The Kill - Emile Zola [111]
“How beautiful you look, my dear!” Aunt Elisabeth suddenly blurted out, as though she had not previously noticed her niece’s lace.
She stopped knitting and adjusted her glasses to get a better look. M. Béraud Du Châtel smiled wanly.
“It’s rather white,” he said. “A woman must feel quite embarrassed to be seen like that on the sidewalks.”
“But father, one doesn’t go out on foot!” Renée exclaimed, only to regret that ingenuous utterance the moment the words were out of her mouth.
The old man was on the point of responding, but he got up, stretched himself to his full height, and slowly walked away without looking at his daughter. Emotion had drained all the color from her face. Each time she exhorted herself to have courage and look for an opening to ask for money, she felt a twinge in her heart.
“We never see you anymore, father,” she murmured.
“Oh!” the aunt answered without giving her brother time to open his mouth, “Your father seldom goes out except on rare occasion to the Jardin des Plantes. And to make him do even that much I have to get angry! He pretends that he can’t find his way around Paris, which no longer suits him. . . . So go ahead and scold him if you like!”
“My husband would be so glad to see you at our Thursdays!” the young woman continued.
M. Béraud Du Châtel took a few steps in silence. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “Thank your husband for me. He’s an energetic fellow, it seems, and for your sake I hope that he does business honestly. But we don’t share the same ideas, he and I, and I’m not comfortable in your beautiful house at Parc Monceau.”
Aunt Elisabeth seemed saddened by this reply.
“Men are so disagreeable with their politics!” she said cheerfully. “Do you want to know the truth? Your father is furious with you because you go to the Tuileries.”
But the old man shrugged, as if to say that there were far graver reasons for his discontent. He resumed his slow pace, lost in thought. Renée remained silent for a moment, the request for 50,000 francs hanging on the tip of her tongue. But then she lost heart more than ever, went over and kissed her father, and walked out.
Aunt Elisabeth insisted on accompanying her as far as the staircase. In passing through the series of rooms, she continued the conversation in the soft voice of the elderly woman she was. “You’re happy, my dear. It gives me great pleasure to see you beautiful and healthy, because if your marriage hadn’t worked out, I would have blamed myself, you know. . . . Your husband loves you, and you have everything you need, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Renée answered, straining to smile though she felt sick at heart.
Her aunt continued to hold on to her with one hand, the other hand resting on the banister.
“I have just one fear, you see, which is that you don’t become intoxicated with all your happiness. Be careful, and above all, don’t sell anything. . . . If some day you have a child, you’ll have a tidy fortune ready and waiting for it.”
When Renée was safely back in her carriage, she gave a sigh of relief. She had drops of cold sweat on her temples. As she wiped them off, she thought of the damp chill of the Béraud house. When the carriage reached the bright sunshine of the Quai Saint-Paul, she remembered the 50,000 francs, and all her pain returned, sharper than ever. People thought of her as such a bold woman, but what a coward she’d just been! Yet it was all about Maxime, and his freedom, and their happiness together! As she reproached herself bitterly, a new idea suddenly came to her, compounding her despair: she should have mentioned the 50,000 francs to Aunt Elisabeth on the staircase. What had she been thinking? The good woman might have lent her the money or at the very least helped her out. She was already leaning out to tell the coachman to return to the rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile when she