on
and on, her eyes rather wandering, brilliant, her tongue untied, and
her light ideas rolling themselves out endlessly like the blue
telegraph-paper which is moved on without stopping by the bobbin and
which keeps extending its length to the click of the electric
apparatus which covers it with unknown words.

"From time to time she asked me:

"'Am I tipsy?'

"'No, not yet.'

"And she went on drinking.

"She was so in a little while, not so tipsy as to lose her senses, but
tipsy enough to tell the truth, as it seemed to me.

"To her confidences as to her emotions while a young girl succeeded
more intimate confidences as to her relations with her husband. She
made them to me without restraint till she wearied me with them, under
this pretext, which she repeated a hundred times: 'I can surely tell
everything to you. To whom could I tell everything if it were not to
you?' So I was made acquainted with all the habits, all the defects,
all the fads and the most secret fancies of her husband.

"And by way of claiming my approval she asked: 'Isn't he a flat? Do
you think he has taken a feather out of me? eh? So, the first time I
saw you, I said to myself: "Let me see! I like him, and I'll take him
for my lover." It was then you began mashing me.'

"I must have presented an odd face to her eyes at that moment, for she
could see it, tipsy though she was; and with great outbursts of
laughter, she exclaimed: 'Ah! you big simpleton, you did go about it
cautiously; but, when men pay attention to us, you dear blockhead, you
see we like it, and then they must make quick work of it, and not keep
us waiting. A man must be a ninny not to understand, by a mere glance
at us, that we mean "Yes." Ah! I believe I was waiting for you, you
stupid! I did not know what to do in order to make you see that I was
in a hurry. Oh! yes, flowers, verses, compliments, more verses, and
nothing else at all! I was very near letting you go, my fine fellow,
you were so long in making up your mind. And only to think that half
the men in the world are like you, while the other half, ha! ha! ha!'

"This laugh of hers sent a cold shiver down my back. I stammered: 'The
other half--what about the other half?'

"She still went on drinking, her eyes steeped in the fumes of
sparkling wine, her mind impelled by the imperious necessity for
telling the truth which sometimes takes possession of drunkards.

"She replied: 'Ah! the other half makes quick work