“Because with one woman you have a real bond
of love which attaches you to her, while with a hundred
women it’s not the same at all. There is
no real love. I don’t understand how a
man can associate with such women.”
“But they are all right.”
“No, they can’t be!”
“Yes, they are!”
“Oh, stop; you disgust me!”
“But then, why did you ask me how many sweethearts
I had had?”
“Because——”
“That’s no reason!”
“What were they-actresses, little shop-girls,
or society women?”
“A few of each.”
“It must have been rather monotonous toward
the last.”
“Oh, no; it’s amusing to change.”
She remained thoughtful, staring at her champagne
glass. It was full —she drank it in
one gulp; then putting it back on the table, she threw
her arms around her husband’s neck and murmured
in his ear:
“Oh! how I love you, sweetheart! how I love
you!”
He threw his arms around her in a passionate embrace.
A waiter, who was just entering, backed out, closing
the door discreetly. In about five minutes the
head waiter came back, solemn and dignified, bringing
the fruit for dessert. She was once more holding
between her fingers a full glass, and gazing into
the amber liquid as though seeking unknown things.
She murmured in a dreamy voice:
“Yes, it must be fun!”
The small engine attached to the Neuilly steam-tram
whistled as it passed the Porte Maillot to warn all
obstacles to get out of its way and puffed like a
person out of breath as it sent out its steam, its
pistons moving rapidly with a noise as of iron legs
running. The train was going along the broad
avenue that ends at the Seine. The sultry heat
at the close of a July day lay over the whole city,
and from the road, although there was not a breath
of wind stirring, there arose a white, chalky, suffocating,
warm dust, which adhered to the moist skin, filled
the eyes and got into the lungs. People stood
in the doorways of their houses to try and get a breath
of air.
The windows of the steam-tram were open and the curtains
fluttered in the wind. There were very few passengers
inside, because on warm days people preferred the
outside or the platforms. They consisted of stout
women in peculiar costumes, of those shopkeepers’
wives from the suburbs, who made up for the distinguished
looks which they did not possess by ill-assumed dignity;
of men tired from office-work, with yellow faces, stooped
shoulders, and with one shoulder higher than the other,
in consequence of, their long hours of writing at
a desk. Their uneasy and melancholy faces also
spoke of domestic troubles, of constant want of money,
disappointed hopes, for they all belonged to the army
of poor, threadbare devils who vegetate economically
in cheap, plastered houses with a tiny piece of neglected
garden on the outskirts of Paris, in the midst of
those fields where night soil is deposited.
