Chapter 36: Anger

“Lui ne vous connait plus. Vous l’ Ombre déjà vue
Vous qu’ il avait couchée en son ciel tout nue,
Quand il était un Dieu...”
Tristan Corbière, les Amours jaunes.

It was the maid who made inquiries. She knew nothing, did not understand. Madame had certainly returned, but the bed had not been used, only rumpled, as if she had lain upon it fully dressed. The closet was open and the dressing table in an unwonted disorder, for Madame had never failed to place all her little belongings carefully.

“I should say,” she continued, “that Madame has left for a trip on the go, as you might say, but I have not found the ball dress. No one goes far in a ball dress! When I came down at seven o’clock, things were as I have told you and since then I have been waiting, very uneasy, I assure you. And does Monsieur know nothing?”

“Nothing,” answered Entragues. “She must have returned about half past four, or at five o’clock at the most. But come, if she had left for a trip, at least a street dress would be missing, a hat, some necessary objects, and especially a traveling bag, a valise.”

“The bags, valises and trunks are above a dark closet, near my room. She would have to pass through my room to get to it. As for dresses and the rest, the wardrobe is locked with a key and I do not know where the keys are. But Madame always carries them with her.”

Entragues asked:

“Are you sure that she returned?”

“She did return. After Madame’s departure, yesterday, I put everything in order, I even smoothed the bed in which she had thrown herself for a moment after dinner. It is Madame’s habit when she goes to a ball. And this morning the bed was disordered. Yet Madame is not heavy, and usually, when she sleeps, one can hardly see the mark of her body.”

“Well,” said Entragues, giving his address and a few coins to the maid, “if you learn anything, come and tell me. I am as uneasy as you are, Azélia. Come to-morrow morning, at any rate, perhaps I shall have news.”

He departed. In the street, his calm grew agitated.

“I am deceived,” he cried, “scandalously deceived!”

He opened his umbrella so violently that the silk snapped; then he smashed it against the edge of the sidewalk, threw it into the gutter, and, under the heavy and frigid fog, reached the end of the boulevard Saint-Germain, near the quai Saint-Bernard.

There, in a blind alley, amid huts, stood a little furnished house, patronized by Russian students and having the name of the Hôtel de Moscow.

“Monsieur Moscowitch.”

“Monsieur Moscowitch left this morning for Nice. Does Monsieur wish his address? Grand Hôtel des Deux-Mondes.”

“Thank you.”

“The hotel is good, well situated. I spent a pleasant week there, the other winter. If I had known of your decision, Madame, I should have recommended the room I occupied, for the view through its sunny windows is delightful. Ah! just a year ago from to-day. I am becoming tranquil!”