“Her figure is very pretty,” said Storeshnikof, who was encouraged by the praise given his taste, and who thought at the same time that he could give Julie a compliment. He had not dared to do so before. “Her figure is charming, although to praise another woman’s figure here is certainly blasphemy.”
“Ha! ha! ha! this gentleman wants to make a compliment on my figure! I am neither a hypocrite nor a liar, Monsieur Storeshnik, and I don’t praise myself, nor can I endure that others should flatter what is bad in me. Thank God, I have something for which I can honestly be praised. But my figure! ha! ha! ha! Jean, you can tell him whether my figure is worth praising. Jean, why don’t you speak? Your hand, Monsieur Storeshnik.” She seized his hand. “See here! Now you will know that I am not all that I seem! I have to wear a padded dress, just as I wear a petticoat, not because I like it. No, in my opinion it would be better without such hypocrisy, but because it is the fashion. But a woman who has lived as I have, and how have I lived Monsieur Storeshnik? I am a saint now compared to what I have been; such a woman cannot preserve her beauty!”
And suddenly she burst into tears—“My beauty! My beauty! my lost innocence! Oh God, why was I born?”
“You lie, gentlemen!” she cried, jumping up and pounding with her fist on the table. “You are slanderers. You are low fellows. She is not his mistress. He is trying to buy her. I saw how she turned away from him; how she burned with indignation and with scorn. It was contemptible.”
“Yes,” said the civilian, lazily stretching himself, “you have boasted a little prematurely, Storeshnikof; you have not caught your fish yet, and yet you said that she was yours, and that you had broken with Adèle so as to deceive us the better. Yes, you gave us a very good description, but you described to us what you had not seen yet; however, it’s no matter. A week sooner or later makes no difference. You must not be discouraged about drawing on your imagination for stories. You will get on even better than you thought. I have been there; you will be satisfied.”
Storeshnikof was beside himself with anger. “No, Mademoiselle Julie, you are mistaken; I venture to assure you that you are mistaken in your conclusion; forgive me for daring to contradict you, but she is my mistress. That was an ordinary lover’s quarrel because she was jealous; she saw that I was sitting in Mademoiselle Mathilde’s box during the first act; that’s all.”
“That’s a lie, my dear, that’s a lie,” said Jean, yawning.
“I don’t tell lies! I don’t tell lies!”
“Prove it. I am a positive man, and I don’t believe anything without proofs.”
“What proofs can I bring you?”
“Now here you are backing out, and you as good as confess that you lie. What proofs? As if it would be hard to show them. Now, then, here’s for you: tomorrow we will meet here again at supper. Mademoiselle Julie will be good enough to bring her Serge; I shall bring my dear little Berthe; you bring her. If you bring her, I am the loser, the supper shall be at my expense. If you don’t bring her, you shall be driven out from our circle in disgrace.—Jean, touch the bell.” The servant appeared. “Simon, be good enough to get supper for six people tomorrow; one just like the one that I had when Berthe and I were married at your house—do you remember?—before Christmas, and have it in this very room!”
“How could I ever forget such a supper, Monsieur? It shall be done.” The servant went out.
“You contemptible, miserable men! Two years I lived as a bad woman in a house with prostitutes and thieves, and never once did I meet three such low people as you are! Mon Dieu! what sort of people do I have to live with in society? Why must I suffer such disgrace, O God!” She fell on her knees: “O God, I am a feeble woman! I could bear hunger, but in Paris the winters were so cold. The cold was so bitter, and the temptations were so overpowering. I wanted to live; I wanted to love. O God, that was no sin! Why art thou punishing me so? Deliver me from this band. Lift me out of this mire. Give me strength to become even a bad woman again in Paris; I ask of Thee nothing else: I deserve nothing else. Only deliver me from these men, from these contemptible men!”
She jumped up, and ran to the officer: “Serge, are you too like the rest? No, you are better.”
“Better?” repeated the officer, phlegmatically.
“Isn’t this thing contemptible?”
“It is, Julie.”
“And you don’t protest? You allow it? You agree to it? You share in it?”
“Sit on my knee, my dear Julie.” He began to caress her, and she grew calmer. “How I love you at such moments! You are a glorious woman. Now, why don’t you consent to go through the marriage ceremony with me? How many times have I asked you to? Give your consent.”
“Marriage? the bridle? conventionality? Never! I have forbidden you to mention such absurdities. Don’t get me angry. But Serge, dear Serge, forbid him; he is afraid of you. Save her!”
“Julie, be calmer. This is impossible. If not he, then somebody else; what difference does it make? Just look here. Jean is already thinking of getting her away from him, and there are thousands of such Jeans, as you know well. It is impossible to save the daughter when her mother is anxious to sell her. ‘You can’t knock down a wall with your forehead,’ we
