Lust for Life полностью

It was months since Vincent had spoken to a woman, except to ask for a cup of coffee or a bag of tobacco. He remembered Margot’s loving words, the wandering fingers over his face that she followed with a trail of loving kisses.

He jumped up, hurried across the Place Lamartine and struck into the black maze of stone houses. After a few moments of climbing he heard a great hubbub ahead. He broke into a run and reached the front door of a brothel in the Rue des Ricolettes just as the gendarmes were carting away two Zouaves who had been killed by drunken Italians. The red fezzes of the soldiers were lying in pools of blood on the rough cobblestone street. A squad of gendarmes hustled the Italians to jail, while the infuriated mob stormed after them, shouting,

“Hang them! Hang them!”

Vincent took advantage of the excitement to slip into the Maison de Tolérance, Numero I, in the Rue des Ricolettes. Louis, the proprietor, welcomed him and led him into a little room on the left of the hall, where a few couples sat drinking.

“I have a young girl by the name of Rachel who is very nice,” said Louis. “Would Monsieur care to try her? If you do not like the looks of her, you can choose from all the others.”

“May I see her?”

Vincent sat down at a table and lit his pipe. There was laughter from the outside hall, and a girl danced in. She slid into the chair opposite Vincent and smiled at him.

“I’m Rachel,” she said.

“Why,” exclaimed Vincent, “you’re nothing but a baby!”

“I’m sixteen,” said Rachel proudly.

“How long have you been here?”

“At Louis’s? A year.”

“Let me look at you.”

The yellow gas lamp was at her back; her face had been in the shadows. She put her head against the wall and tilted her chin up towards the light so that Vincent could see her.

He saw a round, plump face, wide, vacant blue eyes, a fleshy chin and neck. Her black hair was coiled on top of her head, giving the face an even more ball-like appearance. She had on only a light printed dress and a pair of sandals. The nipples of her round breasts pointed straight out at him like accusing fingers.

“You’re pretty, Rachel,” he said.

A bright, childlike smile came into her empty eyes. She whirled about and took his hand in hers.

“I’m glad you like me,” she said. “I like the men to like me. That makes it nicer, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Do you like me?”

“I think you’re a funny man, fou-rou.”

“Fou-rou! Then you know me?”

“I’ve seen you in the Place Lamartine. Why are you always rushing places with that big bundle on your back? And why don’t you wear a hat? Doesn’t the sun burn you? Your eyes are all red. Don’t they hurt?”

Vincent laughed at the naïveté of the child.

“You’re very sweet, Rachel. Will you call me by my real name if I tell it to you?”

“What is it?”

“Vincent.”

“No, I like fou-rou better. Do you mind if I call you fou-rou? And can I have something to drink? Old Louis is watching me from the hall.”

She ran her fingers across her throat; Vincent watched them sink into the soft flesh. She smiled with her empty blue eyes, and he saw that she was smiling to be happy, so that he might be happy, too. Her teeth were regular but dark; her large underlip drooped down almost to meet the sharp horizontal crevice just above her thick chin.

“Order a bottle of wine,” said Vincent, “but not an expensive one, for I haven’t much money.”

When the wine came, Rachel said, “Would you like to drink it in my room? It’s more homey there.”

“I would like that very much.”

They walked up a flight of stone steps and entered Rachel’s cell. There was a narrow cot, a bureau, a chair, and several coloured Julien medallions on the white walls. Two torn and battered dolls sat on top of the bureau.

“I brought these from home with me,” she said. “Here, fou-rou, take them. This is Jacques and this is Catherine. I used to play house with them. Oh, fou-rou, don’t you look droll!”

Vincent stood there grinning foolishly with a doll in each arm until Rachel finished laughing. She took Catherine and Jacques from him, tossed them on the bureau, kicked her sandals into a corner and slipped out of her dress.

“Sit down, fou-rou,” she said, “and we’ll play house. You’ll be papa and I’ll be mama. Do you like to play house?”

She was a short, thickset girl with swelling, convex thighs, a deep declivity under the pointed breasts, and a plump, round belly which rolled down into the pelvic triangle.

“Rachel,” said Vincent, “if you are going to call me fou-rou, I have a name for you, too.”

Rachel clapped her hands and flung herself on to his lap.

“Oh, tell me, what is it? I like to be called new names!”

“I’m going to call you Le Pigeon.”

Rachel’s blue eyes went hurt and perplexed.

“Why am I a pigeon, papa?”

Vincent ran his hand lightly over her rotund, cupid’s belly.

“Because you look like a pigeon, with your gentle eyes and fat little tummy.”

“Is it nice to be a pigeon?”

“Oh, yes. Pigeons are very pretty and lovable . . . and so are you.”