"It is a paying business," and he sends his daughter to keep a harem of fast girls, just as he would send her to keep a girls" school.
She had inherited the house from an old uncle, to whom it had belonged.
_Monsieur_ and _Madame_, who had formerly been inn-keepers near Yvetot, had immediately sold their house, as they thought that the business at Fecamp was more profitable, and they arrived one fine morning to a.s.sume the direction of the enterprise, which was declining on account of the absence of the proprietors, who were good people enough in their way, and who soon made themselves liked by their staff and their neighbors.
_Monsieur_ died of apoplexy two years later, for as his new profession kept him in idleness and without any exercise, he had grown excessively stout, and his health had suffered. Since she had been a widow, all the frequenters of the establishment had wanted her; but people said that personally she was quite virtuous, and even the girls in the house could not discover anything against her. She was tall, stout and affable, and her complexion, which had become pale in the dimness of her house, the shutters of which were scarcely ever opened, shone as if it had been varnished. She had a fringe of curly, false hair, which gave her a juvenile look, that contrasted strongly with the ripeness of her figure.
She was always smiling and cheerful, and was fond of a joke, but there was a shade of reserve about her, which her new occupation had not quite made her lose. Coa.r.s.e words always shocked her, and when any young fellow who had been badly brought up, called her establishment by its right name, she was angry and disgusted.
In a word, she had a refined mind, and although she treated her women as friends, yet she very frequently used to say that "she and they were not made of the same stuff."
Sometimes during the week, she would hire a carriage and take some of her girls into the country, where they used to enjoy themselves on the gra.s.s by the side of the little river. They were like a lot of girls let out from a school, and used to run races, and play childish games. They had a cold dinner on the gra.s.s, and drank cider, and went home at night with a delicious feeling of fatigue, and in the carriage they kissed _Madame_ as their kind mother, who was full of goodness and complaisance.
The house had two entrances. At the corner there was a sort of low _cafe_, which sailors and the lower orders frequented at night, and she had two girls whose special duty it was to attend to that part of the business. With the a.s.sistance of the waiter, whose name was Frederic, and who was a short, light-haired, beardless fellow, as strong as a horse, they set the half bottles of wine and the jugs of beer on the shaky marble tables, and then, sitting astride on the customer"s knees, they urged them to drink.
The three other girls (there were only five of them), formed a kind of aristocracy, and were reserved for the company on the first floor, unless they were wanted downstairs, and there was n.o.body on the first floor. The saloon of Jupiter, where the tradesmen used to meet, was papered in blue, and embellished with a large drawing representing Leda stretched out under the swan. That room was reached by a winding staircase, which ended at a narrow door opening onto the street, and above it, all night long a little lamp burned, behind wire bars, such as one still sees in some towns, at the foot of some shrine of a saint.
The house, which was old and damp, rather smelled of mildew. At times there was an odor of Eau de Cologne in the pa.s.sages, or a half open door downstairs admitted the noise of the common men sitting and drinking downstairs, to the first floor, much to the disgust of the gentlemen who were there. _Madame_, who was familiar with those of her customers with whom she was on friendly terms, did not leave the saloon, and took much interest in what was going on in the town, and they regularly told her all the news. Her serious conversation was a change from the ceaseless chatter of the three women; it was a rest from the obscene jokes of those stout individuals who every evening indulged in the common-place debauchery of drinking a gla.s.s of liquor in company with prost.i.tutes.
The names of the girls on the first floor were Fernande, Raphaele, and Rosa, the _Jade_. As the staff was limited, _Madame_ had endeavored that each member of it should be a pattern, an epitome of the feminine type, so that every customer might find as nearly as possible, the realization of his ideal. Fernande represented the handsome blonde; she was very tall, rather fat, and lazy; a country girl, who could not get rid of her freckles, and whose short, light, almost colorless, tow-like hair, which was like combed-out flax, barely covered her head.
Raphaele, who came from Ma.r.s.eilles, played the indispensable part of the handsome Jewess, and was thin, with high cheek bones, which were covered with rouge, and her black hair, which was always covered with pomatum, curled onto her forehead. Her eyes would have been handsome, if the right one had not had a speck in it. Her Roman nose came down over a square jaw, where two false upper teeth contrasted strangely with the bad color of the rest.
Rosa, _the Jade_, was a little roll of fat, nearly all stomach, with very short legs, and from morning till night she sang songs, which were alternately indecent or sentimental, in a harsh voice, told silly, interminable tales, and only stopped talking in order to eat, and left off eating in order to talk; she was never still, and was active as a squirrel, in spite of her fat, and of her short legs; and her laugh, which was a torrent of shrill cries, resounded here and there, ceaselessly, in a bedroom, in the loft, in the _cafe_, everywhere, and about nothing.
The two women on the ground floor, Louise, who was nick-named _la Cocotte_, and Flora, whom they called _Balanciore_, because she limped a little, the former always dressed as Liberty, with a tri-colored sash, and the other as a Spanish woman, with a string of copper coins which jingled at every step she took, in her carrotty hair, looked like cooks dressed up for the carnival. They were like all other women of the lower orders, neither uglier nor better looking than they usually are.
They looked just like servants at an inn, and they were generally called the two pumps.
A jealous peace, which was, however, very rarely disturbed, reigned among these five women, thanks to _Madame"s_ conciliatory wisdom, and to her constant good humor, and the establishment, which was the only one of the kind in the little town, was very much frequented. _Madame_ had succeeded in giving it such a respectable appearance, she was so amiable and obliging to everybody, her good heart was so well-known, that she was treated with a certain amount of consideration. The regular customers spent money on her, and were delighted when she was especially friendly towards them, and when they met during the day, they would say: "Until this evening, you know where," just like men say: "At the _cafe_, after dinner." In a word, Madame Tellier"s house was somewhere to go to, and they very rarely missed their daily meetings there.
One evening, towards the end of May, the first arrival, Monsieur Poulin, who was a timber merchant, and had been mayor, found the door shut. The little lantern behind the grating was not alight; there was not a sound in the house; everything seemed dead. He knocked, gently at first, but then more loudly, but n.o.body answered the door. Then he went slowly up the street, and when he got to the market place, he met Monsieur Duvert, the gun maker, who was going to the same place, so they went back together, but did not meet with any better success. But suddenly they heard a loud noise close to them, and on going round the house, they saw a number of English and French sailors, who were hammering at the closed shutters of the _cafe_ with their fists.
The two tradesmen immediately made their escape, for fear of being compromised, but a low _pst_ stopped them; it was Monsieur Tournevau, the fish curer, who had recognized them, and was trying to attract their attention. They told him what had happened, and he was all the more vexed at it, as he, a married man, and father of a family, only went there on Sat.u.r.days, _securitatis causa_, as he said, alluding to a measure of sanitary policy, which his friend Doctor Borde had advised him to observe. That was his regular evening, and now he should be deprived of it for the whole week.
The three men went as far as the quay together, and on the way they met young Monsieur Philippe, the banker"s son, who frequented the place regularly, and Monsieur Pinipesse, the collector, and they all returned to the _Rue aux Juifs_ together, to make a last attempt. But the exasperated sailors were besieging the house, throwing stones at the shutters, and shouting, and the five first floor customers went away as quickly as possible, and walked aimlessly about the streets.
Presently they met Monsieur Dupuis, the insurance agent, and then Monsieur Va.s.se, the Judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, and they took a long walk, going to the pier first of all, where they sat down in a row on the granite parapet, and watched the rising tide, and when the promenaders had sat there for some time, Monsieur Tournevau said:
"This is not very amusing!"
"Decidedly not," Monsieur Pinipesse replied, and they started off to walk again.
After going through the street on the top of the hill, they returned over the wooden bridge which crosses the Retenue, pa.s.sed close to the railway, and came out again onto the market place, when suddenly a quarrel arose between Monsieur Pinipesse, the collector, and Monsieur Tournevau, about an edible fungus which one of them declared he had found in the neighborhood.
As they were out of temper already from annoyance, they would very probably have come to blows, if the others had not interfered. Monsieur Pinipesse went off furious, and soon another altercation arose between the ex-major, Monsieur Poulin, and Monsieur Dupuis, the insurance agent, on the subject of the tax collector"s salary, and the profits which he might make. Insulting remarks were freely pa.s.sing between them, when a torrent of formidable cries were heard, and the body of sailors, who were tired of waiting so long outside a closed house, came into the square. They were walking arm-in-arm, two and two, and formed a long procession, and were shouting furiously. The landsmen went and hid themselves under a gateway, and the yelling crew disappeared in the direction of the abbey. For a long time they still heard the noise, which diminished like a storm in the distance, and then silence was restored, and Monsieur Poulin and Monsieur Dupuis, who were enraged with each other, went in different directions, without wishing each other good-bye.
The other four set off again, and instinctively went in the direction of Madame Tellier"s establishment, which was still closed, silent, impenetrable. A quiet, but obstinate, drunken man was knocking at the door of the cafe, and then stopped and called Frederic, the waiter, in a low voice, but finding that he got no answer, he sat down on the doorstep, and waited the course of events.
The others were just going to retire, when the noisy band of sailors reappeared at the end of the street. The French sailors were shouting the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_, and the Englishmen, _Rule Britannia_. There was a general lurching against the wall, and then the drunken brutes went on their way towards the quay, where a fight broke out between the two nations, in the course of which an Englishman had his arm broken, and a Frenchman his nose split.
The drunken man, who had stopped outside the door, was crying by that time, like drunken men and children cry, when they are vexed, and the others went away. By degrees, calm was restored in the noisy town; here and there, at moments, the distant sound of voices could be heard, and then died away in the distance.
One man, only, was still wandering about, Monsieur Tournevau, the fish curer, who was vexed at having to wait until the next Sat.u.r.day, and he hoped for something to turn up, he did not know what; but he was exasperated at the police for thus allowing an establishment of such public utility, which they had under their control, to be thus closed.
He went back to it, and examined the walls, and trying to find out the reason, and on the shutter he saw a notice stuck up, so he struck a wax vesta, and read the following in a large, uneven hand; "Closed on account of the Confirmation."
Then he went away, as he saw it was useless to remain, and left the drunken man lying on the pavement fast asleep, outside that inhospitable door.
The next day, all the regular customers, one after the other, found some reason for going through the street with a bundle of papers under their arm, to keep them in countenance, and with a furtive glance they all read that mysterious notice:
_Closed on account of the Confirmation._
PART II
Madame had a brother, who was a carpenter in their native place, Virville, in the department of Eure. When _Madame_ had still kept the inn at Yvetot, she had stood G.o.d-mother to that brother"s daughter, who had received the name of Constance, Constance Rivet; she herself being a Rivet on her father"s side. The carpenter, who knew that his sister was in a good position, did not lose sight of her, although they did not meet often, for they were both kept at home by their occupations, and lived a long way from each other. But as the girl was twelve years old, and going to be confirmed, he seized that opportunity for writing to his sister, and asking her to come and be present at the ceremony. Their old parents were dead, and as she could not well refuse, she accepted the invitation. Her brother, whose name was Joseph, hoped that by dint of showing his sister attentions, she might be induced to make her will in the girl"s favor, as she had no children of her own.
His sister"s occupation did not trouble his scruples in the least, and, besides, n.o.body knew anything about it at Virville. When they spoke of her, they only said: "Madame Tellier is living at Fecamp," which might mean that she was living on her own private income. It was quite twenty leagues from Fecamp to Virville, and for a peasant, twenty leagues on land are more than is crossing the ocean to an educated person. The people at Virville had never been further than Rouen, and nothing attracted the people from Fecamp to a village of five hundred houses, in the middle of a plain, and situated in another department, and, at any rate, nothing was known about her business.
But the Confirmation was coming on, and _Madame_ was in great embarra.s.sment. She had no under mistress, and did not at all care to leave her house, even for a day, for all the rivalries between the girls upstairs and those downstairs, would infallibly break out; no doubt Frederic would get drunk, and when he was in that state he would knock anybody down for a mere word. At last, however, she made up her mind to take them all with her, with the exception of the man, to whom she gave a holiday, until the next day but one.
When she asked her brother, he made no objection, but undertook to put them all up for a night, and so on Sat.u.r.day morning, the eight o"clock express carried off _Madame_ and her companions in a second-cla.s.s carriage. As far as Beuzeille, they were alone, and chattered like magpies, but at that station a couple got in. The man, an old peasant, dressed in a blue blouse with a folding collar, wide sleeves, tight at the wrist, and ornamented with white embroidery, wore an old high hat with long nap, held an enormous green umbrella in one hand, and a large basket in the other, from which the heads of three frightened ducks protruded. The woman, who sat stiffly in her rustic finery, had a face like a fowl, and with a nose that was as pointed as a bill. She sat down opposite her husband and did not stir, as she was startled at finding herself in such smart company.
There was certainly an array of striking colors in the carriage.
_Madame_ was dressed in blue silk from head to foot, and had on over her dress a dazzling red shawl of imitation French cashmere. Fernande was panting in a Scottish plaid dress, whose bodice, which her companions had laced as tight as they could, had forced up her falling bosom into a double dome, that was continually heaving up and down, and which seemed liquid beneath the material. Raphaele, with a bonnet covered with feathers, so that it looked like a nest full of birds, had on a lilac dress with gold spots on it, and there was something Oriental about it that suited her Jewish face. Rosa, _the Jade_, had on a pink petticoat with large flounces, and looked like a very fat child, an obese dwarf; while the two pumps looked as if they had cut their dresses out of old, flowered curtains, dating from the Restoration.
As soon as they were no longer alone in the compartment, the ladies put on staid looks, and began to talk of subjects which might give the others a high opinion of them. But at Bolbec a gentleman with light whiskers, with a gold chain, and wearing two or three rings, got in, and put several parcels wrapped in oil cloth into the net over his head. He looked inclined for a joke, and a good-natured fellow.
"Are you ladies changing your quarters?" he said, and that question embarra.s.sed them all considerably. _Madame_, however, quickly recovered her composure, and said sharply, to avenge the honor of her corps:
"I think you might try and be polite!"
He excused himself, and said: "I beg your pardon, I ought to have said your nunnery."
As _Madame_ could not think of a retort, or perhaps as she thought herself justified sufficiently, she gave him a dignified bow, and pinched in her lips.
Then the gentleman, who was sitting between Rose _the Jade_ and the old peasant, began to wink knowingly at the ducks, whose heads were sticking out of the basket, and when he felt that he had fixed the attention of his public, he began to tickle them under their bills, and spoke funnily to them, to make the company smile.
"We have left our little pond, quack! quack! to make the acquaintance of the little spit, qu-ack! qu-ack!"
The unfortunate creatures turned their necks away, to avoid his caresses, and made desperate efforts to get out of their wicker prison, and then, suddenly, all at once, uttered the most lamentable quacks of distress. The women exploded with laughter. They leaned forward and pushed each other, so as to see better; they were very much interested in the ducks, and the gentleman redoubled his airs, his wits, and his teasing.
Rosa joined in, and leaning over her neighbor"s legs, she kissed the three animals on the head, and immediately all the girls wanted to kiss them in turn, and the gentleman took them onto his knees, made them jump up and down and pinched them. The two peasants, who were even in greater consternation than their poultry, rolled their eyes as if they were possessed, without venturing to move, and their old wrinkled faces had not a smile nor a movement.
Then the gentleman, who was a commercial traveler, offered the ladies braces by way of a joke, and taking up one of his packages, he opened it. It was a trick, for the parcel contained garters. There were blue silk, pink silk, red silk, violet silk, mauve silk garters, and the buckles were made of two gilt metal Cupids, embracing each other. The girls uttered exclamations of delight and looked at them with that gravity which is natural to a woman when she is hankering after a bargain. They consulted one another by their looks or in a whisper, and replied in the same manner, and _Madame_ was longingly handling a pair of orange garters that were broader and more imposing looking than the rest; really fit for the mistress of such an establishment.
The gentleman waited, for he was nourishing an idea.
"Come, my kittens," he said, "you must try them on."