The little Marchioness de Rennedon was still asleep in her closed and
perfumed bedroom, in her soft, low bed, between her sheets of delicate
cambric, fine as lace and caressing as a kiss; she was sleeping alone
and tranquil, the happy and profound sleep of divorced women.
She was awakened by loud voices in the little blue drawing-room, and she
recognized her dear friend, the little Baroness de Grangerie, who was
disputing with the lady's maid, because the latter would not allow her
to go into her mistress' room. So the little Marchioness got up, opened
the door, drew back the door-hangings and showed her head, nothing but
her fair head, hidden under a cloud of hair.
"What is the matter with you, that you have come so early?" she asked.
"It is not nine o'clock yet."
The little baroness who was very pale, nervous and feverish, replied: "I
must speak to you. Something horrible has happened to me." "Come in, my
dear."
She went in, they kissed each other, and the little Marchioness got back
into her bed while the lady's maid opened the windows to let in light
and air, and then when she had left the room, Madame de Rennedon went
on: "Well, tell me what it is."
Madame de Grangerie began to cry, shedding those pretty, bright tears
which make woman more charming, and she stammered without wiping her
eyes, so as not to make them red: "Oh! my dear, what has happened to me
is abominable, abominable. I have not slept all night, not a minute; do
you hear, not a minute. Here, just feel my heart, how it is beating."
And, taking her friend's hand, she put it on her breast, on that firm,
round covering of women's hearts which often suffices men, and prevents
them from seeking beneath. But her breast was really beating violently.
She continued: "It happened to me yesterday during the day, at about
four o'clock ... or half-past four; I cannot say exactly. You know my
apartments, and you know that my little drawing-room, where I always
sit, looks onto the Rue Saint-Lazare, and that I have a mania for
sitting at the window to look at the people passing. The neighborhood of
the railway station is very gay; so full of motion and lively.... Well,
that is just what I like! So, yesterday, I was sitting in the low chair
which I have placed in my window recess; the window was open and I was
not thinking of anything; I was breathing the fresh air. You remember
how fine it was yesterday!
"Suddenly, I remarked that there was also a woman sitting at the window,
a woman in red; I was in mauve, you know, my pretty mauve costume. I did
not know the woman, a new lodger, who had been there a month, and as it
had been raining for a month, I had not yet seen her, but I saw
immediately that she was a bad girl. At first I was very much shocked
and disgusted that she should be at the window like I was; and then, by
degrees, it amused me to examine her. She was resting her elbows on the
window ledge, and looking at the men, and the men looked at her also,
all or nearly all. One might have said that they were apprised
beforehand by some means as they got near the house, which they scented
as dogs scent game, for they suddenly raised their heads, and exchanged
a swift look with her, a freemason's look. Hers said: 'Will you?'
"Theirs replied: 'I have no time,' or else: 'another day;' or else: 'I
have not got a half penny;' or else: 'Will you hide yourself, you
wretch!'
"You cannot imagine how funny it was to see her carrying on such a piece
of work, though, after all, it is her regular business.
"Sometimes she shut the window suddenly, and I saw a gentleman go in.
She had caught him like a fisherman hooks a gudgeon. Then I looked at my
watch, and I found that they stopped from twelve to twenty minutes,
never longer. In the end she really infatuated me, the spider! And then
the creature is so ugly.
"I asked myself: How does she manage to make herself understood so
quickly, so well and so completely? Does she add a sign of the head or a
motion of the hands to her looks? And I took my opera-glasses to watch
her proceedings. Oh! they were very simple: first of all a glance, then
a smile, then a slight sign with the head, which meant: 'Are you coming
up?' But it was so slight, so vague, so discreet, that it required a
great deal of knack to succeed as she did. And I asked myself: 'I wonder
if I could do that little movement, from below upwards, which was at the
same time bold and pretty, as well as she does,' for her gesture was
very pretty.
"I went and tried it before the looking-glass, and, my dear, I did it
better than she, a great deal better! I was enchanted, and resumed my
place at the window.
"She caught nobody more then, poor girl, nobody. She certainly had no
luck. It must really be very terrible to earn one's bread in that way,
terrible and amusing occasionally, for really some of these men one
meets in the street are rather nice.
"After that they all came on my side of the road and none on hers; the
sun had turned. They came one after the other, young, old, dark, fair,
gray, white. I saw some who looked very nice, really very nice, my dear,
far better than my husband or than yours, I mean than your late husband,
as you have got a divorce. Now you can choose.
"I said to myself! If I give them the sign, will they understand me, who
am a respectable woman? And I was seized with a mad longing to make that
sign to them. I had a longing, the longing of a pregnant woman ... a
terrible longing; you know, one of those longings which one cannot
resist! I have some like that occasionally. How stupid such things are,
don't you think so? I believe that we woman have the souls of monkeys. I
have been told (and it was a physician who told me) that the brain of a
monkey was very like ours. Of course we must imitate some one or other.
We imitate our husbands, when we love them, during the first months
after our marriage, and then our lovers, our female friends, our
confessors, when they are nice. We assume their ways of thought, their
manners of speech, their words, their gestures, everything. It is very
stupid.
"However, as for me, when I am too much tempted to do a thing I always
do it, and so I said to myself: 'I will try it once, on one man only,
just to see. What can happen to me? Nothing whatever! We shall exchange
a smile and that will be all, and I shall deny it, most certainly.'
"So I began to make my choice. I wanted someone nice, very nice, and
suddenly I saw a tall, fair, very good-looking fellow coming along. I
like fair men, as you know. I looked at him, he looked at me; I smiled,
he smiled; I made the movement; oh! but scarcely; he replied _yes_ with
his head, and there he was, my dear! He came in at the large door of the
house.
"You cannot imagine what passed through my mind then! I thought I should
go mad. Oh! how frightened I was. Just think, he will speak to the
servants! To Joseph, who is devoted to my husband! Joseph would
certainly think that I had known that gentleman for a long time.
"What could I do, just tell me? And he would ring in a moment. What
could I do, tell me? I thought I would go and meet him, and tell him he
had made a mistake, and beg him to go away. He would have pity on a
woman, on a poor woman: So I rushed to the door and opened it, just at
the moment when he was going to ring the bell, and I stammered out,
quite stupidly: 'Go away, Monsieur, go away; you have made a mistake, a
terrible mistake; I took you for one of my friends whom you are very
like. Have pity on me, Monsieur.'
"But he only began to laugh, my dear, and replied: 'Good morning, my
dear, I know all about your little story, you may be sure. You are
married, and so you want forty francs instead of twenty, and you shall
have them, so just show the way.'
"And he pushed me in, closed the door, and as I remained standing
before him, horror-struck, he kissed me, put his arm round my waist and
made me go back into the drawing-room, which had remained open. Then he
began to look at everything, like an auctioneer, and continued: 'By
Jove, it is very nice in your rooms, very well. You must be very down on
your luck just now, to do the window business!'
"Then I began to beg him again: 'Oh! Monsieur, go away, please go away!
My husband will be coming in soon, it is just his time. I swear that you
have made a mistake!' But he answered quite coolly: 'Come, my beauty, I
have had enough of this nonsense, and if your husband comes in, I will
give him five francs to go and have a drink at the café opposite.' And
then, seeing Raoul's photograph on the chimney-piece, he asked me: 'Is
that your ... your husband?' 'Yes, that is he.' 'He looks a nice,
disagreeable sort of fellow. And who is this? One of your friends?'
"It was your photograph, my dear, you know, the one in ball dress. I did
not know any longer what I was saying, and I stammered: 'Yes, it is one
of my friends.' 'She is very nice; you shall introduce me to her.'
"Just then the clock struck five, and Raoul comes home every day at half
past! Suppose he were to come home before the other had gone, just fancy
what would have happened! Then ... then ... I completely lost my head
... altogether.... I thought ... I thought ... that ... that ... the
best thing would be ... to get rid ... of ... of this man ... as quickly
as possible.... The sooner it was over ... you understand ... and ...
and there ... as it must be done ... and I was obliged, my dear ... he
would not have gone away without it.... Well I ... I locked the
drawing-room door.... There!"
* * * * *
The little Marchioness de Rennedon had begun to laugh, to laugh madly,
with her head buried in her pillow, so that the whole bed shook, and
when she was a little calmer she asked: "And ... and ... was he
good-looking?" "Yes." "And yet you complain?" "But ... but ... don't you
see, my dear, he said ... he said ... he should come again to-morrow ...
at the same time ... and I ... I am terribly frightened.... You have no
idea how tenacious he is and obstinate.... What can I do ... tell me ...
what can I do?"
The little Marchioness sat up in bed to reflect, and then she suddenly
said: "Have him arrested!"
The little Baroness looked stupefied, and stammered out: "What do you
say? What are you thinking of? Have him arrested? Under what pretext?"
"That is very simple. Go to the Commissary of Police and say that a
gentleman has been following you about for three months; that he had the
insolence to go up to your apartments yesterday; that he has threatened
you with another visit to-morrow, and that you demand the protection of
the law, and they will give you two police officers, who will arrest
him."
"But, my dear, suppose he tells...." "They will not believe him, you
silly thing, if you have told your tale cleverly to the commissary, but
they will believe you, who are an irreproachable woman, and in
society." "Oh! I shall never dare to do it." "You must dare, my dear, or
you are lost." "But think that he will ... he will insult me if he is
arrested." "Very well, you will have witnesses, and he will be
sentenced." "Sentenced to what?" "To pay damages. In such cases, one
must be pitiless!" "Ah! speaking of damages.... There is one thing that
worries me very much ... very much indeed.... He left me two twenty
franc pieces on the mantelpiece." "Two twenty franc pieces?" "Yes." "No
more?" "No." "That is very little. It would have humiliated me. Well?"
"Well! What am I to do with that money?"
The little Marchioness hesitated for a few seconds, and then she replied
in a serious voice:
"My dear ... you must make ... you must make your husband a little
present with it.... That will be only fair!"