Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (14 page)

Because I do not want anyone to take my residents away.’

She rang and Mlle Fanny appeared.

‘‘It is indeed the one we thought that this young lady wants to see.

Tell her to come down as she is, it is one of her friends.’

Then she examined me closely. Apparently she was satisfied with what she saw because she asked me if I wanted a position. She told me she was shorthanded. She asked me my age and wanted to know where I had been until now.

I replied that I was barely sixteen and that I had always lived with my mother, but that I was set on leaving her.

‘‘You are not registered?’

‘ No, madame.’

‘ Oh, well, then you cannot stay here. Leave at once.’

And she left.

I was so determined in my disastrous purpose that I felt quite disappointed.

Denise had just entered. She threw herself in my arms.

She was wearing a pink satin robe trimmed with swan feathers, an embroidered petticoat, a shirt so transparent that I could see her breasts through it. Her hair had been curled the night before and was falling in disarray on her neck. Her foot looked adorable in its gold-embroidered slipper.

‘ You are surprised by my luxurious appearance. Stay here with me and you will have as much.’

‘ That is not what is disturbing me,’ I told Denise, whose naïve vanity seemed a little ridiculous to me. ‘‘But, I would like to stay with you. I even came for that reason, but apparently I must leave right away.’

‘ Silly girl! Do you not see that it is a put on! Madame just told me as she was leaving that you are charming and I should get you to stay. I am going to tell her that you are willing. We shall hide you in my room until it is time to go there.’

   

It is as difficult for a young girl in my position to earn an honorable living through work as it is easy for her to slide down the slope toward evil.

Superior minds and generous hearts that have protested in the name

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of humanity against the black slave trade should also do something about the white slave trade.

Denise led me up four flights of stairs and into a room with two beds.

In this room there were two women playing cards. Another was reading in a chair.

‘‘Ladies, here is my friend from reformatory I told you about many times. She is joining us.’

I was coldly greeted and looked over from head to toe.

My new companions began to whisper. I had no difficulty figuring out that they were busy criticizing me.

Denise left me so she could once more confer with the mistress of the house. In her stark enthusiasm for the odious lifestyle she had adopted and that she was endeavoring to introduce me to, she gave herself no rest until she had removed all obstacles that were still in the way of my admission into the house.

When, twelve years later, I ask myself why I took the steps that ruined me, which I would pay for so dearly later, I can attest that the thought of depravity had nothing to do with my decision. The honest woman, now delighting in the joys of motherhood and a contented life, remembers only with loathing sacrificing the innocence of the young woman she used to be.

The two days I spent hidden in this house were for me the most awful torture. The fevered enthusiasm that had sustained me had waned and in my heart was left only remorse, discouragement, and a great loathing for myself and the life I had embraced.

I was alerted that I had to go to the police prefecture to regularize my situation.

I would need to come face to face with my mother, and I trembled at the thought of that encounter. However, I trembled even more at the thought of appearing before M. Régnier.

‘ Come on,’ said Denise, ‘‘you are not going to start trembling now? If you appear to be weakening, he will send you back to the reformatory.’

 

Mlle Fanny had a carriage brought around. I had sent notice to my mother that she meet me at Rue de Jérusalem at noon. She was the first person I saw.

I told her that my mind was made up and that any objections were futile.

‘‘I know quite well that you prefer Vincent to me; that is not your

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fault. You are weak and you have been so miserable that no one will blame you. Let me follow my destiny. My heart is full of ambitions and I shall be rich. In addition, you see, I have become sickened with my class.

I could never have been the wife of a laborer. The misery and privations that you have endured frighten me.’

‘‘You are mad!’’ said my mother. ‘‘Who in the world has put those ideas in your head? Give up on your plans and come with me. I swear I shall break it off.’

‘‘No,’’ I said, ‘‘it is too late.’’

I was led into the office where I had already been.

‘‘What? Is that you?’’ said M. Régnier, surprised. ‘‘What could you possibly want?’

‘ I want to be registered.’

‘‘Be registered!’’ he said standing up. ‘‘I am going to send you to the reformatory!’

‘As you wish, sir. And when I leave, I shall be back so you can register me.’

‘And your mother consents?’’

‘‘Yes, monsieur.’

He rang, and, without looking back, he told the boy, ‘ Take this girl to be measured.’

My description and height were noted.

My name was inscribed in this vile book and nothing can erase it, not even death!

A complete wardrobe was ordered for me. The next evening I came down wearing a stunning outfit. I had been given a white pinwale corduroy dress, silk stockings, satin shoes, and a coral necklace.

The fat lady seemed very pleased with her new tenant and introduced me to her sister, who, in the house, was called Aunt. She was a tall, skinny woman with white hair and dark eyes. She put on her glasses to better examine me.

Denise was on cloud nine. She would triumphantly look at our companions whose benevolence was far from increasing in proportion to the progress of my improvised elegance.

It is difficult to believe that human beings could become accustomed to these dreadful prisons. I had not been there a week that I had only one thought: getting out.

The visitors were so distinguished and so rich that, deluded by Denise’s stories, I imagined that right away I would find someone who would help me get out of there. But time passed, and this unknown

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The Fall

protector was not coming. On the contrary, each day my chains became heavier.

The best method the women who run these types of establishments use to govern is the heavy debts they burden these unfortunate victims with. There was an accounting each week: I already owed eleven hundred francs.

I was so sad that Madame allowed me to go out with Denise.

We went to the Chaumière.1

Several young men came over to talk to my companion. One of them seemed to pay particular attention to me. Each time I turned toward him, I would see his large, dark, soft eyes fixed on mine.

‘‘But who is this young man?’’ I asked Denise.

‘Adolphe?’’ she asked, turning around.

‘‘I do not know whether his name is Adolphe, but he is the one who spoke to you last.’

‘ That is right. He is charming. He is studying medicine. His father was a famous surgeon during the Empire and made a great fortune. He had invested this fortune in some companies when he suddenly died.

The businessmen went bankrupt. His widow and his son were left practically penniless. Adolphe began his studies, but he was hurt during an autopsy. His arm was in a sling for nine months.’

‘‘How do you know all this?’’

‘‘He is on intimate terms with a young man I know. Do not say anything if they come to speak to us again. Aldophe, especially, cannot abide women in our position.’

The young men came back toward us. M. Adolphe asked if they could come visit us.

Denise pressed my arm laughing and told him that would be impossible, that I was even busier than she, but that the next time she would go see his friend, she would bring me.

When we came home, it seemed to me I hated my bondage even more than before going out because we were allowed to go only once a month.

 

I continued being very difficult and ferociously proud. During my stay in the house where I was, I had the opportunity to exercise this garru-lous disposition toward a man whose fame, although glorious, barely eclipsed his behavior. The story of our love affair is not an exchange of venal passion, but a rapid series of acts of violence and quarrels.2

The first time I saw him it was, I believe, the day after we had gone to the Chaumière, and I was in a rather bad mood.

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I was summoned. I followed Fanny into the little parlor. A man seated near the fireplace with his back to me. His hair was fair, he was thin and of medium size. His hands were white and bony. His fingers were beating time on his knee.

I was observing this premature wreck, because in spite of the wrinkles that furrowed his face, he seemed to be no more than thirty years old.

‘‘Where do you come from?’’ he said, as if coming out of a dream. ‘‘I do not know you.’

I turned red and replied, ‘‘Do I ask you who you are and where you come from? Do I need a service record to appear before you?’’

I was walking toward the door.

‘ Stay here,’ he said. ‘ That is an order.’

I heard no more and left.

I rushed to tell the fat woman what had just occurred. She shrugged her shoulders and told me I was wrong, that this gentleman sometimes came to stay a whole week at a time and that he was one of this century’s greatest men of letters.

Denise was there. She whispered in my ear, ‘ She dotes on him because he has a lot of money but he is brutish.’

A violent ring of the bell shook the house. It was my enemy getting angry.

‘‘Do not go back,’ said Denise.

‘ On the contrary,’ I replied, giving the big woman an ironic look. ‘‘I would not mind seeing a great genius up close.’

I went back into the little parlor.

‘ So, you are back,’ he said. ‘‘In this house, everyone obeys me. You will do like the others, and, for a start, I want you to drink with me.’

He rang and Fanny arrived.

‘ Something to drink!’’ he said.

She returned with three bottles and two glasses.

‘‘Now, what do you want? Do you want rum, brandy, or absinthe?’’

‘‘I thank you, but I am not thirsty.’

He swore like a Templar, and, after filling his glass with absinthe, he gulped his drink.

‘‘Your turn. Drink or I shall beat you.’

I calmly took the glass he handed me and I threw its contents in the fireplace.

‘ Oh!’’ he said taking hold of my hand and swinging me around. ‘‘You are disobedient; that is even better. . . .’

He put a few gold coins in one of his hands, a full glass in the other.

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‘‘Drink,’ he repeated, ‘ and I shall give them to you.’

‘‘I shall not drink.’

‘‘Well, you certainly are not like the others. You seem different and I like you. Take this gold! You have not earned it, I give it to you. Leave me, go away!’’

On the way out, I saw that he was pouring a glass of brandy. Denise was waiting for me at the door.

‘‘I was afraid for you,’ she said. ‘‘It is said that when he does not get his way, he hits!’

Because I had defied him as I did, he could not do without me now.

He came to see me two or three times a day. Sometimes he had moments of madness when he would say loathsome things for no reason.

That annoyed me.

‘‘Now what do you want from me? You are nothing but a drunkard.

Just because some woman has made you angry does not mean you have to hate the others!’’

I was a little worried about the effects of my harangue, but I soon could feel reassured, because, after I finished, I noticed that he had fallen asleep in his chair. . . . I tiptoed out of the room.

The next day, he came back to ask if he could take me out to dinner.

Madame quickly agreed without consulting me. He came for me at six and took me to Rocher de Cancale.3

In the beginning I did not have too much to complain about him, except for a few tasteless jokes.

The waiter who was serving us brought us a bottle of seltzer water.

Who is to know what mad notion went through the head of the pecu-liar man who had chosen me as the victim of his whims? He picked up the siphon of seltzer water as if he were going to pour himself something to drink and, aiming the opening toward me, he drenched me from head to toe.

    

I went to Denise to tell her about my trials. She was far from having an insightful personality, but she was loving. She had a manly spirit, and our life was beginning to weigh on her as much as on me.

‘‘Be patient,’ she told me, ‘ and moreover forgive me. I was deceived even as I deceived you. I too am unhappy. I love a man who would send me away if he knew my situation.’

She was crying. It was my turn to console her.

Love cruelly retaliates against women who have profaned its image!

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What honest woman, or mother, would want to hire as worker or servant a wanton girl? The fall was intentional, so how is it possible to believe in the sincerity of repentance? The world is not inhuman, just incredulous.

For the woman who has fallen so low, there is no family. Your parents disown you and try to forget you. . . . Marriage is out of the question.

The man who would want to unite his fate to yours hesitates before the prospect of asking the police prefect for your hand. Motherhood? Your child’s first kiss is torture, its first word a reproach because you cannot identify the father. . . . If it is a boy, when he becomes a man he will scorn you. If it is a girl, you are afraid to keep her near you.

It is not like me to feel in moderation. Joy, sadness, affection, resentment, laziness, activity, I have magnified them all. My life has been one long excess. Knowing these tendencies, you can judge how I must have been suffering when, to please and thereby to earn my daily bread, I had to put up with the presence of odious individuals.