Madame Sidonie profited by her brother’s stroke of luck to borrow ten thousand francs of him, with which she went and spent two months in London. She returned without a sou. It was never known where the ten thousand francs had gone to.
“Good gracious!” she replied, when they questioned her, “it all costs money. I ransacked all the libraries. I had three up.”
And when she was asked if she had at last any positive information about the three milliards, she smiled at first with a mysterious air, and then ended by muttering:
“You’re a lot of unbelievers…. I have discovered nothing, but it makes no difference. You’ll see, you’ll see some day.”
She had not, however, wasted all her time while she was in England. Her brother the minister profited by her journey to entrust her with a delicate commission. When she returned she obtained large orders from the ministry. It was a fresh incarnation. She made contracts with the government, she undertook every imaginable kind of supply. She sold it provisions and arms for the troops, furniture for the préfectures and public departments, firewood for the museums and government-offices. The money she made did not induce her to change her everlasting black gowns, and she kept her yellow, dismal face. Saccard then reflected that it was indeed she whom he had seen long ago furtively leaving their brother Eugène’s house. She must have kept up secret relations with him all through, for reasons with which not a soul was acquainted.
Amid these interests, these burning, unquenchable thirsts, Renée suffered agonies. Aunt Elisabeth was dead; her sister had married and left the Hotel Béraud, where her father alone remained erect in the gloomy shadow of the large rooms. Renée in one season ran through her aunt’s inheritance. She gambled now. She had found a house where ladies sat at the card-table till three o’clock in the morning, losing hundreds of thousands of francs, a night. She made an endeavour to drink; but she could not, she experienced invincible uprisings of disgust. Since she had found herself alone again, a prey to the mundane flood that carried her with it, she abandoned herself more than ever, not knowing with what to kill time. She succeeded in tasting of everything. And nothing touched her amid the boundless ennui which overwhelmed her. She grew older, her eyes were circled with blue, her nose became thinner, her lips pouted with sudden, uncalled-for laughter. It was the breaking-up of a woman.
When Maxime had married Louise, and the young couple had left for Italy, she no longer troubled herself about her lover, she even seemed entirely to forget him. And when after six months Maxime returned alone, having buried “the hunchback” in the cemetery of a small town in Lombardy, her feeling towards him was one of hatred. She remembered Phèdre, she doubtless recollected that poisonous love to which she had heard Ristori lend her sobs. Then, to avoid meeting the young man at home in future, to dig for ever an abyss of shame between the father and son, she forced her husband to take cognizance of the incest, she told him that on the day when he had surprised her with Maxime, the latter, who had long been running after her, was trying to ravish her. Saccard was terribly annoyed by her persistency in her desire to open his eyes. He was compelled to quarrel with his son, to cease to see him. The young widower, rich with his wife’s dowry, took a small house in the Avenue de l’Impératrice, where he lived alone. He gave up the Council of State, he ran racehorses. Renée experienced one of her last satisfactions. She took her revenge, she flung back the infamy these two men had set in her into their faces; she said to herself that now she would never again see them laughing at her, arm in arm, familiarly.
Amid the crumbling of Renée’s affections there came a time when she had none but her maid left to love. She had gradually developed a motherly fondness for Céleste. Perhaps this girl, who was all that remained near her of Maxime’s love, recalled to her hours of enjoyment for ever dead. Perhaps she simply found herself touched by the faithfulness of this servant, of this honest heart whose tranquil solicitude nothing seemed to shake. From the depth of her remorse she thanked her for having witnessed her shame without leaving her in disgust; she pictured self-denials, a whole life of renunciation, before becoming able to understand the calmness of the lady’s maid in the presence of incest, her icy hands, her respectful and serene attentions. And she was all the happier in the girl’s devotion as she knew her to be virtuous and thrifty, with no lovers, no vices.
Sometimes in her sad moments she would say to her:
“Ah, my good girl, it will be your duty to close my eyes.”
Céleste made no reply, gave a curious smile. One morning she quietly told Renée that she was leaving, that she was going back to the country. Renée stood trembling all over, as though some great misfortune had overtaken her. She protested, she plied her with questions. Why was she deserting her when they agreed so well together? And she offered to double her wages.
But the lady’s-maid, to all her kind words, replied no with a gesture, placidly and obstinately.
“Listen, madame,” she ended by replying; “you might offer me all the gold in Peru, and I could not remain a week longer. Lord, you don’t know me…. I have been eight years with you, haven’t I? Well, then, ever since the first day I said to myself, ‘As soon as I have got five thousand francs together, I will go back home; I will buy Lagache’s house, and I shall live very happily.’… It’s a promise I made myself, you see. And I made up the five thousand francs yesterday, when you paid me my wages.”
Renée felt a chill at her heart. She saw Céleste moving behind her and Maxime while they embraced each other, and she saw her with her indifference, her perfect unconcern, thinking of her five thousand francs. She made one more endeavour, for all that, to retain her, frightened at the void that threatened her existence, hoping, in despite of everything, to keep by her this obstinate mule whom she had looked upon as devoted and whom she discovered to be merely egotistical. The girl smiled, still shaking her head, muttering:
“No, no, I can’t do it. I would refuse my own mother…. I shall buy two cows. I may start a little haberdasher’s shop. It’s very nice in our part. Oh, as to that, I don’t mind if you like to come and see me. It is near Caen. I will leave you the address.”
Then Renée ceased insisting. She wept scalding tears when she was alone. The next day, with the capriciousness of a sick person, she decided to accompany Céleste to the Gare de l’Ouest in her own brougham. She gave her one of her travelling-rugs, made her a present of money, fussed around her like a mother whose daughter is about to undertake a long and arduous journey. In the brougham she looked at her with humid eyes. Céleste chatted, said how pleased she was to go away. Then, emboldened, she spoke out and gave her mistress some advice.
“I should never have taken up life as you did, madame. I often said to myself, when I found you with M. Maxime: ‘How is it possible to be so foolish for men!’ It always ends badly…. Well, for my part, I always mistrusted them!”
She laughed, she threw herself back in the corner of the brougham.
“How my money would have danced!” she continued. “And at this moment I might have been crying my eyes out. And that is why, whenever I saw a man, I took up a broomstick…. I never dared tell you all this. Besides, it wasn’t my business. You were free to do as you pleased, and I had only to earn my money honestly.”
At the railway-station Renée said she would pay her fare, and took a first-class ticket for her. As they had arrived before their time, she detained her, pressed her hands, reiterated:
“And mind you take great care of yourself, look after yourself well, my dear Céleste.”
The latter let herself be petted. She stood looking happy, with a fresh, smiling face under her mistress’s eyes, which were swimming in tears. Renée again spoke of the past. And suddenly the other exclaimed:
“I was forgetting: I never told you the story of Baptiste, monsieur’s valet…. I suppose they did not care to tell you….”
Renée owned that as a matter of fact she did not know.
“Well, then, you remember his grand, dignified airs, his scornful look, you yourself spoke to me about