CHAPTER II
Plassans is a sub-prefecture with about ten thousand inhabitants. Builton a plateau overlooking the Viorne, and resting on the north sideagainst the Garrigues hills, one of the last spurs of the Alps, thetown is situated, as it were, in the depths of a cul-de-sac. In 1851it communicated with the adjoining country by two roads only, the Niceroad, which runs down to the east, and the Lyons road, which rises tothe west, the one continuing the other on almost parallel lines. Sincethat time a railway has been built which passes to the south of thetown, below the hill which descends steeply from the old ramparts tothe river. At the present day, on coming out of the station on the rightbank of the little torrent, one can see, by raising one's head, thefirst houses of Plassans, with their gardens disposed in terracefashion. It is, however, only after an uphill walk lasting a fullquarter of an hour that one reaches these houses.
About twenty years ago, owing, no doubt, to deficient means ofcommunication, there was no town that had more completely retained thepious and aristocratic character of the old Provencal cities. Plassansthen had, and has even now, a whole district of large mansions builtin the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., a dozen churches, Jesuitand Capuchin houses, and a considerable number of convents. Classdistinctions were long perpetuated by the town's division into variousdistricts. There were three of them, each forming, as it were, aseparate and complete locality, with its own churches, promenades,customs, and landscapes.
The district of the nobility, called Saint-Marc, after the name of oneof its parish churches, is a sort of miniature Versailles, with straightstreets overgrown with grass, and large square houses which concealextensive gardens. It extends to the south along the edge of theplateau. Some of the mansions built on the declivity itself have adouble row of terraces whence one can see the whole valley of theViorne, a most charming vista much vaunted in that part of the country.Then on the north-west, the old quarter, formed of the original town,rears its narrow, tortuous lanes bordered with tottering hovels. TheTown-Hall, the Civil Court, the Market, and the Gendarmerie barracksare situated here. This, the most populous part of the Plassans, isinhabited by working-men and shop-keepers, all the wretched, toiling,common folk. The new town forms a sort of parallelogram to thenorth-east; the well-to-do, those who have slowly amassed a fortune, andthose engaged in the liberal professions, here occupy houses set outin straight lines and coloured a light yellow. This district, which isembellished by the Sub-Prefecture, an ugly plaster building decoratedwith rose-mouldings, numbered scarcely five or six streets in 1851; itis of quite recent formation, and it is only since the construction ofthe railway that it has been growing in extent.
One circumstance which even at the present time tends to dividePlassans into three distinct independent parts is that the limits of thedistricts are clearly defined by the principal thoroughfares. The CoursSauvaire and the Rue de Rome, which is, as it were, a narrow extensionof the former, run from west to east, from the Grand'-Porte to thePorte de Rome, thus cutting the town into two portions, and dividingthe quarter of the nobility from the others. The latter are themselvesparted by the Rue de la Banne. This street, the finest in the locality,starts from the extremity of the Cours Sauvaire, and ascends northwards,leaving the black masses of the old quarter on its left, and thelight-yellow houses of the new town on its right. It is here, abouthalf-way along the street, that stands the Sub-Prefecture, in the rearof a small square planted with sickly trees; the people of Plassans arevery proud of this edifice.
As if to keep more isolated and shut up within itself, the town isbelted with old ramparts, which only serve to increase its gloom andrender it more confined. These ridiculous fortifications, preyed upon byivy and crowned with wild gillyflowers, are about as high and as thickas the walls of a convent, and could be demolished by gunshot. Theyhave several openings, the principal of which, the Porte de Rome and theGrand'-Porte, afford access to the Nice road and the Lyons road, at theother end of town. Until 1853 these openings were furnished with hugewooden two-leaved gates, arched at the top, and strengthened with barsof iron. These gates were double-locked at eleven o'clock in summer, andten o'clock in winter. The town having thus shot its bolts like a timidgirl, went quietly to sleep. A keeper, who lived in a little cell in oneof the inner corners of each gateway, was authorised to admit belatedpersons. But it was necessary to stand parleying a long time. The keeperwould not let people in until, by the light of his lantern, he hadcarefully scrutinised their faces through a peep-hole. If their looksdispleased him they had to sleep outside. This custom of locking thegates every evening was highly characteristic of the spirit of the town,which was a commingling of cowardice, egotism, routine, exclusiveness,and devout longing for a cloistered life. Plassans, when it had shutitself up, would say to itself, "I am at home," with the satisfactionof some pious bourgeois, who, assured of the safety of his cash-box,and certain that no noise will disturb him, duly says his prayers andretires gladly to bed. No other town, I believe, has so long persistedin thus incarcerating itself like a nun.
The population of Plassans is divided into three groups, correspondingwith the same number of districts. Putting aside the functionaries--thesub-prefect, the receiver of taxes, the mortgage commissioner, andthe postmaster, who are all strangers to the locality, where they areobjects of envy rather than of esteem, and who live after their ownfashion--the real inhabitants, those who were born there and haveevery intention of ending their days there, feel too much respect fortraditional usages and established boundaries not to pen themselves oftheir own accord in one or other of the town's social divisions.
The nobility virtually cloister themselves. Since the fall of Charles X.they scarcely ever go out, and when they do they are eager to returnto their large dismal mansions, and walk along furtively as though theywere in a hostile country. They do not visit anyone, nor do they evenreceive each other. Their drawing-rooms are frequented by a few priestsonly. They spend the summer in the chateaux which they possess in theenvirons; in the winter, they sit round their firesides. They are, asit were, dead people weary of life. And thus the gloomy silence of acemetery hangs over their quarter of the town. The doors and windowsare carefully barricaded; one would think their mansions were so manyconvents shut off from all the tumult of the world. At rare intervalsan abbe, whose measured tread adds to the gloomy silence of these sealedhouses, passes by and glides like a shadow through some half-openeddoorway.
The well-to-do people, the retired tradesmen, the lawyers and notaries,all those of the little easy-going, ambitious world that inhabits thenew town, endeavour to infuse some liveliness into Plassans. They goto the parties given by the sub-prefect, and dream of giving similarentertainments. They eagerly seek popularity, call a workman "my goodfellow," chat with the peasants about the harvest, read the papers, andwalk out with their wives on Sundays. Theirs are the enlightenedminds of the district, they are the only persons who venture to speakdisparagingly of the ramparts; in fact, they have several times demandedof the authorities the demolition of those old walls, relics of a formerage. At the same time, the most sceptical among them experience a shockof delight whenever a marquis or a count deigns to honour them with astiff salutation. Indeed, the dream of every citizen of the new town isto be admitted to a drawing-room of the Saint-Marc quarter. They knowvery well that their ambition is not attainable, and it is this whichmakes them proclaim all the louder that they are freethinkers. But theyare freethinkers in words only; firm friends of the authorities, theyare ready to rush into the arms of the first deliverer at the slightestindication of popular discontent.
The group which toils and vegetates in the old quarter is not so clearlydefined as the others. The labouring classes are here in a majority; butretail dealers and even a few wholesale traders are to be found amongthem. As a matter of fact, Plassans is far from being a commercialcentre; there is only just sufficient trade to dispose of the productsof the country--oil, wine, and almonds. As for industrial labour, it isrepresented almost entirely
by three or four evil-smelling tanyards,a felt hat manufactory, and some soap-boiling works, which last arerelegated to a corner of the Faubourg. This little commercial andindustrial world, though it may on high days and holidays visit thepeople of the new district, generally takes up its quarters among theoperatives of the old town. Merchants, retail traders, and artisans havecommon interests which unite them together. On Sundays only, the mastersmake themselves spruce and foregather apart. On the other hand, thelabouring classes, which constitute scarcely a fifth of the population,mingle with the idlers of the district.
It is only once a week, and during the fine weather, that the threedistricts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town repairsto the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the nobility venturethither. Three distinct currents flow along this sort of boulevardplanted with rows of plane-trees. The well-to-do citizens of the newquarter merely pass along before quitting the town by the Grand'-Porteand taking the Avenue du Mail on the right, where they walk up and downtill nightfall. Meantime, the nobility and the lower classes share theCours Sauvaire between them. For more than a century past the nobilityhave selected the walk on the south side, which is bordered with largemansions, and is the first to escape the heat of the sun; the lowerclasses have to rest content with the walk on the north, where thecafes, inns, and tobacconists' shops are located. The people and thenobility promenade the whole afternoon, walking up and down the Courswithout anyone of either party thinking of changing sides. They are onlyseparated by a distance of some seven or eight yards, yet it is as ifthey were a thousand leagues away from each other, for they scrupulouslyfollow those two parallel lines, as though they must not come in contacthere below. Even during the revolutionary periods each party kept toits own side. This regulation walk on Sunday and the locking of the towngates in the evening are analogous instances which suffice to indicatethe character of the ten thousand people inhabiting the town.
Here, amidst these surroundings, until the year 1848, there vegetatedan obscure family that enjoyed little esteem, but whose head, PierreRougon, subsequently played an important part in life owing to certaincircumstances.
Pierre Rougon was the son of a peasant. His mother's family, theFouques, owned, towards the end of the last century, a large plot ofground in the Faubourg, behind the old cemetery of Saint-Mittre; thisground was subsequently joined to the Jas-Meiffren. The Fouques were therichest market-gardeners in that part of the country; they supplied anentire district of Plassans with vegetables. However, their namedied out a few years before the Revolution. Only one girl, Adelaide,remained; born in 1768, she had become an orphan at the age of eighteen.This girl, whose father had died insane, was a long, lank, palecreature, with a scared look and strange ways which one might have takenfor shyness so long as she was a little girl. As she grew up,however, she became still stranger; she did certain things which wereinexplicable even to the cleverest folk of the Faubourg, and from thattime it was rumoured that she was cracked like her father.
She had scarcely been an orphan six months, in possession of a fortunewhich rendered her an eagerly sought heiress, when it transpired thatshe had married a young gardener named Rougon, a rough-hewn peasant fromthe Basses-Alpes. This Rougon, after the death of the last of the maleFouques, who had engaged him for a term, had remained in the serviceof the deceased's daughter. From the situation of salaried servant heascended rapidly to the enviable position of husband. This marriage wasa first shock to public opinion. No one could comprehend why Adelaidepreferred this poor fellow, coarse, heavy, vulgar, scarce able to speakFrench, to those other young men, sons of well-to-do farmers, who hadbeen seen hovering round her for some time. And, as provincial people donot allow anything to remain unexplained, they made sure there was somemystery at the bottom of this affair, alleging even that the marriage ofthe two young people had become an absolute necessity. But events provedthe falsity of the accusation. More than a year went by before Adelaidehad a son. The Faubourg was annoyed; it could not admit that it waswrong, and determined to penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly allthe gossips kept a watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matterfor tittle-tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after hismarriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was weeding abed of carrots.
Scarcely a year then elapsed before the young widow caused unheard-ofscandal. It became known, as an indisputable fact, that she had a lover.She did not appear to make any secret of it; several persons assertedthat they had heard her use endearing terms in public to poor Rougon'ssuccessor. Scarcely a year of widowhood and a lover already! Such adisregard of propriety seemed monstrous out of all reason. And thescandal was heightened by Adelaide's strange choice. At that time theredwelt at the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre, in a hovel the backof which abutted on the Fouques' land, a man of bad repute, who wasgenerally referred to as "that scoundrel Macquart." This man wouldvanish for weeks and then turn up some fine evening, sauntering aboutwith his hands in his pockets and whistling as though he had justcome from a short walk. And the women sitting at their doorsteps as hepassed: "There's that scoundrel Macquart! He has hidden his bales andhis gun in some hollow of the Viorne." The truth was, Macquart hadno means, and yet ate and drank like a happy drone during his shortsojourns in the town. He drank copiously and with fierce obstinacy.Seating himself alone at a table in some tavern, he would linger thereevening after evening, with his eyes stupidly fixed on his glass,neither seeing nor hearing anything around him. When the landlord closedhis establishment, he would retire with a firm step, with his headraised, as if he were kept yet more erect by inebriation. "Macquartwalks so straight, he's surely dead drunk," people used to say, as theysaw him going home. Usually, when he had had no drink, he walked witha slight stoop and shunned the gaze of curious people with a kind ofsavage shyness.
Since the death of his father, a journeyman tanner who had left him assole heritage the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, he had neverbeen known to have either relatives or friends. The proximity of thefrontiers and the neighbouring forests of the Seille had turned thissingular, lazy fellow into a combination of smuggler and poacher, oneof those suspicious-looking characters of whom passers-by observe: "Ishouldn't care to meet that man at midnight in a dark wood." Tall, witha formidable beard and lean face, Macquart was the terror of thegood women of the Faubourg of Plassans; they actually accused him ofdevouring little children raw. Though he was hardly thirty years old,he looked fifty. Amidst his bushy beard and the locks of hair which hungover his face in poodle fashion, one could only distinguish the gleamof his brown eyes, the furtive sorrowful glance of a man of vagrantinstincts, rendered vicious by wine and a pariah life. Although nocrimes had actually been brought home to him, no theft or murder wasever perpetrated in the district without suspicion at once falling uponhim.
And it was this ogre, this brigand, this scoundrel Macquart, whomAdelaide had chosen! In twenty months she had two children by him, firsta boy and then a girl. There was no question of marriage betweenthem. Never had the Faubourg beheld such audacious impropriety. Thestupefaction was so great, the idea of Macquart having found a young andwealthy mistress so completely upset the gossips, that they even spokegently of Adelaide. "Poor thing! She's gone quite mad," they would say."If she had any relatives she would have been placed in confinement longago." And as they never knew anything of the history of those strangeamours, they accused that rogue Macquart of having taken advantage ofAdelaide's weak mind to rob her of her money.
The legitimate son, little Pierre Rougon, grew up with his mother'sother offspring. The latter, Antoine and Ursule, the young wolves asthey were called in the district, were kept at home by Adelaide, whotreated them as affectionately as her first child. She did not appear toentertain a very clear idea of the position in life reserved for thesetwo poor creatures. To her they were the same in every respect as herfirst-born. She would sometimes go out holding Pierre with one hand andAntoine with the other, never noticing how differently the two lit
tlefellows were already regarded.
It was a strange home. For nearly twenty years everyone lived thereafter his or her fancy, the children like the mother. Everything wenton free from control. In growing to womanhood, Adelaide had retained thestrangeness which had been taken for shyness when she was fifteen. Itwas not that she was insane, as the people of the Faubourg asserted,but there was a lack of equilibrium between her nerves and her blood,a disorder of the brain and heart which made her lead a life out ofthe ordinary, different from that of the rest of the world. She wascertainly very natural, very consistent with herself; but in the eyes ofthe neighbours her consistency became pure insanity. She seemeddesirous of making herself conspicuous, it was thought she was wickedlydetermined to turn things at home from bad to worse, whereas with greatnaivete she simply acted according to the impulses of her nature.
Ever since giving birth to her first child she had been subject tonervous fits which brought on terrible convulsions. These fits recurredperiodically, every two or three months. The doctors whom she consulteddeclared they could do nothing for her, that age would weaken theseverity of the attacks. They simply prescribed a dietary regimen ofunderdone meat and quinine wine. However, these repeated shocks led tocerebral disorder. She lived on from day to day like a child, likea fawning animal yielding to its instincts. When Macquart was on hisrounds, she passed her time in lazy, pensive idleness. All she did forher children was to kiss and play with them. Then as soon as her loverreturned she would disappear.
Behind Macquart's hovel there was a little yard, separated from theFouques' property by a wall. One morning the neighbours were muchastonished to find in this wall a door which had not been there theprevious evening. Before an hour had elapsed, the entire Faubourg hadflocked to the neighbouring windows. The lovers must have worked thewhole night to pierce the opening and place the door there. They couldnow go freely from one house to the other. The scandal was revived,everyone felt less pity for Adelaide, who was certainly the disgraceof the suburb; she was reproached more wrathfully for that door, thattacit, brutal admission of her union, than even for her two illegitimatechildren. "People should at least study appearances," the most tolerantwomen would say. But Adelaide did not understand what was meant bystudying appearances. She was very happy, very proud of her door; shehad assisted Macquart to knock the stones from the wall and had evenmixed the mortar so that the work might proceed the quicker; and shecame with childish delight to inspect the work by daylight on themorrow--an act which was deemed a climax of shamelessness by threegossips who observed her contemplating the masonry. From that date,whenever Macquart reappeared, it was thought, as no one then eversaw the young woman, that she was living with him in the hovel of theImpasse Saint-Mittre.
The smuggler would come very irregularly, almost always unexpectedly,to Plassans. Nobody ever knew what life the lovers led during the twoor three days he spent there at distant intervals. They used to shutthemselves up; the little dwelling seemed uninhabited. Then, as thegossips had declared that Macquart had simply seduced Adelaide in orderto spend her money, they were astonished, after a time, to see him stilllead his wonted life, ever up hill and down dale and as badly equippedas previously. Perhaps the young woman loved him all the more forseeing him at rare intervals, perhaps he had disregarded her entreaties,feeling an irresistible desire for a life of adventure. The gossipsinvented a thousand fables, without succeeding in giving any reasonableexplanation of a connection which had originated and continued in sostrange a manner. The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre remained closedand preserved its secrets. It was merely guessed that Macquart hadprobably acquired the habit of beating Adelaide, although the sound ofa quarrel never issued from the house. However, on several occasions shewas seen with her face black and blue, and her hair torn away. At thesame time, she did not display the least dejection or grief, nor did sheseek in any way to hide her bruises. She smiled, and seemed happy. Nodoubt she allowed herself to be beaten without breathing a word. Thisexistence lasted for more than fifteen years.
At times when Adelaide returned home she would find her house upsidedown, but would not take the least notice of it. She was utterlyignorant of the practical meaning of life, of the proper value of thingsand the necessity for order. She let her children grow up like thoseplum-trees which sprout along the highways at the pleasure of the rainand sun. They bore their natural fruits like wild stock which has neverknown grafting or pruning. Never was nature allowed such complete sway,never did such mischievous creatures grow up more freely under the soleinfluence of instinct. They rolled among the vegetables, passed theirdays in the open air playing and fighting like good-for-nothing urchins.They stole provisions from the house and pillaged the few fruit-trees inthe enclosure; they were the plundering, squalling, familiar demons ofthis strange abode of lucid insanity. When their mother was absentfor days together, they would make such an uproar, and hit upon suchdiabolical devices for annoying people, that the neighbours had tothreaten them with a whipping. Moreover, Adelaide did not inspire themwith much fear; if they were less obnoxious to other people when she wasat home, it was because they made her their victim, shirking schoolfive or six times a week and doing everything they could to receive somepunishment which would allow them to squall to their hearts' content.But she never beat them, nor even lost her temper; she lived on verywell, placidly, indolently, in a state of mental abstraction amidst allthe uproar. At last, indeed, this uproar became indispensable to her,to fill the void in her brain. She smiled complacently when she heardanyone say, "Her children will beat her some day, and it will serve herright." To all remarks, her utter indifference seemed to reply, "Whatdoes it matter?" She troubled even less about her property than abouther children. The Fouques' enclosure, during the many years that thissingular existence lasted would have become a piece of waste groundif the young woman had not luckily entrusted the cultivation of hervegetables to a clever market-gardener. This man, who was to share theprofits with her, robbed her impudently, though she never noticed it.This circumstance had its advantages, however; for, in order to stealthe more, the gardener drew as much as possible from the land, which inthe result almost doubled in value.
Pierre, the legitimate son, either from secret instinct or from hisknowledge of the different manner in which he and the others wereregarded by the neighbours, domineered over his brother and sisterfrom an early age. In their quarrels, although he was much weaker thanAntoine, he always got the better of the contest, beating the other withall the authority of a master. With regard to Ursule, a poor, puny, wanlittle creature, she was handled with equal roughness by both theboys. Indeed, until they were fifteen or sixteen, the three childrenfraternally beat each other without understanding their vague, mutualhatred, without realising how foreign they were to one another. It wasonly in youth that they found themselves face to face with definite,self-conscious personalities.
At sixteen, Antoine was a tall fellow, a blend of Macquart's andAdelaide's failings. Macquart, however, predominated in him, with hislove of vagrancy, his tendency to drunkenness, and his brutish savagery.At the same time, under the influence of Adelaide's nervous nature, thevices which in the father assumed a kind of sanguinary frankness werein the son tinged with an artfulness full of hypocrisy and cowardice.Antoine resembled his mother by his total want of dignified will, by hiseffeminate voluptuous egotism, which disposed him to accept any bed ofinfamy provided he could lounge upon it at his ease and sleep warmly init. People said of him: "Ah! the brigand! He hasn't even the courage ofhis villainy like Macquart; if ever he commits a murder, it will be withpin pricks." Physically, Antoine inherited Adelaide's thick lips only;his other features resembled those of the smuggler, but they were softerand more prone to change of expression.
In Ursule, on the other hand, physical and moral resemblance to themother predominated. There was a mixture of certain characteristics inher also; but born the last, at a time when Adelaide's love was warmerthan Macquart's, the poor little thing seemed to have received wi
th hersex a deeper impress of her mother's temperament. Moreover, hers was nota fusion of the two natures, but rather a juxtaposition, a remarkablyclose soldering. Ursule was whimsical, and displayed at times theshyness, the melancholy, and the transports of a pariah; then she wouldoften break out into nervous fits of laughter, and muse lazily, likea woman unsound both in head and heart. Her eyes, which at times hada scared expression like those of Adelaide, were as limpid as crystal,similar to those of kittens doomed to die of consumption.
In presence of those two illegitimate children Pierre seemed a stranger;to one who had not penetrated to the roots of his being he would haveappeared profoundly dissimilar. Never did child's nature show a moreequal balance of the characteristics of its parents. He was the exactmean between the peasant Rougon and the nervous Adelaide. Paternalgrossness was attenuated by the maternal influence. One found in him thefirst phase of that evolution of temperaments which ultimately bringsabout the amelioration or deterioration of a race. Although he was stilla peasant, his skin was less coarse, his face less heavy, his intellectmore capacious and more supple. In him the defects of his father and hismother had advantageously reacted upon each other. If Adelaide's nature,rendered exquisitely sensitive by her rebellious nerves, had combatedand lessened Rougon's full-bodied ponderosity, the latter hadsuccessfully prevented the young woman's tendency to cerebral disorderfrom being implanted in the child. Pierre knew neither the passions northe sickly ravings of Macquart's young whelps. Very badly brought up,unruly and noisy, like all children who are not restrained during theirinfancy, he nevertheless possessed at bottom such sense and intelligenceas would always preserve him from perpetrating any unproductive folly.His vices, his laziness, his appetite for indulgence, lacked theinstinctiveness which characterised Antoine's; he meant to cultivateand gratify them honourably and openly. In his plump person of mediumheight, in his long pale face, in which the features derived from hisfather had acquired some of the maternal refinement, one could alreadydetect signs of sly and crafty ambition and insatiable desire, withthe hardness of heart and envious hatred of a peasant's son whom hismother's means and nervous temperament had turned into a member of themiddle classes.
When, at the age of seventeen, Pierre observed and was able tounderstand Adelaide's disorders and the singular position of Antoine andUrsule, he seemed neither sorry nor indignant, but simply worried as tothe course which would best serve his own interests. He was the onlyone of the three children who had pursued his studies with any industry.When a peasant begins to feel the need of instruction he most frequentlybecomes a fierce calculator. At school Pierre's playmates roused hisfirst suspicions by the manner in which they treated and hooted hisbrother. Later on he came to understand the significance of many looksand words. And at last he clearly saw that the house was being pillaged.From that time forward he regarded Antoine and Ursule as shamelessparasites, mouths that were devouring his own substance. Like the peopleof the Faubourg, he thought that his mother was a fit subject for alunatic asylum, and feared she would end by squandering all her money,if he did not take steps to prevent it. What gave him the finishingstroke was the dishonesty of the gardener who cultivated the land.At this, in one day, the unruly child was transformed into a thrifty,selfish lad, hurriedly matured, as regards his instincts, by the strangeimprovident life which he could no longer bear to see around him withouta feeling of anguish. Those vegetables, from the sale of which themarket-gardener derived the largest profits, really belonged to him;the wine which his mother's offspring drank, the bread they ate, alsobelonged to him. The whole house, the entire fortune, was his by right;according to his boorish logic, he alone, the legitimate son, wasthe heir. And as his riches were in danger, as everybody was greedilygnawing at his future fortune, he sought a means of turning them allout--mother, brother, sister, servants--and of succeeding immediately tohis inheritance.
The conflict was a cruel one; the lad knew that he must first strike hismother. Step by step, with patient tenacity, he executed a plan whoseevery detail he had long previously thought out. His tactics were toappear before Adelaide like a living reproach--not that he flew intoa passion, or upbraided her for her misconduct; but he had acquired acertain manner of looking at her, without saying a word, which terrifiedher. Whenever she returned from a short sojourn in Macquart's hovel shecould not turn her eyes on her son without a shudder. She felt his coldglances, as sharp as steel blades pierce her deeply and pitilessly. Thesevere, taciturn demeanour of the child of the man whom she had so soonforgotten strangely troubled her poor disordered brain. She would fancyat times that Rougon had risen from the dead to punish her for herdissoluteness. Every week she fell into one of those nervous fits whichwere shattering her constitution. She was left to struggle until sherecovered consciousness, after which she would creep about more feeblythan ever. She would also often sob the whole night long, holding herhead in her hands, and accepting the wounds that Pierre dealt her withresignation, as if they had been the strokes of an avenging deity. Atother times she repudiated him; she would not acknowledge her ownflesh and blood in that heavy-faced lad, whose calmness chilled her ownfeverishness so painfully. She would a thousand times rather have beenbeaten than glared at like that. Those implacable looks, which followedher everywhere, threw her at last into such unbearable torments thaton several occasions she determined to see her lover no more. As soon,however, as Macquart returned she forgot her vows and hastened to him.The conflict with her son began afresh, silent and terrible, when shecame back home. At the end of a few months she fell completely under hissway. She stood before him like a child doubtful of her behaviour andfearing that she deserves a whipping. Pierre had skilfully bound herhand and foot, and made a very submissive servant of her, withoutopening his lips, without once entering into difficult and compromisingexplanations.
When the young man felt that his mother was in his power, that he couldtreat her like a slave, he began, in his own interest, to turn hercerebral weakness and the foolish terror with which his glances inspiredher to his own advantage. His first care, as soon as he was master athome, was to dismiss the market-gardener and replace him by one of hisown creatures. Then he took upon himself the supreme direction of thehousehold, selling, buying, and holding the cash-box. On the other hand,he made no attempt to regulate Adelaide's actions, or to correct Antoineand Ursule for their laziness. That mattered little to him, for hecounted upon getting rid of these people as soon as an opportunitypresented itself. He contented himself with portioning out their breadand water. Then, having already got all the property in his own hands,he awaited an event which would permit him to dispose of it as hepleased.
Circumstances proved singularly favourable. He escaped the conscriptionon the ground of being a widow's eldest son. But two years later Antoinewas called out. His bad luck did not affect him much; he counted on hismother purchasing a substitute for him. Adelaide, in fact, wished tosave him from serving; Pierre, however, who held the money, turned adeaf ear to her. His brother's compulsory departure would be a luckyevent for him, and greatly assist the accomplishment of his plans. Whenhis mother mentioned the matter to him, he gave her such a look thatshe did not venture to pursue it. His glance plainly signified, "Do youwish, then, to ruin me for the sake of your illegitimate offspring?"Forthwith she selfishly abandoned Antoine, for before everything elseshe sought her own peace and quietness. Pierre, who did not like violentmeasures, and who rejoiced at being able to eject his brother without adisturbance, then played the part of a man in despair: the year had beena bad one, money was scarce, and to raise any he would be compelled tosell a portion of the land, which would be the beginning of their ruin.Then he pledged his word of honour to Antoine that he would buy him outthe following year, though he meant to do nothing of the kind. Antoinethen went off, duped, and half satisfied.
Pierre got rid of Ursule in a still more unexpected manner. A journeymanhatter of the Faubourg, named Mouret, conceived a real affection for thegirl, whom he thought as white and delicate as an
y young lady from theSaint-Marc quarter. He married her. On his part it was a love match,free from all sordid motives. As for Ursule, she accepted the marriagein order to escape a home where her eldest brother rendered lifeintolerable. Her mother, absorbed in her own courses, and using herremaining energy to defend her own particular interests, regardedthe matter with absolute indifference. She was even glad of Ursule'sdeparture from the house, hoping that Pierre, now that he had no furthercause for dissatisfaction, would let her live in peace after herown fashion. No sooner had the young people been married than Mouretperceived that he would have to quit Plassans, if he did not wish tohear endless disparaging remarks about his wife and his mother-in-law.Taking Ursule with him, he accordingly repaired to Marseilles, where heworked at his trade. It should be mentioned that he had not askedfor one sou of dowry. When Pierre, somewhat surprised by thisdisinterestedness, commenced to stammer out some explanations, Mouretclosed his mouth by saying that he preferred to earn his wife's bread.Nevertheless the worthy son of the peasant remained uneasy; Mouret'sindifference seemed to him to conceal some trap.
Adelaide now remained to be disposed of. Nothing in the world would haveinduced Pierre to live with her any longer. She was compromising him;it was with her that he would have liked to make a start. But he foundhimself between two very embarrassing alternatives: to keep her, andthus, in a measure, share her disgrace, and bind a fetter to his feetwhich would arrest him in his ambitious flight; or to turn her out, withthe certainty of being pointed at as a bad son, which would have robbedhim of the reputation for good nature which he desired. Knowing that hewould be in want of everybody, he desired to secure an untarnishedname throughout Plassans. There was but one method to adopt, namely, toinduce Adelaide to leave of her own accord. Pierre neglected nothing toaccomplish this end. He considered his mother's misconduct a sufficientexcuse for his own hard-heartedness. He punished her as one wouldchastise a child. The tables were turned. The poor woman cowered underthe stick which, figuratively, was constantly held over her. She wasscarcely forty-two years old, and already had the stammerings ofterror, and vague, pitiful looks of an old woman in her dotage. Her soncontinued to stab her with his piercing glances, hoping that she wouldrun away when her courage was exhausted. The unfortunate woman sufferedterribly from shame, restrained desire and enforced cowardice, receivingthe blows dealt her with passive resignation, and nevertheless returningto Macquart with the determination to die on the spot rather thansubmit. There were nights when she would have got out of bed, and thrownherself into the Viorne, if with her weak, nervous, nature she had notfelt the greatest fear of death. On several occasions she thought ofrunning away and joining her lover on the frontier. It was onlybecause she did not know whither to go that she remained in the house,submitting to her son's contemptuous silence and secret brutality.Pierre divined that she would have left long ago if she had only had arefuge. He was waiting an opportunity to take a little apartment for hersomewhere, when a fortuitous occurrence, which he had not venturedto anticipate, abruptly brought about the realisation of his desires.Information reached the Faubourg that Macquart had just been killed onthe frontier by a shot from a custom-house officer, at the moment whenhe was endeavouring to smuggle a load of Geneva watches into France. Thestory was true. The smuggler's body was not even brought home, but wasinterred in the cemetery of a little mountain village. Adelaide's griefplunged her into stupor. Her son, who watched her curiously, did not seeher shed a tear. Macquart had made her sole legatee. She inheritedhis hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and his carbine, which afellow-smuggler, braving the balls of the custom-house officers, loyallybrought back to her. On the following day she retired to the littlehouse, hung the carbine above the mantelpiece, and lived there estrangedfrom all the world, solitary and silent.
Pierre was at last sole master of the house. The Fouques' land belongedto him in fact, if not in law. He never thought of establishing himselfon it. It was too narrow a field for his ambition. To till the groundand cultivate vegetables seemed to him boorish, unworthy of hisfaculties. He was in a hurry to divest himself of everythingrecalling the peasant. With his nature refined by his mother's nervoustemperament, he felt an irresistible longing for the enjoyments of themiddle classes. In all his calculations, therefore, he had regarded thesale of the Fouques' property as the final consummation. This sale, byplacing a round sum of money in his hands, would enable him to marry thedaughter of some merchant who would take him into partnership. At thisperiod the wars of the First Empire were greatly thinning the ranks ofeligible young men. Parents were not so fastidious as previously in thechoice of a son-in-law. Pierre persuaded himself that money wouldsmooth all difficulties, and that the gossip of the Faubourg would beoverlooked; he intended to pose as a victim, as an honest man sufferingfrom a family disgrace, which he deplored, without being soiled by it orexcusing it.
For several months already he had cast his eyes on a certain FelicitePuech, the daughter of an oil-dealer. The firm of Puech & Lacamp, whosewarehouses were in one of the darkest lanes of the old quarter, wasfar from prosperous. It enjoyed but doubtful credit in the market, andpeople talked vaguely of bankruptcy. It was precisely in consequence ofthese evil reports that Pierre turned his batteries in this direction.No well-to-do trader would have given him his daughter. He meant toappear on the scene at the very moment when old Puech should no longerknow which way to turn; he would then purchase Felicite of him, andre-establish the credit of the house by his own energy and intelligence.It was a clever expedient for ascending the first rung of the socialladder, for raising himself above his station. Above all things, hewished to escape from that frightful Faubourg where everybody reviledhis family, and to obliterate all these foul legends, by effacing eventhe very name of the Fouques' enclosure. For that reason the filthystreets of the old quarter seemed to him perfect paradise. There, only,he would be able to change his skin.
The moment which he had been awaiting soon arrived. The firm of Puechand Lacamp seemed to be at the last gasp. The young man then negotiatedthe match with prudent skill. He was received, if not as a deliverer, atleast as a necessary and acceptable expedient. The marriage agreed upon,he turned his attention to the sale of the ground. The owner of theJas-Meiffren, desiring to enlarge his estate, had made him repeatedoffers. A low, thin, party-wall alone separated the two estates. Pierrespeculated on the eagerness of his wealthy neighbour, who, to gratifyhis caprice, offered as much as fifty thousand francs for the land. Itwas double its value. Pierre, whoever, with the craftiness of a peasant,pulled a long face, and said that he did not care to sell; that hismother would never consent to get rid of the property where the Fouqueshad lived from father to son for nearly two centuries. But all the timethat he was seemingly holding back he was really making preparations forthe sale. Certain doubts had arisen in his mind. According to his ownbrutal logic, the property belonged to him; he had the right to disposeof it as he chose. Beneath this assurance, however, he had vaguepresentiments of legal complications. So he indirectly consulted alawyer of the Faubourg.
He learnt some fine things from him. According to the lawyer, his handswere completely tied. His mother alone could alienate the property, andhe doubted whether she would. But what he did not know, what came as aheavy blow to him, was that Ursule and Antoine, those young wolves,had claims on the estate. What! they would despoil him, rob him, thelegitimate child! The lawyer's explanations were clear and precise,however; Adelaide, it is true, had married Rougon under the commonproperty system; but as the whole fortune consisted of land, the youngwoman, according to law, again came into possession of everything at herhusband's death. Moreover, Macquart and Adelaide had duly acknowledgedtheir children when declaring their birth for registration, and thusthese children were entitled to inherit from their mother. Forsole consolation, Pierre learnt that the law reduced the share ofillegitimate children in favour of the others. This, however, did notconsole him at all. He wanted to have everything. He would not haveshared ten sous with Ursule and Antoi
ne.
This vista of the intricacies of the Code opened up a new horizon, whichhe scanned with a singularly thoughtful air. He soon recognised thata shrewd man must always keep the law on his side. And this is what hedevised without consulting anyone, even the lawyer, whose suspicions hewas afraid of arousing. He knew how to turn his mother round his finger.One fine morning he took her to a notary and made her sign a deed ofsale. Provided she were left the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre,Adelaide would have sold all Plassans. Besides, Pierre assured her anannual income of six hundred francs, and made the most solemn promisesto watch over his brother and sister. This oath satisfied the goodwoman. She recited, before the notary, the lesson which it had pleasedher son to teach her. On the following day the young man made her placeher name at the foot of a document in which she acknowledged havingreceived fifty thousand francs as the price of the property. This washis stroke of genius, the act of a rogue. He contented himself withtelling his mother, who was a little surprised at signing such a receiptwhen she had not seen a centime of the fifty thousand francs, that itwas a pure formality of no consequence whatever. As he slipped the paperinto his pocket, he thought to himself, "Now, let the young wolves askme to render an account. I will tell them the old woman has squanderedeverything. They will never dare to go to law with me about it." A weekafterwards, the party-wall no longer existed: a plough had turned upthe vegetable beds; the Fouques' enclosure, in accordance with youngRougon's wish, was about to become a thing of the past. A few monthslater, the owner of the Jas-Meiffren even had the old market-gardener'shouse, which was falling to pieces, pulled down.
When Pierre had secured the fifty thousand francs he married FelicitePuech with as little delay as possible. Felicite was a short, darkwoman, such as one often meets in Provence. She looked like one ofthose brown, lean, noisy grasshoppers, which in their sudden leaps oftenstrike their heads against the almond-trees. Thin, flat-breasted, withpointed shoulders and a face like that of a pole-cat, her featuressingularly sunken and attenuated, it was not easy to tell her age;she looked as near fifteen as thirty, although she was in reality onlynineteen, four years younger than her husband. There was much felineslyness in the depths of her little black eyes, which suggested gimletholes. Her low, bumpy forehead, her slightly depressed nose withdelicate quivering nostrils, her thin red lips and prominent chin,parted from her cheeks by strange hollows, all suggested the countenanceof an artful dwarf, a living mask of intrigue, an active, enviousambition. With all her ugliness, however, Felicite possessed a sort ofgracefulness which rendered her seductive. People said of her that shecould be pretty or ugly as she pleased. It would depend on the fashionin which she tied her magnificent hair; but it depended still more onthe triumphant smile which illumined her golden complexion when shethought she had got the better of somebody. Born under an evil star,and believing herself ill-used by fortune, she was generally contentto appear an ugly creature. She did not, however, intend to abandon thestruggle, for she had vowed that she would some day make the whole townburst with envy, by an insolent display of happiness and luxury. Hadshe been able to act her part on a more spacious stage, where full playwould have been allowed her ready wit, she would have quickly broughther dream to pass. Her intelligence was far superior to that of thegirls of her own station and education. Evil tongues asserted that hermother, who had died a few years after she was born, had, during theearly period of her married life, been familiar with the Marquis deCarnavant, a young nobleman of the Saint-Marc quarter. In fact, Felicitehad the hands and feet of a marchioness, and, in this respect, did notappear to belong to that class of workers from which she was descended.
Her marriage with Pierre Rougon, that semi-peasant, that man of theFaubourg, whose family was in such bad odour, kept the old quarter ina state of astonishment for more than a month. She let people gossip,however, receiving the stiff congratulations of her friends with strangesmiles. Her calculations had been made; she had chosen Rougon for ahusband as one would choose an accomplice. Her father, in accepting theyoung man, had merely had eyes for the fifty thousand francs which wereto save him from bankruptcy. Felicite, however, was more keen-sighted.She looked into the future, and felt that she would be in want of arobust man, even if he were somewhat rustic, behind whom she mightconceal herself, and whose limbs she would move at will. She entertaineda deliberate hatred for the insignificant little exquisites ofprovincial towns, the lean herd of notaries' clerks and prospectivebarristers, who stand shivering with cold while waiting for clients.Having no dowry, and despairing of ever marrying a rich merchant's son,she by far preferred a peasant whom she could use as a passive tool,to some lank graduate who would overwhelm her with his academicalsuperiority, and drag her about all her life in search of hollowvanities. She was of opinion that the woman ought to make the man. Shebelieved herself capable of carving a minister out of a cow-herd. Thatwhich had attracted her in Rougon was his broad chest, his heavy frame,which was not altogether wanting in elegance. A man thus built wouldbear with ease and sprightliness the mass of intrigues which shedreamt of placing on his shoulders. However, while she appreciated herhusband's strength and vigour, she also perceived that he was farfrom being a fool; under his coarse flesh she had divined the cunningsuppleness of his mind. Still she was a long way from really knowing herRougon; she thought him far stupider than he was. A few days after hermarriage, as she was by chance fumbling in the drawer of a secretaire,she came across the receipt for fifty thousand francs which Adelaidehad signed. At sight of it she understood things, and felt ratherfrightened; her own natural average honesty rendered her hostile to suchexpedients. Her terror, however, was not unmixed with admiration; Rougonbecame in her eyes a very smart fellow.
The young couple bravely sought to conquer fortune. The firm of Puech& Lacamp was not, after all, so embarrassed as Pierre had thought. Itsliabilities were small, it was merely in want of ready-money. In theprovinces, traders adopt prudent courses to save them from seriousdisasters. Puech & Lacamp were prudent to an excessive degree; theynever risked a thousand crowns without the greatest fear, and thus theirhouse, a veritable hole, was an unimportant one. The fifty thousandfrancs that Pierre brought into it sufficed to pay the debts and extendthe business. The beginnings were good. During three successive yearsthe olive harvest was an abundant one. Felicite, by a bold stroke whichabsolutely frightened both Pierre and old Puech, made them purchasea considerable quantity of oil, which they stored in their warehouse.During the following years, as the young woman had foreseen, the cropsfailed, and a considerable rise in prices having set in, they realisedlarge profits by selling out their stock.
A short time after this haul, Puech & Lacamp retired from the firm,content with the few sous they had just secured, and ambitious of livingon their incomes.
The young couple now had sole control of the business, and thoughtthat they had at last laid the foundation of their fortune. "You havevanquished my ill-luck," Felicite would sometimes say to her husband.
One of the rare weaknesses of her energetic nature was to believeherself stricken by misfortune. Hitherto, so she asserted, nothing hadbeen successful with either herself or her father, in spite of all theirefforts. Goaded by her southern superstition, she prepared to strugglewith fate as one struggles with somebody who is endeavouring to strangleone. Circumstances soon justified her apprehensions in a singularmanner. Ill-luck returned inexorably. Every year some fresh disastershook Rougon's business. A bankruptcy resulted in the loss of a fewthousand francs; his estimates of crops proved incorrect, throughthe most incredible circumstances; the safest speculations collapsedmiserably. It was a truceless, merciless combat.
"You see I was born under an unlucky star!" Felicite would bitterlyexclaim.
And yet she still struggled furiously, not understanding how it was thatshe, who had shown such keen scent in a first speculation, could nowonly give her husband the most deplorable advice.
Pierre, dejected and less tenacious than herself, would have goneinto liquidation a
score of times had it not been for his wife's firmobstinacy. She longed to be rich. She perceived that her ambition couldonly be attained by fortune. As soon as they possessed a few hundredthousand francs they would be masters of the town. She would get herhusband appointed to an important post, and she would govern. It wasnot the attainment of honours which troubled her; she felt herselfmarvellously well armed for such a combat. But she could do nothing toget together the first few bags of money which were needed. Though theruling of men caused her no apprehensions, she felt a sort of impotentrage at the thought of those inert, white, cold, five-franc pieces overwhich her intriguing spirit had no power, and which obstinately resistedher.
The battle lasted for more than thirty years. The death of Puech provedanother heavy blow. Felicite, who had counted upon an inheritance ofabout forty thousand francs, found that the selfish old man, in orderto indulge himself in his old age, had sunk all his money in a lifeannuity. The discovery made her quite ill. She was gradually becomingsoured, she was growing more lean and harsh. To see her, from morningtill night, whirling round the jars of oil, one would have thought shebelieved that she could stimulate the sales by continually flittingabout like a restless fly. Her husband, on the contrary, became heavier;misfortune fattened him, making him duller and more indolent. Thesethirty years of combat did not, however, bring him to ruin. At eachannual stock-taking they managed to make both ends meet fairly well; ifthey suffered any loss during one season, they recouped themselves thenext. However, it was precisely this living from hand to mouth whichexasperated Felicite. She would, by far, have preferred a big failure.They would then, perhaps, have been able to commence life over again,instead of obstinately persisting in their petty business, workingthemselves to death to gain the bare necessaries of life. During onethird of a century they did not save fifty thousand francs.
It should be mentioned that, from the very first years of their marriedlife, they had a numerous family, which in the long run became a heavyburden to them. In the course of five years, from 1811 to 1815, Felicitegave birth to three boys. Then during the four ensuing years shepresented her husband with two girls. These had but an indifferentwelcome; daughters are a terrible embarrassment when one has no dowry togive them.
However, the young woman did not regard this troop of children as thecause of their ruin. On the contrary, she based on her sons' heads thebuilding of the fortune which was crumbling in her own hands. They werehardly ten years old before she discounted their future careers in herdreams. Doubting whether she would ever succeed herself, she centredin them all her hopes of overcoming the animosity of fate. They wouldprovide satisfaction for her disappointed vanity, they would give herthat wealthy, honourable position which she had hitherto sought in vain.From that time forward, without abandoning the business struggle,she conceived a second plan for obtaining the gratification of herdomineering instincts. It seemed to her impossible that, amongst herthree sons, there should not be a man of superior intellect, who wouldenrich them all. She felt it, she said. Accordingly, she nursed thechildren with a fervour in which maternal severity was blended with anusurer's solicitude. She amused herself by fattening them as though theyconstituted a capital which, later on, would return a large interest.
"Enough!" Pierre would sometimes exclaim, "all children are ungrateful.You are spoiling them, you are ruining us."
When Felicite spoke of sending them to college, he got angry. Latin wasa useless luxury, it would be quite sufficient if they went throughthe classes of a little neighbouring school The young woman, however,persisted in her design. She possessed certain elevated instincts whichmade her take a great pride in surrounding herself with accomplishedchildren; moreover, she felt that her sons must never remain asilliterate as her husband, if she wished to see them become prominentmen. She fancied them all three in Paris in high positions, which shedid not clearly define. When Rougon consented, and the three youngstershad entered the eighth class, Felicite felt the most lively satisfactionshe had ever experienced. She listened with delight as they talked oftheir professors and their studies. When she heard her eldest son makeone of his brothers decline _Rosa, a rose_, it sounded like deliciousmusic to her. It is only fair to add that her delight was not tarnishedby any sordid calculations. Even Rougon felt the satisfaction which anilliterate man experiences on perceiving his sons grow more learned thanhimself. Then the fellowship which grew up between their sons andthose of the local big-wigs completed the parents' gratification. Theyoungsters were soon on familiar terms with the sons of the Mayor andthe Sub-Prefect, and even with two or three young noblemen whom theSaint-Marc quarter had deigned to send to the Plassans College. Felicitewas at a loss how to repay such an honour. The education of the threelads weighed seriously on the budget of the Rougon household.
Until the boys had taken their degrees, their parents, who kept them atcollege at enormous sacrifices, lived in hopes of their success. Whenthey had obtained their diplomas Felicite wished to continue her work,and even persuaded her husband to send the three to Paris. Two of themdevoted themselves to the study of law, and the third passed throughthe School of Medicine. Then, when they were men, and had exhausted theresources of the Rougon family and were obliged to return and establishthemselves in the provinces, their parents' disenchantment began. Theyidled about and grew fat. And Felicite again felt all the bitterness ofher ill-luck. Her sons were failing her. They had ruined her, and didnot return any interest on the capital which they represented. Thislast blow of fate was the heaviest, as it fell on her ambition and hermaternal vanity alike. Rougon repeated to her from morning till night,"I told you so!" which only exasperated her the more.
One day, as she was bitterly reproaching her eldest son with the largeamount of money expended on his education, he said to her with equalbitterness, "I will repay you later on if I can. But as you had nomeans, you should have brought us up to a trade. We are out of ourelement, we are suffering more than you."
Felicite understood the wisdom of these words. From that time she ceasedto accuse her children, and turned her anger against fate, which neverwearied of striking her. She started her old complaints afresh, andbemoaned more and more the want of means which made her strand, as itwere, in port. Whenever Rougon said to her, "Your sons are lazy fellows,they will eat up all we have," she sourly replied, "Would to God I hadmore money to give them; if they do vegetate, poor fellows, it's becausethey haven't got a sou to bless themselves with."
At the beginning of the year 1848, on the eve of the Revolution ofFebruary, the three young Rougons held very precarious positionsat Plassans. They presented most curious and profoundly dissimilarcharacteristics, though they came of the same stock. They were inreality superior to their parents. The race of the Rougons was destinedto become refined through its female side. Adelaide had made Pierrea man of moderate enterprise, disposed to low ambitions; Felicitehad inspired her sons with a higher intelligence, with a capacity forgreater vices and greater virtues.
At the period now referred to the eldest, Eugene, was nearly forty yearsold. He was a man of middle height, slightly bald, and already disposedto obesity. He had his father's face, a long face with broad features;beneath his skin one could divine the fat to which were due the flabbyroundness of his features, and his yellowish, waxy complexion. Thoughhis massive square head still recalled the peasant, his physiognomy wastransfigured, lit up from within as it were, when his drooping eyelidswere raised and his eyes awoke to life. In the son's case, the father'sponderousness had turned to gravity. This big fellow, Eugene, usuallypreserved a heavy somnolent demeanour. At the same time, certain of hisheavy, languid movements suggested those of a giant stretching his limbspending the time for action. By one of those alleged freaks of nature,of which, however, science is now commencing to discover the laws, ifphysical resemblance to Pierre was perfect in Eugene, Felicite onher side seemed to have furnished him with his brains. He offered aninstance of certain moral and intellectual qualities of maternal originbeing embedded in the coarse f
lesh he had derived from his father. Hecherished lofty ambitions, possessed domineering instincts, and showedsingular contempt for trifling expedients and petty fortunes.
He was a proof that Plassans was perhaps not mistaken in suspecting thatFelicite had some blue blood in her veins. The passion for indulgence,which became formidably developed in the Rougons, and was, in fact, thefamily characteristic, attained in his case its highest pitch; he longedfor self-gratification, but in the form of mental enjoyment such aswould gratify his burning desire for domination. A man such as this wasnever intended to succeed in a provincial town. He vegetated therefor fifteen years, his eyes turned towards Paris, watching hisopportunities. On his return home he had entered his name on the rolls,in order to be independent of his parents. After that he pleaded fromtime to time, earning a bare livelihood, without appearing to rise aboveaverage mediocrity. At Plassans his voice was considered thick, hismovements heavy. He generally wandered from the question at issue,rambled, as the wiseacres expressed it. On one occasion particularly,when he was pleading in a case for damages, he so forgot himself as tostray into a political disquisition, to such a point that the presidingjudge interfered, whereupon he immediately sat down with a strangesmile. His client was condemned to pay a considerable sum of money,a circumstance which did not, however, seem to cause Eugene the leastregret for his irrelevant digression. He appeared to regard his speechesas mere exercises which would be of use to him later on. It was thisthat puzzled and disheartened Felicite. She would have liked to see herson dictating the law to the Civil Court of Plassans. At last she cameto entertain a very unfavourable opinion of her first-born. To hermind this lazy fellow would never be the one to shed any lustre on thefamily. Pierre, on the contrary, felt absolute confidence in him,not that he had more intuition than his wife, but because externalappearances sufficed him, and he flattered himself by believing inthe genius of a son who was his living image. A month prior to theRevolution of February, 1848, Eugene became restless; some specialinspiration made him anticipate the crisis. From that time forward heseemed to feel out of his element at Plassans. He would wander about thestreets like a distressed soul. At last he formed a sudden resolution,and left for Paris, with scarcely five hundred francs in his pocket.
Aristide, the youngest son, was, so to speak, diametrically opposedto Eugene. He had his mother's face, and a covetousness and slyness ofcharacter prone to trivial intrigues, in which his father's instinctspredominated. Nature has need of symmetry. Short, with a pitifulcountenance suggesting the knob of a stick carved into a Punch's head,Aristide ferretted and fumbled everywhere, without any scruples, eageronly to gratify himself. He loved money as his eldest brother lovedpower. While Eugene dreamed of bending a people to his will, andintoxicated himself with visions of future omnipotence, the otherfancied himself ten times a millionaire, installed in a princelymansion, eating and drinking to his heart's content, and enjoying lifeto the fullest possible extent. Above all things, he longed to make arapid fortune. When he was building his castles in the air, they wouldrise in his mind as if by magic; he would become possessed of tons ofgold in one night. These visions agreed with his indolence, as he nevertroubled himself about the means, considering those the best which werethe most expeditious. In his case the race of the Rougons, of thosecoarse, greedy peasants with brutish appetites, had matured too rapidly;every desire for material indulgence was found in him, augmentedthreefold by hasty education, and rendered the more insatiable anddangerous by the deliberate way in which the young man had come toregard their realisation as his set purpose. In spite of her keenfeminine intuition, Felicite preferred this son; she did not perceivethe greater affinity between herself and Eugene; she excused the folliesand indolence of her youngest son under the pretext that he wouldsome day be the superior genius of the family, and that such a manwas entitled to live a disorderly life until his intellectual strengthshould be revealed.
Aristide subjected her indulgence to a rude test. In Paris he led a low,idle life; he was one of those students who enter their names at thetaverns of the Quartier Latin. He did not remain there, however, morethan two years; his father, growing apprehensive, and seeing that he hadnot yet passed a single examination, kept him at Plassans and spoke offinding a wife for him, hoping that domestic responsibility would makehim more steady. Aristide let himself be married. He had no veryclear idea of his own ambitions at this time; provincial life did notdisplease him; he was battening in his little town--eating, sleeping,and sauntering about. Felicite pleaded his cause so earnestly thatPierre consented to board and lodge the newly-married couple, oncondition that the young man should turn his attention to the business.From that time, however, Aristide led a life of ease and idleness. Hespent his days and the best part of his nights at the club, again andagain slipping out of his father's office like a schoolboy to go andgamble away the few louis that his mother gave him clandestinely.
It is necessary to have lived in the depths of the French provinces toform an idea of the four brutifying years which the young fellow spentin this fashion. In every little town there is a group of individualswho thus live on their parents, pretending at times to work, but inreality cultivating idleness with a sort of religious zeal. Aristide wastypical of these incorrigible drones. For four years he did littlebut play ecarte. While he passed his time at the club, his wife, afair-complexioned nerveless woman, helped to ruin the Rougon businessby her inordinate passion for showy gowns and her formidable appetite,a rather remarkable peculiarity in so frail a creature. Angele, however,adored sky-blue ribbons and roast beef. She was the daughter of aretired captain who was called Commander Sicardot, a good-hearted oldgentleman, who had given her a dowry of ten thousand francs--all hissavings. Pierre, in selecting Angele for his son had considered thathe had made an unexpected bargain, so lightly did he esteem Aristide.However, that dowry of ten thousand francs, which determined his choice,ultimately became a millstone round his neck. His son, who was alreadya cunning rogue, deposited the ten thousand francs with his father,with whom he entered into partnership, declining, with the most sincereprofessions of devotion, to keep a single copper.
"We have no need of anything," he said; "you will keep my wife andmyself, and we will reckon up later on."
Pierre was short of money at the time, and accepted, not, however,without some uneasiness at Aristide's disinterestedness. The lattercalculated that it would be years before his father would have tenthousand francs in ready money to repay him, so that he and his wifewould live at the paternal expense so long as the partnership could notbe dissolved. It was an admirable investment for his few bank-notes.When the oil-dealer understood what a foolish bargain he had made hewas not in a position to rid himself of Aristide; Angele's dowry wasinvolved in speculations which were turning out unfavourably. Hewas exasperated, stung to the heart, at having to provide for hisdaughter-in-law's voracious appetite and keep his son in idleness. Hadhe been able to buy them out of the business he would twenty times haveshut his doors on those bloodsuckers, as he emphatically expressed it.Felicite secretly defended them; the young man, who had divined herdreams of ambition, would every evening describe to her the elaborateplans by which he would shortly make a fortune. By a rare chance shehad remained on excellent terms with her daughter-in-law. It must beconfessed that Angele had no will of her own--she could be moved anddisposed of like a piece of furniture.
Meantime Pierre became enraged whenever his wife spoke to him of thesuccess their youngest son would ultimately achieve; he declared thathe would really bring them to ruin. During the four years that the youngcouple lived with him he stormed in this manner, wasting his impotentrage in quarrels, without in the least disturbing the equanimity ofAristide and Angele. They were located there, and there they intendedto remain like blocks of wood. At last Pierre met with a stroke of luckwhich enabled him to return the ten thousand francs to his son. When,however, he wanted to reckon up accounts with him, Aristide interposedso much chicanery that he had to let the couple go without ded
uctinga copper for their board and lodging. They installed themselves buta short distance off, in a part of the old quarter called the PlaceSaint-Louis. The ten thousand francs were soon consumed. They hadeverything to get for their new home. Moreover Aristide made no changein his mode of living as long as any money was left in the house. Whenhe had reached the last hundred-franc note he felt rather nervous. Hewas seen prowling about the town in a suspicious manner. He no longertook his customary cup of coffee at the club; he watched feverishlywhilst play was going on, without touching a card. Poverty made him morespiteful than he would otherwise have been. He bore the blow for a longtime, obstinately refusing to do anything in the way of work.
In 1840 he had a son, little Maxime, whom his grandmother Felicitefortunately sent to college, paying his fees clandestinely. That madeone mouth less at home; but poor Angele was dying of hunger, and herhusband was at last compelled to seek a situation. He secured one at theSub-Prefecture. He remained there nearly ten years, and only attained asalary of eighteen hundred francs per annum. From that time forward itwas with ever increasing malevolence and rancour that he hungered forthe enjoyments of which he was deprived. His lowly position exasperatedhim; the paltry hundred and fifty francs which he received every monthseemed to him an irony of fate. Never did man burn with such desire forself-gratification. Felicite, to whom he imparted his sufferings, wasby no means grieved to see him so eager. She thought his misery wouldstimulate his energies. At last, crouching in ambush as it were, withhis ears wide open, he began to look about him like a thief seeking hisopportunity. At the beginning of 1848, when his brother left for Paris,he had a momentary idea of following him. But Eugene was a bachelor;and he, Aristide, could not take his wife so far without money. So hewaited, scenting a catastrophe, and ready to fall on the first prey thatmight come within his reach.
The other son, Pascal, born between Eugene and Aristide, did not appearto belong to the family. He was one of those frequent cases which givethe lie to the laws of heredity. During the evolution of a race natureoften produces some one being whose every element she derives from herown creative powers. Nothing in the moral or physical constitution ofPascal recalled the Rougons. Tall, with a grave and gentle face, hehad an uprightness of mind, a love of study, a retiring modesty whichcontrasted strangely with the feverish ambitions and unscrupulousintrigues of his relatives. After acquitting himself admirably of hismedical studies in Paris, he had retired, by preference, to Plassans,notwithstanding the offers he received from his professors. He loved aquiet provincial life; he maintained that for a studious man such a lifewas preferable to the excitement of Paris. Even at Plassans he didnot exert himself to extend his practice. Very steady, and despisingfortune, he contented himself with the few patients sent him by chance.All his pleasures were centred in a bright little house in the new town,where he shut himself up, lovingly devoting his whole time to the studyof natural history. He was particularly fond of physiology. It was knownin the town that he frequently purchased dead bodies from the hospitalgrave-digger, a circumstance which rendered him an object of horror todelicate ladies and certain timid gentlemen. Fortunately, they did notactually look upon him as a sorcerer; but his practice diminished,and he was regarded as an eccentric character, to whom people of goodsociety ought not to entrust even a finger-tip, for fear of beingcompromised. The mayor's wife was one day heard to say: "I would soonerdie than be attended by that gentleman. He smells of death."
From that time, Pascal was condemned. He seemed to rejoice at the muteterror which he inspired. The fewer patients he had, the more time hecould devote to his favourite sciences. As his fees were very moderate,the poorer people remained faithful to him; he earned just enough tolive, and lived contentedly, a thousand leagues away from the restof the country, absorbed in the pure delight of his researches anddiscoveries. From time to time he sent a memoir to the Academie desSciences at Paris. Plassans did not know that this eccentric character,this gentleman who smelt of death was well-known and highly-esteemedin the world of science. When people saw him starting on Sundays for anexcursion among the Garrigues hills, with a botanist's bag hung roundhis neck and a geologist's hammer in his hand, they would shrug theirshoulders and institute a comparison between him and some other doctorof the town who was noted for his smart cravat, his affability to theladies, and the delicious odour of violets which his garments alwaysdiffused. Pascal's parents did not understand him any better than otherpeople. When Felicite saw him adopting such a strange, unpretentiousmode of life she was stupefied, and reproached him for disappointingher hopes. She, who tolerated Aristide's idleness because she thought itwould prove fertile, could not view without regret the slow progressof Pascal, his partiality for obscurity and contempt for riches, hisdetermined resolve to lead a life of retirement. He was certainly notthe child who would ever gratify her vanities.
"But where do you spring from?" she would sometimes say to him. "Youare not one of us. Look at your brothers, how they keep their eyes open,striving to profit by the education we have given them, whilst you wasteyour time on follies and trifles. You make a very poor return to us, whohave ruined ourselves for your education. No, you are certainly not oneof us."
Pascal, who preferred to laugh whenever he was called upon to feelannoyed, replied cheerfully, but not without a sting of irony: "Oh,you need not be frightened, I shall never drive you to the verge ofbankruptcy; when any of you are ill, I will attend you for nothing."
Moreover, though he never displayed any repugnance to his relatives,he very rarely saw them, following in this wise his natural instincts.Before Aristide obtained a situation at the Sub-Prefecture, Pascalhad frequently come to his assistance. For his part he had remained abachelor. He had not the least suspicion of the grave events that werepreparing. For two or three years he had been studying the great problemof heredity, comparing the human and animal races together, and becomingabsorbed in the strange results which he obtained. Certain observationswhich he had made with respect to himself and his relatives had been, soto say, the starting-point of his studies. The common people, with theirnatural intuition, so well understood that he was quite different fromthe other Rougons, that they invariably called him Monsieur Pascal,without ever adding his family name.
Three years prior to the Revolution of 1848 Pierre and Felicite retiredfrom business. Old age was coming on apace; they were both past fiftyand were weary enough of the struggle. In face of their ill fortune,they were afraid of being ultimately ruined if they obstinatelypersisted in the fight. Their sons, by disappointing their expectations,had dealt them the final blow. Now that they despaired of ever beingenriched by them, they were anxious to make some little provision forold age. They retired with forty thousand francs at the utmost. Thissum provided an annual income of two thousand francs, just sufficientto live in a small way in the provinces. Fortunately, they were bythemselves, having succeeded in marrying their daughters Marthe andSidonie, the former of whom resided at Marseilles and the latter inParis.
After they had settled their affairs they would much have liked to takeup their abode in the new town, the quarter of the retired traders, butthey dared not do so. Their income was too small; they were afraid thatthey would cut but a poor figure there. So, as a sort of compromise,they took apartments in the Rue de la Banne, the street which separatesthe old quarter from the new one. As their abode was one of the rowof houses bordering the old quarter, they still lived among the commonpeople; nevertheless, they could see the town of the richer classes fromtheir windows, so that they were just on the threshold of the promisedland.
Their apartments, situated on the second floor, consisted of threelarge rooms--dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom. The first floor wasoccupied by the owner of the house, a stick and umbrella manufacturer,who had a shop on the ground floor. The house, which was narrow andby no means deep, had only two storeys. Felicite moved into it with abitter pang. In the provinces, to live in another person's house is anavowal of poverty. Every family of position at Plas
sans has a houseof its own, landed property being very cheap there. Pierre kept thepurse-strings well tied; he would not hear of any embellishments. Theold furniture, faded, worn, damaged though it was, had to suffice,without even being repaired. Felicite, however, who keenly felt thenecessity for this parsimony, exerted herself to give fresh polish toall the wreckage; she herself knocked nails into some of the furniturewhich was more dilapidated than the rest, and darned the frayed velvetof the arm-chairs.
The dining-room, which, like the kitchen, was at the back of the house,was nearly bare; a table and a dozen chairs were lost in the gloom ofthis large apartment, whose window faced the grey wall of a neighbouringbuilding. As no strangers ever went into the bedroom, Felicite hadstowed all her useless furniture there; thus, besides a bedstead,wardrobe, secretaire, and wash-stand, it contained two cradles, oneperched atop of the other, a sideboard whose doors were missing, and anempty bookcase, venerable ruins which the old woman could not make upher mind to part with. All her cares, however, were bestowed upon thedrawing-room, and she almost succeeded in making it comfortable anddecent. The furniture was covered with yellowish velvet with satinflowers; in the middle stood a round table with a marble top, while acouple of pier tables, surmounted by mirrors, leant against the walls ateither end of the room. There was even a carpet, which just covered themiddle of the floor, and a chandelier in a white muslin cover which theflies had spotted with black specks. On the walls hung six lithographsrepresenting the great battles of Napoleon I. Moreover, the furnituredated from the first years of the Empire. The only embellishment thatFelicite could obtain was to have the walls hung with orange-hued papercovered with large flowers. Thus the drawing room had a strange yellowglow, which filled it with an artificial dazzling light. The furniture,the paper, and the window curtains were yellow; the carpet and even themarble table-tops showed touches of yellow. However, when the curtainswere drawn the colours harmonised fairly well and the drawing-roomlooked almost decent.
But Felicite had dreamed of quite a different kind of luxury. Sheregarded with mute despair this ill-concealed misery. She usuallyoccupied the drawing-room, the best apartment in the house, and thesweetest and bitterest of her pastimes was to sit at one of the windowswhich overlooked the Rue de la Banne and gave her a side view of thesquare in front of the Sub-Prefecture. That was the paradise of herdreams. That little, neat, tidy square, with its bright houses, seemedto her a Garden of Eden. She would have given ten years of her life topossess one of those habitations. The house at the left-hand corner,in which the receiver of taxes resided, particularly tempted her. Shecontemplated it with eager longing. Sometimes, when the windows ofthis abode were open, she could catch a glimpse of rich furniture andtasteful elegance which made her burn with envy.
At this period the Rougons passed through a curious crisis of vanityand unsatiated appetite. The few proper feelings which they had onceentertained had become embittered. They posed as victims of evilfortune, not with resignation, however, for they seemed still morekeenly determined that they would not die before they had satisfiedtheir ambitions. In reality, they did not abandon any of their hopes,notwithstanding their advanced age. Felicite professed to feel apresentiment that she would die rich. However, each day of povertyweighed them down the more. When they recapitulated their vainattempts--when they recalled their thirty years' struggle, and thedefection of their children--when they saw their airy castles end inthis yellow drawing-room, whose shabbiness they could only conceal bydrawing the curtains, they were overcome with bitter rage. Then, as aconsolation, they would think of plans for making a colossal fortune,seeking all sorts of devices. Felicite would fancy herself the winnerof the grand prize of a hundred thousand francs in some lottery, whilePierre pictured himself carrying out some wonderful speculation. Theylived with one sole thought--that of making a fortune immediately, in afew hours--of becoming rich and enjoying themselves, if only for a year.Their whole beings tended to this, stubbornly, without a pause. And theystill cherished some faint hopes with regard to their sons, with thatpeculiar egotism of parents who cannot bear to think that they have senttheir children to college without deriving some personal advantage fromit.
Felicite did not appear to have aged; she was still the same dark littlewoman, ever on the move, buzzing about like a grasshopper. Any personwalking behind her on the pavement would have thought her a girl offifteen, from the lightness of her step and the angularity of hershoulders and waist. Even her face had scarcely undergone any change; itwas simply rather more sunken, rather more suggestive of the snout of apole-cat.
As for Pierre Rougon, he had grown corpulent, and had become a highlyrespectable looking citizen, who only lacked a decent income to make hima very dignified individual. His pale, flabby face, his heaviness,his languid manner, seemed redolent of wealth. He had one day heard apeasant who did not know him say: "Ah! he's some rich fellow, that fatold gentleman there. He's no cause to worry about his dinner!" Thiswas a remark which stung him to the heart, for he considered it cruelmockery to be only a poor devil while possessing the bulk and contentedgravity of a millionaire. When he shaved on Sundays in front of a smallfive-sou looking-glass hanging from the fastening of a window, he wouldoften think that in a dress coat and white tie he would cut a far betterfigure at the Sub-Prefect's than such or such a functionary of Plassans.This peasant's son, who had grown sallow from business worries, andcorpulent from a sedentary life, whose hateful passions were hiddenbeneath naturally placid features, really had that air of solemnimbecility which gives a man a position in an official salon. Peopleimagined that his wife held a rod over him, but they were mistaken. Hewas as self-willed as a brute. Any determined expression of extraneouswill would drive him into a violent rage. Felicite was far too supple tothwart him openly; with her light fluttering nature she did not attackobstacles in front. When she wished to obtain something from herhusband, or drive him the way she thought best, she would buzz round himin her grasshopper fashion, stinging him on all sides, and returningto the charge a hundred times until he yielded almost unconsciously. Hefelt, moreover, that she was shrewder than he, and tolerated her advicefairly patiently. Felicite, more useful than the coach fly, wouldsometimes do all the work while she was thus buzzing round Pierre'sears. Strange to say, the husband and wife never accused each otherof their ill-success. The only bone of contention between them was theeducation lavished on their children.
The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, exasperatedby their bad luck, and disposed to lay violent hands on fortune if everthey should meet her in a byway. They were a family of bandits lying inwait, ready to rifle and plunder. Eugene kept an eye on Paris; Aristidedreamed of strangling Plassans; the mother and father, perhaps the mosteager of the lot, intended to work on their own account, and reapsome additional advantage from their sons' doings. Pascal alone, thatdiscreet wooer of science, led the happy, indifferent life of a lover inhis bright little house in the new town.