Page:Calvary mirbeau.djvu/173

Rh from the devil knows where, whom one scandal attracts to one place and another scandal draws off to another, and those living outside the pale of the law and bourgeois esteem, who claim to be the royalty of Paris, before whom everybody bows down they all swarm here, arrogant, free, disreputable!"

Juliette was listening, amused by the stories, attracted by this filth and crime, flattered by this ignoble homage which she felt the glances of these fools and criminals were paying her. But she preserved her modest bearing, her maiden charm, all her graces, self-conscious and inviting at one and the same time, for ,the sake of which, one day at Lirat's, I earned damnation!

Faces grow more pallid now, features become drawn out. Fatigue swells and colors the eyelids. One after another they leave the cabaret, tired and worried. Do they know what the next day has in store for them, what troubles await them, what disasters lie in ambush for them? Once in a while the report of a pistol shot creates a void in the ranks of this gang! Perhaps tomorrow will be their turn? Tomorrow! Perhaps it will be my turn, too? Ah! Tomorrow! The ever present menace of tomorrow! And we go home again, without saying a word to one another, sad and weary.

The boulevard was deserted. An immense silence was weighing heavily over the city. Only the windows of the brothel houses were aglare, like the eyes of some huge beasts crouching in the depth of night.

Without knowing exactly the state of my financial affairs, I felt that ruin was ahead of me. I had paid out considerable sums of money, debts were accumulating and, far from decreasing, Juliette's whims became even more numerous and more expensive: money flowed like water from her hands, like a fountain, in one continuous stream. "She evidently thinks me richer