The Café de Paris, kept by Melanie Cartier, a widow, was situated¹ on the Place du Palais, a large irregular square planted with meager², dusty elm trees. The place was so well known in Vauchamp that it was customary to say, “Are you coming to Melanie’s?” At the farther end of the first room, which was a spacious³ one, there was another called “the divan⁴,” a narrow apartment having sham⁵ leather benches placed against the walls, while at each corner there stood a marble-topped table. The widow, deserting her seat in the front room, where she left her little servant Phrosine, spent her evenings in the inner apartment, ministering to a few customers, the usual frequenters of the place, those who were currently styled “the gentlemen of the divan.” When a man belonged to that set it was as if he had a label on his back; he was spoken of with smiles of mingled⁷ contempt and envy.  
Mme Cartier had become a widow when she was five and twenty. Her husband, a wheelwright, who on the death of an uncle had amazed Vauchamp by taking the Café de Paris, had one fine day brought her back with him from Montpellier, where he was wont⁸ to repair twice a year to purchase liqueurs. As he was stocking his establishment he selected, together with divers⁹ beverages¹⁰, a woman of the sort he wanted—of an engaging aspect and apt to stimulate¹¹ the trade of the house. It was never known where he had picked her up, but he married her after trying her in the cafe during six months or so. Opinions were divided in Vauchamp as to her merits, some folks declaring that she was superb, while others asserted that she looked like a drum-major. She was a tall woman with large features and coarse hair falling low over her forehead. However, everyone agreed that she knew very well how to fool the sterner sex. She had fine eyes and was wont to fix them with a bold stare on the gentlemen of the divan, who colored and became like wax in her hands. She also had the reputation of possessing a wonderfully fine figure, and southerners appreciate a statuesque style of beauty.
 
Cartier had died in a singular way. Rumor¹² hinted at a conjugal¹³ quarrel, a kick, producing some internal tumor¹⁴. Whatever may have been the truth, Melanie found herself encumbered¹⁵ with the cafe, which was far from doing a prosperous business. Her husband had wasted his uncle’s inheritance in drinking his own absinthe and wearing out the cloth of his own billiard table. For a while it was believed that the widow would have to sell out, but she liked the life and the establishment just as it was. If she could secure a few customers the bigger room might remain deserted¹⁶. So she limited herself to repapering the divan in white and gold and recovering the benches. She began by entertaining a chemist. Then a vermicelli maker¹⁷, a lawyer and a retired¹⁸ magistrate¹⁹ put in an appearance; and thus it was that the cafe remained open, although the waiter did not receive twenty orders a day. No objections were raised by the authorities, as appearances were kept up; and, indeed, it was not deemed advisable to interfere²⁰, for some respectable folks might have been worried.
 
Of an evening five or six well-to-do citizens would enter the front room and play at dominoes there. Although Cartier was dead and the Café de Paris had got a queer name, they saw nothing and kept up their old habits. In course of time, the waiter having nothing to do, Melanie dismissed him and made Phrosine light the solitary²¹ gas burner in the corner where the domino players congregated²². Occasionally a party of young men, attracted by the gossip that circulated through the town, would come in, wildly excited and laughing loudly and awkwardly. But they were received there with icy dignity. As a rule they did not even see the widow, and even if she happened to be present she treated them with withering²⁴ disdain²⁵, so that they withdrew, stammering²⁶ and confused. Melanie was too astute²⁷ to indulge in any compromising whims²⁸. While the front room remained obscure, save in the corner where the few townsfolk rattled²⁹ their dominoes, she personally waited on the gentlemen of the divan, showing herself amiable³⁰ without being free, merely venturing in moments of familiarity to lean on the shoulder of one or another of them, the better to watch a skillfully played game of ecarte.
 
One evening the gentlemen of the divan, who had ended by tolerating each other’s presence, experienced a disagreeable surprise on finding Captain Burle at home there. He had casually³¹ entered the cafe that same morning to get a glass of vermouth, so it seemed, and he had found Melanie there. They had conversed³², and in the evening when he returned Phrosine immediately showed him to the inner room.
 
Two days later Burle reigned³³ there supreme³⁴; still he had not frightened the chemist, the vermicelli maker, the lawyer or the retired magistrate away. The captain, who was short and dumpy, worshiped tall, plump women. In his regiment³⁵ he had been nicknamed “Petticoat Burle” on account of his constant philandering³⁶. Whenever the officers, and even the privates, met some monstrous-looking creature, some giantess puffed³⁷ out with fat, whether she were in velvet³⁸ or in rags, they would invariably exclaim, “There goes one to Petticoat Burle’s taste!” Thus Melanie, with her opulent presence, quite conquered him. He was lost—quite wrecked³⁹. In less than a fortnight he had fallen to vacuous⁴⁰ imbecility. With much the expression of a whipped hound in the tiny sunken eyes which lighted up his bloated face, he was incessantly⁴¹ watching the widow in mute adoration⁴² before her masculine features and stubby hair. For fear that he might be dismissed, he put up with the presence of the other gentlemen of the divan and spent his pay in the place down to the last copper⁴³. A sergeant⁴⁴ reviewed the situation in one sentence: “Petticoat Burle is done for; he’s a buried man!”
 
It was nearly ten o’clock when Major Laguitte furiously flung the door of the cafe open. For a moment those inside could see the deluged⁴⁵ square transformed into a dark sea of liquid mud, bubbling under the terrible downpour. The major, now soaked to the skin and leaving a stream behind him, strode up to the small counter where Phrosine was reading a novel.
 
“You little wretch,” he yelled, “you have dared to gammon an officer; you deserve—”
 
And then he lifted his hand as if to deal a blow such as would have felled an ox. The little maid shrank back, terrified, while the amazed domino players looked, openmouthed. However, the major did not linger there—he pushed the divan door open and appeared before Melanie and Burle just as the widow was playfully making the captain sip²³ his grog in small spoonfuls, as if she were feeding a pet canary. Only the ex-magistrate and the chemist had come that evening, and they had retired early in a melancholy⁴⁶ frame of mind. Then Melanie, being in want of three hundred francs for the morrow, had taken advantage of the opportunity to cajole the captain.
 
“Come.” she said, “open your mouth; ain’t it nice, you greedy piggy-wiggy?”
 
Burle, flushing scarlet⁴⁷, with glazed⁴⁸ eyes and sunken figure, was sucking the spoon with an air of intense enjoyment⁴⁹.
 
“Good heavens!” roared the major from the threshold. “You now play tricks on me, do you? I’m sent to the roundabout and told that you never came here, and yet all the while here you are, addling⁵⁰ your silly brains.”
 
Burle shuddered⁵¹, pushing the grog away, while Melanie stepped angrily in front of him as if to shield him with her portly fi............