On the morrow, which was a Sunday, Octave with his eyes open lay
thinking for an hour in the warmth of the sheets. He awoke happy, full
of the lucidity of the morning laziness. What need was there to hurry?
He was very comfortable at “The Ladies’ Paradise,” he was there losing
all his provincial ways, and he had an absolute and profound conviction
of one day possessing Madame Hédouin, who would make his fortune; but
it was an affair that required prudence, a long series of gallant
tactics, which his voluptuous passion for women was already enjoying by
anticipation. As he was dozing off again, forming his plans, allowing
himself six months to succeed in, Marie Pichon’s image resulted in
calming his impatience. A woman like that was a real boon; he had
merely to stretch out his arm, when he required her, and she did not
cost him a sou. Whilst awaiting the other, he could certainly not hope
for anything better. In his half-slumber, this bargain and this
convenience ended by making him quite tender-hearted: she appeared to
him very nice and pretty with all her good-nature, and he promised
himself he would behave better to her in future.
“Hang it! nine o’clock!” said he thoroughly roused by his clock
striking. “I must get up.”
A fine rain was falling. Then, he made up his mind not to go out all
day. He would accept an invitation to dine with the Pichons, which he
had been refusing for some time past, dreading another meeting with the
Vuillaumes; it would please Marie, he would find opportunities of
kissing her behind the doors; and, as she was always asking for books,
he even thought of giving her the surprise of a quantity which he had,
stowed away in one of his boxes in the loft. When he was dressed, he
went down to Monsieur Gourd to get the key of this common loft, where
all the tenants got rid of whatever things were in their way, or which
they had no present use for.
Down below, on that damp morning, it was quite stifling in the heated
staircase, the imitation marble, the tall looking-glasses, and the
mahogany doors of which were covered with steam. Under the porch, a
poorly clad woman, mother Pérou, to whom the Gourds paid four sons an
hour for doing the heavy work of the house, was washing the pavement
with plenty of water, in face of the icy-cold blast blowing from the
courtyard.
“Eh! I say old ’un, just rub that a bit better, that I may not find a
spot on it!” called out Monsieur Gourd, warmly covered up, standing on
the threshold of his apartment.
And, Octave arriving, he talked to him of mother Pérou with the brutal
domineering spirit, the mad mania for revenge, of former servants who
were being served in their turn.
“A lazy creature that I can do nothing with! I should like to have seen
her at the duke’s! Ah well! they stood no nonsense there! I’ll send her
to the right about, if she doesn’t give me my money’s worth! That’s all
I care about. But, excuse me, what is it you require, Monsieur Mouret?”
Octave asked for the key. Then the doorkeeper, without hurrying
himself, continued to explain to him that, if they had chosen, Madame
Gourd and he, they might have lived respectably in their own house, at
Mort-la-Ville; only, Madame Gourd adored Paris, in spite of her swollen
legs which prevented her getting as far as the pavement; and they were
waiting until they had made their income into a round sum, their hearts
almost breaking moreover and drawing back, each time that they felt a
desire to go and live at last upon the little fortune which they had
got together sou by sou.
“No one had better bother me,” concluded he, drawing himself up to the
full height of his handsome figure. “I’m no longer working for a
living. The key of the loft you said, did you not, Monsieur Mouret?
Wherever have we put the key of the loft, my dear?”
Madame Gourd, tenderly seated before a wood fire, the flames of which
enlivened the big light room, was drinking her coffee and milk out of a
silver cup. She had no idea; perhaps in one of the drawers. And, whilst
soaking her toast, she did not take her eyes off the door of the
servants’ staircase, at the other end of the courtyard, looking barer
and severer than ever in the rain.
“Look out! here she is!” said she suddenly, as a woman appeared in the
doorway.
Monsieur Gourd at once went and placed himself before his room, so as
to prevent the woman from passing, whilst she slackened her footsteps
with an air of anxiety.
“We have been on the look-out for her since the first thing this
morning, Monsieur Mouret,” resumed he, in a low voice. “Last night we
saw her pass. You know she comes from that carpenter, upstairs, the
only workman we have in the house, thank goodness! And if the landlord
only listened to me, he would let the room remain empty, a servant’s
room which does not go with the other apartments. For one hundred and
thirty francs a year, it is really not worth while having such a scum
in the place—”
He interrupted himself, to ask the woman roughly:
“Where do you come from?”
“From upstairs, of course!” answered she, walking on.
Then, he exploded.
“We’ll have no women here, understand! The man who brings you has
already been told so. If you return here to sleep, I’ll fetch a
policeman, that’s what I’ll do! and we’ll see if you’ll continue your
goings-on in a respectable house!”
“Oh! don’t bother me!” said the woman. “I’ve a right here; I shall come
if I choose.”
And she went off, followed by Monsieur Gourd’s indignation, as he
talked of going up to fetch the landlord. Had any one ever heard the
like! such a creature amongst respectable people, who did not tolerate
the least immorality! And it seemed as though that little room occupied
by a workman was the abomination of the house, a bad place, the
supervision of which offended the doorkeeper’s delicacy and spoilt his
rest at night.
“And that key!” Octave ventured to observe.
But the doorkeeper, furious at a tenant’s having been able to see his
authority disputed, fell on mother Pérou, wishing to show that he knew
how to make himself obeyed. Did she take him for a fool? She had again
splashed the door of his room with her broom. If he paid her out of his
own pocket, it was to save him from dirtying his hands, and yet he
continually had to clean up after her. Might the devil take him if he
was ever again charitable enough to have anything more to do with her!
she could go and croak. Without answering, and bent double by the
fatigue of this task so much above her strength, the old body continued
to scrub with her skinny arms, struggling to keep back her tears, so
great was the respectful fright that broad shouldered gentleman in cap
and slippers caused her.
“I remember, my darling,” called Madame Gourd from her easy chair in
which she passed the day, warming her fat person. “It was I who hid the
key under the shirts, so that the servants should not be always going
into the loft. Come, give it to Monsieur Mouret.”
“They’re a nice lot, too, those servants!” murmured Monsieur Gourd,
who, from his many years in service, had preserved a hatred for
menials. “Here is the key, sir; but I must ask you to bring it me back,
for no place can be left open, without the servants getting in there
and misconducting themselves.”
To save crossing the wet courtyard, Octave went back up the principal
staircase. It was not till he had reached the fourth floor that he
gained the servants’ staircase, by taking the door of communication
that was close to his room. Up above, a long passage was intersected
twice at right angles, it was painted pale yellow with a dado of darker
ochre; and the doors of the servants’ rooms, also yellow, were uniform
and placed at equal distances, the same as in the corridor of a
hospital. An icy chill came from the zinc roof. All was bare and clean,
with that unsavoury odour of the lodgings of the poor.
The loft overlooking the courtyard was in the right wing, at the
further end. But Octave, who had not been there since the day of his
arrival, was going along the left wing, when, suddenly, a spectacle
which he beheld inside one of the rooms, by the partly open door,
brought him to a standstill and filled him with amazement. A gentleman
was standing in his shirt sleeves before a little looking-glass, tying
his white cravat.
“What! you here?” said he.
It was Trublot. He also, at first, stood as one petrified. No one ever
came near there at that hour. Octave, who had walked in, looked at him
in that room with its narrow iron bedstead, and its washstand on which
a little bundle of woman’s hair was floating on the soapy water; and,
perceiving the black dress coat hanging up amongst some aprons, he
could not restrain himself from saying:
“So you sleep with the cook?”
“Not at all!” replied Trublot, in a fright.
Then, recognising the stupidity of this lie, he began to laugh in his
convinced and satisfied way.
“Eh! she is amusing! I assure you, my dear fellow, it is awfully fine!”
Whenever he dined out, he escaped from the drawing-room to go and pinch
the cook before her stove; and when she was willing to trust him with
her key, he would take his departure before midnight, and go and wait
patiently for her in her room, seated on a trunk, in his black dress
coat and white tie. On the morrow, he would leave by the principal
staircase towards ten o’clock, and pass before the doorkeeper as though
he had been making an early call on one of the tenants. So long as he
was pretty punctual at the stockbroker’s, his father was satisfied.
Moreover, he was now employed in attending the Bourse from twelve to
three. It would sometimes happen that on a Sunday he would spend the
whole day in some servant’s bed, happy, lost, his nose buried in the
pillow.
“You, who are going to be so rich some day!” said Octave, his face
retaining an expression of disgust.
Then Trublot learnedly declared:
“My dear fellow, you don’t know what it is; don’t speak about it.”
And he stood up for Julie, a tall Burgundian of forty, with her big
face pitted with small-pox, but who had the body of a superb woman. One
might disrobe the ladies of the house; they were all sticks, not one
would come up to her knee. Besides that, she was a girl very well to
do; and to prove it he opened her drawers, displayed a bonnet, some
jewellery, and some chemises trimmed with lace, no doubt stolen from
Madame Duveyrier. Octave, indeed, now noticed a certain coquettishness
about the room, some gilded cardboard boxes on the drawers, a chintz
curtain hung over the skirts, all the accessaries of a cook aping the
grand lady.
“There is no denying, you see, that one may own to this one,” repeated
Trublot. “If they were only all like her!”
At this moment a noise came from the servants’ staircase. It was Adèle
coming up to wash her ears, Madame Josserand having furiously forbidden
her to proceed with her work until she had cleaned them with soap.
Trublot peeped out and recognised her.
“Shut the door quick!” said he very anxiously. “Hush! don’t say a
word!”
He pricked up his ear, and listened to Adèle’s heavy footstep along the
passage.
“You sleep with her too, then?” asked Octave, surprised at his
paleness, and guessing that he dreaded a scene.
But this time Trublot was coward enough to deny.
“Oh! no indeed! not with that slut! Whoever do you take me for, my dear
fellow!”
He had seated himself on the edge of the bed, and while waiting to
finish dressing, begged Octave not to move; and both remained perfectly
still, whilst that filthy Adèle scoured out her ears, which took at
least ten good minutes. They heard the tempest in her washhand basin.
“There is, however, a room between this one and hers,” softly explained
Trublot, “a room that is let to a workman, a carpenter who stinks the
place out with his onion soup. ‘This morning again, it almost made me
sick. And you know, in all houses, the partitions of the servants’
rooms are now almost as thin as sheets of paper. I don’t understand the
landlords. It is not very decent, one can scarcely turn in one’s bed. I
think it very inconvenient.”
When Adèle had gone down again, he resumed his swagger and finished
dressing himself, making free use of Julie’s combs and pomatum. Octave
having spoken of the loft, he insisted on taking him there, for he knew
the most out-of-the-way corner of that floor. And, as he passed the
doors, he familiarly mentioned the servants’ names: in this bit of a
passage, after Adèle came Lisa, the Campardons’ maid, a wench who took
her pleasures outside; then, Victoire, their cook, a stranded whale,
seventy years old, the only one he respected; then, Françoise, who had
entered Madame Valerie’s service the day before, and whose trunk would
perhaps only remain twenty-four hours behind the meagre bed upon whieh
such a gallop of maids passed, that it was always necessary to make
inquiries before going there and waiting in the warmth of the blanket;
then, a quiet couple, in the service of the people on the second floor;
then, these people’s coachman, a strapping fellow of whom he spoke with
the jealousy of a handsome man, suspecting him of going from door to
door and noiselessly doing some very fine work; finally, at the other
end of the passage, there were Clémenee, the Duveyriers’ maid, whom her
neighbour Hippolyte, the butler, rejoined matrimonially every night,
and little Louise, the orphan whom Madame Juzeur had taken on trial, a
chit of fifteen, who must hear some very strange things in the small
hours, if she were a light sleeper.
“My dear fellow, don’t lock the door, do this to oblige me,” said he to
Octave, when he had helped him to take the books from the box. “You
see, when the loft is open, one can hide there and wait.”
Octave, having consented to deceive Monsieur Gourd, returned with
Trublot to Julie’s room. The young man had left his overcoat there.
Then it was his gloves that he could not find; he shook the skirts,
overturned the bed-clothes, raised such a dust and such an odour of
soiled linen, that his companion, half-suffocated, opened the window.
It looked on to the narrow inner courtyard, which gave light to all the
kitchens. And he was stretching out his head over this damp well, which
exhaled the greasy odours of dirty sinks, when a sound of voices made
him hastily withdraw.
“The little morning gossip,” said Trublot on all fours under the bed,
still searching. “Just listen to it.”
It was Lisa, who was leaning out of the window of the Campardons’
kitchen to speak to Julie, two storeys below her.
“So it’s come off then this time?”
“It seems so,” replied Julie, raising her head. “You see, she did all
she could to catch him. Hippolyte came from the drawing-room so
disgusted, that he almost had an attack of indigestion.”
“If we were only to do a quarter as much!” resumed Lisa.
But she disappeared a moment, to drink some broth that Victoire brought
her. They got on well together, nursing each other’s vices, the maid
hiding the cook’s drunkenness, and the cook facilitating the maid’s
outings, from which the latter returned quite worn out, her limbs
aching, her eyelids blue.
“Ah! my children,” said Victoire leaning out in her turn, her elbows
touching Lisa’s, “you’re young. When you’ve seen what I’ve seen! At old
Campardon’s, there was a niece who had been well brought up, and who
used to go and look at the men through the key-hole.”
“Pretty goings-on!” murmured Julie with the horrified air of a lady.
“Had I been in the place of the little one of the fourth floor, I’d
have boxed Monsieur Auguste’s ears, if he’d touched me in the
drawing-room! He’s a fine fellow!”
At these words, a shrill laugh issued from Madame Juzeur’s kitchen.
Lisa, who was opposite, searched the room with a glance, and caught
sight of Louise, whose precocious fifteen years took a delight in
listening to the other servants.
“She’s spying on us from morning to night, the chit,” said she. “How
stupid it is to thrust a child upon us! We sha’n’t be able to talk at
all soon.”
She did not finish. The sound of a suddenly opened window chased them
away. A profound silence ensued. But they ventured to look out again.
Eh! what! what was the matter? They had thought that Madame Valérie or
Madame Josserand was going to catch them.
“No fear!” resumed Lisa. “They’re all soaking in their washhand basins.
They’re too busy with their skins, to think of bothering us. It’s the
only moment in all the day when one can breathe freely.”
“So it still goes on the same at your place?” asked Julie, who was
paring a carrot.
“Still the same,” replied Victoire. “It’s all over, she’s no more use.”
“But your big noodle of an architect, what does he do then?”
“Takes up with the cousin, of course!”
They were laughing louder than ever, when they beheld the new servant,
Françoise, in Madame Valérie’s kitchen. It was she who had caused the
alarm, by opening the window. At first there was an exchange of
politeness.
“Ah! it’s you, mademoiselle.”
“Why, yes, mademoiselle. I am trying to make myself at home, but this
kitchen is so filthy!”
Then came scraps of abominable information.
“You will be more than constant, if you remain there long. The last one
had her arms all scratched by the child, and madame worked her so hard,
that we could hear her crying from here.”
“Ah well! that won’t last long with me,” said Françoise. “Thanks all
the same, mademoiselle.”
“Where is she, your missus?” asked Victoire curiously.
“She’s just gone off to lunch with a lady.”
Lisa and Julie stretched their necks, to exchange a glance. They knew
her well, the lady. A funny sort of lunch, with her head down and her
feet in the air! Was it possible, to lie to that extent! They did not
pity the husband, for he deserved more than that; only, it was a
disgrace to humanity, that a woman should not behave herself better.
“There’s Dish-cloth!” interrupted Lisa, discovering the Josserands’
servant overhead.
Then a host of vulgar expressions were bawled from the depths of this
hole, as obscure and infected as a sewer. All, with their faces raised,
violently yelled at Adèle, who was their butt, the dirty awkward
creature on whom the entire household vented their spite.
“Hallo! she’s washed herself, it’s evident!”
“Just throw your fish bones into the yard again, and I’ll come up and
rub ’em in your face!”
Thoroughly bewildered, Adèle looked down upon them from above, her body
half out of the window. She ended by answering:
“Leave me alone, can’t you? or I’ll water you.”
But the yells and the laughter increased.
“You married your young mistress, last night, didn’t you! Eh! it’s you,
perhaps, who teach her how to hook the men?”
“Ah! the heartless thing! she stops in a place where they don’t give
you enough to eat! On my word, it’s that which exasperates me against
her! You’re such a fool, you should send ’em to blazes!”
Adèle’s eyes filled with tear’s.
“You can only talk nonsense,” stammered she. “It’s not my fault if I
don’t get enough to eat.”
And the voices swelled, unpleasant words commenced to be exchanged
between Lisa and the new servant, Françoise, who stuck up for Adèle,
when the latter, forgetting the abuse heaped upon her, and yielding to
party instinct, called out: “Look out! here’s madame!”
The silence of the tomb ensued. They all immediately plunged back into
their kitchens; and from the dark chasm of the narrow courtyard all
that ascended was the stench of the dirty sinks, like the exhalation of
the hidden abominations of the families, stirred up there by the spite
of the hirelings. It was the sewer of the house, the shames of which it
carried off, whilst the masters were still lounging in their slippers,
and the grand staircase unfolded the solemnity of its flights, in the
silent suffocation of the hot air stove. Octave recalled the blast of
uproar he received full in the face, when entering the Campardons’
kitchen, the day of his arrival.
“They are very nice,” said he simply.
And, leaning out in his turn, he looked at the walls, as though annoyed
at not having at once read through them, behind the imitation marble
and the mouldings bright with gilding.
“Where the devil has she stowed them away?” repeated Trublot who had
searched everywhere for his white kid gloves.
At length, he discovered them at the bottom of the bed itself,
flattened out and quite warm. He gave a last glance in the glass, went
and hid the key in the place agreed upon, right at the end of the
passage, underneath an old sideboard left behind by some lodger, and
led the way downstairs, accompanied by Octave. After passing the
Josserands’ door, on the grand staircase, he recovered all his
assurance, with his overcoat buttoned up to the neck to hide his dress
clothes and white tie.
“Good-bye, my dear fellow,” said he raising his voice. “I felt anxious,
so I just looked in to hear how the ladies were. They passed a very
good night. Good-bye.”
Octave watched him with a smile as he went downstairs. Then, as it was
almost lunch time, he decided to return the key of the loft later on.
During lunch, at the Campardons’, he particularly watched Lisa, who
waited at table. She had her usual clean and agreeable look; but, in
his mind, he could still hear her defiling her lips with the most
abominable words. His knowledge of women had not deceived him with
respect to that girl with the flat chest. Madame Campardon continued to
be enchanted with her, surprised that she did not steal anything, which
was a fact, for her vice was of a different kind. Moreover, the girl
seemed very kind to Angèle, and the mother entirely trusted her.
It so happened, that on that day Angèle disappeared when the dessert
was placed on the table, and she could be heard laughing in the
kitchen. Octave ventured to make an observation.
“You are perhaps wrong, to let her be so free with the servants.”
“Oh! there is not much harm in it,” replied Madame Campardon, in her
languid way. “Victoire saw my husband born, and I am so sure of Lisa.
Besides, how can I help it? the child gives me a headache. I should go
crazy, if I heard her jumping about me all day.”
The architect gravely chewed the end of his cigar.
“It is I,” said he, “who make Angèle pass two hours in the kitchen,
every afternoon. I wish her to become a good housewife. It teaches her
a great deal. She never goes out, my dear fellow, she is continually
under our sheltering wing. You will see what a jewel we shall make of
her.”
Octave said no more. On certain days, Campardon appeared to him to be
very stupid; and as the architect pressed him to go and hear a great
preacher at Saint-Roch, he refused, obstinately persisting in remaining
indoors. After telling Madame Campardon that he would not dine with
them that evening, he was returning to his room, when he felt the key
of the loft in his pocket. He preferred to go down and return it at
once. But on the landing an unexpected sight attracted his attention.
The door of the room let to the highly distinguished gentleman, whose
name was never mentioned, happened to be open; and this was quite an
event, for it was invariably shut, as though barred by the silence of
the tomb. His surprise increased: he was looking for the gentleman’s
work-table, and in its stead had discovered the corner of a big
bedstead, when he beheld a slim lady dressed in black, her face hidden
behind a thick veil, come out of the room, whilst the door closed
noiselessly behind her.
Then, his curiosity being roused, he followed the lady downstairs, to
find out if she were pretty. But she hastened along with an anxious
nimbleness, scarcely touching the Wilton carpet with her tiny boots,
and leaving no trace in the house, save a faint odour of verbena. As he
reached the vestibule, she disappeared, and he only beheld Monsieur
Gourd standing under the porch, cap in hand and bowing very low to her.
When the young man had returned the doorkeeper his key, he tried to
make him talk.
“She looks very lady-like,” said he. “Who is she?”
“A lady,” answered Monsieur Gourd.
And he would add nothing further. But he was more communicative
regarding the gentleman on the third floor. Oh! a man belonging to the
very best society, who had taken that room to come and work there
quietly, one night a week.
“Ah! he works!” interrupted Octave. “What at, pray!”
“He was kind enough to ask me to keep his room tidy for him,” continued
Monsieur Gourd, without appearing to have heard the question. “And, you
know, he pays money down. Ah! sir, when one waits on people, one soon
knows whether they are decent He is everything that is most
respectable: it is easily seen by his clothes.”
He was obliged to jump on one side, and Octave himself had to enter the
doorkeepers’ room for a moment, in order to let the carriage of the
second floor people, who were going to the Bois, pass. The horses pawed
the ground, held back by the coachman the reins high; and, when the big
closed landau rolled under the vaulted roof, one beheld through the
windows two handsome children, whose smiling faces almost hid the vague
profiles of the father and mother. Monsieur Gourd drew himself up,
polite, but cold.
“They don’t make much noise in the house,” observed Octave.
“No one makes any noise,” said the doorkeeper, curtly.
“Eaeh one lives as he thinks best, that’s all. There are people who
know how to live, and there are people who don’t know how to live.”
The second floor tenants were judged severely, because they associated
with no one. They appeared to be well off, however; but the husband
wrote books, and Monsieur Gourd mistrusted him, curling his lip with
contempt; more especially as no knew what the family was up to in
there, with its air of requiring nobody, and being always perfectly
happy. It did not seem to him natural.
Octave was opening the vestibule door, when Valérie returned. He drew
politely on one side, to allow her to pass before him.
“Are you quite well, madame?”
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
She was out of breath; and as she went upstairs he looked at her muddy
boots, thinking of that lunch, with her head down and her feet in the
air, which the servants had spoken of. She had no doubt walked home,
not having been able to find a cab. A hot unsavoury odour came from her
damp skirts. Fatigue, a placid weariness of all her flesh, made her at
times, in spite of herself, place her hand on the balustrade.
“What a disagreeable day, is it not, madame?”
“Frightful, sir. And, with that, the atmosphere is very close.”
She had reached the first-floor landing, and they bowed to each other.
But, with a glance, he had seen her haggard face, her eyelids heavy
with sleep, her unkempt hair beneath the bonnet tied on in haste; and
as he continued on his way upstairs, he reflected, annoyed and angry.
Then, why not with him? He was neither more stupid nor uglier than the
others.
When before Madame Juzeur’s door, on the third floor, his promise of
the evening before recurred to him. He felt curious about that little
woman, so discreet and with eyes like periwinkles. He rang. It was
Madame Juzeur herself who answered the door.
“Ah! dear sir, how kind of you! Pray walk in.”
There was a softness about the lodging which smelt a bit stuffy:
carpets and hangings everywhere, seats as yielding as down, with the
warm unruffled atmosphere of a chest padded with old rainbow coloured
satin. In the drawing-room, to which the double curtains imparted the
peacefulness of a church, Octave was invited to seat himself on a broad
and very low sofa.
“Here is the lace,” resumed Madame Juzeur, reappearing with a
sandal-wood box full of finery. “I am going to make a present of it to
some one, and I am curious to know its value.”
It was a piece of very fine old Brussels. Octave examined it carefully,
and ended by valuing it at three hundred francs. Then, without waiting
further, as their hands were both handling the lace, he bent forward
and kissed her fingers, fingers as delicate as a little girl’s.
“Oh! Monsieur Octave, at my age! you cannot think what you are doing!”
murmured Madame Juzeur, prettily, without getting angry.
She was thirty-two, and pretended she was quite old. And she made her
usual allusion to her misfortunes; good heavens! yes, after ten days of
married bliss, the cruel man had gone off one morning and had not
returned, nobody had ever discovered why.
“You can understand,” continued she, gazing up at the ceiling, “that
all is over for the woman who has gone through this.”
Octave had kept hold of her little warm hand which seemed to mould
itself to his, and he continued kissing it lightly, on the fingers. She
turned her eyes towards him, and gazed upon him with a vague and tender
look; then, in a maternal way, she uttered this single word:
“Child!”
Thinking himself encouraged, he wished to take her round the waist, and
draw her on to the sofa; but she freed herself without any violence,
and slipped from his arms, laughing, and with an air of thinking that
he was merely playing.
“No, leave me alone, do not touch me, if you wish that we should remain
good friends.”
“Then, no?” asked he in a low voice.
“What, no? What do you mean? Oh! my hand, as much as you like!”
He had again taken hold of her hand. But, this time, he opened it,
kissing it on the palm; and, her eyes half closed, treating the little
game as a joke, she opened her fingers like a cat spreads out its claws
to be tickled inside its paw. She did not let him go farther than the
wrist. The first day, a sacred line was drawn there, where harm began.
“The priest is coming upstairs,” Louise suddenly entered and said, on
returning from some errand.
The orphan had the yellow complexion, and the squashed features of
girls forgotten on doorsteps. She burst into an idiotic laugh on
beholding the gentleman eating, as she thought, out of her mistress’s
hand. But at a glance from the latter, she hastened away.
“I greatly fear I shall never be able to do anything with her,” resumed
Madame Juzeur. “However, it is only right to try and put one of those
poor souls into the straight path. Come this way, if you please,
Monsieur Mouret.”
She conducted him to the dining-room, so as to leave the drawing-room
to the priest, whom Louise ushered in. She invited Octave to come again
and have a chat. It would be a little company for her; she was always
so sad and so lonely! Happily, religion consoled her.
That evening, towards five o’clock, Octave experienced a real relief in
making himself comfortable at the Pichons’ whilst waiting for dinner.
The house bewildered him somewhat; after having allowed himself to be
impressed with a provincial’s respect, in the face of the rich
solemnity of the staircase, he was gliding to an exaggerated contempt
for what he thought he could guess took place behind the high mahogany
doors. He was quite at sea; it seemed to him now that those
middle-class women, whose virtue had frozen him at first, should yield
at a sign; and, when one of them resisted, he was filled with surprise
and rancour.
Marie blushed with joy on seeing him place the pile of books which he
had fetched for her in the morning on the sideboard. She kept saying,
“How nice of you, Monsieur Octave! Oh! thank you, thank you! And how
kind to come early! Will you have a glass of sugar and water with some
cognac? It assists the appetite.”
He accepted, just to please her. Everything appeared pleasant to him,
even Pichon and the Vuillaumes, who conversed round the table, slowly
mumbling over again their usual Sunday conversation. Marie, now and
again, ran to the kitchen, where she was cooking a boned shoulder of
mutton; and he dared in a chaffing way to follow her, seizing hold of
her before the stove, and kissing her on the nape of her neck. She,
without a cry and without a start, turned round and kissed him in her
turn on the mouth, with lips which were always cold. This coolness
seemed delicious to the young man.
“Well, and your new Minister?” asked he of Pichon, on returning into
the room.
But the clerk gave a start. Ah! there was going to be a new Minister of
Public Instruction! He knew nothing of it; no one ever troubled about
that at the Ministry.
“The weather is so bad!” he abruptly remarked. “It is quite impossible
to keep one’s trousers clean!”
Madame Vuillaume talked of a girl at Batignolles who had gone to the
bad.
“You will scarcely believe me, sir,” said she. “She had been
exceedingly well brought up; but she felt so bored at her parents’,
that she had twice tried to throw herself into the street. It is
incredible!”
“They should have put bars on the windows,” said Monsieur Vuillaume
simply.
The dinner was delightful. This kind of conversation lasted all the
time around the modest board lighted by a little lamp. Pichon and
Monsieur Vuillaume, having got on to the staff of the Ministry, did
nothing but talk of head-clerks and second head-clerks; the
father-in-law obstinately alluded to those of his time, then
recollected that they were dead; whilst, on his side, the son-in-law
continued to speak of the new ones, in the midst of an inextricable
confusion of names. The two men, however, as well as Madame Vuillaume,
agreed on one point: fat Chavignat, he who had such an ugly wife, had
gone in for a great deal too many children. It was absurd for a man of
his position. And Octave smiled, feeling happy and at his ease; he had
not spent such an agreeable evening for a long time; he even ended by
blaming Chavignat with conviction. Marie quieted him with her clear,
innocent look, devoid of emotion at seeing him seated beside her
husband, helping them both according to their tastes, with her rather
tired air of passive obedience.
Punctually at ten o’clock, the Vuillaumes rose to take their departure.
Pichon put on his hat. Every Sunday he saw them to the omnibus. Out of
deference, he had got into the habit about the time of his marriage,
and the Vuillaumes would have been deeply offended had he now tried to
give it up. All three made for the Rue de Richelieu, then walked slowly
up it, searching with a glance the Batignolles omnibuses which kept
passing full, so that Pichon often went thus as far as Montmartre; for
he would never have thought of leaving his father and mother-in-law
before seeing them into an omnibus. As they could not walk fast, it
took him close upon two hours to go there and back.
They exchanged some friendly handshakes on the landing. Octave, on
returning to the room with Marie, said quietly, “It rains; Jules will
not get back before midnight.”
And, as Lilitte had been put to bed early, he at once took Marie on his
knees, and drank the rest of the coffee with her out of the same cup,
like a husband glad at having got rid of his guests and at finding
himself again in the quiet of his home, excited by a little family
gathering, and able to kiss his wife at his case, with the doors
closed. A pleasant warmth filled the narrow room, where some frosted
eggs had left an odour of vanilla. He was gently kissing the young
woman under the chin, when some one knocked. Marie did not even give a
start of affright. It was young Josserand, he who was a bit cracked.
Whenever he could escape from the apartment opposite, he would come in
this way to chat with her, attracted by her gentleness; and they both
got on well together, remaining ten minutes at a time without speaking,
exchanging at distant intervals phrases which had no connection with
each other. Octave, very much put out, remained silent.
“They’ve some people there,” stuttered Saturnin. “I don’t care a hang
for their not letting me dine with them! So I took the lock off and
bolted. It serves them right.”
“They will be anxious; you ought to go back,” said Marie, who noticed
Octave’s impatience.
But the idiot laughed with delight. Then, with his embarrassed speech,
he related what took place in his home. He seemed to come each time for
the sake of thus relieving his memory.
“Papa worked all night again. Mamma slapped Berthe. I say, when people
get married, does it hurt?”
And, as Marie did not reply, becoming excited, he continued: “I won’t
go to the country; I won’t. If they only touch her, I’ll strangle them;
it’s easy to do in the night, when they’re asleep. The palm of her hand
is as soft as note-paper. But, you know, the other is a beast of a
girl—”
He recommenced, got more muddled still, and did not succeed in
expressing what he had come to say. Marie, at length, made him return
to his parents, without his even having noticed Octave’s presence.
Then the latter, through fear of being again disturbed, wanted to take
the young woman into his own room. But she refused, her cheeks suddenly
becoming scarlet He, not understanding this bashfulness, said that they
would be sure to hear Jules coming up, and that she would have time to
slip into her room; and as he drew her along, she became quite angry,
with the indignation of a woman to whom violence is being offered.
“No, not in your room, never! It would be too wrong. Let us remain
here.”
And she ran to the farthest end of her room. Octave was still on the
landing, surprised at this unexpected resistance, when the sounds of a
violent altercation ascended from the courtyard. Really, everything
seemed to be against him, he would have done better to have gone off to
bed. Such an uproar was so unusual at that late hour, that he ended by
opening a window, to hear what was going on. Monsieur Gourd, down
below, was shouting out:
“I tell you, you shall not pass! The landlord has been sent for. He
will come and turn you out himself.”
“What! turn me out!” replied a thick voice. “Don’t I pay my rent? Pass,
Amélie, and if the gentleman touches you, we’ll have something to laugh
at!”
It was the workman from upstairs, who had returned with the woman sent
away in the morning. Octave leant out; but, in the black hole of the
courtyard, he could only distinguish some big moving shadows in a ray
of gaslight from the vestibule.
“Monsieur Vabre! Monsieur Vabre!” called the doorkeeper in urgent
tones, as the carpenter shoved him aside. “Quick, quick, she is coming
in!”
In spite of her poor legs, Madame Gourd had gone to fetch the landlord,
who was just then at work on his great task. He was coming down. Octave
could hear him furiously repeating:
“It is scandalous! it is disgraceful! I will never allow such a thing
in my house!”
And, addressing the workman, whom his presence seemed at first to
intimidate:
“Send that woman away, at once, at once. You hear me! we will have no
women brought to the house.”
“But she’s my wife!” replied the workman in a scared way.
“She is out at service, she comes once a month, when her people allow
her to. What a fuss! It isn’t you who’ll prevent me sleeping with my
wife, I suppose!”
At these words, the doorkeeper and the landlord quite lost their heads.
“I give you notice to quit,” stuttered Monsieur Vabre. “And, in the
meantime, I forbid you to take my premises for what they are not.
Gourd, turn that creature out on to the pavement. Yes, sir, I don’t
like bad jokes. When a person is married, he should say so. Hold your
tongue, do not give me any more of your rudeness!”
The carpenter, who was a jolly fellow, and who had no doubt had a drop
too much wine, ended by bursting out laughing.
“It’s damned funny all the same. However, as the gentleman objects,
you’d better return home, Amélie. We’ll wait till some other time. By
Jove! I accept your notice with pleasure! I wouldn’t stop in such a
hole on any account! There are some pretty goings-on in it, one comes
across some rare filth. You won’t have women brought here, but you
tolerate, on every floor, well-dressed strumpets who lead fine lives
behind the doors! You set of muffs! you swells!”
Amélie had gone off so as not to cause her old man any more annoyance;
and he, jolly, and without anger, continued his chaff. During this
time, Monsieur Gourd protected Monsieur Vabre’s retreat, permitting
himself to make a few remarks out loud. What a dirty set the lower
classes were! One workman in a house was sufficient to pollute it.
Octave closed the window. But, just as he was returning to Marie, an
individual who was lightly gliding along the passage, knocked up
against him.
“What! it’s you again!” said he recognising Trublot.
The latter remained a second taken aback. Then, he wished to explain
his presence.
“Yes, it is I. I dined at the Josserands’, and I’m going—”
Octave felt disgusted.
“What, with that slut Adèle? You declared it was not so.”
Then, Trublot assumed all his swagger, saying with an air of intense
satisfaction:
“I assure you, my dear fellow, it’s awfully fine. She has such a skin,
you’ve no idea what a skin!”
Then he railed against the workman, who had almost been the cause of
his being caught on the servants’ staircase, and all his dirty fuss
about women. He had been obliged to come round by the grand staircase.
And, as he made off, he added:
“Remember, it is next Thursday that I am going to take you to see
Duveyrier’s mistress. We will dine together.”
The house resumed it’s peacefulness, lapsing into that religious
silence which seemed to issue from its chaste alcoves. Octave had
rejoined Marie in the inner chamber at the side of the conjugal couch,
where she was arranging the pillows. Upstairs, the chair being littered
with the washhand basin and an old pair of shoes, Trublot sat down on
Adèle’s narrow bed, and waited in his dress clothes and his white tie.
When he recognised Julie’s step as she came up to bed, he held his
breath, having a constant dread of women’s quarrels. At length Adèle
appeared. She was in a temper, and went for him at once.
“I say, you! you might treat me a bit better, when I wait at table!”
“How, treat you better?”
“Why of course you don’t even look at me, you never say if you please,
when you ask for bread. For instance, this evening when I handed round
the veal, you had a way of disowning me. I’ve had enough of it, look
you! All the house badgers me with its nonsense. It’s too much, if
you’re going to join the others!”
Whilst this was taking place, the workman in the next room, not yet
sobered, talked to himself in so loud a voice that every one on that
landing could hear him.
“Well! it’s funny all the same, that a fellow can’t sleep with his
wife! No woman allowed in the house, you fussy old idiot! Just go now
and poke your nose into all the rooms, and see what you’ll see?”