His Masterpiece, Émile Zola [essential reading txt] 📗

a road he stopped short in amazement on seeing Dubuche, in a silk hat, and carefully-buttoned frock coat, coming towards him, between the double row of elder hedges.

“What! is it you?”

The architect stammered from sheer vexation:

“Yes, I am going to pay a visit. It’s confoundedly idiotic in the country, eh? But it can’t be helped. There are certain things one’s obliged to do. And you live near here, eh? I knew⁠—that is to say, I didn’t. I had been told something about it, but I thought it was on the opposite side, farther down.”

Claude, very much moved at seeing him, helped him out of his difficulty.

“All right, all right, old man, there is no need to apologise. I am the most guilty party. Ah! it’s a long while since we saw one another! If you knew what a thump my heart gave when I saw your nose appear from behind the leaves!”

Then he took his arm and accompanied him, giggling with pleasure, while the other, in his constant worry about his future, which always made him talk about himself, at once began speaking of his prospects. He had just become a first-class pupil at the School, after securing the regulation “honourable mentions,” with infinite trouble. But his success left him as perplexed as ever. His parents no longer sent him a penny, they wailed about their poverty so much that he might have to support them in his turn. He had given up the idea of competing for the Prix de Rome, feeling certain of being beaten in the effort, and anxious to earn his living. And he was weary already; sick at scouring the town, at earning twenty-five sous an hour from ignorant architects, who treated him like a hodman. What course should he adopt? How was he to guess at the shortest route? He might leave the School; he would get a lift from his master, the influential Dequersonnière, who liked him for his docility and diligence; only what a deal of trouble and uncertainty there would still be before him! And he bitterly complained of the government schools, where one slaved away for years, and which did not even provide a position for all those whom they cast upon the pavement.

Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the path. The elder hedges were leading to an open plain, and La Richaudière appeared amid its lofty trees.

“Hold hard! of course,” exclaimed Claude, “I hadn’t thought about it⁠—you’re going to that shanty. Oh! the baboons; there’s a lot of ugly mugs, if you like!”

Dubuche, looking vexed at this outburst of artistic feeling, protested stiffly. “All the same, Papa Margaillan, idiot as he seems to you, is a first-rate man of business. You should see him in his building-yards, among the houses he runs up, as active as the very fiend, showing marvellous good management, and a wonderful scent as to the right streets to build and what materials to buy! Besides, one does not earn millions without becoming a gentleman. And then, too, it would be very silly of me not to be polite to a man who can be useful to me.”

While talking, he barred the narrow path, preventing his friend from advancing further⁠—no doubt from a fear of being compromised by being seen in his company, and in order to make him understand that they ought to separate there.

Claude was on the point of inquiring about their comrades in Paris, but he kept silent. Not even a word was said respecting Christine, and he was reluctantly deciding to quit Dubuche, holding out his hand to take leave, when, in spite of himself, this question fell from his quivering lips:

“And is Sandoz all right?”

“Yes, he’s pretty well. I seldom see him. He spoke to me about you last month. He is still grieved at your having shown us the door.”

“But I didn’t show you the door,” exclaimed Claude, beside himself. “Come and see me, I beg of you. I shall be so glad!”

“All right, then, we’ll come. I’ll tell him to come, I give you my word⁠—goodbye, old man, goodbye; I’m in a hurry.”

And Dubuche went off towards La Richaudière, whilst Claude watched his figure dwindle as he crossed the cultivated plain, until nothing remained but the shiny silk of his hat and the black spot of his coat. The young man returned home slowly, his heart bursting with nameless sadness. However, he said nothing about this meeting to Christine.

A week later she had gone to Faucheur’s to buy a pound of vermicelli, and was lingering on her way back, gossiping with a neighbour, with her child on her arm, when a gentleman who alighted from the ferryboat approached and asked her:

“Does not Monsieur Claude Lantier live near here?”

She was taken aback, and simply answered:

“Yes, monsieur; if you’ll kindly follow me⁠—”

They walked on side by side for about a hundred yards. The stranger, who seemed to know her, had glanced at her with a good-natured smile; but as she hurried on, trying to hide her embarrassment by looking very grave, he remained silent. She opened the door and showed the visitor into the studio, exclaiming:

“Claude, here is somebody for you.”

Then a loud cry rang out; the two men were already in each other’s arms.

“Oh, my good old Pierre! how kind of you to come! And Dubuche?”

“He was prevented at the last moment by some business, and he sent me a telegram to go without him.”

“All right, I half expected it; but you are here. By the thunder of heaven, I am glad!”

And, turning towards Christine, who was smiling, sharing their delight:

“It’s true, I didn’t tell you. But the other day I met Dubuche, who was going up yonder, to the place where those monsters live⁠—”

But he stopped short again, and then with a wild gesture shouted:

“I’m losing my wits, upon my word. You have never spoken to each other, and I leave you there like that. My dear, you see this gentleman? He’s my old chum, Pierre Sandoz,