For a moment Denise stood bewildered on the pavement, in the sun which still shone fiercely at five o'clock. The July heat warmed the gutters, Paris was blazing with the chalky whiteness peculiar to it in summer-time, and which produced quite a blinding glare. The catastrophe had happened so suddenly, they had turned her out so roughly, that she stood there, turning her money over in her pocket in a mechanical way, asking herself where she was to go, and what she was to do.
A long line of cabs prevented her quitting the pavement near The Ladies' Paradise. When she at last risked herself amongst the wheels she crossed over the Place Gaillon, as if she intended to go into the Rue Louis-le-Grand; then she altered her mind, and walked towards the Rue Saint-Roch. But still she had no plan, for she stopped at the corner of the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, and finally followed it, after looking around her with an undecided air. Arrived at the Passage Choiseul, she passed through, and found herself in the Rue Monsigny, without knowing how, and ultimately came into the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin again. Her head was filled with a fearful buzzing sensation, she thought of her box on seeing a commissionaire; but where was she to have it taken to, and why all this trouble, when an hour ago she had a bed to go to?
Then her eyes fixed on the houses, she began to examine the windows. There were any number of bills, “Apartments to Let.” She saw them confusedly, repeatedly seized by the inward emotion which was agitating her whole being. Was it possible? Left alone so suddenly, lost in this immense city in which she was a stranger, without support, without resources. She must eat and sleep, however. The streets succeeded one another, the Rue des Moulins, the Rue Sainte-Anne. She wandered about the neighbourhood, frequently retracing her steps, always brought back to the only spot she knew really well. Suddenly she was astonished, she was again standing before The Ladies' Paradise; and to escape this obsession she plunged into the Rue de la Michodière. Fortunately Baudu was not at his door. The Old Elbeuf appeared to be dead, behind its murky windows. She would never have dared to show herself at her uncle's, for he affected not to recognise her any more, and she did not wish to become a burden to him, in the misfortune he had predicted for her. But, on the other side of the street, a yellow bill attracted her attention. “Furnished room to let.” It was the first that did not frighten her, so poor did the house appear. She soon recognised it, with its two low storeys, and rusty-coloured front, crushed between The Ladies' Paradise and the old Hôtel Duvillard. On the threshold of the umbrella shop, old Bourras, hairy and bearded like a prophet, and with his glasses on his nose, stood studying the ivory handle of a walking-stick. Hiring the whole house, he under-let the two upper floors furnished, to lighten the rent.
“You have a room, sir?” asked Denise, obeying an instinctive impulse.
He raised his great bushy eyes, surprised to see her, for he knew all the young persons at The Ladies' Paradise. And, after observing her clean dress and respectable appearance, he replied: “It won't suit you.”
“How much is it, then?” replied Denise.
“Fifteen francs a month.”
She asked to see it. On arriving in the narrow shop, and seeing that he was still eyeing her with an astonished air, she told him of her departure from the shop and of her wish not to trouble her uncle. The old man then went and fetched a key hanging on a board in the back-shop, a small dark room, where he did his cooking and had his bed; beyond that, behind a dirty window, could be seen a back-yard about six feet square.
“I'll walk in front to prevent you falling,” said Bourras, entering the damp corridor which ran along the shop.
He stumbled against the lower stair, and commenced the ascent, reiterating his warnings to be careful. Look out! the rail was close against the wall, there was a hole at the corner, sometimes the lodgers left their dust-boxes there. Denise, in complete obscurity, could distinguish nothing, only feeling the chilliness of the old damp plaster. On the first floor, however, a small window looking into the yard enabled her to see vaguely, as at the bottom of a piece of sleeping water, the rotten staircase, the walls black with dirt, the cracked and discoloured doors.