lacodie stayed longer than was his custom in mamzelle fleurette’s little store that evening. he had been tempted by the vapid utterances of a conservative bellhanger to loudly voice his radical opinions upon the rights and wrongs of humanity when he finally laid his picayune down upon mamzelle fleurette’s counter and helped himself to l’abeille from the top of the diminished pile of newspapers which stood there.
he was small, frail and hollow-chested, but his head was magnificent with its generous adornment of waving black hair; its sunken eyes that glowed darkly and steadily and sometimes flamed, and its moustaches which were formidable.
272“eh bien, mamzelle fleurette, à demain, à demain!” and he waved a nervous good-bye as he let himself quickly and noiselessly out.
however violent lacodie might be in his manner toward conservatives, he was always gentle, courteous and low-voiced with mamzelle fleurette, who was much older than he, much taller; who held no opinions, and whom he pitied, and even in a manner revered. mamzelle fleurette at once dismissed the bell-hanger, with whom, on general principles, she had no sympathy.
she wanted to close the store, for she was going over to the cathedral to confession. she stayed a moment in the doorway watching lacodie walk down the opposite side of the street. his step was something between a spring and a jerk, which to her partial eyes seemed the perfection of motion. she watched him until he entered his own small low doorway, over which hung a huge wooden key painted red, the emblem of his trade.
for many months now, lacodie had been coming daily to mamzelle fleurette’s little notion store to buy the morning paper, which he only bought and read, however, in the 273afternoon. once he had crossed over with his box of keys and tools to open a cupboard, which would unlock for no inducements of its owner. he would not suffer her to pay him for the few moments’ work; it was nothing, he assured her; it was a pleasure; he would not dream of accepting payment for so trifling a service from a camarade and fellow-worker. but she need not fear that he would lose by it, he told her with a laugh; he would only charge an extra quarter to the rich lawyer around the corner, or to the top-lofty druggist down the street when these might happen to need his services, as they sometimes did. this was an alternative which seemed far from right and honest to mamzelle fleurette. but she held a vague understanding that men were wickeder in many ways than women; that ungodliness was constitutional with them, like their sex, and inseparable from it.
having watched lacodie until he disappeared within his shop, she retired to her room, back of the store, and began her preparations to go out. she brushed carefully the black alpaca skirt, which hung in long nunlike 274folds around her spare figure. she smoothed down the brown, ill-fitting basque, and readjusted the old-fashioned, rusty black lace collar which she always wore. her sleek hair was painfully and suspiciously black. she powdered her face abundantly with poudre de riz before starting out, and pinned a dotted black lace veil over her straw bonnet. there was little force or character or anything in her withered face, except a pathetic desire and appeal to be permitted to exist.
mamzelle fleurette did not walk down chartres street with her usual composed tread; she seemed preoccupied and agitated. when she passed the locksmith’s shop over the way and heard his voice within, she grew tremulously self-conscious, fingering her veil, swishing the black alpaca and waving her prayer book about with meaningless intention.
mamzelle fleurette was in great trouble; trouble which was so bitter, so sweet, so bewildering, so terrifying! it had come so stealthily upon her she had never suspected what it might be. she thought the world was growing brighter and more beautiful; she thought the flowers had redoubled their sweetness 275and the birds their song, and that the voices of her fellow-creatures had grown kinder and their faces truer.
the day before lacodie had not come to her for his paper. at six o’clock he was not there, at seven he was not there, nor at eight, and then she knew he would not come. at first, when it was only a little past the time of his coming, she had sat strangely disturbed and distressed in the rear of the store, with her back to the door. when the door opened she turned with fluttering expectancy. it was only an unhappy-looking child, who wanted to buy some foolscap, a pencil and an eraser. the next to come in was an old mulatresse, who was bringing her prayer beads for mamzelle fleurette to mend. the next was a gentleman, to buy the courier des etats unis, and then a young girl, who wanted a holy picture for her favorite nun at the ursulines; it was everybody but lacodie.
a temptation assailed mamzelle fleurette, almost fierce in its intensity, to carry the paper over to his shop herself, when he was not there at seven. she conquered it from sheer moral inability to do anything so daring, so 276unprecedented. but to-day, when he had come back and had stayed so long discoursing with the bellhanger, a contentment, a rapture, had settled upon her being which she could no longer ignore or mistake. she loved lacodie. that fact was plain to her now, as plain as the conviction that every reason existed why she should not love him. he was the husband of another woman. to love the husband of another woman was one of the deepest sins which mamzelle fleurette knew; murder was perhaps blacker, but she was not sure. she was going to confession now. she was going to tell her sin to almighty god and father fochelle, and ask their forgiveness. she was going to pray and beg the saints and the holy virgin to remove the sweet and subtle poison from her soul. it was surely a poison, and a deadly one, which could make her feel that her youth had come back and taken her by the hand.
