Volume III Part 19 (1/2)
With such tastes, it was only natural that this pilgrie shops, and whenever there was a crowd, and that he especially looked out for those ladies of easy virtue, for nothing isthan those half-closed shutters, behind which a face is indistinctly seen, and from which one hears a furtive: _”P'st! P'st!”_
He used to say to hi and pretty? Is she some old woman, who is terribly skillful at her business, but who yet does not venture to show herself any longer? Or is she soinner, who has not yet acquired the boldness of an old hand? In any case, it is the unknown, perhaps, that isthe time it takes me to find my way upstairs;” and always as he went up, his heart beat, as it does at a firstwith a beloved mistress
But he had never felt such a delicious shi+ver as he did on the day on which he penetrated into that old house in the blind alley in Menilone after so-called love in er places; but noithout any reason, he had a presentiave hin to him, lived on the third floor, and all the way upstairs his excite violently when he reached the landing At the sarew stronger and stronger, and which he had tried in vain to analyze, though all he could arrive at was, that it sht, at the end of the passage, was opened as soon as he put his foot on the landing, and the woman said, in a low voice:
”Co sh the open door, and suddenly he exclaimed:
”How stupid I was! I knohat it is now; it is carbolic acid, is it not?”
”Yes,” the woman replied ”Don't you like it, dear? It is very wholesoh not young; she had very good eyes, although they were sad and sunken in her head; evidently she had been crying, very much quite recently, and that iue smile which she put on, so as to appear more amiable
Seized by his romantic ideas once more, and under the influence of the presentiht--and the idea filled him with pleasure:
”She is some hom poverty has forced to sell herself”
The room was small, but very clean and tidy, and that confirmed him in his conjecture, as he was curious to verify its truth, he went into the three rooms which opened into one another The bedroo-roo-room, which evidently served as a kitchen, for a Dutch tiled stove stood in the , but the ser in that rooh:
”Do you put it with your soup?”
And as he said this, he laid hold of the handle of the door which led into the next roo, even that nook, which was apparently a store cupboard, but the woman seized him by the arm, and pulled him violently back
”No, no,” she said, almost in a whisper, and in a hoarse and suppliant voice, ”no, dear, not there, not there, you o in had only becoo in there, you will have no inclination to remain with me, and I so want you to stay If you only knew!”
”Well, what?” And with a violent lazed door, when the smell of carbolic acid seemed almost to strike him in the face, but what he saw, made him recoil still more, for on a small iron bedstead, lay the dead body of a wole wax candle, and in horror he turned to make his escape
”Stop,to him, she told him amidst a flood of tears, that her friend had died two days previously, and that there was no money to bury her ”Because,” she said, ”you can understand that I want it to be a respectable funeral, ere so very fond of each other! Stop here, o away”
They had gone back into the bedroo hiive you the ten francs, but I will not stay here; I cannot”
He took his purse out of his pocket, extracted a ten-franc piece, put it on the table, and then went to the door; but when he had reached it, a thought suddenly struck hi with hie
”Why lose these ten francs? Why not profit by this woood intentions She certainly did her business bravely, and if I had not known about the one away for soestions whispered to him:
”She was her friend!They were so fond of each other! Was it friendshi+p or love? Oh! love apparently Well, it would surely be avenging morality, if this woman were forced to be faithless to that monstrous love?” And suddenly thevoice: ”Look here! If I give you twenty francs instead of ten, I suppose you could buy some flowers for her, as well?”
The unhappy woratitude
”Will you really give me twenty?”