He did not doubt for one moment that Irma would listen to him and agree to all his proposals. He felt certain of it. She would not forget so soon the blows Bebert had given her; And Emile would act in such a way as to increase her humiliation, and so bind her closer to him. He had always been sure that something like this would happen one day, and now it had come. The day that would change everything. He already saw himself freed from Bebert, and restored to the peaceful life he loved. And not too soon.
Emile strained his ears behind the wall and he now heard indistinct words, a faint whispering of which he did not grasp the meaning. He waited a few minutes more, then went back to bed and slept very late, an agitated sleep. Next day he woke feeling, contrary to his custom, very well and hearty. Everyone was astonished at his good temper. What was the matter with him? Why did he seem so happy? He left his office in the evening without loitering, came out of the Metro, and mounted the steps to his lodgings four at a time.
“Irma,” he called out at once, “Irma! It's me.... Here I am.”
“Well,” said Irma. “What's the matter with you? Aren't you well?”
Emile stopped short and stared at La Rouque who was lacing up her boots. She turned her painted face and carefully shadowed black eyes to him. At that moment she was beautiful. Her red hair thrown back from her face, her bare shoulders, her breast that was visible under the lace of a pink, finely plaited chemise troubled him. He made a gesture.
“What are you shouting about?” said Irma.
“I... I thought...” answered Emile.
“What?”
“After what happened last night... between you...”
The Red One frowned severely. “Last night?” she asked.
“But yes.”
“What happened?”
“He beat you, didn't he?” said Emile.
She shrugged her shoulders imperceptibly, observed Emile, smiled.
“Certainly,” she admitted at once, “he beat me. What about it?”
Emile coughed and lost countenance.
“But how do you know,” asked La Rouque, “that he beat me? You were listening?”
“Well,” replied Emile, “as Bebert had woke me up.”
“Leave Bebert alone,” ordered Irma in a disagreeable voice.
“Don't mix him up with your affairs, I won't stand it. Besides, even if he woke you up, you had no right to listen. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? If I were to tell him, I don't know what he'd say, you know. Things go quickly with him.”
“All the same, he had no reason to beat you,” argued Emile timorously, “I heard everything. No. Not the slightest reason.”
“But yes,” asserted the Red One.
She tied her boot laces, pushed them inside the varnished leg of the boots, got up.
“And his reasons aren't your business,” said she seriously.
“They are my own reasons—mine.”
Emile shook his head piteously.
“Yes,” went on the strange creature. “You are not going to try to rule everything here.”
“Oh really!” said Emile, “it isn't me who rules everything here, Irma. You are not just...”
“What?”
“I, I thought about the sorrow you had last night, when you were crying, and that's why I came home so quickly, I wanted to be with you, near you.”
“No,” said La Rouque. “Oh no... not that.”
“Listen,” went on Emile, who saw that in spite of her denials she was more touched than she cared to show, “we are brother and sister, and the wrong that's done to one is done to the other? Isn't it true? The other suffers, at least. I assure you I was sorry for you last night. I suffered, I put myself in your place.”
Irma lowered her eyes and asked: “Why did you suffer?”
“Because he's a bad man,” he declared, speaking very quickly, “he tries to bully other people all the time. He likes it, it's his vice. Oh, I know him. Last night, again he threatened to kill me, d'you remember? He didn't mind shouting it at the top of his voice.”
“He was drunk,” replied Irma simply.
“Drunk certainly, but that doesn't make any difference. He'll do what he said he would.”
“No!”
“Yes!” replied he. “One can expect anything from a man like that. It pleases him to hurt people. It excites him. I don't know what to do about it. It's useless—my not answering...”
Irma said gently, “Sometimes he is so nice.”
“Sometimes he hides his real character,” affirmed Emile feverishly. “Believe me.... And then with you, he has some good times. Because you give him pleasure...”
“And money,” said Irma.
Emile went on: “Then he gets better, doesn't he? He gives way.... Whilst I, I feel that he detests me, hates me, and that one day or another he will ill treat me again in his cowardly way. Ah my God, all alone, I am all alone.”
“And I,” whispered La Rouque very low, “you forget me. I do all I can to hold him back, be sure... and I always will.”
“Irma!”
“No, don't make me tell you all that he says when we come home together from the Tango.”
“Ah you see, you see,” said Emile.... “I am right. He has threatened to kill me.”
“Sometimes, yes, he talks about it,” La Rouque was obliged to admit, “and I pretend to laugh to stop him from thinking of it seriously. If you knew how he treats me then. He knocks me about out of doors without minding people... anywhere we happen to be. And I don't defend myself. I let him get it over.”
“But it's abominable.”
“It's not always nice being married to him,” asserted La Rouque, “a man like that is not easy to understand. He has his own ideas about things.”
Emile took Irma in his arms.
“If you would,” he said with dread, “Irma.”
“What do you mean?”
“Irma I assure you, if only you would, we'd go away.”
“And where would we go?” she asked.
“We'd move to another quarter,” answered Emile. “The quarter where I work, it's all right there.”
“Rue d'la Roquette?”
“And the other streets too,” he explained. “It's full of hotels. We'd live in a hotel and it would be very convenient for you. There are always lots of people about...”
“And Bebert would find me again at once,” muttered the girl slowly. “He hasn't hidden it from me, you may be sure. Wherever we went he would find us out. We wouldn't get away....”
“Don't talk like that, Irma!” begged Emile. “Don't take all hope away from me... I'm sure that we'd succeed if we tried.... No? Won't you try? Are you afraid?”
“No, I'm not afraid.”
“Well?”
“Well,” she sighed, “I don't know.”
Emile was about to press her to run the risk, but he suddenly let his sister go, drew away from her, became livid, and putting a finger on his mouth, made her a sign to be silent.
“Here he is, isn't he?” whispered Irma. “It's he. It's he— Bebert? Some one has opened the door?”
XIII
It was, in fact, Bebert. He came in, seemed astonished to find Emile with his sister, but said nothing and took off his cap which he threw on the bed.
“Ah!” stammered La Rouque, “Emile and I were just talking about you.”
“Well, don't disturb yourselves.”
La Rouque told him with a little laugh which sounded false: “We weren't saying anything much.”
Bebert turned towards Emile and looking at him: “Here's somebody who's not too pleased to see me,” he declared. “Isn't it true?”
“Not at all,” replied La Rouque. “Only you frighten him and he takes all your nonsense seriously. He's at the stage that he doesn't know what to invent to frighten himself. Imagine.”
“I, I frighten him?”
“Oh, you're funny all the same,” said La Rouque, “You can't help it... the proof...”
“But I'
ve never frightened him,” replied Bebert shamelessly.
“It's his fancy. Imagination. Have you noticed it, you?”
He made a little grimace, stared in front of him as if he were suddenly overcome by an obscure thought, smiled, winked one eye.
“I assure you,” he asserted in a playful tone of voice, “that there must be a mistake.”
And addressing himself to Emile who remained cautiously at a distance. “Well,” he said, “answer, as we're talking about you. Aren't you happier? Don't you trust me?”
Emile opened his mouth, but no sound could come out of it. Embarrassed he tried to answer by a gesture, a large uncertain gesture.
“There,” remarked Irma, “you put him in a state just by looking at him. He can't talk. It's funny to be like that, isn't it? You mustn't be angry with him.”
“Well naturally,” said Bebert.
His expression changed, however, became strained and hard.
“Emile,” called La Rouque.
“No, leave him alone,” cut in Bebert, “look at him! A little more and he would walk inside the wall, he's so glad I'm talking to him. What did I tell you? He's going to upset the dressing table now.”
“Come on,” called Irma a second time. “He won't touch you. Come on. Come, Emile.”
Bebert, who had slyly thrust his hands into his little waistcoat pocket, waited, rocking himself backwards and forwards.
“Come close—but come here,” repeated La Rouque.
“She's right. Come on!” proposed Bebert. “Didn't you hear?”
“I... I ...” stuttered Emile piteously, pointing at Bebert. “There... there...” He stepped back terrified.
“What?”
Bebert asked: “Are you going to keep us waiting for long? Making such a fuss. Come on then, obstinate. Ah no... you won't?”
He made two or three steps in Emile's direction and seemed good naturedly amused with the terror he was inspiring. He took his time, stood in an astonished attitude.
“The knife,” muttered Emile, “in his pocket... the... the knife... Irma! He's opened it.”
Irma shut her eyes.
“Open? declared Bebert in a conciliatory way. “Well yes. It's open.”
“Oh,” begged Emile... “for pity's sake! Don't come near me... stop!”
“You're all the same an obstinate devil,” said Bebert. If I ask you to come to me, you won't, and when I come to you you shout.”
Irma said in a low voice: “Bebert, I won't allow you to hurt him.”
“So,” he sneered... “you... you've got something to say about it. You're joking.”
“Bebert!”
“Wait!” he answered... “there will be something left for you if you want it. Don't worry.”
As he was speaking to Irma, he moved closer to Emile, who tried to thrust him aside. Bebert pushed roughly.
“There!” he declared all of a sudden showing his knife... “You'll see. What is a paltry little stroke of the blade? I don't want to kill, you idiot! I'm simply going to prick you... prick you... you won't feel it... I assure you that you'll feel nothing at all... hardly.”
“Oh no... no, no,” moaned Emile who had backed to the other end of the room and was standing against the wall motionless, in a terrified attitude.
Bebert stared rudely into his eyes trying to penetrate him with his look, then shaking his weapon with the most engaging expression in the world: “Are you ready?” he questioned. “It'll be done quickly. Don't move.”
Emile cried out.
“There!” said Bebert.
He darted his knife forward, withdrew it, to threaten Irma, for she had instinctively moved forward to stop him. Then very quickly he touched Emile a second time.
“Help,” cried Emile. “Murder! Help! Help!”
Bebert declared: “If you make that row I'll finish you...hein? Do you understand... I'll...”
He looked at the blade of his knife which was covered with blood and master of himself as of each of the blows he was giving, clenched his teeth.
“Monsieur Bebert, Monsieur Bebert,” wept Emile. “No, Monsieur Bebert... Oh!”
He collapsed on the floor, screamed louder, quivered with pain. Bebert bent over his victim. He did not sink the blade deeply, but as soon as it touched Emile withdrew it rapidly to stab again... The louder Emile shouted the more coolly Bebert continued his horrible game. He stood up at last, pale, contracted, his eyes gleaming strangely, shut his knife and in a voice which sounded toneless, ordered: “Now there... it's over... I'm not touching you.... But no.... No, stand up.... Go! The prickings I've given you are less than nothing.... Stand up... go... don't make me say it again.... Go off.... Go to your room.”
Emile, staggering like a drunken man, obeyed, he passed in front of Irma and wanted to stop. Bebert pushed him from the back. He fell down in the passage, got up painfully, disappeared. But Bebert had followed him.
“Go away,” moaned Emile.
“You'll undress,” said Bebert, “and Irma will give you water, towels and some thick salt you'll melt in the water. You'll only have to pass the salt water where you're pricked.... You'll go to bed...”
“Irma,” he called.
She appeared, livid.
“Bring what I've just said,” said Bebert quietly, “and make haste. He won't die of it this time. Don't worry. But in case he starts shouting again when you go down, you'd better go by yourself and I'll stay here to look after him.”
After this advice, Bebert went off to wash his hands. He also washed his knife, took off his shoes and put on Emile's slippers.
“He's bleeding a lot, you know,” confided Irma joining him in the kitchen.
“Ah, yes?”
“Yes, yes, awfully...”
“Well, it's natural, concluded Bebert. “There's nothing in that not quite natural, I assure you. It's rather the contrary that would astonish me.”
XIV
Terrified at the sight of his streaming blood, Emile began to weep aloud, but Bebert called him brutally to order. “Do you want me to come and shut your mouth for you?”
Emile wept more quietly. He had four wounds, not very deep, in the shoulder and the fleshy part of his arm, two others on the right thigh and a long scratch on the groin which bled profusely. The towels he had dipped in the water were crimson. Emile wet them, wrung them out, and pressed them on his wounds, which burned him all the more, and the pain forced little screams out of him which he stifled so as not to irritate Bebert.
That individual sat in the kitchen looking at the newspapers. He was without remorse. He read quietly, a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth; from time to time he smiled, satisfied with himself, stretched, poured himself out some rum. His watch and his knife were on the table near the bottle. He glanced at them occasionally. The watch reminded him of Irma, the knife of Emile. But he did not think for long about it, and went on reading very seriously.
Five or six times La Rouque came in accompanied, and Bebert heard her open and shut the door. She went downstairs. She came up again.... The evening passed without incident. There was silence in Emile's room, he had ended by going to bed and sleeping. As for Bebert, he finished his newspapers, emptied three quarters of the bottle of rum.
He yawned: “Ahhhh...”
Irma accompanied a client to the door, and prepared to follow him outside.
“Bah! That's enough,” said Bebert to her, “leave it alone for tonight.”
He got up, left the kitchen.
“Well,” whispered La Rouque... “Emile?”
“He hasn't bothered me,” said Bebert, “he's had enough probably.”
“Have you been to see him?”
“Well, no.”
Irma suggested: “Shall I go and have a look myself? Perhaps he wants clean towels: one can't refuse that...”
“I am not stopping you,” said Bebert.
He watched Irma going into the room, shook his head silently, went to the door, turned the key in the lock twic
e, came back.
“Well, he enquired, “he's not dead?”
Irma laden with the basin and the blood-stained towels answered in an undertone: “He's made a mess on the floor, I tell you. It's flooded with water. What an annoying thing!”
“I should think so,” said Bebert, going to bed.
La Rouque shook herself.
“Good-night,” said Bebert.
“I'm coming,” she answered, rinsing the basin at the sink and holding it carefully so as not to soil her clothes. “In five minutes.”
She took clean linen out of a cupboard, went back to Emile's bedside and listened to his breathing.
“But he has no sheets,” she declared suddenly with astonishment. “What has he done with them? It's annoying all the same! He'll stain everything.”
Blood had stuck in clots to his shirt in places; the bed clothes, the mattress; his clothes which he had thrown in a heap on the floor when he undressed, were soaked with it.
“My God,” sighed La Rouque, discouraged, “what does a thing like this mean?”
She felt disgusted and saddened, and told herself that to behave in such an odious way, Bebert must indeed find pleasure in cruelties. Was it possible? She asked herself in vain. The thing went beyond her imagination, seemed to her revolting and monstrous. Why? she repeated, walking up and down the room. Why?... Why?...
Bebert who had gone to bed, called her.
“All right,” she said, “I'm coming.”
“But at once,” cried Bebert.
La Rouque joined him.
“Naturally,” he observed, “I don't count for anything now, everything is for the other one.”
“He hasn't even got any sheets,” said Irma.
“Well, so much the worse.”
Bebert sat up in bed.
“You must becrazy!” he said, “to worry about sheets.”
“That depends,” she said, “a poor fellow like that. I can well be worried. After all, he is my brother, isn't he? And you've arranged him properly!”
“He's been asking for it a long time,” affirmed Bebert tranquil. “And it had to come.”
“Ah-really?”
“Really.”
He added, lighting a cigarette: “When people go against me, I revenge myself. I don't forget. I never forget. But as your dirty brother is going to be as quiet as a lamb now, I'll put the sheets back in his room tomorrow morning and we won't say anything more about it.”
Perversity Page 7