When she saw that we were about to eat she took a piece of chocolate and two little crisp cakes out of her pocket and began to munch them.
“Ask her to have some of ours,” Paul said in a whisper.
“That is exactly what I wish to do, but it is rather a difficult matter.”
As she, however, glanced from time to time at our provisions, I felt sure that she would still be hungry when she had finished what she had with her; so, as soon as her frugal meal was over, I said to her:
“It would be very kind of you if you would take some of this fruit.”
Again she said “Mica!” but less crossly than before.
“Well, then,” I said, “may I offer you a little wine? I see you have not drunk anything. It is Italian wine, and as we are now in your own country, we should be very pleased to see such a pretty Italian mouth accept the offer of its French neighbors.”
She shook her head slightly, evidently wishing to refuse, but very desirous of accepting, and her mica this time was almost polite. I took the flask, which was covered with straw in the Italian fashion, and filling the glass, I offered it to her.
“Please drink it,” I said, “to bid us welcome to your country.”
She took the glass with her usual look, and emptied it at a draught, like a woman consumed with thirst, and then gave it back to me without even saying “Thank you.”
I then offered her the cherries. “Please take some,” I said; “we shall be so glad if you will.”
Out of her corner she looked at all the fruit spread out beside her, and said so rapidly that I could scarcely follow her: “A me non piacciono ne le ciriegie ne le susine; amo soltano le fragole.”
“What does she say?” Paul asked.
“That she does riot care for cherries or plums, but only for strawberries.”
I put a newspaper full of wild strawberries on her lap, and she ate them quickly, tossing them into her mouth from some distance in a coquettish and charming manner.
When she had finished the little red heap, which soon disappeared under the rapid action of her hands, I asked her:
“What may I offer you now?”
“I will take a little chicken,” she replied.
She certainly devoured half of it, tearing it to pieces with the rapid movements of her jaws like some carnivorous animal. Then she made up her mind to have some cherries, which she “did not like,” and then some plums, then some little cakes. Then she said, “I have had enough,” and sat back in her corner.
I was much amused, and tried to make her eat more, insisting, in fact, till she suddenly flew into a rage, and flung such a furious mica at me, that I would no longer run the risk of spoiling her digestion.
I turned to my friend. “My poor Paul,” I said, “I am afraid we have had our trouble for nothing.”
The night came on, one of those hot summer nights which extend their warm shade over the burning and exhausted earth. Here and there, in the distance, by the sea, on capes and promontories, bright stars, which I was, at times, almost inclined to confound with lighthouses, began to shine on the dark horizon:
The scent of the orange trees became more penetrating, and we breathed with delight, distending our lungs to inhale it more deeply. The balmy air was soft, delicious, almost divine.
Suddenly I noticed something like a shower of stars under the dense shade of the trees along the line, where it was quite dark. It might have been taken for drops of light, leaping, flying, playing and running among the leaves, or for small stars fallen from the skies in order to have an excursion on the earth; but they were only fireflies dancing a strange fiery ballet in the perfumed air.
One of them happened to come into our carriage, and shed its intermittent light, which seemed to be extinguished one moment and to be burning the next. I covered the carriage-lamp with its blue shade and watched the strange fly careering about in its fiery flight. Suddenly it settled on the dark hair of our neighbor, who was half dozing after dinner. Paul seemed delighted, with his eyes fixed on the bright, sparkling spot, which looked like a living jewel on the forehead of the sleeping woman.
The Italian woke up about eleven o’clock, with the bright insect still in her hair. When I saw her move, I said: “We are just getting to Genoa, madame,” and she murmured, without answering me, as if possessed by some obstinate and embarrassing thought:
“What am I going to do, I wonder?”
And then she suddenly asked:
“Would you like me to come with you?”
I was so taken aback that I really did not understand her.
“With us? How do you mean?”
She repeated, looking more and more furious:
“Would you like me to be your guide now, as soon as we get out of the train?”
“I am quite willing; but where do you want to go.”
She shrugged her shoulders with an air of supreme indifference.
“Wherever you like; what does it matter to me?” She repeated her “Che mi fa” twice.
“But we are going to the hotel.”
“Very well, let us all go to the hotel,” she said, in a contemptuous voice.
I turned to Paul, and said:
“She wishes to know whether we should like her to come with us.”
My friend’s utter surprise restored my self-possession. He stammered:
“With us? Where to? What for? How?”
“I don’t know, but she made this strange proposal to me in a most irritated voice. I told her that we were going to the hotel, and she said: ‘Very well, let us all go there!’ I suppose she is without a penny. She certainly has a very strange way of making acquaintances.”
Paul, who was very much excited, exclaimed:
“I am quite agreeable. Tell her that we will go wherever she likes.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he said uneasily:
“We must know, however, with whom she wishes to go—with you or with me?”
I turned to the Italian, who did not even seem to be listening to us, and said:
“We shall be very happy to have you with us, but my friend wishes to know whether you will take my arm or his?”
She opened her black eyes wide with vague surprise, and said, “Che ni fa?”
I was obliged to explain myself. “In Italy, I believe, when a man looks after a woman, fulfils all her wishes, and satisfies all her caprices, he is called a patito. Which of us two will you take for your patito?”
Without the slightest hesitation she replied:
“You!”
I turned to Paul. “You see, my friend, she chooses me; you have no chance.”
“All the better for you,” he replied in a rage. Then, after thinking for a few moments, he went on:
“Do you really care about taking this creature with you? She will spoil our journey. What are we to do with this woman, who looks like I don’t know what? They will not take us in at any decent hotel.”
I, however, just began to find the Italian much nicer than I had thought her at first, and I was now very desirous to take her with us. The idea delighted me.
I replied, “My dear fellow, we have accepted, and it is too late to recede. You were the first to advise me to say ‘Yes.’”
“It is very stupid,” he growled, “but do as you please.”
The train whistled, slackened speed, and we ran into the station.
I got out of the carriage, and offered my new companion my hand. She jumped out lightly, and I gave her my arm, which she took with an air of seeming repugnance. As soon as we had claimed our luggage we set off into the town, Paul walking in utter silence.
“To what hotel shall we go?” I asked him. “It may be difficult to get into the City of Paris with a woman, especially with this Italian.”
Paul interrupted me. “Yes, with an Italian who looks more like a dancer than a duchess. However, that is no business of mine. Do just as you please.”
I was in a state of perplexity. I had written to the City of Paris t
o retain our rooms, and now I did not know what to do.
Two commissionaires followed us with our luggage. I continued: “You might as well go on first, and say that we are coming; and give the landlord to understand that I have a—a friend with me and that we should like rooms quite by themselves for us three, so as not to be brought in contact with other travellers. He will understand, and we will decide according to his answer.”
But Paul growled, “Thank you, such commissions and such parts do not suit me, by any means. I did not come here to select your apartments or to minister to your pleasures.”
But I was urgent: “Look here, don’t be angry. It is surely far better to go to a good hotel than to a bad one, and it is not difficult to ask the landlord for three separate bedrooms and a dining-room.”
I put a stress on three, and that decided him.
He went on first, and I saw him go into a large hotel while I remained on the other side of the street, with my fair Italian, who did not say a word, and followed the porters with the luggage.
Paul came back at last, looking as dissatisfied as my companion.
“That is settled,” he said, “and they will take us in; but here are only two bedrooms. You must settle it as you can.”
I followed him, rather ashamed of going in with such a strange companion.
There were two bedrooms separated by a small sitting-room. I ordered a cold supper, and then I turned to the Italian with a perplexed look.
“We have only been able to get two rooms, so you must choose which you like.”
She replied with her eternal “Che mi fa!” I thereupon took up her little black wooden trunk, such as servants use, and took it into the room on the right, which I had chosen for her. A bit of paper was fastened to the box, on which was written, Mademoiselle Francesca Rondoli, Genoa.
“Your name is Francesca?” I asked, and she nodded her head, without replying.
“We shall have supper directly,” I continued. “Meanwhile, I dare say you would like to arrange your toilette a little?”
She answered with a ‘mica’, a word which she employed just as frequently as ‘Che me fa’, but I went on: “It is always pleasant after a journey.”
Then I suddenly remembered that she had not, perhaps, the necessary requisites, for she appeared to me in a very singular position, as if she had just escaped from some disagreeable adventure, and I brought her my dressing-case.
I put out all the little instruments for cleanliness and comfort which it contained: a nail-brush, a new toothbrush—I always carry a selection of them about with me—my nail-scissors, a nail-file, and sponges. I uncorked a bottle of eau de cologne, one of lavender-water, and a little bottle of new-mown hay, so that she might have a choice. Then I opened my powder-box, and put out the powder-puff, placed my fine towels over the water-jug, and a piece of new soap near the basin.
She watched my movements with a look of annoyance in her wide-open eyes, without appearing either astonished or pleased at my forethought.
“Here is all that you require,” I then said; “I will tell you when supper is ready.”
When I returned to the sitting-room I found that Paul had shut himself in the other room, so I sat down to wait.
A waiter went to and fro, bringing plates and glasses. He laid the table slowly, then put a cold chicken on it, and told me that all was ready.
I knocked gently at Mademoiselle Rondoli’s door. “Come in,” she said, and when I did so I was struck by a strong, heavy smell of perfumes, as if I were in a hairdresser’s shop.
The Italian was sitting on her trunk in an attitude either of thoughtful discontent or absent-mindedness. The towel was still folded over the waterjug that was full of water, and the soap, untouched and dry, was lying beside the empty basin; but one would have thought that the young woman had used half the contents of the bottles of perfume. The eau de cologne, however, had been spared, as only about a third of it had gone; but to make up for that she had used a surprising amount of lavender-water and new-mown hay. A cloud of violet powder, a vague white mist, seemed still to be floating in the air, from the effects of her over-powdering her face and neck. It seemed to cover her eyelashes, eyebrows, and the hair on her temples like snow, while her cheeks were plastered with it, and layers of it covered her nostrils, the corners of her eyes, and her chin.
When she got up she exhaled such a strong odor of perfume that it almost made me feel faint.
When we sat down to supper, I found that Paul was in a most execrable temper, and I could get nothing out of him but blame, irritable words, and disagreeable remarks.
Mademoiselle Francesca ate like an ogre, and as soon as she had finished her meal she threw herself upon the sofa in the sitting-room. Sitting down beside her, I said gallantly, kissing her hand:
“Shall I have the bed prepared, or will you sleep on the couch?”
“It is all the same to me. ‘Che mi fa’!”
Her indifference vexed me.
“Should you like to retire at once?”
“Yes; I am very sleepy.”
She got up, yawned, gave her hand to Paul, who took it with a furious look, and I lighted her into the bedroom. A disquieting feeling haunted me. “Here is all you want,” I said again.
The next morning she got up early, like a woman who is accustomed to work. She woke me by doing so, and I watched her through my half-closed eyelids.
She came and went without hurrying herself, as if she were astonished at having nothing to do. At length she went to the dressing-table, and in a moment emptied all my bottles of perfume. She certainly also used some water, but very little.
When she was quite dressed, she sat down on her trunk again, and clasping one knee between her hands, she seemed to be thinking.
At that moment I pretended to first notice her, and said:
“Good-morning, Francesca.”
Without seeming in at all a better temper than the previous night, she murmured, “Good-morning!”
When I asked her whether she had slept well, she nodded her head, and jumping out of bed, I went and kissed her.
She turned her face toward me like a child who is being kissed against its will; but I took her tenderly in my arms, and gently pressed my lips on her eyelids, which she closed with evident distaste under my kisses on her fresh cheek and full lips, which she turned away.
“You don’t seem to like being kissed,” I said to her.
“Mica!” was her only answer.
I sat down on the trunk by her side, and passing my arm through hers, I said: “Mica! mica! mica! in reply to everything. I shall call you Mademoiselle Mica, I think.”
For the first time I fancied that I saw the shadow of a smile on her lips, but it passed by so quickly that I may have been mistaken.
“But if you never say anything but Mica, I shall not know what to do to please you. Let me see; what shall we do today?”
She hesitated a moment, as if some fancy had flitted through her head, and then she said carelessly: “It is all the same to me; whatever you like.”
“Very well, Mademoiselle Mica, we will have a carriage and go for a drive.”
“As you please,” she said.
Paul was waiting for us in the dining-room, looking as bored as third parties usually do in love affairs. I assumed a delighted air, and shook hands with him with triumphant energy.
“What are you thinking of doing?” he asked.
“First of all, we will go and see a little of the town, and then we might get a carriage and take a drive in the neighborhood.”
We breakfasted almost in silence, and then set out. I dragged Francesca from palace to palace, and she either looked at nothing or merely glanced carelessly at the various masterpieces. Paul followed us, growling all sorts of disagreeable things. Then we all three took a drive in silence into the country and returned to dinner.
The next day it was the same thing and the next day again; and on the third Paul said to me: “Look here, I am going
to leave you; I am not going to stop here for three weeks watching you make love to this creature.”
I was perplexed and annoyed, for to my great surprise I had become singularly attached to Francesca. A man is but weak and foolish, carried away by the merest trifle, and a coward every time that his senses are excited or mastered. I clung to this unknown girl, silent and dissatisfied as she always was. I liked her somewhat ill-tempered face, the dissatisfied droop of her mouth, the weariness of her look; I liked her fatigued movements, the contemptuous way in which she let me kiss her, the very indifference of her caresses. A secret bond, that mysterious bond of physical love, which does not satisfy, bound me to her. I told Paul so, quite frankly. He treated me as if I were a fool, and then said:
“Very well, take her with you.”
But she obstinately refused to leave Genoa, without giving any reason. I besought, I reasoned, I promised, but all was of no avail, and so I stayed on.
Paul declared that he would go by himself, and went so far as to pack up his portmanteau; but he remained all the same.
Thus a fortnight passed. Francesca was always silent and irritable, lived beside me rather than with me, responded to all my requirements and all my propositions with her perpetual Che mi fa, or with her no less perpetual Mica.
My friend became more and more furious, but my only answer was, “You can go if you are tired of staying. I am not detaining you.”
Then he called me names, overwhelmed me with reproaches, and exclaimed: “Where do you think I can go now? We had three weeks at our disposal, and here is a fortnight gone! I cannot continue my journey now; and, in any case, I am not going to Venice, Florence and Rome all by myself. But you will pay for it, and more dearly than you think, most likely. You are not going to bring a man all the way from Paris in order to shut him up at a hotel in Genoa with an Italian adventuress.”
When I told him, very calmly, to return to Paris, he exclaimed that he intended to do so the very next day; but the next day he was still there, still in a rage and swearing.
By this time we began to be known in the streets through which we wandered from morning till night. Sometimes French people would turn round astonished at meeting their fellow-countrymen in the company of this girl with her striking costume, who looked singularly out of place, not to say compromising, beside us.
The Guy De Maupassant Megapack: 144 Novels and Short Stories Page 73
