The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa Page A

learn the secret by asking her if,
    besides occasionally deceiving Monsieur Robert Arnoux with me,
    she wasn't also deceiving him with some millionaire thanks to
    whom she could dress in clothes from the great shops and wear
    jewels from the Arabian Nights.
    "If you were my only lover, I'd walk around like a beggar, little
    pissant," she replied, and she wasn't joking.
    But she immediately offered an explanation that seemed perfect,
    though I was certain it was false. The clothes and jewels she wore
    weren't bought but lent by the great modistes along Avenue
    Montaigne and the jewelers on Place Vendome; as a way to publicize
    their creations, they had chic ladies in high society wear them. And
    so because of her social connections, she could dress and adorn
    herself like the most elegant women in Paris. Or did I think that on
    the miserable salary of a French diplomat she'd be able to compete
    with the grandes dames in the City of Light?
    A few weeks after the dance at the Opera, the bad girl called me
    at my office at UNESCO.
    "Robert has to go with the director to Warsaw this weekend," she
    said. "You won the lottery, good boy! I can devote all of Saturday and
    Sunday to you. Let's see what you arrange for me."
    I spent hours thinking about what would surprise and amuse
    her, what odd places in Paris she didn't know, what performances
    were being-offered on Saturday, what restaurant, bar, or bistrot
    might appeal to her because of its originality* or secret, exclusive
    character. Finally, after shuffling through a thousand possibilities
    and discarding all of them, I chose for Saturday morning, if the
    weather was good, an excursion to the Asnieres dog cemetery on a
    tree-filled little island in the middle of the river, and supper at
    Allard, on Rue de Saint-Andre-des-Arts, at the same table where one
    night I had seen Pablo Neruda eating with two spoons, one in each
    hand. To enhance its stature in her eyes, I'd tell Madame Arnoux it
    was the poet's favorite restaurant and invent the dishes he always
    ordered. The idea of spending an entire night with her, making love
    to her, enjoying on my lips the flutter of her "sex of nocturnal
    eyelashes" (a line from Neruda's poem "Material nuptial" that I had
    murmured in her ear the first night we were together in my garret at
    the Hotel du Senat), feeling her fall asleep in my arms, waking on
    Sunday morning with her warm, slim body curled up against mine,
    kept me, for the three or four days I had to wait until Saturday, in a
    state in which hope, joy, and fear that something would frustrate
    our plan barely allowed me to concentrate on my work. The reviewer
    had to correct my translations several times.
    That Saturday was a glorious day. At midmorning, in the new
    Dauphine I had bought the previous month, I drove Madame
    Arnoux to the Asnieres dog cemetery, which she had never seen. We
    spent more than an hour wandering among the graves—not only
    dogs but cats, rabbits, and parrots were buried there—and reading
    the deeply felt, poetic, cheerful, and absurd epitaphs with which
    owners had bid farewell to their beloved animals. She really seemed
    to be having a good time. She smiled and kept her hand in mine, her
    eyes the color of dark honey were lit by the springtime sun, and her
    hair was tousled by a breeze blowing along the river. She wore a
    light, transparent blouse that revealed the top of her breasts, a loose
    jacket that fluttered with her movements, and brick-red high-heeled
    boots. She spent some time contemplating the statue to the
    unknown dog at the entrance, and with a melancholy air lamented
    having "so complicated" a life, otherwise she would adopt a puppy. I
    made a mental note: that would be my gift on her birthday, if I could
    find out when it was.
    I put my arm around her waist, pulled her to me, and said that if
    she decided to leave Monsieur Arnoux and marry me, I'd undertake
    to see that she had a normal life and could raise all the dogs