The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. Read Online Free PDF

raw earth.
Her
scents. Maman’s—Berthe’s. Like a warning, of a known place I should not like to visit again. Beguiling, sirenlike, but dangerous and full of betrayal. His coat, a shabby soft leather, pressed lightly against my arm.
    â€œI can pay you three francs a sitting.”
    â€œNo, I don’t model.”
    â€œMy studio is on the Impasse de la Bouteille. Look, I will even give you the omnibus fare in advance.” He dug in his pocket. “No? Are you sure? And you really won’t come with me to the Nord? . . . Go, then!” he said to the driver, and slammed the cab’s door. “I can’t afford the ride.” He rocked back on his heels and swayed: an exaggerated dance of movement, a comment on it all, a joke, a bow, a form melting into the darkness.
    It was past seven. No clock needed to say so, as not a female soul lingered on the street save two, gaily dressed, passing through the Passage to the Tivoli Gardens on the arms of their beaux; a gaggle of echoing laughter. Starving now, absinthe-queasy, I risked my luck a second time, ducking back under the Trap’s drape. Collected my
soupe
from Claude at the end of the bar, the barman winking in complicity as I ignored the other inquiring eyes. What a game of cat and mouse! But my stomach didn’t know the difference.
    Â 
    Madame was sitting by the desk in an armchair, knitting by gas lamp, when I made my way back to the Tivoli, loitering wretchedly in the shadows like a thief, just past the HôTEL Lozenge, until I could follow someone in. Tonight it was a man in a greatcoat, and he skirted me as though I carried the plague. Madame cast an ominous, judging glance over her clicking needles, and I wondered if tomorrow morning might be my last at the Tivoli. My thoughts flew inexplicably to the clerk, and the pale girl . . . Madame clicked away as I slunk past her and upstairs. Like an old
tricoteuse
at the guillotine, plying her skein as the heads fell, counting stitches.
Counting.

3. Chasseloup
    I S IT THE ONE you’ve been waiting for?” the clerk said softly, with his lingering, sticky glance. The Tivoli’s lobby smelled of mildew and ancient horsehair. I’d just come in from the icy wind, from spending a few sous on hot chestnuts, a bar of chocolate, more postage stamps. Then my heart began to pound. A sliver of white had appeared in number 12’s pigeonhole behind the mahogany; thin as the edge of a new moon. At last!
    He reached for the envelope with an elaborate gesture, held it down with his thumb a moment too long. Leaned over to peer at the postmark. “From the baronet, perhaps? Monsieur de Chaveignes? . . . Why, you think we don’t do our research, mademoiselle? But we must protect our establishment.” I recalled Madame’s scrutiny of Stephan’s original document. The envelope now in my hand had a strange, foreign texture and many stamps.
Mlle. B—
the letters blurred. I passed it back across the desk.
    â€œBut this letter is not addressed to me at all! It’s not mine.”
    â€œOh! Well, we do have so few mademoiselles here,” the clerk said, full of sly, barely veiled delight and—I grasped finally that my link with the outside world, to Stephan—to Stephan’s return—depended on his ill intentions and the poisonous Madame. “My apologies, it is R—Rigault, isn’t it? It’s not for number 12 at all, but number 16. And you are vacating your room tomorrow, is that correct?”
    I turned my back without answering.
    Â 
    According to the
Nouveau
Plan de Paris 1860,
Pierre Chasseloup’s studio on the Impasse de la Bouteille did not lie across the Seine, near the cafés and artists’ haunts, but past Les Halles and uphill. Traveling there, the heels of my boots sank into the gaps between the cobbles as I traipsed past looming advertisements for fabric and chocolate. Giant stockinged legs marched