Germinie Lacerteux Part 4

In order to be always there and to have the right to be always there, to make herself a part of the shop, to keep her eyes constantly upon the man she loved, to hover about him, to keep him, to be always brus.h.i.+ng against him, she had become the servant of the establishment. She swept the shop, she prepared the old woman's meals and the food for the dogs.

She waited upon the son; she made his bed, she brushed his clothes, she waxed his boots, happy and proud to touch what he touched, thrilling with pleasure when she placed her hand where he placed his body, and ready to kiss the mud upon the leather of his boots, because it was his!

She did the menial work, she kept the shop, she served the customers.

Madame Jupillon rested everything upon her shoulders; and while the good-natured girl was working and perspiring, the bulky matron, a.s.suming the majestic, leisurely air of an annuitant, anch.o.r.ed upon a chair in the middle of the sidewalk and inhaling the fresh air of the street, fingered and rattled the precious coin in the capacious pocket beneath her ap.r.o.n--the coin that rings so sweetly in the ears of the petty tradesmen of Paris, that the retired shopkeeper is melancholy beyond words at first, because he no longer has the c.h.i.n.king and the tinkling under his hand.

XII

When the spring came, Germinie said to Jupillon almost every evening: "Suppose we go as far as the beginning of the fields?"

Jupillon would put on his flannel s.h.i.+rt with red and black squares, and his black velvet cap; and they would start for what the people of the quarter call "the beginning of the fields."

They would go up the Chaussee Clignancourt, and, with the flood of Parisians from the faubourg hurrying to drink a little fresh air, would walk on toward the great patch of sky that rose straight from the pavements, at the top of the ascent, between the two lines of houses, un.o.bstructed except by an occasional omnibus. The air was growing cooler and the sun shone only upon the roofs of the houses and the chimneys. As from a great door opening into the country, there came from the end of the street and from the sky beyond, a breath of boundless s.p.a.ce and liberty.

At the Chateau-Rouge they found the first tree, the first foliage. Then, at Rue du Chateau, the horizon opened before them in dazzling beauty.

The fields stretched away in the distance, glistening vaguely in the powdery, golden haze of seven o'clock. All nature trembled in the daylight dust that the day leaves in its wake, upon the verdure it blots from sight and the houses it suffuses with pink.

Frequently they descended the footpath covered with the figures of the game of hop-scotch marked out in charcoal, by long walls with an occasional overhanging branch, by lines of detached houses with gardens between. At their left rose tree-tops filled with light, cl.u.s.tering foliage pierced by the beams of the setting sun, which cast lines of fire across the bars of the iron gateways. After the gardens came hedgerows, estates for sale, unfinished buildings erected upon the line of projected streets and stretching out their jagged walls into empty s.p.a.ce, with heaps of broken bottles at their feet; large, low, plastered houses, with windows filled with bird-cages and cloths, and with the Y of the sink-pipes at every floor; and openings into enclosures that resembled barnyards, studded with little mounds on which goats were browsing.

They would stop here and there and smell the flowers, inhale the perfume of a meagre lilac growing in a narrow lane. Germinie would pluck a leaf in pa.s.sing and nibble at it.

Flocks of joyous swallows flew wildly about in circles and in fantastic figures over her head. The birds called. The sky answered the cages. She heard everything about her singing, and glanced with a glad eye at the women in chemisettes at the windows, the men in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves in the little gardens, the mothers on the doorsteps with their little ones between their legs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter XII

_But at the fortifications her pleasure returned. She would go with Jupillon and sit upon the slope of the embankment. Beside her were families innumerable, workmen lying flat upon their faces, small annuitants gazing at the horizon through spy-gla.s.ses, philosophers of want, bent double, with their hands upon their knees, the greasy coats characteristic of old men, and black hats worn as red as their red beards._]

At the foot of the slope the pavement came to an end. The street was succeeded by a broad, white, chalky, dusty road, made of debris, old pieces of plaster, crumbs of lime and bricks; a sunken road, with deep ruts, polished on the edges, made by the iron tires of the huge great wheels of carts laden with hewn stone. At that point began the things that collect where Paris ends, the things that grow where gra.s.s does not grow, one of those arid landscapes that large cities create around them, the first zone of suburbs _intra muros_ where nature is exhausted, the soil used up, the fields sown with oyster sh.e.l.ls. Beyond was a wilderness of half-enclosed yards displaying numbers of carts and trucks with their shafts in the air against the sky, stone-cutters' sheds, factories built of boards, unfinished workmen's houses, full of gaps and open to the light, and bearing the mason's flag, wastes of gray and white sand, kitchen gardens marked out with cords, and, on the lower level, bogs to which the embankment of the road slopes down in oceans of small stones.

Soon they would reach the last lantern hanging on a green post. People were still coming and going about them. The road was alive and amused the eyes. They met women carrying their husband's canes, lorettes in silk dresses leaning on the arms of their blouse-clad brothers, old women in bright-colored ginghams walking about with folded arms, enjoying a moment's rest from labor. Workmen were drawing their children in little wagons, urchins returning with their rods from fis.h.i.+ng at Saint-Ouen, and men and women dragging branches of flowering acacia at the ends of sticks.

Sometimes a pregnant woman would pa.s.s, holding out her arms to a yet small child, and casting the shadow of her pregnancy upon the wall.

And everyone moved tranquilly, blissfully, at a pace that told of the wish to delay, with the awkward ease and the happy indolence of those who walk for pleasure. No one was in a hurry, and against the unbroken horizon line, crossed from time to time by the white smoke of a railroad train, the groups of promenaders were like black spots, almost motionless, in the distance.

Behind Montmartre, they came to those great moats, as it were, those sloping squares, where narrow, gray, much-trodden paths cross and recross. A few blades of shriveled, yellow gra.s.s grew thereabout, softened by the rays of the setting sun, which they could see, all ablaze, between the houses. And Germinie loved to watch the wool-combers at work there, the quarry horses at pasture in the bare fields, the madder-red trousers of the soldiers who were playing at bowls, the children flying kites that made black spots in the clear air. Pa.s.sing all these, they turned to cross the bridge over the railroad by the wretched settlement of ragpickers, the stonemasons' quarter at the foot of Clignancourt hill. They would walk quickly by those houses built of materials stolen from demolished buildings, and exuding the horrors they conceal; the wretched structures, half cabin, half burrow, caused Germinie a vague feeling of terror: it seemed to her as if all the crimes of Night were lurking there.

But at the fortifications her pleasure returned. She would go with Jupillon and sit upon the slope of the embankment. Beside her were families innumerable, workmen lying flat upon their faces, small annuitants gazing at the horizon through spy-gla.s.ses, philosophers of want, bent double, with their hands upon their knees, the greasy coats characteristic of old men, and black hats worn as red as their red beards. The air was full of rich harmonies. Below her, in the moat, a musical society was playing at each corner. Before her eyes was a multi-colored crowd, white blouses, children in blue ap.r.o.ns running around, a game of riding at the ring in progress, wine shops, cake shops, fried fish stalls, and shooting galleries half hidden in clumps of verdure, from which arose staves bearing the tricolor; and farther away, in a bluish haze, a line of tree tops marked the location of a road. To the right she could see Saint-Denis and the towering basilica; at her left, above a line of houses that were becoming indistinct, the sun was setting over Saint-Ouen in a disk of cherry-colored flame, and projecting upon the gray horizon shafts of light like red pillars that seemed to support it tremblingly. Often a child's balloon would pa.s.s swiftly across the dazzling expanse of sky.

They would go down, pa.s.s through the gate, walk along by the Lorraine sausage shops, the dealers in honeycomb, the board _cabarets_, the verdureless, still unpainted arbors, where a noisy mult.i.tude of men and women and children were eating fried potatoes, mussels and prawns, until they reached the first field, the first living gra.s.s: on the edge of the gra.s.s there was a handcart laden with gingerbread and peppermint lozenges, and a woman selling hot cocoa on a table in the furrow. A strange country, where everything was mingled--the smoke from the frying-pan and the evening vapor, the noise of quoits on the head of a cask and the silence shed from the sky, the city barrier and the idyllic rural scene, the odor of manure and the fresh smell of green wheat, the great human Fair and Nature! Germinie enjoyed it, however; and, urging Jupillon to go farther, walking on the very edge of the road, she would constantly step in among the grain to enjoy the fresh, cool sensation of the stalks against her stockings. When they returned she always wanted to go upon the slope once more. The sun had by that time disappeared and the sky was gray below, pink in the centre and blue above. The horizon grew dark; from green the trees became a dark brown and melted into the sky; the zinc roofs of the wine shops looked as if the moon were s.h.i.+ning upon them, fires began to appear in the darkness, the crowd became gray, and the white linen took on a bluish tinge. Little by little everything would fade away, be blotted out, lose its form and color in a dying remnant of colorless daylight, and through the increasing darkness the voices of a cla.s.s whose life begins at night, and the voice of the wine beginning to sing, would arise, mingled with the din of the rattles. Upon the slope the tops of the tall gra.s.s waved to and fro in the gentle breeze. Germinie would make up her mind to go.

She would wend her way homeward, filled with the influence of the falling night, abandoning herself to the uncertain vision of things half-seen, pa.s.sing the dark houses, and finding that everything along her road had turned paler, as it were--wearied by the long walk over rough roads, and content to be weary and slow and half-fainting, and with a feeling of peace at her heart.

At the first lighted lanterns on Rue du Chateau, she would fall from her dream to the pavement.

XIII

Madame Jupillon's face always wore a pleased expression when Germinie appeared; when she kissed her she was very effusive, when she spoke to her her voice was caressing, when she looked at her her glance was most amiable. The huge creature's kind heart seemed, when with her, to abandon itself to the emotion, the affection, the trustfulness of a sort of maternal tenderness. She took Germinie into her confidence as to her business, as to her woman's secrets, as to the most private affairs of her life. She seemed to open her heart to her as to a person of her own blood, whom she desired to make familiar with matters of interest to the family. When she spoke of the future, she always referred to Germinie as one from whom she was never to be separated, and who formed a part of the household. Often she allowed certain discreet, mysterious smiles to escape her, smiles which made it appear that she saw all that was going on and was not angry. Sometimes, too, when her son was sitting by Germinie's side, she would let her eyes, moist with a mother's tears, rest upon them, and would embrace them with a glance that seemed to unite her two children and call down a blessing on their heads.

Without speaking, without ever uttering a word that could be construed as an engagement, without divulging her thoughts or binding herself in any way, and all the time repeating that her son was still very young to think of being married, she encouraged Germinie's hopes and illusions by her whole bearing, her airs of secret indulgence and of complicity, so far as her heart was concerned; by those meaning silences when she seemed to open to her a mother-in-law's arms. And displaying all her talents in the way of hypocrisy, drawing upon her hidden mines of sentiment, her good-natured shrewdness, and the consummate, intricate cunning that fat people possess, the corpulent matron succeeded in vanquis.h.i.+ng Germinie's last resistance by dint of this tacit a.s.surance and promise of marriage; and she finally allowed the young man's ardor to extort from her what she believed that she was giving in advance to the husband.

XIV

As Germinie was going down the servant's staircase one day, she heard Adele's voice calling her over the banister and telling her to bring her two sous' worth of b.u.t.ter and ten of absinthe.

"Oh! you can sit down a minute, you know you can," said Adele, when she brought her the absinthe and the b.u.t.ter. "I never see you now, you'll never come in. Come! you have plenty of time to be with your old woman.

For my part, I couldn't live with an Antichrist's face like hers! So stay. This is the house without work to-day. There isn't a sou--madame's abed. Whenever there's no money, she goes to bed, does madame; she stays in bed all day, reading novels. Have some of this?"--And she offered her her gla.s.s of absinthe.--"No? oh! no, you don't drink. You're very foolish. It's a funny thing not to drink. Say, it would be very nice of you to write me a little line for my dearie. Hard work, you know. I have told you about it. See, here's madame's pen--and her paper--it smells good. Are you ready? He's a good fellow, my dear, and no mistake! He's in the butcher line as I told you. Ah! my word! I mustn't rub him the wrong way! When he's had a gla.s.s of blood after killing his beasts, he's like a madman--and if you're obstinate with him--Dame! why then he thumps you! But what would you have? He does that to make him strong. If you could see him thump himself on the breast--blows that would kill an ox, and say: 'That's a wall, that is!' Ah! he's a gentleman, I tell you!

Are you thinking about the letter, eh? Make it one of the fetching kind.

Say nice things to him, you know--and a little sad--he adores that. At the theatre he doesn't like anything that doesn't make him cry. Look here! Imagine that you're writing to a lover of your own."

Germinie began to write.

"Say, Germinie! Have you heard? Madame's taken a strange idea into her head. It's a funny thing about women like her, who can hold their heads up with the greatest of 'em, who can have everything, hobn.o.b with kings if they choose! And there's nothing to be said--when one is like madame, you know, when one has such a body as that! And then the way they load themselves down with finery, with their tralala of dresses and lace everywhere and everything else--how do you suppose anyone can resist them? And if it isn't a gentleman, if it's someone like us--you can see how much more all that will catch him; a woman in velvet goes to his brain. Yes, my dear, just fancy, here's madame gone daft on that _gamin_ of a Jupillon! That's all we needed to make us die of hunger here!"

Germinie, with her pen in the air over the letter she had begun, looked up at Adele, devouring her with her eyes.

"That brings you to a standstill, doesn't it?" said Adele, sipping her absinthe, her face lighted up with joy at sight of Germinie's discomposed features. "Oh! it is too absurd, really; but it's true, 'pon my word it's true. She noticed the _gamin_ on the steps of the shop the other day, coming home from the races. She's been there two or three times on the pretence of buying something. She'll probably have some perfumery sent from there--to-morrow, I think.--Bah! it's sickening, isn't it? It's their affair. Well! what about my letter? Is it what I told you that makes you so stupid? You played the prude--I didn't know--Oh! yes, yes, now I remember; that's what it is--What was it you said to me about the little one? I believe you didn't want anyone to touch him! Idiot!"

At a gesture of denial from Germinie, she continued:

"Nonsense, nonsense! What do I care? The kind of a child that, if you blew his nose, milk would come out! Thanks! that's not my style.

However, that's your business. Come, now for my letter, eh?"

Germinie leaned over the sheet of paper. But she was burning up with fever; the quill cracked in her nervous fingers. "There," she said, throwing it down after a few seconds, "I don't know what's the matter with me to-day. I'll write it for you another time."

"As you like, little one--but I rely on you. Come to-morrow, then.--I'll tell you some of madame's nonsense. We'll have a good laugh at her!"

And, when the door was closed, Adele began to roar with laughter: it had cost her only a little _blague_ to unearth Germinie's secret.

XV

So far as young Jupillon was concerned, love was simply the satisfaction of a certain evil curiosity, which sought, in the knowledge and possession of a woman, the privilege and the pleasure of despising her.