Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore Read Free Book Online Page B

Duchess of Angoulême’s home for wayward girls. But a second’s thought brought her to the decision not to attempt to put the girl in a home. She wanted as little explaining as possible in the case. The best thing to do was to take the matter upon herself completely, give Josephine as good a room to stay in as could be found and let things take their natural course. All wounds heal over in time, and those that are not healed are covered by the grave.
    Josephine seemed to have quite resigned herself to her fate. It was only for the first few days that she suffered from lack of her nightly escapades. Here in the room they had found for her there was no running away at night or indeed at any time, but to compensate for that there was nothing to do, and in all the years of her life Josephine had been busy from early morn to night, not only at the little poverty-stricken farm where she had lived with her widowed mother, but also at Mme Didier’s where under the stern direction of Françoise there was a constant succession of tasks to keep her actively at work all day long.
    This sudden leisure was the first ray of sunlight in her short and bleak existence. She lolled around, doing nothing, and was quite happy at it. She sat by, the window and pretended she was M Galliez. Sat silently thus for hours.
    Mealtimes she enjoyed the fullest. Not that she was a glutton, but being waited upon was to her such a novel experience that she could never have enough of it. And being called Madame by the girl who brought in her tray, a young girl much like what she herself had been but a few days before! Josephine did her best to act like Mme Didier.
    Being thus, by turns, Mme Didier and then M Galliez, Josephine had really quite a nice time of it. And when every second day or so Françoise came to see her, she could not prevent herself from putting on little airs before Françoise, who was still Françoise, whereas she, Josephine, was now Madame, and feeling herself thoroughly in her rôle, it annoyed her considerably that once in front of the servant-girl, Françoise should speak quite openly of “our mistress.” Josephine felt she had been humbled.
    Occasionally (but rarely, being a woman of great weight) Mère Kardec ascended to the top floor of her Maison d’Accouchement to visit her most curious patient, a young girl who was not to give birth for some five months. Mère Kardec was a stern-visaged person, square hewn as if a stone carver had left her unfinished. She asked no questions. Her fortune had been acquired by her absolute lack of curiosity. The women who came to her house could be sure of being well taken care of. Mère Kardec sent a constant stream of children out to her relations in Brittany, and the mothers who left her place need never concern themselves about the matter again, beyond paying the required sums. A countess with a name known all over Europe might come to Mère Kardec’s and register as whatever she pleased and have twins if nature so ordained, and Mère Kardec would make it right with the authorities, and never a word of it would go beyond her doors. A thousand romances on the brink of scandal or tragedy had come for salvation here behind the inconspicuous exterior of her house. Even the Almanach de Gotha must have its cesspool or sewerage system.
    When Mère Kardec entered Josephine’s room, she unloosened her dour visage and emitted a greeting to which she expected no answer. If one came, as in the present case, when polite words came tripping from Josephine’s tongue, Mère Kardec paid no attention. She passed her hand over the furniture to see if the servants were cleaning properly, she jabbed at the bed to see if the feather mattress had been well shaken up, and looked under the bed for those fluffy accumulations of feathers, hair and dust that tend to gather there. Having satisfied herself as to this, she asked curtly about the satisfactoriness of