However, this man’s voice sounded rather scared, not at all bold, and up to the present his manner had been more courteous than aggressive.
In my turn I began to question him:
“And you, are you going far?”
“No farther than Asnières.”
“Do you live at Asnières?”
“Yes, sir, I am a pedlar by trade and I live at Asnières.”
He had left the sidewalk where the foot-passengers walk in the daytime under the shade of the trees, and moved up towards the middle of the road. I did the same. We eyed each other suspiciously, holding our sticks in our hands. When I got near enough I felt quite reassured. He apparently felt the same, for he asked:
“Would you mind going a little slower?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like this road by night. I am carrying goods on my back; and two are always better than one. Two men together are seldom attacked.”
I knew that he was right and that he was afraid. So yielding to his wish, the stranger and I walked along side by side, at one o’clock in the morning on the road from Argenteuil to Asnières.
“Why, when it is so risky, are you going home so late?” I asked my companion.
He told me all about it. He had not intended to go back that evening, as he had set out that very morning with a big enough stock to last three or four days. But sales had been very good, so good that he was obliged to return home immediately in order to be able to deliver orders next day.
He explained with real satisfaction that he was an able salesman, having the gift of words, and that he managed to dispose of things that were awkward to carry by the display of trifles and a fund of amusing patter.
He added: “I have a shop at Asnières. My wife keeps it.”
“Oh! so you are married?”
“Yes, sir, fifteen months ago. I have found a good little wife. She will be surprised when she sees me back tonight.”
He told me about his marriage, how he had wanted the girl for over two years but she had not been able to make up her mind.
Since her childhood she had kept a small shop at the corner of the street where she sold all sorts of things: ribbons, flowers in summer, and chiefly very pretty shoe buckles, with other trifles of which she was able to make a speciality owing to the kindness of a manufacturer. She was well known in Asnières as Bluette, so called because she often wore blue. She earned good money because she was very capable in everything she did. She did not seem to be very well at present, and he thought she must be enceinte, but was not sure. Their business was thriving, and his special job was to travel about showing samples to the small shopkeepers in the neighbouring districts; he was becoming a kind of travelling commission agent for certain manufacturers, and at the same time he worked for himself.
“And you—what do you do?” he said.
I started to bluff. I said that I had a sailing-boat at Argenteuil and two racing-yawls, that I came for a row every evening and, as I was fond of exercise, I sometimes returned to Paris, where I was engaged in professional work which, I led him to infer, paid me well.
He remarked: “Well! Well! if I had the tin you have, I would not amuse myself by trudging the roads at night. It isn’t safe along here.”
He cast a sidelong glance at me and I wondered whether, after all, he was not some cunning evildoer anxious to avoid useless risk.
I felt reassured when he murmured: “Not so fast, if you please. My pack is heavy.”
As we saw the houses of Asnières in the distance he said: “I am near home now, for we don’t sleep at the shop, which is guarded at night by a dog that is the equal of four men. Besides, rooms are far too dear in the centre of the town. Now, listen, sir; you have rendered me a great service, for I don’t feel happy on the road with my pack. So now you must come in and drink a glass of warmed wine with my wife—if she wakes up, that is to say, for she sleeps soundly and does not like to be roused. Then without my pack I am not afraid, so, thick stick in hand, I’ll see you to the gates of the city.”
I declined the invitation; he insisted, and I persisted in my refusal; then he got so excited about it, was so genuinely distressed, and asked me with an air of wounded pride “whether I would not drink with a man like him,” that I ended by giving in and followed him along a lonely road to one of those big dilapidated houses to be found on the outskirts of the suburbs.
I hesitated at the door. The big barrack-like building must be a thieves’ resort, a den of suburban robbers, but the pedlar made me go first through the unlocked door and, with his hand on my shoulders, guided me through complete darkness while I groped towards a staircase, feeling that at any moment I might fall through some hole into a cellar.
When I had struck the first step he said: “Go up, we live on the sixth story.”
I found a box of very large wax matches in my pocket and was able to light up the darkness. He followed me panting under the weight of his pack as he repeated: “It’s a long way up! It’s a long way!”
When we were at the top of the house,
