“Sir, listen a moment — “
The man gave her a side glance and then went off, whistling all the louder.
Gervaise grew bolder, and, with her stomach empty, she became absorbed in this chase, fiercely rushing after her dinner, which was still running away.
She walked about for a long while, without thinking of the flight of time or of the direction she took.
Around her the dark, mute women went to and fro under the trees like wild beasts in a cage.
They stepped out of the shade like apparitions, and passed under the light of a gas lamp with their pale masks fully apparent; then they grew vague again as they went off into the darkness, with a white strip of petticoat swinging to and fro.
Men let themselves be stopped at times, talked jokingly, and then started off again laughing.
Others would quietly follow a woman to her room, discreetly, ten paces behind.
There was a deal of muttering, quarreling in an undertone and furious bargaining, which suddenly subsided into profound silence.
And as far as Gervaise went she saw these women standing like sentinels in the night.
They seemed to be placed along the whole length of the Boulevard.
As soon as she met one she saw another twenty paces further on, and the file stretched out unceasingly. Entire Paris was guarded.
She grew enraged on finding herself disdained, and changing her place, she now perambulated between the Chaussee de Clignancourt and the Grand Rue of La Chapelle. All were beggars.
“Sir, just listen.”
But the men passed by.
She started from the slaughter-houses, which stank of blood.
She glanced on her way at the old Hotel Boncoeur, now closed. She passed in front of the Lariboisiere Hospital, and mechanically counted the number of windows that were illuminated with a pale quiet glimmer, like that of night-lights at the bedside of some agonizing sufferers.
She crossed the railway bridge as the trains rushed by with a noisy rumble, rending the air in twain with their shrill whistling!
Ah! how sad everything seemed at night-time!
Then she turned on her heels again and filled her eyes with the sight of the same houses, doing this ten and twenty times without pausing, without resting for a minute on a bench.
No; no one wanted her.
Her shame seemed to be increased by this contempt.
She went down towards the hospital again, and then returned towards the slaughter-houses.
It was her last promenade — from the blood-stained courtyards, where animals were slaughtered, down to the pale hospital wards, where death stiffened the patients stretched between the sheets.
It was between these two establishments that she had passed her life.
“Sir, just listen.”
But suddenly she perceived her shadow on the ground.
When she approached a gas-lamp it gradually became less vague, till it stood out at last in full force — an enormous shadow it was, positively grotesque, so portly had she become.
Her stomach, breast and hips, all equally flabby jostled together as it were.
She walked with such a limp that the shadow bobbed almost topsy-turvy at every step she took; it looked like a real Punch!
Then as she left the street lamp behind her, the Punch grew taller, becoming in fact gigantic, filling the whole Boulevard, bobbing to and fro in such style that it seemed fated to smash its nose against the trees or the houses.
Mon Dieu! how frightful she was!
She had never realised her disfigurement so thoroughly.
And she could not help looking at her shadow; indeed, she waited for the gas-lamps, still watching the Punch as it bobbed about.
Ah! she had a pretty companion beside her!
What a figure!
It ought to attract the men at once!
And at the thought of her unsightliness, she lowered her voice, and only just dared to stammer behind the passers-by:
“Sir, just listen.”
It was now getting quite late.
Matters were growing bad in the neighborhood.
The eating-houses had closed and voices, gruff with drink, could be heard disputing in the wineshops.
Revelry was turning to quarreling and fisticuffs.
A big ragged chap roared out,
“I’ll knock yer to bits; just count yer bones.”
A large woman had quarreled with a fellow outside a dancing place, and was calling him “dirty blackguard” and “lousy bum,” whilst he on his side just muttered under his breath.
Drink seemed to have imparted a fierce desire to indulge in blows, and the passers-by, who were now less numerous, had pale contracted faces.
There was a battle at last; one drunken fellow came down on his back with all four limbs raised in the air, whilst his comrade, thinking he had done for him, ran off with his heavy shoes clattering over the pavement.
Groups of men sang dirty songs and then there would be long silences broken only by hiccoughs or the thud of a drunk falling down.
Gervaise still hobbled about, going up and down, with the idea of walking forever.