The Kill - Emile Zola [145]
Meanwhile, M. Toutin-Laroche shook Saccard’s hand.
“Maxime is counting on you,” said Saccard.
“Absolutely,” answered the new senator.
Then he turned toward Renée: “Madame, I haven’t congratulated you. . . . So the dear boy’s future is now assured.”
Since her smile expressed surprise, Saccard spoke up. “My wife doesn’t know yet. Tonight we settled the matter of Mlle de Mareuil’s wedding to Maxime.”
She kept on smiling and bowed to M. Toutin-Laroche, who left with these parting words: “You sign the contract on Sunday, do you not? I’m off to Nevers to see about some mines, but I’ll be back.”
For a moment she remained alone in the middle of the vestibule. She had stopped smiling, and the more she fathomed the enormity of what she had just heard, the more she shivered. She stared fixedly at the red velvet wall hangings, the rare plants, and the majolica pots, and then she said out loud, “I must speak to him.”
And she returned to the drawing room but was obliged to stand in the doorway, because a figure of the cotillion blocked the way. The orchestra was playing a quiet section of a waltz. The ladies, holding hands, formed a circle, like a circle of little girls playing Ring Around a Rosie, and whirled around as rapidly as possible, pulling on each other’s arms, laughing, and sliding. In the center, a gentleman—it was the naughty Mr. Simpson—held a long pink scarf in his hand. He raised it up with the gesture of a fisherman about to cast a net. But he was in no hurry, no doubt because he found it amusing to allow the women to dance around him and wear themselves out. They panted and begged for mercy. Then he threw the scarf, aiming it so skillfully that it wrapped itself around the shoulders of Mme d’Espanet and Mme Haffner, who were whirling around side by side. This was the American’s little joke. He then tried to dance with both women at once, and had seized the two of them around the waist, one with his left arm, the other with his right, when M. de Saffré, as king of the cotillion, scolded him in a severe voice: “Dancing with two ladies is not allowed.”
Mr. Simpson, however, was unwilling to let go of the two women’s waists. Adeline and Suzanne wriggled in his arms, threw their heads back, and laughed. The case was argued, the ladies grew angry, the uproar continued, and the dark coats in the embrasures wondered how Saffré was going to extricate himself from this ticklish predicament without losing face. Indeed, he seemed perplexed for a moment as he cast about for a graceful way to enlist humor on his side. Then he smiled, took first Mme d’Espanet and then Mme Haffner by the hand and whispered a question in each woman’s ear, heard their answers, and turned to Mr. Simpson: “Which would you pluck, verbena or periwinkle?”
Mr. Simpson, a little slow to take this in, replied that he would take verbena, whereupon M. de Saffré gave him the marquise: “Here is your verbena.”
The guests applauded discreetly. M. de Saffré had solved the problem quite nicely, they judged. As a cotillion leader he was “never at a loss,” as the ladies put it. Meanwhile, the orchestra had struck up the melody again with all instruments, and Mr. Simpson, after waltzing around the room with Mme d’Espanet, led her back to her place.
Renée was now able to pass. At the sight of “all this nonsense” she had bitten her lips until they bled. How stupid these men and women were with their tossing of scarves and naming themselves after flowers. There was a buzzing in her ears, and, furious with impatience, she felt like putting her head down and bulling her way through the crowd. She rapidly made her way across the drawing room, bumping into couples slow to regain their seats, and headed straight for the conservatory. Not having seen Louise or Maxime among the dancers, she told