Part 16 (1/2)
It was he.
And almost every day the same scene was enacted.
”Ah! there y'are, my Germinie,” he would say as his eyes fell upon her.
”It's like this--I'll tell you all about it. I'm a little bit under water.” And, as he put the key in the lock: ”I'll tell you all about it.
It isn't my fault.”
He would enter the room, kick aside a turtle-dove with mangy wings that limped forward to greet him, and close the door. ”It wasn't me, d'ye see. It was Paillon, you know Paillon? that little round fellow, fat as a mad dog. Well, it was him, 'pon my honor. He insisted on paying for a sixteen-sous bottle for me. He offered to treat me, and I _proffered_ him thanks. Thereupon we naturally _consoled_[5] our coffee; when you're consoled, you console! and as one thing led to another, we fell upon each other! There was a very devil of a carnage! The proof of it is that that gallows-bird of a saloon-keeper threw us out-o'-doors like lobster sh.e.l.ls!”
Germinie, during the explanation, would have lighted the candle, stuck in a yellow copper candlestick. By its flickering light the dirty paper on the walls could be seen, covered with caricatures from _Charivari_, torn from the paper and pasted on the wall.
”Well, you're a love!” Gautruche would exclaim, as he saw her place a cold fowl and two bottles of wine on the table. ”For I must tell you all I've had in my stomach to-day--a plate of wretched soup--that's all. Ah!
it must have taken a stout master-at-arms to put that fellow's eyes out!”
And he would begin to eat. Germinie would sit with her elbows on the table, watching him and drinking, and her glance would grow dark.
”Pshaw! all the negresses are dead,”[6] Gautruche would say at last, as he drained the bottles one by one. ”Put the children to bed!”
Thereupon terrible, fierce, abhorrent outbursts of pa.s.sion would ensue between those two strange creatures, savage ardor followed by savage satiety, frantic storms of l.u.s.t, caresses that were impregnated with the fierce brutality of wine, kisses that seemed to seek the blood beneath the skin, like the tongue of a wild beast, and at the end, utter exhaustion that swallowed them up and left their bodies like corpses.
Germinie plunged into these debauches with--what shall I say?--delirium, madness, desperation, a sort of supreme frenzy. Her ungovernable pa.s.sions turned against themselves, and, going beyond their natural appet.i.tes, forced themselves to suffer. Satiety exhausted them without extinguis.h.i.+ng them; and, overpa.s.sing the widest limits of excess, they excited themselves to self-torture. In the poor creature's paroxysms of excitement, her brain, her nerves, the imagination of her maddened body, no longer sought pleasure in pleasure, but something sharper, keener, and more violent: pain in pleasure. And the words ”to die” constantly escaped from her compressed lips, as if she were invoking death in an undertone and seeking to embrace it in the agonies of love.
Sometimes, in the night, she would suddenly sit up on the edge of the bed, rest her bare feet on the cold floor, and remain there, wild-eyed, listening to the things that breathe in a sleeping-chamber. And little by little the obscurity of the place and hour seemed to envelop her. She seemed to herself to fall and writhe helplessly in the blind unconsciousness of the night. Her will became as naught. All sorts of black things, that seemed to have wings and voices, beat against her temples. The ghastly temptations that afford madness a vague glimpse of crime caused a red light, the flash of murder, to pa.s.s before her eyes, close at hand; and hands placed against her back pushed her toward the table where the knives lay. She would close her eyes and move one foot; then fear would lay hold of her and she would cling to the bedclothes; and at last she would turn around, fall back upon the bed, and go to sleep beside the man she had been tempted to murder; why? she had no idea; for nothing--for the sake of killing!
And so, until daybreak, in that wretched furnished lodging, the fierce struggle of those fatal pa.s.sions would continue, while the poor maimed, limping dove, the infirm bird of Venus, nesting in one of Gautruche's old shoes, would utter now and then, awakened by the noise, a frightened coo.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter LII
_Sometimes, in the night, she would suddenly sit up on the edge of the bed, rest her bare feet on the cold floor, and remain there, wild-eyed, listening to the things that breathe in a sleeping-chamber. The ghastly temptations that afford madness a vague glimpse of crime caused a red light, the flash of murder, to pa.s.s before her eyes, close at hand; and hands placed against her back pushed her toward the table where the knives lay._]
LIII
In those days Gautruche became a little disgusted with drinking. He felt the first pangs of the disease of the liver that had long been lurking in his heated, alcoholized blood, under his brick-red cheek bones. The horrible pains that gnawed at his side, and twisted the cords of his stomach for a whole week, caused him to reflect. There came to his mind, together with divers resolutions inspired by prudence, certain almost sentimental ideas of the future. He said to himself that he must put a little more water into his life, if he wanted to live to old age. While he lay writhing in bed and tying himself into knots, with his knees up to his chin to lessen the pain, he looked about at his den, the four walls within which he pa.s.sed his nights, to which he brought his drunken body home in the evening, and from which he fled into the daylight in the morning; and he thought about making a real home for himself. He dreamed of a room, where he could keep a wife, a wife who would make him a good stew, look after him if he were ill, straighten out his affairs, keep his linen in order, prevent him from beginning a new score at the wine-shop; a wife, in short, who would combine all the useful qualities of a housekeeper, and who, in addition, would not be a stupid fool, but would understand him and laugh with him. Such a wife was all found: Germinie was the very one. She probably had a little h.o.a.rd, a few sous laid by during the time she had been in her old mistress's service; and with what he earned they could ”grub along” in comfort. He had no doubt of her consent; he was sure beforehand that she would accept his proposition. More than that, her scruples, if she had any, would not hold out against the prospect of marriage which he proposed to exhibit to her at the end of their _liaison_.
One Monday she had come to his room as usual.
”Say, Germinie,” he began, ”what would you say to this, eh? A good room--not like this box--a real room, with a closet--at Montmartre, and two windows, no less! Rue de l'Empereur--with a view an Englishman would give five thousand francs to carry away with him. Something first-cla.s.s, bright, and cheerful, you know, a place where you could stay all day without hating yourself. Because, I tell you I'm beginning to have enough of moving about here and there just to change fleas. And that isn't all, either: I'm tired of being cooped up in furnished lodgings, I'm tired of being all alone. Friends don't make society. They fall on you like flies in your gla.s.s when you're to pay, and then, there you are! In the first place, I don't propose to drink any more, honor bright! no more for me, you'll see! You understand I don't intend to use myself up in this life, not if I know myself. Not by any means!
Attention! We mustn't let drink get the better of us. It seemed to me those days as if I'd been swallowing corkscrews. And I've no desire to knock at the monument just yet. Well, to go from the thread to the needle, this is what I thought: I'll make the proposition to Germinie.
I'll treat myself to a little furniture. You've got what you have in your room. You know I'm not much of a s.h.i.+rker, I haven't a lazy bone in my body where work's concerned. And then we might look to not always be working for others: we might take a lodging-house for country thieves.
If you had a little something put aside, that would help. We would join forces in genteel fas.h.i.+on, and have ourselves straightened out some day before the mayor. That's not such a bad scheme, is it, old girl, eh? And you'll leave your old lady this time, won't you, for your dear old Gautruche?”
Germinie, who had listened to him with her head thrust forward and her chin resting on the palm of her hand, threw herself back with a burst of strident laughter.