‘Well, Paul, old man!’ repeated Mouret.
He was sitting close to Vallagnosc, on a settee. Left alone at the far end of the small drawing-room—a very elegant boudoir hung with buttercup-coloured silk—out of earshot, and with the ladies only visible through the open door, they sat face to face, laughing and slapping each other on the knee. They began to recall the whole of their youth, the old college at Plassans with its two courtyards, its damp classrooms, the refectory where they used to eat so much cod, and the dormitories where the pillows used to fly from bed to bed as soon as the junior master was snoring. Paul, who belonged to an old parliamentary family, noble, poor, and proud, had been quite a bookworm, always top of the class, always being held up as an example by the teacher, who had predicted a brilliant future for him; whereas Octave remained at the bottom of the class, wasting away among the dunces, fat and jolly, expending all his energy on violent pleasures outside school. In spite of their different natures, a close comradeship had made them inseparable until the baccalauréat,* which they passed, one with distinction, the other just scraping through after two failed attempts. Then they had gone out into the world, and were now meeting again, after ten years, already altered and aged.
‘Tell me,’ Mouret asked, ‘what are you up to?’
‘Oh, nothing at all.’
In spite of his delight at their meeting, Vallagnosc still retained his tired and disillusioned manner; and his friend, in surprise, insisted, saying:
‘Yes, but you must do something, after all … What do you do?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
Octave began to laugh. Nothing, that wasn’t enough. He finally succeeded in extracting Paul’s story from him, sentence by sentence. It was the usual story of boys without money who think they are obliged by their birth to remain in the liberal professions and bury themselves under their arrogant mediocrity, happy to escape starvation despite having their drawers full of diplomas. He had followed the family tradition and read law; after that he had gone on being supported by his widowed mother, who was already finding it difficult to marry off her two daughters. He had finally begun to feel ashamed and, leaving the three women to live as best they could on the remains of their fortune, he had taken up a minor post in the Ministry of the Interior, where he had buried himself like a mole in its burrow.
‘And how much do you earn?’ Mouret resumed.
‘Three thousand francs.’
‘But that’s a pittance! My poor chap, I’m really sorry for you … You were so good at school; you left us all behind! And they only give you three thousand francs, when they’ve had you rotting away there for five years! No, it’s not fair.’
He broke off, and started to talk about himself.
‘I turned my back on all that… You know what I’m doing now?’
‘Yes,’ said Vallagnosc. ‘I heard you’d gone into business. You’ve got that big shop in the Place Gaillon, haven’t you?’
‘That’s right… Calico, old chap!’
Mouret raised his head, slapped him on the knee again, and with the hearty gaiety of a fellow quite unashamed of the trade which was making him rich, repeated:
‘Calico, masses of it! You know, I never really took to school, although I never thought I was any stupider than anyone else. When I’d passed the bac to please my family, I could easily have become a lawyer or a doctor like the rest of them; but professions like that frightened me, you see so many people become utterly frustrated in them … So, I ignored all that—with no regrets!—and pitched head first into business.’
Vallagnosc was smiling in a rather embarrassed way. Finally he murmured:
‘It’s true that your bac can’t be much use to you for selling calico.’
‘Well!’ replied Mouret blithely, ‘all I ask is that it shouldn’t get in the way … And you know, when you’ve burdened yourself like that, it’s not easy to get rid of it. You go through life at a tortoise’s pace, while the others, those who are barefoot, run like hares.’
Then, noticing that his friend seemed troubled, he took his hands in his, and went on:
‘Come, come, I don’t want to hurt you, but you must admit that your diplomas haven’t satisfied any of your needs … Do you know that the head of my silk department will get more than twelve thousand francs this year? Yes, really! A lad of very sound intelligence, who never got beyond spelling and the four rules …* The ordinary salesmen at my place make three to four thousand francs, more than you earn yourself; and their education didn’t cost what yours did, they weren’t launched into the world with a signed promise that they’d conquer it… Of course, making money isn’t everything. But, between the poor devils with a smattering of learning who clutter up the professions without earning enough to keep themselves from starving, and the practical fellows equipped for life, who know their trade backwards, my word! I wouldn’t hesitate, I’m for the latter against the former; I think fellows like that understand their age very well!’
He had become quite excited; Henriette, who was serving tea, looked round. When he saw her smile at the end of the large drawing-room and also noticed two other ladies listening, he was the first to laugh at his own words.
‘Anyway, old chap, any counter-jumper who’s just beginning has a chance of becoming a millionaire nowadays.’
Vallagnosc was leaning back indolently on the sofa. He had half closed his eyes, in an attitude of fatigue and disdain, in which a touch of affectation added to the real effeteness of his breed.
‘Bah!’ he murmured, ‘life isn’t worth the trouble. Nothing’s any fun.’
And as Mouret, shocked, looked at him in surprise, he added:
‘Everything happens and nothing happens. One may as well sit and do nothing!’
Then he went on to explain his pessimism, his sense of the pettiness and frustrations of existence. At one time he had dreamed of literature, but his association with certain poets had left him with a feeling of universal despair. He always came back to the uselessness of effort, the boredom of hours all equally empty, and the ultimate stupidity of the world. All enjoyment was a failure, and there was not even any pleasure in doing wrong.*
‘Now tell me, do you enjoy yourself?’ he asked finally. Mouret was now in a state of dazed indignation. He exclaimed:
‘What! Do I enjoy myself! What’s this nonsense you’re saying? You’re in a sorry state! Of course I enjoy myself, even when things go wrong, because then I’m furious at seeing them go wrong. I’m a passionate fellow; I don’t take life calmly, and perhaps that’s just why I’m interested in it.’
He glanced towards the drawing-room and lowered his voice.
‘Oh! Some women have been an awful nuisance to me, I must confess. But when I’ve got hold of one, I keep her, damn it! It doesn’t always fail, and I don’t give my share to anyone else, I assure you … But it isn’t just a question of women, for whom I don’t really care much, actually. You see, it’s a question of willing something and acting, it’s a question of creating … You have an idea, you fight for it, you hammer it into people’s heads, you watch it grow and carry all before it… Ah! yes, old chap, I enjoy myself!’
All the joy of action, all the gaiety of existence resounded in his words. He repeated that he was a man of his own time. Really, people would have to be deformed, they must have something wrong with their brains and limbs to refuse to work in an age which offered so many possibilities, when the whole century was pressing forward into the future. And he laughed at the hopeless, the disillusioned, the pessimists, all those made sick by our budding sciences, who assumed the tearful air of poets or the superior look of sceptics, amidst the immense activity of the present day. Yawning with boredom at other people’s work was a fine part to play, a proper and intelligent one indeed!
‘It’s my only pleasure, yawning at other people,’ said Vallagnosc, smiling in his cold way.
At this Mouret’s passion subsided. He became affectionate once more.
‘Ah, Paul, yo
u haven’t changed, you’re as paradoxical as ever! We haven’t met again in order to quarrel, have we? Everyone has his own ideas, fortunately. I must show you my machine in action; you’ll see that it isn’t really such a bad thing … But tell me your news. Your mother and sisters are well, I hope? And weren’t you going to get married at Plassans, about six months ago?’
Vallagnosc made a sudden movement which stopped him short; and as the former had looked anxiously round the drawing-room, Octave also turned round and noticed that Mademoiselle de Boves was staring at them. Tall and buxom, Blanche was like her mother; but her face was already puffed out, her large, coarse features swollen with unhealthy fat. Paul, in reply to a discreet question, intimated that nothing was yet settled; perhaps nothing would be settled. He had met the girl at Madame Desforges’s house, where he had been a frequent visitor in the past winter, but where he now only rarely made an appearance, which explained why he had not met Octave there. The de Boves had invited him in their turn, and he was particularly fond of the father, who had once been something of a man about town, but had now retired and worked in the civil service. On the other hand, they had no money: Madame de Boves had brought her husband nothing but her Junoesque beauty, and the family was living on a last, mortgaged farm, the modest income from which was, fortunately, supplemented by the nine thousand francs which the Count received as Inspector-General of the Stud. The ladies, mother and daughter, were kept very short of money by the Count, who was impoverished by amorous escapades away from home, and they were sometimes reduced to turning their dresses themselves.
‘So why marry?’ Mouret asked simply.
‘Well! I can’t go on like this for ever,’ said Vallagnosc, with a weary movement of his eyelids. ‘In any case, we have prospects, we’re waiting for an aunt to die soon.’
Mouret was still staring at Monsieur de Boves, who was sitting next to Madame Guibal and paying her a great deal of attention, laughing affectionately like a man on an amorous campaign. Octave turned towards his friend and winked in such a meaningful way that the latter added:
‘No, not her … Not yet, at any rate … The fortunate thing is that his work takes him all over France, to different stud-farms, and so he always has pretexts for disappearing. Last month, when his wife thought he was in Perpignan, he was living in an hotel in an out of the way district of Paris, with a piano teacher.’
There was a silence. Then the young man, who was now also watching the Count’s attentions to Madame Guibal, went on in an undertone:
‘I think you’re right… Especially as the dear lady is not exactly shy, if what they say is true. There’s a very funny story about her and an officer … But just look at him! Isn’t he comical, hypnotizing her out of the corner of his eye! There’s the old France for you, my friend! I really adore that man, and if I marry his daughter he can say I did it for his sake!’
Mouret laughed, greatly amused. He questioned Vallagnosc again, and when he discovered that the idea of a marriage between him and Blanche had originally come from Madame Desforges, he thought the story better still. Dear Henriette took a widow’s pleasure in marrying people off; so much so that when she had taken care of the daughters, she would sometimes let the fathers choose their mistresses from her circle; but this was done in such a natural and becoming way that no one ever found any food for scandal. And Mouret, who loved her with the love of an active, busy man, calculating in his affections, would then forget all his ulterior motives for seduction, and have feelings of purely comradely friendship for her.
At that moment she appeared at the door of the small drawing-room followed by an old man of about sixty, whose entrance the two friends had not noticed. Now and again the ladies’ voices became shrill, and the light tinkle of spoons in china teacups formed an accompaniment to them; from time to time, in the middle of a short silence, the sound of a saucer being put down too roughly on the marble of the pedestal table could be heard. The setting sun was just coming out from behind a thick cloud, and a sudden ray gilded the tops of the chestnut trees in the garden and shone through the windows in reddish-gold dust, illuminating the brocade and the brasswork of the furniture with its fire.
‘This way, my dear Baron,’ Madame Desforges was saying. ‘May I introduce Monsieur Octave Mouret, who’s longing to tell you how much he admires you.’
And, turning towards Octave, she added:
‘Baron Hartmann.’
A smile played subtly on the old man’s lips. He was a short, vigorous-looking man, with the large head typical of people from Alsace, and a heavy face which would light up with a flash of intelligence at the slightest curl of his mouth, the lightest flicker of his eyelids. For a fortnight he had been resisting Henriette’s wish that he should consent to this interview; it was not that he felt particularly jealous for, being a man of the world, he was resigned to playing a father’s part; but this was the third of Henriette’s men friends she had introduced to him and he was rather afraid, in the long run, of appearing ridiculous. Therefore, as he approached Octave, he wore the discreet smile of a rich protector who, though willing to be charming, is not prepared to be duped.
‘Oh! sir,’ said Mouret, with his Provençal enthusiasm, ‘the Crédit Immobilier’s last deal was really remarkable! You can’t imagine how happy and proud I am to shake your hand.’
‘Too kind, sir, too kind,’ the Baron repeated, still smiling.
Henriette, quite unembarrassed, was watching them with her clear eyes. She stood between the two of them, raising her pretty head, looking from one to the other. She wore a lace dress which exposed her slender wrists and neck; and she seemed delighted that they were getting on so well.
‘Gentlemen,’ she said at last, ‘I’ll leave you to talk.’
Then, turning towards Paul, who had risen to his feet, she added:
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Monsieur de Vallagnosc?’
‘With pleasure, madam.’
And they both went back to the drawing-room.
When Mouret had resumed his place on the sofa beside Baron Hartmann, he showered fresh praise on the Crédit Immobilier’s operations. Then he broached a subject which was close to his heart; he spoke of the new thoroughfare, the extension of the Rue Réaumur, of which a section, under the name of the Rue du Dix-Décembre, was about to be opened between the Place de la Bourse and the Place de l’Opéra. It had been declared available for public purposes eighteen months ago; the expropriation committee had just been appointed, and the whole neighbourhood was very excited about this enormous space, anxiously waiting for the construction work to begin and taking an interest in the condemned houses. Mouret had been waiting almost three years for this work, first because he could see that business would be brisker as a result, and secondly because he had ambitions to expand which he dared not admit openly, so far did his dreams extend. As the Rue du Dix-Décembre was to cut across the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de la Michodière, he visualized the Ladies’ Paradise taking over the whole block of houses surrounded by these streets and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, and he already imagined it with a palatial façade on the new thoroughfare, dominating and ruling the conquered city. From this had sprung his keen desire to meet Baron Hartmann, for he had heard that the Crédit Immobilier had signed a contract with the authorities to open up and build the Rue du Dix-Décembre, on condition that it was granted ownership of the land bordering the new street.*
‘Really,’ he repeated, trying to put on an ingenuous air, ‘you’re handing over a ready-made street to them, with drains, pavements, and gaslights? And the land bordering it is enough to compensate you? Oh! that’s odd, very odd!’
Finally he came to the delicate point. He had found out that the Crédit Immobilier was secretly buying up houses in the same block as the Ladies’ Paradise, not only those which were to fall under the pickaxes of the demolition gangs, but others too, those which were to remain standing. And, suspecting in this a plan for some future building scheme, he was very worried about t
he expansion he dreamed of, filled with fear at the idea of one day coming up against a powerful company owning property which it would never sell. It was precisely this fear which had made him decide to establish a bond between the Baron and himself as soon as possible, the agreeable bond of a woman, which can be such a close one between men of a passionate nature. No doubt he could have seen the financier in his office, and discussed at leisure the big deal he wanted to propose to him. But he felt more confident in Henriette’s house; he knew how much the possession of a mistress in common brings men together and softens them. For them both to be in her house, within the beloved perfume of her presence, to have her near to win them over with a smile, seemed to him a guarantee of success.
‘Haven’t you bought what used to be the Hôtel Duvillard, that old building next to my shop?’ he finally asked bluntly.
Baron Hartmann hesitated for a moment, and then denied it. But looking him straight in the eye, Mouret began to laugh; and from then on he played the part of a good-natured young man, his heart on his sleeve and straightforward in business.
‘Look here, Baron, since I’ve had the unexpected honour of meeting you, I must make a confession … Oh! I’m not asking you to tell me your secrets, but I’m going to confide mine to you, because I’m sure I couldn’t put them in wiser hands … Besides, I need your advice, I’ve wanted to call and see you for a long time, but I never dared to.’
He did make his confession, he described his start in business; he did not even hide the financial crisis through which he was passing in the midst of his triumph. He covered everything, the successive expansions, the profits continually ploughed back into the business, the sums contributed by his employees, the shop risking its very existence with each new sale, in which the whole capital was staked, as it were, on a single throw of the dice. However, it was not money he wanted, for he had a fanatical faith in his customers. His ambition ran higher; he proposed to the Baron a partnership in which the Crédit Immobilier would provide the colossal palace of his dreams, while he, for his part, would give his genius and the business already created. The extent of each party’s contribution could be valued; he thought nothing could be easier to do.