‘Good heavens, it’s you!’ cried Rougon, hurrying to the window. ‘Come in!’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘No, I won’t come in. I don’t want to disturb you. I just wanted a quick word… Maman will be expecting me for lunch.’
It was the third time she had paid Rougon a visit like this, against all convention. But she always made a point of staying outside, in the garden. Both times before, moreover, she had been wearing the same riding outfit, a costume that afforded her a sort of masculine freedom, while no doubt, as she saw it, the long skirt gave her ample protection.
‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I’ve come to beg! I’ve got some lottery tickets… We’ve set up a lottery for a new orphanage.’
‘Come in, then,’ Rougon repeated. ‘Come and tell me about it.’
She was still holding her riding crop, a very dainty one, with a little silver handle. She laughed again, tapping the crop lightly against her skirt.
‘But that’s all there is to tell,’ she said. ‘You’re going to take some of my tickets. That’s the only reason I came… I’ve been looking for you for the last three days, and the draw is tomorrow.’
Then, producing a little notecase from her pocket, she asked:
‘How many tickets would you like?’
‘None, if you don’t come in,’ he cried. Then he added, in a softer tone: ‘I mean, really, do you think people conduct business through windows? You don’t expect me just to hand you a few coins as if you were a beggar-girl?’
‘I don’t care, as long as you give me something.’
But he insisted. For a few moments she looked at him without saying a word. Then she said:
‘If I come in, will you take ten tickets? They’re ten francs each.’
Even so, she did not make up her mind at once. First she glanced round at the garden. Down one of the paths was a gardener, on his knees, planting a bed of geraniums. With a faint smile, she went up to the little porch, with its three steps up to the study. Rougon held out his hand. When he had led her to the middle of the room, he murmured:
‘Are you afraid I might eat you? You know very well I’m your absolute slave… What is there to be frightened of?’
She went on tapping lightly on her skirt with the tip of her riding crop.
‘Oh, I’m not afraid of anything!’ she replied, with all the confidence of an independent young woman.
Then, putting the riding crop down on a sofa, she fumbled again in her notecase.
‘So, you’ll take ten?’
‘I’ll take twenty, if you like,’ he said, ‘but please do me the honour of sitting down. Let’s talk for a while… You’re surely not going to rush off straightaway?’
‘All right. A ticket for every minute, eh?… If I stay a quarter of an hour, that will be fifteen tickets, if I stay twenty minutes, that will be twenty, and so on until this evening. I’m happy with that… Is it a bargain?’
They found this arrangement most amusing. At last Clorinde sat down, choosing an armchair by the open window. In order not to scare her, Rougon went back to his desk. They began to chat, first of all about the house. Glancing outside, she declared the garden to be rather small, but charming, with its central lawn and the green of the trees. He pointed to a plan of the whole house. On the ground floor were his study, a large drawing room, a smaller one, and a very nice dining room; and the first and second floors had seven rooms each. Although all this made it a relatively small town house, it was far too big for him. When the Emperor presented it to him as a gift, he was to have married a certain widowed lady who was His Majesty’s own choice. But she had died, and he would remain a bachelor.
‘Why?’ she asked, looking him straight in the face.
‘Bah! Because I have other things to do,’ he said. ‘At my age one no longer needs a wife.’
She shrugged, and said simply:
‘Oh, be serious!’
They had reached the stage of talking to each other very freely. She would have liked him to be more interested in the pleasures of the flesh. However, he assured her he was serious, and told her about his youth, the years spent in bare rooms where the sheets had never been changed, he said with a laugh. Then she asked, with childlike curiosity, about his mistresses. He must have had some. For instance, could he deny knowing a certain lady, celebrated throughout Paris, who, when she left him, had set up house in the country? He simply shrugged. Women did not interest him particularly. When he did have a rush of blood to the head, well, good heavens, he was like any other man. At such moments he would be prepared to knock the bedroom door down; he was not one to stand outside negotiating. But when it was over, he was perfectly calm again.
‘No, no women,’ he repeated, though in the same instant there was a gleam in his eye as he considered the relaxed posture Clorinde had assumed. ‘They take up too much time,’ he said.
Sprawling with complete abandon in the deep armchair, Clorinde smiled a strange smile. She had a look of rapture on her face. Her breathing was slow and deep. She began to speak in a lilting way, exaggerating her Italian accent.
‘Don’t keep giving me that story, my dear,’ she said. ‘You love women. I bet you’ll be married before the year is out.’
She really was annoying, so sure did she seem of winning her wager. For some time now she had been blatantly offering herself to Rougon. She no longer even tried to mask this slow attempt at seduction, this sustained amorous campaign, before the final assault. She now felt he was sufficiently weakened for her to proceed quite openly. A never-ending duel had begun between them. Although they had never explicitly agreed on the terms of combat, the things they said and the look in their eyes spoke volumes. Neither could restrain a smile as they gazed at each other. Clorinde was setting her price, moving with remarkable audacity towards her goal, confident of her ability to remain in full control of herself. Drawn into the game, intoxicated by it, Rougon dreamt merely of making this beautiful woman his mistress, after which, to prove his superiority, he would cast her aside. It was thus a contest less of desire than of pride.
‘In my country,’ she continued, almost in an undertone, ‘love is the great obsession. From the age of twelve, girls have their admirers… But I was different, because I travelled and saw the world. If you had known Maman when she was young! She hardly left her bedroom. She was such a beauty that men travelled miles to see her. There was one Count who spent six months in Milan without even managing to catch a glimpse of her. The thing is, Italian women aren’t like French women, all talk and flirtation; they choose their man and hold on to him… Yes, I’ve seen the world; I don’t know how much will stick in my memory, but I sometimes think that one day I will fall passionately in love, oh yes, very passionately…’
Her eyes had gradually closed, her face wore an expression of dreamy voluptuousness. While she was talking, Rougon had got up from his desk. His hands were shaking, as if drawn to her by a superior force. But when he was quite close to her, she suddenly opened her eyes and stared up at him quite calmly. With a smile, she pointed to the clock, and switched the conversation back to her tickets:
‘That makes ten!’
‘What do you mean?’ he stammered. For a moment he did not understand. ‘Ten what?’
When he grasped what she meant, she burst out laughing. She loved to excite him like that, and then, just as he was about to take her in his arms, slip from his grasp in the blink of an eye. This seemed to amuse her tremendously. But on this occasion Rougon turned very pale and glared at her; this merely increased her amusement.
‘I’d better leave,’ she said. ‘You’re not gentlemanly enough… Really, I must be going. Maman’s expecting me for lunch.’
But he had already recovered his paternal manner. When she turned to him, his grey, heavy-lidded eyes flashed, and he gave her a look that expressed all the fury of a man pushed to the limit. He said, however, that she could give him another five minutes. She had interrupted him in some very tiresome work, a report to the Sena
te about some petitions. Then he began to talk about the Empress, whom Clorinde said she adored. She had been in Biarritz for a week. Clorinde sank back in her armchair, and chatted away. She knew Biarritz, she had stayed there once, before it became a fashionable watering-place. She was terribly sorry she couldn’t pay another visit, while the Court was there. Then she told him about a sitting of the Academy to which Monsieur de Plouguern had taken her, the day before. It was for the induction of a writer, who had made her laugh because he was bald. In any case, she had a horror of books. If she did make herself read, she always had to take to her bed after a while, with an attack of nerves. She never understood what she read. When Rougon told her that the writer in question was an enemy of the Emperor, and that his speech was full of nasty barbs, she was quite taken aback:*
‘But he seemed quite nice,’ she said.
Now it was Rougon’s turn to fulminate against books. A novel had recently appeared that incensed him: an imaginative work of the utmost depravity. While pretending to be concerned with the exact truth, it dragged the reader into the excesses of a hysterical woman. He seemed to like the word ‘hysterical’, for he repeated it three times, but when Clorinde asked him what he meant, he was overcome with modesty and refused to tell her.
‘Everything can be said,’ he went on. ‘Only, there are ways of doing it… It’s the same in government work, the most sensitive material often comes one’s way. For example, I’ve read reports about certain women. You know what I mean? But in those reports the most precise details are set down in a clear, frank, straightforward manner. Nothing dirty at all… Whereas novel-writers today have adopted a lubricious style, a way of describing things that brings them to life before your eyes. They call it art. It’s indecency, nothing more.’*
He also used the word ‘pornography’, and went so far as to mention the Marquis de Sade, though he had never read him. His diatribe did not prevent him, however, from managing, very skilfully, to get behind Clorinde’s chair without her noticing. Dreamy-eyed, she murmured:
‘I don’t read novels at all. I’ve never opened one. They’re ridiculous, all those made-up stories… But do you know Leonora the Gypsy? Now that’s a lovely book! I read it in Italian when I was little. It’s about a girl who gets to marry a duke. But first she’s captured by bandits…’
A faint creak behind her made her turn round with a start.
‘What are you doing there?’ she asked.
‘Lowering the blind,’ Rougon replied. ‘The sun must be bothering you.’
She was indeed in the direct line of the sun, the dust haze of which had enveloped her tightly drawn habit with a luminous, golden down.
‘No, leave the blind alone!’ she cried. ‘I love the sun! It’s like having a bath!’
Quite alarmed, she half raised herself, and peered out of the window to see if the gardener was still about. After a while, she spotted his blue overalls; he was kneeling down on the other side of the flower bed. Reassured, she sank back in the chair, with a smile. Rougon, who had watched her looking, let go of the blind. She began to tease him. He was like an owl, was he, he liked to be in the dark? But he did not react. He went to stand in the middle of the room, not seeming in the least annoyed. With his massive frame, he was like a bear wondering what mischief he could get up to next. He moved to the far end of the study, where a large photograph hung over a sofa, and called to her:
‘Come and look at this,’ he said. ‘Don’t you recognize my latest portrait?’
She settled deeper into the armchair. Still smiling, she replied:
‘I can see it very well from here… In any case, you’ve shown it to me before.’
Unperturbed, he drew the blind on the other window. He now tried, two or three times, to find an excuse to entice her into that discreetly shaded corner. He said it was more comfortable there. Ignoring this clumsy trick, she did not even bother to reply, but merely shook her head. Then, realizing that she knew what he was trying to do, he came back and stood in front of her, his hands clasped together. Abandoning any attempt to trick her, he said provocatively:
‘I forgot! I wanted to show you my new horse, Monarch. I swapped one of my other horses for him, you know… You’re a horse-lover, you must give me your opinion.’
She refused this bait too. But he insisted. The stable was only a few yards away. It wouldn’t take more than five minutes. Then, since she still refused, he muttered:
‘That’s not very nice of you!’
It was like the crack of a whip. She stood up, looking serious and rather pale.
‘Let’s go and see Monarch, then,’ she said.
She caught up the tails of her habit over her left arm and stared at him. For a few moments, they looked so intensely into each other’s eyes that they read each other’s thoughts. His challenge had been duly accepted. She started out down the steps, while, mechanically, he buttoned his jacket. But she had not gone three steps down the path when she stopped short.
‘Just a moment.’
She went back to the study. When she reappeared, she was holding her riding crop delicately between her fingers. She had left it behind a cushion on the sofa. Rougon glanced at it; then, slowly raising his eyes, looked at her. She was smiling. She led the way again.
The stables were at the far end of the garden, to the right. They walked past the gardener, who was collecting his tools, ready to leave. Rougon took out his watch. It was five minutes past eleven. The groom would be having his lunch. Bareheaded in the blazing sun, he followed Clorinde, who strode calmly ahead, whipping at the shrubs as she went. Not a word passed between them. She did not look round once. When they reached the stable door, she waited for him to open it, and went in. Once inside, he closed the door with a bang. She continued to smile. Her expression was one of utter confidence.
It was a very ordinary stable, quite small, with just four oak stalls. Though the stone floor had been sluiced down that morning, and all the woodwork — the hay-rack and the manger — were very clean, there was a strong smell, and the air was hot and damp. There were two round skylights; two pale bars of light cut across the shadows of the ceiling, but down below the corners of the stable were dark. Still dazzled by the sunlight outside, Clorinde could make nothing out at first, but made no attempt to open the door. She waited, not wishing to appear nervous. Only two of the stalls were occupied. The horses turned their heads and snuffled.
‘It’s this one, isn’t it?’ she asked, when her eyes had got used to the gloom. ‘He looks a fine beast.’
She patted the animal’s cruppers, then slipped into his stall, brushing against his flanks as she did so, without seeming the least afraid. She said she wanted to have a look at the animal’s head. A moment later, Rougon heard her plant smacking kisses on the horse’s nostrils. The kisses infuriated him.
‘Do come out of there! Please!’ he said. ‘If he shies, you’ll be crushed.’
But she just laughed and kissed the animal even harder, whispering sweet nothings in his ear. The unexpected fondling seemed to delight the animal. Little shivers ran over its silky skin. At last she came out, saying how fond she was of horses and how well they knew it — they never hurt her, even when she teased them. She knew how to handle them. They were very sensitive creatures, but this one seemed very docile. She crouched down behind it and raised one leg, to examine the hoof. The horse offered no resistance.
Rougon stood staring at her. When she bent down, her hips filled out the loose folds of her skirt. He did not utter a word. He was feeling excited, but was suddenly overcome with the timidity brutish people sometimes feel. Nevertheless, he bent down too. She felt something brush under her armpits, but so lightly that she went on examining the horse’s hoof. Breathing hard, Rougon moved his hands forward, but still she did not flinch, as if she had expected this. Letting the hoof go, she merely said, without turning round:
‘What are you doing? What’s got into you?’
He tried to put his arms round he
r, but she gave him several little flicks of the riding crop across his fingers, and said:
‘Hands off, please! I’m like the horses, you know — ticklish… You’re being very silly!’
She laughed, as if she did not understand what was happening, but the moment she felt Rougon’s breath on her neck she straightened up like a steel spring, slipped out of his grasp, and went to stand with her back to the wall, opposite the stalls. He followed her, hands outstretched, trying to take hold of her. But she suddenly turned the tails of her habit, wrapped round her left arm, into a shield, while with her right she brandished the riding crop. His lips quivered, he did not utter a word. Seeming unconcerned, she went on:
‘You’re not going to touch me, you realize! When I was young, I had fencing lessons. I’m rather sorry I didn’t keep them up… So mind your fingers. There, what did I say!’
She seemed to be playing. She did not hit hard, finding it quite fun to sting him with a little flick each time he moved forward. She was so quick with her strokes that he did not even manage to touch her clothing. At first he tried to take hold of her shoulders; then, after two strokes of the whip, round the waist; then, after another stroke, he tried a different approach, to get her by the knees, but he was not quick enough to avoid a hail of strokes that forced him to stand up again. They made sharp cracking noises as they rained down from both sides.
Under this bombardment, his skin burning, Rougon stepped back. He was now very red, and beads of sweat were beginning to stand out on his temples. The acrid smell of the stable intoxicated him, and the darkness, full of the reek of horses, encouraged him to risk everything. The game suddenly changed. He leapt forward, and went for Clorinde quite roughly, whereupon, still laughing and talking, she no longer restricted herself to friendly little taps, but lashed out harder and harder. She looked very beautiful like this, her skirt pressed close to her legs, her bodice clinging to her. She was like a lithe bluish snake. The shape of her breasts could clearly be seen each time she raised her arm to strike.