Despite the threatening sky overcast with clouds, the balcony of the café is crowded with people. There is not a vacant table, the cabarets, the circus shows, the theatres have poured forth the scum of their habitues here. Everywhere are bright-colored dresses and black frock coats, ladies adorned with plumes like horses in a parade, weary, sick looking and sallow; flurried fops with heads drooped upon their button holes without flowers, and nibbling the ends of their canes with ape-like gestures. Some of them with legs crossed in order to show their black silk socks embroidered with red flowerets, hats pushed over slightly toward the back, are whistling the latest hit—the air which has just now been sung at the Ambassadeur, to the accompaniment of the creaking of seats, the clatter of glasses and bottles.
The last of the lights in front of the opera has been extinguished. But all around it the windows of the club-houses and brothels are a red blaze, like openings into hell. On the street, parked near the curb, are worn-out and dilapidated open coaches strung out in triple file. Some of the drivers are drowsing in their seats; others gathering into small groups which present a comical appearance in their ill-fitting liveries, are munching cigar stubs, and talking with loud bursts of laughter, telling salacious stories about their clients. One incessantly hears the shrill voice of the newspaper vendors who run back and forth shouting, in the midst of their crisp outcries, the name of some well-known woman, or some scandalous piece of news, while street arabs, gliding between the tables, cunning as cats, are selling obscene pictures, half revealed, to awaken dormant passions, to stir up curiosities gone to sleep. And little girls whose premature depravity has already blighted their gaunt, childish faces are offering for sale bouquets of flowers, smiling with a dubious smile, charging their glances with the ripe and hideous immodesty of old prostitutes. Inside the cabaret all the tables are taken.... There is not a single vacant place.... People are drinking champagne without really wanting it and munching sandwiches without in the least caring for them. Occasionally curious people enter the place, before going to their clubs or to bed, by force of habit or from a mere desire to show off or to see if there is "anything doing" there. Slowly and slouching in their walk, they slink about the groups of guests, stopping to chat with their friends here and there and, waving their hands in greeting to some one at a distance, look at themselves in the mirrors, fix their white cravats which stick out from under their light overcoats, then leave, their minds enriched with a few new slang expressions of the underworld, with a few more scandals picked up here and upon which their idleness will thrive for a whole day.
The women with elbows resting on the table, an ice cream soda in front of them, their weak faces, hatched with fine pink lines, supported by long gloved hands, assume a languid air, a suffering mien and a sort of consumptive dreaminess. They exchange mysterious winks and imperceptible smiles with their neighbors at nearby tables, while the gentleman accompanying them, silent and affectedly courteous, strikes the point of his shoes with the tip of his cane. The gathering presents a brilliant spectacle variegated with lace and baubles, bright trimmings and pompons, tinged plumes and flowers in full bloom, curls of blond hair, tresses of dark hair and the glitter of diamonds. Every one is at his fighting post, the young and the old, beginners with beardless faces, grey-haired veterans, naïve gulls and crafty spongers, here were social scandals, false situations, riotous vice, base covetousness, shameful barter—all the flowers of corruption which sprout—mingle, grow and thrive in the dunghill warmth of Paris.
It was into this atmosphere charged with ennui, restlessness and heavy odors that we used thereafter to come every evening. During the day, visits to the dressmakers, the Bois, the races; in the evening, restaurants, theatres and fashionable gatherings. Wherever this special brand of society people came together, one was certain to see us; we were even made much of because of Juliette's beauty which began to be the subject of people's talk, and her dresses which called forth the envy and emulation of other women. We no longer dined at home. Our apartment served us as hardly anything more than a place to dress. When Juliette was dressing she grew harsh, even cruel. The wrinkle on her forehead cut into her skin like a scar. She uttered disjointed words, grew angry, seemed to be incensed to the point of breaking up things.
All around her the room seemed as if it had been pillaged: trunks were opened, skirts thrown on the carpet, fans taken out of their cases and scattered on the chairs, opera glasses left on the furniture; muslin gowns were lying in heaps in the corners, the floor was strewn with flowers, towels, soiled with rouge, gloves, stockings, veils were hanging on the branches of the candlesticks. And in the midst of this confusion, Celestine, agile, brazen-faced, cynical, was going through all sorts of evolutions, jumping, sliding, kneeling at the feet of her mistress, sticking a pin here, adjusting the pleats there, knotting threads, her soft, flabby hands, made to handle filthy things, gliding all over Juliette's body with affection. She was happy, she no longer replied to insinuating remarks, to bitter reproaches, and her eyes, persistently ironical, shining with a flame of vulgar depravity were riveted on me.
It was only in public, in the glare of lights, under the cross fire of men's gazes that Juliette again found her smile and expression of joy mixed with a little wonderment and frankness which she reserved only for this repugnant crowd of debauchées. And we used to come to this cabaret accompanied by Gabrielle, by Jesselin, by people met I don't know where, and presented to us by I don't know whom, by idiots and princes, by the whole batch of international and street-corner crooks whom we dragged along with us.
"What are you going to do tonight?"
"I am going with the Mintié crowd."
Jesselin gave us information about the people in the place; he knew all the inside facts of high society life and spoke of it with a sort of admiration in spite of all the shameful or tragic details which he told us.
"That man there, who has a crowd of people around him and who is listened to respectfully, used to be a valet-de-chambre. His master fired him for theft. But he became the keeper of a gambling house, conducted all kinds of illegitimate joints, became cashier of the Club, then skilfully disappeared for a few years. At the present time he is part owner of many gambling houses, has an interest in the race track, has unlimited credit with the stock-brokers, owns horses and a mansion where he receives people. He used to loan money secretly at one hundred percent interest to ladies in financial straits whose gullible natures he would first test. Ostentatiously generous, buying pictures of the most expensive kind, he passes for an honorable man and patron of the arts. In the papers they speak of him with great respect.