XVI
There was a ball at the _Boule-Noire_ one Thursday. The dancing was infull blast.
The ball-room had the ordinary appearance of modern places of amusementfor the people. It was brilliant with false richness and tawdrysplendor. There were paintings there, and tables at which wine was sold,gilded chandeliers and glasses that held a quartern of brandy, velvethangings and wooden benches, the shabbiness and rusticity of anale-house with the decorations of a cardboard palace.
Garnet velvet lambrequins with a fringe of gold lace hung at the windowsand were economically copied in paint beneath the mirrors, which werelighted by three-branched candelabra. On the walls, in large whitepanels, pastoral scenes by Boucher, surrounded with painted frames,alternated with Prud'hon's _Seasons_, which were much astonished to findthemselves in such a place; and above the windows and doors dropsicalLoves gamboled among five roses protruding from a pomade jar of the sortused by suburban hair-dressers. Square pillars, embellished with meagrearabesques, supported the ceiling in the centre of the hall, wherethere was a small octagonal stand containing the orchestra. An oakenrail, waist high, which served as a back to a cheap red bench, enclosedthe dancers. And against this rail, on the outside, were tables paintedgreen and two rows of benches, surrounding the dance with a cafe.
In the dancers' enclosure, beneath the fierce glare and the intense heatof the gas, were women of all sorts, dressed in dark, worn, rumpledwoolens, women in black tulle caps, women in black _paletots_, women in_caracos_ worn shiny at the seams, women in fur tippets bought ofopen-air dealers and in shops in dark alleys. And in the wholeassemblage not one of the youthful faces was set off by a collar, not aglimpse of a white skirt could be seen among the whirling dancers, not aglimmer of white about these women, who were all dressed in gloomycolors, the colors of want, to the ends of their unpolished shoes. Thisabsence of linen gave to the ball an aspect as of poverty in mourning;it imparted to all the faces a touch of gloom and uncleanness, oflifelessness and earthiness--a vaguely forbidding aspect, in which therewas a suggestion of the Hotel-Dieu and the Mont-de-Piete!
An old woman in a wig with the hair parted at the side passed in frontof the tables, with a basket filled with pieces of Savoy cake and redapples.
From time to time the dance, in its twisting and turning, disclosed asoiled stocking, the typical Jewish features of a street pedlar ofsponges, red fingers protruding from black mitts, a swarthy moustachedface, an under-petticoat soiled with the mud of night before last, asecond-hand-skirt, stiff and crumpled, of flowered calico, the cast-offfinery of some kept mistress.
The men wore _paletots_, small, soft caps pulled down over their ears,and woolen comforters untied and hanging down their backs. They invitedthe women to dance by pulling them by the cap ribbons that flutteredbehind them. Some few, in hats and frockcoats and colored shirts, had aninsolent air of domesticity and a swagger befitting grooms in some greatfamily.
Everybody was jumping and bustling about. The women frisked and caperedand gamboled, excited and stimulated by the spur of bestial pleasure.And in the evolutions of the contra-dance, one could hear brotheladdresses given: _Impasse du Depotoir_.
Germinie entered the hall just at the conclusion of a quadrille to theair of _La Casquette du pere Bugeaud_, in which the cymbals, thesleigh-bells and the drum had infected the dancers with the giddinessand madness of their uproar. At a glance she embraced the whole room,all the men leading their partners back to the places marked by theircaps: she had been misled; _he_ was not there, she could not see him.However, she waited. She entered the dancers' enclosure and sat down onthe end of a bench, trying not to seem too much embarrassed. From theirlinen caps she judged that the women seated in line beside her wereservants like herself: comrades of her own class alarmed her less thanthe little brazen-faced hussies, with their hair in nets and their handsin the pockets of their _paletots_, who strolled humming about the room.But soon she aroused hostile attention, even on her bench. Her hat--onlyabout a dozen women at the ball wore hats--her flounced skirt, the whitehem of which could be seen under her dress, the gold brooch that securedher shawl awakened malevolent curiosity all about her. Glances andsmiles were bestowed upon her that boded her no good. All the womenseemed to be asking one another where this new arrival had come from,and to be saying to one another that she would take their lovers fromthem. Young women who were walking about the hall in pairs, with theirarms about one another's waists as if for a waltz, made her lower hereyes as they passed in front of her, and then went on with acontemptuous shrug, turning their heads to look back at her.
She changed her place: she was met with the same smiles, the samewhispering, the same hostility. She went to the further end of the hall;all the women looked after her; she felt as if she were enveloped inmalicious, envious glances, from the hem of her dress to the flowers onher hat. Her face flushed. At times she feared that she should weep. Shelonged to leave the place, but she lacked courage to walk the length ofthe hall all alone.
She began mechanically to watch an old woman who was slowly making thecircuit of the hall with a noiseless step, like a bird of night flyingin a circle. A black hat, of the hue of charred paper, confined her_bandeaux_ of grizzled hair. From her square, high masculine shoulders,hung a sombre-hued Scotch tartan. When she reached the door, she cast alast glance about the hall, that embraced everyone therein, with the eyeof a vulture seeking in vain for food.
Suddenly there was an outcry: a police officer was ejecting a diminutiveyouth who tried to bite his hands and clung to the tables, againstwhich, as he was dragged along, he struck with a noise like breakingfurniture.
As Germinie turned her head she spied Jupillon: he was sitting betweentwo women at a green table in a window-recess, smoking. One of the twowas a tall blonde with a small quantity of frizzled flaxen hair, a flat,stupid face and round eyes. A red flannel chemise lay in folds on herback, and she had both hands in the pockets of a black apron which shewas flapping up and down on her dark red skirt. The other, a short, darkcreature, whose face was still red from having been scrubbed with soap,was enveloped as to her head, with the coquetry of a fishwoman, in awhite knitted hood with a blue border.
Jupillon had recognized Germinie. When he saw her rise and approach him,with her eyes fixed upon his face, he whispered something to the womanin the hood, rested his elbows defiantly on the table and waited.
"Hallo! you here," he exclaimed when Germinie stood before him, erect,motionless and mute. "This is a surprise!--Waiter! another bowl!"
And, emptying the bowl of sweetened wine into the two women's glasses,he continued: "Come, don't make up faces--sit down there."
And, as Germinie did not budge: "Go on! These ladies are friends ofmine--ask them!"
"Melie," said the woman in the hood to the other woman, in a voice likea diseased crow's, "don't you see? She's monsieur's mother. Make roomfor the lady if she'd like to drink with us."
Germinie cast a murderous glance at the woman.
"Well! what's the matter?" the woman continued; "that don't suit you,madame, eh? Excuse me! you ought to have told me beforehand. How old doyou suppose she is, Melie, eh? _Sapristi!_ You select young ones, myboy, you don't put yourself out!"
Jupillon smiled internally, and simpered and sneered externally. Hiswhole manner displayed the cowardly delight that evil-minded personstake in watching the suffering of those who suffer because of lovingthem.
"I have something to say to you--to you!--not here--outside," saidGerminie.
"Much joy to you! Coming, Melie?" said the woman in the hood, lightingthe stub of a cigar that Jupillon had left on the table beside a pieceof lemon.
"What do you want?" said Jupillon, impressed, in spite of himself, byGerminie's tone.
"Come!"
And she walked on ahead of him. As she passed, the people crowded abouther, laughing. She heard voices, broken sentences, subdued hooting.
XVII
Jupillon promised Germinie not to go to the ball again. Bu
t he was justbeginning to make a name for himself at La Brididi, among the low hauntsnear the barrier, the _Boule-Noire_, the _Reine-Blanche_ and the_Ermitage_. He had become one of the dancers who make the guests leavetheir seats, who keep a whole roomful of people hanging on the soles oftheir boots as they toss them two inches above their heads, and whom thefair dancers of the locality invite to dance with them and sometimes payfor their refreshment to that end. The ball to him was not a ballsimply; it was a stage, an audience, popularity, applause, theflattering murmur of his name among the groups of people, an ovationaccorded to saltatory glory in the glare of the reverberators.
On Sunday he did not go to the _Boule-Noire_; but on the followingThursday he went there again; and Germinie, seeing plainly enough thatshe could not prevent him from going, decided to follow him and to staythere as long as he did. Sitting at a table in the background, in theleast brilliantly lighted corner of the ball-room, she would follow himeagerly with her eyes throughout the whole contra-dance; and when it wasat an end, if he held back, she would go and seize him, take him almostby force from the hands and caresses of the women who persisted intrying to pull him back, to detain him by wicked wiles.
As they soon came to know her, the insulting remarks in her neighborhoodceased to be vague and indistinct and muttered under the breath, as atthe first ball. The words were thrown in her face, the laughter spokealoud. She was obliged to pass her three hours amid a chorus of derisionthat pointed its finger at her, called her by name and cast her age inher face. At every turn she was forced to submit to the appellation of:_old woman!_ which the young hussies spat at her over their shoulders asthey passed. But they did at least look at her; often, however, dancingwomen invited by Jupillon to drink, and brought by him to the table atwhich Germinie was, would sit with their elbows on the table and theircheeks resting on their hands, drinking the bowl of mulled wine forwhich she paid, apparently unaware that there was another woman there,crowding into her place as if it were unoccupied, and making no replywhen she spoke to them. Germinie could have killed these creatures whomJupillon forced her to entertain and who despised her so utterly thatthey did not even notice her presence.
The time arrived, when, having endured all she could endure and beingsickened by the humiliation she was forced to swallow, she conceivedthe idea of dancing herself. She saw no other way to avoid leaving herlover to others, to keep him by her all the evening, and perhaps to bindhim more closely to her by her success, if she had any chance ofsucceeding. Throughout a whole month she worked, in secret, to learn todance. She rehearsed the figures and the steps. She forced her body intounnatural attitudes, she wore herself out trying to master thecontortions and the manipulations of the skirt that she saw wereapplauded. At the end of the month she made the venture; but everythingtended to disconcert her and added to her awkwardness; the hostilitythat she could feel in the atmosphere, the smiles of astonishment andpity that played about the lips of the spectators when she took herplace in the dancers' enclosure. She was so absurd and so laughed at,that she had not the courage to make a second attempt. She buriedherself gloomily in her dark corner, only leaving it to hunt up Jupillonand carry him off, with the mute violence of a wife dragging her husbandout of the wineshop and leading him home by the arm.
It was soon rumored in the street that Germinie went to these balls,that she never missed one of them. The fruit woman, at whose shop Adelehad already held forth, sent her son "to see;" he returned with aconfirmation of the rumor, and told of all the petty annoyances to whichGerminie was subjected, but which did not keep her from returning.Thereafter there was no more doubt in the quarter as to the relationsbetween mademoiselle's servant and Jupillon--relations which somecharitable souls had hitherto persisted in denying. The scandal burstout, and in a week the poor girl, berated by all the slanderous tonguesin the quarter, baptized and saluted by the vilest names in the languageof the streets, fell at a blow from the most emphatically expressedesteem to the most brutally advertised contempt.
Thus far her pride--and it was very great--had procured for her therespect and consideration which is bestowed, in the lorette quarters,upon a servant who honestly serves a virtuous mistress. She had becomeaccustomed to respect and deference and attention. She stood apart fromher comrades. Her unassailable probity, her conduct, as to which not aword could be said, her confidential relations with mademoiselle, whichcaused her mistress's honorable character to be reflected upon her, ledthe shopkeeper to treat her on a different footing from the other maids.They addressed her, cap in hand; they always called her _MademoiselleGerminie_. They hurried to wait upon her; they offered her the onlychair in the shop when she had to wait. Even when she contended overprices they were still polite with her and never called her _haggler_.Jests that were somewhat too broad were cut short when she appeared. Shewas invited to the great banquets, to family parties, and consulted uponbusiness matters.
Everything changed as soon as her relations with Jupillon and herassiduous attendance at the _Boule-Noire_ were known. The quarter tookits revenge for having respected her. The brazen-faced maids in thehouse accosted her as one of their own kind. One, whose lover was atMazas, called her: "My dear." The men accosted her familiarly, and withall the intimacy of thee and thou in glance and gesture and tone andtouch. The very children on the sidewalk, who were formerly trained tocourtesy politely to her, ran away from her as from a person of whomthey had been told to be afraid. She felt that she was being malignedbehind her back, handed over to the devil. She could not take a stepwithout walking through scorn and receiving a blow from her shame uponthe cheek.
It was a horrible affliction to her. She suffered as if her honor werebeing torn from her, shred by shred, and dragged in the gutter. But themore she suffered, the closer she pressed her love to her heart andclung to him. She bore him no ill-will, she uttered no word of reproachto him. She attached herself to him by all the tears he caused her prideto shed. And now, in the street through which she passed but a shorttime ago, proudly and with head erect, she could be seen, bent double asif crouching over her fault, hurrying furtively along, with obliqueglances, dreading to be recognized, quickening her pace in front of theshops that swept their slanders out upon her heels.
XVIII
Jupillon was constantly complaining that he was tired of working forothers, that he could not set up for himself, that he could not findfifteen or eighteen hundred francs in his mother's purse. He needed nomore than that, he said, to hire a couple of rooms on the ground floorand set up as a glover in a small way. Indeed he was already dreaming ofwhat he might do and laying out his plans: he would open a shop in thequarter, an excellent quarter for his business, as it was full ofpurchasers, and of makers of wretched gloves at five francs. He wouldsoon add a line of perfumery and cravats to his gloves; and then, whenhe had made a tidy sum, he would sell out and take a fine shop on Rue deRichelieu.
Whenever he mentioned the subject Germinie asked him innumerablequestions. She wanted to know everything that was necessary to start inbusiness. She made him tell her the names of the tools andappurtenances, give her an idea of their prices and where they could bebought. She questioned him as to his trade and the details of his workso inquisitively and persistently that Jupillon lost his patience atlast and said to her:
"What's all this to you? The work sickens me enough now; don't mentionit to me!"
One Sunday she walked toward Montmartre with him. Instead of taking RueFrochot she turned into Rue Pigalle.
"Why, this ain't the way, is it?" said Jupillon.
"I know what I'm about," said she, "come on."
She had taken his arm, and she walked on, turning her head slightly awayfrom him so that he could not see what was taking place on her face.Half way along Rue Fontaine Saint-Georges, she halted abruptly in frontof two windows on the ground floor of a house, and said to him: "Look!"
She was trembling with joy.
Jupillon looked; he saw between the two windows, on a glistening copperplate:
/> _Magasin de Ganterie._
JUPILLON.
He saw white curtains at the first window. Through the glass in theother he saw pigeon-holes and boxes, and, near the window, the littleglover's cutting board, with the great shears, the jar for clippings,and the knife to make holes in the skins in order to stretch them.
"The concierge has your key," she said.
They entered the first room, the shop.
She at once set about showing him everything. She opened the boxes andlaughed. Then she pushed open the door into the other room. "There, youwon't be stifled there as you are in the loft at your mother's. Do youlike it? Oh! it isn't handsome, but it's clean. I'd have liked to giveyou mahogany. Do you like that little rug by the bed? And the paper--Ididn't think of that----" She put a receipt for the rent in his hand."See! this is for six months. Dame! you must go to work right off andearn some money. The few sous I had laid by are all gone. Oh! let me sitdown. You look so pleased--it gives me a turn--it makes my head spin. Ihaven't any legs."
And she sank into a chair. Jupillon stooped over her to kiss her.
"Ah! yes, they're not there any longer," she said, seeing that he waslooking for her earrings. "They've gone like my rings. D'ye see, allgone----"