The Masterpiece

by Émile Zola

  Claude, after listening despondently, answered with a gesture of bitter indifference.

  ‘What the hell does it matter, anyway?’ he asked. ‘The future’s as empty as the present, and we’re bigger fools than the ones who kill each other for a woman. When the earth falls to dust in space like a withered walnut, our works won’t even be a speck among the rest!’

  ‘True enough,’ replied Sandoz, now deathly pale. ‘So what is the good of trying to fill the void? We know there’s nothing beyond it, yet we’re all too proud to admit it!’

  On leaving the restaurant they strolled about the streets and fetched up after a time at a café. There they sat philosophizing and plumbing the depths of sentimental misery in reminiscences of their childhood. It was one o’clock in the morning when they decided it was time to go home.

  Then Sandoz talked about going with Claude as far as the Rue Tourlaque. It was a magnificent August night, warm, with a sky thick with stars, and as they were making a detour and going up through the European quarter, they had to pass the old Café Baudequin on the Boulevard des Batignolles. It had changed hands three times since the old days, and the inside had been completely reorganized and redecorated and now sported two billiard tables. As time went by new layers of customers had come and heaped up on top of each other till the old originals were buried beneath them like so many lost tribes. Curiosity, however, mingled with the sentimental attachment for things of the past which they had been reviving all day, sent the pair of them across the boulevard to cast an eye over the café through the wide-open door. They both wanted to see their old table at the far end on the left.

  ‘I say, look there!’ said Sandoz in a startled voice.

  ‘Gagnière!’ murmured Claude.

  And Gagnière it was, sitting all alone at the same table at the far end of the empty café. He must have come in from Melun for one of the Sunday concerts he was so fond of, and then, to kill time afterwards, have wandered up to the Café Baudequin out of sheer force of habit. Not a single one of his old friends ever went there now, but he had gone and sat there, as of old, the solitary witness of an earlier age. He still had not touched his glass of beer, but sat staring at it, so lost in thought that he did not even stir when the waiters began to pile the chairs on the tables all around him ready for the cleaners the following morning.

  The two friends hurried away, disturbed by the sight of the vague figure from the past, like children afraid of a ghost. At the Rue Tourlaque they separated.

  ‘Ah, that miserable Dubuche!’ said Sandoz as he shook Claude’s hand. ‘He certainly spoilt the day for us!’

  As soon as November came round and all his old friends were back in Paris again, Sandoz planned to get them all together at one of his regular Thursday evening dinner-parties. He had never dropped his ‘Thursdays’, and they still gave him more pleasure than anything else. His books were selling, he was making money, his flat in the Rue de Londres was nothing short of luxurious in comparison with the little place in the Batignolles; but he himself was still the same.

  This time, in his usual kind-hearted way, he meant to take Claude completely out of himself by giving him an evening like the ones he so used to enjoy in his carefree younger days, so he paid particular attention to the invitations. There would be Claude and Christine, of course; Jory and his wife, for now they were married she could hardly be left out; Dubuche, who always came alone, Fagerolles, Mahoudeau, and Gagnière. That would make ten, all belonging to the old gang; not a single outsider, so everyone would feel at home with the rest and enjoy himself.

  Henriette, however, was not so certain and hesitated over their list of guests.

  ‘Fagerolles?’ she said. ‘Do you really think he’ll fit in with the others now? They’re not quite as fond of him as they used to be, are they? … Nor of Claude, what’s more. I’ve noticed a certain coldness …’

  ‘A certain coldness!’ Sandoz broke in, determined not to agree. ‘Women are funny! They never know when a thing’s serious and when it isn’t! Men can rag each other mercilessly and still remain good friends.’

  For this particular Thursday Henriette prepared her menu with the greatest care. She had a small staff now: a cook and butler, and although she no longer did her own cooking she kept an excellent table, out of consideration for her husband, whose only vice was a liking for good food. She accompanied the cook to the markets and went in person to deal with her suppliers. They were both fond of exotic dishes, and on this occasion they decided on oxtail soup, grilled red mullet, fillet of beef with mushrooms, ravioli à l’italienne, hazel-hens from Russia and a truffle salad, as well as caviar and kilkis for hors d’œuvre, a praline ice-cream, a little Hungarian cheese, green as an emerald, some fruit and pastries. To drink, simply some decanters of vintage claret, Chambertin with the roast and sparkling Moselle as a change from the same old champagne with the dessert. By seven o’clock they were ready to receive their guests, Sandoz in ordinary morning clothes, Henriette very elegant in a plain black satin dress, for their parties were never formal affairs.

  Their drawing-room, which they had been furnishing by slow degrees, was now an amazing array of antiques; furniture, tapestries, ornaments, and bric-à-brac of all periods from all over the world poured into it in an uncontrollable stream which sprang originally from the piece of old Rouen pottery Henriette gave to her husband for one of his birthdays when they lived up in the Batignolles. Now they used to scour the antique-shops together and derived endless pleasure from their purchases. To Sandoz it meant satisfying the desires of his youth, realizing all the romantic ambitions he had gleaned from his early reading. The result was that this notoriously modern writer lived in the now old-fashioned medieval setting which had been his ideal when he was fifteen. He excused himself by saying that fine modern furniture was too expensive, and that you could so easily give a room both colour and character with old things, even though not of the best. He was no collector; all he was interested in was a setting, a striking general effect. And there was no denying that his drawing-room, lit by two old Delft lamps, produced a remarkable over-all effect of soft, warm colouring, compounded of the dull gold of the dalmatics used to upholster the chairs, the yellowing inlays of the Dutch and Italian cabinets, the delicately blended tints in the Oriental hangings, and the hundred and one touches of colour from the ivories, china, and enamels, all softened by the passage of time, contrasting with the neutral, deep red paper on the walls.

  Claude and Christine were the first to arrive, Christine wearing her only black silk dress, a poor, threadbare garment she carefully kept in good repair for such special occasions. Henriette immediately took both her hands and drew her over to a settee. She had taken a great liking to Christine and was surprised to see her looking unusually pale, with a restless, anxious look in her eyes; but Christine assured her, when she asked what was the matter, whether she was not feeling well, that she was perfectly happy and very glad she had been able to come. And yet she kept on glancing at Claude as if she wanted to be sure what was going on in his mind. Claude himself appeared very excited, and was much more lively and talkative than he had been for months. Once in a while, however, he would be suddenly calm, would stop talking and gaze wide-eyed into space, as if he was aware of something calling to him from a long way off.

  ‘I finished your book last night, Pierre,’ he said to Sandoz, as they stood in front of the great log fire. ‘A damned fine piece of work, old fellow! You’ve shut the critics up this time.’

  Sandoz’s latest novel had just come out, and although the critics had not yet laid down their arms, it had been one of those resounding successes which make any man proof against the attacks of his adversaries, however persistent. Besides, Sandoz knew perfectly well that even when he had won his battle fighting would break out again every time he published a new book. His magnum opus, the series of novels he had planned, was now well advanced, and he was bringing out volume after volume with steady determination, making straight for the go
al he had set himself, refusing to let anything, obstacles, calumny, or fatigue stand in his way.

  ‘So you really think they’re weakening, do you?’ replied Sandoz gaily. ‘Well, one of them has certainly committed himself so far as to acknowledge my good intentions, so it does look as if degeneration’s set in! … But don’t worry, they’ll make up for it. Some of them I know are too far removed from my way of thinking ever to be able to accept my literary concepts, my outspoken language, my “physiological men”, and the influence of environment … and I’m speaking now of fellow-writers I respect, not of the vulgar herd of fools and blackguards. There’s only one way of working and being happy at the same time, and that is never to rely on either good faith or justice. If you want to prove you’re right, you’ve got to die first.’

  Claude’s eyes suddenly turned towards one corner of the room and apparently looked through the wall into space to where something had beckoned to him. They clouded for a moment, then they turned back to Sandoz, to whom Claude replied:

  ‘That’s only your way of looking at it. If I were to kick the bucket, I should still be in the wrong. … Still, that book of yours certainly gave me something to think about. I’ve been trying to paint all day, but couldn’t do a stroke. It’s a good job I can’t be jealous of an author; if I could, you’d lead me a hell of a dance!’

  At this point the door was opened and in sailed Mathilde, followed by Jory. She was handsomely dressed, in a tunic of nasturtium-coloured velvet over a straw-coloured satin skirt, diamond ear-rings, and a large spray of roses on her bosom. Claude, who remembered her as scraggy and wizened, was so surprised that he hardly recognized her, she had turned into such a fine, buxom blonde. Her disturbingly vulgar ugliness had blossomed out into a sort of middle-class comeliness and her mouth, once full of great black gaps, when she deigned to smile or rather curl up her lip, now revealed a set of teeth of unexpected whiteness. Obviously, she had scaled the topmost heights of respectability and her forty-five years gave her a certain air of authority, since her husband was so many years her junior that he might have been her nephew. The only thing she had not lost was her liking for violent perfumes. She drenched herself with the most overpowering essences, as if she wanted to drive out all the aromatic odours that had impregnated her skin when she lived at the herb-shop. But do what she would, the bitter tang of rhubarb, the sharp smell of elder, and the fiery breath of peppermint persisted; and no sooner had she walked across the drawing-room than it was filled with the indefinable odour of a drug-store, corrected by a dash of musk.

  Henriette, who had risen to greet her, offered her a chair facing Christine.

  ‘You know each other, of course,’ she said. ‘You’ve met here before.’

  Mathilde acknowledged Christine by a cold, distant glance at her modest finery, and that was all. Christine had lived in sin for a long time before she was married, so Mathilde had heard, and on that point she had very firm ideas, especially since the broad-mindedness of the artistic and literary world had opened the door of one or two drawing-rooms to her. Henriette thought her unbearable, and resumed her conversation with Christine after a minimum of formalities.

  After shaking hands with Sandoz and Claude, Jory joined them in front of the fire and at once began offering apologies to his host for an article that had appeared in his review that morning, severely criticizing Sandoz’s novel.

  ‘You know what it’s like,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s master in his own house. … I ought really to do everything myself, but I haven’t got the time! Do you know, I hadn’t actually read that article; I printed it on trust, so you can imagine my fury when I read it through just now. … I can’t say how sorry I am. …’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Sandoz quietly. ‘It’s the sort of thing that was bound to happen. Since my enemies are beginning to sing my praises, there are only my friends left to run me down!’

  The door half opened again, and this time Gagnière stepped in very unobtrusively, like some vague, colourless wraith. He had come straight in from Melun, alone, for he kept his wife strictly to himself. When he came in to dinner like this he always brought the dust of the provinces in on his boots and carried it away again when he went to catch the night train. Otherwise he was practically unchanged; he seemed to grow younger and blonder as the years went by.

  ‘Ah! Here’s Gagnière!’ cried Sandoz, and while Gagnière was busy greeting the ladies Mahoudeau made his entry. His hair was quite white now, and his shy-looking face was heavily lined, though there was still something childlike in his flickering eyes. He still wore his trousers too short and his jacket too tight across the back, in spite of all the money he was making; for the dealer he worked for had put on the market some charming statuettes of his which were now a familiar sight on drawing-room mantelpieces and side-tables.

  Sandoz and Claude turned away from the fire, eager to witness the meeting of Mahoudeau and Mathilde and Jory. But everything went off very simply. Mahoudeau was just on the point of making a respectful bow when Jory, with his typical blissful ignorance, decided it was his duty to introduce them, which he did, for what was probably the twentieth time.

  ‘My wife, old fellow! Shake hands now, the pair of you!’

  And with all the gravity of two well-bred people who find themselves hustled into rather rapid familiarity, Mathilde and Mahoudeau shook hands. But as soon as the latter had gone through all the motions that were expected of him, he went over to join Gagnière in one corner of the room, and the pair of them were soon smirking quietly together as they recalled, in no uncertain terms, the orgies of the herb-shop days. She’d got some new teeth now, eh? It was a good job she couldn’t bite in the old days!

  The party was still waiting for Dubuche, who had faithfully promised he would come.

  ‘There are only going to be nine of us, not ten,’ Henriette explained. ‘We had a note from Fagerolles this morning, saying he was sorry, but he had an official banquet to attend at very short notice. … He’s going to try to get away and look in about eleven.’

  At that moment a telegram was brought in. It was from Dubuche: ‘Sorry impossible come. Worried Alice’s cough.’

  ‘Ah well, that makes us eight,’ said Henriette, with the vexed resignation of a hostess who sees her guests falling away one by one.

  So when the manservant opened the dining-room door and announced that dinner was served, she added:

  ‘Well, we’re all here. … Claude, may I take your arm?’ and led in her guests.

  Sandoz took in Mathilde and Jory Christine, while Mahoudeau and Gagnière brought up the rear, still making crude jokes about what they called ‘la belle Mathilde’s upholstery’.

  After the discreetly shaded drawing-room, they found the big dining-room ablaze with lights. The old-fashioned plates hanging all round the walls were as gay and cheerful as brightly coloured prints, while the two dressers, one for glass, the other for silver, sparkled like jewellers’ show-cases. Under the huge chandelier in the middle of the room the table, too, was one flickering mass of light and colour, all thrown into high relief by the spotless whiteness of the cloth—the cutlery, in orderly array between the hand-painted plates, the cut glass, the red and white decanters, the hors d’œuvre symmetrically arranged around the centrepiece, a basket of purple roses.

  Henriette sat between Claude and Mahoudeau; Sandoz had Christine on one side, Mathilde on the other, while Jory and Gagnière sat at the ends of the table. The butler had hardly finished serving the soup before Madame Jory let drop a few unfortunate words. With the best of intentions, not having heard her husband’s excuses, she said to her host:

  ‘Well, were you pleased with this morning’s article? Edouard read the proofs himself, so carefully!’

  Jory, terribly embarrassed, immediately corrected her.

  ‘Indeed I did not! It’s a dreadful article! It went through the other night when I was away; you know it did.’

  By the awkward silence that followed she knew that sh
e had said something wrong, but she made the situation even more awkward by giving him a withering look and saying in a loud voice, intending to crush him with her disapproval:

  ‘I see. Another of your lies! … I was only repeating what you’d told me, so why do you try to make me look a fool? I don’t like that sort of thing.’

  That cast a blight over the meal from the start. Henriette did her best to rouse an interest in the kilkis, but in vain. Christine was the only one who liked them. Sandoz, tickled by Jory’s embarrassment, gaily reminded him, when the grilled mullet were brought in, of a lunch they had once had in Marseilles. Marseilles! The only place where people know how to eat!