A Night in Whitechapel

"A Night in Whitechapel" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant that immerses readers in the gritty atmosphere of London’s East End during the era of Jack the Ripper. The narrative follows a young man who becomes captivated by a mysterious woman he encounters in the shadowy alleys of Whitechapel. As the night unfolds, themes of desire, danger, and the human condition are explored, culminating in a suspenseful and thought-provoking conclusion. Maupassant's keen observational style and psychological depth offer a compelling glimpse into the darker side of society.

• Short story

								
My friend Ledantec and I were twenty-five and we had come to London for
the first time in our lives. It was a Saturday evening in December, cold
and foggy, and I think that all that combined is more than enough to
explain why my friend Ledantec and I were most abominably drunk, though,
to tell the truth, we did not feel any discomfort from it. On the
contrary, we were floating in an atmosphere of perfect bliss. We did not
speak, certainly, for we were incapable of doing so, but then we had no
inclination for conversation. What would be the good of it? We could so
easily read all our thoughts in each others eyes! And all our thoughts
consisted in the sweet and unique knowledge, that we were thinking about
nothing whatever.

It was not, however, in order to arrive at that state of delicious,
intellectual nihility, thai we had gone to mysterious Whitechapel. We
had gone into the first public-house we saw, with the firm intention of
studying manners and customs,--not to mention morals,--there as
spectators, artists and philosophers, but in the second public-house we
entered, we ourselves became like the objects of our investigations,
that is to say, sponges soaked in alcohol. Between one public-house and
the other, the outer air seemed to squeeze those sponges, which then got
just as dry as before, and thus we rolled from public-house to
public-house, until at last the sponges could not hold any more.

Consequently, we had for some time bidden farewell to our studies in
morals, and now they were limited to two impressions: zig-zags through
the darkness outside, and a gleam of light outside the public-houses. As
to the inhibition of brandies, whiskies and gins, that was done
mechanically, and our stomachs scarcely noticed it.

But what strange beings we had elbowed with during our long stoppages!
What a number of faces to be remembered, what clothes, what attitudes,
what talk and what rags!

At first we tried to note them exactly in our memory, but there were so
many of them, and our brain got mixed so quickly, that at present we had
no very clear recollection of anything or anybody. Even objects that
were immediately before us appeared to us in a vague, dusky
phantasmagoria and got confounded with precious objects in an
inextricable manner. The world became a sort of kaleidoscope to us, seen
in a dream through the penumbra of an aquarium.

Suddenly we were aroused from this state of somnolence, awakened as if
by a blow in the chest, and imperiously forced to fix our attention on
what we saw, for amidst this whirl of strange sights, one stranger than
all attracted our eyes and seemed to say to us: "Look at me."

It was at the open door of a public-house. A ray of light streamed into
the street through the half-open door, and that brutal ray fell right
onto the specter that had just risen up there, dumb and motionless.

For it was indeed a specter, pitiful and terrible, and, above all, most
real, as it stood out boldly against the dark background of the street,
which it made darker still behind it!

Young, yes; the woman was certainly young; there could be no doubt about
that, when one looked at her smooth skin, her smiling mouth which showed
her white teeth, and firm bust which could be plainly noted under her
thin dress.

But then, how explain her perfectly white hair, not gray or growing
gray, but absolutely white, as white as any octogenarian's?

And then her eyes, her eyes beneath her smooth brow, were surely the
eyes of an old woman? Certainly they were, and of a woman one could not
tell how old, for it must have taken years of trouble and sorrow, of
tears and of sleepless nights, and a whole long existence, thus to dull,
to wear out and to roughen those vitreous pupils.

Vitreous? Not exactly that. For roughened glass still retains a dull and
milky brightness, a recollection, as it were, of its former
transparency. But her eyes seemed rather to have been made of metal,
which had turned rusty, and really if pewter could rust I should have
compared them to pewter covered with rust. They had the dead color of
pewter, and at the same time, they emitted a glance which was the color
of reddish water.

But it was not until some time later that I tried to define them thus
approximately by retrospective analysis. At that moment, being
altogether incapable of such an effort, I could only establish in my own
mind the idea of extreme decrepitude and horrible old age, which they
produced in my imagination.

Have I said that they were set in very puffy eyelids, which had no
lashes whatever, and on her forehead without wrinkles there was not a
vestige of eyebrow? When I tell you this, and considering their dull
look beneath the hair of an octogenarian, it is not surprising that
Ledantec and I said in a low voice at the sight of this woman, who was
evidently young:

"Oh! poor, poor old woman!"

Her great age was further accentuated by the terrible poverty that was
revealed by her dress. If she had been better dressed, her youthful
looks would, perhaps, have struck us more, but her thin shawl, which was
all that she had over her chemise, her single petticoat which was full
of holes, and almost in rags, and which did not nearly reach to her bare
feet, her straw hat with ragged feathers and with ribbons of no
particular color through age, it all seemed so ancient, so prodigiously
antique!

From what remote superannuated, abolished period did they all spring?
One did not venture to guess, and by a perfectly natural association of
ideas, one seemed to infer that the unfortunate creature herself, was as
old as her clothes were. Now, by one, I mean by Ledantec and myself,
that is to say, by two men who were abominably drunk and who were
arguing with the special logic of intoxication.

It was also under the softening influence of alcohol that we looked at
the vague smile on those lips with the teeth of a child, without
stopping to reflect on the beauty of those youthful teeth, and seeing
nothing except her fixed and almost idiotic smile, which no longer
contrasted with the dull expression of her looks, but, on the contrary,
strengthened them. For in spite of her teeth, it was the smile of an old
woman in our imagination, and as for me, I was really pleased at the
thought of being so acute when I inferred that this grandmother with
such pale lips, had the set of teeth of a young girl, and still, thanks
to the softening influence of alcohol, I was not angry with her for this
artifice. I even thought it particularly praiseworthy, since, after all,
the poor creature thus carried out her calling conscientiously, which
was to seduce us. For there was no possible doubt about the matter, that
this grandmother was nothing more nor less than a prostitute.

And then, drunk! Horribly drunk, much more drunk than Ledantec and I
were, for we really could manage to say: "Oh! Pity the poor, poor old
woman!" While she was incapable of articulating a single syllable, of
making a gesture, or even of imparting a gleam of promise, a furtive

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