"Oh! yes."
"Of course; that is how things are."
Louise was no longer exploring her nose; her two hands, with their close-clipped nails, lay flat upon her thighs.
Whispering was going on around us. Laughs, quarrels, and lamentations prevented the others from hearing our conversation.
"But how did you happen to come to Paris?" I asked, after a silence.
"Last year," answered Louise, "there was a lady from Paris at Saint-Michel-en-Greve, who was taking the sea-baths with her children.
She had discharged her domestic for stealing, and I offered to go to work for her.
And so she took me with her to Paris, to take care of her father, an old invalid whose legs were paralyzed."
"And you did not stay in your place?
In Paris it is not the same thing."
"No," she exclaimed, energetically.
"I could have remained; it was not that. But I was not treated right."
Her dull eyes lighted up strangely.
Something like a gleam of pride passed over them.
And her body straightened up, and became almost transfigured.
"I was not treated right," she repeated.
"The old man made advances to me."
For a moment I was stunned by this revelation.
Was it possible?
Then a desire, even that of a low and nasty old man, had been felt for this bundle of shapeless flesh, this monstrous irony of nature?
A kiss had wished to place itself upon these decaying teeth and mingle with this rotten breath?
Ah! what filthy things men are!
What a frightful madness, then, is love! I looked at Louise.
But the flame had gone out of her eyes. Once more her pupils looked like dead gray spots.
"That was some time ago?" I asked.
"Three months."
"And since then you have found no place?"
"Nobody wants me. I do not know why. When I enter the bureau, all the ladies cry out at the sight of me:
'No, no; I don't want her.'
There must surely be some spell over me. For, you know, I am not ugly; I am very strong; I know my work; and my will is good. If I am too small, it is not my fault. Surely, some one has thrown a spell over me."
"How do you live?"
"In a lodging-house. I do all the chambers, and I mend the linen.
They give me a mattress in the garret, and a meal in the morning."
There were some, then, that were more unfortunate than myself!
This egoistic thought brought back the pity that had vanished from my heart. "Listen, my little Louise," I said, in a voice which I tried to make as tender and convincing as possible. "Places in Paris are very hard. One has to know many things, and the masters are more exacting than elsewhere. I am much afraid for you. If I were you, I would go home again." But Louise became frightened. "No, no," she exclaimed, "never! I do not want to go home. They would say that I had not succeeded, that nobody wanted me; they would laugh at me too much. No, no, it is impossible; I would rather die!"
Just then the door of the ante-room opened.
The shrill voice of Mme. Paulhat-Durand called:
"Mademoiselle Louise Randon!"
"Are they calling me?" asked Louise, frightened and trembling.
"Why, yes, it is you. Go quickly, and try to succeed this time." She arose, gave me a dig in the ribs with her outstretched elbows, stepped on my feet, ran against the table, and, rolling along on her too short legs, disappeared, followed by hoots.
I mounted my stool, and pushed open the casement-window, to watch the scene that was about to take place. Never did Mme. Paulhat-Durand's salon seem to me gloomier; yet God knows whether it had frozen my soul, every time I had entered it.
Oh! that furniture upholstered in blue rep, turned yellow by wear; that huge book of record spread like the split carcass of a beast, on the table, also covered with blue rep spotted with ink. And that desk, where M. Louis's elbows had left bright and shining spots on the dark wood. And the sideboard at the rear, upon which stood foreign glassware, and table-ware handed down from ancestors. And on the mantel, between two lamps which had lost their bronze, between photographs that had lost their color, that tiresome clock, whose enervating tic-tac made the hours longer. And that dome-shaped cage in which two homesick canaries swelled their damaged plumage. And that mahogany case of pigeon-holes, scratched by greedy nails.
But I had not taken my post of observation for the purpose of taking an inventory of this room, which I knew, alas! too well,—this lugubrious interior, so tragic, in spite of its bourgeois obscurity, that many times my maddened imagination transformed it into a gloomy butcher-shop for the sale of human meat. No; I wanted to see Louise Randon, in the clutches of the slave-traders.
There she was, near the window, in a false light, standing motionless, with hanging arms.
A hard shadow, like a thick veil, added confusion to the ugliness of her face, and made still more of a heap of the short and massive deformity of her body. A hard light illuminated the lower locks of her hair, enhanced the shapelessness of her arms and breast, and lost itself in the dark folds of her deplorable skirt. An old lady was examining her.
She was sitting in a chair with her back toward me,—a hostile back, a ferocious neck.
Of this old lady I saw nothing but her black cap, with its ridiculous plumes, her black cape, whose lining turned up at the bottom in grey fur, and her black gown, which made rings upon the carpet. I saw especially, lying upon one of her knees, her hand gloved with black floss-silk, a knotty and gouty hand that moved slowly about, the fingers stretching out and drawing back, clutching the material of her dress, as talons fasten upon living prey. Standing near the table, very erect and dignified, Mme. Paulhat-Durand was waiting.
It seems a small matter, does it not? the meeting of these three commonplace beings, in this commonplace setting.
In this very ordinary fact there was nothing to cause one to stop, nothing to move one. Nevertheless it seemed to me an enormous drama, these three persons, silently gazing at one another. I felt that I was witnessing a social tragedy, terrible, agonizing, worse than a murder!
My throat was dry. My heart beat violently.