by Robert Merle
“Babeau,” I said, “take a sol from my purse.”
“A sol, Monsieur! That’s a lot!”
“It’s hardly enough to repay your kindness. Take it, Babeau.”
“But Monsieur, do you trust me to go through your purse with all your money in it?”
“Yes, of course!”
“Monsieur, I cannot thank you enough! Will you think about my herbs?”
“Next time. I promised and I’ll keep my promise.”
“Oh, Monsieur, I feel so fond of you! May I give you a goodbye kiss?”
“With all my heart.”
And, as she was leaving, this good girl gave me an earnest and resounding kiss on the cheek, but delivered as she was already backing away as if she feared my arms would encircle her. I hadn’t thought about it—or rather, to tell the truth, when I did think about it, the door was already closing behind her.
I had imagined the barber of the baths would be an old hag, or, as we say in langue d’oc, a ménine, all wrinkled and dried up, hard and sour. So I was very charmed to see a young blonde girl enter my micro-chamber with her shaving implements who introduced herself as Babette and gave me a sweet smile.
“What? Babette after Babeau? What’s going on? Did they arrange this on purpose?”
“No! That’s my name and that’s her name! And though Babeau is pretty, I think Babette is even cuter.”
She laughed at this, being of a very happy nature, as I saw when she began her work, for she never stopped chatting and making merry the entire time she was scything my field, using first scissors to rough out the job and then a very sharp razor to make me as smooth as a canon’s cheek. Not that I liked these attentions as much as I’d enjoyed my bath, but if I had to go through this to please the baronne, it might as well be with this pretty wench, who, when she had to move her blade around my most virile member, grabbed the latter with her left hand without any shame whatsoever, leaving me entirely in doubt as to whether this was just part of her job or whether she found some amusement in it. In any case, as I could not fail to express my appreciation for her grip on me, she laughed:
“Monsieur, if that continues, I’m going to let go. He can stand up well enough all by himself!”
“Don’t your dare, Babette,” I returned, my voice a bit muffled, “if he’s not supported, he might fall directly on the blade of your razor!” She laughed heartily but never missed a razor stroke, so lively and dexterous was she. Meanwhile these parts that I mentioned had become as smooth as when I was a baby, but when she’d done, she let go, and I said, more as a complaint than as a joke, “Ah, Babette, you shouldn’t start what you don’t finish!”
“Finish?” she replied, her voice suddenly serious. “Monsieur, aren’t you asking for more than we can give you?”
“And why the Devil,” I replied angrily, “can’t you go on?”
“Because I’m only a girl,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
“I see very well that you’re a girl,” I said gloomily.
“Monsieur, you’re not understanding me. I’m a virgin and virgin I shall remain, since I made a vow to the Blessed Virgin to remain in this state until my wedding.”
“Ah, Babette,” I said after a moment’s thought, “I believe you. But isn’t shaving men’s bodies an odd trade for a virgin?”
“I learnt this art from my father,” replied Babette, “since he had no son, and since he lost his right arm in an accident. So I’ve had to take up his art to feed him now, and my mother and myself.”
“But, Babette,” I said while she shaved my left thigh, “aren’t you exposed every day God has made to the licentiousness and brutality of your customers? Especially when you work, as you’re doing tonight, alone in a room with a man? Has no one ever tried to force himself on you?”
“Do you think they would while I’ve got this in my hand? And since I use it so capably?”
And my blonde beauty raised her razor with a smile but also a flame in her blue eyes, and looked me right in the eye. However, what she saw there calmed her right down and, giving me another very simple smile, she took up where she’d left off and finished shaving me in a trice.
I gave a sol to her as well, disappointed as I was in my carnal weakness, but at the same time marvelling at her valour and firmness.
“Well, Monsieur,” she laughed, “I thank God and I thank you for having taken it so well! Ordinarily I am treated to insults and scorn as the price for my refusal.”
And she too gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek, which moved me—but only in my heart. What a strange animal man is! He is always double: in every encounter, his body pulls him one way, his soul the other.
And yet, to tell the truth (as I promised to do in these memoirs) I wasn’t as relaxed as I’d hoped to be after the two visits, finding myself a bit like one of the king’s tennis balls, bouncing back and forth between two racquets, for as much as a wench’s rejection—if she manages it sweetly—disarms me, it also saddens me, for I end up regretting not having tasted the sweetness she doubtless would have shown me had she given in to my desire.
I was at this point in my thinking, and, moreover, quite uncertain as to whether Madame des Tourelles would also reject me on the morrow on first glancing my outmoded and patched-up doublet (in which case I’d not only be humiliated but out of pocket for my troubles), when there came a knock on my door, and the mistress of the baths came in, looking very haughty. She was even more enormous than I’d remembered, and seemed even more domineering since I was now lying down, and she was standing over me.
“Would Monsieur desire something to eat?” she snapped very nastily.
“Yes, indeed,” I replied, “some meat and a flagon of wine.”
“We have no meat today. Would two eggs and a slice of ham do?”
“Marvellous!”
And yet, though everything was said and done, she didn’t leave, but stood there, her stomach and breasts rising over me like a cliff over the sea.
“Monsieur,” she asked after remaining silent for several moments, “would you like company tonight?”
“Company? What for?” I said, astonished, and in my surprise sat up on my seat.
“You know what for.”
Her words set me thinking furiously. “Ah,” I said to myself, “Babeau and Babette, you prattled nicely! And what is the role that your unbreakable virtue plays in your work here? Are you unwittingly the teasers for this bordello? Aren’t you, in your naivety, just getting the customers all excited so that they’ll need to be satisfied by others, to the greater profit of the mistress of the baths?”
“My good woman,” I said somewhat guardedly, “I’m little inclined, being a doctor, to commercial love.”
“Hey, Monsieur!” snapped the mistress of the baths indignantly. “What are you saying? We’re not a bordello here! We’re one of the oldest, most respected bathhouses in Paris! We don’t have whores and prostitutes here!”
“My good woman,” I soothed, “I meant no offence.”
“And so I take none,” she replied with dignity. “The company I’m suggesting is that of an honest wench who works by day at her job, and by night embellishes the repose of certain gentlemen that I recommend to her.”
“My good woman,” I said, “that’s nicely put! And how much will this ‘embellishment’ cost me?”
“Three sols for her, three for me.”
“That seems very equitably shared,” I said with a smile that was not quite genuine. “And tell me, what’s this honest wench like?”
“She a lively, frisky brunette. Not necessarily the most beautiful, but she uses her charms actively.”
“Might I see her, my good woman, before we shake on it?”
“Assuredly. I’m not selling a pig in a poke.”
But never was a pig, in or out of a poke, more suspicious and wary than I of a trap as I waited, fearing that some streetwalker would be passed off as an honest wench. Moreover, I was dreamy and sleepy, and wasn’t so interested
in playing around as I was in eating and going to sleep, tired from such a long day, one that had brought me so many disappointments.
Finally there was a knock at the door, and the first one in was the mass of fat I’d met earlier, so huge that I couldn’t at first see who was behind her. But the mistress of the baths turning round to take her by the hand, I saw her and, unable to believe my eyes, immediately jumped up and said quickly to the chief ogre, “It’s a deal! Leave us!”
“Monseigneur, you have to pay in advance.”
“Here are your three sols!” I said, searching through my purse. “’Sblood! Leave us!”
Having no idea why I was so abrupt and hurried, she hurried off, and I ran to close the door and bolt it after her. Then, turning to the wench, who was holding her hands over her face, I said gently, but with a hint of reproach, “Alizon! What’s this? You’re selling your body at the baths?”
She didn’t make a sound, but kept her hands glued to her face, trembling from head to toe, her shoulders convulsed as she sobbed out her soul.
“So, Alizon,” I said, trying to seize her wrists so I could look at her eye to eye, “what’s happened? Have you become a whore?”
“A whore, Monsieur?” she cried, ripping her wrists from my grip and revealing her tear-stained face, convulsed with grief and anger. “How dare you call me a whore? Didn’t you see me working my fingers to the bone for that cheapskate Recroche from dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn? I haven’t slept but three hours these last two nights and that was on the floor of the workshop, while my miser of a master was at the baronne’s. Oh, Monsieur,” she continued, her voice trembling with anger, “is it from being a whore that my poor back is bent and sore? That my poor eyes are red and my fingers are more peppered with needle pricks than a hanged man’s face by crows? And do you think a hot whore would arrive nearly dead from sleep deprivation?”
“Alizon, calm down,” I urged, moved by her tone and her story. “Sit down here on this stool. Dry your tears. Forgive me for using the word ‘whore’ if it offends you. But you’re such an honest and industrious wench! Here! In the bathhouse! Selling your body for three sols!”
And taking her arm I tried to get her to sit down, but failed to do so as she broke loose from my grip and backed away from me, her eyes still flashing with anger through her tears.
“And how is it,” she cried suddenly, leaving me astonished by her sudden reaction, “that you feel more justified buying me that I do selling myself?”
That silenced me completely, and I couldn’t say a word in response, but suddenly felt ashamed (for my Huguenot conscience had scalded me, telling me she was right), and stood looking at her without a word.
“Ah!” she continued, finally sitting down. “I’d sell myself for less! I’d sell myself for a night of sleep, if I didn’t need these three sols to raise my baby.”
“Your baby!” I gasped, open-mouthed. “I thought you were innocent and pure, Alizon!”
“But I am!” she countered. “The gallant lad who got me pregnant swore he’d marry me. But scarcely had he noticed the swelling in my stomach before he took off like the Devil was after him without leaving me a single sol to pay a nurse!”
“A nurse!” I said. “Do you really need one?”
“What a silly question!” cried Alizon bitterly. “Am I supposed to sew with a baby in my arms?”
“But have you no mother, sister or aunt?”
“No,” said Alizon, her lips squeezed in frustration. “I’m alone. The plague carried them all off.”
“Oh, Alizon,” I comforted, sitting down on the bed so as to face her stool, and taking her hand. “What a predicament you’re in! So your salary from Recroche isn’t enough to buy your daily bread and pay the nurse, so you have to come here.”
“What else is there?” cried Alizon pulling her hand from mine and looking at me suddenly with anger and bitterness, her eyes flashing fire. “Do you imagine it’s because I love men? You think I enjoy these pigs who have enough money to buy one of my nights and make we work in their beds like a bitch in heat when all I want to do is sleep?”
I looked silently at Alizon, all rebellious and stiff, her black eyes shining, with her small neck, her wasp-like figure—a little fly in the hell of a spiderweb created by the men who surrounded her—and her wasp-like tongue as well, which could sting, for she had a ready wit and a way with words in her sharp Parisian accent. ’Sblood! These pigs, which included me, were an awful thought. I got up and went over to my purse and, taking some money, came back to her and said with no bitterness whatsoever, but perhaps too coldly, “Alizon, I am a man, not a pig. Take these three sols and go home and sleep as much as you can.”
But my words only seemed to increase her anger, for she leapt from her stool, pale with fury, her nostrils pinched, spitting like a cat on a coal, and shouted:
“What’s this I hear? Are you offering me charity? Am I some beggar on the church steps? Did I ever ask you for alms? Have I fallen so low? Monsieur,” she said, opening my hand, taking the three sols and stuffing them in the pocket of her dress, “I’ve given you nothing and I’ll accept nothing from you. You’ve paid and you’ll get what you paid for. My body is yours for the night!”
And suddenly, without another word, or looking at me, her eyes on the floor and lips tight, she undressed completely. I scarcely dared to look at her, so odious did I feel in my shame, stuck in a role that disgusted me and not knowing how to get out of it.
Good God! What should I do in such a predicament? Forcefully put her clothes back on? Call the mistress of the baths? But what would this fat bawd think except that Alizon had disappointed her client, which would probably get her chased away? I didn’t know how to resolve this, and so I turned my back on my poor little wasp and walked over to the little window that looked out on the garden. It was slightly ajar; from it came a little bit of cool air on this stifling August evening and I avidly took a deep breath of it, my thoughts all confused but inclining towards sadness and self-hatred.
I turned around and looked at Alizon in her nakedness and felt the shame of having purchased this right for three sols. She was as thin as I’d imagined, but at the same time more curvaceous than I would have thought and still trembling with anger, her eyes lowered and her teeth biting her lips bloody. She was still lively and frisky enough to have whetted my appetite if the heart (hers) had been willing. But without a word, without looking at me as though I were anything more than a table or a stool, Alizon stretched out on the bed, her eyes closed, so stiff and cold it froze me. ’Sblood! How tired I was of this long day and of this misunderstanding with Alizon.
And so, in utter sadness and bad conscience, I went and lay down next to her without saying a word or touching her, not even with the tips of my fingers. What wickedness, when you think about it, to buy the body of another against the wishes of her soul! And yet with what pleasure I would have played my part if the honest wench that the mistress of the baths had provided hadn’t been Alizon! I saw that the poor girl had, in her wounded pride, taken things in such a nasty way that now she would lie there, more dead than alive, like a log at my side, eyes closed and mouth shut tight. I would have lain there dead as a log as well, unable to do anything, and having no idea what to say, had it not occurred to me to ask her if her child were a boy or a girl and how old he or she was. These questions ended up unnailing the coffin and helped the dead woman out of her tomb.
“It’s a boy,” she replied with sudden vivacity (despite how entirely exhausted and sleep deprived she’d been an instant before), “handsome and well built and who’s soon going to be a year old.”
“And do you see him often, Alizon?”
“Thank God, every day that God makes, since the nurse lives in the same street where I have my room. What a joy it is to see him nursing from her breast, sometimes playing with her nipple, sometimes playing with her hair, looking at her—and at me—with such happiness, laughing and smiling.”
“Is he sp
eaking?”
“Like one of God’s angels! Blessed Virgin, how he babbles! He makes up all these words and warbles with his pretty voice, letting us know with his gestures and tiny fingers what he can’t tell us in words. Oh, Monsieur! He’s so close to my heart that I love him even when he’s upset or angry, or when he throws himself on the ground or kicks me, pouts, cries or screams at the top of his lungs, just because he’s lost a walnut or some other plaything. Isn’t that amazing?”
There was a knock on the door and Babeau appeared, bringing my dinner.
Alizon, still engrossed in talking about her little Henriot, without even paying attention to what she was doing, agreed to share it, and never was a serving more promptly dispatched than by her, so strident was her hunger.
However, her meal devoured, she fell silent again and went and lay down on the bed, as stiff and cold as before, her eyes closed and her hands crossed across her chest as if she were a recumbent figure on a marble tombstone. But I could tell from the softer fold of her lips that I had succeeded in pacifying her by talking about her child and that she had to apply herself to maintain her stony appearance.
Finally, I lay down next to this statue and this time took her pretty head of brown curls on my shoulder, with my arm under her neck. This done, I didn’t move or speak or move for such a long time that finally she said in a sleepy little voice, “Monsieur, what are you waiting for?”
“Shush, Alizon!” I whispered in a severe tone that hardly matched my feelings at this moment. “Don’t open your mouth, please, I’m meditating.”
“It’s just that if you wait too much longer,” she said even more sleepily and softly, “I’m so dead tired that I’m likely to drift off into such a deep sleep you won’t be able to wake me.”
“Shush, shush, Alizon. Don’t bother me any more!”
And this time, she quieted down and fell asleep almost instantly; her head, which weighed no more than a bird on my shoulder, rolled into the hollow of my neck and remained nestled there with such childish confidence in this abandoned posture that I was overcome with emotion. How could I be indifferent to her misfortune, I who believed myself poor as Job simply because I didn’t have enough money to have a doublet made that I could parade at court, and who had spent in one night at the baths more money than she could expect to earn in five days working for Maître Recroche? How cruel life is for these unfortunate wenches who, in addition to the hardships that men of their condition might endure, have to suffer from a swelling in their bellies that they never wanted, a fruit that is so unwelcome outside marriage that the world points at them if they keep it and hangs them if, like my poor Fontanette, they try to get rid of it.