With head turned, she was emitting coils of smoke which rose tremblingly toward the ceiling. And to emphasize what she had just said:
“That’s the truth I am telling you,” she repeated.
Although I suffered cruelly, although every word of Gabrielle cut my heart as with a knife, I came up to her and coaxingly:
“Come, my little Gabrielle,” I begged her, “tell me all about her!”
“Tell you! … tell you! Wait now! You know the two Borgsheim brothers … those two dirty Germans! Well, Juliette, was with both of them at the same time. I saw that myself, you know! At the same time, mind you, my dear! One night she said to one of them: ‘Ah well! It is you that I love!’ And she led him away. The next day she said to the other: ‘No, it is positively you!’ And she led him away. And you should have seen them! Two wretched Prussians who haggled over the bill! And a lot of other things. But I don’t want to tell you anything because I see I hurt you.”
“No!” I exclaimed, “no, Gabrielle, go on, because … you understand. After all the disgust … the disgust. …”
I was choking. I burst into sobs.
Gabrielle was trying to console me.
“Come! Come now. … Poor Jean! Don’t cry! She does not deserve all this grief! Such a nice boy as you are! I can’t see how that is possible! I always used to tell her: ‘You don’t understand him, my dear, you never did understand him, a man like that is a jewel!’ Ah! I know some women who would be mighty glad to have a man like you … and who would love you very much!”
She sat down on my lap and wanted to dry the tears from my eyes. Her voice became soft and her eyes luminous:
“Have a little courage. Cut loose from her! Get another one, one who is kind and gentle, one who would understand you. Can’t you see?”
And suddenly, she threw her arms around me and fastened her mouth upon my own. Her bare breast which rolled out from under the lace of her peignoir was pressing against my chest. This kiss, this exposed portion of her body horrified me. I freed myself from her embrace, I rudely pushed Gabrielle away, she straightened up again somewhat abashed, fixed her dress and said to me:
“Yes, I understand! I have had the same feeling. But, you know, dear. Whenever you want to … come to see me.”
I left. My legs were shaking, around my head I felt rings of lead; a cold sweat covered my face and rolled in titillating drops down my back. In order to walk I had to hold on to the house walls, as I was on the verge of fainting. I walked into a café and avidly gulped down a few draughts of rum. I could not say that I suffered much. It was a sort of stupor that rendered my members inactive, a kind of physical and mental prostration in which from time to time the thought of Juliette brought with it the sensation of a sharp, lancinating odor. And in my disordered mind Juliette was losing her identity; it was no longer a woman who had an individual existence that I saw, it was prostitution itself with its immense, outstretched body covering the entire world; it was lust personified, eternally defiled, toward which panting multitudes were rushing across the shadow of woeful nights, pierced by torches carried by monstrous idols. … I remained there a long time, my elbows on the table, my head buried in my hands, with gaze fixed between two mirrors upon a panel on which flowers were painted.
At last I left the café and walked and walked ahead, without knowing where I was going. After a long course and without the least intention of getting there, I found myself in the Avenue Bois-de-Boulogne, near the Arc de Triomphe. The sun was beginning to set. Above the hills of Saint Cloud which took on a violet tinge, the sky was a glorious purple, and little pink clouds were wandering upon the pallid blue expanse. The woods stood out as a solid mass, grown darker, a fine dust reddened by the reflection of a setting sun rose from the avenue black with carriages. And the dense mass of carriages, congested into interminable lines, were passing without end, carrying human birds of prey to nocturnal carnages. Reclining on their cushions, indolent and disdainful, with stupid countenances and flabby flesh, exhaling a putrid odor, they were all there, so nearly alike that I recognized Juliette in each one of them. The line of vehicles appeared to me more lugubrious than ever. As I looked at these horses, this diversity of colors, this crimson sun which made the glass panes of the carriages shine like breastplates, all this intense intermingling of colors—red, yellow, blue—all these plumes that swayed in the wind, I had the impression of looking at some enemy regiments, regiments of an army of conquest ready to fall upon vanquished foes, drunk foes, drunk with a desire for pillage. And quite seriously I was indignant over the fact that I did not hear the roar of cannons, did not hear the mitrailleuses spitting death and sweeping the avenue with fire. A laborer who was returning from work stopped at the end of the sidewalk. With tools on his shoulder and crooked back, he was watching the street. Not only did he have no hatred in his eyes but there was a sort of ecstasy in them. Anger seized me. I wanted to come up to him, grab him by the collar and cry out:
“What are you doing here, you fool? Why do you look at these women so? These women who
