I felt quite a man again, the hour of my delight having arrived. I was going along at a smart pace, ascending and descending the walks, when I saw a grey shadow flitting along the houses. This shadow came towards me, rapidly, without seeming to see me; by the light step, by the cadenced rhythm of the clothing, I knew it was a woman.
She was about to knock up against me, when she instinctively raised her eyes. I saw her face by the light of a neighbouring lamp, and then I recognised “She who loves me:” not the immortal in the cloud of white muslin; but a poor girl of the earth, attired in washed-out calico. She still appeared charming in her misery, although pale and tired. There was no room for doubt: there were the great eyes, the fondling lips of the vision; and, moreover, gazing at her thus at close quarters, one could perceive that the gentle aspect of her features was the result of suffering.
As she stopped for a second, I grasped her hand, which I kissed. She raised her head and gave me a vague smile without seeking to withdraw her fingers. Seeing I remained silent, and that emotion was choking me, she shrugged her shoulders and resumed her rapid walk.
I ran after her, accompanied her, my arm round her waist. She laughed to herself; then shivered and said in a low voice:
“I’m cold: let us walk quick.”
Poor angel, she was cold! Her shoulders trembled beneath the thin black shawl in the fresh night wind. I kissed her on the forehead and inquired softly:
“Do you know me?”
She raised her eyes a third time and answered without hesitation:
“No.”
I know not what rapid reasoning passed through my mind. In my turn I shuddered.
“Where are we going to?” I asked her.
She shrugged her shoulders with an unconcerned little pout, and answered in her childlike voice:
“Wherever you like, to my place, to yours; what does it matter?”
IX
We were still walking, descending the avenue.
On a bench I perceived two soldiers, one of whom was gravely descanting, while the other listened respectfully. It was the sergeant and the conscript The sergeant, who seemed very much affected, made me a mocking bow, murmuring:
“The rich sometimes lend, sir.”
The conscript, who was a tender and simple soul, said to me in a doleful voice:
“I had but her, sir: you are stealing from me ‘She who loves me.’”
I crossed the road and took the other path.
Three boys advanced towards us, holding one another by the arm and singing at the pitch of their voices. I recognised the schoolboys. The unfortunate little fellows no longer needed to feign intoxication. They stopped, bursting with laughter, then followed me for a few paces, each of them shouting after me in an unsteady voice:
“Hi! sir, the lady is deceiving you; the lady is ‘She who loves me!’”
I felt a cold sweat moisten my temples. I hurried along, being anxious to fly, thinking no more of this woman whom I was bearing away in my arms. At the end of the avenue, just as I was stepping from the pavement, at last about to quit this inauspicious neighbourhood, I stumbled over a man lying comfortably in the gutter. With his head resting on the curbstone and his face turned towards heaven, he was engaged in a very complicated calculation on his fingers.
He moved his eyes, and, without quitting his pillow, spluttered out:
“Ah! It is you, sir. You ought to help me count the stars. I have already found several millions, but I’m afraid of forgetting one of them. The happiness of humanity, sir, depends solely on statistics.”
He was interrupted by a hiccup. Tearfully he continued:
“Do you know what a star costs? Providence must assuredly have made a great outlay up there, and the people are in want of bread, sir! What is the use of those lights? Are they eatable? To what practical purpose are they adaptable, if you please? What need had we of this eternal festival? Ah! Providence never had the least shadow of an idea of social economy.”
He had succeeded in sitting up; and cast a troubled glance around him, shaking his head indignantly. He then caught sight of my companion. He started, and with his countenance all purple, eagerly stretched out his arms towards her.
“Eh! Eh!” he continued, “it’s ‘She who loves me!’”
X
“This is how it is,” she said to me. “I am poor, I do what I can for a living. Last winter, I passed fifteen hours a day bent over an embroidery frame, and I hadn’t always bread. In the spring I threw my needle out of the window. I had found employment which caused me less fatigue and was more lucrative.
“I dress myself up every evening in white muslin. Alone in a sort of shed, leaning against the back of an armchair, all the work I have to do consists in smiling from six o’clock till midnight. From time to time I make a bow, I kiss my hand into space. For that I am paid three francs a sitting.
“Opposite me, behind a small glazed aperture in the partition, I see an eye staring at me ceaselessly. It’s sometimes black, sometimes blue. Without that eye I should be perfectly happy; but that spoils the whole thing. At times, seeing it always there, alone and fixed, I am seized with such frightful terror that I am tempted to scream and fly.
“But one must work to live. I smile, bow, kiss my hand. At midnight I wipe off my paint, and put on my calico gown again. Bah! how many women do the amiable before a wall without being compelled to!”
THE LOVE-FAIRY
Do you hear the December rain beating against our windows, Ninon? The wind moans in the long corridor. It is a nasty evening, one of those on which the poor shiver at the doors of the rich, whom the ball bears away in its dances beneath the gilded chandeliers. Leave your satin shoes where they are, and come and sit on my knee, beside the warm grate. Leave your costly jewels alone; I want to tell you a tale tonight, a beautiful fairy tale.
You must know, Ninon, that once upon a time there was a dark and dismal castle on the summit of a mountain. It was naught but towers, ramparts, and drawbridges loaded with chains. Men encased in steel mounted guard night and day on the battlements, and soldiers alone met with courteous welcome from Count Enguerrand, the lord of the manor.
If you had seen the old warrior walking down the long galleries, if you had heard his brief and threatening explosions of voice, you would have trembled with fright, just as his niece Odette, the pious and handsome young lady, trembled. Have you never, of a morning, noticed a daisy opening at the first kisses of the sun among the stinging-nettles and brambles? In a like manner this young girl was blooming among bluff knights. She was a child when, in the midst of play, she perceived her uncle; she stopped, and her eyes filled with tears. Now, she was grown up and handsome; her bosom was always heaving with gentle sighs; and each time Lord Enguerrand appeared her fright became more acute.
She resided in a distant turret, passing her time in embroidering beautiful banners, and resting from her work by praying to the Almighty, whilst contemplating the emerald green country and azure blue sky from her window. How often of a night, rising from her couch, had she gone to gaze at the stars, and, when there, how often had her heart of sixteen summers bounded towards celestial space, inquiring of those radiant sisters what it was that affected it so. After these sleepless nights, after these transports of love, she felt inclined to hang round the old knight’s neck; but a harsh word, a cold look stopped her, and she tremblingly resumed her needlework. You pity the poor girl, Ninon; she was like the fresh, balmy flower, whose brilliancy and perfume are disdained.
One day Odette, the disconsolate, was dreamily following with