Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (4 page)

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He was a mechanical engineer and a very talented craftsman. He had a house back home. Everyone thought well of him. The marriage was decided and concluded in a matter of two months.

My mother had not been married more than six days when twenty persons came to demand money. G

was riddled with debts.

All those good people told my mother, ‘‘You married a scoundrel. If it had not been for the fact that he owed us money, we would have warned you, but he threatened us, saying that if we prevented the wedding, he would never pay us back.’

My mother cried a lot, and he would beat me for no particular reason.

Our lives had become a series of violent scenes.

After one year all the money was gone. My mother requested a separation from her husband, but the authorities always tell unhappy wives,

‘‘Be patient. Your husband promises to stop beating you.’ Friends interfered and reconciled them. There were more scenes. Again, they made up. He did not want a separation.

My mother was very industrious! She was working for two, and be-

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My Stepfather

sides, my grandfather was rich. G

had set his sights on the inheri-

tance.

One night at midnight, G

returned home full of wine, came to my bed, and removed my covers. When my mother said to him, ‘‘You are mad, waking up this poor child and uncovering her. It is freezing cold,’ he went into a wild rage, grabbed my mother by the waist and threw her down the stairs. My poor mother’s head hit a sharp corner.

She was instantly covered with blood. She had the strength to go back upstairs and pick me up in her arms, telling him, ‘‘If you touch a hair of my daughter’s head, I shall kill you.’

We had barely gone down two stories when she fell taking me down with her.

The cold, the fear, and the pain caused me to faint outright. We would have both died right there if a carpenter who lived in the building had not opened his door.

His first thought was to bring us into his home, but he was a bachelor. Fearing that people might form conjectures, he thought it would be better if we waited for daylight at the military post.

When I came to, I was in an armchair, all wrapped up in a greatcoat.

Near me was a soldier who was warming my hands in his. My mother’s wounds had been bandaged and she was resting.

Our young protector had taken us to the post. Since I was not dressed when I was taken from my bed, four men had been sent to my stepfather’s for some clothes. When they arrived the soldiers found a woman in my mother’s bedroom. She and my stepfather were both arrested and put in the lockup at the post where we had taken refuge.

G

wanted to throw himself on us but we were well protected.

When daylight arrived my mother and I were placed on a stretcher and brought before the police chief who sent G

to prison and had

my mother taken to the Hôtel-Dieu hospital.

My mother’s convalescence was long. She came down with erysipelas.2

The poor woman feared recovery more than her pain. As for me, with the insouciance of youth, I was comfortable at the clinic. In a month’s time I was plump, rested, and healthy. Everyone loved me and thought I was beautiful.

In anticipation of my departure, the nuns covered me with kisses and caresses.

I thought, my goodness, a clinic is a wonderful place! I had transformed it into a world of perpetual enchantment for the inpatients. That

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is the term used in hospitals to designate the patients who, sick with in-curable diseases, bedridden and hopeless, have spent years watching the varying population of persons with acute illnesses parade before them.

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The moment of departure had arrived. We received notice from the police station that my dear stepfather was being released from prison.

My mother would have rather died than see him again. She was advised to leave Paris.

One of her former employees told her, ‘‘I am supposed to leave for Lyon where I have a position working for M. Pomerais, a hatter. Do you want to take my place?’’

I thought my mother was going to choke her she hugged her so tight.

‘‘Henriette, you are saving my life and I shall always remember this favor!’

Two days later she obtained a passport in the name of her friend at indigents’ cost, three sous per league, and we left the next day. Henriette accompanied us with a cabinetmaker named Honoré who had wanted to marry my mother and later be my godfather.

In those days the roads near Paris were still paved and lined with tall trees. As I listened to the sounds of carriages and the wind howling in the branches and rustling the leaves, I could feel myself getting impatient.

Henriette gave me a little dress, Honoré, a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Neither one was rich, yet they both offered us some money. My mother reassured them, ‘‘I have what I need for me and Céleste.’

Their kind hearts swelled, because they knew very well that we had just left the hospital without a sou, but they did not dare insist.

We walked all day long without eating. At eight o’clock, having completed one leg of the journey, we went to a roadside farm. I was very tired, but I pretended to be gay. I hopped around and bantered with the members of the household. My graciousness pleased everyone, and we were treated as if we were rich.

The next day my mother went to city hall to get road assistance, and our journey to Chalon-sur-Saône progressed without incident. Each time we came upon a church or a roadside cross, we asked God for protection.

When we arrived in Chalon large rain drops began to fall. In spite of our fatigue, we ran all the way to the steamboat pier. It was stiflingly hot, and I had been so burned by the sun that my neck was covered with

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blisters. The boat was leaving at five o’clock in the morning. To make sure there would be room for us, my mother paid in advance. The girl at the inn woke us up at four o’clock. We went down to a large room for coffee.

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The weather was atrocious. We could barely see anything. A plank had been set up to get the passengers from land to the boat. The wind blew so furiously that we could have been swept away.

The fear of losing her seat caused my mother to be careless. She picked me up and risked running across, but her weight shook the plank; she missed her step and I fell in the Saône.

I was pulled out dazed from this fall and this unanticipated bath.

Of course, we were in second class, a small square room with benches all around. Once I was changed and dry, I looked at the people around us. There was a kindly and venerable looking priest, two nicely dressed workmen, and a bold looking woman wearing a loud dress and an out-landish bonnet.

Somewhat recovered from my adventure, I went toward the priest and tried to look in the book he was holding. He motioned for me to approach, showed me the holy pictures, and encouraged me to pray to God.

I was lying down and sleeping on the bench when the sound of thun-der suddenly woke me up. Everyone was crying out in despair. As it went under a bridge, the boat almost broke in two and its smokestack was partly broken.

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As soon as we arrived in Lyon we asked for directions to Célestins Square where the master to whom my mother was assigned lived. We were able to sublet a very small room in a house nearby.

I have already said that my mother had taken out a passport in the name of her friend Henriette. The passport therefore bore the name of an unmarried woman. When I called her Maman, she received strange looks.

We had been in Lyon two days. Maman had met the master-hatter who greeted her kindly, but she had not dared tell him she had a daughter. Therefore I had to stay cooped up in my room all day.

If our landlady, a short skinny woman of about fifty, had seemed a little friendlier, I would have wormed my way into her favors, but her only love in the world was a big gray cat.

I became more reasonable. I promised to be good and to hem hand-

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kerchiefs. I must have really been softened up to make such a promise because I hated sewing.

This was Friday. My mother did not have to start work until Monday. We went for a walk to the Brotteaux.3 We had taken a lunch with us and sat in the shade of a beautiful chestnut tree. We were about to eat when I felt something cold and damp against my neck. I was so scared I did not dare turn around. I looked at Maman, who started to laugh so loud I decided to look around, and I saw a big brown and white water spaniel. At least that is what we later determined he was, because on that day he was so muddy it was impossible to make out anything about him except his clear gray eyes, his black nose, his white teeth, and his pink muzzle. He was a poor creature. I gave him my bread.

After an hour we got along so well together that he did not want to leave me, and I thought he was magnificent. We went home and he followed me to the door. Maman had her hand on the knocker. I plucked up my courage: ‘‘Dear mother, may I please, I would like to keep him until Sunday.’

‘ You are mad, child. You want us to be evicted. Do you not remember that the landlady hesitated before renting to me because I had a child?

So now if I bring her a dog!’’

I could not promise to hide my friend, since he was the size of a large poodle. The door opened and my spaniel entered with me. Even though I repeated, ‘ Go away, go away!’’ he wagged his tail and stayed put. Maman took my hand and baptized my dog as a sign of adoption when she said, ‘ Come on, Mouton, you will be company for Céleste.’

Because my mother was very good at her job and she had good taste, after she had worked a while her masters were very kind to her. She explained her position and revealed my existence. She was scolded for not bringing me with her. The lady wanted to go get me right away.

‘‘Do not go,’ said Maman. ‘ She has a dog that she will not part with.

She is crazy about it!’’

The lady insisted on going to fetch me and my dog.

Several months went by like this. We would receive letters from Henriette who would tell us what was going on in Paris. To find out where we were, my stepfather went begging to all of our friends, but no one was persuaded by his posturing. He ran around, drank, and gambled.

After six months he was riddled with debts.

My mother was in charge of sales at the hatter’s where she worked.

One day a man came in and recognized her.

‘‘I am not mistaken,’ he said to her, ‘‘you are Mme G

. I saw your

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husband two months ago. He is telling everyone who will listen to him that you ran off with a lover, but my wife gently set him straight.’

‘‘Please, take care not to tell him that you saw me,’ replied my mother.

The man promised most sincerely to be discreet. The first thing he did was to write to his wife: ‘ Guess who I just saw in Lyon. . . .’

Not long after that my stepfather knew where we were. Since he did not have a sou, he got himself hired on as pilot on one of the steamboats that provide service to Lyon. I already said that he was a mechanical engineer.

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One day, or rather one night, since it is already dark at four thirty in the winter, I was walking my dog. I was in the middle of the square when a man grabbed me and lifted me like a feather.

I was going to scream, but suddenly I lost my voice. I had just recognized my stepfather.

I tried to tear myself away from him and to scream, but he was squeezing me so hard that my bones were cracking and my voice died on my lips. I could not breathe.

‘‘Listen,’ he said, ‘‘your mother is a wretch. She is going to pay me back today for all the misery she has caused me. I am well aware that she does not love me, but you are another matter. She will want to find you!’’

I was going to close my eyes when I saw my dog following me. I took heart. I was no longer alone.

We went through several streets, then in front of an alleyway where animal carcasses dripping with black and coagulated blood were hanging on doors. At the entrance smoky oil lamps produced a dark and drab light. We entered some sort of cul-de-sac and he stopped about midway. I took a look at the house he was about to enter. It was tall and narrow, and the windows were closed. On the second floor, there was one shop whose windows had been whitewashed. The alley was dark. As we entered I stiffened my body and called my dog. But as G

turned

around, he kicked the dog. Such a sharp pain went through my heart that I collapsed on my tormentor’s shoulder. I do not know whether I had fainted or if the will to not see any more, to not hear any more, had numbed me for a few moments. Finally I heard someone speak. It was a woman’s voice. I opened my eyes and jumped off the chair where I had been deposited. I ran toward this woman. I saw G

’s eyes dart

toward me, so I turned my head and did not dare say a word. We were in a room that seemed strange to me. It looked like a café and yet it was not one. There were chairs, tables, a counter, liquor bottles, sev-

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eral scantily dressed women in low-cut gowns. One of these women was seated next to G

. She is the one I had gone toward for refuge. She had a harsh voice and seemed mean. Two other women were at a table with two men; a blue and red flame burned among them. Two other women were playing cards. I saw yet another one who, behind me, was working on a child’s little dress.

The frosted windows did not permit me to see outside and the door to the street was boarded up. I made a startled move: the woman near me was about to drink a glass of clear yellow liqueur and some of it spilled on her dress.

‘ Idiot!’’ she yelled. ‘ Now my dress is stained.’

And she shoved me so hard, I rolled several feet.

After a few moments I felt someone gently tugging at my sleeve. It was the woman who was sewing. She sat me on her lap. My heart relaxed a little.