As we sat chatting after dinner, a party of men, the conversation turned
on women, for lack of something else.
One of us said:
“Here's a funny thing that happened to me on, that very subject.” And he
told us the following story:
One evening last winter I suddenly felt overcome by that overpowering
sense of misery and languor that takes possession of one from time to
time. I was in my own apartment, all alone, and I was convinced that if
I gave in to my feelings I should have a terrible attack of melancholia,
one of those attacks that lead to suicide when they recur too often.
I put on my overcoat and went out without the slightest idea of what I
was going to do. Having gone as far as the boulevards, I began to
wander along by the almost empty cafes. It was raining, a fine rain
that affects your mind as it does your clothing, not one of those good
downpours which come down in torrents, driving breathless passers-by
into doorways, but a rain without drops that deposits on your clothing
an imperceptible spray and soon covers you with a sort of iced foam that
chills you through.
What should I do? I walked in one direction and then came back, looking
for some place where I could spend two hours, and discovering for the
first time that there is no place of amusement in Paris in the evening.
At last I decided to go to the Folies-Bergere, that entertaining resort
for gay women.
There were very few people in the main hall. In the long horseshoe curve
there were only a few ordinary looking people, whose plebeian origin
was apparent in their manners, their clothes, the cut of their hair and
beard, their hats, their complexion. It was rarely that one saw
from time to time a man whom you suspected of having washed himself
thoroughly, and his whole make-up seemed to match. As for the women,
they were always the same, those frightful women you all know, ugly,
tired looking, drooping, and walking along in their lackadaisical
manner, with that air of foolish superciliousness which they assume, I
do not know why.
I thought to myself that, in truth, not one of those languid creatures,
greasy rather than fat, puffed out here and thin there, with the contour
of a monk and the lower extremities of a bow-legged snipe, was worth the
louis that they would get with great difficulty after asking five.
But all at once I saw a little creature whom I thought attractive, not
in her first youth, but fresh, comical and tantalizing. I stopped her,
and stupidly, without thinking, I made an appointment with her for that
night. I did not want to go back to my own home alone, all alone; I
preferred the company and the caresses of this hussy.
And I followed her. She lived in a great big house in the Rue des
Martyrs. The gas was already extinguished on the stairway. I ascended
the steps slowly, lighting a candle match every few seconds, stubbing my
foot against the steps, stumbling and angry as I followed the rustle of
the skirt ahead of me.
She stopped on the fourth floor, and having closed the outer door she
said:
“Then you will stay till to-morrow?”
“Why, yes. You know that that was the agreement.”
“All right, my dear, I just wanted to know. Wait for me here a minute, I
will be right back.”
And she left me in the darkness. I heard her shutting two doors and then
I thought I heard her talking. I was surprised and uneasy. The thought
that she had a protector staggered me. But I have good fists and a solid
back. “We shall see,” I said to myself.
I listened attentively with ear and mind. Some one was stirring about,
walking quietly and very carefully. Then another door was opened and I
thought I again heard some one talking, but in a very low tone.
She came back carrying a lighted candle.
“You may come in,” she said.
She said “thou” in speaking to me, which was an indication of
possession. I went in and after passing through a dining room in which
it was very evident that no one ever ate, I entered a typical room
of all these women, a furnished room with red curtains and a soiled
eiderdown bed covering.
“Make yourself at home, 'mon chat',” she said.
I gave a suspicious glance at the room, but there seemed no reason for
uneasiness.
As she took off her wraps she began to laugh.
“Well, what ails you? Are you changed into a pillar of salt? Come, hurry
up.”