The Kill - Emile Zola [7]
The first carriages finally succeeded in extricating themselves, and one by one the whole line slowly began to move. It was like an awakening. A thousand lights began to dance, flashes darted among the wheels, and harnesses glinted as teams strained against their traces. Ground and trees shimmered in what seemed like the glare of moving ice. The glitter of harnesses and wheels, the amber glow of polished panels set ablaze by the setting sun, the shrill accents added by splendid liveries set up high against the open sky and sumptuous finery spilling out over carriage doors—all of this was swept along in a dull rumble, punctuated only by the hoofbeats of trotting horses. The whole parade moved steadily along in a uniform motion, sights and sounds unvarying from first to last, as if the lead carriages were pulling the rest after them.
Renée yielded to the slight jolt of the calèche as it resumed its forward progress and, dropping her pince-nez, once again leaned back against the cushions. With a shiver she drew over herself a corner of the bearskin that filled the interior of the carriage with a layer of silky snow. Her gloved hands luxuriated in the deep, soft curls of fur. The wind had picked up. The warm October afternoon that had brought spring back to the Bois and drawn the leading lights of high society out in open carriages threatened to end in a biting evening chill.
For a short while the young woman lay huddled in her warm corner, giving herself up to the voluptuous, hypnotic motion of so many wheels turning round and round in front of her. Then she lifted up her head toward Maxime, who with his eyes was calmly undressing the women on display in the nearby coupés and landaus.
“Honestly,” she asked, “do you think Laure d’Aurigny is pretty? You had nice things to say about her the other day, when the sale of her diamonds was announced! And by the way, have you seen the rivière and the aigrette4 your father bought me at that sale?”
Avoiding the first question, Maxime met the second with a nasty snicker. “You have to admit that he carried it off nicely. He found a way to pay off Laure’s debts and give his wife diamonds at the same time.”
The young woman gave a slight shrug.
“Naughty boy!” she murmured with a smile.
But the young man had leaned forward to stare at a woman whose green dress caught his eye. Renée laid her head down, her eyes half-closed, staring idly at either side of the carriageway, seeing nothing. To her right, a slow procession of shrubs and small trees with reddish foliage and slender branches slipped past. On the bridle path reserved for riders, narrow-waisted gentlemen occasionally galloped by on horses whose hooves raised small clouds of fine sand. To the left, flower beds of various shapes dotted the lawn that sloped down to the quiet lake, which was crystal clear, free of algae, and neatly edged as if by a gardener’s spade. From the far side of its mirror surface rose two islands, joined by the gray hyphen of a bridge, above which loomed charming cliffs whose theatrical rows of fir and other evergreens stood out against the pale sky, while reflections of their dark foliage on the water’s surface resembled the fringes of curtains artfully draped over the horizon. This little patch of nature, with its air of a freshly painted backdrop, lay immersed in a pale shadow, a bluish haze that added a finishing touch of exquisite charm, of delightful falsity, to the distances. On the other shore, the Chalet des Iles, looking freshly polished, gleamed like a brand-new toy. Snaking through the lawns of the park and around the lake, ribbons of yellow sand, narrow paths lined with the cast-iron branches of lampposts in imitation of a rustic copse, stood out in this final hour in the strangest way against the softened green of water and grass.
Accustomed