"It is those precious unworldly studies, those cloister thoughts picturing ecclesiastical and demoniac scenes, which have prepared me for the present folly," he said to himself. His unsuspected, and hitherto unexpressed, mysticism, which had determined his choice of subject for his last work was now sending him out, in disorder, to seek new pains and pleasures.
As he walked along he recapitulated what he knew of the woman. She was married, blonde, in easy circumstances because she had her own sleeping quarters and a maid. She lived in the neighbourhood, because she went to the rue Littré post-office for her mail. Her name, supposing she had prefixed her own initial to the name of Maubel, was Henriette, Hortense, Honorine, Hubertine, or Hélène. What else? She must frequent the society of artists, because she had met him, and for years he had not been in a bourgeois drawing-room. She was some kind of a morbid Catholic, because that word succubus was unknown to the profane. That was all. Then there was her husband, who, gullible as he might be, must nevertheless suspect their liaison, since, by her own confession, she dissembled her obsession very badly.
"This is what I get for letting myself be carried away. For I, too, wrote at first to amuse myself with aphrodisiac statements. Then I ended by becoming completely hysterical. We have taken turns fanning smouldering ashes which now are blazing. It is too bad that we have both become inflamed at the same time—for her case must be the same as mine, to judge from the passionate letters she writes. What shall I do? Keep on tantalizing myself for a chimera? No! I'll bring matters to a head, see her, and if she is good-looking, sleep with her. I shall have peace, anyway."
He looked about him. Without knowing how he had
got there he found himself in the Jardin des Plantes. He oriented himself, remembered that there was a café on the side facing the quay, and went to find it.
He tried to control himself and write a letter at once ardent and firm, but the pen shook in his fingers. He wrote at a gallop, confessed that he regretted not having consented, at the outset, to the meeting she proposed, and, attempting to check himself, declared, "We must see each other. Think of the harm we are doing ourselves, teasing each other at a distance. Think of the remedy we have at hand, my poor darling, I implore you."
He must indicate a place of meeting. He hesitated. "Let me think," he said to himself. "I don't want her to alight at my place. Too dangerous. Then the best thing to do would be to offer her a glass of port and a biscuit and conduct her to Lavenue's, which is a hotel as well as a café. I will reserve a room. That will be less disgusting than an assignation house. Very well, then, let us put in place of the rue de la Chaise the waiting-room of the Gare Montparnasse. Sometimes it is quite empty. Well, that's done." He gummed the envelope and felt a kind of relief. "Ah! I was forgetting. Garçon! The Bottin de Paris."
He searched for the name Maubel, thinking that by some chance it might be her own. Of course it was hardly probable, but she seemed so imprudent that with her anything was to be expected. He might very easily have met a Mme. Maubel and forgotten her. He found a Maubé and a Maubec, but no Maubel. "Of course, that proves nothing," he said, closing the directory. He went out and threw his letter into the box. "The joker in this is the husband. But hell, I am not likely to take his wife away from him very long."
He had an idea of going home, but he realized that he would do no work, that alone he would relapse into daydream. "If I went up to Des Hermies's place. Yes, today was his consultation day, it's an idea."
He quickened his pace, came to the rue Madame, and rang at an entresol. The housekeeper opened the door.