A little husband … a little husband … a little husband.…
Séverine stubbornly muttered the words with which she’d left Mme Anaïs. She could not understand them, but they utterly overwhelmed her. When she reached the Louvre she stared at the noble facade; its simplicity seemed to do her good for a second, but then she turned her head away. She had no right to such a sight.
A traffic jam barred her way. One bus was going to Saint-Cloud and Versailles. Séverine remembered coming out of the Louvre once with Pierre, and his remarking with pleasure that there was a bus route connecting with the old dwellings of kings. Pierre … Pierre Les-cot’s Louvre … her little husband Pierre … The man who delighted in the gardens of palaces and faultless parks had a wife who.…
Séverine’s head whirled in a confusion of bus-horns, noble perspectives, Mme Anaïs, herself. Blindly she crossed the road and leaned on the parapet over the Seine. Here she could breathe more easily. The river rolled along in its spring yellow. Séverine was fascinated by the dubious color and went down the incline to the lower level of the quay.
The people and the scene she found there were so different from anything she had ever known that she had a feeling of having been forever cut off from her usual existence. Heaps of sand, mounds of coal, scrapiron, low sooty barges with silent men walking sluggishly about them, the walls far, far higher, far thicker than she’d ever realized; and most of all the muddy, rich, impenetrable water … Séverine went towards the water, knelt, and plunged her hands into it.
She took them out instantly, repressing a cry. That fascinating flood was deadly cold. Séverine was appalled as she suddenly realized that she had desired to give herself to the river’s filth. After all, she’d done nothing yet to make her want to perish in that muddy ooze. Mme Anaïs … it was true she’d gone to see her, she’d listened to her. But Pierre himself, if she were to tell him of her frightful pain and the implacable, joyless obsession that had dragged her into the rue Virène, would pity her. She knew him, she loved him for that. He wouldn’t be angry, or contemptuous, he would simply pity her. How just! Séverine felt torn with compassion for herself.
Did one punish an act of insanity? Was what she’d done anything else? She only had to cure the sickness that had suddenly taken hold of her, and then the whole horrible week would be forgotten. And moreover, she told herself, the cure was at hand, since she was just about fed up with her insane behavior, and the idea of ever going back to Mme Anaïs filled her with terror, and.…
These thoughts, coursing with desperate urgency through Séverine’s mind, were abruptly replaced by a complete inability to think at all, a total void. It was as if every atom of energy had left her, sucked away by some insatiable mouth. She looked up.… A man was standing quite close—close enough to touch her. In her feverish state she hadn’t heard him come up. He had a powerful bare neck, broad quiet shoulders: probably a boatman from one of the barges moored near the Pont-Neuf, since his blue smock—and even his face—were stained with soot and oil. He stank of coarse tobacco, grease, and strength.
He stared thickly at Séverine, perhaps not fully conscious of his own desire for her. He was on his way towards Rouen, Le Havre, and here he suddenly runs across a beautiful woman. Too well dressed for him, of course; but she attracted him and he watched her.
Séverine had frequently felt the eyes of strangers covet her, and had merely been bored and uncomfortable. But this was a solid, cynical, pure desire she’d never before encountered, except in the man who had hunted her down her dreams and the other she’d watched going in to see Mme Anaïs. Now the same man—it was the same—stood beside her. He had only to reach out his hand and she’d know that contact she had so despairingly yearned for. But he wouldn’t dare to, he couldn’t.…
And in the rue Virène, thought Séverine with a sudden dreadful clarity, for thirty francs.…
Her eye registered the faces, the bodies, of this primitive universe enclosed between a rigid wall and the heavy river. The carter, gripping his shaft-horse by the nostrils in order to hobble his descent, who seemed to control with his huge fist both the horse and the rubble the animal dragged down with it; the man unloading that boat, with his low forehead and motionless loins; the laborers heavy with strong food and drink. These men, of whose very existence Séverine had been ignorant till then, were of another flesh than she; but for thirty francs, at Mme Anaïs, any one of them could have her.
Séverine had no time to analyze the nature of the spasm that seized her at that moment. The boatman had taken a step back. Her fear, since it was not bound up with any real impression, became insufferable: it belonged to the world of dreams. This man was going to vanish like the other, like the man in the blind alley. And Séverine felt it beyond her power to face the agony of his disappearance a second time. She couldn’t do it.
“Just a minute, wait,” she moaned.
Then, her feverish eyes clinging to the boatman’s expressionless gaze, she said, “Three o’clock, rue Virène, 9b, Mme Arias.”
Stupidly he shook his head, which was covered with coal-dust.
Either he doesn’t understand, or he doesn’t want to, thought Séverine with the inhuman fright only nightmares can give. Or perhaps he hasn’t any money.
Still staring at him, she dug into her bag and held out a hundred-franc note. In a besotted way the man took it, examined it closely. By the time he’d looked up Séverine was hurriedly climbing the ramp from the jetty to street level. The man shrugged, folded the note in his palm and walked toward a barge. He’d wasted too much time as it was. They were leaving sharp at noon.
That same noon hour, when the old bells of ancient Paris had begun their carillons, decided the direction of Séverine’s steps. Pierre would be finishing up at the hospital. She had to meet him there before he left. Like all Séverine’s decisions in the past few days, this idea occurred to her quite casually, but immediately became an absolutely imperative notion.
A pendulum given a sudden shove in one direction compensates at once by a swing to the other. It was the same with Séverine’s heart: it swung toward Pierre now with an ardor all the stronger for her having so completely and grossly forgotten him.
No longer, however, did Séverine expect Pierre to protect her against her own actions. By now she was horrifiedly certain that nothing and nobody could stop her from being at the rue Virène at the appointed hour. She sought no excuse in the accident that had set the boatman beside her. Now that she had made up her mind she felt that everything had happened could be only a pretext for her decision: she’d have found the boatman at any street-corner of this city she once thought she knew but which now seemed to her peopled with gnarled, demanding animals to whom she was condemned to belong. She didn’t know whether the sacrifice she was making would bring her horror or happiness; but before it was accomplished she had to find Pierre and let him see her as the woman he loved for the last time. For the moment was upon her when this woman would be consumed.
“Is Dr Sérizy still here?” Séverine asked the hospital receptionist with dread.
“Just leaving. Look, there he is, going across to put on his things.”
Pierre was crossing the courtyard surrounded by a knot of students. They were all wearing white coats. Séverine looked at her husband’s youthful face, toward which others still younger were turned. She knew little enough of the delights of the mind; but there was such a strong desire for knowledge, such intellectual vigor in this group—all of which converged visibly on Pierre —that she didn’t dare call out to him.
“I’ll wait here,” she said softly.
But warned, doubtless, by the instinct of his love Pierre turned his head toward his wife, and, though she was shaded by the porch, recognized her. She saw him say a few words to the young men around him and then walk toward her. As he drew near, Séverine hungrily examined those precious features, as if she were never to see them again. But this face of Pierre’s was one unknown to her, still marked by hours spent in a world of his own, a world of teachers and students. Séverine saw in his face the lines left by beloved work, the signs of patient good nature, the look of a leader and good workman together, the expression of a man surprised among his fellows and in his element; all this together with his white coat, so white she couldn’t help thinking of the sacred red of blood.
“Please don’t be angry with me for disturbing you here,” Séverine said, giving him an affectionate and guilty smile, “but since we never lunch together, and as I happened to be in the neighborhood.…”
“Be angry with you,” Pierre exclaimed. He felt both impatient and shy in a way quite unusual with him. “Be angry with you, darling, when you make me happy like this. Why, I’m so proud to be able to show you off to everyone here. Didn’t you see them all staring at you?”
Séverine bent her head slightly to hide the pallor that had crept into her cheeks.
Pierre went on: “Just wait for me a second. We have half an hour before lunch. If only the Director hadn’t invited me for lunch, how happy I’d have been to eat with you, darling.”
The weather was good. Séverine felt drawn towards the most innocent spot she could find and took Pierre off into the garden next to Notre-Dame. Spring was always somehow more humble, there, than anywhere else in Paris. The unhealthy tenements near the Hotel de Ville produced the pallid children who were playing in the park. From time to time a ray of sunlight pierced the April clouds, struck against a gargoyle or lost itself in the mystery of some stained glass window. Old workmen chatted on benches. The Ile Saint-Louis was visible, a peaceful quay on the left bank.
Their arms around each other, Séverine and Pierre strolled through the gardens. Pierre spoke of the humble lives sheltered under the cathedral, but Séverine heard only the timbre of his voice, which he had lowered without noticing. Something within her was slowly, fatally breaking. When it was time for Pierre to go she went with him only as far as the gate.
“I want to stay here a while. You go on, darling.”
She kissed him vehemently, convulsively, and repeated dully, “Go, darling, go.”
Then she managed to get to a bench where she burst into soundless tears between two women who were knitting.
She didn’t think about eating lunch, or leaving the bench. She tried to collect herself; she listened to the secret voice within her. In this way she spent two hours. Without so much as a look at her watch she left the little Notre-Dame garden for the rue Virène.
Mme Anaïs seemed glad to see her.
“I was beginning to give you up, dearie,” she said. “You left so fast this morning I thought you’d gotten scared. There’s really nothing to worry about, you’ll see.”
She gave a healthy affectionate laugh and took Séverine into a small room that overlooked a dark yard.
“Put your things in here,” she ordered cheerfully, opening a cupboard in which Séverine could see two coats and hats.
She obeyed without a word, since her jaws seemed soldered tight. But she was feverishly thinking, I have to tell her … the man who’s coming here for me … just him, no one else. But she found it impossible to utter a sound and went on listening to Mme Anaïs whose sincere kindnesses both comforted and terrified her.
“You see, dearie, I’m generally in here unless someone wants me. There’s not much light but over by the window there’s enough for my work-table. The girls give me a hand when they have nothing else to do. Mathilde and Charlotte are both very nice. To start off with, I can’t stand anyone here who’s not decent and easy-going. We have to get our work done and no nonsense. That’s why I fired Huguette, she was my third, five days ago. She was a pretty girl all right, but her language was something. Now you, dearie, you look real elegant. What’s your name?”
“I … I’d prefer not to give it.”
“Don’t be a fool—nobody’s asking for your birth certificate here. Pick what you want, only it has to be a nice cute name. Pleasing, you know what I mean. Well, we’ll find one. The girls and I’ll find one that fits you like a glove, you’ll see.”
Mme Anaïs stopped and listened. Laughter filtered from the far end of the corridor.
“Mathilde and Charlotte must have finished with M Adolphe,” she said, “one of our very best clients. A salesman. He’s really loaded, and what a character. Pretty much everyone who comes here is O.K. You’ll get along fine, I’m sure. Meanwhile what about a little something to celebrate your start, what’d you like? I’ve got anything you want. Look.”
From a closet opposite the one in which Séverine had put her hat, Mme Anaïs pulled out several bottles. Séverine picked one at random, and drank without tasting anything while Mme Anaïs lengthily inhaled her anisette. When she had drunk it she went on:
“For the time being we’ll call you Belle de Jour. How’s that for size? O.K., dearie? You satisfy pretty easy, don’t you. Still a little shy, but that’s natural. As long as you can get away by five, that’s the idea, isn’t it, then everything’s O.K. You in love with him?” Séverine recoiled. “Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to make you tell me your secrets. You’ll tell me plenty on your own soon enough. I’m not your boss, you know, more like your friend. Hell, I guess I ought to know something about life by now … And, sure, I like my job better than yours, but it wasn’t you or me who made the rules, honey. Now come and kiss me, my little Belle de Jour.”
There was true generosity in Mme Anaïs’ tone; all the same, Séverine disengaged herself quickly from that embrace. With a frown, her whole face drawn and pale, she stared toward the room from which laughter had come a few seconds before. Silence reigned there now, punctuated by muffled noises. And it seemed to Séverine that those noises regulated the beating of her heart. Her eyes were so fixed, so full of animal distress as she looked toward Mme Anaïs, that for a second perhaps the madame felt something of the carnal drama over which she daily presided. An uneasy half-smile appeared on her benevolent lips. Her eyes, too, turned to the room which she rented in all good faith, then looked back at Séverine. They exchanged one of those intimate glances which are always regretted later on because they reveal too deep a truth. It was a look of terrible sexual fear.
“Come on, come on,” and Mme Anaïs shook her blonde permanent, “you’ll put me in a bad mood. Like I said just now, dearie, we didn’t make the world, you and I.”
A rather hoarse but definitely gay cry came down the corridor.
“Mme Anaïs, we need you.”
“Must be Charlotte developing a thirst.”
Mme Anaïs went out smiling comfortably. As soon as she’d gone Séverine rose in a single motion. Escape … she had to escape, she couldn’t stay here another moment. She couldn’t connect her presence in this place with anything real, or possible. She’d forgotten the boatman, she’d forgotten Pierre, she’d forgotten even Mme Anaïs herself. She had no idea what had brought her here and this very fact filled her with a wild desire for liberty. But she didn’t move.
A man’s voice could be heard crying reproachfully, “There’s a new girl here and you haven’t brought her in. That’s not nice.”
Mme Anaïs appeared, took Séverine by the arm, and led her off.
“Here’s Belle de Jour,” exclaimed a very dark girl.
The room Séverine found herself in was the one Mme Anaïs had shown her that morning. Though she no longer recognized it, still it was a far cry from the carnivorous sexual cavern which she had just been imagining. The bed was a little rumpled, a vest hung over a chair, two shoes were set side by side on the floor: all attested to a kind of middle-class licentiousness. And the sanctimoniously smiling man who sat in the armchair and dutifully caressed the breasts of a big brunette didn’t seem to Séverine to belong in this room, which, till that moment, she had seen as pervaded by an atmosphere of quasi-mystical perversion. He sat in his shirt-sleeves. Strong suspenders followed the line of his jovial belly. His fat, soft neck supported a balding head, and good nature and smugness shone from his face.
“Hi, doll!” he called out, moving too-small feet which wore a pair of flashy socks, “what about a glass of champagne with us—and my old friend Mme Anaïs too. ’Course, after the appetizer I just knocked off a good brandy would probably be better, only Mathilde here,” and he indicated a thin girl on the bed getting back into her dress, “she wants champagne. She worked hard and me, I’m not stingy.”
M Adolphe’s eyes followed Mme Anaïs as she went to get the wine. Her powerful, well-built figure made him sigh.
“You still not satisfied?” asked Charlotte, caressing the salesman.
“No matter how you wear me out, when I look at her I feel just like new.”
“Forget it,” put in Mathilde quietly. “It’s no use. Mme Anaïs is too respectable. Take a look at this new kid instead. Look, she’s afraid to sit down.”
“Belle de Jour, dear,” Mme Anaïs came in with a bottle and glasses, “help me with the wine.”
“She sure looks like a kid,” remarked Charlotte, “but sort of English in that two-piece, don’t you think?”
Going up to Séverine she whispered in a kindly tone “you really ought to wear something that takes off easy. You know, like a slip, say. You’ll waste a hell of a lot of time otherwise.”
The salesman caught the last words.
“No, no,” he cried, “the kid’s right. That outfit suits her fine. Let’s see how you look a bit closer to.” He drew Séverine to him and muttered in her neck, “It’ll be fun undressing you.”
Mme Anaïs, disconcerted by Séverine’s expression, intervened: “Girls, the champagne’s cold. Here’s to M Adolphe.”
“Delighted to drink to that,” he answered.
As the warmish over-sweet liquid touched her lips Séverine hesitated. As if she were being acted by someone else, she saw herself, bare-shouldered, seated beside a handsome, loving man named Pierre and ordering only the driest, coldest champagne. But the Séverine in this room felt herself damned to do what was expected of her, and she finished her glass. The first bottle was emptied, then a second. Charlotte gave Mathilde a clinging kiss. Mme Anaïs’ honest laugh rang out rather too often. M Adolphe’s jokes verged on the obscene. Séverine alone kept stoically silent. Suddenly a strong hand gripped her by the hip and saddled her across a pair of fat thighs. Close against hers she saw wet eyes, heard the softened voice of M Adolphe whispering, “Belle de Jour, it’s your turn now. We’re gonna have a good time together, huh?”
And again Séverine’s expression was one that didn’t go down well in the rue Virène establishment; and once more Mme Anaïs managed to forestall an anger that would hardly become a Belle de Jour. She took M Adolphe aside and said, “Look, I’ll send Belle de Jour in to you in a second. Only, don’t treat her rough, see. She’s brand new.”
“In your place, you mean.”
“In my place and anywhere else. She’s never worked in a house.”
“A real Christmas present, huh? Thanks, Anaïs.”
Séverine was back in the room with the cupboards and the work table.
“Well, dear, I hope you’re pleased,” said Mme Anaïs. “Picked out the minute you came in. And by a rich, swell guy like that. Now don’t worry, M Adolphe doesn’t ask much. Just relax, that’s all he wants. The toilet’s to the left, but go back in dressed up like you are. He liked your suit especially. And smile, honey. Always make it look like you want it as much as they do.”
Séverine seemed not to have heard. Her head was lowered, her breath came hard. The sound of her uneven breathing was all that showed she was alive. Gently but firmly Mme Anaïs pushed her toward the door.
“No, no,” she burst out, “it’s no use, I’m not going in there.”
“Listen, where the hell d’you think you are, honey?”
Although Séverine was hardly conscious she shivered through and through. Never would she have thought that Mme Anaïs’ amiable voice could have become so inflexibile, or that her open face could suddenly have turned so tough—to the point of cruelty. But it wasn’t fear or anger that made Séverine tremble; it was a feeling she recognized, one that traveled deliciously, miserably, through her whole body. She’d lived her life in such a secure sense of dignity that no one had ever dared displease her. And here was the madame of a bordello putting her in line like some lazy maid-servant. A disturbed gleam of acknowledgement appeared in Séverine’s haughty eyes; and, so as to drink to the dregs this dose of humiliation, she obeyed.
M Adolphe had not been wasting his time. He had folded his trousers and artistically arranged his suspenders over a table. He was just completing this task when Belle de Jour came back. Catching sight of the salesman in long underwear, she took such a definite step back that M Adolphe got between her and the door.
“You’re really a wild one, aren’t you,” he said in a satisfied voice. “But look here, I’ve sent the others off. Now there’s only the two of us.”
He came close to Séverine, who suddenly realized she was taller than he, and pinched her cheek.
“So it’s true—first time with anyone outside your lover. Need a little dough? No? You’re dressed well enough, but that doesn’t prove anything. What is it then, need a little sex …”
Séverine was so revolted that she had to turn away to keep from slapping that pasty face.
“You’re just shy,” whispered M Adolphe, “you wait, you’re going to like it all right.”
He tried to take off Séverine’s jacket but she twisted away from him.
“I’m not kidding around,” M Adolphe exclaimed, “you excite me, honey.”
He took her full in his arms—and a fist in his chest sent him reeling. He was stunned for a second; then the frustrated passion of a man paying for his pleasure produced, in his insipid eyes and bland features the same transformation which Séverine had seen in Mme Anaïs’ face, and which had made her obey. He gripped the young woman’s wrists, shoved his furious and discolored face into hers and got out: “You’re crazy! Me, I like to play around all right, but not with your kind.”
And the same hideous sensuality she had felt a few minutes before—but still stronger—made Séverine powerless before him.
She eventually left, scarcely bothering to put her clothes on properly, ignoring Mme Anaïs’ recriminations. The pleasure the degradation had given her had vanished almost as soon as the man who caused it touched her. He had taken her dead.
And now she fled the rue Virène, M Adolphe, her own actions, and especially the question of what she was going to do. She fled them down the damp evening quays, down shining streets she didn’t recognize, through squares as huge as her despair, crawling with as many caterpillars as there were twisting through her brain. She couldn’t think of the future. The idea of returning home, finding everything as it was, seemed utterly impossible. She walked more and more quickly, paying no attention to where she was going, as if a mere multiplication of steps would serve to place an increasingly impassable space between her and her apartment. So she walked on, sometimes through dense crowds, sometimes down empty alleys, a hunted animal trying to escape being wounded by its mad career. Exhaustion finally stopped her. Seeking the shadows, she leaned against a wall. At once oppressive images streamed into her mind. To get rid of them she started off again. This time she was soon overcome by fatigue. Finally she surrendered to memories of the day she’d just lived through. Though she was mortally afraid of these memories, she tried to recall the day’s events in detail, since doing so at least shielded her from having to make a decision. But gradually her memories lost the power to fill her mind. Hallucinatory blots appeared in her consciousness—the entrance to her house, the concierge looking up at her, her housemaid’s smile, the mirrors, oh all the mirrors all variously reflecting that face kissed by the swollen lips of M Adolphe. For a moment it seemed better to run back to Mme Anaïs’ and shut herself up there, night and day.
Belle de Jour … Belle de Jour.
Could she go home with that name?
The lights of a car were slowly blinking in front of her. She flung herself towards them, shouted her address at the driver and added:
“Hurry, hurry. It’s an emergency.”
Her real agony was finally rising to the surface. Despite all her efforts to suppress it, the image of Pierre’s face had appeared in her consciousness, and Séverine knew that nothing mattered any more, humiliation or horror, except that she get back before Pierre and see to it that he wasn’t worried.
“It’s after six,” she murmured, trembling, as she went into her room. “I’ve only half an hour.”
Frantically she undressed, washed her body over and over again, scrubbed her face till it hurt. She would have liked to change her skin. It was all she could do not to light a fire and burn her suit and underclothes as if she’d just committed a murder.
She was in a peignoir when Pierre came in. As he kissed her, Séverine froze with terror.
“I forgot. My hair.”
She was sure her hair smelled of bordellos, stank of the rue Virène. She was surprised to hear Pierre say in his usual voice, “Yes, you’re almost ready, darling. I’ll have to hurry.”
Only then did she remember that some friends were stopping by to pick them up for dinner and the theater. For a moment she was relieved; but the thought of coming back with Pierre to the sweet midnight tenderness that bound them so closely was utterly intolerable.
“Darling, I’m not feeling very well,” she said hesitantly. “I think I caught a chill in the park this morning. I’d really rather not go out tonight, but you must … no, I insist, darling. The Vernois are such nice people. And I know you want to see the play, you told me so, I’d really be unhappy if you missed it.”
It was a long and cruel night for Séverine. Despite her infinite physical and spiritual weariness she couldn’t sleep. She was terrified of Pierre’s return. So far he hadn’t noticed anything, but it was impossible for this miracle to continue when he came into her room, as he inevitably would. It was impossible that that monstrous day had left no trace on her, in her, about her. More than once Séverine jumped out of bed to see in her mirror whether some special line, some stigmata, hadn’t appeared on her face. The hours went by in this state of demented persecution.
Finally she heard the door open. She pretended to be asleep, but her features were so tense that if Pierre had approached her bed he would have seen through the sham. But he was afraid of waking her up, and slipped out noiselessly. Séverine’s first feeling was one of gloomy surprise. Was it so easy, then, to hide such chaos from the person who knew her best? Though there was reassurance in the idea, it hurt her, and she refused to believe it. Surely this was simply a respite granted by darkness. She would be punished when daylight came. When he saw her then, Pierre would know.
“And my God, my God …” she groaned, propped against her pillows like some suffocating invalid.
Incapable of imagining the result of his discovery, incapable of divining whether the pain she would feel would be worse than the pain she would cause, she shut her eyes, as though the darkness of the room were not intense enough for her despair.
Alternating between terror and abandon she ended by feeling neither shame nor regret. She simply waited for morning and its justice. But the morning brought nothing. Certain as she felt that such a clumsy trick could never save her twice, Séverine again faked sleep and Pierre was again deceived.
As the minutes passed and day-light grew, a dim hope rose within her. It still seemed impossible to escape, but at least she desired to do so. All morning she ceaselessly telephoned, inviting friends to lunch or dinner, getting herself asked out, making dates for every minute of the day—even filling many of her evenings. When she looked at her engagement book after these efforts she breathed again. She wouldn’t be able to spend a moment alone with Pierre for more than a week.
He was surprised by Séverine’s sudden frenzy of gaiety, but as explanation she gave him such an imploring look that, without understanding, he was overcome and disarmed. That night they didn’t go home till Séverine absolutely tired out, nearly fell asleep in a nightclub. As soon as they got home she fell into a deep sleep which helped her avoid Pierre the following morning. The day was taken up with a dozen duties she’d imposed on herself. That evening was a repetition of the one before, and equally exhausting.
Séverine gradually wore down her fears and even her memories. The hectic rush of her life thrust into the distance, reduced to unreality, that day she’d been to the rue Virène. Soon she wouldn’t need a shield to guard her from Pierre.
There now appeared in Séverine’s soul the phenomenon from which those governed by overly-strong instincts seldom escape. She was like a gambler who has weathered his first loss and who, now that the danger is over, begins to dream of the green tables, the look of the cards, and the ritual of the game; or like an explorer tired of his travels who is suddenly consumed by images of solitude, combat, and space; or like an opium addict who has kicked the habit but who, softly terrified, smells the fumes of the drug. Just so, Séverine was insensibly surrounded by memories of the rue Virène. Like all those ruled by forbidden desire, she was tempted, not by the satisfaction of that desire, but by the first-fruits with which satisfaction was surrounded.
Mme Anaïs’ face, Charlotte’s lovely breasts, the ambivalent humility in that room, the smell she seemed to have carried off with her in her hair: all these images maddened Séverine’s lusting memory. At first they made her quiver with distaste; then she derived delight from them. Pierre and the powerful love she had for him stopped her for a while. But the stamp of her destiny, that fate inscribed within her, had to be fulfilled.