PART THREE.The Room Downstairs
XVI
Soon he regretted her constantly, for the others became so aggressive, that on certain evenings they would prevent him from going upstairs. They insulted him in a thousand ways, they refused to let him pass till he gave tensous, or they would pull his hair, slyly prick him with pins, hit him in the back with their umbrellas and run away laughing loudly.
Emile said nothing. He gave the money asked for, bore without complaint the annoyances of every kind to which he was exposed, and in his room would devour his shame bitterly and finally weep.
Tears were a relief he did not explain to himself. They freed him from a pain so secret, so deep that afterwards he would imagine he was cured. But was he not the most abject of men to cry—at his age—because some prostitutes teased him? Would he never find the courage to rebel, to complain to the police, or, once for all, to give back blow for blow, insult for insult? Had it not been for the fear of Bebert and Irma, who would get to know the peculiar reports that had spread over the house, and would be furious, he would have done so. On the other hand, how could he fight alone against all those women?
He was incapable of it, they would attack and beat him, the scandal would become public.
Emile unhappily had not much choice. He was not master of the situation, for the alarming Bebert was mixed up with every plan he made. His wounds were too recent to allow him to forget the terrible little man. He saw Bebert pulling out his knife, showing it, then attacking him furiously and striking in spite of his cries, his complaints and his entreaties. The man was a monster. He had neither heart nor feelings, and anything could be expected of him. Thinking about Bebert, Emile would feel a deadly cold freeze him to the marrow, and the sensation was enough to stop him when exhausted with rage and humiliation, he was on the point of relating everything.
A few evenings afterwards, seated in the kitchen, Emile was sadly considering the affair when the door bell rang and made him start. He did not answer but wondered, astonished, who could wish to disturb him at that time of the night. Was it someone for Irma? Emile waited, went to the door. There was somebody on the landing. Emile was sure of it. The door bell rang a second time.
“Who's there?” said Emile.
A hoarse, stifled voice whispered: “Monsieur Emile, open the door.”
“But who is it?”
“Belle-Amour,” answered the voice. “I must speak to you.... D'you hear, Monsieur Emile? I mean you no harm and you know it.”
Emile opened the door.
“What? What is it?” he asked quickly. “Why are you here? I don't understand.... What do you want? Tell me... well, tell me.”
Belle-Amour looked at him.
“Yes,” he said, “here I am. Have you got something to say to me? Come into my room, I am listening.”
“People must have a little pity, isn't that so?” began Belle-Amour, who expressed herself with difficulty and considered the room where she was standing with an uncertain eye.
“Pity?”
“Yes, yes,” she replied.
“For what reason?”
She lowered her head.
“Well, tell me,” said Emile abashed. “Explain yourself.”
“Ah,” moaned Belle-Amour, “I assure you that it's not my fault... that I did not mean to harm you.... My God, it happened, I don't know how, and you will blame me, won't you?”
“You ought,” said Emile, “to speak more clearly if you want to be understood. What have you done?”
He considered her from head to foot as if to make certain that she was there, touched her gently on the shoulder, drew back silently. Belle-Amour was silent. She seemed to be drunk and in a strange stage of exaltation for, at times, she trembled, agitated, then after making a great effort to speak, fell again into her dumbness. Her dress was wet and soiled with mud, her hair undone, and when Emile pressed her with questions, the poor woman fixed on him a look so shamed and desperate that he averted his eyes.
At last Belle-Amour took Emile's hand and putting it to her lips said in a broken voice: “It was when I heard you calling... for help... murder... the other night... yes... I thought I would go mad... oh yes... there was a man... in my room... he could tell you... I ran out... into the passage... and I answered at once.... He wanted me to come back... I said... no... let me alone... let me alone... I came up here and your screams hurt me... so much, my God!... Yes I was there, behind the door... I heard everything... when he knocked you down... and afterwards... in your room... when he told... La Rouque... to bring water... and... salt... thick salt... to wash you.... It's a shame to have done that... shameful... cowardly.... Yes, M'sieu Emile... I was like a mad person... and then for three days... I didn't go out. Mad, I tell you..., What a horrible thing!”
“Shut up!” said Emile pushing her away.
He drew aside and cried.
“You? But you are worse than the others.... Ah shut your mouth! Yes, I understand now... I begin to understand... you repeated everything you heard while he was ill-treating me? You told those women in the street, didn't you? It's you...”
“I don't know,” answered Belle-Amour.
“Of course,” said Emile... “there... it's quite simple. It's through you that those creatures found out all they say downstairs when they see me....Hein? I understand perfectly.... You don't know? But yes, you do know... you know quite well and you are lying into the bargain.” He grew heated. His little falsetto voice become more piercing, more grating.
Belle-Amour stopped her ears.
“It wasn't against you,” she assured him, filled with an immense despair. “Believe me, I beg you, Monsieur Emile. I was afraid that he would be after you again one day and then...”
“Then what?” He stopped her angrily, then went on with renewed ardour: “You were not satisfied to poison my life and put everybody against me... you wanted something else... and you found it at last. You came up here because it's not enough that I'm insulted when I come home.... No, not enough... you must tell me all this... to playa comedy.... Ah, you can be pleased with yourself.... Look at me, you have succeeded!... I... I.”
“Monsieur Emile,” said Belle-Amour gently.
“No.”
“Monsieur Emile,” she repeated dragging herself towards him with clasped hands.... “You too, look at me.... Do I look as if I were lying? Can I be lying? Why don't you believe me?”
“Well,” said Emile, “because I don't.”
Belle-Amour looked at him.
Emile said: “The wrong you have done me can't be undone, can it? No one can take the blame away from you, so it would have been better to keep it to yourself.”
“But,” answered Belle-Amour with despair, “one can't, I could not.”
“Of course not!”
“No, no,” she declared. “Every evening when they torment you, I suffer... I am disgusted with myself... I tell myself that I am the cause of everything that's happening.... In my room I listen to all they do... and the way they laugh... their wickedness. Oh! you know, sometimes I would like to come out and protect you... and I don't dare.... I walk up and down my room... I tell myself it's all my fault for having spoken to them. I have no peace. When you go through the passage after they've insulted you, I think of opening my door and calling you.... And then I can't, I haven't the courage.”
Emile interrupted her.
He asked: “Your courage didn't fail you this evening, did it?”
“I needed some, you may be sure,” said Belle-Amour, “to make up my mind.... At the end I could not bear it... I had to come... in spite of myself, without knowing, without understanding. It's just as I tell you, really... I am ashamed before you.”
“What?”
“I am ashamed,” she repeated.
He shrugged his shoulders, thrust his hands into his pockets, then basely, with a contemptuous sneer: “What's the matter with you,” he asserted, “is that you have been drinking. You're drunk, aren't you? And natura
lly, people in that state don't know what they are doing. They go about saying anything that comes into their head...hein... isn't it true? Aren't you drunk?”
Belle-Amour was silent.
He contemplated the unhappy woman who was standing with downcast eyes and muttered: “Drunk... you're drunk... dead drunk.”
“And what if I am?” replied Belle-Amour.
Emile stood erect and declared brutally: “I shouldn't advise you to talk in that tone, because I'm in my own place here and I'll put you outside.”
“Well,” said Belle-Amour, “just as you like, put me out...”
“I will if I want to.”
“A drunken woman doesn't count,” she went on speaking to herself.... “Why? Ah, yes, I remember.... I drank so that I should dare to come and ask Monsieur Emile's pardon, but Monsieur Emile doesn't care a bit....Ou-la-la my girl, so much the worse for you.... You shouldn't have got drunk. You should...”
“How long are you going on?”
Emile at the height of exasperation, approached Belle-Amour, seized her arm and shook her.
“Get out! Quick!” he grunted. “That's enough... your jabbering, your monkey talk... take them somewhere else and quickly! I don't want to see or hear any more of you.... Get off... or else I don't know what I'll do to you... I don't answer for myself.”
“But,” moaned Belle-Amour, who seemed then to come to her senses, “what have I said? What could I have said? You're angry with me.” She tried to cling to Emile, clutched him.
“Well, well,” she said as he was dragging her to the door, “your manners towards a woman are not very dignified.”
Emile cried: “Oh get out... Go off,hein?”
He managed, pushing her roughly, to put her out of the door, and with an effort, for she resisted him, he got her as far as the staircase.
XVII
Two days passed. Emile, who in his despair and his shame had longed for Belle-Amour, now felt a bitter joy in remembering the scene when the wretched creature had come to plead with him. He was possessed by a growing rancour which forced him to find nourishment for his own torment in the sight of suffering. And it was the mysterious attraction of pain which made him, on the second evening, go to see Belle-Amour. Afterwards he went nearly every night. He shut himself up in her room for hours without speaking, except to harass the wretched creature with his jeers, and so revenge the wrongs he had suffered.
Belle-Amour did not answer. She lay on her bed, and looking now at Emile, now at the red flame of the lamp, admitted vaguely that it was necessary that all this should happen and in this way. At nightfall she waited for him, seated near the stove, drinking an execrable liqueur-brandy which she got from the neighboring public house. She would get drunk as she waited, and when he was late she half opened the door, surprised at not seeing him, and wondering anxiously what stopped him from coming. Emile's ill-treatment did not much matter to Belle-Amour. His sarcasms, his insults, even his blows.... The important thing was that he should be there.
For he beat her now. He delighted in hitting her when, his stock of arguments exhausted, he would notice that she was drunk. His rage forced him to attack her, and he insulted her as he struck as hard as he could, trying to hurt her and force her to cry. But Belle-Amour did not cry. She only heaved long sighs which might testify to pain or to and obscure and nameless pleasure.
“I'll kill you,” Emile told her furiously. “D'you hear?” Then sometimes the wretched creature wept, but it was because she was drunk, and in her poor brain the idea of death evoked who knows what that was hideous and moving.
Tears trickled down her face, she wiped them away, and Emile saw her knotted, fleshless hands of an old woman and was disgusted by them.
Everything about this woman was odious to him. He thought of her only with the greatest repulsion. Nevertheless he went every night to see her, for in overcoming this repulsion he felt an emotion so profound and violent that it was almost pleasure. Obviously Emile did not exactly understand why this drunken half-mad creature attracted him irresistibly, or if he thought about it, it was not td confess secretly that he like tormenting her but that she had deserved it.
However, at whatever hour he came home in the evening, the others in the street were waiting and they never seemed to tire of mocking him.
He walked as close to the walls as he could, hid in doorways and advanced only when he thought the way was clear, but it was quite in vain. All at once, one of the women would catch sight of him and call out, and they would all rush in his direction with laughter that made him shiver. Life had thus become a sort of nightmare to Emile, in which every day the different phases would correspond and repeat themselves. He divided it into two parts: the first, the peaceful and monotonous hours spent at the office; the second, which began with the night and which Emile dreaded asa sick man dreads the waking dream he enters and cannot escape. That strange moment, when he would wait in the street trying to pass the door without being seen was indeed almost unreal to Emile. How can it be explained? He had the idea that he was no longer himself, but his double, and he would watch all his own movements, register them, one after the other, with wonderful care and an extraordinary exactness which seemed to be forced on him. He saw himself opening the door and looking into his room, then entering it silently and standing there for a long while in an embarrassed attitude. It was often half an hour before he could say a word, and as soon as he spoke or moved, the illusion of a dream would become so strong as to destroy all outward sensation. Another was saying in his place everything that he said, at least he believed so, and confusedly he relied on his other self over which he had no control, and whose reactions stupefied him. It was the same thing every night. Emile knew it, and if he tried no longer to resist, it was because he had been too long without sleep, and that his old habits were entirely lost.
“Ah, yes,” he would moan sometimes, “to sleep. Not to have to go to that woman, in spite of myself! Sleep! Forget everything!” But he was afraid of sleep, for he found in it the same torment, the same faces, and woke still more dejected. After all he was always asleep or nearly so. That was the impression he gave, when coming down the stairs; he would pass people without seeing them. Irma had already noticed it. She had met Emile, and to her great surprise noticed that he was in his slippers, without overcoat or hat, and talked incoherently. Where was he going? To which cafe? Irma could not leave a client to follow her brother, but she searched for him afterwards round about the Rue Letellier and the Rue Fremicourt and enquired for him everywhere.
But Emile was nowhere to be found. La Rouque was losing her time. None of the people she questioned could answer her. No, they had not seen Monsieur Emile.
“A tall man,” said La Rouque, “with a yellow moustache and a sly expression. Not very agreeable.” Everybody she asked shook their heads, and she went further, looking into every bar. It was the same everywhere, and at last La Rouque did not dare to trouble people with her questions any longer. Then one night Bebert accosted her in the street, and whispered mysteriously: “Come with me... but quietly... you'll laugh.”
“What about?”
“At Emile,” said Bebert.
He advanced on tip toe and made her a sign to walk noiselessly along the wall. Then he stopped.
“Where is it?” asked La Rouque in a low voice.
“There... look...”
A thin gleam of light came through a slit in the shutters.
Bebert pointed it out and laughed a little. Then he drew back and gave his place to La Rouque.
“No,” she exclaimed, “it's Emile!” I can't believe it.”
“You can well be surprised!” answered Bebert.
La Rouque looked more closely.
“That horrible Belle-Amour,” she murmured. “With Emile... all the same... it's disgusting.”
“And what are they doing?” asked Bebert who wanted to look.
“Oh no,” said Irma sickened, “I wouldn't have believed it.”
She was speechless with astonishment, but like Bebert she began to laugh.
“Well, what are they doing?”
“They are lying down,” she explained, “yes, they're well in the bed together.”
“I think it is a very good thing,” sneered Bebert. He forced La Rouque to stand aside, glued an eye to the slit and moved no more. Occasionally little jerks of laughter shook him, and attentive of the scene of which he was losing no detail, he remained motionless behind the shutters, close to Irma who surveyed the street.
“Bebert,” said the girl suddenly, “that's enough, come along.”
“Wait.”
“I won't wait,” she answered, saddened by the pleasure Bebert seemed to be taking. “If you don't come, I'll go.”
“All right, go.”
She had to pull Bebert, tear him from the spectacle which disgusted her and filled him with a cold joy. She pushed him forward.
“Listen,” said he, “I have an idea.”
“No, no,” she protested, “they are not troubling us. What they do is their own business.”
But Bebert went back. He knocked loudly on the shutter, then shaking it as if he were trying to pull it down, he shouted:
“In the name of the law, I order...”
Irma tried to stop him.
“Chut, chut! shut up,” he told her in the corridor. “Shut your mouth, don't talk so loud. Let it alone. They'll come... yes, yes,... wait a bit... Ah yes... there they are... there they are...”
The passage door opened.
“In the name of the law,” repeated Bebert in a loud voice.
Emile, holding a lamp in his hand, bent in the direction of the voice.
“Bebert,” called the Red One... “Oh no really, after all, this isn't a joke.”
Perversity Page 9