The Vatard Sisters by Joris-Karl Huysmans Read Free Book Online

up again, becoming absurd, losing their gilt, fading, smudging, drowning in thick layers of dirt: there were engravings full of little boys on their knees, of prostrate women, of swollen-cheeked angels pointing to the heavens, of Mater Dolorosas copied after the model of Delaroche’s with tearful eyes and rays of light streaming from their hands, of children with lambs around their necks, there were crucifixes with shells underneath for holy water, sacred hearts made of platinum, nickel-silver and silver-gilt, hearts pierced by swords with flames at the top and dripping blood at the bottom, hollow Immaculate Virgins made of tallow and of unglazed porcelain, badly-moulded and badly-varnished Saint Josephs, illuminated cribs, fluffy donkeys, a whole Judea in cardboard, a whole Nazareth in painted wood, a whole imitation religion, blossoming between jars of dusty chocolates and old gum balls!
    Désirée didn’t really wake up until they were in front of the old hospital for incurables; she pressed the knob of a water fountain and it spat a jet of water into a pitcher held between the hands of a stone Egyptian and splashed a nearby lady from head to foot. Then her eyes lit up again and, delighted by this prank, she ran off and caught up with her sister, who had already got as far as the Boulevard des Invalides.
    After that the Rue de Sèvres continued, widening a little and flowing into a square like the mouth of a funnel, then, turning into the Rue Lecourbe, it ran on, flanked at each street corner by an enormous tavern, by a long trail of black buildings. The quarter grew gloomier the closer it got to the ramparts. This teeming road, and the deserted boulevards that crossed it at right angles and retreated as far as the eye could see, this populace seething on the pavements, the women coming out to wipe down the sweating plasterwork of the passages, the men strutting about smoking pipes, their hands in their pockets, the toddlers sliding around on their backsides amid streams of gutter water, all spoke of the lamentable distress of the old suburbs, an endless desolation of wages frittered away by drunkenness and finished off by illness.
    The two sisters stopped not far from Chez Ragache, in front of a small restaurant whose attractions – plates of cauliflower and bowls of cloudy soup – were visible through green-tinged panes of glass bordered by white curtains. Céline pushed at the door with her shoulder and went straight up to a big lad, cap flat on the back of his head, sitting with one of his pals and shuffling a pile of greasy dominoes.

    ‘Ah good, not a moment too soon…’ said Anatole, ‘Mademoiselle has finally decided to show up. So what’s your excuse, you know very well I don’t like to be kept waiting by a woman. Stop! not another word, that’s enough; what are you drinking?’
    Céline attempted a gesture of indifference which ended up, under Anatole’s unflinching stare, in a look of submission and fear, and she stammered, disconcerted: ‘Me…I could do with something hot…is there any mulled wine on the stove, Madame Antoine?’
    ‘But of course, I’ll go and heat some for you, and you Mademoiselle Désirée, should I prepare a glass for you as well?’
    The younger girl nodded yes. She was standing in front of the cast-iron stove in the middle of the room. She didn’t seem to be conscious of what she was doing, because her fingers were grazing the metal top and, somewhat unsteady on her feet, she was staring with a dejected air at the copper knob of the stove pipe. The restaurant was empty. There were only some old jackets and capes hanging on the wall and, on a table at the back, a double salt cellar and a mustard jar whose lid had lost its tip. At this hour, old Ma Antoine was giving the kitchen a good going over, wiping with her greasy rag at the milk sizzling on the stove and blowing tiny bubbles that popped and stank. Every ten minutes she came back into the dining room, dabbing at her