The Kill - Emile Zola [117]
An incident occurred that significantly altered the situation. Renée frequently felt a need to show off, and there was at times a crude boldness to her capriciousness. She would entice Maxime behind a curtain or a door and kiss him, despite the risk of being seen. One Thursday night, when the buttercup salon was full of visitors, she had the bright idea of calling out to Maxime, who was chatting with Louise. She moved toward him from the far end of the conservatory, where she had been, and when they came together suddenly kissed him on the mouth, in the belief that two clumps of shrubbery provided sufficient cover. But Louise had followed the young man, and when the lovers looked up, they saw her a few steps away staring at them with a strange smile, betraying neither a blush nor a sign of astonishment but staring with the quiet, friendly air of a companion in vice clever enough to understand and appreciate such a kiss.
That day Maxime was genuinely alarmed, whereas Renée seemed indifferent and even pleased. It was over. Now it was impossible for the hunchback to take her lover from her. She thought, “I should have done it on purpose. Now she knows that her ‘little man’ is mine.”
Maxime felt reassured on finding Louise as cheerful and funny as before. He judged her to be a “very smart, very good girl.” And that was all.
Renée worried, with reason. Saccard had for some time been thinking about marrying his son off to Mlle de Mareuil. There was a dowry worth a million francs that he did not want to let slip through his fingers, for he meant to get his hands on the money eventually. When Louise remained bedridden for three weeks at the beginning of the winter, he became so frightened that she might die before the planned wedding took place that he made up his mind to do it immediately. They were indeed a little young, but the doctors warned that the month of March was particularly dangerous for a girl with tuberculosis. Meanwhile, M. de Mareuil found himself in a delicate situation. In the last election, he had finally managed to get himself elected as deputy, but the Corps Législatif had quashed the result, which had been the scandal of the governmental reorganization. The story of the vote had made for a comic epic, in fact, and the newspapers had made hay with it for a month. M. Hupel de la Noue, the prefect of the département, had acted with such vigor that the other candidates had not been able to post their platforms or distribute their brochures. Following his advice, M. de Mareuil had covered the district with tables that had distributed food and drink to the peasants for an entire week. He had promised, moreover, to build a railroad, a bridge, and three churches, and on the eve of the voting had sent influential voters portraits of the Emperor and Empress, two large engravings under glass in gold frames. This gift had proved fabulously successful; the majority was overwhelming. But when the Chamber, faced with laughter from all of France, found itself forced to send M. de Mareuil back to confront the voters a second time, the minister flew into a rage against the prefect and the hapless candidate, who had really been too “clumsy.” He even broached the idea of choosing another man as the official candidate. M. de Mareuil was terrified. He had spent 300,000 francs in the département, where he owned vast estates that bored him to tears and that he would be forced to sell at a loss. He therefore begged his dear colleague to calm his brother down and promise him, in the candidate’s name, an altogether proper election. It was in these circumstances that Saccard again brought up the matter of the marriage of their two children, on which the fathers finally agreed.
When Maxime was sounded out on this subject, he found himself in a quandary. Louise amused him, and the dowry tempted him even more. He said yes and agreed to all the dates Saccard proposed so as to