sorry for your sake that I’m not rich.’

  Then their quarrel grew more violent, developing into a real marital dispute.

  ‘Say that I love you for your money!’ she cried, with all the crudity of her mother, whose very words seemed to leap to her lips. ‘I’m a mercenary woman, am I not? Well, I admit it. I’m mercenary because I’m sensible. It’s no use you denying it; money’s money, and when I only had twenty sous I always said I had forty, because it’s better to be envied than pitied.’

  At this point he interrupted her, saying wearily, like a man who only wants peace:

  ‘Look, if you’re so dissatisfied with the llama shawl, I’ll get you one in Chantilly!’

  ‘Your shawl!’ she went on, in a fury. ‘I’d forgotten all about the thing! It’s not that that annoys me. You’re just like my husband! I might walk about barefoot; you wouldn’t care the least bit! But if a man loves a woman, good nature alone ought to make him feel bound to clothe and feed her. But no man will ever understand that. Between the pair of you you’d let me go about with nothing on but my chemise, if I didn’t object!’

  Worn out by this domestic quarrel Octave decided not to reply, having noticed that Auguste sometimes got rid of her in this way. He slowly undressed and let the storm pass, reflecting meanwhile how unlucky he had been in his love affairs. Yet for Berthe he had felt passionate desire, so passionate indeed that it had interfered with all his plans, and now that she was here in his bedroom all she did was quarrel with him and give him a sleepless night, just as if they had been married for six months.

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said at last. ‘We thought we’d be so happy together. It’s really stupid to waste our time quarrelling like this!’

  Then, anxious to make it up, feeling no desire yet wanting to be polite, he tried to kiss her. But she pushed him aside and burst into tears. Seeing that reconciliation was hopeless, he began taking off his boots in a fury and decided to get into bed without her.

  ‘That’s right! Complain of my goings-out, as well!’ she sobbed. ‘Tell me I cost you too much! I can see it all now! It’s all because of that rubbishy present! If you could shut me up in a box, you would. Going out to see my girlfriends isn’t a crime. And as for mamma …’

  ‘I’m going to sleep,’ he said, jumping into bed. ‘I wish you’d undress and stop talking about that mother of yours. She’s given you a damned nasty temper, I can tell you.’

  Mechanically she began undressing, growing more and more excited as she raised her voice.

  ‘Mamma has always done her duty. It’s not for you to discuss her like that. How dare you talk about her? That’s really the last straw, to begin abusing my family!’

  Her petticoat-string had got into a knot, and she simply snapped it. Then, sitting down on the bed to pull off her stockings, she exclaimed:

  ‘I’m really sorry I’ve been so weak! If we could only see into the future, how carefully we’d think about things beforehand!’

  She had now taken everything off except her chemise; her legs and arms were bare. She stood there, soft and plump. Her breasts, heaving in anger, peeped out from their lace covering. He, lying with his face to the wall, suddenly turned round and exclaimed:

  ‘What’s that? You’re sorry you ever loved me?’

  ‘Of course I am. A man like you, incapable of understanding a woman’s feelings.’

  As they glared at each other their faces assumed a hard, loveless expression. She was resting one knee on the edge of the mattress, her breasts tense, her thigh bent, in the pretty pose of a woman just getting into bed. But he had no eyes for her rosy flesh and the supple, fleeting outline of her back.

  ‘Good God! If only I could relive my life!’ she added.

  ‘You mean you’d have somebody else, I suppose?’ he shouted.

  Lying beside him under the bedclothes, she was just about to reply in the same exasperated tone when suddenly there was a knocking at the door. They started, hardly knowing what it might mean; then they both remained motionless, as if frozen. A muffled voice was saying:

  ‘Open the door! I can hear you, up to your filthy tricks! Open the door, or I’ll smash it down!’

  It was her husband’s voice. Yet the lovers did not move; there was such a buzzing in their ears that they could think of nothing. They felt very cold lying next to each other—as cold as corpses. At last Berthe jumped out of bed, feeling instinctively that she must escape from her lover; while Auguste, outside, kept exclaiming:

  ‘Open the door! Open the door, I say!’

  Then there was a moment of terrible confusion, of unspeakable anguish. Berthe rushed about the room in a state of distraction, trying to find some secret exit, her face deathly pale. Octave’s heart was in his mouth at each blow on the door, against which he leant mechanically as if to strengthen it. The noise grew unbearable, the idiot would soon rouse the whole house, they would have to open the door. But when she perceived his intention Berthe clung to his arms, imploring him in terror to desist. No, no, for mercy’s sake! He would rush in, armed with a knife or a pistol! Growing as pale as she, for her alarm affected him too, he hurriedly slipped on his trousers, begging her in a low voice to get dressed. She sat there naked, doing nothing, unable even to find her stockings. Meanwhile Auguste grew ever more insistent.

  ‘Ah, so you won’t open and you won’t answer! Right, you’ll see!’

  Ever since he had last paid his rent Octave had been asking the landlord to have two new screws fixed to the staple of his lock, as it had become loosened. All at once the wood cracked, the lock gave way, and Auguste, losing his balance, fell sprawling into the middle of the room.

  ‘Damn and blast!’ he cried.

  He only had a key in his hand, which, grazed by his fall, was bleeding. Then he got up, livid with shame and fury at the thought of so absurd an
entry. Waving his arms about wildly, he tried to spring upon Octave. But the latter, though embarrassed at being caught barefoot and with his trousers buttoned wrongly, caught him by the wrists and, being the stronger of the two, held them in a vice-like grip.

  ‘Sir,’ he cried, ‘you’re violating my home. It’s disgraceful, it’s quite ungentlemanly!’

  And he very nearly struck him. During their brief scuffle Berthe rushed out through the wide-open door in her chemise. In her husband’s bloody fist she thought she saw a kitchen knife, and between her shoulders she seemed to feel the cold steel. As she fled along the dark corridor she thought she heard the sound of blows, but was unable to tell by whom they were dealt or received. Voices that were unrecognizable said: ‘I’m at your service whenever you want!’ ‘Very good, you’ll be hearing from me.’

  With one bound she reached the back stairs. But after rushing down two flights as if pursued by tongues of flame, she found her kitchen-door locked and remembered that she had left the key upstairs in the pocket of her dressing-gown. Besides, there was no lamp, not the slightest glimmer of light within; the maid had evidently betrayed them in his way. Without stopping to get her breath, she flew upstairs again and passed along the corridor leading to Octave’s room, where the two men could be heard shouting.

  They were still at it; perhaps she would have time. She ran down the front staircase, hoping that her husband had left the door of their apartment open. She would lock herself in her bedroom and open to nobody. But once more she found herself confronted by a locked door. Finding herself locked out of her own home, and virtually naked, she lost her head and rushed from floor to floor like some poor hunted animal in search of a hiding-place. She would never have the courage to knock at her parents’ door. For an instant she thought of taking refuge in the concierge’s lodge, but the shame of it drove her back upstairs. Then, leaning over the banisters, she stopped to listen, her ears deafened by the beating of her heart in the profound silence, and her eyes dazzled by lights that seemed to shoot out of the inky darkness. The knife, that awful knife in Auguste’s bloody fist! This was what terrified her. Its icy blade was about to be buried in her flesh! Suddenly there was a noise. She fancied he was coming after her, and she shivered to the very marrow of her bones for fright. Then, since she was just outside the Campardons’ door, she rang wildly, desperately, almost breaking the bell.