The Kill - Emile Zola [130]
She burst out laughing, and glimmers of madness shone in her eyes. Holding her lover even tighter than before, she continued. “Have we sinned, you and I? We love each other, and we’ve enjoyed each other just as we pleased. Everybody’s like that nowadays, aren’t they? . . . Your father seldom holds back. He loves money and takes it where he finds it. He’s right, it sets my mind at ease. . . . So I won’t sign anything, and you’ll come back night after night. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to anymore, you know, because of what I told you. . . . But since you don’t care. . . . In any case, I’ll close my door to him now. You see that, don’t you?”
She got up and lit the nightlight. Maxime hesitated, suddenly plunged into despair. He’d been a fool, he realized, and he came down hard on himself for having said too much. How could he announce his marriage now? It was his own fault. He had broken it off, there had been no need to return to the bedroom and above all no need to prove to Renée that her husband was swindling her. What made him even angrier with himself was that he was no longer sure what emotion he’d just given in to. But if he considered even for a moment being brutal a second time and walking out, the sight of Renée as she let her slippers fall filled him with invincible cowardice. He was afraid. He stayed.
The next day, when Saccard came for his wife’s signature on the purchase-and-sale agreement, she calmly told him that she had thought it over and changed her mind. Beyond that she gave no hint of her reasons. She had sworn to bite her tongue, since she had no wish to make trouble for herself and was eager to enjoy the resumption of her affair in peace. The Charonne business would have to play itself out. Her refusal to sign was a simple act of vengeance. About the rest she couldn’t have cared less. Saccard came close to losing his temper. His whole dream was collapsing around him. His other schemes were going from bad to worse. He was coming to the end of his tether, and only a miraculous balancing act kept him on his feet. That very morning he hadn’t been able to pay what he owed the baker, yet he was still planning a splendid party for Mid-Lent Thursday. Renée’s refusal made him feel the white rage of a man in his prime prevented from going about his business by the whim of a child. With the purchase-and-sale agreement in his pocket, he had planned to raise cash while awaiting payment of the indemnity. Later, when he had calmed down a little and his mind had cleared, he found his wife’s sudden change of mind puzzling. Surely she had taken advice from someone. He suspected a lover. His suspicions were so keen, in fact, that he hastened to his sister’s to question her, to find out if she knew anything about Renée’s secret life. Sidonie was full of spleen. She had not forgiven her sister-in-law for her refusal to see M. de Saffré. So when she grasped from her brother’s questions that he was accusing his wife of having a lover, she blurted out that she was certain of it and offered to spy on “the turtledoves” herself. She’d show that stuck-up sister-in-law of hers what kind of woman she was dealing with. As a rule Saccard did not seek to know disagreeable truths. But now his interests were at stake, and nothing else could have forced him to open eyes he otherwise kept discreetly shut. He accepted his sister’s offer.
“Go on now, rest easy, I’ll find out everything there is to know,” she told him in a voice full of compassion. “Oh, my poor brother, Angèle would never have betrayed you! A husband so good, so generous! These Parisian dolls have no heart. . . . And to think that I’ve always been there for her with good advice.”
6
On Mid-Lent Thursday