The Wardrobe
As we sat chatting after dinner, a party of men, the conversation turnedon women, for lack of something else.One of us said:"Here's a funny thing that happened to me on, that very subject." And hetold us the following story:One evening last winter I suddenly felt overcome by that overpoweringsense of misery and languor that takes possession of one from time totime. I was in my own apartment, all alone, and I was convinced that ifI gave in to my feelings I should have a terrible attack of melancholia,one of those attacks that lead to suicide when they recur too often.I put on my overcoat and went out without the slightest idea of what Iwas going to do. Having gone as far as the boulevards, I began to wanderalong by the almost empty cafes. It was raining, a fine rain thataffects your mind as it does your clothing, not one of those gooddownpours which come down in torrents, driving breathless passers-by intodoorways, but a rain without drops that deposits on your clothing animperceptible spray and soon covers you with a sort of iced foam thatchills you through.What should I do? I walked in one direction and then came back, lookingfor some place where I could spend two hours, and discovering for thefirst time that there is no place of amusement in Paris in the evening.At last I decided to go to the Folies-Bergere, that entertaining resortfor gay women.There were very few people in the main hall. In the long horseshoe curvethere were only a few ordinary looking people, whose plebeian origin wasapparent in their manners, their clothes, the cut of their hair andbeard, their hats, their complexion. It was rarely that one saw fromtime to time a man whom you suspected of having washed himselfthoroughly, and his whole make-up seemed to match. As for the women,they were always the same, those frightful women you all know, ugly,tired looking, drooping, and walking along in their lackadaisical manner,with that air of foolish superciliousness which they assume, I do notknow why.I thought to myself that, in truth, not one of those languid creatures,greasy rather than fat, puffed out here and thin there, with the contourof a monk and the lower extremities of a bow-legged snipe, was worth thelouis that they would get with great difficulty after asking five.But all at once I saw a little creature whom I thought attractive, not inher first youth, but fresh, comical and tantalizing. I stopped her, andstupidly, without thinking, I made an appointment with her for thatnight. I did not want to go back to my own home alone, all alone;I preferred the company and the caresses of this hussy.And I followed her. She lived in a great big house in the Rue desMartyrs. The gas was already extinguished on the stairway. I ascendedthe steps slowly, lighting a candle match every few seconds, stubbing myfoot against the steps, stumbling and angry as I followed the rustle ofthe skirt ahead of me.She stopped on the fourth floor, and having closed the outer door shesaid:"Then you will stay till to-morrow?""Why, yes. You know that that was the agreement.""All right, my dear, I just wanted to know. Wait for me here a minute, Iwill be right back."And she left me in the darkness. I heard her shutting two doors and thenI thought I heard her talking. I was surprised and uneasy. The thoughtthat she had a protector staggered me. But I have good fists and a solidback. "We shall see," I said to myself.I listened attentively with ear and mind. Some one was stirring about,walking quietly and very carefully. Then another door was opened and Ithought I again heard some one talking, but in a very low tone.She came back carrying a lighted candle."You may come in," she said.She said "thou" in speaking to me, which was an indication of possession.I went in and after passing through a dining room in which it was veryevident that no one ever ate, I entered a typical room of all thesewomen, a furnished room with red curtains and a soiled eiderdown bedcovering."Make yourself at home, 'mon chat'," she said.I gave a suspicious glance at the room, but there seemed no reason foruneasiness.As she took off her wraps she began to laugh."Well, what ails you? Are you changed into a pillar of salt? Come,hurry up."I did as she suggested.Five minutes later I longed to put on my things and get away. But thisterrible languor that had overcome me at home took possession of meagain, and deprived me of energy enough to move and I stayed in spite ofthe disgust that I felt for this association. The unusual attractivenessthat I supposed I had discovered in this creature over there under thechandeliers of the theater had altogether vanished on closeracquaintance, and she was nothing more to me now than a common woman,like all the others, whose indifferent and complaisant kiss smacked ofgarlic.I thought I would say something."Have you lived here long?" I asked."Over six months on the fifteenth of January.""Where were you before that?""In the Rue Clauzel. But the janitor made me very uncomfortable and Ileft."And she began to tell me an interminable story of a janitor who hadtalked scandal about her.But, suddenly, I heard something moving quite close to us. First therewas a sigh, then a slight, but distinct, sound as if some one had turnedround on a chair.I sat up abruptly and asked."What was that noise?"She answered quietly and confidently:"Do not be uneasy, my dear boy, it is my neighbor. The partition is sothin that one can hear everything as if it were in the room. These arewretched rooms, just like pasteboard."I felt so lazy that I paid no further attention to it. We resumed ourconversation. Driven by the stupid curiosity that prompts all men toquestion these creatures about their first experiences, to attempt tolift the veil of their first folly, as though to find in them a trace ofpristine innocence, to love them, possibly, in a fleeting memory of theircandor and modesty of former days, evoked by a word, I insistently askedher about her earlier lovers.I knew she was telling me lies. What did it matter? Among all theselies I might, perhaps, discover something sincere and pathetic."Come," said I, "tell me who he was.""He was a boating man, my dear.""Ah! Tell me about it. Where were you?""I was at Argenteuil.""What were you doing?""I was waitress in a restaurant.""What restaurant?""'The Freshwater Sailor.' Do you know it?""I should say so, kept by Bonanfan.""Yes, that's it.""And how did he make love to you, this boating man?""While I was doing his room. He took advantage of me."But I suddenly recalled the theory of a friend of mine, an observant andphilosophical physician whom constant attendance in hospitals has broughtinto daily contact with girl-mothers and prostitutes, with all the shameand all the misery of women, of those poor women who have become thefrightful prey of the wandering male with money in his pocket."A woman," he said, "is always debauched by a man of her own class andposition. I have volumes of statistics on that subject. We accuse therich of plucking the flower of innocence among the girls of the people.This is not correct. The rich pay for what they want. They may gathersome, but never for the first time."Then, turning to my companion, I began to laugh."You know that I am aware of your history. The boating man was not thefirst.""Oh, yes, my dear, I swear it:""You are lying, my dear.""Oh, no, I assure you.""You are lying; come, tell me all."She seemed to hesitate in astonishment. I continued:"I am a sorcerer, my dear girl, I am a clairvoyant. If you do not tellme the truth, I will go into a trance sleep and then I can find out."She was afraid, being as stupid as all her kind. She faltered:"How did you guess?""Come, go on telling me," I said."Oh, the first time didn't amount to anything.There was a festival in the country. They had sent for a special chef,M. Alexandre. As soon as he came he did just as he pleased in the house.He bossed every one, even the proprietor and his wife, as if he had beena king. He was a big handsome man, who did not seem fitted to standbeside a kitchen range. He was always calling out, 'Come, some butter-some eggs--some Madeira!' And it had to be brought to him at once in ahurry, or he would get cross and say things that would make us blush allover."When the day was over he would smoke a pipe outside the door. And as Iwas passing by him with a pile of plates he said to me, like that: 'Come,girlie, come down to the water with me and show me the country.' I wentwith him like a fool, and we had hardly got down to the bank of the riverwhen he took advantage of me so suddenly that I did not even know what hewas doing. And then he went away on the nine o'clock train. I never sawhim again.""Is that all?" I asked.She hesitated."Oh, I think Florentin belongs to him.""Who is Florentin?""My little boy.""Oh! Well, then, you made the boating man believe that he was thefather, did you not?""You bet!""Did he have any money, this boating man?""Yes, he left me an income of three hundred francs, settled onFlorentin."I was beginning to be amused and resumed:"All right, my girl, all right. You are all of you less stupid than onewould imagine, all the same. And how old is he now, Florentin?"She replied:"He is now twelve. He will make his first communion in the spring.""That is splendid. And since then you have carried on your businessconscientiously?"She sighed in a resigned manner."I must do what I can."But a loud noise just then coming from the room itself made me start upwith a bound. It sounded like some one falling and picking themselves upagain by feeling along the wall with their hands.I had seized the candle and was looking about me, terrified and furious.She had risen also and was trying to hold me back to stop me, murmuring:"That's nothing, my dear, I assure you it's nothing."But I had discovered what direction the strange noise came from. Iwalked straight towards a door hidden at the head of the bed and I openedit abruptly and saw before me, trembling, his bright, terrified eyesopened wide at sight of me, a little pale, thin boy seated beside a largewicker chair off which he had fallen.As soon as he saw me he began to cry. Stretching out his arms to hismother, he cried:"It was not my fault, mamma, it was not my fault. I was asleep, and Ifell off. Do not scold me, it was not my fault."I turned to the woman and said:"What does this mean?"She seemed confused and worried, and said in a broken voice:"What do you want me to do? I do not earn enough to put him to school!I have to keep him with me, and I cannot afford to pay for another room,by heavens! He sleeps with me when I am alone. If any one comes for onehour or two he can stay in the wardrobe; he keeps quiet, he understandsit. But when people stay all night, as you have done, it tires the poorchild to sleep on a chair.It is not his fault. I should like to see you sleep all night on achair--you would have something to say."She was getting angry and excited and was talking loud.The child was still crying. A poor delicate timid little fellow, averitable child of the wardrobe, of the cold, dark closet, a child whofrom time to time was allowed to get a little warmth in the bed if itchanced to be unoccupied.I also felt inclined to cry.And I went home to my own bed.
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