And she shrugged her shoulders, without getting angry, as though crushed beneath her contempt for man and her weariness of him. Octave thought she was about to have him turned out when he saw her move towards a bell-pull, dragging her loosely fastened skirts along with her. But she merely required some tea; and she ordered it to be very weak and very hot. Altogether nonplussed, he muttered some excuses and made for the door, whilst she again reclined in the depths of her easy-chair, with the air of a chilly woman greatly in want of sleep.
On the stairs, Octave stopped at each landing. She did not like that then? He had just seen how indifferent she was, without desire as without indignation, as difficult to deal with as his employer, Madame Hédouin. Why did Campardon say she was hysterical? it was absurd to take him in by telling him such humbug; for had it not been for the architect’s lie, he would never have risked such an adventure. And he remained quite bewildered by the result, his ideas of hysteria altogether upset, and thinking of the different stories that were going about. He recalled Trublot’s words: one never knows what to expect, with those crazy sort of people whose eyes shine like balls of fire.
Up on his landing Octave, annoyed with all women, walked as softly as he could. But the Pichons’ door opened, and he had to resign himself. Marie awaited him, standing in the narrow room, which the charred wick of the lamp but imperfectly lighted. She had drawn the crib close to the table, and Lilitte was sleeping there in the circle of the yellow light. The lunch things had probably also served for the dinner, for the closed book was lying beside a dirty plate full of radish ends.
“Have you finished it?” asked Octave, surprised at the young woman’s silence.
She seemed intoxicated, her face was swollen as though she had just awakened from a too heavy sleep.
“Yes, yes,” said she, with an effort. “Oh! I have passed the day, my head in my hands, buried in it. When the fit takes one, one no longer knows where one is. I have such a stiff neck.”
And, feeling pains all over her, she did not speak any more of the book, but was so full of her emotion and of confused dreams engendered by her reading, that she was choking. Her ears rang with the distant calls of the horn, blown by the huntsman of her romances, in the blue background of ideal loves. Then, without the least reason, she said that she had been to Saint-Roch that morning to hear the nine o’clock mass. She had wept a great deal, religion replaced everything.
“Ah! I feel better,” resumed she, heaving a deep sigh and standing still in front of Octave.
A pause ensued. She smiled at him with her candid eyes. He had never thought her so useless, with her scanty hair and her washed-out features. But as she continued looking at him, she became very pale and almost stumbled; and he was obliged to put out his hands to support her.
“Good heavens! good heavens!” stuttered she, sobbing.