“It is a paying business,” and he sends his daughter to keep a harem of fast girls, just as he would send her to keep a girls’ school.

She had inherited the house from an old uncle, to whom it had belonged. Monsieur and Madame, who had formerly been inn-keepers near Yvetot, had immediately sold their house, as they thought that the business at Fecamp was more profitable, and they arrived one fine morning to assume the direction of the enterprise, which was declining on account of the absence of the proprietors, who were good people enough in their way, and who soon made themselves liked by their staff and their neighbors.

Monsieur died of apoplexy two years later, for as his new profession kept him in idleness and without any exercise, he had grown excessively stout, and his health had suffered.  Since she had been a widow, all the frequenters of the establishment had wanted her; but people said that personally she was quite virtuous, and even the girls in the house could not discover anything against her.  She was tall, stout and affable, and her complexion, which had become pale in the dimness of her house, the shutters of which were scarcely ever opened, shone as if it had been varnished.  She had a fringe of curly, false hair, which gave her a juvenile look, that contrasted strongly with the ripeness of her figure.  She was always smiling and cheerful, and was fond of a joke, but there was a shade of reserve about her, which her new occupation had not quite made her lose.  Coarse words always shocked her, and when any young fellow who had been badly brought up, called her establishment by its right name, she was angry and disgusted.

In a word, she had a refined mind, and although she treated her women as friends, yet she very frequently used to say that “she and they were not made of the same stuff.”

Sometimes during the week, she would hire a carriage and take some of her girls into the country, where they used to enjoy themselves on the grass by the side of the little river.  They were like a lot of girls let out from a school, and used to run races, and play childish games.  They had a cold dinner on the grass, and drank cider, and went home at night with a delicious feeling of fatigue, and in the carriage they kissed Madame as their kind mother, who was full of goodness and complaisance.

The house had two entrances.  At the corner there was a sort of low cafe, which sailors and the lower orders frequented at night, and she had two girls whose special duty it was to attend to that part of the business.  With the assistance of the waiter, whose name was Frederic, and who was a short, light-haired, beardless fellow, as strong as a horse, they set the half bottles of wine and the jugs of beer on the shaky marble tables, and then, sitting astride on the customer’s knees, they urged them to drink.