Part 3

"Have you ever been obsessed by the thought of a woman, long afterwards, on returning to the place where you loved her and she gave herself to you? It is one of the most powerful and painful sensations I know. It seems as if one could see her enter, smiling and holding out her arms. Her features, elusive yet clear, are before your eyes. She passes, returns and disappears. She tortures you like a nightmare, holds you, fills your heart, and stirs your senses by her unreal presence. She is visible to the eye, her perfume haunts you, the taste of her kisses is on your lips, and the touch of her body caresses your skin. Yet, one knows one is alone, and one is strangely tortured by the phantom one has evoked. A heavy, heart-breaking melancholy invades you, as if you were abandoned for ever. Everything looks depressing, filling the heart with a horrible sense of isolation and abandonment. Never return to the house, the room, the woods, the garden, the seat, the town, where you have held in your arms a woman you loved.

"I thought of her nearly the whole night, and by degrees the wish to see her again seized me, a confused desire at first, which gradually grew stronger and more intense. At last I made up my mind to spend the next day in Genoa, to try and find her, and if I should not succeed to take the evening train.

"Early in the morning I set out on my search. I remembered the directions she had given me when she left me, perfectly--Victor-Emmanuel Street, the Passage Falcone, St. Raphael Street, house of the furniture-dealer, at the bottom of the yard in a court.

"I found it without the least difficulty, and I knocked at the door of a somewhat dilapidated-looking dwelling. A fat woman opened it, who must once have been very handsome, but who actually was only very dirty. Although she was too fat, she still bore the lines of majestic beauty; her untidy hair fell over her forehead and shoulders, and one fancied one could see her fat body floating about in an enormous dressing-gown covered with spots of dirt and grease. Round her neck she wore a great gilt necklace, and on her wrists were splendid bracelets of Genoa filigree work.

"In rather a hostile manner she asked me what I wanted, and I replied by requesting her to tell me whether Francesca Rondoli lived there.

"'What do you want with her?' she asked.

"'I had the pleasure of meeting her last year, and I should like to see her again.'

"The old woman looked at me suspiciously.

"'Where did you meet her?' she asked.

"'Why, here, in Genoa itself.'

"'What is your name?'

"I hesitated a moment, and then I told her. I had scarcely done so when the Italian raised her arms as if to embrace me. 'Oh! you are the Frenchman; how glad I am to see you! But what grief you caused the poor child. She waited for you a month; yes, a whole month. At first she thought you would come to fetch her. She wanted to see whether you loved her. If you only knew how she cried when she saw that you were not coming! She cried till she seemed to have no tears left. Then she went to the hotel, but you had gone. She thought that most likely you were travelling in Italy, and that you would return by Genoa to fetch her, as she would not go with you. And she waited more than a month. Monsieur; and she was so unhappy; so unhappy. I am her mother.'

"I really felt a little disconcerted, but I regained my self-possession, and asked: 'Is she here now?'

"'No, she has gone to Paris with a painter, a delightful man, who loves her very much, and who gives her everything that she wants. Just look at what she sent me; they are very pretty, are they not?'

"And she showed me, with quite southern animation, her heavy bracelets and necklace. 'I have also,' she continued, 'earrings with stones in them, a silk dress, and some rings; but I only wear them on grand occasions. Oh! she is very happy, sir, very happy. She will be so pleased when I tell her you have been here. But pray come in and sit down. You will take something or other, surely?'

"But I refused, as I now wished to get away by the first train; but she took me by the arm and pulled me in, saying:

"'Please, come in; I must tell her that you have been here.'

"I found myself in a small, rather dark room, furnished with only a table and a few chairs.

"She continued: 'Oh! She is very happy now, very happy. When you met her in the train she was very miserable, for her lover had just left her at Marseilles, and she was coming back, poor child. But she liked you at once, though she was still rather sad, you understand. Now she has all she wants, and she writes and tells me everything that she does. His name is Bellemin, and they say he is a great painter in your country. He met her in the street here, and fell in love with her immediately. But you will take a glass of syrup?--it is very good. Are you quite alone, this year?'

"'Yes, I said, quite alone.'

"I felt an increasing inclination to laugh, as my first disappointment was dispelled by what Mother Rondoli said. I was obliged, however, to drink a glass of her syrup.

"'So you are quite alone?' she continued. 'How sorry I am that Francesca is not here now; she would have been company for you all the time you stayed. It is not very amusing to go about all by oneself, and she will be very sorry also.'

"Then, as I was getting up to go, she exclaimed:

"'But would you not like Carlotta to go with you? She knows all the walks very well. She is my second daughter, sir.'

"No doubt she took my look of surprise for consent, for she opened the inner door and called out up the dark stairs which I could not see:

"'Carlotta! Carlotta! come down, quickly, my dear child.'

"I tried to protest, but she would not listen.

"'No; she will be very glad to go with you; she is very nice, and much more cheerful than her sister, and she is a good girl, a very good girl, whom I love very much.'

"I heard the clatter of slippers on the stairs, and a tall, slender, dark girl appeared, also with her hair hanging down, and whose youthful figure showed unmistakably beneath an old dress of her mother.

"The latter at once told her how matters stood.

"'This is Francesca's Frenchman, you know, the one whom she knew last year. He is quite alone, and has come to look for her, poor fellow; so I told him that you would go with him to keep him company.'

"The girl looked at me with her handsome dark eyes, and said, smiling:

"'I have no objection, if he wishes it.'

"I could not possibly refuse, and merely said:

"'Of course I shall be very glad of your company.'

"Her mother pushed her out. 'Go and get dressed directly; put on your blue dress and your hat with the flowers, and make haste.'

"--As soon as she had left the room the old woman explained herself: 'I have two others, but they are much younger. It costs a lot of money to bring up four children. Luckily the eldest is off my hands at present.'

"Then she told all about herself, about her husband, who had been an employee on the railway, but who was dead, and she expatiated on the good qualities of Carlotta, her second girl, who soon returned, dressed, as her sister had been, in a striking, peculiar manner.

"Her mother examined her from head to foot, and, after finding everything right, she said:

"'Now, my children, you can go.' Then, turning to the girl, she said: 'Be sure you are back by ten o'clock to-night; you know the door is locked then.'

"'All right, mamma; don't alarm yourself,' Carlotta replied.

"She took my arm, and we went wandering about the streets, just as I had done the previous year with her sister.

"We returned to the hotel for lunch, and then I took my new friend to Santa Margarita, just as I had done with her sister the year previously.

"During the whole fortnight which I had at my disposal I took Carlotta to all the places of interest in and about Genoa. She gave me no cause to regret the other.

"She cried when I left her, and the morning of my departure I gave her four bracelets for her mother, besides a substantial token of my affection for herself.

"One of these days I intend to return to Italy, and I cannot help remembering, with a certain amount of uneasiness, mingled with hope, that Mme Rondoli has two more daughters."

MY LANDLADY

"At that time," said George Kervelen, "I was living in furnished lodgings in the Rue des Saints-Pères. When my parents decided that I should go to Paris to continue my law studies, there had been a long discussion about settling everything. My allowance had been fixed at first at two thousand five hundred francs, but my poor mother was so anxious, that she said to my father that if I spent my money rashly I might not have enough to eat, and then my health would suffer, and so it was settled that a comfortable boarding-house should be found for me, and that the amount should be paid to the proprietor himself, or herself, every month.

"I had never left Quimper. I wanted everything that one desires at that age and I was prepared to have a good time in every way.

"Some of our neighbours told us of a certain Mme Kergaran, a native of Brittany, who took in boarders, and so my father arranged matters by letter with this respectable person, at whose house I and my luggage arrived one evening.

"Mme Kergaran was a woman of about forty. She was very stout, had a voice like a drill-sergeant, and decided everything in a very abrupt and decisive manner. Her house was narrow, with only one window opening on to the street on each story, which rather gave it the appearance of a ladder of windows, or better, perhaps, of a slice of a house sandwiched in between two others.

"The landlady lived on the first floor with her servant, the kitchen and dining-room were on the second, and four boarders from Brittany lived on the third and fourth, and I had two rooms on the fifth.

"A little dark corkscrew staircase led up to these attics. All day long Mme Kergaran was up and down these stairs like a captain on board ship. Ten times a day she would go into each room, noisily superintending everything, seeing that the beds were properly made, the clothes well brushed, that the attendance was all that it should be; in a word, she looked after her boarders like a mother, and better than a mother.

"I soon made the acquaintance of my four fellow-countrymen. Two were medical and two were law students, but all impartially endured the landlady's despotic yoke. They were as frightened of her as a bey robbing an orchard is of a rural policeman.

"I, however, immediately felt that I wished to be independent; it is my nature to rebel. I declared at once that I meant to come in at whatever time I liked, for Mme Kergaran had fixed twelve o'clock at night as the limit. On hearing this she looked at me for a few moments, and then said:

"'It is quite impossible; I cannot have Annette called up at any hour of the night. You can have nothing to do out-of-doors at such a time.'

"I replied firmly that, according to the law, she was obliged to open the door for me at any time.

"'If you refuse,' I said, 'I shall get a policeman to witness the fact, and go and get a bed at some hotel, at your expense, in which I shall be fully justified. You will, therefore, be obliged either to open the door for me or to get rid of me. Do whatever you please.'

"I laughed in her face as I told her my conditions. She could not speak for a moment for surprise, then she tried to negotiate, but I was firm, and she was obliged to yield. It was agreed that I should have a latchkey, on my solemn undertaking that no one else should know it.

"My energy made such a wholesome impression on her that from that time she treated me with marked favour; she was most attentive, and even showed me a sort of rough tenderness which was not at all unpleasing. Sometimes when I was in a jovial mood I would kiss her by surprise, if only for the sake of getting the box on the ears which she gave me immediately afterward. When I managed to duck my head quickly enough, her hand would pass over me as swiftly as a ball, and I would run away laughing, while she would call after me:

"'Oh! you wretch, I will pay you out for that.'

"However, we soon became real friends.

"It was not long before I made the acquaintance of a girl who was employed in a shop, and whom I constantly met. You know what that sort of love affair is in Paris. One fine day, going to a lecture, you meet a girl going to work arm-in-arm with a friend. You look at her and feel that pleasant little shock which the eyes of some women give you. It is one of the charming things of life, those sudden physical attractions aroused by a chance meeting, that gentle seduction induced by contact with a woman born to please and to be loved. Whether she is greatly loved or not makes no difference. It is in her nature to respond to one's secret desire for love. The first time you see her face, her mouth, her hair, her smile, their charm penetrates you with a sweet joy, you are pervaded by a sense of well-being, and a tenderness, as yet undefined, impels you towards this woman whom you do not know. There seems to be in her some appeal which you answer, an attraction that draws you, as if you knew her for a long time, had already seen her, and knew what she is thinking. The next day at the same time, going through the same street, you meet her again, and the next, and the succeeding days. At last you speak, and the love affair follows its course just like an illness.

"Well, by the end of three weeks I was on that footing with Emma which precedes intimacy. The fall would indeed have taken place much sooner had I known where to bring it about. The girl lived at home, and utterly refused to go to an hotel. I did not know how to manage, but at last I made the desperate resolve to take her to my room some night at about eleven o'clock, under the pretence of giving her a cup of tea. Mme Kergaran always went to bed at ten, so that we could get in by means of my latchkey without exciting any attention, and go down again in an hour or two in the same way.

"After a good deal of entreaty on my part, Emma accepted my invitation.

"I did not spend a very pleasant day, for I was by no means easy in my mind. I was afraid of complications, of a catastrophe, of some scandal. At night I went into a café, and drank two cups of coffee and three or four glasses of cognac, to give me courage, and when I heard the clock strike half past ten, I went slowly to the place of meeting, where she was already waiting for me. She took my arm in a coaxing manner, and we set off slowly toward my lodgings. The nearer we got to the door the more nervous I got, and I thought to myself: 'If only Mme Kergaran is in bed already.'

"I said to Emma two or three times:

"'Above all things, don't make any noise on the stairs,' to which she replied, laughing:

"'Are you afraid of being heard?'

"'No,' I said, 'but I am afraid of waking the man who sleeps in the room next to me, who is not at all well.'

"When I got near the house I felt as frightened as a man does who is going to the dentist's. All the windows were dark, so no doubt everybody was asleep, and I breathed again. I opened the door as carefully as a thief, let my fair companion in, shut it behind me, and went upstairs on tiptoe, holding my breath, and striking wax-matches lest the girl should make a false step.

"As we passed the landlady's door I felt my heart beating very quickly. But we reached the second floor, then the third, and at last the fifth, and got into my room. Victory!

"However, I only dared to speak in a whisper, and took off my boots so as not to make any noise. The tea, which I made over a spirit-lamp, was soon drunk, and then I became pressing, till little by little, as if in play, I, one by one, took off my companion's garments. She yielded while resisting, blushing, confused.

"She had absolutely nothing on except a short white petticoat when my door suddenly opened, and Mme Kergaran appeared with a candle in her hand, in exactly the same costume as Emma.

"I jumped away from her and remained standing, looking at the two women, who were looking at each other. What was going to happen?

"My landlady said, in a lofty tone of voice which I had never heard from her before:

"'Monsieur Kervelen, I will not have prostitutes in my house.'

"'But, Madame Kergaran,' I stammered, 'the young lady is a friend of mine. She just came in to have a cup of tea.'

"'People don't take tea in their chemises. You will please make this person go directly.'

"Emma, in a natural state of consternation, began to cry, and hid her face in her petticoat, and I lost my head, not knowing what to do or say. My landlady added, with irresistible authority:

"'Help her to dress, and take her out at once.'

"It was certainly the only thing I could do, so I picked up her dress from the floor where it had collapsed in a heap like a deflated balloon, put it over her head, and began to fasten it as best I could. She helped me, crying all the time, hurrying and making all sorts of mistakes and unable to find either button-holes or laces, while Mme Kergaran stood by motionless, with the candle in her hand, looking at us with the severity of a judge.

"Emma now began to hurry feverishly, throwing her things on at random, tying, pinning, lacing and fastening in a frenzy, goaded on by the irresistible desire for flight, and without even stopping to button her boots, she rushed past the landlady and ran downstairs. I followed her in my slippers and half undressed, and kept repeating: 'Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!'

"I felt that I ought to say something to her, but I could not find anything. I overtook her just by the street-door, and tried to take her into my arms, but she pushed me violently away, saying in a low, nervous voice:

"'Leave me alone, leave me alone!' and so ran out into the street, closing the door behind her.

"When I went upstairs again I found that Mme Kergaran was waiting on the first landing. I went up slowly, expecting, and ready for, anything.

"Her door was open, and she called me in, saying in severe voice:

"'I want to speak to you, M. Kervelen.'

"I went in, with my head bent. She put her candle on the mantlepiece, and then, folding her arms over her expansive bosom, which a fine white dressing-jacket hardly covered, she said:

"'So, Monsieur Kervelen, you think my house is a house of ill-fame?'

"I was not at all proud. I murmured:

"'Oh dear, no! But, Mme Kergaran, you must not be angry; you know what young men are.'

"'I know,' was her answer, 'that I will not have such creatures here, so you will understand that. I expect to have my house respected, and I will not have it lose its reputation, you understand me? I know--'

"She went on thus for at least twenty minutes, overwhelming me with the good name of her house, with reasons for her indignation, and loading me with severe reproofs.

"Men are curious creatures. Instead of listening to her, I was looking at her, and did not hear a word, not a word she said. She had a superb bosom, firm, white and plump, perhaps a little too plump, but tempting enough to send shivers down one's spine. I should never have dreamed that anything so charming was concealed beneath the woollen dress of my landlady. She looked ten years younger when undressed. I began to feel queer... shall I say... moved? I suddenly found myself picking up with her the threads of the situation she had disturbed fifteen minutes previously in my bedroom.

"Behind her, in the alcove, I could see her bed, with the sheets rolled down, tossed, showing a hollow place where her body had pressed. And I thought it must be very nice, very warm there, much warmer than in any other bed, no doubt because of the opulent charms that rested there.

"What could be more charming, more disturbing, than an unmade bed? This one, even from a distance, intoxicated me, and made my flesh tingle.

"She was still talking, but now more gently, like a gruff but well-meaning friend, who is willing to make up and be friends.

"'Madame Kergaran, 'I stammered, 'I... I...', and as she had stopped to hear my reply, I seized her in my arms and began to kiss her, to devour her, like a famished man who has been waiting for a long time.

"She struggled, turning away her head, but without becoming really angry, and repeated mechanically, as was her habit: 'Oh, the brute... the brute... the bru...

"She did not finish the word, for I had lifted her with an effort, and was carrying her clasped to my heart. Under certain circumstances, one acquires remarkable vigour!

"I stumbled against the edge of the bed, and I fell on it still holding her in my arms... It was nice and warm in her bed.

"An hour later, the candle having gone out, my landlady got up to light another. As she returned and slipped in by my side, her great, round leg crushing the sheets, she said in a coaxing, satisfied, perhaps grateful tone: 'Oh, the brute... the brute!...'"

THE LITTLE CASK

Maître Chicot, the innkeeper, who lived at Épreville, pulled up his tilbury in front of Mother Magloire's farmhouse. He was a tall man of about forty, fat and with a red face, who was generally said to be very malicious.

He hitched his horse up to the gatepost and went in the yard. He owned some land adjoining that of the old woman. He had been coveting her plot for a long while, and had tried in vain to buy it a score of times, but she had always obstinately refused to part with it.

"I was born here, and here I mean to die," was all she said.

He found her peeling potatoes outside the farmhouse door. She was a woman of about seventy-two, very thin, shrivelled and wrinkled, almost dried-up, in fact, and much bent, but as active and untiring as a girl. Chicot patted her on the back in a very friendly fashion, and then sat down by her on a stool.

"Well, Mother, you are always pretty well and hearty, I am glad to see."

"Nothing to complain of, considering, thank you. And how are you, Maître Prosper?"

"Oh! pretty well, thank you, except a few rheumatic pains occasionally; otherwise, I should have nothing to complain of."

"Well, I am glad of that!"

And she said no more, while Chicot watched her going on with her work. Her crooked, knotty fingers, hard as a lobster's claws, seized the tubers, which were lying in a pail, as if they had been a pair of pincers, and peeled them rapidly, cutting off long strips of skin with an old knife which she held in the other hand, throwing the potatoes into the water as they were done. Three daring fowls jumped one after the other into her lap, seized a bit of peel, and then ran away as fast as their legs would carry them with it in their beaks.

Chicot seemed embarrassed, anxious, with something on the tip of his tongue which he could not get out. At last he said hurriedly:

"I say. Mother Magloire--"

"Well, what is it?"

"You are quite sure that you do not want to sell your farm?"

"Certainly not; you may make up your mind to that. What I have said, I have said, so don't bring it up again."

"Very well; only I fancy I have thought of an arrangement that might suit us both very well."

"What is it?"

"Here you are: You shall sell it to me, and keep it all the same. You don't understand? Very well, just listen to my idea."

The old woman left off peeling her potatoes, and her bright eyes looked at the innkeeper attentively from under her wrinkled eyelids, as he went on:

"Let me explain myself: Every month I will give you a hundred and fifty francs. You understand me, I suppose? Every month I will come and bring you thirty crowns, and it will not make the slightest difference in your life--not the very slightest. You will have your own home just as you have now, will not trouble yourself about me, and will owe me nothing; all you will have to do will be to take my money. Will that arrangement suit you?"