He slowly ascended in his turn. A single gas-jet was burning, the staircase was slumbering in a heavy warmth. It seemed to him more wrapped up in itself than ever, with its chaste doors, its doors of rich mahogany, closing the entrances to virtuous alcoves. Not a sigh passed along, it was the silence of well-mannered people who hold their breath. Presently a slight noise was heard; Octave leant over and beheld Monsieur Gourd, in his cap and slippers, turning out the last gas-jet. Then all subsided, the house became enveloped by the solemnity of darkness, as though annihilated in the distinction and decency of its slumbers.
Octave, nevertheless, had great difficulty in getting to sleep. He kept feverishly turning over, his brain occupied with the new faces he had seen. Why the devil were the Campardons so amiable? Were they dreaming of marrying their daughter to him later on? Perhaps, too, the husband took him to board with them so that he might amuse and enliven the wife? And that poor lady, what peculiar complaint could she be suffering from? Then his ideas got more mixed; he saw shadows pass—? little Madame Pichon, his neighbour, with her clear empty glances; beautiful Madame Hédouin, correct and grave in her black dress; and Madame Vabre’s ardent eyes, and Mademoiselle Josserand’s gay laugh. How they swarmed in a few hours in the streets of Paris! It had always been his dream, ladies who would take him by the hand and help him in his affairs. But these kept returning and mingling with fatiguing obstinacy. He knew not which to choose; he tried to keep his voice soft, his gestures cajoling. And suddenly, worn-out, exasperated, he yielded to his brutal inner nature, to the ferocious disdain in which he held woman, beneath his air of amorous adoration.
“Are they going to let me sleep at all?” said he out loud, turning violently on to his back. “The first who likes, it is the same to me, and all together if it pleases them! To sleep now, it will be daylight to-morrow.”
When Madame Josserand, preceded by her young ladies, left the evening party given by Madame Dambreville, who resided on a fourth floor in the Rue de Rivoli, at the corner of the Rue de l’Oratoire, she roughly slammed the street door, in the sudden outburst of a passion she had been keeping under for the past two hours. Berthe, her younger daughter, had again just gone and missed a husband.