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if he really tried, ridding the air of the superfluous stench of tobacco smoke and sausages, he could probably smell her, too. Smell Marie Kelly. Mesmerized, Andrew gazed at her in admiration, rediscovering in her every gesture what he already knew. In the same way a shell holds the roar of the sea, so this frail-looking body seemed to contain within it a force of nature.
    When the landlady placed the beer on the counter, Andrew realized this was an opportunity he must not waste. He rummaged swiftly in his pockets and paid before she could: “Allow me, miss.” The gesture, as unexpected as it was chivalrous, earned him an openly approving look from Marie Kelly. Being the focus of her gaze paralyzed him. As the painting had already shown, the girl’s eyes were beautiful, and yet they seemed buried beneath a layer of resentment. He could not help comparing her to a poppy field where someone has decided to dump refuse. And yet he was completely, hopelessly enthralled by her, and he tried to make that instant when their eyes crossed as meaningful to her as it was to him, but—and my apologies to any romantic souls reading these lines—some things cannot be expressed in a look. How could Andrew make her share in the almost mystical feeling overwhelming him at that moment? How could he convey, with nothing more than his eyes, the sudden realization that he had been searching for her all his life without knowing it? If in addition we consider that Marie Kelly’s existence up to that point had done little to increase her understanding of life’s subtleties, it should come as no surprise that this initial attempt at spiritual communion (for want of a better way of putting it) was doomed to failure. Andrew did his best, obviously, but the girl understood his passionate gaze just as she interpreted that of the other men who accosted her every evening.
    “Thanks, mister,” she replied with a lewd smile, no doubt from force of habit.
    Andrew nodded, dismissing the significance of a gesture he considered an all-important part of his strategy, then realized with horror that his careful plan had not taken into account how he was to strike up a conversation with the girl once he found her. What did he have to say to her? Or more precisely, what did he have to say to a whore? A Whitechapel whore, at that. He had never bothered speaking much to the Chelsea prostitutes, only enough to discuss positions or the lighting in the room, and with the charming Keller sisters, or his other female acquaintances— young ladies whom it would not do to worry with talk of politics or Darwin’s theories—he only discussed trivia: Paris fashions, botany, and, more recently spiritualism, the latest craze everyone was taking up. But none of these subjects seemed suitable to discuss with the woman, who was hardly likely to want to summon up some spirit to tell her which of her many suitors she would end by marrying. And so he simply stared at her, enraptured. Luckily, Marie Kelly knew a better way of breaking the ice.
    “I know what you want, mister, although you’re too shy to ask,” she said, her grin broadening as she gave his hand a fugitive caress that brought him out in goose pimples. “Thruppence and I can make your dreams come true. Tonight, at any rate.” Andrew gazed at her, shaken: she did not know how right she was. She had been his only dream those past few nights, his deepest longing, his most urgent desire, and now, although he was still scarcely able to believe it, finally he could have her. His whole body tingled with excitement at the mere thought of touching her, of caressing the slender body silhouetted beneath that shabby dress, of bringing forth deep moans from her lips as he was set alight before her eyes, those of a wild animal, a tormented indomitable creature. And yet that tremor of joy rapidly gave way to a profound sadness when he considered the unjust plight of that fallen angel, the ease with which any man could grope