The Kill - Emile Zola [76]
Appearing to support each other, the Emperor and the elderly general continued to move forward in a lethargic manner, taking short steps and smiling vaguely. They looked to the right and to the left, and as they did their gazes slipped into the bodices of the bowing ladies. The general leaned over and said something to the sovereign, giving his arm a comradely squeeze. And the Emperor, listless and impenetrable, even more vapid than usual, drew nearer and nearer in his dawdling way.
They had reached the middle of the reception room when Renée felt their eyes upon her. The general stared at her in astonishment, while the Emperor, raising his lids slightly, revealed a predatory gleam in the otherwise hesitant gray of his bleary gaze. Renée, taken aback, looked down and bowed until she could see nothing but the rose pattern in the carpet. But she followed their shadows and realized that they had paused for several seconds in front of her. And she thought she heard the Emperor, that lascivious dreamer, murmur as he gazed at her tightly wrapped in her skirt of muslin striped with velvet, “Now there, general, is a flower worth picking, a mysterious pink carnation with white and black streaks.”
To which the general replied in a more brutal tone, “Sire, that carnation there would look damned good in our buttonholes!”
Renée raised her head. The apparition had disappeared, and a throng was clogging the doorway. Since that evening, she had been back to the Tuileries many times and had even had the honor of being complimented out loud by His Majesty and becoming something of a friend of his. But she always remembered the sovereign’s slow, ponderous march through the reception room, between the two rows of shoulders. And as her husband’s fortune grew, whenever she experienced some new joy, she recalled the image of the Emperor towering over the bowed bosoms, coming toward her, and comparing her to a carnation, which the old general advised him to put in his buttonhole. This was the high point of her life.
4
The clear, burning desire that had risen in Renée’s heart as she breathed in the unsettling fragrances of the conservatory while Maxime and Louise laughed on a love seat in the little buttercup salon seemed to vanish like a nightmare, leaving behind only a vague shudder. The bitter taste of tanghin had lingered on the young woman’s lips throughout the night. The infernal leaf caused a burning sensation that made her feel as though a mouth of flame had pressed itself to hers, breathing into her a devouring love. Then that mouth fled from her, and great waves of darkness rolled over her, drowning her dream.
In the morning she slept a little. When she woke up, she felt sick. She ordered the curtains drawn, spoke to her doctor of nausea and a headache, and for two days absolutely refused to go out. Since she was pretending to be under siege, moreover, she closed her door to all visitors. Maxime came and knocked, but to no avail. In order to be free to use his apartment as he pleased, he had stopped sleeping at home. Indeed, he led the most nomadic life imaginable, taking up residence in new houses his father had built, choosing whatever floor he liked, and moving monthly from one place to another, often on a whim but sometimes to make room for paying tenants. He would move in with a mistress before the paint had dried. Accustomed to his stepmother’s caprices, he feigned great compassion and went up to her room four times a day to put on a long face and ask how she was, just to tease her. On the third day he found her in the small salon, in the pink, smiling, looking calm and rested.
“So, did you have a good time with Céleste?” he asked, alluding to the long tête-à-tête that she’d just had with her chambermaid.
“Yes,” she replied, “the girl is precious. Her hands are always ice cold. She put them on my brow and calmed my poor head a bit.”
“So she