XVI

Also, we gave a couple of balls⁠—evening parties attended by Hortense and Lisette and Cléopatre, who were women remarkable both for the number of their liaisons and (though only in some cases) for their good looks. At these reunions I had to play the part of host⁠—to meet and entertain fat mercantile parvenus who were impossible by reason of their rudeness and braggadocio, colonels of various kinds, hungry authors, and journalistic hacks⁠—all of whom disported themselves in fashionable tailcoats and pale yellow gloves, and displayed such an aggregate of conceit and gasconade as would be unthinkable even in St. Petersburg⁠—which is saying a great deal! They used to try to make fun of me, but I would console myself by drinking champagne and then lolling in a retiring-room. Nevertheless, I found it deadly work. “ C’est un utchitel ,” Blanche would say of me, “ qui a gagné deux cent mille francs , and but for me, would have had not a notion how to spend them. Presently he will have to return to his tutoring. Does anyone know of a vacant post? You know, one

, where I would get fuddled and then dance the cancan (which, in that establishment, was a very indecent performance) with éclat. At length, the time came when Blanche had drained my purse dry. She had conceived an idea that, during the term of our residence together, it would be well if I were always to walk behind her with a paper and pencil, in order to jot down exactly what she spent, what she had saved, what she was paying out, and what she was laying by. Well, of course I could not fail to be aware that this would entail a battle over every ten francs; so, although for every possible objection that I might make she had prepared a suitable answer, she soon saw that I made no objections, and therefore, had to start disputes herself. That is to say, she would burst out into tirades which were met only with silence as I lolled on a sofa and stared fixedly at the ceiling. This greatly surprised her. At first she imagined that it was due merely to the fact that I was a fool, “ un utchitel

“You see,” she went on, “I decided to spend so much upon these horses only because I can easily sell them again. They would go at any time for twenty thousand francs.”

“Well, well, what a man you are!” she exclaimed. “ Mais tu as l’esprit pour comprendre. Sais-tu, mon garçon , although you are a tutor, you ought to have been born a prince. Are you not sorry that your money should be going so quickly?”

True enough, from that time onward she seemed to attach herself only to me, and in this manner we spent our last ten days together. The promised “ étoiles ” I did not see, but in other respects she, to a certain extent, kept her word. Moreover, she introduced me to Hortense, who was a remarkable woman in her way, and known among us as Thérèse Philosophe.

True enough, the marriage took place. It did so at the close of our month together, and I am bound to suppose that it was upon the ceremony that the last remnants of my money were spent. With it the episode⁠—that is to say, my sojourn with the Frenchwoman⁠—came to an end, and I formally retired from the scene.