Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [44]
“I always had a wish to know Queen Augusta,” said she. “I have heard that she is so good and so pious. Do you think that she will accompany the king?”
“It is said that she will not, madame,” he replied.
She had no lover—that was evident to all. It was sufficient to see her there, beside her daughter, so inert and so unnatural on her stool. The sepulchral drawing-room, with its church-like odour, told sufficiently under what an iron hand, in what a rigid existence, she passed her life. There was nothing of hers in that antiquated abode, blackened with damp. It was Muffat who domineered and who governed, with his bigoted education, his penances, and his fasts. But the sight of the little old man with bad teeth and cunning smile, whom Fauchery noticed just then in the easy-chair behind the ladies, appeared to him a more forcible argument still. He knew the fellow, Théophile Venot, an ex-attorney who had had the speciality of ecclesiastical causes. Having retired with a very handsome fortune, he now led a rather mysterious existence, was received everywhere, treated with great respect, and even slightly feared, as though he represented a great power—an occult one which, so to say, could be felt about him. Besides that, he affected great humility; he was a church-warden at the Madeleine, and had merely taken a situation as adjunct to the mayor of the ninth arrondissement to occupy his leisure, so he said. The countess was well protected, and no mistake! there was nothing to be done in that quarter.
“You are right; one is bored to death here,” said Fauchery to his cousin, when he had succeeded in escaping from the ladies. “We’ll be off.”
But Steiner, whom Count Muffat and the deputy had just left, came towards him looking furious, all in a perspiration, and grumbling in a low voice. “Confound them! they can keep their information to themselves if they want to. I shall find plenty of others who will speak.” Then, pushing the journalist into a corner, he said in a victorious tone of voice, “Well! it’s for to-morrow. I shall be there, my buck!”
“Ah!” murmured Fauchery, surprised.
“You didn’t know? Oh! I had an awful job to find her at home! Besides that, Mignon stuck to me wherever I went.”
“But they are going, the Mignons.”
“Yes; so she told me. Well, she at length received me, and invited me. At midnight precisely, after the theatre.” The banker looked beaming with delight. He winked his eye, and added, giving to each word a peculiar significance, “And you, did it come off?”
“What do you mean?” asked Fauchery, who affected not to understand. “She wished to thank me for my article, so she came to call on me.”
“Yes, yes. You are lucky, you fellows; you are rewarded. By the way, who is it who pays to-morrow?”
The journalist opened his arms, as though to declare that no one had been able to find out. Here Vandeuvres called to Steiner, who knew Count Bismarck. Madame du Joncquoy was almost convinced. She ended by saying:
“He made a bad impression on my mind; I think he looks wicked. However, I am willing to believe he has plenty of wit. That will explain his great successes.”
“No doubt,” said the banker—a Frankfort Jew, with a ghastly smile.
This time, however, La Faloise plucked up courage to question his cousin, and following him closely, whispered in his ear, “So there’s to be a supper at some woman’s to-morrow night? At whose place is it, eh? at whose place?”
Fauchery signalled to him that some one was listening; they must observe the proprieties. Again the door had opened, and an old lady entered, followed by a youth, whom the journalist recognised as the youngster fresh from college, who, on the first night of the “Blonde