The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de MaupassantЧитать онлайн книгу.
for we adore you, mamma and I. As to myself, I cannot get on without you. When you are not here I am bored to death. You see I tell you so plainly, so that you may no longer have the right of disappearing like that. Give me your arm, I will show you ‘Jesus Walking on the Waters’ myself; it is right away at the end, beyond the conservatory. Papa had it put there so that they should be obliged to see everything before they could get to it. It is astonishing how he is showing off this place.”
They went on quietly among the crowd. People turned round to look at this good-looking fellow and this charming little doll. A well-known painter said: “What a pretty pair. They go capitally together.”
George thought: “If I had been really clever, this is the girl I should have married. It was possible. How is it I did not think of it? How did I come to take that other one? What a piece of stupidity. We always act too impetuously, and never reflect sufficiently.”
And envy, bitter envy, sank drop by drop into his mind like a gall, embittering all his pleasures, and rendering existence hateful.
Susan was saying: “Oh! do come often, Pretty-boy; we will go in for all manner of things now, papa is so rich. We will amuse ourselves like madcaps.”
He answered, still following up his idea: “Oh! you will marry now. You will marry some prince, a ruined one, and we shall scarcely see one another.”
She exclaimed, frankly: “Oh! no, not yet. I want someone who pleases me, who pleases me a great deal, who pleases me altogether. I am rich enough for two.”
He smiled with a haughty and ironical smile, and began to point out to her people that were passing, very noble folk who had sold their rusty titles to the daughters of financiers like herself, and who now lived with or away from their wives, but free, impudent, known, and respected. He concluded with: “I will not give you six months before you are caught with that same bait. You will be a marchioness, a duchess or a princess, and will look down on me from a very great height, miss.”
She grew indignant, tapped him on the arm with her fan, and vowed that she would marry according to the dictates of her heart.
He sneered: “We shall see about all that, you are too rich.”
She remarked: “But you, too, have come in for an inheritance.”
He uttered in a tone of contempt: “Oh! not worth speaking about. Scarcely twenty thousand francs a year, not much in these days.”
“But your wife has also inherited.”
“Yes. A million between us. Forty thousand francs’ income. We cannot even keep a carriage on it.”
They had reached the last of the reception-rooms, and before them lay the conservatory — a huge winter garden full of tall, tropical trees, sheltering clumps of rare flowers. Penetrating beneath this somber greenery, through which the light streamed like a flood of silver, they breathed the warm odor of damp earth, and an air heavy with perfumes. It was a strange sensation, at once sweet, unwholesome, and pleasant, of a nature that was artificial, soft, and enervating. They walked on carpets exactly like moss, between two thick clumps of shrubs. All at once Du Roy noticed on his left, under a wide dome of palms, a broad basin of white marble, large enough to bathe in, and on the edge of which four large Delft swans poured forth water through their open beaks. The bottom of the basin was strewn with golden sand, and swimming about in it were some enormous goldfish, quaint Chinese monsters, with projecting eyes and scales edged with blue, mandarins of the waters, who recalled, thus suspended above this gold-colored ground, the embroideries of the Flowery Land. The journalist halted with beating heart. He said to himself: “Here is luxury. These are the houses in which one ought to live. Others have arrived at it. Why should not I?”
He thought of means of doing so; did not find them at once, and grew irritated at his powerlessness. His companion, somewhat thoughtful, did not speak. He looked at her in sidelong fashion, and again thought: “To marry this little puppet would suffice.”
But Susan all at once seemed to wake up. “Attention!” said she; and pushing George through a group which barred their way, she made him turn sharply to the right.
In the midst of a thicket of strange plants, which extended in the air their quivering leaves, opening like hands with slender fingers, was seen the motionless figure of a man standing on the sea. The effect was surprising. The picture, the sides of which were hidden in the moving foliage, seemed a black spot upon a fantastic and striking horizon. It had to be carefully looked at in order to understand it. The frame cut the center of the ship in which were the apostles, scarcely lit up by the oblique rays from a lantern, the full light of which one of them, seated on the bulwarks, was casting upon the approaching Savior. Jesus was advancing with his foot upon a wave, which flattened itself submissively and caressingly beneath the divine tread. All was dark about him. Only the stars shone in the sky. The faces of the apostles, in the vague light of the lantern, seemed convulsed with surprise. It was a wonderful and unexpected work of a master; one of those works which agitate the mind and give you something to dream of for years. People who look at such things at the outset remain silent, and then go thoughtfully away, and only speak later on of the worth of the painting. Du Roy, having contemplated it for some time, said: “It is nice to be able to afford such trifles.”
But as he was pushed against by others coming to see it, he went away, still keeping on his arm Susan’s little hand, which he squeezed slightly. She said: “Would you like a glass of champagne? Come to the refreshment buffet. We shall find papa there.”
And they slowly passed back through the saloons, in which the crowd was increasing, noisy and at home, the fashionable crowd of a public fête. George all at once thought he heard a voice say: “It is Laroche-Mathieu and Madame Du Roy.” These words flitted past his ear like those distant sounds borne by the wind. Whence came they? He looked about on all sides, and indeed saw his wife passing by on the minister’s arm. They were chatting intimately in a low tone, smiling, and with their eyes fixed on one another’s. He fancied he noticed that people whispered as they looked at them, and he felt within him a stupid and brutal desire to spring upon them, these two creatures, and smite them down. She was making him ridiculous. He thought of Forestier. Perhaps they were saying: “That cuckold Du Roy.” Who was she? A little parvenu sharp enough, but really not over-gifted with parts. People visited him because they feared him, because they felt his strength, but they must speak in unrestrained fashion of this little journalistic household. He would never make any great way with this woman, who would always render his home a suspected one, who would always compromise herself, whose very bearing betrayed the woman of intrigue. She would now be a cannon ball riveted to his ankle. Ah! if he had only known, if he had only guessed. What a bigger game he would have played. What a fine match he might have won with this little Susan for stakes. How was it he had been blind enough not to understand that?
They reached the diningroom — an immense apartment, with marble columns, and walls hung with old tapestry. Walter perceived his descriptive writer, and darted forward to take him by the hands. He was intoxicated with joy. “Have you seen everything? Have you shown him everything, Susan? What a lot of people, eh, Pretty-boy! Did you see the Prince de Guerche? He came and drank a glass of punch here just now,” he exclaimed.
Then he darted towards the Senator Rissolin, who was towing along his wife, bewildered, and bedecked like a stall at a fair. A gentleman bowed to Susan, a tall, thin fellow, slightly bald, with yellow whiskers, and that air of good breeding which is everywhere recognizable. George heard his name mentioned, the Marquis de Cazolles, and became suddenly jealous of him. How long had she known him? Since her accession to wealth, no doubt. He divined a suitor.
He was taken by the arm. It was Norbert de Varenne. The old poet was airing his long hair and worn dress-coat with a weary and indifferent air. “This is what they call amusing themselves,” said he. “By and by they will dance, and then they will go bed, and the little girls will be delighted. Have some champagne. It is capital.”
He had a glass filled for himself, and bowing to Du Roy, who had taken another, said: “I drink to the triumph of wit over wealth.” Then he added softly: “Not that wealth