If they had closed their eyes, if the suffocating heat and the pale light had not imparted to them a depravation of every sense, the aromas alone would have sufficed to throw them into an extraordinary state of nervous erethism. The basin enveloped them in a deep pungent aroma, amid which passed the thousand perfumes of the flowers and the foliage. At times the Vanilla sang with dove-like cooings; then came the rough notes of the Stanhopeas whose streaked mouths had the same strong-smelling bitter breath as a convalescent. The orchids, in their baskets secured by wire chains, also breathed like animated incense burners. But the odour that predominated, the odour in which all these vague breaths were mingled, was a human odour, an odour of love, which Maxime recognised when he kissed Renée on the nape of her neck, when he plunged his head into her flowing hair. And they remained intoxicated by this scent, the scent of an amorous woman, which trailed through the conservatory as in an alcove where earth might be engaged in procreation.
As a rule, the lovers lay down under the Tanghinia from Madagascar, under the poisoned shrub, a leaf of which the young woman once had bitten. Around them the white statues laughed, gazing at the mighty coupling of foliage. The moon, as it turned, displaced the groups, and animated the drama with its changing light. They were a thousand leagues from Paris, far from the easy life of the Bois de Boulogne and official drawing-rooms, in a corner of some Indian forest, of some monstrous temple, of which the black marble sphinx became the deity. They felt themselves rolling to crime, to accursed love, to wild-beast tenderness. All the pullulation which surrounded them, the swarming of the basin, the naked immodesty of the foliage, threw them fully into the Dantesque hell of passion. It was then, in the depths of this glass cage, boiling over with the flames of summer, lost amid the clear coldness of December, that they tasted incest, as though it had been the criminal fruit of some over-heated soil, feeling the while a dim fear of their terrifying couch.
And in the centre of the black bearskin Renée's body seemed whiter, as she crouched like a huge cat with her back stretched out, and her wrists extended like supple nervous shins. She was all swollen with voluptuousness, and the light outlines of her shoulders and loins stood out with feline angularity against the inky stain which blackened the yellow sand of the pathway with its fur. She watched Maxime, this prey extended beneath her, who abandoned himself, and whom she possessed completely. And from time to time, she abruptly leant forward and kissed him with her irritated mouth. Her lips then parted with the greedy bleeding brilliancy of the Chinese Hibiscus, the expanse of which covered the side of the mansion. She was then nothing but a burning daughter of the conservatory. Her kisses bloomed and faded like those red flowers of the gigantic mallow which last barely a few hours, and which ever spring to life again, like the bruised insatiable lips of a giant Messalina.
[CHAPTER V.]
The kiss which Saccard had imprinted on his wife's neck preoccupied him. He had not availed himself of his marital rights for a long time. The rupture had come quite naturally, neither the one nor the other caring for a connection which interfered with their habits. For Saccard to think of returning to Renée's room, some good stroke of business must necessarily be the object of his conjugal tenderness.
The Charonne affair, from which he hoped to derive a fortune, was progressing favourably, though he had some anxiety as to its termination. Larsonneau, with his dazzling shirt-front, smiled in a manner that displeased him. The expropriation agent was a simple go-between—a man of straw, whom he intended to remunerate for his obligingness with a commission of ten per cent on the ultimate profits. However, although the agent had not invested a copper in the enterprise, and although Saccard had taken every precaution—such as a deed of retrocession, letters, the dates of which had been left in blank, and receipts given in advance—he nevertheless experienced an inward fear, a presentiment of some treachery. He scented that his accomplice intended to blackmail him with the help of that false inventory which he preciously preserved, and to which alone he was indebted for his share in the enterprise.
However, the two accomplices shook hands vigorously. Larsonneau styled Saccard his "dear master." He had, at the bottom of his heart, a real admiration for this equilibrist, and watched his performances on the tight rope of speculation like a connoisseur. The idea of duping him titillated him like some rare and spicy voluptuousness. He caressed a plan which was still vague, however, for he did not very well know how to employ the weapon he possessed, and he feared wounding himself with it. Besides, he felt that he was at the mercy of his ex-colleague. The ground and the buildings, which carefully prepared inventories already valued at nearly two millions of francs, though they were not worth a quarter of that amount, must end by being swallowed up in a colossal bankruptcy, if the fairy of expropriation did not touch them with her golden wand. According to the original plans which the two confederates had been able to consult, the new Boulevard, opened in view of connecting the artillery depôt of Vincennes with the Prince Eugène barracks, and of bringing the guns and ammunition into the heart of Paris without passing through the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, would cross a part of the ground; but it was still to be feared that only a corner of the latter might be cut off, and that the ingenious speculation of the music hall would fall through by reason of its very impudence. In that case Larsonneau would remain with a delicate matter to deal with. Still this peril did not prevent him, despite the secondary part which he played perforce, from feeling soul-sick when he thought of the paltry ten per cent which he would pocket in this colossal robbery of millions. And at those moments he could not resist the furious longing he felt to extend his hand and carve out a larger share for himself.
Saccard had not even allowed him to lend money to his wife, he had preferred to amuse himself with this big piece of theatrical trickery, which delighted his partiality for complicated transactions.
"No, no, my dear fellow," he said, with his Provençal accent, which he exaggerated whenever he wished to impart additional salt to a joke, "don't let us mix up our accounts. You are the only man in Paris to whom I have sworn never to owe a copper."