On his very first night in Paris, while Angèle unpacked their trunks, he felt a keen need to explore the city, to be out in his backwoods boots pounding the burning pavement from which he hoped to extract millions of francs. He took possession of the town—nothing less. He walked for the sake of walking, patrolling the sidewalks as if in conquered territory. He had a very clear vision of the battle he had come to wage and did not shrink from comparing himself to a skilled lock picker who is about to help himself to a portion of the common wealth that has hitherto been denied him out of spite. Had he felt the need of an excuse, he would have invoked the desires he had stifled for the past ten years, his miserable provincial existence, and above all his blunders, which he blamed on society at large. At that moment, however, feeling the emotions of a gambler who has at last set ardent hands down on green felt, he was overcome with joy, with a joy all his own in which the satisfactions of envy mingled with the hopes of a rogue who has somehow eluded punishment. The air of Paris intoxicated him, and amid the din of carriage wheels he thought he heard the voices from Macbeth2 shouting to him, “Thou shalt be rich!” For nearly two hours he wandered the streets like this, savoring the pleasures of a man who has given in to his vice. He had not been back to Paris since spending a happy year in the capital as a student. Night was falling; his dream grew prodigiously in the bright light cast upon the sidewalks by cafés and shops. He had no idea where he was.
When he looked up, he found himself in the middle of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.3 One of his brothers, Eugène Rougon, lived nearby on the rue de Penthièvre. In coming to Paris, Aristide had counted above all on Eugène, who had been one of the most active agents of the coup d’état and had become an occult power, an insignificant attorney transformed into an important politician. With the superstition of a gambler, however, he hesitated to knock that night on his brother’s door. Slowly he made his way back to the rue Saint-Jacques, feeling silently envious of Eugène as he took note of his shabby clothes still covered with dust from his journey, yet consoling himself with renewed dreams of the riches that would one day be his. Then the dream itself turned bitter. Having left the house at the prompting of his expansive ambitions and found joy in the bustling shops of Paris, he returned home vexed by the good fortune that seemed to fill the streets and, enraged by what he had seen, pictured himself locked in pitched battles in which he would take pleasure in besting and cheating the hordes with whom he had rubbed elbows in the streets. Never before had he felt such enormous appetites, such an immediate and burning need of satisfaction.
The next day he turned up at his brother’s door. Eugène lived in two chilly rooms, barely furnished, which made Aristide’s blood run cold. He had expected to find his brother living in the lap of luxury. Eugène was at work behind a small black desk. He smiled and, speaking slowly as always, said only, “Oh, it’s you. I was expecting you.”
Aristide betrayed a deep bitterness. He accused Eugène of having allowed him to vegetate, of not having sent him so much as a word of advice back when he was still floundering about in the provinces. He would never forgive himself for having remained a republican right up to the day of the coup: this was his open wound, a source of eternal embarrassment. Eugène, meanwhile, had quietly returned to his writing. When Aristide finished speaking, he said, “Bah! Mistakes can always be fixed. You have a bright future ahead of you.”
He spoke these words in such a clear voice, accompanied by such a penetrating gaze, that Aristide bowed his head, sensing that his brother had plumbed the very depths of his being. Eugène continued in a friendly but blunt manner: “You’ve come to me because you expect me to find you a position, have you not? I’ve already given some thought to the matter but haven’t yet come up with anything. Not just any post will do, you see. You’ll need a job where you can do your business without danger to you or to me. . . . Save your protests. We’re alone. We can speak frankly.”
Aristide thought it best to laugh.
“I know you’re intelligent,” Eugène continued, “and that you wouldn’t do anything foolish without a good reason. The moment the right opportunity arises, I’ll get you your place. Between now and then, if you find yourself in need of twenty francs, come and see me.”
They conversed briefly about the insurrection in the south, which had enabled their father to land the tax collector’s job. While they talked, Eugène dressed. In the street below he detained his brother a moment before parting company and said, in a lowered voice, “I would be much obliged if you would refrain from idling about and wait quietly at home for the job I’ve promised you. . . . It would be disagreeable for me to see my brother spending his days in someone’s outer office.”
Aristide respected Eugène, who struck him as a man of unparalleled vigor. Yet he found his suspicious nature and rather brusque candor unforgivable. Nevertheless, he docilely returned home and shut himself up in the apartment on the rue Saint-Jacques. He had arrived in Paris with 500 francs borrowed from his father-in-law. After paying all his traveling expenses, he was left with 300 francs, which he managed to stretch for a month. Angèle was a big eater. And she just had to spruce up her party dress with mauve ribbons. To Aristide the month of waiting seemed interminable. He burned with impatience. When he stood at the window and sensed the gigantic labor of Paris below, he was seized by a mad impulse to leap into the forge, to knead the gold with his own feverish hands, like soft wax. He breathed in the still-indistinct air of the great city, the air of nascent empire, already redolent of the fragrances of the alcove, of financial chicanery, and of steamy pleasures. The faint aromas that wafted his way told him that he was on the right track, that his quarry was on the run ahead of him, that the great imperial hunt—for adventure, for women, for millions—was at last getting under way. His nostrils quivered. With the instincts of a hungry animal, he had a marvelous ability to detect the slightest sign of the voracious gorging on hot spoils that the city was about to witness.
Twice he called on his brother to urge him to press his inquiries a little harder. Eugène greeted him brusquely and repeated that he had not forgotten his promise but that it would be necessary to wait. At last Aristide received a letter inviting him to the apartment on the rue de Penthièvre. He went, his heart pounding as though he were on his way to a romantic assignation. He found Eugène seated at the same small black writing table in the large, chilly room that served as his office. No sooner did the attorney catch sight of his brother than he handed him a piece of paper. “Here, I received your assignment yesterday. You’ve been appointed assistant surveyor of roads at the Hôtel de Ville. Your compensation will be 2,400 francs.”
Aristide had remained standing. He blanched and did not take the document, thinking that his brother must be mocking him. He had hoped for a post that paid at least 6,000 francs. Eugène, divining his thoughts, wheeled his chair around and folded his arms. “Are you a fool after all?” he asked with considerable heat. “Your dreams are those of a whore, aren’t they? You’d like to live in a fine apartment, have servants, eat well, sleep in silk, and take your pleasure in the arms of the first person to happen by, in a boudoir furnished in a couple of hours. . . . If we let you and your kind have your way, you’d empty the coffers before there was anything in them. So be patient, for heaven’s sake! Look how I live, and take the trouble to lower yourself a little if you want to come away with a fortune.”