“What’s all this to you? The work sickens me enough now; don’t mention it to me!”
One Sunday she walked toward Montmartre with him. Instead of taking Rue Frochot she turned into Rue Pigalle.
“Why, this ain’t the way, is it?” said Jupillon.
“I know what I’m about,” said she, “come on.”
She had taken his arm, and she walked on, turning her head slightly away from him so that he could not see what was taking place on her face. Halfway along Rue Fontaine Saint-Georges, she halted abruptly in front of two windows on the ground floor of a house, and said to him: “Look!”
She was trembling with joy.
Jupillon looked; he saw between the two windows, on a glistening copper plate:
Magasin de Ganterie.
Jupillon.
He saw white curtains at the first window. Through the glass in the other he saw pigeonholes and boxes, and, near the window, the little glover’s cutting board, with the great shears, the jar for clippings, and the knife to make holes in the skins in order to stretch them.
“The concierge has your key,” she said.
They entered the first room, the shop.
She at once set about showing him everything. She opened the boxes and laughed. Then she pushed open the door into the other room. “There, you won’t be stifled there as you are in the loft at your mother’s. Do you like it? Oh! it isn’t handsome, but it’s clean. I’d have liked to give you mahogany. Do you like that little rug by the bed? And the paper—I didn’t think of that—” She put a receipt for the rent in his hand. “See! this is for six months. Dame! you must go to work right off and earn some money. The few sous I had laid by are all gone. Oh! let me sit down. You look so pleased—it gives me a turn—it makes my head spin. I haven’t any legs.”
And she sank into a chair. Jupillon stooped over her to kiss her.
“Ah! yes, they’re not there any longer,” she said, seeing that he was looking for her earrings. “They’ve gone like my rings. D’ye see, all gone—”
And she showed him her hands, bare of the paltry gems she had worked so long to buy.
“They all went for the easy-chair, you see—but it’s all horsehair.”
As Jupillon stood in front of her with an embarrassed air, as if he were trying to find words with which to thank her, she continued:
“Why, you’re a funny fellow. What’s the matter with you? Ah! it’s on that account, is it?” And she pointed to the bedroom. “You’re a stupid! I love you, don’t I? Well then?”
Germinie said the words simply, as the heart says sublime things.
XIX
She became enceinte.
At first she doubted, she dared not believe it. But when she was certain of the fact, she was filled with immeasurable joy, a joy that overflowed her heart. Her happiness was so great and so overpowering that it stifled at a single stroke the anguish, the fear, the inward trembling that ordinarily disturb the maternity of unmarried women and poisons their anticipations of childbirth, the divine hope that lives and moves within them. The thought of the scandal caused by the discovery of her liaison, of the outcry in the quarter, the idea of the abominable thing that had always made her think of suicide: dishonor—even the fear of being detected by mademoiselle and dismissed by her—nothing of all this could cast a shadow on her felicity. The child that she expected allowed her to see nothing but it, as if she had it already in her arms before her; and, hardly attempting to conceal her condition, she bore her woman’s shame almost proudly through the streets, exulting and radiant in the thought that she was to be a mother.
She was unhappy only because she had spent all her savings, and was not only without money but had been paid several months’ wages in advance by her mistress. She bitterly deplored having to receive her child in a poor way. Often, as she passed through Rue Saint-Lazare, she would stop in front of a linen-draper’s, in whose windows were displayed stores of rich baby-linen. She would devour with her eyes the pretty, dainty flowered garments, the piqué bibs, the long short-waisted dresses trimmed with English embroidery, the whole doll-like cherub’s costume. A terrible longing—the longing of a pregnant woman—to break the glass and steal it all, would come upon her: the clerks standing behind the display framework became accustomed to seeing her take up her station there and would laughingly point her out to one another.
Again, at intervals, amid the happiness that overflowed her heart, amid the ecstasy that exalted her being, another disturbing thought passed through her mind. She would ask herself how the father would welcome his child. Two or three times she had attempted to tell him of her condition but had not dared. At last, one day, seeing that his face wore the expression she had awaited so long as a preliminary to telling him everything, an expression in which there was a touch of affection, she confessed to him, blushing hotly and as if asking his forgiveness, what it was that made her so happy.
“That’s all imagination!” said Jupillon.
And when she had assured him that it was not imagination and that she was positively five months advanced in pregnancy: “Just my luck!” the young man rejoined. “Thanks!” And he swore. “Would you mind telling me who’s going to feed the sparrow?”
“Oh! never you fear! it shan’t suffer, I’ll look out for that. And then it’ll be so pretty! Don’t be afraid, no one shall know anything about it. I’ll fix
