The Kill - Emile Zola [6]
1
On the way back, in the crush of carriages returning via the lakeshore, the calèche was obliged to slow to a walk. At one point the congestion became so bad that it was even forced to a stop.
The sun was setting in a light gray October sky with streaks of thin cloud on the horizon. A last ray of sunlight descending from the distant heights of the falls threaded its way along the carriageway, bathing the long line of stalled carriages in a pale reddish light. Glimmers of gold and bright flashes from the wheels seemed to cling to the straw-yellow trim of the calèche, whose deep blue side panels reflected bits of the surrounding landscape. And higher up, fully immersed in the reddish light that illuminated them from the rear and caused the brass buttons of their cloaks, half-folded over the back of the seat, to glow, the coachman and footman in their dark blue livery, putty-colored breeches, and striped black-and-yellow waistcoats held themselves erect, grave and patient, as was only proper for the servants of a good house whom no crush of carriages would ever succeed in ruffling. Their hats, ornamented with black crests, possessed great dignity. Only the horses—a superb pair of bays—snorted with impatience.
“Look over there,” said Maxime. “Laure d’Aurigny, in that coupé.1 . . . Do you see, Renée?”
Renée lifted herself up slightly and squinted with that exquisite pout she always made on account of her weak eyesight.
“I thought she’d run away,” she said. “She’s changed the color of her hair, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, she has,” Maxime laughed. “Her new lover can’t stand red.”
Renée, leaning forward with her hand resting on the low door of the calèche, stared, awakened at last from the melancholy dream that had kept her silent for the past hour as she lay stretched out in the back of the carriage like a convalescent resting on a chaise longue. Over a mauve silk dress fitted with pinafore and tunic and trimmed with wide pleated flounces, she wore a white cloth jacket with mauve velvet facings, which lent quite a swagger to her look. Her strange hair, of a pale tawny color reminiscent of the finest butter, was barely hidden by a thin hat embellished by a cluster of Bengal roses. Continuing to squint, she had the air of an impertinent youth, with a large furrow in her otherwise unblemished brow and an upper lip that protruded like a sulky child’s. Because it was hard for her to see, she took her eyeglasses—a man’s pince-nez with horn rims—and, holding them in her hand without setting them on her nose, examined the well-endowed Laure at her leisure and with an air of perfect calm.
The carriages remained motionless. Here and there amid the series of featureless dark patches formed by the long line of coupés—quite numerous in the Bois de Boulogne2 that autumn afternoon—shone the corner of a mirror or the bit of a horse or the silvered handle of a lantern or the gold braids of a footman sitting high up on his seat. Occasionally one caught a glimpse of female finery in an open landau, a flash of silk here or velvet there. Little by little a profound silence subdued all the bustle, as everything ground to a halt. Inside the carriages one heard the conversations of people passing by on foot. Mute glances were exchanged through carriage doors. All gossip had ceased, and the wait was interrupted only by the creak of a harness or the sound of a horse pawing the ground impatiently. The indistinct voices of the forest died away in the distance.
Despite the lateness of the season, all Paris was there: Duchess von Sternich in an “eight-spring”; Mme de Lauwerens in a quite handsomely rigged victoria; Baroness von Meinhold in a ravishing reddish-brown cab; Countess Wanska, with her piebald ponies; Mme Daste and her famous black “steppers”; Mme de Guende and Mme Teissière, in a coupé; and little Sylvia in a dark blue landau. And then there was Don Carlos, in mourning, with his antiquated formal livery; Selim Pasha, with his fez and without