Octave Mirbeau Archive
Written: 1886.
Source: Text from RevoltLib.com.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Juliette was not long in wearying of this beautiful apartment where she had promised herself so much peace and happiness. Having arranged her wardrobes and put her knick-knacks in order, she did not know what to do next and was surprised at this discovery. The tapestry no longer excited her admiration, reading afforded her no distraction. She passed from one room to another, without knowing what to do, what to busy her mind with, yawning, stretching herself. She shut herself up in her room where she spent hours in dressing herself, in trying on new clothes in front of the looking glass, in turning the faucet of the bath tub, which occupation amused her for a while, in combing Spy and in making elaborate bows for him from the bands of her old hats.
Managing the house might have filled the void of her idle days, but I soon realized with chagrin that Juliette was not at all the housekeeper she had boasted she was. She was careless, had no taste, was preoccupied only with her linen underwear and her dog; everything else was of no importance to her, and things took their own course or rather went according to the wishes of the servants. Our renewed staff of domestics consisted of a cook, an old, sloppy woman, grasping and ill-tempered, whose cooking talents did not extend beyond tapioca pudding, hashed veal with white sauce and salad; a chamber maid, Celestine, impudent and depraved, who respected only people who spent large sums of money, and a housekeeper, Mother Sochard, who prayed incessantly and often used to get frightfully drunk in order to forget her troubles, as she said: her husband who beat her and took away her money and her daughter who was good for nothing.
The waste was enormous, our table very bad and the rest correspondingly so. Whenever we happened to have visitors, Juliette would order from Bignon the rarest and most elaborate dishes. I viewed with displeasure the uncommon intimacy, a sort of bond of friendship, which had sprung up between Juliette and Celestine. When dressing her mistress, the maid told her stories which the former enjoyed immensely; she disclosed improper secrets of the homes where she had served and advised Juliette in all matters. “At Mme. K’s they do it this way—at Mme. V’s they do it that way.” That they were “swell places” goes without saying. Juliette often went into the linen room where Celestine was sewing and stayed there for hours, seated on a heap of bed sheets, listening to the inexhaustible gossip of the servant-girl.... From time to time an argument would arise over some stolen thing or some neglected duty. Celestine would get excited, hurling the grossest insults, knocking the furniture, screaming in her squeaky voice:
“Well!... Many thanks to you!... This is some dirty place!... A goose like that has the nerve to accuse one!... Well look here, my pretty one, I am going to shake myself free from you and your boob over there who has the face of a dunce.”
Juliette would tell her to get out immediately, not wishing her even to stay out her week.
“Yes, yes! Pack up at once, you nasty girl ... right away!”
She would come to sulk in my presence, pale and trembling:
“Ah! my dear, that vile creature, that wretched woman!... And I who was so kind to her!...”
In the evening they would make up again, and amid laughter which resounded louder than ever, Celestine’s voice would bawl out:
“I should say the Countess was a rude slut!”
One day Juliette said to me:
“Your little wifie has nothing to put on. She is as naked as a new born child, the poor thing!”
And so there were new visits to the dressmaker’s, to the milliner’s, to the linen shop; and she again became gay, vivacious, affectionate. The shadow of boredom which had crossed her countenance disappeared.... In the midst of materials, laces, among plumes and gewgaws, her whole being expanded and shone forth. Her tender fingers experienced a physical delight in handling satin, in touching crepe, in stroking velvet, in losing themselves in the milky white waves of fine batiste. The smallest piece of silk, when she draped it into something, at once assumed the pretty appearance of a living thing; out of braid and lace trimmings she could draw the most exquisite harmonies. Although I was very much alarmed by these expensive whims, I could not refuse Juliette anything, and I abandoned myself to the joy of seeing her so happy, to the delight of seeing her so charming—her, whose beauty rendered all inanimate objects about her beautiful, her, who put the breath of gracious life into everything she touched!
For more than a month packages and strange cases were being delivered to us every evening.... Dresses followed dresses, hats followed cloaks, umbrellas and embroidered chemises; the most expensive linens accumulated in heaps and filled all the drawers, presses, wardrobes.
“You see, my dear,” Juliette explained to me, discerning amazement in my glance. “You see I did not have anything.... This is all I need. From now on, all I’ll have to do is to receive people.... Ah don’t be afraid!... I am very economical. See here, I have had a high body made in all my gowns for every day use on the street, and a décolleté to wear at the Opera! Just figure out how many dresses that will save me.... One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... dresses, my dear!... You see now!”
For the first appearance at the theater she put on a gown that was the sensation of the evening. As long as the tormenting affair lasted I was the most miserable man in the world.... I felt the covetous glances of the entire audience directed on Juliette, glances that devoured her, that disrobed her, glances that defile the woman one adores. I would have liked to hide Juliette deep in the loge and throw a thick dark woolen cloak on her shoulders, and with heart clawed by hatred I wished the theater had sunk into the ground through some sudden cataclysm, that by a sudden collapse of its ceiling and chandeliers it had crushed to a powder all these men, each of whom was stealing a little of Juliette’s chastity, a little of her love from me. She, on the other hand, triumphant, seemed to say: “I love you all, gentlemen, for thinking me beautiful. You are nice people.”
Scarcely did we enter our house when I drew Juliette toward me and for a long, long time held her pressed to my heart, repeating without end: “You love me, Juliette, don’t you?” but the heart of Juliette was no longer listening to me. Seeing that I was sad, noticing that from my eyelids tears were about to fall upon her cheek, she freed herself from my embrace and said somewhat angrily:
“What! I was the prettiest, the most beautiful of them all!... And you are not satisfied yet?... And you are crying yet!... That is not nice at all!... What more do you want?”
Our first disagreeable quarrel arose over Juliette’s friends. Gabrielle Bernier, Jesselin and some other people, formerly brought over to our house at the Rue de Saint Petersbourg by Malterre, again began to pursue us at the Rue de Balzac. I frankly told her so; she seemed very much surprised.
“What have you against Monsieur Jesselin?” she asked me. She used to call the others by their Christian names ... but she pronounced the name Monsieur Jesselin with great respect.
“I certainly have nothing against him, my dear.... But I don’t like him, he gets on my nerves ... he is ridiculous. Here, then, I think are good reasons for not wishing to see that idiot.”
Juliette was shocked. That I should have called a man of Monsieur Jesselin’s importance and reputation an idiot was quite incomprehensible to her. She looked at me with fear as if I had just uttered a terrible blasphemy.
“Monsieur Jesselin, an idiot!... He ... such a gentleman, so serious minded, and who has been to India!... Don’t you know that he is a member of the Geographical Society?”
“What about Gabrielle Bernier?... Is she also a member of the Geographical Society?”
As a rule Juliette never lost her temper. When she was angry her look became severe, the wrinkle on her forehead deepened, her voice lost a little of its sweet sonorousness. She answered simply:
“Gabrielle is my friend.”
“That’s just what I object to.”
There was a moment of silence. Juliette, seated in an armchair, was fingering the lace of her morning gown, thinking. An ironic smile wandered on her lips.
“Do you mean to say that I must not see anyone?... Is that what you want?... Well that’s going to be very amusing.... We shall never go out any more ... we shall live like beasts!...”
“That’s not the question at all, my dear.... I have some friends.... I’ll ask them to come....”
“Oh yes, I know your friends.... I can see them right before me, writers, painters ... people whom one doesn’t understand when they talk ... and who borrow money from us.... Thank you very much!...”
I felt offended and quickly replied:
“My friends are honest people, do you hear, with talent, whereas that idiot and that nasty woman!...”
“I think we have had enough of this,” Juliette imperiously said. “Is that your wish?... All right. I shall close my door to them. Only when you insisted on my living with you, you should have told me that you wanted to bury me alive. I would have known what to do then....”
She rose. I was not even thinking of telling her that, on the contrary, it was she who had wished that we keep house together. Realizing that it was useless to argue any further I took her hand:
“Juliette,” I entreated her.
“Well, what do you want?”
“Are you angry?”
“I, on the contrary, I am very much contented....”
“Juliette!”
“Come, let go of me ... quit ... you hurt me.”
Juliette was sulky all day; when I said something to her she did not answer or contented herself with articulating monosyllables curtly and with irritation. I was unhappy and angry at the same time; I would have liked to embrace her and to beat her, to shower kisses and kicks on her. At dinner she still kept the air of an offended woman, with her lips firmly closed and a disdainful look in her eyes. In vain did I try to appease her by humble conduct and sad repentant looks; her assumed sullenness remained unchanged, on her brow there was still that dark furrow which made me uneasy. At night, in bed, she took a book and turned her back to me. And the back of her perfumed neck to which my lips loved to cling with rapturous joy, now seemed to me harder than a stone wall.... Within me deep resentment was stirring, but I forced myself not to betray it. In the measure that I was filled with rage, my voice sought sweeter accents, it grew gentler and more beseeching.
“Juliette! my Juliette!... Speak to me, please!... Speak to me! Did I offend you, was I too harsh with you? I know I was.... Well, I am sorry and I ask your forgiveness.... But only speak to me.”
My impression was that Juliette was not listening to me at all. She was cutting the pages of the book, and the noise of the friction of the knife against the paper annoyed me terribly.
“My Juliette.... Please understand me.... It is because I love you that I said that.... It is because I wish to see you pure, respected, and because it seems to me that all those are unworthy of you.... If I did not love you, would that make any difference to me?... And you think that I don’t want you to go out!... Why no.... We shall go out often, every evening.... Ah, please don’t be like that!... I was wrong!... Scold me, strike me.... But only speak to me, please speak to me!”
She continued turning the pages of the book. The words were throttled in my throat.
“It is not fair to act the way you do, Juliette. It is not nice at all to be like that.... Since I admitted my guilt! Ah, what pleasure do you get out of torturing me like this?... Didn’t I say I was sorry? Come on, Juliette, I admit I was wrong!”
Not a muscle in her body moved in response to my supplication. Her nape exasperated me more than ever. Amid locks of silky hair I now saw eyes which railed at me and a mouth which mocked me. And I had an impulse to strike her, to belabor her with my fists, to beat her till she bled.
“Juliette!” I shouted.
And my fingers, shriveled, spread apart and hooked like talons of a bird of prey, came close to her, in spite of myself, ready to claw this nape, impatient to tear it to pieces.
“Juliette!”
Juliette slowly turned her head, looked at me with contempt, without fear.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“What do I want?... What do I want?”
I was going to threaten her.... I half arose in bed, I was gesticulating violently.... And suddenly my rage subsided, I came close to Juliette, crouched before her, filled with repentance, and kissing that perfumed and beautiful nape:
“What I want, my dear, is that you should be happy.... That you shall receive your friends.... It was so foolish on my part to demand of you what I did!... Aren’t you the best of women?... Don’t I love you?... Ah, hereafter I shall have no other wish than yours, I promise you!... And you’ll see how nice I am going to be to them!... Wait.... Why should you not invite Gabrielle for dinner?... And Jesselin also?”
“No! No! You say it now, but tomorrow you’ll reproach me for it.... No! No!... I don’t want to force upon you people whom you despise—nasty women and idiots!”
“I don’t know where my head was when I said that.... I don’t despise them at all ... on the contrary I like them very much.... Invite both of them.... And I’ll go and get a box at the Vaudeville.”
“No!”
“I implore you!”
Her voice became less harsh, she closed the book.
“Well! We’ll see tomorrow.”
Really, at that moment I loved Gabrielle, Jesselin, Celestine—I even thought I loved Malterre.
I no longer worked. Not that love of work deserted me, but I no longer had the creative faculty in me. I used to sit down at my desk every day, with blank sheets of paper before me, searching for ideas, and failing to find them, I would again relapse into anxieties of the present, which meant Juliette, into dread of the future, which again meant Juliette!... Just as a drunkard clutches and turns his empty bottle to get the last drop of liquor out of it, so I searched my brains in the hope of squeezing the least bit of an idea out of it.... Alas! My head was empty!
It was empty and weighed upon my shoulders like an enormous ball of lead!... My mentality was always slow in getting started: it required stimulation, it had to be lashed with a whip. Because of my ill-balanced sensibility, my passive nature, I easily yielded to intellectual or moral influences, whether good or bad. And again, Lirat’s friendship was quite useful to me in the past. My own ideas melted in the warmth of his spirit; his conversation opened for me new horizons hitherto unsuspected; whatever confused ideas I had were cleared up, they assumed a more definite form which I endeavored to express; he taught me how to see, to understand things and made me delve with him into the mysteries of life.
Now, the clear horizons toward which I was led shrunk and were shut off before me daily, almost hourly, and night was coming, black night, which to me was not only visible but tangible, for I could actually touch this monstrous night, I felt its darkness stuck fast in my hair, glued to my fingers, coiled around my body in clammy rings....
My study room opened into a yard, or rather a little garden shaded by two large plane-trees and bounded by a wall that had lattice work and was covered with ivy. Behind this wall, in the midst of another garden, the gray and very high façade of a house rose, accosting me with five rows of windows. On the third floor an old man sat near the window opening which encased him like a picture frame. He wore a cap of black velvet, a checkered morning robe, and he never stirred. Shrunk into himself, his head drooping on his chest, he seemed asleep. Of his face I could see only wrinkles of yellowish, wrinkled flesh, dark cavities and locks which looked like tufts of a soiled beard, resembling some strange vegetation sprouting on the trunks of dead trees. Sometimes the profile of a woman would bend over him sinisterly, and this profile had the appearance of an owl perched upon the aged man’s shoulder; I could discern its hooked bill and round eyes, cruel, avaricious and bloodthirsty. When the sun shone into the garden, the window opened and I heard a shrill, piercing, angry voice which never ceased screaming reproaches. Then the old man would shrink into himself still farther, his head would begin to oscillate slightly, then he would become motionless again, still more buried in the folds of his morning robe, still deeper sunk in his armchair.
I used to sit for hours and watch the unhappy man, and I fancied terrible tragedies, some fatal love affair, a noble life bungled, crushed and ruined by that woman with the owl face. I pictured to myself this living corpse as beautiful, young and strong.... Perhaps he had been an artist once upon a time, a scientist, or simply a happy and kindhearted man. And tall and upright, with a gaze full of hope, he marched towards glory or happiness.... One day he met that woman at the house of a friend ... and that woman, too, wore a perfumed veil, a small muff, an otter skin cap, a heavenly smile, and an air of angelic sweetness.... And forthwith he fell in love with her.... I followed step by step the development of his love affair, I counted up his weaknesses, his moments of cowardice, his growing downfalls up to the time of his sinking into this armchair for cripples and paralytics.
And what I imagined his life was to him, my own life was to me, those were my own feelings, it was my own dread of the future, my own anguish.... Little by little my hallucination took on a singular physical form, and it was myself that I saw in this velvet cap, in this morning robe with this battered body, this murky beard, and Juliette who stood over my shoulder like an owl....
Juliette!... She walked about in the study, weary of body, her whole figure betraying boredom, yawning and sighing. She could not think of anything to distract her. Most often she would place the card table not far from me and lose herself in the card combinations of a complicated “patience,” or she would stretch herself out on the sofa, spread a napkin over her dress, place upon it some tiny instruments of tortoise shell, microscopic containers of ointment, and begin polishing her nails, fiercely filing them and making them shine more lustrously than agate. She would examine them every five minutes, looking for the reflection of her image in the polished surfaces:
“Look my dear! Aren’t they beautiful! And you, too, Spy, look at your mistress’ pretty nails.”
The light friction of the nail brush, the imperceptible creaking of the sofa, Juliette’s remarks, her conversation with Spy—all this was sufficient to put to rout the few ideas which I strove to bring together. My thoughts would turn immediately to ordinary matters, and I meditated upon painful things and lived sorrowful things over again.... Juliette.... Did I love her? Many times this question arose in my mind, pregnant with horrible doubt.... Had I not been deceived by the stupefaction of my senses?... Was not this thing which I took for love, the ephemeral and fleeting manifestation of a pleasure as yet untasted?... Juliette!... Of course I loved her....
But this Juliette whom I loved, was she not altogether different, was she not the Juliette that I had myself created, that had been born of my own imagination, that had originated in my own brains, whom I had endowed with a soul, with a spark of divinity, whom I had fashioned into being with the ideal essence of angels?... And did I not still love her as one does a beautiful book, a beautiful verse, a beautiful statue, a visible and tangible realization of an artist’s dream!... But this other Juliette!... This one here?... This pretty, senseless, ignorant animal, this knick-knack, this piece of cloth, this nothing?...
I studied her carefully while she was polishing her nails.... Oh, how I would have liked to break this neck and sound its emptiness, to open this heart and probe its nothingness! And I said to myself: “What sort of a life will mine be with this woman whose tastes are only for pleasure, who is happy only when she is dressed up, whose every wish costs a fortune, who in spite of her chaste appearance, has an instinctive predilection for vice; who used to leave unhappy Malterre every evening, without a single regret, without a single thought; who will leave me tomorrow, perhaps; this woman who is a living denial of my aspirations, of my ideals; who will never, never enter into my intellectual life; and lastly this woman who already weighs upon my intelligence like folly, upon my whole being like a crime.”
I had a notion to flee, to tell Juliette: “I am going out, I’ll be back in an hour,” and never to return to this house where the very ceiling was more oppressive to me than the lid of a coffin, where the air stifled me, where the very furniture seemed to say to me: “Leave this place” ... But no!... I loved her, and it was this very Juliette that I loved, not the other one who has gone the way of all dreams!... I loved her with all her qualities which made me suffer, I loved her in spite of all her lack of understanding, I loved her with all her frivolity, with all her suspected perversions; I loved her with that tormenting love which a mother has for her afflicted child.
Have you ever met a poor creature huddled up behind the door on some wintry day, a wretched human being with chapped lips and chattering teeth, shivering in his tattered rags?... And when you met him, were you not carried away by a feeling of keen pity, and did you not have a desire to take him and warm him against your breast, give him something to eat, cover his shivering body with warm clothes?... That is how I loved Juliette; I loved her with an immense pity ... ah, don’t laugh, with a mother’s pity, with an endless pity!...
“Aren’t we going out, my dear? It would be so nice to take a stroll through the Bois.”
And casting her eyes on the blank sheet of paper on which I had not written a line:
“Is that all you wrote?... Well!... You do not seem to have worked very hard.... And here I have been sitting around all this time to inspire you to work!... Oh, well, I know you won’t get anywhere.... You are too lazy!”
Ere long we began going out every day and every evening. I did not resist any longer, almost happy to escape from the deadly aversion and despondent thoughts with which our apartment inspired me, escape from the symbolic vision of the old man, from myself.... Ah, above all from myself. In a crowd, in the tumult, in this feverish haste of a pleasure-hunting life I hoped to find forgetfulness, to be able to dull my feeling, to subdue my rebellious spirit, to suppress the voice of my past which I heard grumbling within me. And since I could not raise Juliette to my level I lowered myself down to her own.
Ah, those serene heights where the sun was reigning and toward which I had been climbing slowly with such terrific effort!... I must descend into the pit at one dash, in a single, instantaneous, inevitable downfall, even if I crushed my head against the rocks or disappeared in the bottomless mire. With me it was no longer a question of escape. If occasionally the idea did pierce the haze of my mind, if, in the errings of my will-power, I sometimes did perceive a distant way out where duty seemed to call me, I, in order to break away from the idea, in order not to rush hastily toward that end, clung tenaciously to the false pretenses of honor.... Could I leave Juliette! I who insisted that she leave Malterre!... What will become of her when I am gone?... Why no, no!—I was lying to myself.... I did not want to leave her because I loved her, because I pitied her, because.... But was it not myself that I loved, myself that I pitied?... Ah, I no longer knew! I no longer knew!
And then again you should not think that the abyss into which I had fallen was a sudden revelation to me.... Don’t you believe it! I saw it from afar, I saw its black opening yawning fearfully, and I ran toward it. I leaned over the edge to inhale the infected odor of its filth, I said to myself: “There is where wasted lives and corrupted beings are dashed and swallowed up.... Here one can never come up again, never!” And I plunged into it....
Despite the threatening sky overcast with clouds, the balcony of the café is crowded with people. There is not a vacant table, the cabarets, the circus shows, the theaters have poured forth the scum of their habitues here. Everywhere are bright-colored dresses and black frock coats, ladies adorned with plumes like horses in a parade, weary, sick looking and sallow; flurried fops with heads drooped upon their button holes without flowers, and nibbling the ends of their canes with ape-like gestures. Some of them with legs crossed in order to show their black silk socks embroidered with red flowerets, hats pushed over slightly toward the back, are whistling the latest hit—the air which has just now been sung at the Ambassadeur, to the accompaniment of the creaking of seats, the clatter of glasses and bottles.
The last of the lights in front of the opera has been extinguished. But all around it the windows of the club-houses and brothels are a red blaze, like openings into hell. On the street, parked near the curb, are worn-out and dilapidated open coaches strung out in triple file. Some of the drivers are drowsing in their seats; others gathering into small groups which present a comical appearance in their ill-fitting liveries, are munching cigar stubs, and talking with loud bursts of laughter, telling salacious stories about their clients. One incessantly hears the shrill voice of the newspaper vendors who run back and forth shouting, in the midst of their crisp outcries, the name of some well-known woman, or some scandalous piece of news, while street arabs, gliding between the tables, cunning as cats, are selling obscene pictures, half revealed, to awaken dormant passions, to stir up curiosities gone to sleep. And little girls whose premature depravity has already blighted their gaunt, childish faces are offering for sale bouquets of flowers, smiling with a dubious smile, charging their glances with the ripe and hideous immodesty of old prostitutes. Inside the cabaret all the tables are taken.... There is not a single vacant place.... People are drinking champagne without really wanting it and munching sandwiches without in the least caring for them. Occasionally curious people enter the place, before going to their clubs or to bed, by force of habit or from a mere desire to show off or to see if there is “anything doing” there. Slowly and slouching in their walk, they slink about the groups of guests, stopping to chat with their friends here and there and, waving their hands in greeting to some one at a distance, look at themselves in the mirrors, fix their white cravats which stick out from under their light overcoats, then leave, their minds enriched with a few new slang expressions of the underworld, with a few more scandals picked up here and upon which their idleness will thrive for a whole day.
The women with elbows resting on the table, an ice cream soda in front of them, their weak faces, hatched with fine pink lines, supported by long gloved hands, assume a languid air, a suffering mien and a sort of consumptive dreaminess. They exchange mysterious winks and imperceptible smiles with their neighbors at nearby tables, while the gentleman accompanying them, silent and affectedly courteous, strikes the point of his shoes with the tip of his cane. The gathering presents a brilliant spectacle variegated with lace and baubles, bright trimmings and pompons, tinged plumes and flowers in full bloom, curls of blond hair, tresses of dark hair and the glitter of diamonds. Every one is at his fighting post, the young and the old, beginners with beardless faces, gray-haired veterans, naïve gulls and crafty spongers, here were social scandals, false situations, riotous vice, base covetousness, shameful barter—all the flowers of corruption which sprout—mingle, grow and thrive in the dunghill warmth of Paris.
It was into this atmosphere charged with ennui, restlessness and heavy odors that we used thereafter to come every evening. During the day, visits to the dressmakers, the Bois, the races; in the evening, restaurants, theaters and fashionable gatherings. Wherever this special brand of society people came together, one was certain to see us; we were even made much of because of Juliette’s beauty which began to be the subject of people’s talk, and her dresses which called forth the envy and emulation of other women. We no longer dined at home. Our apartment served us as hardly anything more than a place to dress. When Juliette was dressing she grew harsh, even cruel. The wrinkle on her forehead cut into her skin like a scar. She uttered disjointed words, grew angry, seemed to be incensed to the point of breaking up things.
All around her the room seemed as if it had been pillaged: trunks were opened, skirts thrown on the carpet, fans taken out of their cases and scattered on the chairs, opera glasses left on the furniture; muslin gowns were lying in heaps in the corners, the floor was strewn with flowers, towels, soiled with rouge, gloves, stockings, veils were hanging on the branches of the candlesticks. And in the midst of this confusion, Celestine, agile, brazen-faced, cynical, was going through all sorts of evolutions, jumping, sliding, kneeling at the feet of her mistress, sticking a pin here, adjusting the pleats there, knotting threads, her soft, flabby hands, made to handle filthy things, gliding all over Juliette’s body with affection. She was happy, she no longer replied to insinuating remarks, to bitter reproaches, and her eyes, persistently ironical, shining with a flame of vulgar depravity were riveted on me.
It was only in public, in the glare of lights, under the cross fire of men’s gazes that Juliette again found her smile and expression of joy mixed with a little wonderment and frankness which she reserved only for this repugnant crowd of debauchées. And we used to come to this cabaret accompanied by Gabrielle, by Jesselin, by people met I don’t know where, and presented to us by I don’t know whom, by idiots and princes, by the whole batch of international and street-corner crooks whom we dragged along with us.
“What are you going to do tonight?”
“I am going with the Mintié crowd.”
Jesselin gave us information about the people in the place; he knew all the inside facts of high society life and spoke of it with a sort of admiration in spite of all the shameful or tragic details which he told us.
“That man there, who has a crowd of people around him and who is listened to respectfully, used to be a valet-de-chambre. His master fired him for theft. But he became the keeper of a gambling house, conducted all kinds of illegitimate joints, became cashier of the Club, then skillfully disappeared for a few years. At the present time he is part owner of many gambling houses, has an interest in the race track, has unlimited credit with the stock-brokers, owns horses and a mansion where he receives people. He used to loan money secretly at one hundred percent interest to ladies in financial straits whose gullible natures he would first test. Ostentatiously generous, buying pictures of the most expensive kind, he passes for an honorable man and patron of the arts. In the papers they speak of him with great respect.
“And that other big, stout fellow whose fleshy, wrinkled face is eternally split by an idiotic laugh? He is but a child!... Hardly eighteen years old. He has a mistress known to all, with whom he appears in public every Monday at the Bois, and also has a teacher, an Abbot whom he takes to the lake every Tuesday in the same carriage. His mother has thus conceived of the education of her son, wishing him to lead a life of religious saintliness on the one hand and of gallant adventures on the other. Aside from that he gets drunk every evening, and horse-whips his old fool of a mother. A real type!” Jesselin summed up.
“That duke over there, who bears one of the most illustrious names in France! Ah! that swell duke! the king of spongers! He comes in timidly like a frightened dog, looks through his monocle, takes in the smell of supper, sits down and devours some ham and minced liver pie. Perhaps he has not dined yet, this duke; undoubtedly he has just come back from an unsuccessful daily visit to the café Anglais, or the Maison Doré or Bignon’s, in quest of some friend who will treat him to a meal. Being on very good terms with women and horse dealers, he runs errands for the former and rides the horses for the latter. Instructed to say wherever he goes: ‘Oh! What a charming woman!’ ... ‘Oh! what a wonderful horse!’ he receives a few louis for this service with which he pays his valet.
“Here is another great nobleman who is gradually and hopelessly sinking into the mire of illicit business and secret promotion of vice. Once upon a time that fellow was quite the rage of society. Despite his stoutness which is now evident, despite the puffiness of his flesh, he still has an elegant way of carrying himself, and the air of a gentleman. In the disreputable places and questionable circles which he frequents he plays the remunerative role which was played fifty years ago by head waiters at table d’hôtes. His courteousness and education were an asset to him, which he made use of to perfection. He knew how to take advantage of the dishonesty of others as well as of his own, for no one was as skillful in composing matrimonial difficulties of his patrons to the satisfaction of all concerned as he was.
“That livid face there, set in a frame of whiskers turning gray, that miniature mouth, that lusterless eye? No one knows who he really is! For a long time sinister rumors have been current about his person, rumors of bloody affairs. At first people were afraid of him and tried to keep away from him. It’s nothing but an old memory after all! For the rest, he spends a lot of money. What does it matter if a few drops of blood do roll on top of piles of gold! Women are crazy about it.
“That young handsome man with mustache gracefully turned up? One day when he did not have a sou to his name, his parents having stopped his allowance, the ingenious notion occurred to him to pretend that he was repentant. He demonstratively quit an old mistress he had and returned to his parents. A young lady, his playmate when he was a child, adored him. She was rich. He married her. But on the very evening of his wedding day he left her, taking the dowry with him, and went back to his old mistress. She is an excellent woman,” added Jesselin, “she really is!
“And all those pimps and those who have been chased out of the clubs, expelled from universities, ruined at the stock exchange; and foreigners coming from the devil knows where, whom one scandal attracts to one place and another scandal draws off to another, and those living outside the pale of the law and bourgeois esteem, who claim to be the royalty of Paris, before whom everybody bows down—they all swarm here, arrogant, free, disreputable!”
Juliette was listening, amused by the stories, attracted by this filth and crime, flattered by this ignoble homage which she felt the glances of these fools and criminals were paying her. But she preserved her modest bearing, her maiden charm, all her graces, self-conscious and inviting at one and the same time, for the sake of which, one day at Lirat’s, I earned damnation!
Faces grow more pallid now, features become drawn out. Fatigue swells and colors the eyelids. One after another they leave the cabaret, tired and worried. Do they know what the next day has in store for them, what troubles await them, what disasters lie in ambush for them? Once in a while the report of a pistol shot creates a void in the ranks of this gang! Perhaps tomorrow will be their turn? Tomorrow! Perhaps it will be my turn, too? Ah! Tomorrow! The ever present menace of tomorrow! And we go home again, without saying a word to one another, sad and weary.
The boulevard was deserted. An immense silence was weighing heavily over the city. Only the windows of the brothel houses were aglare, like the eyes of some huge beasts crouching in the depth of night.
Without knowing exactly the state of my financial affairs, I felt that ruin was ahead of me. I had paid out considerable sums of money, debts were accumulating and, far from decreasing, Juliette’s whims became even more numerous and more expensive: money flowed like water from her hands, like a fountain, in one continuous stream. “She evidently thinks me richer than I am,” I thought to myself, in an effort to deceive myself. “I ought to warn her, perhaps show myself a little more reserved in yielding to her desires.” The truth was that I deliberately dismissed from my mind every notion of this kind, that I dreaded the probable consequences of such a challenge even more than the greatest possible misfortune in the world.
In my rare moments of clear-mindedness, of frankness with myself, I understood that beneath her air of sweetness, beneath her naïveté of a spoiled child, beneath the robust and vibrant passions of her flesh Juliette concealed a powerful desire to be always beautiful, adored, paid court to, concealed a fierce selfishness which would not flinch before any cruelty, before any moral crime!... I realized that she loved me less than the last piece of cloth, that she would have sacrificed me for a cloak or a cravat or a pair of gloves.... Once drawn into such a life she could not stop.... And then what?... Cold shivers passed up and down my frame from head to heels.... That she should leave me, no, no, that I did not want!
The most painful moment to me was in the morning when I woke up. With eyes closed, pulling the cover over my head, my body huddled up into a ball, I used to ponder over my situation with terrible anguish. And the more faulty she appeared to me, the more desperately I clung to Juliette. No matter how often I said to myself that my money would soon be gone, that the credit on which I could dishonestly prolong the agony of hope against hope for another week or two, would eventually be denied to me; I clung to the present and rabidly evolved all sorts of impossible plans. I pictured myself accomplishing superhuman tasks in the course of one week. I dreamed of finding millions in some hackney coach, Fabulous inheritances dropped down from the skies for me. The idea of stealing haunted me....
Gradually all these insane notions took hold of my distracted mind. I was presenting Juliette with palaces and castles; I overwhelmed her with diamonds and pearls; gold streamed and glittered all around her, and I raised her high above the earth, upon dizzy, royal heights. Then the sense of reality would suddenly return. I buried myself deeper in the bed. I sought realms of nonexistence in whose depth I could disappear. I forced myself to sleep. And suddenly, out of breath, with sweat on my forehead and a haggard look in my eyes, I would snuggle up to Juliette, press her in my arms with all my strength, sobbing:
“You’ll never leave me, will you, my Juliette! Tell me, tell me that you’ll never leave me. Because, you see.... I’ll die ... if you do—I’ll go crazy. I’ll kill myself! Juliette, I swear to you that I’ll kill myself!”
“Why, what has come over you? Why do you tremble so? No, my dear, I’ll never leave you. Are we not happy together? Besides, I love you so much! When you are nice as you are now!”
“Yes, yes! I’ll kill myself! I’ll kill myself!”
“You are so funny, my dear! Why do you tell me that?”
“Because.”
I was going to tell her everything.... But I had not the courage. And I said:
“Because I love you! Because I don’t want you to leave me! Because I don’t want to.”
Nevertheless I finally had to bring this matter to a head. Juliette had seen in the window of a jewelry store on the Rue de la Paix, a string of pearls of which she spoke without end. One day when we were in that neighborhood:
“Let’s go and see that beautiful jewel,” she said to me.
With her nose pressed against the window pane and eyes shining, she looked at the string arranged in a triple circular row of pink pearls upon the velvet of the jewel case. I saw a tremor passing up and down her skin.
“Isn’t that beautiful? And it isn’t expensive at all! I have asked about the price ... fifty thousand francs.... That’s an exceptional bargain.”
I tried to draw her further on. But coaxingly, hanging on my arm, she held me back. And she sighed:
“Ah, how nice that would look on the neck of your little wifie!”
She added with an air of profound grief:
“Really! All the women have lots of jewels. Only I have none. If you were really nice, really kind to me, you would give them to your poor little Juliette.... There now!”
I stammered out:
“Certainly. I want to—very much ... but later ... next week!”
Juliette’s face grew dark:
“Why next week? Can’t you do it now, right now!”
“Well you see ... now ... I am short of money.... I am a little hard up.”
“What? Already? You haven’t got a sou? Is that a fact? Where did all your money go? You have not a sou left?”
“Why yes, I have! Only I am a little short of cash temporarily.”
“Well if that’s the case it doesn’t matter. I have also made inquiries about the terms. They would agree to accept promissory notes. Five notes of six thousand francs each. That is not such a mighty matter!”
“Undoubtedly. But a little later! I promise you. Is that all right?”
“Ah!” Juliette said simply.
I looked at her, the wrinkle on her forehead terrified me; I saw a hidden glimmer flare up in her eyes, and in the space of a second a world of extraordinary sensations hitherto unknown to me, took hold of me. Very clearly, with perfect understanding, with cruel indifference, with a startling conciseness of judgment I put the following question to myself: “Juliette and dishonor; Juliette and prison?” I did not hesitate.
“Let’s go in,” I said.
She took the string of pearls away with her.
In the evening, wearing her pearls, she sat down on my lap, radiant, with her arms closed around my neck. She sat so for a long time, lulling me with her sweet voice.
“Ah, my poor sweetie,” she said, “I am not always sensible! Yes, I realize. I am a little foolish sometimes. But I am through now! I want to be a good, a serious-minded woman. And you shall work undisturbed, you’ll write a good novel—a nice play. Then we shall be rich, very rich. And then if you should happen to be very much short of money we could sell this beautiful string of pearls! Because jewels are not like dresses, they are just as good as money. Press me in your arms strongly.”
Ah! how fast that night was gone! How the hours sped by, no doubt frightened to hear love shrieking with a horrible voice of one who is damned.
Disasters followed one another and soon reached their climax. The promissory notes that I had given Juliette’s jeweler remained unpaid. I had a hard time borrowing enough money to satisfy our everyday needs. My father had left some uncollected debts at Saint-Michel. Generous and kindhearted, he liked to help out small farmers in a pinch. Pitilessly I started the process servers after these poor devils, causing them to sell their hovels, their piece of land, the things with the aid of which they made a miserable living, depriving themselves of everything. In the shops where I still had credit I bought things which I immediately resold at a very low price. I stooped to putting through the most questionable deals. My brains teemed with original plans of blackmail, and I tired Jesselin with my endless requests of money. Finally one day I went to see Lirat. I needed five hundred francs that evening, and I went to Lirat, deliberately, boldly! In his presence, however, in that studio full of painful memories, my self-assurance deserted me and I felt a sense of belated shame. I was with Lirat a quarter of an hour, without venturing to explain to him the thing that I expected of his friendship.... Of his friendship!... At last I made up my mind to go.
“Well, good bye, Lirat!”
“Good bye, my friend.”
“Ah! I forgot. Could you lend me five hundred francs? I am expecting my farm rents. They are overdue.”
And I added rapidly:
“I’ll give them back to you tomorrow—tomorrow morning.”
Lirat fixed his glance on me for a moment. I can still see that glance. It was truly sorrowful.
“Five hundred francs!” he said. “Where in the devil do you expect me to get them? Have I ever had five hundred francs?”
I insisted, repeating:
“I’ll give them back to you tomorrow ... tomorrow morning.”
“But I haven’t got them, my poor Mintié. I have only two hundred francs left. Would that do you any good?”
I was thinking that these two hundred francs which he offered meant to him a whole month’s subsistence. I answered with a bleeding heart:
“Well, all right! All the same! I’ll give them back to you tomorrow ... tomorrow morning.”
“That is all right!”
At that moment I would have wished to throw myself on Lirat’s neck, to beg his pardon, to shout: “No, no I don’t want this money!” And like a thief I took it away with me.