At a quarter to twelve, the work-girl appeared, with her wax-like face, her perpetual sadness, her mournful despondency. She could scarcely move along. Monsieur Gourd trembled until she was safe out in the street. Just as she handed him her key, Duveyrier issued from the vestibule, so heated by his night’s work that the red blotches on his forehead seemed almost bleeding. He put on a haughty air, an implacable moral severity, when the creature passed before him. Ashamed and resigned, she bowed her head; and, following the little truck, she went off with the same despairing step as she had come, the day when she had been engulfed by the undertaker’s black hangings.
Then, only, did Monsieur Gourd triumph. As though this woman had carried off with her all the uneasiness of the house, the disreputable things with which the very walls shuddered, he called out to the landlord:
“A good riddance, sir! One will be able to breathe now, for, on my word of honor! it was becoming disgusting. It has lifted a hundred weight from off my chest. No, sir; you see, in a house which is to be respected, there should be no single women, and especially none of those women who work!”
CHAPTER XIV.
On the following Tuesday Berthe did not keep her promise to Octave. This time she had warned him not to expect her, in a rapid explanation they had had that evening, after the warehouse closed; and she sobbed; she had been to confession the day before, feeling a want of religious comfort, and was still quite upset by Abbé Mauduit’s grievous exhortations. Since her marriage she had thrown aside all religion, but, after the foul words with which the servants had sullied her, she had suddenly felt so sad, so abandoned, so unclean, that she had returned for an hour to the belief of her childhood, inflamed with a hope of purification and salvation. On her return, the priest having wept with her, her sin quite horrified her. Octave, impotent and furious, shrugged his shoulders.
Then, three days later, she again promised for the following Tuesday. At a meeting with her lover, in the Passage des Panoramas, she had seen some Chantilly lace shawls, and she was incessantly alluding to them, whilst her eyes were filled with desire. So that, on the Monday morning, the young man laughingly said to her, in order to soften the brutal nature of the bargain, that, if she at last kept her word, she would find a little surprise for herself up in his room. She understood him, and again burst into tears. No! no! she would not go now; he had spoilt all the pleasure she had anticipated from their being together. She had spoken of the shawl thoughtlessly; she no longer wanted it; she would throw it on the fire if he gave it her. However, on the morrow, they made all their arrangements: she was to knock three times at his door very softly half an hour after midnight.
That day, when Auguste started for Lyons, he struck Berthe as being rather peculiar. She had caught him whispering with Rachel behind the kitchen door; besides which, he was quite yellow, and shivering, with one eye closed up; but, as he complained a good deal of his headache, she thought he was ill, and told him that the journey would do him good. Directly he had left, she returned to the kitchen, still feeling slightly uneasy, and tried to sound the servant. The girl continued to be discreet and respectful, and maintained the stiff attitude of her early days. The young woman, however, felt that she was vaguely dissatisfied, and she thought that she had been very foolish to give her twenty francs and a dress, and then to stop all further gratuities, although compelled to do so, for she was forever in want of a five franc piece herself.
“My poor girl,” said she to her, “I have not been very generous, have I? But it is not my fault. I have not forgotten you, and I shall recompense you by-and-by.”
“Madame owes me nothing,” answered Rachel, in her cold way.
Then Berthe went and fetched two of her old chemises, wishing at least to show her good nature. But the servant, on receiving them, observed that they would do for rags for the kitchen.