Short Fiction

he took out the key, fastened to his coat by a string, opened the door, and bade me enter.

The room was simply whitewashed; there was a table in the middle, six chairs, and a kitchen cupboard against the wall.

“I am going to call my wife,” he said, “then I’ll go to the cellar to fetch some wine; it won’t keep up here.”

He went over to one of the two doors opening out of the room, and called:

“Bluette! Bluette!”

As Bluette made no reply he shouted louder: “Bluette! Bluette!”

Then, banging at the door with his fists, he muttered: “Confound you, won’t you wake up?”

He waited and put his ear to the keyhole and said in a quieter tone:

“Well, never mind, if she is asleep, I must let her sleep. I am going to fetch the wine; I’ll be back in two minutes.”

He disappeared. I sat down and made the best of a bad job.

What had I come for? All of a sudden I gave a start, for I heard low voices, cautious, almost silent, movements in the wife’s bedroom.

The devil! I must have fallen into a trap! Why had all the noise made by her husband, that banging on the door, not wakened this Bluette? It must have been a signal to his accomplices: “There is a mouse in the trap. I’ll watch the exit, you do the rest.” They were getting excited in the room, they were turning the key in the lock. My heart beat rapidly and I retreated to the far end of the room, murmuring: “Well, I must defend myself!” and, seizing a chair in both hands, I prepared for a lively struggle.

The door opened slightly and a hand appeared, holding it ajar; then a head, a man’s head wearing a round felt hat, slid along between the door and the wall, and two eyes were staring at me. Then, so quickly that I had not time to think of defending myself, the man, the supposed criminal, a big chap with bare feet, evidently hurriedly dressed, without a tie, his shoes in his hand, a fine-looking specimen, indeed, who might be described as almost a gentleman, made one bound for the door and disappeared down the stairs.

I sat down again. This was beginning to be interesting. I waited for the husband, who was a long time getting the wine. At last I heard him coming upstairs and the sound of his steps made me laugh one of those forlorn laughs so difficult to suppress.

He came into the room bringing two bottles and asked: “Is my wife still asleep? You have not heard her moving about?”

I knew that she must be listening, and I said:

“No, I have heard nothing.”

Then he called again: “Pauline!” but there was still no reply, no sound of anyone moving, so he explained to me: “You see, she doesn’t like me to come home at night and have a drop with a friend.”

“So you think she is not asleep?”

“Of course, she is not.” He seemed annoyed but said: “Well, let us have a drink,” and all at once he seemed to be quite determined to go on until both bottles were empty.

This time I was decided; I drank a glass and got up to go. He no longer suggested accompanying me, and, glancing at his wife’s door with a sullen scowl, the scowl of anger peculiar to the lower classes, of a brute whose violence is held in check, he muttered: “She will have to open the door when you are gone.”

I stared at the coward, now furious with a rage he could not explain, that was perhaps due to some obscure presentiment, the instinct of the betrayed male who dislikes closed doors. He had talked about her kindly, now he was certainly going to beat her. He shouted as he shook the door again: “Pauline!”

A sleepy voice replied from the other side of the wall: “Eh! What?”

“Didn’t you hear me come in?”

“No, I was asleep; go to hell.”

“Open the door.”

“When you are alone. I don’t like you to bring men back with you at night for a drink.”

Then I left, stumbling down the stairs, just as the other had done, whose accomplice I was. And as I started off for Paris, I thought that in that wretched home I had witnessed a scene of the eternal drama which is being played every day, in every form, in every country.

Endnotes

1. A play on the words “Sceaux” (buckets) and “Sots” (fools).

   —⁠Translator’s Note

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2. Désabusé⁠—Dissillusioned. Des abusés⁠—Amongst the deluded.

   —⁠Translator’s note

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3. Oh, you have direful secrets, cruel waves!
   You whisper them when clouds of tempest frown
   And wives and mothers weep unhallowed graves
   Yours are the mournful voices that we hear
   When towards the shore by night our steps draw near

   “Oceano Nox,” Victor Hugo, Selected Poems, vol. 3, p. 327

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4. Literally, “The bird flies”⁠—a pun on the verb voler, which means both “to fly” and “to steal.” ↩

5. Nickname for Napolean III. ↩

6. Passenger boats which ply on the Seine. ↩

7. I well remember that infernal joy
   Of being ravaged while I ravished her,
   And there she lay beside me, breathless, hot,
   A creature wan and cloyed, with grinding teeth
   No heavenly moments⁠—rather fits from hell

   “Cup and the Lip,” Alfred de Musset, Complete Writings, vol. 1, p. 253

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8. When you and I in bed shall lie,
   Lascivious we shall be,
   Enlaced, playing a thousand tricks,
   Of lovers, gamesomely.

   The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 3, p. 358

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9. Caresses are merely restless transports,
   The vain efforts of poor Love to attempt
   The impossible union of souls through the body.

   The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 10, p. 287

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10. Oh! the taste of the kisses first snatched through the veil.

    The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 15, p. 205