She didn’t know how to manage them.
It was true that I shouldn’t have the least idea how to manage them either, in spite of all the magnificent arguments I put up.
A vague giddiness was coming over me, from spinning round and, above all, from watching others spin round.
Nearly all the ‘dress-suits’ had left, but Dutertre was whirling round with tremendous enthusiasm, dancing with all the girls he found attractive or who were merely very young.
He swept them off their feet, turned their heads, crushed them nearly to death and left them dazed, but highly flattered.
After midnight, the hall became, from minute to minute, a homelier affair; now that the ‘foreigners’ had gone, everyone was among their own friends again, the public of Trouillard’s little dancing and drinking place on holidays – only one had more room to move in this big, gaily-decorated room and the chandelier gave a better light than the three oil-lamps of the cabaret.
The presence of Doctor Dutertre did not make the boys feel shy, very much the reverse; already Monmond had stopped restraining his feet from sliding over the parquet floor. They flew, those feet, they sprang up above people’s heads or shot wildly apart in prodigious ‘splits’.
The girls admired him and giggled into their handkerchiefs scented with cheap eau-de-Cologne.
‘My dear, isn’t he a scream? There’s nobody like him!’
All of a sudden, this enthusiastic dancer shot past, as brutally as a cyclone, carrying his partner like a parcel, for he had betted a ‘boocket of white wine’, payable at the buffet installed in the courtyard, that he would ‘do’ the whole length of the room in six steps of a galop; everyone had gathered round to admire him.
Monmond won his bet, but his partner – Fifine Baille, a little slut who brought milk to the town to sell, and something else too, for anyone else who wanted it – left him in a furious temper and cursed him:
‘You great clumsy b—!
You might easy have gone and split me dress!
You ask me to dance again, and I’ll clout you over the ear!’
The audience was convulsed with laughter and the boys took advantage of their being jammed together to pinch, tickle and stroke whatever was within reach of their hands.
It was becoming altogether too gay; I would soon go home to bed.
The lanky Anais, who had at last vanquished a lingering ‘dress-suit’, was promenading about the room with him, fanning herself, and giving high, warbling laughs, rapturous at seeing the ball warming up and the boys getting excited; there would be at least one of them who would kiss her on the neck, or somewhere!
Where on earth had Dutertre got to?
Mademoiselle had ended by driving her little Aimee into a corner and was making a jealous scene; after leaving her handsome District Superintendent, she had once more become tyrannous and tender; the other was listening, shaking her shoulders, her eyes far away and her brow obstinate.
As to Luce, she was dancing desperately – ‘I’m not missing one’ – passing from arm to arm without getting breathless; the boys did not think her pretty but, once they had asked her to dance, they came back again; she felt so supple and small, melting into their arms, light as a snowflake.
Mademoiselle Sergent had disappeared now, vexed perhaps by seeing her favourite waltzing, in spite of her objurgations, with a tall fair counter-jumper who was squeezing her tight and brushing her with his moustache and his lips without her objecting in the least.
It was one o’clock, I wasn’t enjoying myself a bit any more and I was going home to bed.
During the break in a polka (here, they dance the polka in two parts, between which the couples promenade arm in arm round the room in Indian file), I stopped Luce as she was passing and forced her to sit down for a minute.
‘Aren’t you getting tired of all this business?’
‘Be quiet!
I could dance for a whole week on end!
I can’t feel my legs …’
‘So you are thoroughly enjoying yourself?’
‘I’ve no idea!
I’m not thinking about anything at all, my head’s in a whirl, it’s simply marvellous!
Still I like it awfully when they hold me tight … When they hold me tight and we’re doing a fast waltz, it makes me want to scream!’
What was that we suddenly heard?
The trampling of feet, the shrill cries of a woman who was being hit, screamed insults … Were the boys fighting among themselves?
But no, the noise definitely came from upstairs!
The screams suddenly became so shrill that the couples stopped their promenade; everyone became anxious and one good soul, the gallant and absurd Antonin Rabastens, rushed to the door of the inside staircase and opened it … the tumult grew louder and I was thunderstruck to recognize the voice of Mademoiselle Sergent’s mother, that harsh old peasant-woman’s voice, yelling quite appalling things.
Everyone listened, nailed to the spot, in absolute silence; their eyes fixed on that little doorway from which so much noise was coming.
‘Ah! you bitch of a girl! It serves you right!
Yes, I’ve broken my broom-handle on his back, that swine of a doctor of yours!
Yes, I’ve given him a good whack on the bum all right!
Ah, I’ve smelt a rat a good long time now!
No, no, my beauty, I’m not going to hold my tongue, I don’t care a f—, I don’t for the fine folk at the ball!
Let ’em hear, they’ll hear a nice thing to be sure!
Tomorrow morning, no, not tomorrow – this very minute – I’m packing my bag. I won’t sleep in such a house, I won’t!
You dirty little beast, you took advantage of him being drunk and incapable (sic) to get him into bed with you, that fellow that’ll grub in any muckheap!
So that’s why you got a rise in pay, you bitch on heat, you!
If I’d made you milk the cows like I did, you’d never have come to this!
But you’ll suffer for it, I’ll shout it everywhere, I’d like to see them point their fingers at you in the streets, I’d like to see you a laughingstock!
He can’t do nothing to me, your dirty dog of a District Superintendent, however much him and the Min’ster’s in each other’s pockets; I gave him such a whack that he ran away from me.
He’s frightened of me, he is! Comes and does his filthy business here, in a room where I make the bed with my own hands every morning – and doesn’t even lock the door!
Runs off he does, half in his shirt and nothing on his feet, so that his dirty boots are still there!