The Vatard Sisters

by Joris-karl Huysmans

  Anatole maintained that it would be better to see a foreigner rather than a French woman. It would be more interesting. His opinion prevailed and all four went into the palace of ‘The Belle of Brabant’.

  Colombel and Anatole were thrilled at the idea they might cop a feel of such a formidable leg, Céline kept a watch on her man who she knew was fickle, and Désirée simply wanted to satisfy her curiosity.

  The woman was sitting on a podium, two steps off the ground; she wore a green, outrageously low-cut dress, revealing the globes of her breasts like two pink balloons, and there were three beauty spots on her cheek. She stood up, said that she was born in Brussels, that she was twenty-two years old, held her arm out over the shako of a young soldier who was ecstatically staring at her armpit, and finished her little story with the well-worn phrase: ‘Thank you very much, I hope you’ll come again and that you’ll tell your friends and acquaintances about me.’

  Anatole expressed a desire to feel her calf. The fat woman let him do it, but reluctantly. She lifted her petticoat a little and, when the young man had rummaged around amid the fat of her legs, she grumbled: ‘That’s enough, dearie, that’s enough.’

  Céline went red with anger; she pinched her lover so hard she drew blood; he, in a bad-mood, jabbed her violently in the kidneys with his elbow. They swore at one another; Désirée and Colombel had to get in between them, but Anatole, delighted at seeing his mistress jealous, kept repeating that if ever he fell in love it would certainly be with a beautiful woman like that. Désirée said that so much flesh made her feel sick, but Colombel, who was getting nowhere with her, supported his friend just to annoy her. They all ended up in a sulk with each other; the men went on ahead and Céline suggested to her sister that they lose them and look around the fair without them. Désirée couldn’t have wished for anything better and they were about to scoot off behind a booth, when the two men stopped abruptly. Anatole was shaking the hand of Auguste, who’d been strolling along the path, lost in a daydream.

  ‘Hey now, that’s nice, that is,’ Anatole shouted, ‘here it is three years since I left the army and now I find you minus your squaddie’s uniform! So you’ve given up the job as well, eh? Like a prison camp, wasn’t it mate? But look here, forgive me,’ he continued, pulling Céline towards him, ‘I haven’t introduced you to my washer-up,’ this last remark making her more furious still. Auguste stood tongue-tied in front of Désirée. They all went into a bar. There, they talked while knocking back drinks. The newcomer offered to buy a round and he exchanged a few words with Désirée, who was polite but nothing more. The young man was embarrassed, he thought that Colombel was the young girl’s boyfriend, and yet she didn’t seem to care for him much and even asked him to move his chair away, declaring that she didn’t like him breathing in her face. They talked about Débonnaire & Co. Anatole and Colombel, who had been fired for drunkenness, said hanging was too good for the boss. Céline only had it in for the supervisor, a nasty bitch who’d go out whenever she noticed you weren’t at your seat and treat you like a little slut if she found you chatting with the men in the courtyard. ‘Oh yes,’ they all said in chorus, ‘you’ve got to have backbone to stick it out in that joint!’ But Auguste replied that he didn’t have any choice, that before leaving to join the army, he’d been learning how to make meerschaum pipes, that he was too old now to take up his apprenticeship again and that, in a word, one way or another he had to earn a living.

  Désirée approved, but she had a slight feeling of contempt for this man who was so poorly equipped to satisfy her needs; then they began to talk about their fellow workers. Chaudrut was an old swindler! When his wife had passed away, the old witch had left him a pair of curtains to bury her in and he’d sold them and spent the money on drink! But then it was true his wife had been no better or worse than he was.

  The two sisters found this despicable; what they reproached him for most of all was his perpetual assaults on their purses, however Anatole laughed and recalled the day when the old rogue had brought his mistress to the workshop, a filthy hag as pockmarked as Dutch cheese who wasn’t quite right in the head. His daughter and his new girlfriend tried to scratch each other’s eyes out, and the men had to intervene and separate them. The boss had fired both the lover and his mistress, but a couple of days later Chaudut came back to bemoan the difficulty of finding work at his age and they’d rehired him out of pity.

  Auguste confessed that Chaudrut had borrowed ten sous from him. Everyone laughed and called him an idiot, and Désirée asked him why he’d been so quick to become friends with a shyster like that. Auguste felt embarrassed. ‘Well, yes,’ replied Colombel, ‘but he’s OK to hang around with; he’s a bit of a swindler, I won’t deny it, but at the end of the day he’s always got something funny to say and besides he’s a good man at heart.’

  The girls stood up. They’d come to look at the stalls, not to be shut up in a bar. ‘Are you going to come with us, me ol’ mate?’ Anatole asked Auguste. Yes, but he could only stay until dinner time. He had to get back to see his mother, who’d been ill for the last few days. When he added that he was living with her on the Rue du Champs-d’Asile, Céline said: ‘Oh good, since Désirée has to go back home to heat up the supper for the old man, you can both take the tram together.’ The young couple blushed. In the meantime, as they wanted to make good use of the time they had left, they plunged once more into the crowd.

  Gingerbread stalls were everywhere, interspersed, here and there, with basket-makers and games of boules. Anatole became very gallant; he stopped the whole group in front of the most luxurious of these stands, and invited the girls to take their pick.

  There were so many nice things that they couldn’t decide. ‘It’s as beautiful as an opera house!’ murmured Désirée in raptures. And in fact amid all the shabby tents and tarpaulins around them, this particular hut gleamed with its pretty red pompoms of tinsel and its gold spangles.

  Huge copper lamps swung above a tiered display that went up to the roof and was scooped out in the middle, forming a breach through which an impudent and solemn old matron beamed at them.

  This woman was flanked on her right by heaps of honeyed gingerbread, by gingerbread cakes, gingerbread hearts and gingerbread rings, all wrapped in glazed paper flecked with gold letters and covered in blue ribbons, and cutting a swathe through the whole display were gigantic puff-pastries, coated in yellow, lilac and green icing which was swirled with silver spirals and emblazoned with genial mottos. To her left lay an army of little gingerbread men, soft and pale, some plain, others skilfully spruced up with festoons of pastry, speckled with aniseed or sprinkled with dots of sugar; all manner of people were represented: cooks, shopkeepers, infantrymen, generals – there was even a lion with the legs of a bassethound and the snout of a pig.

  The two girls chose gingerbread hearts striped with pale red, then they all went to see the snake charmer. This show impressed them more than all the rest. The snake charmer was a big woman from the South of France, made up like a Jezebel and wearing a pink silk blouse, brown tights, and gold-tasselled boots. She drew out interminably long snakes from a trunk, which flicked out their black forked tongues and undulated around her body, caressing her rouged cheeks with their flat heads and tickling her armpits with their rolling coils. The tent was packed with people and one could hear their little gasps of admiration, their oohs and aaahs of frightened amazement. ‘This is Baptiste, a young crocodile twenty-one years old,’ she shouted, pulling the reptile from its covering, and she placed it against her chest, tapped its jaws, opening them by force, showing the audience its large throat sparsely armed with fangs. Then she threw it on the ground and, while the heap crawled and moved about, retreating into its box, she bowed to the crowd, sat down and looked into the air, leaning nonchalantly on one elbow, as if bored by the accolades everyone was giving her.

  ‘That’s really amazing,’ Céline said, ‘did you see how the boa constrictor nuzzled her cheeks? God, it would make me sick t
o have an animal like that on my skin!’ But Colombel laughed, claiming on the contrary that it would produce a ticklish sensation. Désirée got the shivers: ‘Brrr! it must be getting cold,’ and Auguste agreed with her. They followed the crowd, which was becoming more and more dense; the red tufts of artillerymen’s shakos could be seen everywhere; they all looked the same, with their badly shaven cheeks, blobs of dried blood on their necks, their oversized white gloves, and their expressions of bewilderment and joy. Kids were swarming around their legs, brats with flaking impetigo, brats whose mothers were dragging them along the avenue or who were squatting eating shortbread and red nougat. They could neither go forward nor back. There was a diabolical din, pierced by the whistle blasts from a minuscule train turning in the distance.

  Anatole was ahead of the group; he took advantage of an opening and using his elbows he cleared a path for the girls as far as the merry-go-round. All the seats and animals were taken. The contraption was revolving to the grinding of an organ, to the crashing of cymbals and drums. Nannies straddled painted hobby-horses, and little girls, strapped onto their stallions by leather belts, tried to grab at rings as they passed by. Watching this wheel spin round made Désirée and Céline feel ill.

  They wanted to leave, and walking single file, holding on to each other’s skirts so as not to get separated, they plunged head first into the crowd. The sky darkened, a bolt of lightning crackled from the wall of the clouds, and some drops of rain fell. They had to shelter as quick as they could in a booth displaying an exhibition about the workings of a prison. A steam engine was moving its pistons by the door, punctuating the deafening din of an organ with its whistle blasts. It was a fine piece of work. Tableaux depicted convicts dressed in red caps and orange trousers working, having their backsides whipped by warders, sleeping, eating, or being marched off to the guillotine. The guide explained the different scenes, remarking that the models wearing green caps were those serving life sentences, those with orange sleeves to match their trousers were revolutionaries who were being punished, adding finally that those with red caps were able to return to their families after their release. Then he made a request for donations, which brought him nothing, so for an extra ten centimes he invited those who wished to learn more to pass through to a special room at the back.

  ‘While we’re here,’ Céline observed, ‘we might as well see everything,’ and they went in expectantly…and came out furious. It was daylight robbery! There was nothing but a diving suit and a tiny wooden boat with a sign that read: ‘Model of the Avenger made in Brest prison by Pouillac the convict. Ten years’ work.’

  ‘They’re having a laugh!’ All the other visitors were just as annoyed at having paid two sous to see such inanities. Désirée asked what time it was, but Anatole assured her that she had plenty of time, that leaving in twenty minutes at the earliest she’d still get home to her father by half past five, and as their mouths were full of dust which cracked between their teeth, they thought about getting a drink. Céline tried – and made the others try – a sirop de Calabre at a sou a glass, but the men turned their noses up at it; they preferred wine, and so they all went off again and sat in a cheap bar. The girls ordered Curaçao, a proper tonic which they diluted in a glass of water. Anatole, who was paying for these refreshments, thought they’d be better off drinking wine like them, not knocking back things that were so expensive.

  They were all exhausted. They sat motionless, slumped dozily on their bench. Céline was yawning, Désirée was anxious, afraid of not finding a seat on the tram; Auguste was trying to reassure her; Colombel hinted that after dinner they could go to the Theatre Legois or the Theatre Delille, or see the Corvi circus. For a long quarter of an hour they remained silent, watching the braying crowd stream by in the distance.

  Finally, Désirée declared that she was going to leave and Auguste offered to accompany her, but the others said they’d escort them back as far as the Bastille. They stretched their legs and then set off down the Cours de Vincennes. The din of voices, of rifle cracks, of clanging bells diminished as they went; all that remained were a few miserable stalls, spread out here and there on the way. Scattered along the pavements, girls of indeterminate age were selling candied fruits and nougat from Tunisia, and orange-sellers heaved their carts, shouting at the tops of their voices: ‘Beautiful Valencians! Beautiful Valencians!’ Hawkers offered toothpicks and earpicks, and a frightful urchin whose eyes bloomed with styes yelled: ‘Key rings! Keep your keys safe, ten centimes, two sous!’ None of this made any impression on Désirée. What concerned her most was seeing the trams rattle by stuffed with passengers. After half an hour, Auguste finally managed to hoist her up onto the platform of a tram, and Anatole, who was spouting stupid remarks to make the crowd laugh, began to shout, ‘Goodnight kids, now don’t do anything stupid, eh?’

  They were standing, tightly pressed against one another. Auguste asked Désirée why her sister wasn’t coming back with her. ‘Oh, she wants to have a bit of fun,’ the younger girl replied simply. ‘Well what about you, don’t you want to have some fun too?’ She made a little pout, which didn’t tell him much. Auguste persisted: ‘Colombel’s nice, isn’t he?’ She made the same gesture with her lips, only this time more emphatically, as if to say: ‘I couldn’t care less about Colombel!’

  Once again, Auguste changed the subject: ‘I’ve heard it said,’ he began, ‘that you’re one of the best workers in the company.’ This time he struck a responsive chord. Désirée proudly admitted that she and her sister were, in fact, skilled binders, and, as he seemed attentive and interested, she smiled happily. He returned to the theme of his first question and asked her if she didn’t find it boring having to go home; didn’t she want to have a lover, like Céline, to take her out for walks?

  She replied, without any embarrassment, that of course she’d be happy to have a boyfriend, but she added in a very firm tone: ‘If he had honourable intentions.’

  Auguste felt a bit uncomfortable and he was even more perturbed when, looking straight at him, she added: ‘But what about you, you came to the fair alone, don’t you have a girlfriend?’

  He wanted to make himself look good, and began to say that he could only love a nice, decent girl, not one of those scrubbers that working men often go for. Unfortunately, their conversation was interrupted. A seat was free inside the tram. Désirée went and sat down. He was left alone.

  He thought to himself that she was very frank and didn’t seem like a girl who would let herself be led astray by the first comer; then a man made him lose his thread by asking him for a light, and he contemplated the streets that were flying past him. The tram was running along the Boulevard de l’Hôpital. A woman seated on the stairs jumped with fright at every blast of the horn; inside, everyone was holding cakes and packets of gingerbread, and kids sitting next to each other showed off their toys. A little girl had won a glass, as big as quart-pot, another had won some blue egg cups, a third had won a porcelain chicken laying an egg. A man claimed that it was all a scam, that you never won enough for your money; others were more even-handed, claiming that street vendors had to earn their living too. When the tram arrived at the Boulevard de Port-Royal, near the old Capuchin monastery, there were mishaps: children, stuffed full of sweets, were crying and being sick. Women shifted their dresses out of the way, a girl suggested they should put keys down their backs, the same as for a nose bleed; mothers were saying, ‘Don’t cry, darling, it’s nothing’, and all the kids looked miserable or upset, wags were making jokes, shouting: ‘Pass ’em a cup!’ An awful short-arsed bloke wearing a velvet cap, his hands in his pockets and a pipe between his teeth, was humming:

  ‘On the way back from Montparnasse,

  With her cousin the fireman…’

  The people in the tram were greatly amused. The conductor, in the process of collecting tickets, was holding his sides, and his satchel, jolted by the ebb and flow of his belly, danced with a clinking of coins; a man slapped his knees, then wiped
his eyes; a woman doubled up, stamping her boots on the floor, and the noise of all this gaiety, with its sniggers, its chortles, and its guffaws, was underscored, as if by a double-bass, by the rumbling of the tramcar, and interspersed by honks of the horn and pings of the bell, by the lamentations of mothers and the stifled tears of children. One well-dressed lady got off in disgust, others followed and Auguste managed to get an empty seat next to Désirée. They became the best of friends. He declared he’d had an excellent day, and as he told her that he rarely had any fun on Sundays, not wanting to play cards and drink for hours on end, she looked at him kindly and said that she too couldn’t understand how men could drink wine and play piquet from morning to night, indeed, she was now even more amazed he didn’t have a girlfriend; he, too, maintained he was surprised that a pretty girl like her wasn’t being courted by some young man, but she again replied very deliberately: ‘Oh, but it’s not the same thing at all. For a man, there are no consequences for him if he has a little fun, but for a girl, it prevents her marrying a decent boy. I’m not like Céline in that respect; me, I don’t like the idea of changing partners and above all I don’t want a man who beats me because he’s jealous or because he’s drunk.’

  Auguste blurted out that men who beat women were cowards.

  ‘Yes, that’s very true,’ she replied, smoothing her dress, ‘but I’ve got to run because I’m late,’ and she jumped from the tram as it made its next stop and took off down the street.