The Signal

Ribald Classic

The lovely marchioness de Rennedon was still asleep in her dark and perfumed bedroom.

In her soft, low bed between sheets of delicate cambric, fine as lace and caressing as a kiss, she was sleeping alone and tranquil, the happy and profound sleep of a divorced woman.

She was awakened by loud voices in the drawing room and she recognized her dear friend, the Baroness de Grangerie, who was disputing with the lady's maid because the latter would not allow her to go into the marchioness's room. So the marchioness got up, opened the door, drew back the door hangings and showed her head, nothing but her fair head, hidden under a cloud of hair.

"What is the matter with you that you have come so early?" she asked. "It is not nine o'clock yet."

The pretty baroness, who was very pale, nervous and feverish, replied: "I must speak to you. Something horrible has happened to me."

"Come in, my dear."

She went in; and the marchioness got back into her bed, while the lady's maid opened the windows to let in light and air. Then, when she had left the room, the marchioness went on: "Well, tell me what it is."

Baroness de Grangerie began to cry, shedding those pretty bright tears which make women more charming. She sobbed out without wiping her eyes, so as not to make them red: "Oh, my dear, what has happened to me is abominable, abominable. I have not slept all night, not a minute, do you hear? Not a minute. Here, just feel how my heart is beating."

And, taking her friend's hand, she put in on her breast, on that firm, round covering of women's hearts which often suffices men and prevents them from seeking beneath. Her heart was beating violently.

She continued: "It happened to me yesterday during the day at about four o'clock – or half-past four; I cannot say exactly. You know my apartments, and you know that my little drawing room, where I always sit, looks on to the Rue Saint-Lazare and that I have a mania for sitting at the window to look at the people passing. The neighborhood of the railway station is very gay, so full of motion and so lively – just what I like!'Well, yesterday I was sitting in the low chair which I have placed in my window recess; the window was open and I was not thinking of anything, simply breathing the fresh air. You remember how fine it was yesterday!

"Suddenly I noticed a woman sitting at the window opposite-a woman in red. I was in mauve, you know, my pretty mauve costume. I did not know the woman (a new lodger, who had been there a month, and as it has been raining for a month, I had not yet seen her), but I saw immediately that she was a bad girl. At first I was very much shocked and disgusted that she should be at the window just as I was, and then by degrees it amused me to watch her. She was resting her elbows on the window ledge and looking at the men, and the men looked at her also, all or nearly all. One might have said that they knew of her presence by some means as they got near the house, that they sensed her presence by instinct, for they suddenly raised their heads and exchanged a swift look with her, a sort of secret signal. Her signal said: 'Will you?' Theirs replied: 'I have no time,' or else: 'Another day,' or else: 'I have no money,' or else: 'How dare you!'

"You cannot imagine how funny it was to see her carrying on such a piece of work, though after all it is her regular business.

"Occasionally she shut the window suddenly, and I saw a gentleman go in. She had caught him like a fisherman hooks a fish. Then I looked at my watch and I found that they never stopped longer than from twelve to twenty minutes. The whole procedure fascinated me!

"I asked myself: 'How does she manage to make herself understood so quickly, so well and so completely? Does she add a nod of the head or a motion of the hands to her looks?' And I took my opera glasses to watch her proceedings. They were very simple: first of all a glance, then a smile, then a slight backward nod of the head which meant: 'Are you coming up?' But it was so slight, so vague, so discreet, that it required a great deal of knack to succeed as she did. And I asked myself: 'I wonder if I could do it as nicely as she?'

"I went and tried it before the looking glass and, my dear, I did it better than she, a great deal better! I was enchanted and resumed my place at the window.

"She caught nobody more then, poor girl, nobody. She certainly had no luck. It must really be very terrible to earn one's bread in that way, terrible and amusing occasionally, for really some of these men one meets in the street are rather nice.

"After that they all came on my side of the road and none on hers; the sun had turned. Then came one after the other, young, old, dark, fair, gray, white. I saw some who looked very nice, really very nice, my dear, far better than my husband or than yours-I mean than your last husband, as you have got your divorce."

"I said to myself: 'If I give them the signal, will they understand me? I, a respectable woman?' And I was seized with a mad longing to signal them. A terrible longing; you know, one of those longings which one cannot resist! I have some like that occasionally. How silly such things are, don't you think so? I believe that we women have the souls of monkeys. I have been told (and it was a physician who told me) that the brain of a monkey is very like ours. Of course we must imitate someone or other. We imitate our husbands when we love them during the first months after our marriage, and then our lovers, our female friends, our confessors when they are nice. We assume their ways of thought, their manners of speech, their words, their gestures, everything. It is very foolish."

"Yes, yes," the marchioness said impatiently, "but what happened? Surely you did not yield to this temptation?"

"My dear, when I am tempted to do a thing I always do it. And so I said to myself: 'I will try it once, on one man (concluded on page 56)Signal(continued from page 41) only, just to see. What can happen to me? Nothing whatever! We shall exchange a smile and that will be all, and I shall deny it most certainly.'

"So I began to make my choice. I wanted someone nice, very nice, and suddenly I saw a tall, fair, very good-looking fellow coming along. I like fair men, as you know. I looked at him; he looked at me. I smiled; he smiled. I made the signal, oh, so faintly; he replied yes with his head, and there he was, my dear! He came in at the large door of the house.

"You cannot imagine what passed through my mind then! I thought I should go mad. Oh, how frightened I was! Just think, he will speak to the servants! To Joseph, who is devoted to my husband! Joseph would certainly think that I had known that gentleman for a long time.

"What could I do? He would ring in a moment. I thought I would go and meet him and tell him he had made a mistake and beg him to go away. He would have pity on a woman, on a poor woman. So I rushed to the door and opened it just at the moment when he was going to ring the bell, and I stammered out quite stupidly: 'Go away, monsieur, go away; you have made a mistake, a terrible mistake. I took you for one of my friends whom you resemble. Have pity on me, monsieur.'

"But he only began to laugh, my dear, and replied: 'Good morning, my dear; I know all about your little story, you may be sure. You are married and so you want forty francs instead of twenty, and you shall have it, so just show me in, if you please?'

"And he pushed me inside, closed the door, and as I remained standing before him, horror-struck, he kissed me, put his arm round my waist and made me go back into the drawing room, the door of which had remained open. Then he began to look at everything, like an auctioneer, and continued: 'By Jove, it is very nice in your rooms, very nice. You must be very down on your luck just now to do the window business!'

"The I began to beg him again. 'Oh, monsieur, go away, please go away! My husband will be coming in soon. I swear that you have made a mistake!' But he answered quite coolly: 'Come, my beauty, I have had enough of this nonsense, and if your husband comes in I will give him five francs to go and have a drink at the cafe across the street.' And then, seeing Raoul's photograph on the chimney piece, he asked me: 'Is that your husband?'

"'Yes, that is he.'

"'He looks like a nice, disagreeable sort of fellow. And who is this? One of your friends?'

"It was your photograph, my dear, you know, in that gown with the daring decolletage. I did not know any longer what I was saying and I stammered: 'Yes, it is one of my friends.'

"'She is very nice,' he said. 'You shall introduce me to her.'

"Just then the clock struck five, and Raoul comes home every day at half-past! Suppose he were to come home before the other had gone; just think what would have happened! Then – then I completely lost my head – altogether. I thought – I thought – that – that – the best thing would be – to get rid of – of this man – as quickly as possible. The sooner it was over – you understand."

The Marchioness de Rennedon began to laugh, to laugh madly, with her head buried in her pillow, so that the whole bed shook, and when she was a little calmer she asked:

"And – and – was he good looking?"

"Yes."

"And yet you complain?"

"But – but – don't you see, my dear, he said – he said – he should come again tomorrow – at the same time – and I – I am terribly frightened. You have no idea how persuasive he is and how obstinate. What can I do – tell me – what can I do?"

The marchioness sat up in bed to reflect, and then she suddenly said: "Have him arrested!"

The baroness looked stupefied and stammered out: "What do you mean? What are you thinking of? Have him arrested? Under what pretext?"

"That is very simple. Go to the commissary of police and say that a gentleman has been following you about for three months, that he had the insolence to go up to your apartment yesterday, that he has threatened you with another visit tomorrow and that you demand the protection of the law."

"But, my dear, suppose he tells them that –"

"They will not believe him, you silly thing, but they will believe you, who are an irreproachable woman, and in socciety."

"Oh! I shall never dare to do it."

"You must dare, my dear, or you are lost."

"But think how he will insult me if he is arrested!"

"Good! You will have witnesses to his insults, and he will surely be sentenced."

"Sentenced to what?"

"To pay damages. In such cases one must be pitiless!"

"Ah! Speaking of damages–there is one thing that worries me very much–very much indeed. He left forty francs on the mantelpiece."

"Forty francs?"

"Yes."

"No more?"

"No."

"That is very little. It would have humiliated me. Well?"

"Well? What am I to do with that money?"

The marchioness hesitated for a few seconds, and then she replied in a serious voice:

"My dear–there is only one honorable thing to do with the money. You must make your husband a little present of it. That will be only fair!"