some details about her life, but she replied:
“ ‘Young man, that is no business of yours!’ Alas! an hour later. …
“At last it was time to go to bed, and while I was clearing the table, which had been laid in front of the fire, she undressed herself quickly, and got in. My neighbours were making a terrible din, singing and laughing like lunatics, and so I said to myself:
“ ‘I was quite right to go out and bring in this beautiful girl; I should never have been able to do any work.’
“At that moment, however, a deep groan made me look round, and I said:
“ ‘What is the matter with you, my dear?’
“She did not reply, but continued to utter painful sighs, as if she were suffering horribly, and I continued:
“ ‘Do you feel ill?’ And suddenly she uttered a cry, a heartrending cry, and I rushed up to the bed, with a candle in my hand.
“Her face was distorted with pain, and she was wringing her hands, panting and uttering long, deep groans, which sounded like a rattle in the throat, and which are so painful to hear, and I asked her in consternation:
“ ‘What is the matter with you? Do tell me what is the matter.’ She did not reply, but began to scream.
“ ‘Oh! my stomach! my stomach!’ she said. I pulled up the bedclothes, and I saw … My friends, she was in labour.
“Then I lost my head, and I ran and knocked at the wall with my fists, shouting: ‘Help! help!’
“My door was opened almost immediately, and a crowd of people came in, men in evening dress, women in low necks, pierrots, Turks, Musketeers, and this invasion startled me so, that I could not explain myself, and they, who had thought that some accident had happened, or that a crime had been committed, could not understand what was the matter. At last, however, I managed to say:
“ ‘This … this … woman … is being confined.’
“Then they looked at her, and gave their opinion, and a Friar, especially, declared that he knew all about it, and wished to assist nature, but as they were all as drunk as pigs, I was afraid that they would kill her, and I rushed downstairs without my hat, to fetch an old doctor, who lived in the next street. When I came back with him, the whole house was up; the gas on the stairs had been relighted, the lodgers from every floor were in my room, while four boatmen were finishing my champagne and lobsters.
“As soon as they saw me they raised a loud shout, and a milkmaid presented me with a horrible little wrinkled specimen of humanity, that was mewing like a cat, and said to me:
“ ‘It is a girl.’
“The doctor examined the woman, declared that she was in a dangerous state, as the event had occurred immediately after supper, and he took his leave, saying he would immediately send a sick nurse and a wet nurse, and an hour later, the two women came, bringing all that was requisite with them.
“ ‘I spent the night in an armchair, too distracted to be able to think of the consequences, and almost as soon as it was light, the doctor came again. He found his patient very ill, and said to me:
“ ‘Your wife, Monsieur …’
“ ‘She is not my wife,’ I interrupted him.
“ ‘Very well then, your mistress; it does not matter to me.’
“He told me what must be done for her, what her diet must be, and then wrote a prescription.
“What was I to do? Could I send the poor creature to the hospital? I should have been looked upon as a brute in the house and in all the neighbourhood, and so I kept her in my rooms, and she had my bed for six weeks.
“I sent the child to some peasants at Poissy to be taken care of, and she still costs me fifty francs a month, for as I had paid at first, I shall be obliged to go on paying as long as I live, and later on, she will believe that I am her father. But to crown my misfortunes, when the girl had recovered … I found that she was in love with me, madly in love with me, the baggage!”
“Well?”
“Well, she had grown as thin as a homeless cat, and I turned the skeleton out of doors, but she watches for me in the streets, hides herself, so that she may see me pass, stops me in the evening when I go out, in order to kiss my hand, and, in fact, worries me enough to drive me mad; and that is why I never keep Christmas Eve now.”
The Substitute
“Madame Bonderoi?”
“Yes, Madame Bonderoi.”
“Impossible.”
“I tell you it is.”
“Madame Bonderoi, the old lady in a lace cap, the devout, the holy, the honourable Madame Bonderoi, whose little false curls look as if they were glued round her head.”
“That is the very woman.”
“Oh! Come, you must be mad.”
“I swear to you that it is Madame Bonderoi.”
“Then please give me the details.”
“Here they are: During the life of Monsieur Bonderoi, the lawyer, people said that she utilized his clerks for her own particular service. She is one of these respectable middle-class women, with secret vices and inflexible principles, of whom there are so many. She liked good-looking young fellows, and I should like to know what is more natural than that? Do not we all like pretty girls?
“As soon as old Bonderoi was dead, his widow began to live the peaceful and irreproachable life of a woman with a fair, fixed income. She went to church assiduously, and spoke disdainfully of her neighbours, and gave no chance to anyone to speak ill of her, and when she grew old she became the little wizened, sour-faced mischievous woman whom you know. Well, this adventure, which you would scarcely believe, happened last Thursday.
“My friend, Jean d’Anglemare, is, as you know, a captain in a dragoon regiment, which is quartered in the barracks in the Rue de la
