The Kill - Emile Zola [30]
Twice he called on his brother to urge him to press his inquiries a little harder. Eugène greeted him brusquely and repeated that he had not forgotten his promise but that it would be necessary to wait. At last Aristide received a letter inviting him to the apartment on the rue de Penthièvre. He went, his heart pounding as though he were on his way to a romantic assignation. He found Eugène seated at the same small black writing table in the large, chilly room that served as his office. No sooner did the attorney catch sight of his brother than he handed him a piece of paper. “Here, I received your assignment yesterday. You’ve been appointed assistant surveyor of roads at the Hôtel de Ville. Your compensation will be 2,400 francs.”
Aristide had remained standing. He blanched and did not take the document, thinking that his brother must be mocking him. He had hoped for a post that paid at least 6,000 francs. Eugène, divining his thoughts, wheeled his chair around and folded his arms. “Are you a fool after all?” he asked with considerable heat. “Your dreams are those of a whore, aren’t they? You’d like to live in a fine apartment, have servants, eat well, sleep in silk, and take your pleasure in the arms of the first person to happen by, in a boudoir furnished in a couple of hours. . . . If we let you and your kind have your way, you’d empty the coffers before there was anything in them. So be patient, for heaven’s sake! Look how I live, and take the trouble to lower yourself a little if you want to come away with a fortune.”
He spoke with deep contempt for his brother’s adolescent impatience. In his gruff speech one sensed higher ambitions, a desire for pure power. Aristide’s naïve appetite for money must have struck him as bourgeois and puerile. Speaking in a gentler voice and smiling a sly smile, he went on: “Of course your attitude is excellent, and I’ll be careful not to stand in your way. Men like you are precious. We intend to choose our good friends carefully from the ranks of the most famished. And rest assured, we shall keep an open table, and the biggest appetites will eat their fill. No one has yet found a better way to rule. . . . But please, do me a favor, wait until the table has been laid, and if you want my advice, take the trouble to fetch your own silver from the kitchen.”
Aristide remained somber. His brother’s amiable metaphors failed to elicit a smile. Eugène again gave vent to his wrath. “Damn!” he exclaimed. “I was right in the first place: you are a fool. . . . So what were you hoping for? What did you think I was going to come up with for an illustrious personage like yourself ? You lacked the stomach even to finish your law degree, you hid out for ten years in a wretched clerical post in a subprefecture, and you come to me with a detestable reputation as a republican who waited until the coup to convert. . . . Do you think you’ve got the makings of a minister, with a record like that? Don’t tell me, I already know: what you’ve got going for you is your fierce desire to succeed by any and all means. And that, I grant you, is a great virtue and is precisely what I had in mind when I got you the job at city hall.”
He then got up, walked over to Aristide, and placed the nomination in his hand. “Take it,” he went on. “Someday you’ll thank me. I chose the post personally, so I know what can be got out of it. . . . All you have to do is keep