The Kill - Emile Zola [158]
Meanwhile, the members of the committee began to fancy that they had reached the countryside. The path of the roadway ran through gardens, whose walls had been knocked down to make way for it. Huge lilac bushes were in bud. The foliage was a very delicate light green in color. Each of these gardens opened out like a castle keep walled off by shrubbery, inside which lay a narrow pool, a miniature waterfall, and a section of wall featuring trompe-l’oeil representations of foreshortened bowers set against distant blue landscapes. The houses, spread out and discreetly hidden, resembled Italian pavilions or Greek temples. Moss ate away at the bottoms of the plaster columns, while weeds loosened the mortar of the pediments.
“These are petites maisons,” said the physician with a wink.
But when he saw that the other gentlemen didn’t understand what he meant by this, he explained that in the time of Louis XIV nobles had kept retreats for assignations in the country. It was the fashion. “They called them petites maisons. This neighborhood was full of them. . . . You can bet that there were some wild goings-on in those places!”
The investigative committee had become quite attentive. Eyes glistening, the two businessmen smiled and examined these gardens and pavilions with great interest, even though they had not so much as glanced at them before hearing their colleague’s explanations. One grotto held their attention for quite some time. But when the doctor noticed one house that had already fallen victim to the pickaxes and mentioned that he recognized it as having been the petite maison of the comte de Savigny—and well-known for that gentleman’s orgies—the entire committee left the boulevard to visit the ruin. They climbed up over the rubble and entered through the first-floor windows. Since the workers were on their lunch break, they were able to enjoy themselves to their heart’s content. They stayed for more than half an hour, examining the rosettes in the ceilings, the paintings above the doors, and the overelaborate plaster moldings that had turned yellow with age. The doctor reconstructed the house.
“This room, you see, must have been the formal dining room. Over there, in that recess in the wall, there was surely a huge sofa. And wait a minute, I’m even certain there must have been a mirror above that sofa. There are the retainers for the glass. . . . Those bastards really knew how to enjoy life!”
They would never have left those old stones, which piqued their curiosity, if Saccard, impatient to get going, had not laughingly reminded them that “it’s no use looking for the ladies, they’re not here anymore. . . . It’s time to get back to business.”
Before leaving, however, the doctor climbed up on a mantel and with a deft blow from an axe detached the small painted head of a cupid, which he slipped into the pocket of his coat.
At last they came to the end of their route. The property that had previously belonged to Mme Aubertot was quite extensive. The music hall and garden occupied barely half of it. A few nondescript houses were scattered around the remaining land. The fact that the new boulevard cut diagonally across this large parallelogram had allayed one of Saccard’s fears. For a long time he had worried that only the music hall would be affected by the planned route. He had accordingly instructed Larsonneau to talk things up, since the value of the adjacent land should have increased at least fivefold. He was already threatening the city by saying that he might invoke a recent ordinance authorizing landowners to surrender only that portion of a property absolutely essential