He told me his history. He had not intended to return home this evening, as he had brought with him that very morning a stock of goods to last him three or four days. But he had been so fortunate in disposing of them that he found it necessary to get back to his abode without delay in order to deliver next day a number of things which had been bought on credit.
He explained to me with genuine satisfaction that he had managed the business very well, having a tendency to talk confidentially, and that the knick-knacks he displayed were useful to him in getting rid, while gossiping, of other things which he could not easily sell.
He added:
"I have a shop in Asnieres. "Tis my wife keeps it."
"Ah! So you"re married?"
"Yes, m"sieur, for the last fifteen months. I have got a very nice wife. She"ll get a surprise when she sees me coming home to-night."
He then gave me an account of his marriage. He had been after this young girl for two years, but she had taken time to make up her mind.
She had, since her childhood, kept a little shop at the corner of a street, where she sold all sorts of things--ribbons, flowers in summer, and princ.i.p.ally pretty little shoe-buckles, and many other gewgaws, in which, owing to the favor of a manufacturer, she enjoyed a speciality. She was well-known in Asnieres as "La Bluette." This name was given to her because she often dressed in blue. And she made money, as she was very skillful in everything she did. His impression was that she was not very well at the present moment; he believed she was in the family way, but he was not quite sure. Their business was prospering; and he traveled about exhibiting samples to all the small traders in the adjoining districts. He had become a sort of traveling commission-agent for some of the manufacturers, working at the same time for them and for himself.
"And you--what are you," he said.
I answered him with an air of embarra.s.sment. I explained that I had a sailing-boat and two yawls in Argenteuil, that I came for a row every evening, and that, as I was fond of exercise, I sometimes walked back to Paris, where I had a profession, which--I led him to infer--was a lucrative one.
He remarked:
"Faith, if I had spondulics like you, I wouldn"t amuse myself by trudging that way along the roads at night--"Tisn"t safe along here."
He gave me a sidelong glance, and I asked myself whether he might not all the same, be a criminal of the sneaking type who did not want to run any fruitless risk.
Then he restored my confidence when he murmured:
"A little less quickly, if you please. This pack of mine is heavy."
The sight of a group of houses showed that we had reached Asnieres.
"I am nearly at home," he said. "We don"t sleep in the shop; it is watched at night by a dog, but a dog who is worth four men. And then it costs too much to live in the center of the town. But listen to me, monsieur! You have rendered me a precious service, for I don"t feel my mind at ease when I"m traveling with my pack along the roads. Well, now you must come in with me, and drink a gla.s.s of mulled wine with my wife if she hasn"t gone to bed, for she is a sound sleeper, and doesn"t like to be waked up. Besides, I"m not a bit afraid without my pack, and so I"ll see you to the gates of the city with a cudgel in my hand."
I declined the invitation; he insisted on my coming in; I still held back; he pressed me with so much eagerness, with such an air of real disappointment, such expressions of deep regret--for he had the art of expressing himself very forcibly--asking me in the tone of one who felt wounded "whether I objected to have a drink with a man like him," that I finally gave way and followed him up a lonely road towards one of those big dilapidated houses which are to be found on the outskirts of suburbs.
In front of this dwelling I hesitated. This high barrack of plaster looked like a den for vagabonds, a hiding-place for suburban brigands.
But he pushed forward a door which had not been locked, and made me go in before him. He led me forward by the shoulders, through profound darkness, towards a staircase where I had to feel my way with my hands and feet, with a well-grounded apprehension of tumbling into some gaping cellar.
When I had reached the first landing, he said to me: "Go on up! "Tis the sixth story."
I searched my pockets, and, finding there a box of vestas, I lighted the way up the ascent. He followed me, puffing under his pack, repeating:
"Tis high! "tis high!"
When we were at the top of the house, he drew forth from one of his inside pockets a key attached to a thread, and unlocking his door he made me enter.
It was a little whitewashed room, with a table in the center, six chairs, and a kitchen-cupboard close to the wall.
"I am going to wake up my wife," he said; "then I am going down to the cellar to fetch some wine; it doesn"t keep here."
He approached one of the two doors which opened out of this apartment, and exclaimed:
"Bluette! Bluette!" Bluette did not reply. He called out in a louder tone: "Bluette! Bluette!"
Then knocking at the part.i.tion with his fist, he growled: "Will you wake up in G.o.d"s name?"
He waited, glued his ear to the key-hole, and muttered, in a calmer tone: "Pooh! if she is asleep, she must be let sleep! I"ll go and get the wine: wait a couple of minutes for me."
He disappeared. I sat down and made the best of it.
What had I come to this place for? All of a sudden, I gave a start, for I heard people talking in low tones, and moving about quietly, almost noiselessly, in the room where the wife slept.
Deuce take it! Had I fallen into some cursed trap? Why had this woman--this Bluette--not been awakened by the loud knocking of her husband at the doorway leading into her room; could it have been merely a signal conveying to accomplices: "There"s a mouse in the trap! I"m going to look out to prevent him escaping. "Tis for you to do the rest!"
Certainly, there was more stir than before now in the inner room; I heard the door opening from within. My heart throbbed. I retreated towards the further end of the apartment, saying to myself: "I must make a fight of it!" and, catching hold of the back of a chair with both hands, I prepared for a desperate struggle.
The door was half opened, a hand appeared which kept it ajar; then a head, a man"s head covered with a billyc.o.c.k hat, slipped through the folding-doors, and I saw two eyes staring hard at me. Then so quickly that I had not time to make a single movement by way of defense, the individual, the supposed criminal, a tall young fellow in his bare feet with his shoes in his hands, a good looking chap, I must admit--half a gentleman, in fact, made a dash for the outer door, and rushed down the stairs.
I resumed my seat. The adventure was a.s.suming a humorous aspect. And I waited for the husband, who took a long time fetching the wine. At last I heard him coming up the stairs, and the sound of his footsteps made me laugh, with one of those solitary laughs which it is hard to restrain.
He entered with two bottles in his hands. Then he asked me:
"Is my wife still asleep? You didn"t hear her stirring--did you?"
I knew instinctively that there was an ear pasted against the other side of the part.i.tion-door, and I said: "No, not at all."
And now he again called out:
"Pauline!"
She made no reply, and did not even move.
He came back to me, and explained:
"You see, she doesn"t like me to come home at night, and take a drop with a friend."
"So then you believe she was not asleep?"
He wore an air of dissatisfaction.
"Well, at any rate," he said, "let us have a drink together."
And immediately he showed a disposition to empty the two bottles one after the other without more ado.
This time I did display some energy. When I had swallowed one gla.s.s I rose up to leave. He no longer spoke of accompanying me, and with a sullen scowl, the scowl of a common man in an angry mood, the scowl of a brute whose violence is only slumbering, in the direction of his wife"s sleeping apartment, he muttered:
"She"ll have to open that door when you"ve gone."