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Maison close (brothel) in Paris, about 1930 (Keystone photo).

Source:
Cliosoft: l'Histoire en ligne: Prostituées et prostitution à travers les ages (History online: Prostitutes and prostitution through the ages):
Click here to view source.

Gaito Gazdanov's Paris / 38

Alice

Raldi shot me a penetrating look:

“You never wanted to sleep with me, that’s understandable. But I hope you won’t refuse my friend? You know there’d be nothing to pay.”

I shook my head.

“The more I know you, the more I’m convinced that you’re not normal,” she sighed. “Tell me how you are. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

But I couldn’t take my eyes off Alice – that was her name. A quarter of an hour later I saw her completely naked in Raldi’s room: she changed her clothes in my presence. I could never imagine a body more perfect.

[….]

“She’s so beautiful,” I admitted to Raldi a few days later, “that the sight of her alone is worth a fortune.”

Raldi smiled in her usual way, half tender, half mocking, and declared that without her, Raldi, Alice would never be anything more than a streetwalker, but that she was going to make her a courtesan.

But for this, she added, Alice lacked many essentials, above all intelligence and vivacity.

“Do you think so? It seems to me that her looks alone…”

“Haven’t you ever considered that pretty women are plentiful, but that only one in a thousand succeeds in life? Beauty alone is not enough. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes. But I feel sorry for her. Do you think it's worth expending your knowledge and experience to turn this beautiful girl into a demimondaine? In your opinion, doesn’t she deserve better?”

“Certainly not. I’m very doubtful that she deserves even this. But if I succeed she won’t forget me.

“I’ll have a warm room and a livelihood without having to work for the rest of my days. Because everything she’ll have, she’ll owe to me.”

But in this Raldi was mistaken. [105-107]