Nevertheless, some windfalls came in their way now and then in the shape
of louis picked up in the society of elegant gentlemen, who slipped
their decorations into their pockets as they went upstairs with them.
Satin had an especially keen scent for these. On rainy evenings, when
the dripping city exhaled an unpleasant odor suggestive of a great
untidy bed, she knew that the soft weather and the fetid reek of the
town's holes and corners were sure to send the men mad. And so she
watched the best dressed among them, for she knew by their pale eyes
what their state was. On such nights it was as though a fit of fleshly
madness were passing over Paris. The girl was rather nervous certainly,
for the most modish gentlemen were always the most obscene. All the
varnish would crack off a man, and the brute beast would show itself,
exacting, monstrous in lust, a past master in corruption. But besides
being nervous, that trollop of a Satin was lacking in respect. She would
blurt out awful things in front of dignified gentlemen in carriages and
assure them that their coachmen were better bred than they because they
behaved respectfully toward the women and did not half kill them with
their diabolical tricks and suggestions.
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