Then I went to my place and took a short nap, as I’d drunk a glass of wine too many.
When I woke I smoked a cigarette before getting off my bed.
I was a bit late and had to run for the streetcar.
The office was stifling, and I was kept hard at it all the afternoon.
So it came as a relief when we closed down and I was strolling slowly along the wharves in the coolness.
The sky was green, and it was pleasant to be out-of-doors after the stuffy office.
However, I went straight home, as I had to put some potatoes on to boil.
The hall was dark and, when I was starting up the stairs, I almost bumped into old Salamano, who lived on the same floor as I.
As usual, he had his dog with him.
For eight years the two had been inseparable.
Salamano’s spaniel is an ugly brute, afflicted with some skin disease—mange, I suspect; anyhow, it has lost all its hair and its body is covered with brown scabs.
Perhaps through living in one small room, cooped up with his dog, Salamano has come to resemble it.
His towy hair has gone very thin, and he has reddish blotches on his face.
And the dog has developed something of its master’s queer hunched-up gait; it always has its muzzle stretched far forward and its nose to the ground.
But, oddly enough, though so much alike, they detest each other.
Twice a day, at eleven and six, the old fellow takes his dog for a walk, and for eight years that walk has never varied.
You can see them in the rue de Lyon, the dog pulling his master along as hard as he can, till finally the old chap misses a step and nearly falls.
Then he beats his dog and calls it names.
The dog cowers and lags behind, and it’s his master’s turn to drag him along.
Presently the dog forgets, starts tugging at the leash again, gets another hiding and more abuse.
Then they halt on the pavement, the pair of them, and glare at each other; the dog with terror and the man with hatred in his eyes.
Every time they’re out, this happens.
When the dog wants to stop at a lamppost, the old boy won’t let him, and drags him on, and the wretched spaniel leaves behind him a trail of little drops.
But, if he does it in the room, it means another hiding.
It’s been going on like this for eight years, and Celeste always says it’s a “crying shame,” and something should be done about it; but really one can’t be sure.
When I met him in the hall, Salamano was bawling at his dog, calling him a bastard, a lousy mongrel, and so forth, and the dog was whining.
I said,
“Good evening,” but the old fellow took no notice and went on cursing.
So I thought I’d ask him what the dog had done.
Again, he didn’t answer, but went on shouting,
“You bloody cur!” and the rest of it.
I couldn’t see very clearly, but he seemed to be fixing something on the dog’s collar.
I raised my voice a little.
Without looking round, he mumbled in a sort of suppressed fury:
“He’s always in the way, blast him!”
Then he started up the stairs, but the dog tried to resist and flattened itself out on the floor, so he had to haul it up on the leash, step by step.
Just then another man who lives on my floor came in from the street.
The general idea hereabouts is that he’s a pimp.
But if you ask him what his job is, he says he’s a warehouseman.
One thing’s sure: he isn’t popular in our street.
Still, he often has a word for me, and drops in sometimes for a short talk in my room, because I listen to him. As a matter of fact, I find what he says quite interesting.
So, really I’ve no reason for freezing him off.
His name is Sintes; Raymond Sintes.
He’s short and thick-set, has a nose like a boxer’s, and always dresses very sprucely.
He, too, once said to me, referring to Salamano, that it was “a damned shame,” and asked me if I wasn’t disgusted by the way the old man served his dog.
I answered: “No.”
We went up the stairs together, Sintes and I, and when I was turning in at my door, he said:
“Look here! How about having some grub with me? I’ve a black pudding and some wine.”
It struck me that this would save my having to cook my dinner, so I said, “Thanks very much.”
He, too, has only one room, and a little kitchen without a window.