We went to the lowest drinking-places and sat down at the far end of smoky dens, on rickety chairs, at an old wooden table. A cloud of acrid smoke, which smelled still of the fried fish eaten at dinner, filled the room; men in blouses talked noisily and drank brandy; and the astonished waiter served us with cherries in brandy.
Trembling with delicious terror, she would raise her little black veil, folded double, to the tip of her nose, where it rested, and begin to drink with the pleasure of committing a delightful crime. Each cherry she swallowed gave her the sense of a sin committed, each sip of the coarse liquor ran down her throat like a delicate, forbidden pleasure.
Then she would say to me in a low voice: “Let us go.” And we left. She went out quickly, her head lowered, with short steps, between the drinkers who watched her pass with resentful glances; and when we found ourselves out in the street again, she would utter a deep sigh as though we had just escaped from dreadful peril.
Sometimes she asked me with a shudder: “If I were insulted in one of these places, what would you do?” And I would reply in a swaggering tone: “Why, defend you, damn it.” And she would squeeze my arm in her happiness, with a vague wish, perhaps, to be insulted and defended, to see those men, even those ruffians, fight me for her.
One evening, as we were seated at a table in a Montmartre den, we saw a ragged old woman come in, holding in her hand a greasy pack of cards. Observing a lady, the old woman promptly came up to us, offering to tell my companion’s fortune. Emma, whose mind believed anything and everything, shivered with pleasure and uneasiness, and made room beside her for the hag.
The ancient wrinkled woman, with rings of raw flesh round her eyes and an empty, toothless mouth, set out her dirty cards on the table. She made them into heaps, picked them up, and set them out again, muttering inaudible words. Emma listened, pale, breathing quickly, panting with distress and curiosity.
The sorceress began to speak; she made vague predictions: happiness and children, a fair young man, a journey, money, a lawsuit, a dark gentle man, the return of a friend, a success, a death. The announcement of this death struck the young woman. Whose death? When? How?
“As to that,” replied the old woman, “the cards are not strong enough; you must come and see me tomorrow. I’ll tell you with the coffee-mark, which never fails.”
Emma turned anxiously to me.
“We may go tomorrow, mayn’t we? Oh, please say yes! If not, you don’t know how it will torment me.”
I began to laugh.
“We’ll go if you want to, darling.”
The old woman gave us her address.
She lived on the sixth floor of an awful house behind the Buttes-Chaumont. We went there the next day.
Her room, a garret with two chairs and a bed, was full of strange things—bunches of herbs hanging from nails, dried animals, bottles and phials containing various coloured liquids. On the table a stuffed black cat stared with glass eyes. He looked like the familiar spirit of this sinister dwelling.
Emma, faint with excitement, sat down, and said at once:
“Oh, darling, look at the cat! Isn’t he just like Misti?”
And she explained to the old woman that she herself had a cat just like that one; oh, exactly like it.
“If you love a man,” replied the sorceress solemnly, “you must not keep it.”
“Why not?” asked Emma, struck with terror.
The old woman sat down beside her in a familiar way, and took her hand.
“It’s the sorrow of my life,” she said.
My friend was eager to hear. She pressed the old woman to tell her, questioned her, urged her: the superstitious credulity they shared made them sisters in mind and heart. At last the fortune-teller made up her mind.
“I loved that cat,” she said, “like a brother. I was young in those days, and all alone; I did sewing at home. Monton was all I had. A lodger gave him to me. He was as clever as a child, and gentle too; he idolised me, dear lady, he idolised me more than a fetish. All day long he purred in my lap, all night on my pillow; I felt his heart beat, I did.
“Well, I made friends with a man, a nice boy who worked at a linen-draper’s. It went on for three months without my granting him anything. But you know how it is, one weakens—it happens to everybody; and besides, I had begun to love him, that I had. He was so nice, so nice and kind. He wanted us to live together all the time, for economy. At last I let him come and see me one evening. I hadn’t made up my mind, oh, dear, no! but I liked the idea of being together for an hour.
“At the beginning he was very well-behaved. He said pretty things to me which stirred my heart. Then he kissed me, madame, gave me a lover’s kiss. I had shut my eyes and remained in a sort of paralysis of happiness. Suddenly I felt that he’d made a violent movement, and he screamed, a scream I shall never forget. I opened my eyes and saw that Monton had flown at his face and was tearing his skin with his claws, like a rag of linen. And the blood was streaming down, madame.
“I tried to pull the cat off, but he held tight, and went on scratching, and even bit me, he was so far out of his senses. At last I got hold of him and threw him out of the window, which was open, since it was summer.
“When I began to wash my poor friend’s face, I saw
