Free For a Night of Love by Émile Zola Page B

like this. I swear that sympathy alone…’
    Nantas did not interrupt her, overcome by curiosity, thinking that his concierge must have given her all these details. Mlle Chuin was free to continue, and yet she was trying to come up with more and more compliments, seeking flattering ways of conveying her message.
    ‘You’re a young man with a great future, monsieur. I have taken the liberty of following your attempts and I have been greatly struck by your commendable firmness in the face of misfortune. And it seems to me that you would go far, if someone held out a helping hand to you.’
    She stopped once more. She was waiting for some reply. The young man decided this lady had come to offer him a job. He answered that he would accept anything. But now that the ice was broken, she asked him bluntly: ‘Would you have any objection to getting married?’
    ‘Getting married?’ exclaimed Nantas. ‘Good Lord, who would want me, madame?… Some poor girl I wouldn’t even be able to feed.’ 
    ‘No, a beautiful, rich young girl, of magnificent lineage, who at a stroke will place in your hands the means of arriving at the highest position.’
    Nantas stopped laughing.
    ‘So, what’s the deal?’ he asked, instinctively lowering his voice.
    ‘This girl is pregnant, and the child needs to be acknowledged,’ said Mlle Chuin straightforwardly, forgetting her ingratiating turns of phrase so as to get to the heart of the matter more quickly.
    Nantas’ first impulse was to throw the old bawd out.
    ‘What you’re proposing is shameful,’ he murmured.
    ‘Oh, shameful is it?’ exclaimed Mlle Chuin, reverting to her honeyed tone, ‘I can’t accept that horrid word… The truth is, monsieur, that you will save a family from despair. The father doesn’t know a thing, the pregnancy is still in its first stages; and I’m the one who conceived the idea of marrying off the poor girl as soon as possible, so as to pass the husband off as the child’s father. I know the girl’s father, it would kill him. My scheme will deaden the blow, he’ll take it as a form of reparation… The problem is that the real seducer is married. Ah, monsieur, there are some men who really have no moral sense…’
    She could have gone on in this vein for a long time. Nantas was no longer listening. Why, after all, should he refuse? Hadn’t he been asking to sell himself just now? Well, someone had come along to buy him. It was a fair exchange. He would give his name, he would get a job in return. It was a contract like any other. He looked at his trousers stained with the mud of Paris, he remembered he hadn’t eaten since the day before, all the anger that had been accumulating during those two months of job-seeking and humiliation flooded into his heart.At last! He was going to trample on that world which rejected him and drove him to suicide!
    ‘I accept,’ he said baldly.
    Then, he demanded clearer details from Mlle Chuin. What did she want for playing the go-between? She protested she wanted nothing. However, she finally asked for twenty thousand francs, from the marriage portion the young man would be given. And as he declined to haggle, she became expansive.
    ‘Listen, I was the one who thought of you. The young woman didn’t say no, when I mentioned your name… Oh, it’s a real bargain! you’ll thank me later. I could have found a titled gentleman, I know one who would have kissed my hands. But I preferred to go for someone outside the social circles of this poor girl. It will seem more romantic… What’s more, I like you. You’re nice, you don’t have your head in the clouds. Oh! you’ll go far. Don’t forget me, I am at your service.’
    Until then, no name had been mentioned. At a question from Nantas, the old maid stood up and said, introducing herself once more: ‘Mademoiselle Chuin… I have been in Baron Danvilliers’ household since the death of the Baroness, working as a governess. It is I who brought up