This was the end of Sophia's romantic adventures in France. Soon afterwards the Germans entered Paris, by mutual1 agreement, and made a point of seeing the Louvre, and departed, amid the silence of a city. For Sophia the conclusion of the siege meant chiefly that prices went down. Long before supplies from outside could reach Paris, the shop-windows were suddenly full of goods which had arrived from the shopkeepers alone knew where. Sophia, with the stock in her cellar, could have held out for several weeks more, and it annoyed her that she had not sold more of her good things while good things were worth gold. The signing of a treaty at Versailles reduced the value of Sophia's two remaining hams from about five pounds apiece to the usual price of hams. However, at the end of January she found herself in possession of a capital of about eight thousand francs, all the furniture of the flat, and a reputation. She had earned it all. Nothing could destroy the structure of her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciably2 older. She wondered often when Chirac would return. She might have written to Carlier or to the paper; but she did not. It was Niepce who discovered in a newspaper that Chirac's balloon had miscarried. At the moment the news did not affect her at all; but after several days she began to feel her loss in a dull sort of way; and she felt it more and more, though never acutely. She was perfectly3 convinced that Chirac could never have attracted her powerfully. She continued to dream, at rare intervals5, of the kind of passion that would have satisfied her, glowing but banked down like a fire in some fine chamber6 of a rich but careful household.
She was speculating upon what her future would be, and whether by inertia7 she was doomed8 to stay for ever in the Rue9 Breda, when the Commune caught her. She was more vexed10 than frightened by the Commune; vexed that a city so in need of repose11 and industry should indulge in such antics. For many people the Commune was a worse experience than the siege; but not for Sophia. She was a woman and a foreigner. Niepce was infinitely12 more disturbed than Sophia; he went in fear of his life. Sophia would go out to market and take her chances. It is true that during one period the whole population of the house went to live in the cellars, and orders to the butcher and other tradesmen were given over the party-wall into the adjoining courtyard, which communicated with an alley13. A strange existence, and possibly perilous14! But the women who passed through it and had also passed through the siege, were not very much intimidated15 by it, unless they happened to have husbands or lovers who were active politicians.
Sophia did not cease, during the greater part of the year 1871, to make a living and to save money. She watched every sou, and she developed a tendency to demand from her tenants16 all that they could pay. She excused this to herself by ostentatiously declaring every detail of her prices in advance. It came to the same thing in the end, with this advantage, that the bills did not lead to unpleasantness. Her difficulties commenced when Paris at last definitely resumed its normal aspect and life, when all the women and children came back to those city termini which they had left in such huddled17, hysterical18 throngs19, when flats were re-opened that had long been shut, and men who for a whole year had had the disadvantages and the advantages of being without wife and family, anchored themselves once more to the hearth20. Then it was that Sophia failed to keep all her rooms let. She could have let them easily and constantly and at high rents; but not to men without encumbrances21. Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants in pretty hats, or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room on condition that they might offer hospitality to a dashing petticoat. It was useless to proclaim aloud that her house was 'serious.' The ambition of the majority of these joyous22 persons was to live in a 'serious' house, because each was sure that at bottom he or she was a 'serious' person, and quite different from the rest of the joyous world. The character of Sophia's flat, instead of repelling23 the wrong kind of aspirant24, infallibly drew just that kind. Hope was inextinguishable in these bosoms25. They heard that there would be no chance for them at Sophia's; but they tried nevertheless. And occasionally Sophia would make a mistake, and grave unpleasantness would occur before the mistake could be rectified26. The fact was that the street was too much for her. Few people would credit that there was a serious boarding-house in the Rue Breda. The police themselves would not credit it. And Sophia's beauty was against her. At that time the Rue Breda was perhaps the most notorious street in the centre of Paris; at the height of its reputation as a warren of individual improprieties; most busily creating that prejudice against itself which, over thirty years later, forced the authorities to change its name in obedience27 to the wish of its tradesmen. When Sophia went out at about eleven o'clock in the morning with her reticule to buy, the street was littered with women who had gone out with reticules to buy. But whereas Sophia was fully4 dressed, and wore headgear, the others were in dressing-gown and slippers28, or opera-cloak and slippers, having slid directly out of unspeakable beds and omitted to brush their hair out of their puffy eyes. In the little shops of the Rue Breda, the Rue Notre Dame29 de Lorette, and the Rue des Martyrs30, you were very close indeed to the primitive31 instincts of human nature. It was wonderful; it was amusing; it was excitingly picturesque32; and the universality of the manners rendered moral indignation absurd. But the neighbourhood was certainly not one in which a woman of Sophia's race, training, and character, could comfortably earn a living, or even exist. She could not fight against the entire street. She, and not the street, was out of place and in the wrong. Little wonder that the neighbours lifted their shoulders when they spoke33 of her! What beautiful woman but a mad Englishwoman would have had the idea of establishing herself in the Rue Breda with the intention of living like a nun34 and compelling others to do the same?
By dint35 of continual ingenuity36, Sophia contrived37 to win somewhat more than her expenses, but she was slowly driven to admit to herself that the situation could not last.
Then one day she saw in Galignani's Messenger an advertisement of an English pension for sale in the Rue Lord Byron, in the Champs Elysees quarter. It belonged to some people named Frensham, and had enjoyed a certain popularity before the war. The proprietor38 and his wife, however, had not sufficiently39 allowed for the vicissitudes40 of politics in Paris. Instead of saving money during their popularity they had put it on the back and on the fingers of Mrs. Frensham. The siege and the Commune had almost ruined them. With capital they might have restored themselves to their former pride; but their capital was exhausted41. Sophia answered the advertisement. She impressed the Frenshams, who were delighted with the prospect42 of dealing43 in business with an honest English face. Like many English people abroad they were most strangely obsessed44 by the notion that they had quitted an island of honest men to live among thieves and robbers. They always implied that dishonesty was unknown in Britain. They offered, if she would take over the lease, to sell all their furniture and their renown45 for ten thousand francs. She declined, the price seeming absurd to her. When they asked her to name a price, she said that she preferred not to do so. Upon entreaty46, she said four thousand francs. They then allowed her to see that they considered her to have been quite right in hesitating to name a price so ridiculous. And their confidence in the honest English face seemed to have been shocked. Sophia left. When she got back to the Rue Breda she was relieved that the matter had come to nothing. She did not precisely47 foresee what her future was to be, but at any rate she knew she shrank from the responsibility of the Pension Frensham. The next morning she received a letter offering to accept six thousand. She wrote and declined. She was indifferent and she would not budge48 from four thousand. The Frenshams gave way. They were pained, but they gave way. The glitter of four thousand francs in cash, and freedom, was too tempting49.
Thus Sophia became the proprietress of the Pension Frensham in the cold and correct Rue Lord Byron. She made room in it for nearly all her other furniture, so that instead of being under-furnished, as pensions usually are, it was over-furnished. She was extremely timid at first, for the rent alone was four thousand francs a year; and the prices of the quarter were alarmingly different from those of the Rue Breda. She lost a lot of sleep. For some nights, after she had been installed in the Rue Lord Byron about a fortnight, she scarcely slept at all, and she ate no more than she slept. She cut down expenditure50 to the very lowest, and frequently walked over to the Rue Breda to do her marketing51. With the aid of a charwoman at six sous an hour she accomplished52 everything. And though clients were few, the feat53 was in the nature of a miracle; for Sophia had to cook.
The articles which George Augustus Sala wrote under the title "Paris herself again" ought to have been paid for in gold by the hotel and pension-keepers of Paris. They awakened54 English curiosity and the desire to witness the scene of terrible events. Their effect was immediately noticeable. In less than a year after her adventurous55 purchase, Sophia had acquired confidence, and she was employing two servants, working them very hard at low wages. She had also acquired the landlady56's manner. She was known as Mrs. Frensham. Across the balconies of two windows the Frenshams had left a gilded57 sign, "Pension Frensham," and Sophia had not removed it. She often explained that her name was not Frensham; but in vain. Every visitor inevitably58 and persistently59 addressed her according to the sign. It was past the general comprehension that the proprietress of the Pension Frensham might bear another name than Frensham. But later there came into being a class of persons, habitues of the Pension Frensham, who knew the real name of the proprietress and were proud of knowing it, and by this knowledge were distinguished60 from the herd61. What struck Sophia was the astounding62 similarity of her guests. They all asked the same questions, made the same exclamations63, went out on the same excursions, returned with the same judgments64, and exhibited the same unimpaired assurance that foreigners were really very peculiar65 people. They never seemed to advance in knowledge. There was a constant stream of explorers from England who had to be set on their way to the Louvre or the Bon Marche.
Sophia's sole interest was in her profits. The excellence66 of her house was firmly established. She kept it up, and she kept the modest prices up. Often she had to refuse guests. She naturally did so with a certain distant condescension67. Her manner to guests increased in stiff formality; and she was excessively firm with undesirables68. She grew to be seriously convinced that no pension as good as hers existed in the world, or ever had existed, or ever could exist. Hers was the acme69 of niceness and respectability. Her preference for the respectable rose to a passion. And there were no faults in her establishment. Even the once despised showy furniture of Madame Foucault had mysteriously changed into the best conceivable furniture; and its cracks were hallowed.
She never heard a word of Gerald nor of her family. In the thousands of people who stayed under her perfect roof, not one mentioned Bursley nor disclosed a knowledge of anybody that Sophia had known. Several men had the wit to propose marriage to her with more or less skilfulness70, but none of them was skilful71 enough to perturb72 her heart. She had forgotten the face of love. She was a landlady. She was THE landlady: efficient, stylish73, diplomatic, and tremendously experienced. There was no trickery, no baseness of Parisian life that she was not acquainted with and armed against. She could not be startled and she could not be swindled.
Years passed, until there was a vista74 of years behind her. Sometimes she would think, in an unoccupied moment, "How strange it is that I should be here, doing what I am doing!" But the regular ordinariness of her existence would instantly seize her again. At the end of 1878, the Exhibition Year, her Pension consisted of two floors instead of one, and she had turned the two hundred pounds stolen from Gerald into over two thousand.
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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appreciably
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| adv.相当大地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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intimidated
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| v.恐吓；威胁adj.害怕的；受到威胁的 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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throngs
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| n.人群( throng的名词复数 )v.成群，挤满( throng的第三人称单数 ) | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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encumbrances
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| n.负担( encumbrance的名词复数 )；累赘；妨碍；阻碍 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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repelling
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| v.击退( repel的现在分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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aspirant
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| n.热望者；adj.渴望的 | |
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bosoms
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| 胸部( bosom的名词复数 )； 胸怀； 女衣胸部（或胸襟）； 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
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rectified
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| [医]矫正的，调整的 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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renown
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| n.声誉，名望 | |
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entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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budge
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| v.移动一点儿；改变立场 | |
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tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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54
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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exclamations
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| n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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undesirables
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| 不受欢迎的人，不良分子( undesirable的名词复数 ) | |
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acme
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| n.顶点，极点 | |
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skilfulness
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| 巧妙 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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perturb
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| v.使不安，烦扰，扰乱，使紊乱 | |
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stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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