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Updated: May 11, 2025
Claire in her turn took her departure for the convent with the outfit of a little queen; and at that very time the Chebes were discussing the question of apprenticing Sidonie to some trade. They promised to love each other as before and to meet twice a month, on the Sundays that Claire was permitted to go home.
Georges was incapable of receiving lasting impressions unless they were continually renewed; Sidonie, for her part, had no power to inspire any noble or durable sentiment.
The music from the neighboring Casino reached their ears, with the "Yo-ho!" of the boatmen and the footsteps of the dancers like a rhythmical, muffled drumming on the tambourine. "There's a kill-joy for you!" observed Madame Dobson. "Oh, I have checkmated him," replied Sidonie; "only I must be careful. I shall be closely watched now. He is so jealous.
Sometimes a vague gleam in the depths of the mild and apparently impassive glance with which she watched his efforts, bade him hope. As for Sidonie, he no longer thought of her. Let no one be astonished at that abrupt mental rupture. Those two superficial beings had nothing to attach them securely to each other.
"She is very lenient to Monsieur de Savarus," she whispered to her mother. "You see," said the Baroness with a smile, "there is a question of a marriage between Sidonie and Monsieur de Savarus." Mademoiselle de Watteville hastily went to a window looking out over the garden. At ten o'clock Albert de Savarus had not yet appeared. The storm that threatened now burst.
Sidonie, with her eyes cast down, bowed without replying, while an imperceptible shudder ran from the tip of her satin shoe to the topmost bit of orange-blossom in her crown. But honest Risler saw nothing. The excitement, the dancing, the music, the flowers, the lights made him drunk, made him mad. He believed that every one breathed the same atmosphere of bliss beyond compare which enveloped him.
Rougon had Eugene Rougon, also Pascal Rougon, also Aristides, also Sidonie, also Martha. Aristides had Maxyme, Clotilde, Victor, and Maxyme had Charles, and so on to the end; but Sidonie had a daughter Angelle, and Martha, who married Mouret, who was from Macquart's family, had three children, etc. The night passes, pales, but the reading continues.
But her wish was ungratified; Claire Fromont noticed nothing and lived, as did Risler, in imperturbable serenity. Only Sigismond, the old cashier, was really ill at ease. And yet he was not thinking of Sidonie when, with his pen behind his ear, he paused a moment in his work and gazed fixedly through his grating at the drenched soil of the little garden.
Madame Dobson sat for a moment with Frantz and Sidonie under a little arbor which a climbing vine studded with pink buds; then, realizing that she was in the way, she returned to the salon, and as before, while Georges was there, began to play and sing softly and with expression.
"Ah! wretched, wretched creatures that we are!" exclaimed the poor judge, dropping upon the divan beside her. Those few words were in themselves an act of cowardice, a beginning of surrender, as if destiny, by showing itself so pitiless, had deprived him of the strength to defend himself. Sidonie had placed her hand on his.
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