Céline was expecting a hail of slaps. She cast him a look of dazed gratitude.
‘Very nice,’ he repeated, ‘it’s right jolly here; well look at that, the train for Versailles is about to depart. God it’s hot, girls…’ And overcome by another wave of tenderness, he drew Céline towards him by the waist and they leaned over the balustrade together.
Above them, clouds of dark chiffon were being rent asunder in a long crackling sound; the sky spread out like an immense, scabious-coloured surplice, the turned up hems of which were held in place by pins of lightning. The smell of burnt coal and hot metal, of smoke and soot, of steam and grease, intensified. In the distance, the train station was blurring into a yellow fog, lit by stars of orange gaslamps and white signal lanterns that marked the open rail lines.
Behind the railway terminus, the sky seemed to be charged with even heavier and more torrential clouds, and above two triangles of flaming glass a clock dial lit up, like a full moon crossed by two black bars.
Just opposite the window the pointed roofs of a mass of buildings, their lower floors disappearing into the shadows, stood out against the darkness, which became less intense the higher you lifted your eyes; and squeezed between fences and huts, between plots of cabbages and trees, the train line stretched out to infinity, scored by rails that glistened beneath the lantern beams like thin streams of water.
Two locomotives were working away, wailing and whistling as if asking for directions. One was strolling along slowly, belching showers of sparks from its funnel, pissing dribbles of water, and dropping burning embers, lump by lump, from its bare backside. Then a cloud of red steam enveloped it from cabin to wheels, its gaping mouth flamed and a black shadow, alternately straightening up and hunching over again, passed in front of the glare of the furnace, stuffing the beast’s throat with shovelfuls of coke.
It roared and growled, puffing harder, its rounded paunch sweating, and amid the grumbling of its belly the clank of the shovel against its iron mouth rang out more clearly. The other engine was dashing along in a whirlwind of smoke and flames, calling to the pointsman to direct it over to a siding signalled in the distance by the yellow disk of a lamp; then it slowed its pace, shooting out jets of white steam, making the skirt of its tender, spotted blood-ruby red, sway on the zigzagging rail that connected the two tracks.
To one side, a small green light glimmered, indicating a fork in the track, and whistle blasts, sometimes shrill as if impatient and sometimes stifled as if pleading, criss-crossed in the night.
From time to time, a horn blast rang out, reverberated, died away, and then brayed again. The gatemen closed the barriers of the level-crossing; an express train was approaching in the distance. A fierce snorting, a shrill cry repeated three times, tore through the night; then two headlights like enormous eyes raced along rails that shimmered as the train rumbled along. The earth shook and from a white fog streaked with flashes of lightning, from a squall of dust and ashes, from a spattering of sparks, the train sprang forth with a terrible clatter of juddering iron, of shrieking boilers, of pumping pistons; the convoy threaded past beneath the window and its rumbling thunder died away, soon one could see only the three red lanterns of the final wagon, and then the jolting sound of freight cars bumping over the turntables echoed out.
Men were moving around indistinctly over the track left free by the passage of the train; the signals grated; a splash of blood pierced the darkness of the sky indicating that the line was clear; the barriers opened again, and carts passed through.
Anatole was thinking things over. He’d practically seduced a young girl in a neighbouring workshop. She was a poor creature with a limp, her large, sad eyes illuminating a pale and sickly face; she’d probably remained a virgin because no one wanted her; be that as it may, she was a very able worker who was earning a good wage and supporting her widowed and frequently ill mother. Anatole thought, reasonably enough, that this young girl would be affectionate and that she wouldn’t refuse him the money necessary to drink a few bottles of beer to her health. So he wasn’t exactly sorry to see Céline fluttering her eyes at another man; now that he’d plundered her savings she could go to the devil if she wanted to!
He was, moreover, in the best of moods that evening. He’d wet his whistle and was just drunk enough to make him affable, not churlish; he was very pleased with himself, thought himself irresistible and stood with a foppish air, as if ready to reel off a whole spool of romantic rubbish to the first woman who came along.
Ensconced by the window, he swaggered and swayed, working himself up to deliver a long monologue, a deluge of observations that touched on and swamped everything, from the copper-clad locomotives of the Gare du Nord, which he claimed were finer than the ones just over there, to the kinds of liqueurs sold in bars, and finally to love, the enchantments of which he extolled; but as the two girls only responded to all this verbiage with monosyllables and exclamations, he held his silence for several minutes and then, abruptly addressing himself to Céline, said to her:
‘So you’ve no sense of shame, then? You’re running after toffs now are you?’
She blushed. He cut short all her stuttering attempts to reply, and continued:
‘It’s very sad. You love a woman, you make sacrifices for her, and then there comes a day when that woman says to you: “Oh, shut up, put a cork in it, you’re annoying me. All you ever say is: ‘Do you want to or not?’ I’d like a man who can afford a new pair of trousers and wears gloves on his maulers; I want to ride in cabs, I don’t want to eat any more hard-boiled eggs, I want Ostende oysters and maybe one of those little forks to eat them with.” Damn it, that new man of yours, I could break him in two if I thought it was worth the effort; but no, I don’t want to upset the bourgeoisie now, do I? So, it’s agreed then, we’re going to untie the knot? Right, we’ll do it politely and without any kicks up the backside. I’m not going to give you a slap since it’s me who’s leaving you. I know it’s stupid, because in the end it doesn’t matter which of us begins it, the result is still the same, but I’m doing it like this for the benefit of the people we know, oh yes indeed, suppose I meet Colombel or Michon, and they say to me: “Hey, what’s going on with that little gal of yours?” and I tell ’em: “Another man is taking care of her now,” then I’ll look like an idiot, but if tomorrow I say: “It’s no big deal, I’ve dumped her!” you can see the difference. Besides, I’ve noticed that your sex only respects a man if he’s dumped a lot of women, and above all he must never lose his reputation. As for me, in the first place, I’m a decent fellow, that’s the result of a good education. You know there are men who say to the tarts they want to chuck: “I’m leaving for Algeria, so long gorgeous, don’t cry, I’ll send you some dates…” and inside they’re thinking: “I’m not going anywhere, it’s raining!” Now is that a decent thing to do? No, it’s not. Me, I’m not like that, I always give my girl a week’s notice before I scarper. It’s only honest and proper, that’s the way I see it. Now give me a kiss, babydoll.’
Céline was dumbfounded. So Anatole didn’t care for her at all; he was leaving her without even a hint of regret. He was an immoral man, a blockhead, she knew that; but she would never have believed he could be so mean. When a woman gives you to understand that she’s had enough of you, the very least you can do is get a bit angry and upset! Without that, what pleasure does a girl have left? All the men she’d had up to now had kept an eye on her, had got jealous and slapped her around as soon as she began to desert them. In letting herself be seduced by a gentleman she’d revelled in the thought that Anatole would carry on like the very devil. Yes, he’d kick up a fuss, he’d follow her, he’d shout at her the length of the Avenue du Maine, but at the end of the day, while she was getting her thrashing, she’d be able to say: ‘You can beat me all you like, loverboy, I’m cheating on you all the same.’ But if he responds by laughing, ‘I don’t give a damn,’ then what did he get out of toying with her affection? Anatole was a brute, but only when she refused to lend him money. Heartless and indifferent; a man like that would really put you off all the others!
Anatole twisted around graciously and repeated in a soft voice: ‘Kiss me, babydoll.’ Céline became purple with rage, her blood boiling in her veins, and she shouted at him: ‘Have you finished talking now? Well then, yes it’s true, I’ve found a rich gentleman…and he’s a lot nicer than you!’
Anatole was inordinately amused. ‘Don’t get angry,’ he replied, ‘that won’t do any good. Now just think about it for a moment: I like you and you like me, I tell you so and you blush like a poppy and flutter your eyelids, all women do that to soft-soap a man. You say to yourself: “I’m going to get the better of him.” As for me, I tell myself the same thing. So by God it’s the smarter of the two who comes out on top! And besides, nothing’s broken. I kept the property in good order, I wasn’t responsible for any wear and tear; you still look beautiful, by moonlight at least, since that wimp, who’s so delicate he wears two overcoats one on top of the other, practically knocks himself out trying to catch you up when you’re making your way down the Boulevard de Montrouge. People give things up when they cease to please, so why shouldn’t I give you up? There’s no danger of you getting left on the shelf because you’ve already got a buyer. Look, do you want me to spell it out for you: you made a mistake, you’re not really suitable, you turned your nose up at everything, it had to be this, it had to be that, you were hungry, you weren’t hungry…and since we were both eating the same dish, you should have been quicker if you wanted some grub. Me, I stuffed myself, while you were just picking, I finished first and I’m no longer hungry. I’m thirsty now, for example, but do you offer me anything? No? So, no hard feelings, eh? Well, goodnight, give my regards to the judges and my respects to the ladies!’
Anatole was already a long way off, while Céline still stared stupidly at the floor in front of her. Finally, tears like silvery beads ran down her cheeks. Désirée had to put their mother to bed alone, her sister having collapsed by the window, choking back her emotion, staring vacantly at what was going on outside.
Night had completely fallen. No more trains were ploughing through space; in the distance, near the suburban line, one could hear an engine hooting, seeming to sob in the darkness; sometimes a gust of wind would sweep over the telegraph wires and make them vibrate with a shrill jingling which died away like a doleful lament, then the rumble, deep and low, of a departing locomotive; under the bridge, the window of a pointsman’s hut opened slightly and a ray of light leapt out of the tangle of ivy that framed and straggled around it. The window closed again; a thin thread of golden pink dashed itself against the spiky cluster of leaves, zigzagged rapidly, and then all became black again; to the left, two men seated on a bench were talking, their lighted pipes gleaming in the darkness, revealing sudden glimpses of edges of faces, tips of noses, ends of fingers. Then, further off still, lost in the night, seven or eight engines were belching smoke, backs turned and fire holes gaping. They looked like red moons, lined up one next to the other, with the yellow moons of the clock dials on the platform and the bridge rising above them, dominated in turn by the twinkling disk of the real moon, which, emerging from the clouds as if from the dark waters of a lake, dusted the whole railyard with flecks of silver.
Désirée wasn’t happy about Anatole and Céline falling out. Her sister had become bad-tempered and sullen, a proper holly leaf that you couldn’t touch without getting pricked. Up to now she’d found it completely natural that Désirée should look after the house while she ran off with her man to some fun spot in the Montrouge quarter, but now the younger girl, too, wanted to go out in the evenings and have a good time. Arguments followed. One day Céline abruptly announced at the table that she could neither clear up nor wash the dishes. She had a date that evening at eight o’clock. Désirée made a little groan, and, exasperated by her sister’s bad temper, declared that she had a date as well and that she hadn’t got time to dry the plates and glasses; but as Céline, chewing a last mouthful, was already disappearing out the open door onto the landing, the younger girl was forced stay in the house and wait until Teston’s wife came to deliver her and keep watch in her place over their mother.
All this wrangling caused by Céline’s stubbornness resulted in them putting mama to bed earlier than usual. Now they’d hoist her onto the mattress at eight o’clock. Anyway, she didn’t complain, like all those who suffer she was happy to change position, only lifting up her nose from time to time like a worried animal, wondering why the days seemed shorter now.
Auguste took a dislike to Céline during this time. He had to hang around for long periods and he reckoned Désirée was very stupid to let herself be bossed about like this by her sister. Selfish like all lovers, he wasn’t interested in Madame Vatard’s state of health, unusual though it was. He saw and understood only one thing: Désirée was only free in the evenings for a few minutes, and he would tell her, rightly enough, that once her father returned their meetings would be even fewer than they were at present. It was now or never to get together while he wasn’t around. If they didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, how would they ever truly get to know each other?
Céline, guessing at the kind of advice Auguste was giving her sister, detested him. Besides, she was irritable and bad-tempered at the moment. She was beginning to think that her gentleman was too well-behaved. He would just sit next to her and talk, staring at the sky with a doleful air; in short, he exasperated her. Secretly, she looked down on him as a bit of an idiot, but every evening she returned home humiliated that he hadn’t tried to have his way with her.
Teston’s wife behaved admirably under these circumstances; moved by the afflictions of Céline, her favourite, she would come at nightfall and settle herself opposite the bed of the dropsical woman, and gravely recount all the gossip, as if talking to herself, in between darning her Alexandre’s socks and dozing off.