The doctor, examining him with an ever-growing interest, asked:
“So he plays the young man at fancy-dress balls, does he?”
“At all of them, sir, and he comes back to me in the morning in such a condition you can’t imagine. You know, it’s regret that drives him there, and makes him put a cardboard face over his own. Yes, regret that he’s no longer what he was, and so has no triumphs any more.”
He was sleeping now, and beginning to snore. She contemplated him with a compassionate air, and added:
“Oh, he has had his triumphs, that man has! More than you’d think, sir, more than the fine society gentleman and more than any tenor or any general.”
“Really? What was he then?”
“Oh, it surprises you at first, seeing that you didn’t know him in his best days. When I met him, it was at a ball, too, for he was always attending them. I was taken as soon as I saw him—yes, taken like a fish on a line. He was charming, sir, so charming he’d bring tears to your eyes to look at him, dark as a crow, and curly-haired, with black eyes as large as windows. Oh, yes, he was a beautiful young man. He carried me off that evening, and I never left him again, sir, no, not for a day, in spite of everything. Oh, he has given me some bad times!”
The doctor asked:
“You are married?”
She answered simply:
“Yes, sir … or else he would have left me like the others. I have been his wife and his nurse, everything, everything he wanted … and he has made me weep for it … tears that I did not let him see. For he used to tell his adventures to me, to me … to me … sir—never realising how it hurt me to listen to them. …”
“But what was his profession?”
“Oh, yes … I forgot to tell you. He was head assistant at Martel’s, such an assistant as you never saw … an artist at ten francs the hour, on an average.
“Martel? … who was Martel?”
“The hairdresser, sir, the famous hairdresser of the Opéra, who had all the actresses as his customers. Yes, all the smartest actresses came to have their hair done by Ambroise, and gave him rewards that made his fortune. Oh, sir, all women are alike, yes, all of them. When a man pleases them, they offer themselves to him. It’s so easy … and that’s a hard lesson to learn. For he used to tell me all … he couldn’t keep silent … no, he couldn’t. These things give so much pleasure to men! and more pleasure still to tell about than to do, perhaps.
“When I saw him come home in the evening a little pale, with an air of contentment, and shining eyes, I used to say to myself: ‘Another one. I am sure he’s caught another one.’ Then I used to long to question him, a longing that scorched my heart, and I longed not to know, too, to prevent him from talking if he began. And we used to look at each other.
“I knew well that he would not hold his tongue, that he was going to come to the point. I felt it in his manner, in the laughing manner he assumed to make me understand. ‘I have had a good day today, Madeleine.’ I pretended not to see, not to guess: I set the table; I brought the soup; I sat down opposite him.
“In those moments, sir, it was just as if my liking for him was being crushed out of my body with a stone. That’s a bad thing, that is, a dreadful thing. But he didn’t guess it, not he, he didn’t know: he felt the need to tell someone about it, to boast, to show how much he was loved … and he had only me to tell it to … you understand … only me … so … I had to listen and take it like poison.
“He began to eat his soup and then he used to say:
“ ‘Another one, Madeleine.’
“I used to think: ‘Now it’s coming. My God, what a man! That I should have taken up with him!’
“Then he started: ‘Another one, and a beauty. …’ And it would be a little girl from the Vaudeville or maybe a little girl from the Variétés, and maybe one of the great ones too, the most famous of these theatrical ladies. He told me their names, described their rooms, and all, all, yes, all, sir. … Details that tore my heart. And he would keep on about it, he would tell his story again from beginning to end, so pleased that I used to pretend to laugh so that he would not be angry with me.
“Perhaps it wasn’t all true. He was so fond of glorifying himself that he was quite capable of inventing such things! And perhaps, too, it was true. On those evenings, he made a show of being tired, of wanting to go to bed after supper. We had supper at eleven, sir, because he never came in earlier, on account of the evening hairdressing.
“When he had finished relating his adventures, he used to smoke cigarettes and walk up and down the room, and he was such a handsome fellow, with his moustache and his curly hair, that I thought: ‘It’s true, all the same, what he tells me. Since I’m mad about that man myself, why shouldn’t other women be infatuated with him too?’ Oh, I wanted to cry about it, to scream, to run away, to throw myself out of the window, as I was clearing the table while he went on smoking. He yawned when he opened his mouth, to show me how tired he was, and he used to say two or three times before getting into bed: ‘God, how I shall sleep tonight!’
“I bear him no grudge for it, because he did not know he hurt me. No, he could not know it! He loved to boast
