Then the hullabaloo redoubled, making the floating establishment tremble. The men took off their hats, the women waved their handkerchiefs, and all voices, shrill or deep, together cried:
“Lesbos.”
It was as if these people, this collection of the corrupt, saluted their chiefs like the warships which fire guns when an admiral passes along the line.
The numerous fleet of boats also saluted the women’s boat, which pushed along more quickly to land farther off.
Mr. Paul, contrary to the others, had drawn a key from his pocket and whistled with all his might. His nervous mistress grew paler, caught him by the arm to make him be quiet, and upon this occasion she looked at him with fury in her eyes. But he appeared exasperated, as though borne away by jealousy of some man or by deep anger, instinctive and ungovernable. He stammered, his lips quivering with indignation:
“It is shameful! They ought to be drowned like puppies with a stone about the neck.”
But Madeleine instantly flew into a rage; her small and shrill voice became a hiss, and she spoke volubly, as though pleading her own cause:
“And what has it to do with you—you indeed? Are they not at liberty to do what they wish since they owe nobody anything? You shut up and mind your own business.”
But he cut her speech short:
“It is the police whom it concerns, and I will have them marched off to St. Lazare; indeed I will.”
She gave a start:
“You?”
“Yes, I! And in the meantime I forbid you to speak to them—you understand, I forbid you to do so.”
Then she shrugged her shoulders and grew calm in a moment:
“My dear, I shall do as I please; if you are not satisfied, be off, and instantly. I am not your wife, am I? Very well then, hold your tongue.”
He made no reply and they stood face to face, their lips tightly closed, breathing quickly.
At the other end of the great wooden café the four women made their entry. The two in men’s costumes marched in front: the one thin like an oldish tomboy, with a yellow tinge on her temples; the other filling out her white flannel garments with her fat, swelling out her wide trousers with her buttocks and swaying about like a fat goose with enormous legs and yielding knees. Their two friends followed them, and the crowd of boatmen thronged about to shake their hands.
The four had hired a small cottage close to the water’s edge, and lived there as two households would have lived.
Their vice was public, recognised, patent to all. People talked of it as a natural thing, which almost excited their sympathy, and whispered in very low tones strange stories of dramas begotten of furious feminine jealousies, of the stealthy visit of well known women and of actresses to the little house close to the water’s edge.
A neighbour, horrified by these scandalous rumours, notified the police, and the inspector, accompanied by a man, had come to make inquiry. The mission was a delicate one; it was impossible, in short, to accuse these women, who did not abandon themselves to prostitution, of any tangible crime. The inspector, very much puzzled, and, indeed, ignorant of the nature of the offences suspected, had asked questions at random, and made a lofty report conclusive of their innocence.
The joke spread as far as Saint Germain. They walked about the Grenouillère establishment with mincing steps like queens; and seemed to glory in their fame, rejoicing in the gaze that was fixed on them, so superior to this crowd, to this mob, to these plebeians.
Madeleine and her lover watched them approach, and the girl’s eyes lit up.
When the first two had reached the end of the table, Madeleine cried:
“Pauline!”
The large woman turned and stopped, continuing all the time to hold the arm of her feminine cabin-boy:
“Good gracious, Madeleine! Do come and talk to me, my dear.”
Paul squeezed his fingers upon his mistress’s wrist, but she said to him, with such an air: “You know, my dear, you can clear out, if you like,” that he said nothing and remained alone.
Then they chatted in low voices, all three of them standing. Many pleasant jests passed their lips, they spoke quickly; and Pauline now and then looked at Paul, by stealth, with a shrewd and malicious smile.
At last, unable to put up with it any longer, he suddenly rose and in a single bound was at their side, trembling in every limb. He seized Madeleine by the shoulders.
“Come, I wish it,” said he; “I have forbidden you to speak to these sluts.”
Whereupon Pauline raised her voice and set to work blackguarding him with her Billingsgate vocabulary. All the bystanders laughed; they drew near him; they raised themselves on tiptoe in order the better to see him. He remained dumb under this downpour of filthy abuse. It appeared to him that the words which came from that mouth and fell upon him defiled him like dirt, and, in presence of the row which was beginning, he fell back, retraced his steps, and rested his elbows on the railing toward the river, turning his back upon the victorious women.
There he stayed watching the water, and sometimes with rapid gesture, as though he could pluck it out, he removed with his nervous fingers the tear which stood in his eye.
The fact was that he was hopelessly in love, without knowing why, notwithstanding his refined instincts, in spite of his reason, in spite, indeed, of his will. He had fallen into this love as one falls into a muddy hole. Of a tender and delicate disposition, he had dreamed of liaisons, exquisite, ideal, and impassioned, and there that little bit of a woman, stupid like all prostitutes, with an exasperating stupidity, not even pretty, but thin and a spitfire, had taken him prisoner, possessing him from head to foot,
