Claude's Confession and Other Early Novels of Émile Zola. Ðмиль ЗолÑЧитать онлайн книгу.
and gallant. He had far too much hypocritical diplomacy to break off suddenly with a power. He loved and admired the niece, but recollected that the aunt might be useful to him.
Madame Tellier, vain as she was, was yet by no means deceived as to the young man’s inmost thoughts. At the end of a few minutes she said to him in a mischievous, mocking way:
“Monsieur Lorin, pray go and entertain my niece a little; she seems rather dull out there by herself.”
The moment she had spoken, she was sorry. Lorin, annoyed at her guessing his thoughts, bowed and went across to Jeanne. He was followed by some other young men, who hastened to take Madame Tellier’s words literally. A circle was formed round the young girl. Daniel succeeded in gaining the first row.
Jeanne was no longer absent-minded or indifferent. Her eyes brightened and her mouth assumed a mocking expression. She entered feverishly into the worldly gossip carried on around her, stirring up the flippant talk with all the vivacity of her active spirit. Her heart had no share in it. Daniel listened in pained silence. He thought that she was not foolish like the others, but had all their hardness of heart. Then he remembered the dying woman’s words, and began to feel that the room was suffocating, and that his heart must soon cease beating in it.
Jeanne railed on like a spoiled child. She had taken Lorin apart and was saying to him: “So you are quite sure that I am adorable?”
“Most adorable,” emphatically repeated Lorin.
“Would you dare confess this before my aunt?”
“She herself has sent me to tell you so.”
“I am much obliged for her kindness, but I am merciful, and I warn you you are running a great risk.”
“What risk, may I ask?”
“That of my taking seriously what you have just said to me out of compliment.... You must know that I am about to set keepers near me.”
“Keepers! For what reason?” asked Lorin, for her vivacity had cut him to the quick.
Jeanne shrugged her shoulders and set off laughing.
“Can you not guess?” added she. “To prevent fools from falling into the dark pit dug for them by a dowerless girl.”
“I do not understand you,” muttered Lorin.
The young girl looked him in the face and made him lower his eyes.
“All the better,” said she. “Then you must have told me a falsehood; you do not find me adorable.” And she began speaking of other things.
“Have you heard of the terrible accident that took place yesterday at the ‘de la Marche’ races?” suddenly asked Lorin.
“No,” answered Jeanne. “What happened?”
“A jockey broke his ribs in taking the third obstacle. The wretched man uttered groans of agony, and the worst of it was that the horse following his broke his leg also.”
“I was there,” joined in a young man. “I never saw a more dreadful sight.”
A slight shudder contracted Jeanne’s calm face. A pang of pain shot through her form, and then she quietly said: “He must have been an awkward fellow. One ought never to fall off a horse.”
Daniel, so far, had listened in silence. The young girl’s last words made his heart bound in his breast Now he said: “Pardon me, these gentlemen do not know the whole story.” Every one turned towards the interrupter, who spoke with emotion.
“This morning,” continued he, “I read a full account of the accident in the paper. The awkward fellow, who committed the folly of getting killed, was carried, covered in blood, to his mother. This woman, a poor old thing of sixty, went mad with despair. At the present moment her son’s corpse is still unburied; and there is, in a little cell of the ‘Salprêtrière’ (lunatic asylum), a shrieking, lamenting mother.”
Lorin thought his former comrade’s sally in very bad taste, and considered the barbarian was decidedly incorrigible.
Whilst Daniel was speaking, Jeanne was looking fixedly at him. When he had finished, “I thank you, monsieur,” she simply said, and two tears trickled slowly down her cheeks that had become pale.
Daniel gazed at those falling tears with the most profound joy.
CHAPTER IX
SINCE the night when he made her cry, Daniel only lived for Jeanne. She, on her part, felt that he was very different from those who were usually about her; but to tell the truth, he repelled her more than he attracted her. This serious, sad-looking young man, who was strangely ugly, almost terrified her. But she knew that he was there in the house, and that he followed her every movement with the greatest interest.
When she went out in the carriage, although she had vowed she would never do so, she raised her eyes and saw him at the window. This look, however, spoiled all her drive. She wondered what grudge he could have against her. She began to cross-examine herself, fearing she had committed some error.
Daniel, on his side, understood that the battle had begun, and he played his dumb part of preceptor more or less well, longing all the time to throw himself down on his knees before the young girl and beg her forgiveness for the severity he seemed to be practising. He guessed he was displeasing her, and he feared making her thoroughly angry with him. And, indeed, when he saw her looking so beautiful, he felt seized with the most tender affection, and it seemed a crime to disturb her in her happiness.
But his duty spoke with inexorable voice. He had sworn to watch over Jeanne’s happiness, and this feverish worldliness which had taken possession of the young girl could only be a little voluptuousness, which would leave her afterwards repentant and cast down. He wished to withdraw her from these empty pleasures, and to try to do this he was constantly obliged to wound her in her gaieties and in her pride.
So he became a sort of nightmare to Jeanne and Madame Tellier. He dressed himself completely in black. He was always on the spot, putting himself like a barrier between these women and the unworthy life they were leading. He managed his time so that he could follow them wherever they went, to protest, by his presence, against the frivolity of their amusements.
Nothing was more extraordinary than to see this curious young man taking a walk among the fashionable world of Paris. He had been nicknamed “The Black Knight,” and truly he could have had many love affairs if he had chosen.
One day Jeanne was to do the quête in a church. Daniel, who had already saved some money, placed himself where the quêteuse must pass.
The young girl was advancing with a pleasant smile, thinking much more of the elegance of her toilette than of the misery of the poor. She was there, as if in a drawing room, with a half-mocking, half-smiling look on her face; at last she came in front of Daniel.
“For the poor, if you please,” she said, without looking at him.
The large amount of his offering made her raise her head, and when she recognised the young man she began to blush, without knowing why. She continued her quête, but there were tears in her eyes.
On another occasion she was present at a theatre at the representation of a rather risky piece, and she was laughing at, without, however, understanding, the actor’s dangerous jokes. As she turned round she noticed Daniel, who seemed to be looking at her reproachfully. This look went to her heart; she feared at once she was doing wrong since the Black Knight was angry. She laughed no more, and during the entr’acte, she went and hid herself at the back of the box.
But what struck her most was Daniel’s intervention in an unpleasant experience she and her aunt had one day. Madame Tellier had formerly, when alone, met with an insult, and this deplorable adventure was repeated on this particular occasion. Two young