Then he suddenly became serious. During the previous session he had made a speech upon a financial question after a whole month's special study of his subject, and since then he had affected a very steady-going air, as though he had buried all his youthful frivolities.
'By the way,' began Kahn, taking him to the end of the room, 'you who are on such good terms with Marsy——'
Then he continued in such a low tone that nothing further could be heard. Pretty Madame Bouchard, who had bowed to the Countess, was now sitting beside the bed, holding Clorinde's hand, and sympathising with her in a fluty voice. Meantime, M. Bouchard, who remained standing in a prim and dignified attitude, suddenly began to speak aloud amidst all the surrounding buzz of conversation, 'I have something to tell you,' he said, 'our fat man is a nice sort of fellow.'
Before explaining himself, however, he began to rail at Rougon as the others had done. It was now impossible, he said, to ask him for anything, for he could not even return a polite answer; and he, M. Bouchard, considered that politeness came before everything. Then as they continued to ask him what Rougon had done, he at last told them.
'I can't bear injustice,' said he. 'I spoke to him about one of the clerks in my division. Georges Duchesne; you know him, don't you? You've met him at my house. Well, he's a young fellow of sterling merit, and we treat him as though he were our own son. My wife is very fond of him, as he comes from the same part of the country as herself. Well, we had lately been scheming to get Duchesne appointed assistant head clerk. It was my idea, but you approved of it, didn't you, Adèle?'
Madame Bouchard looked embarrassed, and bent yet more closely to Clorinde to escape the eyes of M. d'Escorailles, which she felt were fixed on her.
'Well,' continued the head of department, 'how do you think the fat man received my request? He glared at me in his offensive way for a full minute, and then he bluntly refused to make the appointment. When I pressed the matter, he said to me with a smile: "Monsieur Bouchard, don't press your request; you distress me. There are very grave reasons why I cannot accede to it." I couldn't get him to say another word. He saw, however, that I was very much put out, and so he begged me to remember him kindly to my wife.'
That very evening, as it happened, Madame Bouchard had had a rather lively passage of arms with M. d'Escorailles on the subject of this same Georges Duchesne. 'Oh well!' she now deemed it advisable to say in a rather petulant voice, 'Monsieur Duchesne will have to wait. I don't know that we need trouble ourselves about him.'
But her husband seemed quite determined. 'No, no,' he returned; 'he deserves to be assistant head clerk, and he shall be! My credit is involved. Oh, I really can't stand injustice!'
He grew so excited that some of the others had to soothe him. Clorinde, who appeared somewhat absent-minded, was in reality trying to hear the conversation between M. Kahn and M. La Rouquette, who had ensconced themselves at the foot of her bed. The former was explaining the state of his affairs. His great undertaking of a railway line between Niort and Angers was in a very critical position. The shares had at first been sold on the Bourse at a premium of eighty francs, before a single stroke of work had been done. Relying upon his much-talked-of English company, M. Kahn had indulged in the most reckless speculation, and now the whole business was on the verge of bankruptcy, and must collapse unless he could at once obtain some powerful support.