THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT. Guy de Maupassant
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had won at last — a married woman, a lady. How easy and unexpected it had all been. He had fancied up till then that to assail and conquer one of these so greatly longed-for beings, infinite pains, interminable expectations, a skillful siege carried on by means of gallant attentions, words of love, sighs, and gifts were needed. And, lo! suddenly, at the faintest attack, the first whom he had encountered had yielded to him so quickly that he was stupefied at it.
“She was tipsy,” he thought; “tomorrow it will be another story. She will meet me with tears.” This notion disturbed him, but he added: “Well, so much the worse. Now I have her, I mean to keep her.”
He was somewhat agitated the next day as he ascended Madame de Marelle’s staircase. How would she receive him? And suppose she would not receive him at all? Suppose she had forbidden them to admit him? Suppose she had said — but, no, she could not have said anything without letting the whole truth be guessed. So he was master of the situation.
The little servant opened the door. She wore her usual expression. He felt reassured, as if he had anticipated her displaying a troubled countenance, and asked: “Is your mistress quite well?”
She replied: “Oh! yes, sir, the same as usual,” and showed him into the drawingroom.
He went straight to the chimney-glass to ascertain the state of his hair and his toilet, and was arranging his necktie before it, when he saw in it the young woman watching him as she stood at the door leading from her room. He pretended not to have noticed her, and the pair looked at one another for a few moments in the glass, observing and watching before finding themselves face to face. He turned round. She had not moved, and seemed to be waiting. He darted forward, stammering: “My darling! my darling!”
She opened her arms and fell upon his breast; then having lifted her head towards him, their lips met in a long kiss.
He thought: “It is easier than I should have imagined. It is all going on very well.”
And their lips separating, he smiled without saying a word, while striving to throw a world of love into his looks. She, too, smiled, with that smile by which women show their desire, their consent, their wish to yield themselves, and murmured: “We are alone. I have sent Laurine to lunch with one of her young friends.”
He sighed as he kissed her. “Thanks, I will worship you.”
Then she took his arm, as if he had been her husband, to go to the sofa, on which they sat down side by side. He wanted to start a clever and attractive chat, but not being able to do so to his liking, stammered: “Then you are not too angry with me?”
She put her hand on his mouth, saying “Be quiet.”
They sat in silence, looking into one another’s eyes, with burning fingers interlaced.
“How I did long for you!” said he.
She repeated: “Be quiet.”
They heard the servant arranging the table in the adjoining diningroom, and he rose, saying: “I must not remain so close to you. I shall lose my head.”
The door opened, and the servant announced that lunch was ready. Duroy gravely offered his arm.
They lunched face to face, looking at one another and constantly smiling, solely taken up by themselves, and enveloped in the sweet enchantment of a growing love. They ate, without knowing what. He felt a foot, a little foot, straying under the table. He took it between his own and kept it there, squeezing it with all his might. The servant came and went, bringing and taking away the dishes with a careless air, without seeming to notice anything.
When they had finished they returned to the drawingroom, and resumed their place on the sofa, side by side. Little by little he pressed up against her, striving to take her in his arms. But she calmly repulsed him, saying: “Take care; someone may come in.”
He murmured: “When can I see you quite alone, to tell you how I love you?”
She leant over towards him and whispered: “I will come and pay you a visit one of these days.”
He felt himself redden. “You know — you know — my place is very small.”
She smiled: “That does not matter. It is you I shall call to see, and not your rooms.”
Then he pressed her to know when she would come. She named a day in the latter half of the week. He begged of her to advance the date in broken sentences, playing with and squeezing her hands, with glittering eyes, and flushed face, heated and torn by desire, that imperious desire which follows tête-à-tête repasts. She was amazed to see him implore her with such ardor, and yielded a day from time to time. But he kept repeating: “Tomorrow, only say tomorrow.”
She consented at length. “Yes, tomorrow; at five o’clock.”
He gave a long sigh of joy, and they then chatted almost quietly with an air of intimacy, as though they had known one another twenty years. The sound of the door bell made them start, and with a bound they separated to a distance. She murmured: “It must be Laurine.”
The child made her appearance, stopped short in amazement, and then ran to Duroy, clapping her hands with pleasure at seeing him, and exclaiming: “Ah! pretty boy.”
Madame de Marelle began to laugh. “What! Pretty boy! Laurine has baptized you. It’s a nice little nickname for you, and I will call you Pretty-boy, too.”
He had taken the little girl on his knee, and he had to play with her at all the games he had taught her. He rose to take his leave at twenty minutes to three to go to the office of the paper, and on the staircase, through the half-closed door, he still whispered: “Tomorrow, at five.”
She answered “Yes,” with a smile, and disappeared.
As soon as he had got through his day’s work, he speculated how he should arrange his room to receive his mistress, and hide as far as possible the poverty of the place. He was struck by the idea of pinning a lot of Japanese trifles on the walls, and he bought for five francs quite a collection of little fans and screens, with which he hid the most obvious of the marks on the wall paper. He pasted on the window panes transparent pictures representing boats floating down rivers, flocks of birds flying across rosy skies, multicolored ladies on balconies, and processions of little black men over plains covered with snow. His room, just big enough to sleep and sit down in, soon looked like the inside of a Chinese lantern. He thought the effect satisfactory, and passed the evening in pasting on the ceiling birds that he had cut from the colored sheets remaining over. Then he went to bed, lulled by the whistle of the trains.
He went home early the next day, carrying a paper bag of cakes and a bottle of Madeira, purchased at the grocer’s. He had to go out again to buy two plates and two glasses, and arranged this collation on his dressing-table, the dirty wood of which was covered by a napkin, the jug and basin being hidden away beneath it.
Then he waited.
She came at about a quarter-past five; and, attracted by the bright colors of the pictures, exclaimed: “Dear me, yours is a nice place. But there are a lot of people about on the staircase.”
He had clasped her in his arms, and was eagerly kissing the hair between her forehead and her bonnet through her veil.
An hour and a half later he escorted her back to the cab-stand in the Rue de Rome. When she was in the carriage he murmured: “Tuesday at the same time?”
She replied: “Tuesday at the same time.” And as it had grown dark, she drew his head into the carriage and kissed him on the lips. Then the driver, having whipped up his beast, she exclaimed: “Goodbye, Pretty-boy,” and the old vehicle started at the weary trot of its old white horse.
For three weeks Duroy received Madame de Marelle in this way every two or three days, now in the evening and now in the morning. While he was expecting her one afternoon, a loud uproar on the stairs drew him to the door. A child was crying. A man’s angry voice shouted: “What is that little devil howling about now?” The yelling and exasperated voice of a woman