Four Short Stories By Emile Zola. Emile Zola

into the room; in the daytime it was dimly lit up by a faint greenish light, but at night, when the lamps and the chandelier were burning, it looked merely a serious old chamber with its massive mahogany First Empire furniture, its hangings and chair coverings of yellow velvet, stamped with a large design. Entering it, one was in an atmosphere of cold dignity, of ancient manners, of a vanished age, the air of which seemed devotional.

      Opposite the armchair, however, in which the count’s mother had died – a square armchair of formal design and inhospitable padding, which stood by the hearthside – the Countess Sabine was seated in a deep and cozy lounge, the red silk upholsteries of which were soft as eider down. It was the only piece of modern furniture there, a fanciful item introduced amid the prevailing severity and clashing with it.

      “So we shall have the shah of Persia,” the young woman was saying.

      They were talking of the crowned heads who were coming to Paris for the exhibition. Several ladies had formed a circle round the hearth, and Mme du Joncquoy, whose brother, a diplomat, had just fulfilled a mission in the East, was giving some details about the court of Nazr-ed-Din.

      “Are you out of sorts, my dear?” asked Mme Chantereau, the wife of an ironmaster, seeing the countess shivering slightly and growing pale as she did so.

      “Oh no, not at all,” replied the latter, smiling. “I felt a little cold. This drawing room takes so long to warm.”

      And with that she raised her melancholy eyes and scanned the walls from floor to ceiling. Her daughter Estelle, a slight, insignificant-looking girl of sixteen, the thankless period of life, quitted the large footstool on which she was sitting and silently came and propped up one of the logs which had rolled from its place. But Mme de Chezelles, a convent friend of Sabine’s and her junior by five years, exclaimed:

      “Dear me, I would gladly be possessed of a drawing room such as yours! At any rate, you are able to receive visitors. They only build boxes nowadays. Oh, if I were in your place!”

      She ran giddily on and with lively gestures explained how she would alter the hangings, the seats – everything, in fact. Then she would give balls to which all Paris should run. Behind her seat her husband, a magistrate, stood listening with serious air. It was rumored that she deceived him quite openly, but people pardoned her offense and received her just the same, because, they said, “she’s not answerable for her actions.”

      “Oh that Leonide!” the Countess Sabine contented herself by murmuring, smiling her faint smile the while.

      With a languid movement she eked out the thought that was in her. After having lived there seventeen years she certainly would not alter her drawing room now. It would henceforth remain just such as her mother-in-law had wished to preserve it during her lifetime. Then returning to the subject of conversation:

      “I have been assured,” she said, “that we shall also have the king of Prussia and the emperor of Russia.”

      “Yes, some very fine fetes are promised,” said Mme du Joncquoy.

      The banker Steiner, not long since introduced into this circle by Leonide de Chezelles, who was acquainted with the whole of Parisian society, was sitting chatting on a sofa between two of the windows. He was questioning a deputy, from whom he was endeavoring with much adroitness to elicit news about a movement on the stock exchange of which he had his suspicions, while the Count Muffat, standing in front of them, was silently listening to their talk, looking, as he did so, even grayer than was his wont.

      Four or five young men formed another group near the door round the Count Xavier de Vandeuvres, who in a low tone was telling them an anecdote. It was doubtless a very risky one, for they were choking with laughter. Companionless in the center of the room, a stout man, a chief clerk at the Ministry of the Interior, sat heavily in an armchair, dozing with his eyes open. But when one of the young men appeared to doubt the truth of the anecdote Vandeuvres raised his voice.

      “You are too much of a skeptic, Foucarmont; you’ll spoil all your pleasures that way.”

      And he returned to the ladies with a laugh. Last scion of a great family, of feminine manners and witty tongue, he was at that time running through a fortune with a rage of life and appetite which nothing could appease. His racing stable, which was one of the best known in Paris, cost him a fabulous amount of money; his betting losses at the Imperial Club amounted monthly to an alarming number of pounds, while taking one year with another, his mistresses would be always devouring now a farm, now some acres of arable land or forest, which amounted, in fact, to quite a respectable slice of his vast estates in Picardy.

      “I advise you to call other people skeptics! Why, you don’t believe a thing yourself,” said Leonide, making shift to find him a little space in which to sit down at her side.

      “It’s you who spoil your own pleasures.”

      “Exactly,” he replied. “I wish to make others benefit by my experience.”

      But the company imposed silence on him: he was scandalizing M. Venot. And, the ladies having changed their positions, a little old man of sixty, with bad teeth and a subtle smile, became visible in the depths of an easy chair. There he sat as comfortably as in his own house, listening to everybody’s remarks and making none himself. With a slight gesture he announced himself by no means scandalized. Vandeuvres once more assumed his dignified bearing and added gravely:

      “Monsieur Venot is fully aware that I believe what it is one’s duty to believe.”

      It was an act of faith, and even Leonide appeared satisfied. The young men at the end of the room no longer laughed; the company were old fogies, and amusement was not to be found there. A cold breath of wind had passed over them, and amid the ensuing silence Steiner’s nasal voice became audible. The deputy’s discreet answers were at last driving him to desperation. For a second or two the Countess Sabine looked at the fire; then she resumed the conversation.

      “I saw the king of Prussia at Baden-Baden last year. He’s still full of vigor for his age.”

      “Count Bismarck is to accompany him,” said Mme du Joncquoy. “Do you know the count? I lunched with him at my brother’s ages ago, when he was representative of Prussia in Paris. There’s a man now whose latest successes I cannot in the least understand.”

      “But why?” asked Mme Chantereau.

      “Good gracious, how am I to explain? He doesn’t please me. His appearance is boorish and underbred. Besides, so far as I am concerned, I find him stupid.”

      With that the whole room spoke of Count Bismarck, and opinions differed considerably. Vandeuvres knew him and assured the company that he was great in his cups and at play. But when the discussion was at its height the door was opened, and Hector de la Falois made his appearance. Fauchery, who followed in his wake, approached the countess and, bowing:

      “Madame,” he said, “I have not forgotten your extremely kind invitation.”

      She smiled and made a pretty little speech. The journalist, after bowing to the count, stood for some moments in the middle of the drawing room. He only recognized Steiner and accordingly looked rather out of his element. But Vandeuvres turned and came and shook hands with him. And forthwith, in his delight at the meeting and with a sudden desire to be confidential, Fauchery buttonholed him and said in a low voice:

      “It’s tomorrow. Are you going?”

      “Egad, yes.”

      “At midnight, at her house.

      “I know, I know. I’m going with Blanche.”

      He wanted to escape and return to the ladies in order to urge yet another reason in M. de Bismarck’s favor. But Fauchery detained him.

      “You never will guess whom she has charged me to invite.”

      And with a slight nod he indicated Count Muffat, who was just then discussing a knotty point in the budget with Steiner and the deputy.

      “It’s impossible,” said Vandeuvres, stupefaction and merriment in his tones. “My word on it! I had to swear that I would bring him to her. Indeed, that’s one of my reasons for coming