Why did the waiter send Varajou where he did?

Question

In Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Wrong House" (available on Project Gutenberg along with all of Guy de Maupassant's short stories), Quartermaster Varajou wishes to find a brothel, and asks a waiter in the local pub in the small town of Vannes:

“The girls, ah! ah!”
“Yes, the girls, where can one find any here?”
“Girls?”
“Why, yes, girls!”
The boy approached and lowering his voice, said: “You want to know where they live?”
“Why, yes, the devil!”
“You take the second street to the left and then the first to the right. It is number fifteen.”

Varajou follows these directions and ends up at

the house of the Judge of the Supreme Court.

Why did the waiter direct him to this house? It seems unlikely to have been a deliberate prank, so presumably the waiter misinterpreted Varajou's request. What did he think he meant? Or did Varajou simply take the wrong turning, going left from the cafe instead of right?

Answer 1

Something got lost in translation here. The word “girls” gives the wrong impression. The French original (from “Une Soirée”) is “demoiselles”, which can refer to any unmarried woman. Read the scene again, but substitute “ladies” for “girls”. Varajou asks the waiter where to have fun, and the waiter's idea of having fun is to sit there and have a drink. Varajou then asks where to meet ladies, and the waiter points him to a house where there are ladies holding reception. Varajou was never explicit about what kind of ladies he's looking for, so the waiter's response is not that unreasonable.

”Supreme Court“ may also give a wrong impression. The master of the house is an important person, and is a judge, but he's the “premier président de Mortemain”. (In modern times, “premier président” means the head judge in an appeals court, I don't know if the structure of courts was exactly the same in Maupassant's time, but it wouldn't have been too different in terms of how to place that person socially.) That means he's a locally important person. The waiter directed Varajou to a house in the neighborhood with (probably marriageable) ladies of good family. For scale: the population of Vannes in 1883 was about 20,000.

The story plays on the opposition between Varajou and the sleepy town of Vannes.

He, himself, was one of those noisy roysterers for whom the greatest pleasures in life are the cafe and abandoned women.

“Abandoned women” is a once again dubious translation of “fille publique” which specifically means a prostitute and not just a “loose woman”. That's in contrast with

the quiet Breton town, so sleepy, so calm, so dead, on the shores of its inland bay that is called “le Morbihan.” He looked at the little gray houses, the occasional pedestrians, the empty stores, and he murmured:

“Vannes is certainly not gay, not lively. It was a sad idea, my coming here.”

In this town, the people playing billiards in the café are experiencing some of the best entertainment there is. From the waiter's point of view, if Varajou is looking for ladies, he must be looking for an evening's pleasant chat with upper-class ladies.

Answer 2

I’m not sure, but here’s a guess.

If we look at the original, we see that the judge is referred to as “le premier président de Mortemain,”

Mais Padoie, saisi soudain d’une colère folle, balbutia:

—Où … où … où nous sommes.... Malheureux … misérable … infâme.... Où nous sommes … Chez monsieur le premier président!… chez monsieur le premier président de Mortemain … de Mortemain … de … de … de … Mortemain.... Ah!… ah!… canaille!… canaille!… canaille!…

I can’t find a real town named Mortemain (perhaps this is the judge who deals with the legal matter of mortmain?), but the fact that this was translated to “judge” makes me think that the author is talking about the président of a Parlement, which office Wikipedia assures me only existed up to the Revolution (meaning the story is set before Maupassant was born, but that’s not impossible, I suppose).

Anyway, during the pre-Revolution period, I believe, “mademoiselle” would have referred to a unmarried woman of quality, which is to say an upper-class woman. “Demoiselle,” which is what Varajou says when the translation says he’s looking for “girls,” would just be any unmarried woman, but of course Varajou means to talk about prostitutes.

But he’s talking to a waiter who might not be so smart:

“Tell me, where does one amuse oneself here?”

The man looked stupid, and replied:

“I do not know, sir. Here, I suppose!”

Or might be elderly and potentially hard of hearing:

“Thank you, old man. There is something for you.”

And who, most importantly, probably speaks very good Breton and very poor French:

The peasants did not understand his explanations, the collector did not understand their line of argument. He spoke French, they spoke Breton, and the clerk who acted as interpreter appeared not to understand either.

So when Varajou says “demoiselles,” the waiter hears “mademoiselles.” And in a small, sleepy town…

He sauntered slowly through the quiet Breton town, so sleepy, so calm, so dead, on the shores of its inland bay that is called “le Morbihan.” He looked at the little gray houses, the occasional pedestrians, the empty stores, and he murmured….

…the only young “ladies” are going to be the daughters of the judge!

No wonder the waiter was confused!