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Updated: June 9, 2025
Monsieur Bordereau thinks that the ancient "forest of Africa" was composed chiefly of olive plantations, and proofs of the former abundance of these trees can be found in certain local names, such as Jebel Zitouna the Mount of Olives clinging to localities where not a tree is now visible; there are also sporadic oleasters growing near many Roman ruins.
How indignantly he had then denied having ever acknowledged the authorship of the bordereau, and how complacently he now admitted it! As for the circumstances under which he asserted the document to have been written, M. Zola could make nothing of them. 'So far, the explanations explain nothing, said he; 'take them whichever way you will, there is no sense, no plausibility even, in them.
I waited for an intimation from Miss Tita; I almost figured to myself that it was her duty to keep me informed, to let me know definitely whether or no Miss Bordereau had sacrificed her treasures. But as she gave no sign I lost patience and determined to judge so far as was possible with my own senses.
Aspern had of course met the young lady when he went to her father's studio as a sitter. I observed to Miss Bordereau that if she would entrust me with her property for twenty-four hours I should be happy to take advice upon it; but she made no answer to this save to slip it in silence into her pocket.
But that won't be just yet," Miss Bordereau continued cannily, as if to correct any hopes that this courageous allusion to the last receptacle of her mortality might lead me to entertain. "I have sat here many a day and I have had enough of arbors in my time. But I'm not afraid to wait till I'm called."
"Well then, go with him as a cicerone!" said Miss Bordereau with an effort of something like cruelty in her implacable power of retort an incongruous suggestion that she was a sarcastic, profane, cynical old woman. "Haven't we heard that there have been all sorts of changes in all these years? You're old enough, my dear, and this gentleman won't hurt you.
My servant came down and spoke to me; he knew nothing save that the doctor had gone after a visit of half an hour. If he had stayed half an hour then Miss Bordereau was still alive: it could not have taken so much time as that to enunciate the contrary. I sent the man out of the house; there were moments when the sense of his curiosity annoyed me, and this was one of them.
Miss Bordereau sailed with her family on a tossing brig, in the days of long voyages and sharp differences; she had her emotions on the top of yellow diligences, passed the night at inns where she dreamed of travelers' tales, and was struck, on reaching the Eternal City, with the elegance of Roman pearls and scarfs.
I went so far as to say that I should be delighted to see her again: she had been so very courteous to me, considering how odd she must have thought me a declaration which drew from Miss Bordereau another of her whimsical speeches. "She has very good manners; I bred her up myself!"
It was most probably a habit of his, for all his phrases had a manufactured air, and he seemed much more like an actor reciting a familiar part than as if he spoke on the spur of the moment. Later on, as everybody knows, he sold a confession in which he proclaimed himself the author of the Bordereau.
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