“We dine at six, you’re free till dinner, I can’t keep you company because I’ve several things to do.”
Left to himself, he hesitated between sleeping and going out. He gazed in turn at the door leading to his room, and the one which led to the street. He decided on the street.
So he went out, and sauntered slowly, his sword clanking on his legs, through the dreary Breton town, so sleepy, so dead-alive beside its inland sea, that it was called the “Morbihan.” He looked at the little grey houses, the rare passersby, the empty shops, and murmured: “You couldn’t call Vannes gay or boisterous; it was a rotten idea to come here.”
He reached the gloomy harbour, returned along a sad, deserted boulevard, and was home again before five o’clock. Then he flung himself upon his bed to sleep till dinner time.
The maid woke him by knocking on his door.
“Dinner is ready, sir.”
He went down.
In the damp dining room, where the paper was peeling off the lower half of the walls, a soup tureen waited on a round bare table in company with three melancholy plates.
M. and Mme. Padoie entered just as Varajou did.
They took their places, then husband and wife made a sign of the cross on the pit of their stomachs, after which Padoie served the soup, gravy soup. It was broth day.
After the soup, came the beef, overdone, disintegrated, greasy beef, cooked to a mush. The sergeant-major masticated it slowly, overcome with disgust, weariness and anger.
Mme. Padoie was saying to her husband:
“You’re going to visit the president tonight?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“Don’t stay too late. You get tired every time you go out anywhere; you’re not fit to lead a social life with your bad health.”
Then she began to talk about the society of Vannes, of the very select society which received the Padoies with the greatest respect, because of their religious beliefs.
Then mashed potatoes, with slices of cold sausage, were served, in honour of the guest. Then cheese. The meal was finished. No coffee.
Varajou realised that he would have to spend the evening alone with his sister, enduring her reproaches, and listening to her sermons, without even a liqueur to pour down his throat to make her reprimands easier to swallow; he thought desperately that he could not endure such anguish, and declared that he had to report at the police station to get his leave papers made properly in order. And he hurried away at seven o’clock.
The instant he got into the street, he began by shaking himself like a dog coming out of the water. “My God,” he murmured, “oh, my God, what a filthy bore!”
He set out in search of a café, the best café in the town. He found it in a square, behind two gas jets. Inside, five or six men, quiet, prosperous tradespeople, were sitting with their elbows on the little tables, drinking and quietly talking, while two billiard-players walked round the green cloth, where their balls rolled and collided.
Voices rose, announcing the score. “Eighteen. Nineteen. No luck. Oh, good stroke; well played. Eleven. You ought to have taken it off the red. Twenty. Run through, run through. Twelve. Then, I was right, wasn’t I?”
Varajou ordered: “Coffee, and a decanter of brandy, the best.”
Then he sat down, and waited for his drinks.
He was accustomed to spending his evenings of freedom with his comrades, in rowdy hilarity and clouds of smoke. The silence and calm of this place exasperated him. He began to drink, first coffee, and then the decanter of brandy, then a second which he had ordered. He was ready to laugh now, shout, sing, fight someone.
“Thank the Lord,” he said, “Varajou’s himself again.” Then the idea came into his head to find some women for his amusement. He called for a waiter:
“Hi, my lad.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My lad, whereabouts in this town can a fellow see a bit of fun?”
The man looked blank at the question.
“I don’t know, sir. At this café.”
“What do you mean, in this café? What do you call a bit of fun, eh?”
“Why, I don’t know, sir; drinking a glass of good beer or wine.”
“Come off it, idiot. Women, what do you do for women?”
“Women! Ah!”
“Yes, women. Where’ll I get any here?”
“Women?”
“Yes, of course, women.”
The waiter came closer, and lowered his voice:
“You want to know where the house is?”
“Lord, yes.”
“Take the second street to the left, and the first to the right. Number 15.”
“Thanks, old bean. Here y’re.”
“Thank you, sir.”
And Varajou left the café repeating: “Second to the left, first to the right, 15.” But after walking for a few moments, he thought: “Second to the left—yes—But ought I to turn right or left from the café? Bah, devil take it, I’ll soon find out.”
He walked on, turned down the second street to the left, then down the first on the right, and looked for number 15. It was a fairly substantial house, and he could see that the first-floor windows were lit up behind their closed shutters. The front door was half open, and a lamp was burning in the hall: The sergeant-major thought: “This is it.”
So he went in, and, as no one came, he called:
“Hullo, hullo.”
A little maid came, and stood stock-still in amazement at the sight of a soldier. “Good evening, my child,” he said to her. “Are the ladies upstairs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the drawing room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can go up, I suppose, can I?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The door is at the top of the stairs?”
“Yes, sir.”
He went upstairs, opened a door, and in a room brilliantly lighted by two lamps, a lustre, and two candelabras of wax candles, he saw four ladies in evening gowns who seemed to be expecting somebody.
Three of them, the youngest, were arranged rather stiffly on chairs covered in garnet velvet, while the fourth, who was about forty-five years old, was arranging some flowers in a vase. She was very fat, and clad in a
