Thereupon she stepped forward as if intending to examine the various packets which littered the writing table. But he at once bestirred himself, and said he would go and see. The service was necessarily in great confusion! Perhaps, indeed, there might be a letter. In that case they would find it. But, as far as he was concerned, he swore he had not seen any. While he was speaking he moved about the office turning over all the papers. Then he opened the drawers and the portfolios. Felicite waited, quite calm and collected.
“Yes, indeed, you’re right, here’s a letter for you,” he cried at last, as he took a few papers from a portfolio. “Ah! those confounded clerks, they take advantage of the situation to do nothing in the proper way.”
Felicite took the letter and examined the seal attentively, apparently quite regardless of the fact that such scrutiny might wound Vuillet’s susceptibilities. She clearly perceived that the envelope must have been opened; the bookseller, in his unskilful way, had used some sealing wax of a darker colour to secure it again. She took care to open the envelope in such a manner as to preserve the seal intact, so that it might serve as proof of this. Then she read the note. Eugene briefly announced the complete success of the Coup d’Etat. Paris was subdued, the provinces generally speaking remained quiet, and he counselled his parents to maintain a very firm attitude in face of the partial insurrection which was disturbing the South. In conclusion he told them that the foundation of their fortune was laid, if they did not weaken.
Madame Rougon put the letter in her pocket, and sat down slowly, looking into Vuillet’s face. The latter had resumed his sorting in a feverish manner, as though he were very busy.
“Listen to me, Monsieur Vuillet,” she said to him. And when he raised his head: “let us play our cards openly; you do wrong to betray us; some misfortune may befall you. If, instead of unsealing our letters — “
At this he protested, and feigned great indignation. But she calmly continued: “I know, I know your school, you never confess. Come, don’t let us waste any more words, what interest have you in favouring the Coup d’Etat?”
And, as he continued to assert his perfect honesty, she at last lost patience. “You take me for a fool!” she cried. “I’ve read your article. You would do much better to act in concert with us.”
Thereupon, without avowing anything, he flatly submitted that he wished to have the custom of the college. Formerly it was he who had supplied that establishment with school books. But it had become known that he sold objectionable literature clandestinely to the pupils; for which reason, indeed, he had almost been prosecuted at the Correctional Police Court. Since then he had jealously longed to be received back into the good graces of the directors.
Felicite was surprised at the modesty of his ambition, and told him so. To open letters and risk the galleys just for the sake of selling a few dictionaries and grammars!
“Eh!” he exclaimed in a shrill voice, “it’s an assured sale of four or five thousand francs a year. I don’t aspire to impossibilities like some people.”
She did not take any notice of his last taunting words. No more was said about his opening the letters. A treaty of alliance was concluded, by which Vuillet engaged that he would not circulate any news or take any step in advance, on condition that the Rougons should secure him the custom of the college. As she was leaving, Felicite advised him not to compromise himself any further. It would be sufficient for him to detain the letters and distribute them only on the second day.
“What a knave,” she muttered, when she reached the street, forgetting that she herself had just laid an interdict upon the mail.
She went home slowly, wrapped in thought. She even went out of her way, passing along the Cours Sauvaire, as if to gain time and ease for reflection before going in. Under the trees of the promenade she met Monsieur de Carnavant, who was taking advantage of the darkness to ferret about the town without compromising himself. The clergy of Plassans, to whom all energetic action was distasteful, had, since the announcement of the Coup d’Etat, preserved absolute neutrality. In the priests’ opinion the Empire was virtually established, and they awaited an opportunity to resume in some new direction their secular intrigues. The marquis, who had now become a useless agent, remained only inquisitive on one point — he wished to know how the turmoil would finish, and in what manner the Rougons would play their role to the end.
“Oh! it’s you, little one!” he exclaimed, as soon as he recognized Felicite. “I wanted to see you; your affairs are getting muddled!”
“Oh, no; everything is going on all right,” she replied, in an absent-minded way.
“So much the better. You’ll tell me all about it, won’t you? Ah! I must confess that I gave your husband and his colleagues a terrible fright the other night. You should have seen how comical they looked on the terrace, while I was pointing out a band of insurgents in every cluster of trees in the valley! You forgive me?”
“I’m much obliged to you,” said Felicite quickly. “You should have made them die of fright. My husband is a big slyboots. Come and see me some morning, when I am alone.”
Then she turned away, as though this meeting with the marquis had determined her. From head to foot the whole of her little person betokened implacable resolution. At last she was going to revenge herself on Pierre for his petty mysteries, have him under her heel, and secure, once for all, her omnipotence at home. There would be a fine scene, quite a comedy, indeed, the points of which she was already enjoying in anticipation, while she worked out her plan with all the spitefulness of an injured woman.
She found Pierre in bed, sleeping heavily; she brought the candle near him for an instant, and gazed with an air of compassion, at his big face, across which slight twitches occasionally passed; then she sat down at the head of the bed, took off her cap, let her hair fall loose, assumed the appearance of one in despair, and began to sob quite loudly.
“Hallo! What’s the matter? What are you crying for?” asked Pierre, suddenly awaking.
She did not reply, but cried more bitterly.
“Come, come, do answer,” continued her husband, frightened by this mute despair. “Where have you been? Have you seen the insurgents?”
She shook her head; then, in a faint voice, she said: “I’ve just come from the Valqueyras mansion. I wanted to ask Monsieur de Carnavant’s advice. Ah! my dear, all is lost.”
Pierre sat up in bed, very pale. His bull neck, which his unbuttoned nightshirt exposed to view, all his soft, flabby flesh seemed to swell with terror. At last he sank back, pale and tearful, looking like some grotesque Chinese figure in the middle of the untidy bed.
“The marquis,” continued Felicite, “thinks that Prince Louis has succumbed. We are ruined; we shall never get a sou.”
Thereupon, as often happens with cowards, Pierre flew into a passion. It was the marquis’s fault, it was his wife’s fault, the fault of all his family. Had he ever thought of politics at all, until Monsieur de Carnavant and Felicite had driven him to that tomfoolery?
“I wash my hands of it altogether,” he cried. “It’s you two who are responsible for the blunder. Wasn’t it better to go on living on our little savings in peace and quietness? But then, you were always determined to have your own way! You see what it has brought us to.”
He was losing his head completely, and forgot that he had shown himself as eager as his wife. However, his only desire now was to vent his anger, by laying the blame of his ruin upon others.
“And, moreover,” he continued, “could we ever have succeeded with children like ours? Eugene abandons us just at the critical moment; Aristide has dragged us through the mire, and even that big simpleton Pascal is compromising us by his philanthropic practising among the insurgents. And to think that we brought ourselves to poverty simply to give them a university education!”
Then, as he drew breath, Felicite said to him softly: “You are forgetting Macquart.”
“Ah! yes; I