On the following day, he took her to a furnished room, commonplace but
cheerful, which he had selected on the first floor of a house facing the
square, near the Bibliothèque Nationale. In the centre of the square
stood the basin of a fountain, supported by lusty nymphs. The paths,
bordered with laurel and spindlewood, were deserted, and from this
little-frequented spot one heard the vast and reassuring hum of the
city. The rehearsal had finished very late. When they entered the room
the night, already slower to arrive in this season of melting snow, was
beginning to cast its gloom over the hangings. The large mirrors of the
wardrobe and overmantel were filling with vague lights and shadows. She
took off her fur coat, went to look out of the window between the
curtains and said:
"Robert, the steps are wet."
He answered that there was no flight of steps, only the pavement and the
road, and then another pavement and the railings of the square.
"You are a Parisian, you know this square well. In the centre, among the
trees, there is a monumental fountain, with enormous women whose breasts
are not as pretty as yours."
In his impatience he helped her to undo her cloth frock; but he could
not find the hooks, and scratched himself with the pins.
"I am clumsy," he said.
She retorted laughingly:
"You are certainly not so clever as Madame Michon! It's not so much
clumsiness, but you are afraid of getting pricked. Men are a cowardly
race. As for women, they have to accustom themselves to suffer. It's
true: to be a woman is to be nearly always ailing."
He did not notice that she was pale, with dark rings round her eyes. He
desired her so ardently; he no longer saw her.
"They are very sensitive to pain," he said, "but they are also very
sensitive to pleasure. Do you know Claude Bernard?"
"No."
"He was a great scientist. He said that he didn't hesitate to recognize
woman's supremacy in the domain of physical and moral sensibility."
Nantueil; unhooking her stays, replied:
"If he meant by that that all women are sensitive, he was indeed an old
greenhorn. He ought to have seen Fagette; he would soon have discovered
whether it was easy to get anything out of her in the domain--how did he
express it?--of physical and moral sensibility."
And she added with gentle pride:
"Don't you make any mistake, Robert, there's not such a heap of women
like myself."
As he was drawing her into his arms, she released herself.
"You are hindering me."
Sitting down and doubling herself up in order to undo her boots, she
continued.
"Do you know, Dr. Socrates told me the other day that he had seen an
apparition. He saw a donkey-boy who had murdered a little girl. I dreamt
of the story last night, only in my dream I could not make out whether
the donkey-boy was a man or a woman. What a mix-up the dream was!
Talking of Dr. Socrates, just guess whose lover he is--why, the lady who
keeps the circulating library in the Rue Mazarine. She is no longer very
young, but she is very intelligent. Do you think he is faithful to her?
I'll take off my stockings, it's more becoming."
And she went on to tell him a story of the theatre:
"I really don't think I shall remain at the Odéon much longer."
"Why?"
"You'll see. Pradel said to me to-day, before rehearsal 'My dear little
Nanteuil, there has never been anything between us. It is ridiculous.'
He was extremely decorous, but he gave me to understand that we were in
a false position with regard to one another, which could not go on
indefinitely. You must know that Pradel has established a rule. Formerly
he used to pick and choose among his _pensionnaires_. He had favourites,
and that caused an outcry. Nowadays, for the better administration of
the theatre, he takes them all, even those he has no liking for, even
those who are distasteful to him. There are no more favourites.
Everything goes splendidly. Ah, he's a director all through, is Pradel!"
As Robert, in the bed, listened in silence, she went up to him and shook
him:
"Then it's all the same to you if I carry on with Pradel?"
"No, my dear, it would not be all the same to me. But nothing I might
say would prevent it."
Bending over him, she caressed him ardently, pretending to threaten and
to punish him; and she cried:
"Then you don't really love me, that you are not jealous. I insist that
you shall be jealous."
Then, suddenly, she moved away from him, and hitching over her left
shoulder her chemise, which had slipped down under her right breast, she
loitered in front of the dressing-table and inquired uneasily:
"Robert, you have not brought anything here from the other room?"
"Nothing."
Thereupon, softly, timidly, she slipped into the bed. But hardly had she
lain down when she raised herself from the pillow on her elbow, and,
craning her neck, listened with parted lips. It seemed to her that she
could hear slight sounds of footsteps along the gravel path which she
had heard in the house in the Boulevard de Villiers. She ran to the
window; she saw the Judas tree, the lawn, the garden gate. Knowing what
she was yet to see, she sought to hide her face in her hands, but she
could not raise her arms, and Chevalier's face rose up before her.