The Pedlar
To our still young and inexperienced minds, how many fleeting associations, trifling things, chance meetings, humble dramas that we witness, guess at, or suspect, become as it were, guiding threads that lead gradually to a knowledge of the desolating truth about life.
As I dream idly of the past while roaming aimlessly about the country, my head in the clouds, little forgotten things, grave and gay, flash constantly through my mind and then take their flight like the hedge-birds on my path.
This summer as I was wandering along a road in Savoy that overlooks the right bank of the Lake of Bourget, gazing upon the mass of shimmering blue water, water of a most unusual blue, pale, and streaked with the slanting rays of the setting sun, my heart was stirred with the emotion I have always felt, since childhood, for the smooth surface of lake, river, and sea. On the other bank of the immense watery plain whose ends stretched away out of sight—one in the direction of the Rhône and the other towards Bourget—the high jagged mountain rose to the last peak of the Dent-du-Chat. On either side of the road grapevines reached out from tree to tree, smothering the slender branches round which they twined under their leaves; spreading over the fields in green, yellow, and red garlands dotted with clusters of black grapes, which swung gaily between the tree-trunks.
The road was dusty, white, and deserted. Suddenly a man bending under a heavy load stepped out from the grove of tall trees that encloses the village of Saint-Innocent, and came in my direction, leaning on a stick. As he approached I saw he was a hawker, one of those wandering pedlars who sell from door to door throughout the countryside, and suddenly a memory of bygone days, a trifle, flashed into my mind, simply a meeting at night between Argenteuil and Paris when I was twenty-five.
At that time boating was the pleasure of my life. I had a room at a cheap eating-house in Argenteuil, and every evening I caught the civil-service train, that long slow train which deposits at station after station a crowd of fat, heavy men carrying small parcels, whose unattractive figures are due to lack of exercise, and the shocking fit of their trousers to the chairs provided in government offices. The train, which smelt of offices, cardboard boxes and official documents, landed me at Argenteuil, where my yawl awaited me, ready to skim over the water. With long strokes I set off for Bezons, Chatou, Epinay, or Saint-Ouen, where I dined. Then I went back, put away my boat, and, when there was a full moon, started off on foot for Paris.
Well, one night, on the white road, I saw a man walking in front of me. Oh, I was constantly meeting those night travellers of the Parisian suburbs so much dreaded by belated citizens. This man went slowly on before me, weighed down by a heavy load.
I soon overtook him, my footsteps echoing on the road. He stopped, turned round, then crossed the road as if to avoid me. As I was hurrying by he called out: “Hullo! Good evening, sir.”
I replied: “Good evening, mate.” He went on: “Are you going far?”
“To Paris.”
“You won’t be long, you are going at a good pace. I can’t walk quickly, my load is too heavy.”
I slackened my pace. Why was the man talking to me? What was he carrying in that big bundle? Vague suspicions of crime darted through my mind and made me curious. Every morning the newspapers contain so many accounts of crimes committed in this very spot, at Gennevilliers, that some of them must be true. Such things are not invented merely to amuse readers—all this catalogue of arrests and varied misdeeds which fill up the columns.
However, this man’s voice sounded rather scared, not at all bold, and up to the present his manner had been more courteous than aggressive.
In my turn I began to question him:
“And you, are you going far?”
“No farther than Asnières.”
“Do you live at Asnières?”
“Yes, sir, I am a pedlar by trade and I live at Asnières.”
He had left the sidewalk where the foot-passengers walk in the daytime under the shade of the trees, and moved up towards the middle of the road. I did the same. We eyed each other suspiciously, holding our sticks in our hands. When I got near enough I felt quite reassured. He apparently felt the same, for he asked:
“Would you mind going a little slower?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like this road by night. I am carrying goods on my back; and two are always better than one. Two men together are seldom attacked.”
I knew that he was right and that he was afraid. So yielding to his wish, the stranger and I walked along side by side, at one o’clock in the morning on the road from Argenteuil to Asnières.
“Why, when it is so risky, are you going home so late?” I asked my companion.
He told me all about it. He had not intended to go back that evening, as he had set out that very morning with a big enough stock to last three or four days. But sales had been very good, so good that he was obliged to return home immediately in order to be able to deliver orders next day.
He explained with real satisfaction that he was an able salesman, having the gift of words, and that he managed to dispose of things that were awkward to carry by the display of trifles and a fund of amusing patter.
He added: “I have a shop at Asnières. My wife keeps it.”
“Oh! so you are married?”
“Yes, sir, fifteen months ago. I have found a good little wife. She will be surprised when she sees me back tonight.”
He told me about his marriage, how he had wanted the girl for over two years but she had not been able to make up her mind.
Since her childhood she had kept a small shop at the corner of the street where she sold all sorts of things: ribbons, flowers in summer, and chiefly very pretty shoe buckles, with other trifles of which she was able to make a speciality owing to the kindness of a manufacturer. She was well known in Asnières as Bluette, so called because she often wore blue. She earned good money because she was very capable in everything she did. She did not seem to be very well at present, and he thought she must be enceinte, but was not sure. Their business was thriving, and his special job was to travel about showing samples to the small shopkeepers in the neighbouring districts; he was becoming a kind of travelling commission agent for certain manufacturers, and at the same time he worked for himself.
“And you—what do you do?” he said.
I started to bluff. I said that I had a sailing-boat at Argenteuil and two racing-yawls, that I came for a row every evening and, as I was fond of exercise, I sometimes returned to Paris, where I was engaged in professional work which, I led him to infer, paid me well.
He remarked: “Well! Well! if I had the tin you have, I would not amuse myself by trudging the roads at night. It isn’t safe along here.”
He cast a sidelong glance at me and I wondered whether, after all, he was not some cunning evildoer anxious to avoid useless risk.
I felt reassured when he murmured: “Not so fast, if you please. My pack is heavy.”
As we saw the houses of Asnières in the distance he said: “I am near home now, for we don’t sleep at the shop, which is guarded at night by a dog that is the equal of four men. Besides, rooms are far too dear in the centre of the town. Now, listen, sir; you have rendered me a great service, for I don’t feel happy on the road with my pack. So now you must come in and drink a glass of warmed wine with my wife—if she wakes up, that is to say, for she sleeps soundly and does not like to be roused. Then without my pack I am not afraid, so, thick stick in hand, I’ll see you to the gates of the city.”
I declined the invitation; he insisted, and I persisted in my refusal; then he got so excited about it, was so genuinely distressed, and asked me with an air of wounded pride “whether I would not drink with a man like him,” that I ended by giving in and followed him along a lonely road to one of those big dilapidated houses to be found on the outskirts of the suburbs.
I hesitated at the door. The big barrack-like building must be a thieves’ resort, a den of suburban robbers, but the pedlar made me go first through the unlocked door and, with his hand on my shoulders, guided me through complete darkness while I groped towards a staircase, feeling that at any moment I might fall through some hole into a cellar.
When I had struck the first step he said: “Go up, we live on the sixth story.”
I found a box of very large wax matches in my pocket and was able to light up the darkness. He followed me panting under the weight of his pack as he repeated: “It’s a long way up! It’s a long way!”
When we were at the top of the house, he took out the key, fastened to his coat by a string, opened the door, and bade me enter.
The room was simply whitewashed; there was a table in the middle, six chairs, and a kitchen cupboard against the wall.
“I am going to call my wife,” he said, “then I’ll go to the cellar to fetch some wine; it won’t keep up here.”
He went over to one of the two doors opening out of the room, and called:
“Bluette! Bluette!”
As Bluette made no reply he shouted louder: “Bluette! Bluette!”
Then, banging at the door with his fists, he muttered: “Confound you, won’t you wake up?”
He waited and put his ear to the keyhole and said in a quieter tone:
“Well, never mind, if she is asleep, I must let her sleep. I am going to fetch the wine; I’ll be back in two minutes.”
He disappeared. I sat down and made the best of a bad job.
What had I come for? All of a sudden I gave a start, for I heard low voices, cautious, almost silent, movements in the wife’s bedroom.
The devil! I must have fallen into a trap! Why had all the noise made by her husband, that banging on the door, not wakened this Bluette? It must have been a signal to his accomplices: “There is a mouse in the trap. I’ll watch the exit, you do the rest.” They were getting excited in the room, they were turning the key in the lock. My heart beat rapidly and I retreated to the far end of the room, murmuring: “Well, I must defend myself!” and, seizing a chair in both hands, I prepared for a lively struggle.
The door opened slightly and a hand appeared, holding it ajar; then a head, a man’s head wearing a round felt hat, slid along between the door and the wall, and two eyes were staring at me. Then, so quickly that I had not time to think of defending myself, the man, the supposed criminal, a big chap with bare feet, evidently hurriedly dressed, without a tie, his shoes in his hand, a fine-looking specimen, indeed, who might be described as almost a gentleman, made one bound for the door and disappeared down the stairs.
I sat down again. This was beginning to be interesting. I waited for the husband, who was a long time getting the wine. At last I heard him coming upstairs and the sound of his steps made me laugh one of those forlorn laughs so difficult to suppress.
He came into the room bringing two bottles and asked: “Is my wife still asleep? You have not heard her moving about?”
I knew that she must be listening, and I said:
“No, I have heard nothing.”
Then he called again: “Pauline!” but there was still no reply, no sound of anyone moving, so he explained to me: “You see, she doesn’t like me to come home at night and have a drop with a friend.”
“So you think she is not asleep?”
“Of course, she is not.” He seemed annoyed but said: “Well, let us have a drink,” and all at once he seemed to be quite determined to go on until both bottles were empty.
This time I was decided; I drank a glass and got up to go. He no longer suggested accompanying me, and, glancing at his wife’s door with a sullen scowl, the scowl of anger peculiar to the lower classes, of a brute whose violence is held in check, he muttered: “She will have to open the door when you are gone.”
I stared at the coward, now furious with a rage he could not explain, that was perhaps due to some obscure presentiment, the instinct of the betrayed male who dislikes closed doors. He had talked about her kindly, now he was certainly going to beat her. He shouted as he shook the door again: “Pauline!”
A sleepy voice replied from the other side of the wall: “Eh! What?”
“Didn’t you hear me come in?”
“No, I was asleep; go to hell.”
“Open the door.”
“When you are alone. I don’t like you to bring men back with you at night for a drink.”
Then I left, stumbling down the stairs, just as the other had done, whose accomplice I was. And as I started off for Paris, I thought that in that wretched home I had witnessed a scene of the eternal drama which is being played every day, in every form, in every country.