OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

66 MAINLY MAIGRET
front of him. And suddenly he seemed to see her standing there
before him, her body taut under the black dress, the angalar
shoulders, young breasts set so oddly far apart, the sides of her
small nose flecked with tiny freckles.
Her tone had been cold, not to say hostile, when she told him
to go to bed. And yet—! He guessed that he was in her
thoughts all day; he knew that, appearances notwithstanding, it
was she who listened most attentively when he talked about his
home.
"Antoinette!"
He gazed at the empty bed, then at the lamp-switch, and started
sweating again at the mere prospect of the long, dark hours before
him. The stove had settled down to a measured roaring, like the
noise of an express train. Leaning forward, he had a glimpse of his
face in the glass over the wash-basin, and he looked away at once.
When taking off his shirt he carefully avoided touching his neck.
His face had the crumpled look of someone's who is weeping,
but no tears were in his eyes. When at last he was lying in his bed,
in the darkness, he clenched his fists and bit the pillow savagely,
muttering to himself: " Antoinette! "
He was afraid, half crazed with fear, and he strained his ears to
catch the sounds in the kitchen, where the mother and daughter
were still at work.
Then he heard Valesco, in the room above, locking his door,
and, after some moments, a loud creak of the bed as he stretched
himself on it.
VII
His watch had stopped, but Elie judged it must be a little after nine,
for, looking out of his window, he saw the women from the adjoining
houses flocking round a market-gardener's barrow on the far
side of the street. It was a frosty morning, and they kept stamping
their feet; one of them, he noticed, a fair-haired young woman,
had her nose quite blue with cold. While they were pawing the
vegetables in the baskets, the market-gardener put a tin trumpet
to his mouth and blew a long shrill blast—at the first sound of which