Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (8 page)

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M. Vincent

two pistols and told his father and his stepmother, ‘‘I want money; I know there is some here. Open this desk or I blow your brains out.’

He got it all, down to the silverware. Midway down the stairs, he was laughing his fool head off, shouting, ‘ The pistols were not even loaded!’’

He left France and was never heard from again.

My mother learned her trade and settled down without asking anything from her father. She could not forgive him the harm he had in-flicted on her mother. In twelve years she had seen him only twice. She would send me there for New Year’s.

I could love passionately or hate furiously. I adored my mother, but I cried when I had to go see my grandfather.

   

I was still under this negative impression when we arrived at his house upon our return from Lyon. We reached his house at  Rue de Bercy-Saint-Jean at ten .. The street was actually a covered alleyway.

His shop was a furniture store. Its sign jutted out at least two feet and read: Rental house run by

. Old and new furniture bought and sold.

The entryway was an alley door so narrow that one could only go in sideways. A half-door with a bell announced someone’s arrival and departure, which was not necessary, since my grandfather was at once owner, doorman, bellboy, and furniture salesman.

His own room was on the second floor. It was a lovely room with two large windows and a balcony bordered by a rusty iron railing. It jutted out over a street so narrow that once out of bed one could shake hands with the neighbor across the way.

That was the room where we made our entrance, hearts heavy and heads bowed.

The room was an annex for the shop. It contained so many pieces of furniture, clocks, and paintings that we could not find a place to sit.

My grandfather was seated in a comfortable chair. The bell had alerted him, and he said indifferently, ‘ So, it is you, girl. What the devil are you doing here at this hour? We were about to go to bed.’

He had not seen us in two years!

‘ Father, I just arrived from Lyon. I have come to ask you to lodge us for a day or two.’

The stepmother jumped in her chair. ‘‘We do not have room.’

‘ That is true,’ said my grandfather, ‘‘we shall make up a bed for you on the floor.’

My mother told everything that had happened to us. The stepmother

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M. Vincent

pretended to sleep, and as Maman was saying to her father, ‘‘I have a lot more to tell you, when we are alone,’ she pretended to wake up and said, ‘ Good night, I am going to bed.’

She went into the next room, taking care to leave the door open. My grandfather got up and closed it.

‘‘Well, my child, what do you plan to do?’’

‘‘But, Father, what I have always done: work, once I am settled. Tomorrow I shall look for lodgings. If you want to furnish it for me, I shall pay you as soon as possible.’

‘ Certainly, but to avoid problems, she must not suspect anything.’

And he was looking at the door through which he probably was afraid she was listening because he continued in a low voice, ‘‘Do you have any money?’’

‘‘No, since I had to pay full price for my daughter, my resources have been depleted.’

He pulled several keys from his pocket, very quietly opened a chest, and took out a bag.

‘‘Here, put that in your trunk. It contains one hundred écus; 2 that should help you out. But not a word in front of her! . . .’

The next day my mother had found lodgings on the corner of Faubourg du Temple and the canal.3 We moved in.

A few days later my mother went to see some manufacturers she knew, who gave her enough work that she could hire a few women.

I worked with her. On Sundays we would go for walks in the country, or she would take me to the theater.

I was eight and a half years old. I was tall, thin, pale. I looked twelve.

I was jealous of anything my mother seemed the least bit interested in.

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Above us lived a stonemason who sang from morning until night. He looked like he was about thirty-five, had blond short hair, and blue eyes.

I ran errands for my mother and would meet him on the stairs. He would laugh with me. He seemed like a really nice fellow.

One day he told me, ‘‘Little girl, why don’t you tell your mother to let you come spend an hour in my studio to pose for a head.’

I told him that I did not know what that meant but that he should ask my mother himself. He did not hesitate. I had not even climbed the stairs, he was in our apartment. He had already explained what he wanted because I heard my mother answer, ‘‘I do not mind.’

We became great friends. He was always at our home.

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M. Vincent

He had one fault: he was a libertine. When a woman he fancied walked by in the street, he would follow her all day long. Maids, workers, wives of his friends, the pretty ones, the ugly ones, the old ones, the young ones—he knocked on every door.

His mother often came to visit him. She would come down to see us.

One day she invited us to dinner. Then we became inseparable.

I grew jealous. My active mind saw too clearly. I looked for ways to be mean. In the end, I became unbearable.

When we would go for walks and M. Vincent wanted to hold my mother’s arm, I would throw myself between them and cling to her,

‘‘Maman, please. . . .’

M. Vincent was nice to me the way G

had been in the begin-

ning, but like him, he was wasting his time. If he served me at the table, I would not eat.

I was so miserable and became so hateful that I asked my mother to place me in apprenticeship. The next day she announced that the following Monday, I would enter the service of M. Grange, Rue du Temple.

My heart was mortally grieved by the fact that I could be gotten rid of so promptly. I was already proud. I did not shed a tear.

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That Monday my mother took me to see M. Grange. I cannot imagine anything so ugly as this man! And nothing so pretty as his daughter!

Petite, with reddish blond hair, but fair and fetching, coquettish and elegant, barely fifteen. At the time, I was eleven and I was taller than she. I had a forest of very dark hair. I was pale, my skin was dark. We were total opposites.

M. Grange asked my mother if she wanted me to be lodged. Before she could reply, I said, ‘‘Yes, let me sleep here. I shall be less in your way.’

My mother replied, almost angrily, ‘‘Not at all, little mademoiselle, you shall come home every day.’

I left in the morning and came home at night. Often, Maman was out and did not come back until late. I would wait in the street. I could have stayed at the shop, but I was not happy there.

My master’s daughter had keys to everything. She stole from the sales to buy her frippery. This child, who lost her mother when she was very young, had always been spoiled.

She took great pleasure in humiliating me. She was incompetent. I was more skillful than the main seamstress, and yet, sometimes the daughter would throw my work in my face, telling me, ‘ Undo this, it is

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M. Vincent

poorly done.’ I would fume and wait five minutes, then I would undo my work without a word.

There were ten workshops in this building. In the evening, during the summer, the men and women would gather at the entrance.

If someone spoke to me, she would come over and say, ‘‘Why do you not leave? Your mother is waiting for you.’

When my apprenticeship was over, I asked M. Grange if he wanted to keep me on as a day worker.

‘ Certainly, I shall pay you twenty sous a day, and if at the end of the day there is something pressing, you shall be paid per unit.’

He said, looking at his daughter, ‘‘You are upset now, Louise, you will not be able to scold her any more. She is a woman. How old are you, Céleste?’’

‘‘I am almost fourteen.’

‘ Oh, really, I thought you were older. You are strong.’

Out in the courtyard there was a wallpaper factory. The office clerk was always in the shop or at the entrance.

Whenever my master’s daughter saw him, she would go outside. She would turn red when he went inside.

One day he was standing in front of my loom, looking. In those days lots of rich gold trimming over velvet was fashionable. I did all the embroidering, and they said I was very talented.

My young mistress came near me, angry as a little rooster. She leaned over my work.

‘ This is poorly done,’ she told me. ‘ Do not finish this; nobody will want it.’

I looked at my embroidering, and I said, laughing, ‘‘You are talking about something that you cannot judge, since I have never been able to teach you how to do this kind of embroidering.’

And I handed my work to the main seamstress.

She had been with the house for ten years and thought of Louise as a mere child.

‘ Céleste’s work is good,’ she said. ‘‘Incompetent as you are, you have no right to advise others!’’

Louise ran off to the back of the shop, and, when her father came back, she began to cry her eyes out saying that I had mistreated her.

That evening, at home, I found my mother very agitated because M. Vincent had not been seen since the night before. When he came home—entering without knocking—my mother did not greet him well.

As the source of tenderness that I felt for my mother was drying up, I

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M. Vincent

could feel emerging inside me unfamiliar emotions. Instead of sleeping, I would spend whole hours staring at the stars. I could picture myself rich, happy, and loved.

The plays I had been taken to when I was very young had spoiled my mind and inflamed my nature.

M. Vincent would eat at our house. He went up to his studio only to work. When he addressed me I would answer, ‘‘Mind your own business. Do I know you? You are not my father.’

My mother would warn me to be quiet.

‘‘Well,’ I would tell her, ‘‘I know that you do not love me. If I were old enough, I would leave, I would rent a little room where I would stay by myself.’

I was making myself hated.

   - 

We often went to M. Vincent’s mother’s house. One evening as I was returning from the shop I was told by the concierge that my mother was at Rue Popincourt. I went to meet her there. Mme Vincent told me to wait, that they would be back.

We both fell asleep, I in a straight chair, she in an armchair. When I woke up the lamp was fading.

‘‘It must be very late,’ I said rubbing my eyes. ‘ They are not coming back. I am leaving.’

It was almost midnight. It was cold. There were very few houses along the canal—just a few laundry stalls, a few streetlights very distant from each other, and squares of driftwood piled up to dry near the water.

I was almost at the Ménilmontant bridge when I heard voices.4 I stopped, and, not knowing why, I huddled up against a door. The voices started up again. They were coming from the edge of the canal, behind the piles of wood.

‘‘Do not hurt me, I told you this is all I have.’

‘ That is a lie. You got paid. Today is Saturday.’

‘‘No, I am being paid every two weeks again.’

‘ That is not true.’

And I heard footfalls, then two or three moans, and later something falling.

‘ Hurry, search,’ the man who had already spoken, said.

‘‘I cannot find anything,’ replied the other one, ‘‘you should not have killed him.’

‘ Oh, yeah! So he could finger us. You are a smart one!’’

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M. Vincent

And then I heard something fall in the water. I let myself drop to my knees in the corner of the door. I wrapped my head in my black apron so my white bonnet would not attract attention and . . . I fainted.

When I came to, I was in a large room lighted by at least five or six candles fastened to the wall. There were large vats with smoke rising from them, a fire under each, steam filling the room like a cloud, and through the mist, moving shadows.

A large woman came toward me and asked, ‘‘Well, are we feeling better?’

‘‘Yes, madame.’

‘‘What in the world were you doing there, at that time of day?’’

‘‘Where, there?’’

‘‘Why, there, on our laundry’s doorstep. On our way to rinse our wash, we found you lying on the ground.’

‘ Oh, I remember! . . . Close your door, quick, quick! . . . They are still there!’’

I told them what I heard.

‘‘My poor girl,’ they told me, ‘ a drowned man is not rare around here.’

They picked up a candle and went to inspect the shore of the canal.

There was no trace of the struggle.

I was taken back home and to my mother, who, knowing that I had gone to Mme Vincent’s, thought I had stayed there. I was ice cold and my teeth were chattering. The doctor said he feared typhoid fever. He was not wrong.

I was sick for two months. Grief played a big part in my illness because now I had no doubt my mother was in love with M. Vincent.

I went back to work, but to get home, I had to cross the canal. I would be seized by fears I could not control, and my mother decided to move.

At first I thought that it was just for my account, and I thought that by leaving this house we would be separated from all the lodgers who lived there. I was wrong. M. Vincent followed us, and if my mother was leaving the neighborhood, it was mainly to separate him from all his female acquaintances.

My hatred grew. I told myself, ‘‘If only he had been the one thrown into the canal! . . .’

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I spied on his actions. I think he really loved my mother, but it was impossible for him to be faithful. My mother was excessively jealous.

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M. Vincent

I knew that I wanted her to know, and at dinner I told Vincent, ‘ Say, your new girlfriend is not very pretty!’’ or, ‘‘You are wrong to chase after that one, she does not want you.’

They would argue for a few days, but when they made up, I had lost just a little bit more of my mother’s affection.

One day a little country outing had been organized at work.