The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 4 (of 8) eBook

Sometimes, at the end of a hall, appeared, behind a second open door, which presented itself unexpectedly, covered over with dark leather, a big wench, undressed, whose heavy thighs and fat calves abruptly outlined themselves under her coarse white cotton wrapper.  Her short petticoat had the appearance of a puffed out girdle; and the soft flesh of her breast, her shoulders, and her arms, made a rosy stain on a black velvet corsage with edgings of gold lace.  She kept calling out from her distant corner, “Will you come here, my pretty boys?” and sometimes she would go out herself to catch hold of one of them, and to drag him towards her door with all her strength, fastening on to him like a spider drawing forward an insect bigger than itself.  The man, excited by the struggle, would offer a mild resistance, and the rest would stop to look on, undecided between the longing to go in at once and that of lengthening this appetizing promenade.  Then when the woman, after desperate efforts, had brought the sailor to the threshold of her abode, in which the entire band would be swallowed up after him, Celestin Duclos, who was a judge of houses of this sort, suddenly exclaimed:  “Don’t go in there, Marchand!  That’s not the place.”

The man, thereupon, obeying this direction, freed himself with a brutal shake; and the comrades formed themselves into a band once more, pursued by the filthy insults of the exasperated wench, while other women, all along the alley, in front of them, came out past their doors, attracted by the noise, and in hoarse voices threw out to them invitations coupled with promises.  They went on, then, more and more stimulated, from the combined effects of the coaxings and the seductions held out as baits to them by the choir of portresses of love all over the upper part of the street, and the ignoble maledictions hurled at them by the choir at the lower end—­the despised choir of disappointed wenches.  From time to time, they met another band—­soldiers marching along with spurs jingling at their heels—­sailors again—­isolated citizens—­clerks in business houses.  On all sides might be seen fresh streets, narrow, and studded all over with those equivocal lanterns.  They pursued their way still through this labyrinth of squalid habitation, over those greasy pavements through which putrid water was oozing, between those walls filled with women’s flesh.

At last, Duclos made up his mind, and, drawing up before a house of rather attractive exterior, made all his companions follow him in there.

PART II

Then followed a scene of thorough going revelry.  For four hours the six sailors gorged themselves with love and wine.  Six months’ pay was thus wasted.