“Come on, come on,” he cried at last, “what’s all this monkey trickin’ about? Why don’t ye open the door wide and take yer mug outa the way?”
The man suddenly slipped outside the door like a cat. With his back to the door and his right hand bulging in his coat pocket he faced Gypo. He was a stocky, bulgy fellow, with a criminal face. He had rushed out with the intention of giving Gypo a thrashing with the blackjack that was concealed on his person, but when he saw the kind of customer with whom he had to deal his jaw dropped. Gypo gazed at the fellow angrily.
“So you’re the pimp,” he gurgled ferociously.
He took a little hurried breath, shot out his right hand and seized the pimp by the throat. The pimp gasped. His right hand dropped the blackjack. He reached up with his two hands to grip the giant hand that held his throat,
“Lemme go,” he screamed.
But Gypo contemptuously hurled him away from the door and sent him sprawling along the hall into the darkness. Then he sent the door flying open with a push of his shoulder and strode blinking into the room.
The room was crowded with people. It was very large. It had a stone floor and a wide, open hearth where an immense turf fire was blazing in a huge grate, with steaming kettles on either side, on the hobs. There was a dresser loaded with shining Delftware of all colours. The ceiling was high and whitewashed. The walls were covered with pictures of women, in amorous postures and in the varying degrees of nakedness that might be expected to arouse libidinous desires in the minds of all types of men. Everything in the room was spotlessly clean, but the air was warm and heavy, due to the rather intense heat of the fire and the combined odour of perfume and of alcohol.
This heavy, languorous odour exalted Gypo. He rolled his eyes round the room, drawing in a deep breath through his expanded nostrils. Everybody was looking at him. There were eight men present, three students from the University, an artist, a doctor and three young gentleman farmers, up from the country “on a tear.” They had hired the brothel for the night and ordered the proprietress to admit nobody; but they did not take umbrage at Gypo’s appearance. They were just at that moment in the delicious stage of intoxication when the most strange incidents become normal and welcome, to minds that are cloyed with alcohol fumes and the contemplation of bodily pleasures. The scuffle outside the door and the manner of Gypo’s entrance made no impression on them. His appearance, huge, towering, in a suit of dungarees, with his little round hat perched on his massive skull, intrigued them with a feeling that this was some new kind of pleasure provided for their entertainment. They looked at him, half laughing, half serious, with that dim and distant look in their eyes that comes with the initial stages of drunkenness.
The women, on the other hand, looked at Gypo with disfavour. There were ten of them present. Some of them were almost nude and in various stages of intoxication, sitting on the men’s knees, with glasses in their hands and cigarettes in their mouths. Others sat solemnly on their chairs dressed for the street, as if they had just dropped in on their way somewhere. Their hard faces set in a scowl when they saw Gypo. He was dressed like a workman. Therefore he had no money. Therefore they scowled at him. This was an “upper-class” brothel. All the women here were “ladies.” Their “class” instincts were aroused by his wretched clothes and his uncouth features.
One woman alone took no notice of him whatsoever. She sat in a corner, reading a newspaper, with her legs crossed, a cigarette between her lips, a fashionable short fur coat wrapped around her. Gypo’s eyes wandered around the room until they rested on her. There they remained.
“What d’ye want?” cried a harsh voice behind him.
Gypo turned. The proprietress of the brothel was standing beside the door. Her left hand was on her breast fingering a little silver crucifix that was suspended from her neck by a black velvet cord. Her right hand rested on the door, a short, white, fat hand, as if she were waiting until Gypo went out so as to shut the door again. She was a small, fat woman of middle age, with a huge head of devilishly black hair, arranged in towering fashion, with a glittering black comb stuck in the rear of the pile. Her hair was the last remains of her beauty. The remainder of her head had been coarsened by the odious nature of her pursuits. Her face was blotched, wrinkled and pale. Her eyes were yellow, hard, sunken and bloodshot. Her mouth was drawn together as if some clumsy fellow had tried to stitch the lips and made a bad job of it. She was dressed in a blue skirt and a white blouse. The blouse sleeves were rolled almost up to her shoulders showing a tremendously fat pair of arms. They called her Aunt Betty and she was known all over the district for her cunning, her meanness and the peculiar habit she had, perhaps in the middle of a conversation, of suddenly uttering a coarse expression, grasping her breasts and staring about her wild-eyed, as if she were afraid of some dread spectre being in pursuit of her.
Gypo did not know her, because her place was fashionable, frequented only by well-to-do people, business men, army officers and students who had money to spend. Gypo only knew the cheaper brothels, places that were used as “friendly houses” by revolutionaries, criminals and working men. On any other night he would never think of entering the place, no more than a man in overalls would think of taking a seat
