The Kill - Emile Zola [147]
Maxime had nevertheless managed to put together a very adequate supper. Louise loved nougat with pistachios, a plateful of which had been left on a sideboard. In front of the pair were three partially drunk bottles of champagne.
“Papa may have left,” said the young woman.
“Let’s hope so,” answered Maxime. “I’ll see you home.”
And when she laughed, he continued: “You know, they’ve made up their minds that I am to marry you. It’s not a joke anymore, it’s serious. . . . So what will we do when we’re married?”
“We’ll do what everybody else does, of course!”
This jest had escaped her rather quickly. As if to withdraw it, she hastily added, “We’ll go to Italy. It will be good for my lungs. I’m very sick. . . . Oh, my poor Maxime, what a strange wife you’re going to have! I weigh about as much as two sous’ worth of butter.”
She smiled with a touch of sadness in her pageboy costume. A dry cough turned her cheeks a glowing red.
“It’s the nougat,” she said. “At home I’m not allowed to eat it. . . . Pass me the plate. I’m going to stick the rest of it in my pocket.”
And she was emptying the plate when Renée walked in. She went straight over to Maxime, making an extraordinary effort not to swear, not to thrash the little hunchback who was sitting there next to her lover.
“I want to speak to you,” she stammered in a hollow voice.
He hesitated, in the grip of fear, dreading being alone with her.
“To you alone, right away,” Renée repeated.
“Why don’t you go, Maxime?” said Louise with an inscrutable look. “And while you’re at it, try to find my father. I lose him at every party.”
He got up and tried to stop Renée in the middle of the dining room by asking her what she had to say to him that was so urgent. But she muttered between her teeth: “Follow me, or I’ll tell all in front of everyone.”
He turned white and followed along behind her as docilely as a beaten animal. She suspected that Baptiste was staring at them, but just then she couldn’t have cared less about the butler’s piercing eyes. At the door, the cotillion delayed her for the third time.
“Wait,” she muttered. “Will these imbeciles ever be done?”
And she took him by the hand so that he would not try to escape.
M. de Saffré placed the duc de Rozan with his back to the wall in a corner of the drawing room, next to the dining room door. Then he placed a lady in front of him and, after that, a gentleman back-to-back with the lady, followed by another lady in front of the gentleman and so on, couple by couple, in a long serpent. But the dancers went on talking, dawdling instead of taking their places, so he shouted, “Now, ladies, everyone in position for ‘The Columns.’ ”
They came and formed “columns.” The indecency of being caught between two men, leaning against the back of one while pressed up against the chest of the other, filled the ladies with merriment. The tips of the women’s breasts rubbed the lapels of the men’s jackets, the gentlemen’s legs disappeared into their partners’ skirts, and when a woman, laughing suddenly, leaned forward, the mustache opposite was obliged to tilt to one side to avoid stepping over the line and planting a kiss. At one point a prankster must have given a slight push. The line tightened up, and coats pressed a little more deeply into skirts. There were little shouts and laughs—endless laughs. Baroness von Meinhold was heard to say, “But sir, I can’t breathe. Don’t hold me so tight!” which was so funny and made the whole line laugh so madly that the “columns,” shaken by all the hilarity, staggered, crashed into each other, and had to hold each other up to keep from falling. M. de Saffré waited with raised hands, ready to clap. Then he did clap, and at this signal each dancer suddenly turned around. The new partners, finding themselves face-to-face, took each other by the waist, and the line of waltzers then spread out around the room. The only one left out was the poor duc de Rozan, who on turning around found himself with his nose up against