Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

CHAPTER III

AGAIN?

 

The regiment was altogether nonplused: Petticoat Burle had quarreled

with Melanie. When a week had elapsed it became a proved and

undeniable fact; the captain no longer set foot inside the Cafe de

Paris, where the chemist, it was averred, once more reigned in his

stead, to the profound sorrow of the retired magistrate. An even

more incredible statement was that Captain Burle led the life of a

recluse in the Rue des Recollets. He was becoming a reformed

character; he spent his evenings at his own fireside, hearing little

Charles repeat his lessons. His mother, who had never breathed a

word to him of his manipulations with Gagneux, maintained her old

severity of demeanor as she sat opposite to him in her armchair, but

her looks seemed to imply that she believed him reclaimed.

 

A fortnight later Major Laguitte came one evening to invite himself

to dinner. He felt some awkwardness at the prospect of meeting

Burle again, not on his own account but because he dreaded awakening

painful memories. However, as the captain was mending his ways he

wished to shake hands and break a crust with him. He thought this

would please his old friend.

 

When Laguitte arrived Burle was in his room, so it was the old lady

who received the major. The latter, after announcing that he had

come to have a plate of soup with them, added, lowering his voice:

 

“Well, how goes it?”

 

“It is all right,” answered the old lady.

 

“Nothing queer?”

 

“Absolutely nothing. Never away—in bed at nine—and looking quite

happy.”

 

“Ah, confound it,” replied the major, “I knew very well he only

wanted a shaking. He has some heart left, the dog!”

 

When Burle appeared he almost crushed the major’s hands in his

grasp, and standing before the fire, waiting for the dinner, they

conversed peacefully, honestly, together, extolling the charms of

home life. The captain vowed he wouldn’t exchange his home for a

kingdom and declared that when he had removed his braces, put on his

slippers and settled himself in his armchair, no king was fit to

hold a candle to him. The major assented and examined him. At all

events his virtuous conduct had not made him any thinner; he still

looked bloated; his eyes were bleared, and his mouth was heavy. He

seemed to be half asleep as he repeated mechanically: “Home life!

There’s nothing like home life, nothing in the world!”

 

“No doubt,” said the major; “still, one mustn’t exaggerate—take a

little exercise and come to the cafe now and then.”

 

“To the cafe, why?” asked Burle. “Do I lack anything here? No, no,

I remain at home.”

 

When Charles had laid his books aside Laguitte was surprised to see

a maid come in to lay the cloth.

 

“So you keep a servant now,” he remarked to Mme Burle.

 

“I had to get one,” she answered with a sigh. “My legs are not what

they used to be, and the household was going to rack and ruin.

Fortunately Cabrol let me have his daughter. You know old Cabrol,

who sweeps the market? He did not know what to do with Rose—I am

teaching her how to work.”

 

Just then the girl left the room.

 

“How old is she?” asked the major.

 

“Barely seventeen. She is stupid and dirty, but I only give her ten

francs a month, and she eats nothing but soup.”

 

When Rose returned with an armful of plates Laguitte, though he did

not care about women, began to scrutinize her and was amazed at

seeing so ugly a creature. She was very short, very dark and

slightly deformed, with a face like an ape’s: a flat nose, a huge

mouth and narrow greenish eyes. Her broad back and long arms gave

her an appearance of great strength.

 

“What a snout!” said Laguitte, laughing, when the maid had again

left the room to fetch the cruets.

 

“Never mind,” said Burle carelessly, “she is very obliging and does

all one asks her. She suits us well enough as a scullion.”

 

The dinner was very pleasant. It consisted of boiled beef and

mutton hash. Charles was encouraged to relate some stories of his

school, and Mme Burle repeatedly asked him the same question: “Don’t

you want to be a soldier?” A faint smile hovered over the child’s

wan lips as he answered with the frightened obedience of a trained

dog, “Oh yes, Grandmother.” Captain Burle, with his elbows on the

table, was masticating slowly with an absent-minded expression. The

big room was getting warmer; the single lamp placed on the table

left the corners in vague gloom. There was a certain amount of

heavy comfort, the familiar intimacy of penurious people who do not

change their plates at every course but become joyously excited at

the unexpected appearance of a bowl of whipped egg cream at the

close of the meal.

 

Rose, whose heavy tread shook the floor as she paced round the

table, had not yet opened her mouth. At last she stopped behind the

captain’s chair and asked in a gruff voice: “Cheese, sir?”

 

Burle started. “What, eh? Oh yes—cheese. Hold the plate tight.”

 

He cut a piece of Gruyere, the girl watching him the while with her

narrow eyes. Laguitte laughed; Rose’s unparalleled ugliness amused

him immensely. He whispered in the captain’s ear, “She is ripping!

There never was such a nose and such a mouth! You ought to send her

to the colonel’s someday as a curiosity. It would amuse him to see

her.”

 

More and more struck by this phenomenal ugliness, the major felt a

paternal desire to examine the girl more closely.

 

“Come here,” he said, “I want some cheese too.”

 

She brought the plate, and Laguitte, sticking the knife in the

Gruyere, stared at her, grinning the while because he discovered

that she had one nostril broader than the other. Rose gravely

allowed herself to be looked at, waiting till the gentleman had done

laughing.

 

She removed the cloth and disappeared. Burle immediately went to

sleep in the chimney corner while the major and Mme Burle began to

chat. Charles had returned to his exercises. Quietude fell from

the loft ceiling; the quietude of a middle-class household gathered

in concord around their fireside. At nine o’clock Burle woke up,

yawned and announced that he was going off to bed; he apologized but

declared that he could not keep his eyes open. Half an hour later,

when the major took his leave, Mme Burle vainly called for Rose to

light him downstairs; the girl must have gone up to her room; she

was, indeed, a regular hen, snoring the round of the clock without

waking.

 

“No need to disturb anybody,” said Laguitte on the landing; “my legs

are not much better than yours, but if I get hold of the banisters I

shan’t break any bones. Now, my dear lady, I leave you happy; your

troubles are ended at last. I watched Burle closely, and I’ll take

my oath that he’s guileless as a child. Dash it—after all, it was

high time for Petticoat Burle to reform; he was going downhill

fast.”

 

The major went away fully satisfied with the house and its inmates;

the walls were of glass and could harbor no equivocal conduct. What

particularly delighted him in his friend’s return to virtue was that

it absolved him from the obligation of verifying the accounts.

Nothing was more distasteful to him than the inspection of a number

of ledgers, and as long as Burle kept steady, he—Laguitte—could

smoke his pipe in peace and sign the books in all confidence.

However, he continued to keep one eye open for a little while longer

and found the receipts genuine, the entries correct, the columns

admirably balanced. A month later he contented himself with

glancing at the receipts and running his eye over the totals. Then

one morning, without the slightest suspicion of there being anything

wrong, simply because he had lit a second pipe and had nothing to

do, he carelessly added up a row of figures and fancied that he

detected an error of thirteen francs. The balance seemed perfectly

correct, and yet he was not mistaken; the total outlay was thirteen

francs more than the various sums for which receipts were furnished.

It looked queer, but he said nothing to Burle, just making up his

mind to examine the next accounts closely. On the following week he

detected a fresh error of nineteen francs, and then, suddenly

becoming alarmed, he shut himself up with the books and spent a

wretched morning poring over them, perspiring, swearing and feeling

as if his very skull were bursting with the figures. At every page

he discovered thefts of a few francs—the most miserable petty

thefts—ten, eight, eleven francs, latterly, three and four; and,

indeed, there was one column showing that Burle had pilfered just

one franc and a half. For two months, however, he had been steadily

robbing the cashbox, and by comparing dates the major found to his

disgust that the famous lesson respecting Gagneux had only kept him

straight for one week! This last discovery infuriated Laguitte, who

struck the books with his clenched fists, yelling through a shower

of oaths:

 

“This is more abominable still! At least there was some pluck about

those forged receipts of Gagneux. But this time he is as

contemptible as a cook charging twopence extra for her cabbages.

Powers of hell! To pilfer a franc and a half and clap it in his

pocket! Hasn’t the brute got any pride then? Couldn’t he run away

with the safe or play the fool with actresses?”

 

The pitiful meanness of these pilferings revolted the major, and,

moreover, he was enraged at having been duped a second time,

deceived by the simple, stupid dodge of falsified additions. He

rose at last and paced his office for a whole hour, growling aloud.

 

“This gives me his measure. Even if I were to thresh him to a jelly

every morning he would still drop a couple of coins into his pocket

every afternoon. But where can he spend it all? He is never seen

abroad; he goes to bed at nine, and everything looks so clean and

proper over there. Can the brute have vices that nobody knows of?”

 

He returned to the desk, added up the subtracted money and found a

total of five hundred and forty-five francs. Where was this

deficiency to come from? The inspection was close at hand, and if

the crotchety colonel should take it