The Odyssey of a Prostitute
Yes. The memory of that evening will never fade. For half an hour I realised the sinister reality of implacable fate. I shuddered as a man shudders descending a mine. I plumbed the black depths of human misery; I understand that it is not possible for some people to live a decent life.
It was after midnight. I was going from the Vaudeville to the Rue Drouot, hurrying along the boulevard through a crowd of hurrying umbrellas. A fine rain was hovering in the air rather than falling, veiling the gas jets, spreading a gloom over the street. The gleaming pavement was sticky rather than damp. Anxious to get home, the passersby looked neither to right nor left.
The prostitutes, with skirts held up showing their legs, and revealing a white stocking to the wan gleams of evening light, were waiting in the shadow of doorways, speaking to the passersby or hurrying brazenly past them, thrusting a stupid incomprehensible phrase at them as they passed. They followed a man for a few seconds, jostling against him, breathing their putrid breath in his face; then, seeing the futility of their appeals, they abandoned him with a sudden angry movement and took up their promenade again, jerking their hips as they walked.
I went on my way, spoken to by them all, seized by the arm, irritated, revolted and disgusted. Suddenly I saw three of them running as if they were terrified, flinging a quick phrase to the others as they ran. And the others began to run too, an open flight, bunching their clothes together so that they could run the faster. They were making a roundup of prostitutes that night.
Suddenly I felt an arm under mine, while a terrified voice murmured in my ear: “Save me, sir, save me, don’t leave me.”
I looked at the girl. She was not yet twenty, although already fading. “Stay with me,” I said to her. “Oh, thank you,” she murmured.
We reached the line of police. It opened to let me pass.
And I proceeded down the Rue Drouot.
My companion asked:
“Will you come home with me?”
“No.”
“Why not? You have done me a very great service that I shan’t forget.”
To get rid of her, I answered:
“Because I’m married.”
“What does that matter?”
“Well, my child, that’s enough. I’ve pulled you out of a hole. Leave me alone now.”
The street was deserted and dark, really sinister. And this woman clinging to my arm added to the frightful feeling of sadness that had overwhelmed me. She tried to embrace me. I recoiled in horror, and said harshly:
“Be off, and shut your mouth.”
She retreated in something like anger, then abruptly began to sob. I stood bewildered, filled with pity, not understanding:
“Come, what’s the matter with you?”
She murmured between her tears:
“It’s not very pleasant, if you only knew.”
“What isn’t?”
“The life I live.”
“Why did you choose it?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Then whose fault was it?”
“I know whose it was!”
I felt a sudden interest in this abandoned creature.
“Won’t you tell me about yourself?” I asked her.
She told me.
“I was sixteen years old, I was in service at Yvetot, with M. Lerable, a seedsman. My parents were dead. I had no one; I knew quite well that my master looked at me strangely and tickled my cheeks; but I didn’t think about it much. I knew a few things, of course. You get pretty shrewd in the country; but M. Lerable was a pious old thing who went to Mass every Sunday. I would never have believed him capable of it.
“Then one day he wanted to make up to me in my kitchen. I resisted him. He went off.
“There was a grocer opposite us, M. Dutan, who had a very agreeable assistant; so agreeable that I let him get round me. That happens to everybody, doesn’t it? So I used to leave the door open in the evenings, and he used to come and see me.
“And then one night M. Lerable heard a noise. He came upstairs and found Antoine and tried to kill him. They fought with chairs and the water jug and everything. I had seized my bit of clothes and I rushed into the street. Off I went.
“I was frightened, scared stiff. I got dressed under a doorway. Then I began to walk straight on. I was sure there had been someone killed and that the police were looking for me already. I reached the high road to Rouen. I thought to myself that at Rouen I could hide myself quite safely.
“It was too dark to see the ditches and I heard dogs barking in the farms. You don’t know what you hear at night. Birds screaming like a man who’s having his throat cut, beasts that yelp and beasts that wheeze, and all sorts of things that you don’t understand. I went all over gooseflesh. I crossed myself at every sound. You’ve no idea what it is that’s scaring you so. When it grew light, I thought of the police again and began to run. Then I calmed down.
“I felt hungry too, in spite of my anxiety; but I hadn’t anything, not a ha’penny. I’d forgotten my money, everything belonging to me in the world, eighteen francs.
“So I had to walk with a complaining stomach. It was warm. The sun scorched me. Noon passed. I went on walking.
“Suddenly I heard horses behind me. I turned round. The police! My blood ran cold; I thought I should fall; but I kept myself up. They caught up to me. They looked at me. One of them, the older, said:
“ ‘Good afternoon, miss.’
“ ‘Good afternoon, sir.’
“ ‘Where are you off like this?’
“ ‘I’m going to Rouen, to service in a situation I’ve been offered.’
“ ‘Like this, on your two feet?’
“ ‘Yes, like this.’
“My heart was beating so that I could hardly speak. I was saying to myself: ‘They’ll take me.’ And my legs itched to run. But they would have caught me up in a minute, you see.
“The old one began again:
“ ‘We’ll jog along together as far as Barantin, miss, since we’re all going the same way.’
“ ‘Gladly, sir.’
“So we fell to talking. I made myself as agreeable as I knew how, you may be sure, so agreeable that they thought things that weren’t true. And then, as I was walking through a wood, the old one said:
“ ‘What do you say if we go and lie down a bit on the moss?’
“I answered without stopping to think:
“ ‘Yes, if you like.’
“Then he dismounted, gave his horse to the other, and off we both went into the wood.
“There was no chance of saying no. What would you have done in my place? He took what he wanted; then he said: ‘We mustn’t forget the other fellow.’ And he went back to hold the horses, while the other one rejoined me. I was so ashamed of it that I could have cried. But I daren’t resist, you see.
“So we went on again. I had nothing more to say. I was too sad at heart. And then I was so hungry I couldn’t walk any further. All the same, they offered me a glass of wine in a village, and that heartened me up for a while. And then they set off at a trot, so as not to go through Barantin in my company. Then I sat down in the ditch and cried till I couldn’t cry any more.
“I was three hours longer walking to Rouen. It was seven o’clock in the evening when I arrived. At first I was dazzled by all the lights. And then I didn’t know where to sit down. On the roads there’s ditches and grass where you can even lie down to sleep. But in towns there’s nothing.
“My legs were giving way under me, and I had such fits of giddiness I thought I was going to fall. And then it began to rain, small fine rain, like this evening, that soaks through you without your noticing it. I have no luck on rainy days. Well, I began to walk in the streets. I stared at all the houses, and said to myself: ‘All those beds and all that bread in those houses, and I couldn’t find even a crust and a mattress.’ I went along the streets, where there were women speaking to passing men. In times like those you do what you can. I started to speak to everyone, as they were doing. But no one answered me. I wished I was dead. I went on like that till midnight. I didn’t even know what I was doing now. At last, a man listens to me. ‘Where do you live?’ he asks. Necessity makes you sharp. I answered: ‘I can’t take you home, because I live with mamma. But aren’t there houses where we can go?’
“ ‘It’s not often I spend a franc on a room,’ he answered.
“Then he reflected and added: ‘Come on. I know a quiet spot where we shan’t be interrupted.’
“He took me over a bridge and then he led me to the end of the town, in a meadow near the river. I couldn’t follow him any farther.
“He made me sit down, and then he began to busy himself with what we’d come for. But he was so long about his business that I was overcome with weariness and fell asleep.
“He went away without giving me anything. I didn’t hardly notice it. It was raining, as I told you. Ever since that day I’ve had pains I can’t get rid of, because I slept in the mud all the night.
“I was wakened by two cops, who took me to the police station and then, from there, to prison, where I stayed a week while they tried to find out what I could be or where I came from. I wouldn’t say anything for fear of consequences.
“They found out, however, and they let me go, after pronouncing me not guilty.
“I had to begin looking for work again. I tried to get a place, but I couldn’t, because of coming out of prison.
“Then I remembered an old judge who had rolled his eyes at me when he was trying me, just like old Lerable at Yvetot did. And I went to see him. I wasn’t mistaken. He gave me five francs when I came away, and said: ‘You shall have the same every time, but don’t come oftener than twice a week.’
“I understood that all right, seeing his age. But that gave me an idea. I said to myself: ‘Young men are all right for a bit of fun, and they’re jolly and all that, but there’s no fat living to be got there, while with old men it’s another thing.’ And then I’d got to know them, the old apes, with their sheep’s eyes and their wretched semblance of a head.
“Do you know what I did? I dressed myself like a servant girl coming from market, and I ran about the streets, looking for my foster-fathers. Oh, I caught them at the first shot. I used to say to myself: ‘Here’s one’ll bite.’
“He came up. He began:
“ ‘Good day, miss.’
“ ‘Good day, sir.’
“ ‘Where are you off like this?’
“ ‘I’m going back to my employers’ house.’
“ ‘Do they live a long way off, your employers?’
“ ‘So so.’
“Then he didn’t know what to say next. I used to slacken step to let him explain himself.
“Then he paid me a few compliments in a low voice, and then he asked me to come home with him. I took some pressing, you understand, then I gave in. I used to have two or three of that sort every morning, and all my afternoons free. That was the best time of my life. I didn’t worry.
“But there. One’s not left in peace long. Ill luck had it that I got to know a wealthy old devil in society. A former president, who was at least seventy-five years old.
“One evening he took me to dine in a restaurant in the suburbs. And then, you see, he hadn’t the sense to go carefully. He died during the dessert.
“I got three months in prison, because I wasn’t registered.
“It was then I came to Paris.
“Oh, it’s a hard life here, sir. You don’t eat every day. There’s too many of us. Ah, well, so much the worse, everyone has their own troubles, haven’t they?”
She was silent. I was walking beside her, sick at heart. Suddenly she began to talk familiarly again.
“So you’re not coming home with me, dearie?”
“No. I told you so before.”
“Well, goodbye, thanks all the same, and no offence taken. But I’m sure you’re making a mistake.”
And she went off, losing herself in the fine rain. I saw her passing under a gas jet, and then disappear in the shadows. Poor wretch!