Pedigree by Georges Simenon Page B

over the town, stubborn and secretive, and only Valérie had been admitted to her confidence. For Élise, one district was as good as another. Nothing attached her to any particular street. She was incapable of looking affectionately at a gleam of sunshine on the wallpaper, or the shadow of the big wardrobe on the ceiling.
    She had taken a flat the day before in the Rue Pasteur. She had paid a month’s rent in advance. She had even … Yes, she had actually had the nerve to give up the flat in the Rue Léopold. She had told Madame Cession that they were leaving.
    â€˜Good riddance!’ the latter had retorted. ‘We won’t have your pram on the stairs twenty times a day any more.’
    â€˜Are you cross with me?’
    He asked simply:
    â€˜Where is it?’
    â€˜In the Rue Pasteur.’
    Then, suddenly voluble, she listed the advantages of their new flat.
    â€˜It’s a wide modern street, in a new district, close to the Place du Congrès. The house is brand new and the rooms are bigger than these, with wide windows. The flat is on the second floor, but the stairs aren’t hard to climb and the floor is as white as the table. Yesterday I went and rubbed it down with sand.’
    Without his knowing anything about it!
    â€˜What did you do with the baby all that time?’
    â€˜The landlady, who’s terribly nice, helped me to carry the pram upstairs. There isn’t any dust in the district. And you won’t have so far to go …’
    He was not listening. He was thinking of the way he would have to go from now on, four times a day. The Rue Pasteur was only five minutes’ walk from the Rue Puits-en-Sock. He would pass in front of the church of Saint-Nicolas. He would go down the narrow Rue des Récollets, which came out right in front of the hat-shop.
    He tried on his route as he would have tried on a piece of clothing, paying attention to the smallest details … Yes …
    â€˜All right.’
    But then he suddenly thought of the move itself.
    â€˜We’ll have to move everything …’
    And he took fright as he looked around him at their few pieces of furniture.
    â€˜By noon tomorrow, it will all be over. I’ve been to see the chair-mender in the Rue Jean-d’Outremeuse who has a handcart. He’s coming at eight o’clock with a workman he knows, and in three trips they’ll have taken everything.’
    In that case, of course … All the same, he was a little sad, possibly a little distressed … Setting off … Leaving something behind …
    â€˜You aren’t cross with me? You see, Désiré, the Rue Léopold has been getting on my nerves so badly that I should fall ill if I stayed here any longer.’
    He undressed in silence. She lay down beside him. Only the night-light lit the room into which the glow of the gas-lamps filtered through the curtains.
    Ã‰lise did not close her eyes. She had won. He had not said anything. He was not cross.
    And Valérie had been so frightened! More frightened than herself!
    â€˜You see, Valérie, with men…’
    She did not yet add:
    â€˜He’s a Mamelin, and when you’re dealing with the Mamelins, you have to present them with a fait accompli . Otherwise they’d spend the whole of their life in the same place.’
    She did not think this quite so clearly as yet. She did not fall asleep straight away, for she was vaguely aware of the importance of this day. Only the day before, when she had gone to see the chair-mender, she had scarcely been able to breathe, and yet it had all been so easy.
    â€˜Are you asleep?’
    He said:
    â€˜Yes.’
    She would have liked to say thank you, to squeeze the tips of his fingers. But she mustn’t. He would have thought that she was sorry.
    He was a man. He was a Mamelin. If you didn’t push him … For instance, at Monsieur Monnoyeur’s, didn’t they take advantage of him? It was