The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de MaupassantЧитать онлайн книгу.
dearest.” And they kissed lovingly.
Then he walked home swiftly, asking himself what plan he could hit on the morrow to get out of his difficulty. But as he opened the door of his room, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for a match, he was stupefied to find a coin under his fingers. As soon as he had a light he hastened to examine it. It was a louis. He thought he must be mad. He turned it over and over, seeking by what miracle it could have found its way there. It could not, however, have fallen from heaven into his pocket.
Then all at once he guessed, and an angry indignation awoke within him. His mistress had spoken of money slipping into the lining, and being found in times of poverty. It was she who had tendered him this alms. How shameful! He swore: “Ah! I’ll talk to her the day after tomorrow. She shall have a nice time over it.”
And he went to bed, his heart filled with anger and humiliation.
He woke late. He was hungry. He tried to go to sleep again, in order not to get up till two o’clock, and then said to himself: “That will not forward matters. I must end by finding some money.” Then he went out, hoping that an idea might occur to him in the street. It did not; but at every restaurant he passed a longing to eat made his mouth water. As by noon he had failed to hit on any plan, he suddenly made up his mind: “I will lunch out of Clotilde’s twenty francs. That won’t hinder me from paying them back tomorrow.”
He, therefore, lunched for two francs fifty centimes. On reaching the office he also gave three francs to the messenger, saying: “Here, Foucart, here is the money you lent me last night for my cab.”
He worked till seven o’clock. Then he went and dined taking another three francs. The two evening bocks brought the expenditure of the day up to nine francs thirty centimes. But as he could not re-establish a credit or create fresh resources in twenty-four hours, he borrowed another six francs fifty centimes the next day from the twenty he was going to return that very evening, so that he came to keep his appointment with just four francs twenty centimes in his pocket.
He was in a deuce of a temper, and promised himself that he would pretty soon explain things. He would say to his mistress: “You know, I found the twenty francs you slipped into my pocket the other day. I cannot give them back to you now, because my situation is unaltered, and I have not had time to occupy myself with money matters. But I will give them to you the next time we meet.”
She arrived, loving, eager, full of alarm. How would he receive her? She kissed him persistently to avoid an explanation at the outset.
He said to himself: “It will be time enough to enter on the matter by-and-by. I will find an opportunity of doing so.”
He did not find the opportunity, and said nothing, shirking before the difficulty of opening this delicate subject. She did not speak of going out, and was in every way charming. They separated about midnight, after making an appointment for the Wednesday of the following week, for Madame de Marelle was engaged to dine out several days in succession.
The next day, as Duroy, on paying for his breakfast, felt for the four coins that ought to be remaining to him, he perceived that they were five, and one of them a gold one. At the outset he thought that he had received it by mistake in his change the day before, then he understood it, and his heart throbbed with humiliation at this persistent charity. How he now regretted not having said anything! If he had spoken energetically this would not have happened.
For four days he made efforts, as numerous as they were fruitless, to raise five louis, and spent Clotilde’s second one. She managed, although he had said to her savagely, “Don’t play that joke of the other evening’s again, or I shall get angry,” to slip another twenty francs into his trouser pockets the first time they met. When he found them he swore bitterly, and transferred them to his waistcoat to have them under his hand, for he had not a rap. He appeased his conscience by this argument: “I will give it all back to her in a lump. After all, it is only borrowed money.”
At length the cashier of the paper agreed, on his desperate appeals, to let him have five francs daily. It was just enough to live upon, but not enough to repay sixty francs with. But as Clotilde was again seized by her passion for nocturnal excursions in all the suspicious localities in Paris, he ended by not being unbearably annoyed to find a yellow boy in one of his pockets, once even in his boot, and another time in his watch-case, after their adventurous excursions. Since she had wishes which he could not for the moment gratify himself, was it not natural that she should pay for them rather than go without them? He kept an account, too, of all he received in this way, in order to return it to her some day.
One evening she said to him: “Would you believe that I have never been to the Folies-Bergère? Will you take me there?”
He hesitated a moment, afraid of meeting Rachel. Then he thought: “Bah! I am not married, after all. If that girl sees me she will understand the state of things, and will not speak to me. Besides, we will have a box.”
Another reason helped his decision. He was well pleased of this opportunity of offering Madame de Marelle a box at the theater without its costing anything. It was a kind of compensation.
He left her in the cab while he got the order for the box, in order that she might not see it offered him, and then came to fetch her. They went in, and were received with bows by the acting manager. An immense crowd filled the lounge, and they had great difficulty in making their way through the swarm of men and women. At length they reached the box and settled themselves in it, shut in between the motionless orchestra and the eddy of the gallery. But Madame de Marelle rarely glanced at the stage. Wholly taken up with the women promenading behind her back, she constantly turned round to look at them, with a longing to touch them, to feel their bodices, their skirts, their hair, to know what these creatures were made of.
Suddenly she said: “There is a stout, dark girl who keeps watching us all the time. I thought just now that she was going to speak to us. Did you notice her?”
He answered: “No, you must be mistaken.” But he had already noticed her for some time back. It was Rachel who was prowling about in their neighborhood, with anger in her eyes and hard words upon her lips.
Duroy had brushed against her in making his way through the crowd, and she had whispered, “Good evening,” with a wink which signified, “I understand.” But he had not replied to this mark of attention for fear of being seen by his mistress, and he had passed on coldly, with haughty look and disdainful lip. The woman, whom unconscious jealousy already assailed, turned back, brushed against him again, and said in louder tones: “Good evening, George.” He had not answered even then. Then she made up her mind to be recognized and bowed to, and she kept continually passing in the rear of the box, awaiting a favorable moment.
As soon as she saw that Madame de Marelle was looking at her she touched Duroy’s shoulder, saying: “Good evening, are you quite well?”
He did not turn round, and she went on: “What, have you grown deaf since Thursday?” He did not reply, affecting a contempt which would not allow him to compromise himself even by a word with this slut.
She began to laugh an angry laugh, and said: “So you are dumb, then? Perhaps the lady has bitten your tongue off?”
He made an angry movement, and exclaimed, in an exasperated tone: “What do you mean by speaking to me? Be off, or I will have you locked up.”
Then, with fiery eye and swelling bosom, she screeched out: “So that’s it, is it? Ah! you lout. When a man sleeps with a woman the least he can do is to nod to her. It is no reason because you are with someone else that you should cut me to-day. If you had only nodded to me when I passed you just now, I should have left you alone. But you wanted to do the grand. I’ll pay you out! Ah, so you won’t say good evening when you meet me!”
She would have gone on for a long time, but Madame de Marelle had opened the door of the box and fled through the crowd, blindly seeking the way out. Duroy started off in her rear and strove to catch her up, while Rachel, seeing them flee, yelled triumphantly: “Stop her, she has stolen my sweetheart.”
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