you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid of vexing you and hurting your feelings. Now listen; I am going to take you home; you are going to be good and cheerful, you are going to wait quietly for me in your little bed, and I will come round as soon as the party is over.”
She muttered: “Very well, but you won’t do it again?”
“Never, I swear.”
Then, turning towards Monsieur Saval, who had just hung up the chandelier, he said: “I’ll be back in five minutes, old chap. If anyone comes while I’m away, you’ll do the honours for me, won’t you?” And he took the still weeping and sniffing Matilda off. Left quite alone, Monsieur Saval finished tidying up, then lighted the candles and waited. Quarter of an hour, half an hour, a whole hour passed by, and no sign of Romantin. Suddenly there was a terrible noise on the stairs: twenty voices all together were bellowing out a song to the accompaniment of the tramp, tramp of feet like a Prussian regiment on the march; the regular tramp of feet shook the whole house. Then the door opened and the crowd made its appearance; a long string of men and women holding each other’s arms and beating time with their heels, filed into the studio like a snake uncoiling itself. They bellowed out:
“Walk in, walk right in, to my parlour. Nurses and Tommies all together!”
Utterly bewildered, Maître Saval, in full dress, remained standing under the chandelier. The procession caught sight of him and roared simultaneously: “A flunkey! A flunkey!” and began to gather round him, enclosing him in a circle of whoops and yells; they then took hands and danced madly round and round the poor notary, who attempted to explain: “Gentlemen … gentlemen … ladies …” but no one would listen, they went on circling and capering round him shouting at the top of their voices. At last the dancing stopped, and Monsieur Saval began: “Gentlemen,” but a tall, fair, heavily bearded young fellow interrupted him: “What is your name, old sport?” The scared notary replied: “I am Maître Saval.” “You mean Baptiste,” shouted one of the party, whereupon one of the women said: “Leave the poor fellow alone, or he will get angry. He is being paid to wait on us and not to have fun poked at him.” Then Monsieur Saval noticed that each guest had brought his own share of the feast—the one a bottle, the other a pie, another some bread, another a ham, and so on. The tall, fair boy thrust an enormous sausage into his hands and said: “Here, arrange the buffet in the corner over there, put the bottles on the left and the eatables on the right.”
Not knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, Saval shouted back: “But I am a notary, gentlemen!”
There was a short silence followed by peals of laughter. A suspicious member of the party asked: “How did you get here?” He explained all about his intention of going to the opera, his departure from Vernon, his arrival in Paris, and what had happened during the evening. The guests had gathered round to hear the story, which they kept interrupting, and calling him Scheherazade.
There was still no sign of Romantin. More guests arrived, and Maître Saval was promptly introduced so that he might tell them the story. When he refused, the others insisted and tied him to one of the three chairs in the room between two women who kept on filling his glass. He drank, laughed, talked, sang, and tried to dance with his chair but fell down.
From that moment everything was a blank, although he had some vague idea that he was being undressed and put to bed, and that he felt very sick.
It was broad daylight when he woke up in a strange bed at the back of a deep recess.
An old woman with a broom glared at him, in a great rage, then said:
“Dirty beast! dirty beast! To get as drunk as that!”
He sat up in bed, feeling far from happy. “Where am I?” he asked.
“Where are you, you dirty beast? You are drunk. Be off now, one, two, three!”
He wanted to get up but he was lying naked in the bed and his clothes had vanished.
“Madam,” he began, “I … !” Then he remembered what had happened, and didn’t know what to do; he asked: “Has Monsieur Romantin not come back yet?”
The concierge shouted: “Are you going to clear out? Don’t let him find you here, whatever you do.”
At his wit’s end, Maître Saval said: “But I have no clothes, someone has taken them.” So he was obliged to wait, to explain matters, communicate with his friends and borrow money to buy clothes. He did not get away till evening.
And now when music is discussed in his beautiful drawing room at Vernon, he declares emphatically that painting is a very inferior art.
The Odyssey of a Prostitute
Yes. The memory of that evening will never fade. For half an hour I realised the sinister reality of implacable fate. I shuddered as a man shudders descending a mine. I plumbed the black depths of human misery; I understand that it is not possible for some people to live a decent life.
It was after midnight. I was going from the Vaudeville to the Rue Drouot, hurrying along the boulevard through a crowd of hurrying umbrellas. A fine rain was hovering in the air rather than falling, veiling the gas jets, spreading a gloom over the street. The gleaming pavement was sticky rather than damp. Anxious to get home, the passersby looked neither to right nor left.
The prostitutes, with skirts held up showing their legs, and revealing a white stocking to the wan gleams of evening light, were waiting in the shadow of doorways, speaking to the passersby or hurrying brazenly past them, thrusting a stupid incomprehensible phrase at them as they passed. They followed a man for a few seconds, jostling against him, breathing
