"It is certain," Sulpice de Laurièr said, "that I had absolutely
forgotten the date on which I was to allow myself to be taken in the
very act, with a mistress for the occasion. As neither my wife nor I had
any serious nor plausible reason for a divorce, not even the slightest
incompatibility of temper, and as there is always a risk of not
softening the heart of even the most indulgent judge when he is told
that the parties have agreed to drag their load separately, each for
themselves, that they are too frisky, too fond of pleasure and of
wandering about from place to place to continue the conjugal experiment,
we between us got up the ingenious stage arrangement of, 'a serious
wrong...'
"This was funnier than all the rest, and under any other circumstances
it would have been repugnant to me to mix up our servants in the affair
like so many others do, or to distress that pretty little, fair and
delicate Parisian woman, even though it were only in appearance and to
pass as a common _Sganarelle_ with the manners of a carter, in the eyes
of some scoundrel of a footman, or of some lady's maid. And so when
Maître Le Chevrier, that kind lawyer who certainly knows more female
secrets than the most fashionable confessor, gave a startled exclamation
on seeing me still in my dressing-gown, and slowly smoking a cigar like
an idler who has no engagements down on his tablets, and who is quietly
waiting for the usual time for dressing and going to dine at his club,
he exclaimed:
"'Have you forgotten that this is the day, at the _Hôtel de Bade_,
between five and six o'clock? In an hour, Madame de Laurière will be at
the office of the Police Commissary in the Rue de Provence, with her
uncle and Maître Cantenac ...'
"An hour; I only had an hour, sixty short minutes to dress in, to take a
room, find a woman and persuade her to go with me immediately, and to
excite her feelings, so that this extravagant adventure might not appear
too equivocal to the Commissary of Police. One hour in which to carry
out such a program was enough to make a man lose his head. And there
were no possible means of putting off that obligatory entertainment, to
let Madame Le Laurière know in time, and to gain a few minutes more.
"'Have you found a woman, at any rate?' Maître de Chevrier continued
anxiously.
"'No, my dear sir!'
"I immediately began to think of the whole string of my dear female
friends. Should I choose Liline Ablette, who could refuse me nothing,
Blanch Rebus, who was the best comrade a man ever had, or Lalie Spring,
that luxurious creature, who was constantly in search of something new?
Neither one nor the other of them, for it was ninety-nine chances to one
that all these confounded girls were in the _Bois de Boulogne_, or at
their dressmakers!"
"'Bah! Just pick up the first girl you meet on the pavement.'
"And before the hour was up, I was bolting the door of a room, which
looked out onto the boulevard.
"The woman whom I had picked up, as she was walking past the _cafés_,
from the _Vaudeville_ to _Tortoni's_, was twenty at the most. She had an
impudent, snub nose, as if it had been turned up in fun by a fillip,
large eyes with-deep rims round them; her lips were too red, and she had
the slow, indolent walk of a girl who goes in for debauchery too freely
and who began too soon, but she was pretty, and her linen was very clean
and neat. And she was evidently used to chance love-making, and had a
way of undressing herself in two or three rapid movements, of throwing
her toggery to the right and left, until she was extremely lightly clad,
and of throwing herself onto the bed which astonished me as a sight that
was well worth seeing.
"She did not talk much, though she began by saying: 'Pay up at once, old
man ... You don't look like a fellow who would bilk a girl, but it puts
me into better trim when I have been paid.'
"I gave her two napoleons, and she eyed me with gratitude and respect at
the same time, but also with that uneasy look of a girl who asks
herself: 'What does this tool expect for it?'
"The whole affair began to amuse me, and I must confess that I was
rather taken with her, for she had a beautiful figure and complexion,
and I was hoping that the Commissary would not come directly, when there
was a loud rapping at the door.
"She sat up with a start, and grew so pale that one would have said she
was about to faint.
"'What a set of pigs, to come and interrupt people like this!' she
muttered between her teeth; while I affected the most complete calm.
"'Somebody who has made a mistake in the room, my dear,' I said.
"But this noise increased, and suddenly I heard a man's voice saying
clearly and authoritatively:
"'Open the door, in the name of the law!'
"On hearing that, one would have thought that she had received a shock
from an electric battery, by the nimble manner in which she jumped out
of bed; and quickly putting on her stays and her dress anyhow, she
endeavored to discover a way out in every corner of the room, like a
wild beast, trying to escape from its cage. I thought that she was going
to throw herself out of the window, so I seized hold of her to prevent
her.
"The unfortunate creature acted like a madwoman, and when she felt my
arm round her waist, she cried in a hoarse voice:
"'I see it ... You have sold me ... You thought that I should expose
myself.... Oh! you filthy brutes--you filthy brutes!'
"And suddenly, passing from abuse to entreaties, pale and with
chattering teeth, she threw herself at my feet, and said, in a low
voice:
"'Listen to me, my dear: you don't look a bad sort of fellow, and you
would not like them to lock me up. I have a kid and the old woman to
keep. Hide me behind the bed, do, and please don't give me up.... I
will make it up to you, and you shall have no cause for grumbling....'
"At that moment however, the lock which they had unscrewed fell onto the
floor with a metallic sound, and Madame de Laurière and the Police
Commissary, wearing his tricolored scarf, appeared in the door, while
behind them the heads of the uncle and of the lawyer could be seen
indistinctly in the background.
"The girl had uttered a cry of terror and going up to the Commissary she
said, panting:
"'I swear to you that I am not guilty, that I was not ... I will tell
you everything if you will promise me not to tell them that I spilt, for
they would pay me out....'
"The Commissary, who was surprised, but who guessed that there was
something which was not quite clear behind all this, forgot to draw up
his report, and so the lawyer went up to him and said:
"'Well, monsieur, what are we waiting for?'
"But he paid no attention to anything but the woman, and looking at her
sharply and suspiciously through his gold-rimmed spectacles, he said to
her in a hard voice:
"'Your names and surnames?'
"'Juliette Randal, or as I am generally called, Jujutte Pipehead.'
"'So you will swear you were not--'
"She interrupted him eagerly:
"'I swear it, monsieur, and I know that my little man had nothing to do
with it either. He was only keeping a look-out while the others collared
the swag. ... I will swear that I can account for every moment of my
time that night. Roquin was drunk, and told me everything.... They got
five thousand francs from Daddy Zacharias, and of course Roquin had his
share, but he did not work with his partners. It was Minon Ménilmuche,
whom they call _Drink-without-Thirst_, who held the gardener's hands,
and who bled him with a blow from his knife.'
"The Commissary let her run on, and when she had finished, he questioned
me, as if I had belonged to Jujutte's band.
"'Your name, Christian name, and profession?'
"'Marquis Sulpice de Laurièr, living on my own private income, at 24,
Rue de Galilee.'
"'De Laurièr? Oh, very well.... Excuse me, monsieur, but at Madame de
Laurière's request, I declare formally before these gentlemen, who will
be able to give evidence, that the girl Juliette Randal, whom they call
_Jujutte Tête-de-Pipe_, is your mistress. You are at liberty to go,
Monsieur le Marquis, and you, girl Randal answer my questions.'
"Thus, by the most extraordinary chance, our divorce suit created a
sensation which I had certainly never foreseen. I was obliged to appear
in the Assize Court as a witness in the celebrated case of those
burglars, when three of them were condemned to death, and to undergo the
questioning of the idiotic Presiding Judge, who tried by all means in
his power to make me acknowledge that I was Jujutte Tête-de-Pipe's
regular lover; and in consequence, ever since then I have passed as an
ardent seeker after novel sensations, and a man who wallows in the
lowest depths of the Parisian dunghill.
"I cannot say that this unjust reputation has brought me any pleasant
love affairs. Women are so perverse, so absurd, and so curious!"