The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2

"Would you like to have our fortune told?"

It was a very fine specimen of its kind, and had, no doubt, been far and wide. Placards and portraits, bordered by advertisements, hung above the shaky steps, and the small windows with their closed shutters, were almost hidden by boxes of sweet basil and mignonette, while an old, bald parrot, with her feathers all ruffled, was asleep just outside.

The fortune teller was sitting on a chair, quietly knitting a stocking, and on their approach she got up, went up to Madame d'Ormonde and said in an unctuous voice:

"I reveal the present, the past and the future, and even the name of the future husband or wife, and of deceased relations, as well as my client's present and future circumstances. I have performed before crowned heads. The Emperor of Brazil came to me, with the illustrious poet, Victor Hugo… My charge is five francs for telling your fortune from the cards or by your hand, and twenty francs for the whole lot… Would you like the lot, Madame?"

Madame d'Ormonde gave vent to a burst of sonorous laughter, like a street girl, who is amusing herself, but they went in and Monsieur de Fontrailles opened the glass door which was covered by a heavy red curtain. When they got in, the young woman uttered an exclamation of surprise. The interior of the van was full of roses, arranged in the most charming manner as if for a lovers' meeting. On a table covered with a damask cloth, and which was surrounded by piles of cushions, a supper was waiting for chance comers, and at the other end, concealed by heavy hangings, one could see a large, wide bed, one of those beds which give rise to sinister suggestions!

Xavier had shut the door again, and Madame d'Ormonde looked at him in a strange manner, with rather flushed cheeks, palpitating nostrils, and a look in her eyes, such as he had never seen in them before, and in a very low voice, while his heart beat violently, and he whispered into her ear:

"Well, does the decoration please you this time?"

She replied by holding up her lips to him, and then filled two glasses with extra dry champagne, which was as pale as the skin of a fair woman, and said almost as if she had already been rather drunk:

"I am decidedly worth a big stake!"

It was in this fashion that Madame d'Ormonde, for the first and last time, deceived her husband; and it was at the fair at Saint Cloud, in a somnambulist's van.

1

Glass of Bavarian beer

2

La recherche de la paternité est interdite. A celebrated clause in the Code Napoleon, whereby a man cannot be made chargeable for a bastard. – TRANSLATOR.

3

Psychological Notes.

4

Title given to advocates in France. – TRANSLATOR.

5

That man with the dogs.

6

Executioner, hangman.

7

Vulgar for Monsieur.

8

Prison in Paris.

9

Work-girl, a name applied to those whose virtue is not too rigorous. – TRANSLATOR.

10

This manuscript was found among the papers of Viscount Jacques de X – who committed suicide a few years ago, in his room in an hotel at Piombières. – R.M.

11

Civil marriages are obligatory in France, though usually followed by the religious rite. – TRANSLATOR.