Edmond de Goncourt

“ Mauperin.
"Oh, no, it's quite natural," answered Denoisel. "Imagine a girl, who is born with the instinct of loving, just as we have the instinct of breathing. She is repelled by the coldness of a mother, who feels herself humiliated by her daughter, and who is ashamed of her; she is repelled also by the selfishness of a father, who has no other pride, no other love, and no other child but his wealth; well, a girl like this would be just like Mlle. Bourjot, and in return for any trifling interest you might take in her, she would repay you by the affection and the effusions of which you speak. ”

“ Mademoiselle told herself over and over again, she persuaded herself that it was so; and yet, little by little, from these reminiscences, from these evocations of the past whose bitterness she sought to make more bitter, from the far-off sweetness of days gone by, there arose within her a first sensation of pity.
She drove away the thoughts that tended to allay her wrath; but reflection brought them back. Thereupon there came to her mind some things to which she had paid no heed during Germinie's lifetime, trifles of which the grave makes us take thought and upon which death sheds light. ”

“ It's just as though the fact of being the father of a family gave you the right to be a scoundrel."
"Come, come, Renée," M. Mauperin began.
"No, it's quite true. I only know two kinds of people: the straightforward, honest ones; and then the others. Four children! But that only ought to serve as an excuse for a father when he steals a loaf. Mère Gigogne would have had the right to poison hers according to that, then. I'm sure Denoisel thinks as I do."
"I? Not at all; indeed I don't! I vote for indulgence in favour of married folks—fathers of families. ”

“ She began to listen, with her head in her hands, to the voice that spoke to her of deliverance. She opened her ears to the sweet music of death that we hear in the background of life like the fall of mighty waters in the distance, dying away in space. The temptations that speak to the discouraged heart of the things that put an end to life so quickly and so easily, of the means of quelling suffering with the hand, pursued and solicited her. Her glance rested wistfully upon all the things about her that could cure the disease called life. ”

“ I am for progress of every kind. But a revolution against wealth—why, it would be barbarous! We should be going back to savage times. What we want is justice and common sense. Can you imagine now a society without wealth?"
"No, not any more than a greasy pole without a silver cup."
"What," continued M. Bourjot, who in his excitement had not caught Denoisel's words, "the money that I have earned with hard work, honestly and with the greatest difficulty—the money that is mine, that I have made, and which is for my children—why, there is nothing more sacred! ”

“ Love, in which poison had long been at work, became decomposed and changed to hate. Germinie began to detest her lover and to seek out every possible pretext for hating him more. And her thoughts recurred to her daughter, to the loss of her child, to the cause of her death, and she persuaded herself that he had killed her. She looked upon him as an assassin. She conceived a horror of him, she avoided him, fled from him as from the evil genius of her life, with the terror that one has of a person who is one's Bane! ”

“ I fancy that such things happen to people who have an empty heart, no one to think about; people who are not taken up, absorbed, possessed and, as it were, protected by one of those affections which take hold of you wholly and entirely—the affection one has for one's father, for instance."
Denoisel did not answer.
"You don't believe that that does preserve you?" said Renée. "Well, but I can assure you I have tried in vain to remember. Oh, I'm examining my conscience thoroughly, I promise you. Well, from my very childhood, I cannot remember anything—no, nothing at all. ”

“ A strange country, where everything was mingled—the smoke from the frying-pan and the evening vapor, the noise of quoits on the head of a cask and the silence shed from the sky, the city barrier and the idyllic rural scene, the odor of manure and the fresh smell of green wheat, the great human Fair and Nature! Germinie enjoyed it, however; and, urging Jupillon to go farther, walking on the very edge of the road, she would constantly step in among the grain to enjoy the fresh, cool sensation of the stalks against her stockings. ”

“ Every day M. Mauperin sought for something in his daughter which he could not find—something which was no longer there. Her eyes, her smile, her gestures, her footstep, her very dress which used proudly to tell of her twenty years, the girlish vivacity which seemed to hover round her and light on others as it passed—everything about her was changing and life itself gradually leaving her. She no longer seemed to animate all that she touched. Her clothes fell loosely round her in folds as they do on old people. ”

“ Never had she heard disdain hurled down from so lofty a height, contempt so tear itself to tatters and gush forth in laughter, a woman's words express such a fierce thirst for vengeance against a man. She ransacked her memory: such play of feature, such intonations, such a dramatic and heart-rending voice as that voice of a consumptive coughing away her life, she could not remember since the days of Mademoiselle Rachel.
At last Germinie awoke abruptly, her eyes filled with the tears of her dream, and jumped down from the bed, seeing that her mistress had returned. ”

“ She moved about gaily and briskly from one rose-tree to another, and the thorns caught hold of her dress as though they wanted to play with her. At every clip of her scissors, from a branch covered with small, open roses, with pink hearts all full of life, there fell a dead earth-coloured rose which looked to M. Mauperin like the corpse of a flower.
All at once, leaving everything, Renée flung herself into her father's arms.
"Oh, papa, how I do love you!" she said, bursting into tears. ”

“ The air, the keen breath of Quartier Bréda, full of the verve of the artist and the studio, of art and vice, had sharpened these tastes of Germinie's mind and had created in her new needs and demands. Long before her disorderly life began, she had cut loose from the virtuous companionship of decent women of her rank and station, from the worthy creatures who were so uninteresting and stupid. She had quitted the circle of orderly, dull uprightness, of sleep-inducing conversations around the tea-table under the auspices of the old servants of mademoiselle's elderly acquaintances. ”

“ Would there be any harm in asking such a thing in society? Come now, Denoisel! you say I am twelve years old and I agree to be twelve; but I'm twenty all the same. I'm a young person, that's true, but if you imagine that young persons of my age have never read any novels nor sung any love-songs—why, it's all humbug—it's just posing as sweet innocents. After all, just as you like. If you think I am not old enough I'll take back my question. I thought we were to consider ourselves men when we talked about things together. ”

“ She would take her by the arm and say: "Yes it's me—this is for your life!" And over her face, her throat, her skin, over everything about her that was youthful and attractive and that invited love, Germinie watched the vitriol sear and seam and burn and hiss, transforming her into a horrible object that filled Germinie's heart to overflowing with joy! The bottle was empty, and she laughed! And, in her frightful dream, her body also dreaming, her feet began to move. She walked unconsciously down the passage, into the street and to a grocer's shop. ”

“ With his daughter, M. Mauperin had had the same disappointment. She was one of those little girls who are women when they are born, and who play with their parents merely to amuse them. She scarcely had any childhood, and at the age of five, if a gentleman called to see her father, she always ran away to wash her hands. She would be kissed on certain spots, and she seemed to dread being ruffled or inconvenienced by a father's caresses and love.
Thus repelled, M. Mauperin's affection, so long hoarded up, went out to the cradle of the little newcomer whom he had named Renée after his mother. ”

“ Night and day she was possessed by the same fever of malediction, and even in her dreams her attenuated limbs were convulsed with wrath.
Was it possible! Germinie! her Germinie! She could think of nothing else. Debts!—a child!—all sorts of shame! The degraded creature! She abhorred her, she detested her. If she had lived she would have denounced her to the police. She would have liked to believe in hell so that she might be consigned to the torments that await the dead. Her maid was such a creature as that! A girl who had been in her service twenty years! ”

“ It isn't my fault, for I would act anything—I'd stand on my head. But I can't find any one else, so that, unless I give a monologue—Denoisel has refused, and as for you, a sober man like you—well, I suppose it's no use asking."
"I, why, I would act right enough," answered Henri.
"You, Henri?" exclaimed Mme. Mauperin in astonishment.
"And then, too, we are not short of men," continued Renée, "there are always men to act. It's for the women's parts. Ah, that's the difficulty—to find ladies. I don't see who is to act with me." ”

“ Madame Jupillon, who had become too stout and too heavy to do what it was necessary for her to do at the creamery, notwithstanding all the assistance rendered by Germinie, had sent to her province for a niece of hers. She was the embodiment of the blooming youth of the country, a woman in whom there was still something of the child, active and vivacious, with black eyes full of sunlight, lips as round and red as cherries, the summer heat of her province in her complexion, the warmth of perfect health in her blood. ”

“ Bourjot in a decisive tone. "And then—don't you love her? Why, it would merely be a kind of marriage of expediency," and Mme. Bourjot smiled. "You provide her with happiness."
"But what will the world say?"
"The world? My dear boy, we should close the world's mouth with truffles," and she gave her shoulders a little shrug.
"And M. Bourjot?"
"That's my part. He will like you very much before the end of two months. The only thing is, as you know, he will want a title; he has always intended his daughter to marry a count. All I can do is to get him to consent to a name tacked on to yours. ”

“ Their bewilderment changed to fury. Germinie recovered consciousness under their blows, their insults, the wounds inflicted by their hands, the harsh words that came from their mouths. Her brother-in-law was there, who had never forgiven her the cost of her journey; he glanced at her with a bantering expression, with the cunning, ferocious joy of an Auvergnat, with a sneering laugh that dyed the girl's cheeks a deeper red than her sisters' blows.
She received the blows, she did not repel the insults. She sought neither to defend nor to excuse herself. ”

“ Fresh hope came to him with this thought: his daughter was saved; when the doctor came in he should see by his face that his daughter was saved. He watched the door, but no one came. Then he began to say to himself that they would have to take precautions, that perhaps she would always be delicate, that there were plenty of people who went on living in spite of palpitation of the heart. Then the word, the terrible word, death, came to him and haunted him. He tried to drive it away by thinking over and over again the same thoughts about convalescence, getting well, and good health. ”

“ Germinie was forever wiping eyes which no longer wept, but which had once wept copiously. She was always ready with an everlasting: "Nothing's the matter, mademoiselle!" uttered in the tone that covers a secret. She adopted dumb, despairing, funereal attitudes, the airs by which a woman's body diffuses melancholy and makes her very shadow a bore. With her face, her glance, her mouth, the folds of her dress, her presence, the noise she made at work in the adjoining room, even with her silence, she enveloped mademoiselle in the despair that exhaled from her person. ”

“ Mme. Bourjot drew back when he called her Laure as if he had touched her. "I have been struggling against it for the last year, madame," he continued. "I will not attempt to make any excuse; but everything has drawn me to her. We have known each other from childhood, and the fascination has increased lately day by day. I am very sorry, madame, to have to tell you the truth; but it is quite true that I love your daughter."
"But you never can have talked to her, surely? Why, I blush for her when we are out—you surely have not even looked at her. What in the world possesses you men, tell me! ”