Free Monsieur Monde Vanishes by Georges Simenon

shellfish and bringing them white wine in a champagne bucket. So his unimpressive appearance had not discouraged the waiter; perhaps this was the sort of place where unpretentious people came to enjoy themselves.
    â€œI’ve asked the chef to take special care with your andouillette,” the waiter whispered, leaning over toward the young woman.
    She remarked, as she spooned out the pale pink granular flesh of a sea urchin: “You’re married.…”
    She was staring at his wedding ring, which it had not occurred to him to remove.
    â€œThat’s all over,” he said.
    â€œHave you left your wife?”
    â€œYesterday.…”
    She pursed her lips contemptuously. “For how long?”
    â€œFor ever.”
    â€œThat’s what they always say.…”
    â€œI assure you …”
    And he blushed, realizing that he must be giving a misleading impression of boasting of his liberty, as though he intended to take advantage of it.
    â€œIt’s not what you think.… It’s more complicated.…”
    â€œYes … I know.…”
    What did she know? She looked at him, then she looked at herself in the glass just as ruthlessly, then she turned to glance at the bejeweled woman and the two young men.
    â€œYou’d have done better perhaps to leave me alone,” she sighed. “It’d all be over by now.”
    Nonetheless she went on meticulously shelling her crayfish with her lacquered fingernails.
    â€œAre you from these parts?” he asked her.
    She shrugged her shoulders. No woman would have asked such a stupid question.
    â€œI’m from the North, from Lille. And you’re from Paris yourself, aren’t you? What’s your line?”
    She was examining his suit, his shirt, his tie. As he hesitated in some embarrassment before replying, she went on in an altered, almost threatening voice:
    â€œYou didn’t run off with the cashbox, I hope?”
    Before he had taken in the meaning of this challenge, she went on as though she was quite prepared to drop him flat: “Because I’ve had more than enough of that .…”
    â€œI’m not an office worker.”
    â€œWhat are you?”
    â€œI have private means.”
    She looked him up and down again. What did she find reassuring about her companion’s appearance?
    â€œGood …”
    â€œModerate private means.”
    She must have interpreted this as miserly, for she cast a peculiar glance at the table loaded with food and the bottle of expensive wine.
    Monsieur Monde felt his head in a whirl. He had had nothing to drink, had barely touched his lips to his misted glass, and yet he felt drunk with all the dazzling light and the bustling crowds, with the red of the crayfish and the dizzy speed of the waiters rushing to and fro, and the din of all those conversations, of those possibly confidential remarks that people had to yell out to be heard above the noise of other voices and the clatter of plates and cutlery.
    â€œI wonder where he’s got to now.…”
    And as, with naïve thoughtlessness, he asked who, she shrugged her shoulders; she had him sized up now.
    â€œIt’ll be his loss more than mine.…”
    She seemed to feel the need to talk about it. Not necessarily to him, but to anyone. She was mixing herself a vinaigrette on her plate, carefully proportioning the ingredients.
    â€œMayonnaise doesn’t agree with me. I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell you the whole story, seeing what he’s done. I crawled at his feet, which I’ve never done to any other man, and he kicked me here.… Look, you can still see the mark.…”
    It was true. At close quarters, a slight swelling on the left side of her upper lip was visible under her make-up.
    â€œReal trash, he was.… His mother sold vegetables in the street; she was still pushing her barrow, only a few years ago.… It wasn’t as if