Part 24 (1/2)
”You find that funny?” I asked, my dignity somewhat ruffled. ”I suppose I am as pretty a little lover as anyone else.”
”But you and me, Asticot, it is so droll.”
”If you put it that way,” I admitted, ”it is. But the concierge doesn't think it possible that you are not my _maitresse_. Why otherwise should you be running in and out of my room, as if it belonged to you?”
”You will be bringing a _maitresse_ of your own here soon, and then you won't want Blanquette any longer.”
I dismissed the idea as one too remote for contemplation. At the same time I reflected that I kissed a pretty model at Janot's when we met alone on the stairs. I wondered whether the diabolical perspicacity of women had seen traces of the kiss on my lips.
”I disturb you?” she asked drawing up my other wooden chair to the deal table and sitting down.
”Why, no. I can work while you talk.”
She put her elbow on a couple of pickled gherkins that remained casually on the table after a perambulatory meal.
”Oh, how dirty men are! You are worse than the Master. Oh la! la! and he puts his boots and his dirty plates together on his bed! It is time that you did have a _maitresse_ to keep the place in order.”
”I believe you really do want to come here in that capacity,” I said laughingly.
She flushed at the jest and drew herself up. ”You have no right to say that, Asticot. I would sooner be the Master's servant than the mistress or even the wife of any man living. He is everything to me, my little Asticot, everything, do you hear? although he loves me just as he loves you and Narcisse. _Il ne faut pas te moquer de moi._ You must not laugh at me. It hurts me.”
It was only then, for the first time, that I realised in Blanquette a grown woman. Hitherto I had regarded her merely as a female waif picked up like the dog and myself under Paragot's vagabond arm and attached to him by ties of grat.i.tude. Now, lo and behold! she was a woman talking of deep things with a treacherous throb in her voice.
I reached across the table and took one of her coa.r.s.e hands.
”_Mais tu l'aimes donc, ma pauvre Blanquette!_” I exclaimed in sympathy and consternation.
She looked down and nodded. I did not know what to say. A tear fell on my hand. I knew still less. Then crying out she was very unhappy, she began to sob.
”He does not want me--even to pa.s.s the time. It has never entered his head. I am too ugly. I do not demand that he should love me. It would be asking for the moon.”
”But he does love you, like a father,” I said, in vain consolation. ”I love him like a son and you should love him like a daughter.”
She did not even condescend to notice this counsel of perfection. She was too ugly. She was built like a hayrick. The Master had never cast his eyes on her, as doubtless he would have done, being a man, had she any of the qualities of allurement. She suffered, poor Blanquette, from the _spretae injuria formae_ with reason even more solid than the forsaken Dido. She was humble, she sobbed; she did not demand a bit of love bigger than that--and she clicked her finger nail. With that she would be proud and happy.
”If the master were as gay as he used to be, I should not mind,” she said, lifting a grotesquely stained face. ”But when he goes drinking, drinking so as to drown his love for another woman, _c'est plus fort que moi_. It is more than I can bear.”
”Which other woman?”
”You know very well. That beautiful lady. She has come more than once to fetch him away. She is a wicked woman, for she does not love him; she even detests him; one can see that. I should like to kill her,” cried Blanquette.
The idea of anyone wanting to kill Joanna was so novel that I stared at her speechless. It took some time for my wits to accommodate themselves to the point of view.
”If I were a man I would not drink myself to death for the sake of a woman who treated me so,” she remarked, recovering her composure.
”Is it as bad as that?” I asked.