The next day, despite the great confusion that our debauched nights left me in, I hadn't forgotten the odd comment I had heard from Uncle Stone, namely that he would pay Bernard double.
'What did he mean?' I asked Odile.
She blushed greatly, then watched me in the eye and calmly replied that it was probably the payment for his gambling debt.
I realised she was lying to me, but, even though the horrible truth should have been plain to me, I couldn't fully understand what my friend was hiding from me.
Odile and I kept returning to Bernard's house. We went there almost every night. Even when the season became cold and rain began to fall, Odile and I waited for the other girls to fall asleep; we put on our cloaks, and we left the institute, heading for the tremulous light of Bernard's lamp at our usual meeting spot.
At first, we met new guests each night in the little apartment. The company was usually made of a man or two. Bernard sometime had another woman. When he didn't, he would accept Odile's company into the adjoining bedroom and leave me to spend an hour or two with the guests.
These, after a while, I became to know well, for they often returned. In fact, it was rare that a man, having attended one of our evenings, never showed up again, maybe a few weeks later.
With regular practice, I also became quite dexterous with the cards, and, even when I won the game and had no known debt with the house, I was eager to participate in the activities that inevitably followed.
I enjoyed the bawdy company and seemed to find no end in the pleasure that spending my evenings there gave me.
The men, whatever their age and their station, spoke liberally to me. Everyone behaved indeed quite similarly in that they all liked an easy joke and a willing companion for mutual stimulation. Nobody, no matter how wealthy, had any pretence; nobody demanded reverence from us, and I could often speak to them in the most direct and vulgar manner, which seemed to diver them all to great measure.
'My goodness, how you stink!' I would tell one.
'You play cards like a blind man,' I would tell another.
They seemed to have no pride when they were in that little apartment, but, I assure you, I meant nothing by any of it. In fact, I regarded it all as a great joke, and, in turn, these men understood that these words were to be taken in the same spirit, which they readily did.
Meanwhile, Odile had begun to quarrel with Bernard. This was happening more and more often, and these disagreements, which seemed to me quite unprovoked on Bernard's part, didn't have the same innocence of my barbed words as I used with our guests.
Bernard was a man of few words, preferring to let his guests do the talking. He often took Odile's assaults with patience and, at times, with humour, but, as these became more virulent, he seemed to reach an end to his ability to withstand them calmly. In fact, I believe that he found her words, of which I will give you an example shortly, not an offence to himself, but an annoyance to his guests.
'Your wine was always of third rate, but you are now serving vinegar,' one night Odile said to Bernard, as we sat to play a game of cards.
'It's the same it ever was,' our host replied.
I noticed how he looked around the table, finding this insult to the quality of his hospitality quite grave.
Odile, who had been already imparting more criticism on Bernard from the moment he had picked us up outside the institute, noticed how her words had finally hit a target too.
'I will not drink another drop,' she added.
There was some silence. The two men who we were playing with looked at Bernard, who, raising his glass, tasted its content.
'I find no fault with the wine, Odile.'
'You probably have no taste for these things, but your guests can surely tell you've been buying the cheapest stuff you could find.'
Bernard smiled stiffly and said:
'What do you think, Eloise?'
I drank the wine and, not wanting to cause any further embarrassment to him, I declared I found it rather nice and had no complaints over its quality.
'What would she know?' Odile chuckled.
'If our friends also believe this to be an inferior bottle, I can walk out and procure a different one,' Bernard said in a calm, but icy manner.
The two men at the table said the wine was fine, but, although that argument ended there, I noticed they didn't touch their glasses afterwards.
As we were now not drinking and were lacking the facility that Dionysus's nectar produces on the tongue, the conversation was now stilted and the evening proceeded in a dull manner. We played the game, which also became a source of disagreement when Odile wondered whether the cards were marked.
At one point, she also began to criticize the appearance of the two gentlemen that had joined us that evening, the dullness of their conversation, their inability with the cards, all said in a tone that left no doubt that she wasn't joking, making the atmosphere sullen and ill-tempered.
Odile seemed to enjoy this friction and often smiled to herself.
On my part, I was mortified by her behaviour and feared greatly that we would no longer be invited to enjoy the company of Bernard and his friends, which was such a pleasant diversion from the monotony of the institute. Every time Odile made a pungent comment, I tried to assure the people at the table that I was quite pleased with their company.
That evening, there was no carnal congress. The two gentlemen left early, and Bernard drove us back on his cart as a fine, cold mist descended on the fields.
Odile was the first to jump off the cart.
'A wonderful evening, don't you think, Bernard?' she asked with a sharp tone.
Bernard didn't answer, but I felt his arm encircle my waist and gently pulling me towards him.
'I thank you for your kindness this evening,' he whispered to me. 'I don't believe we will see more of your friends, but you will always be welcome.'
The next night, once I was sure the girls in the dormitory had fallen asleep, I tiptoed to Odile's bed and put a hand on her shoulder.
'Are you ready?' I asked.
She didn't move.
'Odile?' I said.
Once more, she made no reply.
I was quite certain she was awake but didn't want to speak to me. I shook her gently and, coming very close to her ear, whispered:
'Let's get ready, Odile. Bernard is awaiting us.'
'I don't wish to see him,' she replied.
I paused, unsure. Even though Bernard had assured me I was always welcome, I doubted whether I could meet him on my own, without my friend.
'You can go, if you wish,' Odile said and, having pulled the sheets tighter around her shoulders, turned the other way.
Leaving the school that night felt strange and lonely. I walked across the fields wondering whether Bernard would turn me away, seeing that I was on my own.
As I had seen Odile do many times before, I called out for him. Then, I saw the small light, and then I heard the sound of the horse's hoofs on the road and the wheels of the cart on the gravel.
'I'm glad you came,' Bernard said.
I could not see his face in the dark. I jumped on, sitting next to him.
'Odile is… unwell,' I lied.
Bernard laughed:
'I wish to see no more of that tart.'
I then thanked him for allowing me to come, and I assured him I enjoyed our evenings and wished to continue attending them.
Bernard was pleased, but he added:
'Men grow tired of the same company. Which is why my guests avoid their wives' society and come to my little apartment. You are very good company, Eloise, but I cannot offer the same soup to my customers night after night.'
I apologised for not fully understand his meaning, so he said:
'If you wish to continue attending our… friendly events, you will need to bring along new company: new girls, if I must speak plainly. Of course, I will compensate you for your efforts, like I compensated Odile for bringing you along. You see, I'm quite generous in sharing the reward of our labour.'
I then saw quite clearly that Odile had sold me to those men who frequented Bernard's house.
'You paid Odile?' I asked, quite upset that she had not met Bernard and his friends in the same spirit as I.
He understood the meaning behind my outraged tone: not that I had been unwillingly engaged in meretricium, but that I had not profited from it.
'I instructed her to pay you what she thought fair,' he said, as a way to excuse his conduct.
Then, he added:
'I will pay you twenty francs. The winnings from the games are yours, like yours are the losses, but the wine is free. But, and I wish I had explained this to your ungrateful friend, these terms are final. I will not negotiate them. If you decide they are unsatisfactory, you are welcome not to return: you come at your discretion and of your own free will. This is France after all, where we're all equal citizens, even in matters such as these. The cocks of France have the same rights of the cunts,' he proclaimed loudly. 'Is it well?' he then demanded in a more serious tone.
I wish I had had the sense of saying no, that I would not accept that employment, that, even though I didn't mind being liberal with my body, I could not encourage others to do the same; but the tedium of the institute and the desire to spend a few happy hours in the company of these men, who acted so freely towards me and treated me with such liberality, proved too strong for me.
I therefore eagerly agreed, promising that I would do as I was asked, and that I would do my best to earn the money that Bernard offered me.
I am also greatly ashamed in confessing that, as the problem of finding a suitable companion for Bernard's guests, my first thought ran to Marcelline, that tall and awkward girl that had to compete with me and Odile with that exotic instrument of pleasure on our first night. I thought of her because she seemed of meeker character than most pupils. As a new girl, she also had few friends, and I believed she would be easily persuaded to come with me on those nightly occasions.
She was a passable beauty. Not as pretty as Odile, but, with some force on my part, more pliable.
I knew then, as I know now, that the actions I was planning were vile and repulsive, but like all vile people I excused myself in many ways: I reasoned that I wasn't sure that Marcelline would consent, that she was free to refuse or accept; I also considered that these things were not as scandalous or wrong as most people made them to be: they happened every day in every city and every town of France; I also decided that, having been cheated by Odile, I was entitled to my revenge and I could repeat the same inexcusable actions with any of the girls at the institute.
All these excuses that people find when they knowingly act against any moral law were specious. The lowest form of casuistry. I knew what I was doing, and, in good conscience, I cannot say that any argument to the contrary has any merit.
So, let me now tell you, with a repentant heart, how I turned an innocent girl into a prostibula.