A Night in Whitechapel Page #2

"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

								

flash of allurement to her eyes. With her hands crossed on her stomach,
and resting against the front of the public-house, with her whole body
as stiff as if she had been in a state of catalepsy, she had nothing
alluring about her, except her sad smile, and that inspired us with all
the more pity because she was even more drunk than we were, and so, by
identical, spontaneous movement, we each of us seized her by an arm, to
take her into the public-house with us.

To our great astonishment she resisted, sprang back, and so was in the
shadow again, out of the ray of light which came through the door,
while, at the same time, she began to walk through the darkness and to
drag us with her, for she was clinging to our arms. We followed her
without speaking and without knowing where we were going, but without
the least uneasiness on that score. Only, when she suddenly burst into
violent sobs as she walked, Ledantec and I began to sob in unison.

The cold and the fog had suddenly congested our brains again, and we had
again lost all precise consciousness of our acts, of our thoughts and of
our sensations. Our sobs had nothing of grief in them, but we were
floating in an atmosphere of perfect bliss, and I can remember that at
that moment it was no longer the exterior world which seemed to me as if
I were looking at it through the penumbra of an aquarium; it was I
myself, an I composed of three, which was changing into something that
was floating adrift in something, though what it was I did not know,
composed of palpable fog and intangible water, and it was exquisitely
delightful.

From that moment I remember nothing more until what follows, and which
had the effect of a clap of thunder on me, and made me rise up from the
bottom of the depth to which I had descended.

Ledantec was standing in front of me, his face convulsed with horror,
his hair standing on end and his eyes staring out of his head, and he
shouted to me:--

"Let us escape! Let us escape!" Whereupon I opened my eyes wide, and
found myself lying on the ground, in a room into which daylight was
shining. I saw some rags hanging against the wall, two chairs, a broken
jug lying on the floor by my side, and in a corner a wretched bed on
which a woman was lying, who was no doubt dead, for her head was hanging
over the side, and her long white hair reached almost to my feet.

With a bound I was up, like Ledantec.

"What!" I said to him, while my teeth chattered: "Did you kill her?"

"No, no," he replied. "But that makes no difference; let us be off."

I felt completely sober by that time, but I did think that he was still
suffering somewhat from the effects of last night's drunk; otherwise,
why should he wish to escape? while the remains of pity for the
unfortunate woman forced me to say:--

"What is the matter with her? If she is ill, we must look after her."

And I went to the wretched bed, in order to put her head back on the
pillow, but I discovered that she was neither dead nor ill, but only
sound asleep, and I also noticed that she was quite young. She still
wore that idiotic smile, but her teeth were her own and those of a girl.
Her smooth skin and her firm bust showed that she was not more than
sixteen; perhaps not so much.

"There! You see it, you can see it!" Ledantec said. "Let us be off."

He tried to drag me out, and he was still drunk; I could see it by his
feverish movements, his trembling hands and his nervous looks. Then he
implored me and said:--

"I slept beside the old woman; but she is not old. Look at her; look at
her; yes, she is old after all!"

And he lifted up her long hair by handfuls; it was like handfuls of
white silk, and then he added, evidently in a sort of delirium, which
made me fear an attack of delirium tremens: "To think that I have
begotten children, three, four children. Who knows how many children,
all in one night! And they were born immediately, and have grown up
already! Let us be off."

Decidedly it was an attack of madness. Poor Ledantec! What could I do
for him? I took his arm and tried to calm him, but he thought that I was
going to try and make him go to bed with her again, and he pushed me
away and exclaimed with tears in his voice: "If you do not believe me,
look under the bed; the children are there; they are there, I tell you.
Look here, just look here."

He threw himself down, flat on his stomach, and actually pulled out one,
two, three, four children, who had hidden under the bed. I do not
exactly know whether they were boys or girls, but all, like the sleeping
woman, had white hair, the hair of an octogenarian.

Was I still drunk, like Ledantec, or was I mad? What was the meaning of
this strange hallucination? I hesitated for a moment, and shook myself
to be sure that it was I.

No, no, I had all my wits about me, and I in reality saw that horrible
lot of little brats; they all had their faces in their hands, and were
crying and squalling, and then suddenly one of them jumped onto the bed;
all the others followed his example, and the woman woke up.

And then we stood, while those five pairs of eyes, without eyebrows or
eyelashes, eyes with the dull color of pewter, and whose pupils had the
color of red water, were steadily fixed on us.

"Let us be off! let us be off!" Ledantec repeated, leaving go of me, and
at that time I paid attention to what he said, and, after throwing some
small change onto the floor, I followed him, to make him understand,
when he should be quite sober, that he saw before him a poor Albino
prostitute, who had several brothers and sisters.
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