by Colette
“I don’t know. What’s that to us?”
“Oh, I was just making talk . . .”
He gave a short laugh, but didn’t lie down again right away. The first milk wagon created a carillon of tinkling bottles outside, and he turned imperceptibly in the direction of the avenue. Between the strawberry-colored curtains a cold sliver of early daylight was making its way inside. Chéri turned his eyes toward Léa and examined her with that kind of strength and fixity which makes the gaze of a confused child or a distrustful dog so terrifying. An unfathomable thought arose in the depths of his eyes, whose shape, whose very dark gillyflower hue, and whose glint, either stern or languorous, had only helped him make conquests, but had never helped him show his feelings. His naked torso, broad in the shoulders, slim at the waist, emerged from the crumpled sheets as if from raging surf, and his whole being breathed the melancholy that goes with perfect works of art.
“Oh, you . . . ,” Léa sighed in rapture.
He didn’t smile, accustomed as he was to receive homage unceremoniously.
“Tell me, Nursie . . .”
“Yes, beauty?”
He hesitated, fluttering his eyelids and shivering:
“I’m tired . . . Besides, tomorrow how will you be able . . .”
With a tender shove Léa brought the naked torso and the heavy head back down on the pillow.
“Don’t worry. Lie down. Isn’t Nursie here? Don’t think about a thing. Sleep. You feel cold, I bet . . . Here, take this, it’s warm . . .”
She rolled him up in the silk and wool of a small feminine garment that she took from the bed, and she turned out the light. In the dark she offered him her shoulder, happily made a place for him at her side, and listened to the breathing that matched her own. No desire was troubling her, but she didn’t feel like sleeping. “It’s for him to sleep and for me to think,” she repeated to herself. “As for our departure, I’ll arrange it very skillfully and discreetly; I believe in creating the least amount of noise and unhappiness . . . The South will still be the most pleasant place for us in the spring. If I had only myself to think about, I’d prefer to stay here in peace and quiet. But there’s old lady Peloux and the younger Madame Peloux to consider . . .” The image of a young woman in night attire, standing anxiously by a window, only occupied Léa long enough to make her shrug her shoulders with a cool sense of justice: “I can’t do anything about it. One man’s meat . . .”
Chéri’s silky dark head stirred on her breast, and her slumbering lover lamented in his sleep. With a fierce arm Léa defended him
vais songe, et le berça afin qu’il demeurât longtemps — sans yeux, sans souvenirs et sans desseins, — ressemblant au “nourrisson méchant” qu’elle n’avait pu enfanter.
ÉVEILLÉ depuis un long moment, il se gardait de bouger. La joue sur son bras plié, il tâchait de deviner l’heure. Un ciel pur devait verser sur l’avenue une précoce chaleur, car nulle ombre de nuage ne passait sur le rose ardent des rideaux. “Peut-être dix heures? . . .” La faim le tourmentait, il avait peu dîné la veille. L’an dernier, il eût bondi, bousculé le repos de Léa, poussé des appels féroces pour réclamer le chocolat crémeux et le beurre glacé. . . . Il ne bougea pas. Il craignait, en remuant, d’émietter un reste de joie, un plaisir optique qu’il goûtait au rose de braise des rideaux, aux volutes, acier et cuivre, du lit étincelant dans l’air coloré de la chambre. Son grand bonheur de la veille lui semblait réfugié, fondu et tout petit, dans un reflet, dans l’arc-en-ciel qui dansait au flanc d’un cristal empli d’eau.
Le pas circonspect de Rose frôla le tapis du palier. Un balai prudent nettoyait la cour. Chéri perçut un lointain tintement de porcelaine dans l’office. . . . “Comme c’est long, cette matinée . . . se dit-il. Je vais me lever!” Mais il demeura tout à fait immobile, car Léa derrière lui bâilla, étira ses jambes. Une main douce se posa sur les reins de Chéri, mais il referma les yeux et tout son corps se mit à mentir sans savoir pourquoi, en feignant la mollesse du sommeil. Il sentit que Léa quittait le lit, et la vit passer en silhouette noire devant les rideaux qu’elle écarta à demi. Elle se tourna vers lui, le regarda et hocha la tête, avec un sourire qui n’était point victorieux mais résolu, et qui acceptait tous les périls. Elle ne se pressait pas de quitter la chambre, et Chéri, laissant un fil de lumière entrouvrir ses cils, l’épiait. Il vit qu’elle ouvrait un indicateur des chemins de fer et suivait du doigt des colonnes de chiffres. Puis elle sembla calculer, le visage levé vers le ciel et les sourcils froncés. Pas encore poudrée, une maigre torsade de cheveux sur la nuque, le menton double et le cou dévasté, elle s’offrait imprudemment au regard invisible.
Elle s’éloigna de la fenêtre, prit dans un tiroir son carnet de chèques, libella et détacha plusieurs feuillets. Puis elle disposa sur le pied du lit un pyjama blanc et sortit sans bruit.
against the bad dream, rocking him, so that for a long time—unseeing, void of both memories and purpose—he would remain the “nasty infant” she had been unable to give birth to herself.
AWAKE for some time now, he refrained from moving. His cheek on his folded arm, he was trying to guess the time. A clear sky must have been pouring an unseasonable heat onto the avenue, because not the shadow of a cloud passed over the blazing pink of the curtains. “Ten o’clock, maybe? . . .” He was famished, since he hadn’t eaten much at dinner the evening before. A year earlier, he would have leaped up, ruining Léa’s sleep and uttering ferocious cries for his foaming hot chocolate and chilled butter . . . Now, he didn’t budge. He was afraid that, if he moved around, he might fritter away any remaining joy and the visual pleasure he took in the glowing pink of the curtains and in the steel and copper volutes of the bed that sparkled in the colorful atmosphere of the bedroom. His great happiness of the night before seemed to him to have taken refuge—now shrunken to a tiny size—in a reflection, in the rainbow that was dancing on the side of a water-filled pitcher.
Rose’s cautious tread brushed the carpet on the landing. A circumspect broom was cleaning the courtyard. Chéri discerned a faraway tinkling of porcelain in the butler’s pantry . . . “How long this morning is . . . ,” he said to himself. “I’m going to get up!” But he remained completely motionless, because behind him Léa yawned and stretched out her legs. A soft hand was placed on Chéri’s back, but he shut his eyes again, and his whole body started to live a lie, though he didn’t know why, feigning the lifelessness of sleep. He felt Léa get out of bed, and saw her walking like a dark silhouette over to the curtains, which she opened halfway. She turned in his direction, looked at him, and shook her head with a smile that was not at all victorious, but determined, fully accepting any risk. She wasn’t in a hurry to leave the bedroom, and Chéri, his eyes opened a crack between his lashes, was following her every movement. He saw her open a railroad timetable and run her finger down its columns of figures. Then she seemed to be making a calculation, her face raised skyward and her brow knitted. Not yet powdered, a thin twist of hair on the back of her neck, with a double chin and a ravaged throat, she was unwisely exposing herself to those unseen eyes.
She left the window, took her checkbook out of a drawer, wrote a few checks, and detached them. Then she laid out a pair of white pajamas on the foot of the bed, and went out noiselessly.
Seul, Chéri, en respirant longuement, s’aperçut qu’il avait retenu sa respiration depuis le lever de Léa. Il se leva, revêtit le pyjama et ouvrit une fenêtre. “On étouffe”, souffla-t-il. Il gardait l’impression vague et le malaise d’avoir commis une action assez laide.
“Parce que j’ai fait semblant de dormir? Mais je l’ai vue cent fois, Léa, au saut du lit. Seulement j’ai fait semblant de dormir, cette foisci. . . .”
Le jour éclatant restituait à la chambre son rose de fleur, les tendres nuances du Chaplin blond et argenté riaient au mur. Chéri inclina la tête et ferma les yeux afin que sa mémoire lui rendît la chambre de la veille, mystérieuse et colorée comme l’intérieur d’une pastèque,
le dôme féerique de la lampe, et surtout l’exaltation dont il avait supporté, chancelant, les délices. . . .
“Tu es debout! Le chocolat me suit.”
Il constata avec gratitude qu’en quelques minutes Léa s’était coiffée, délicatement fardée, imprégnée du parfum familier. Le son de la bonne voix cordiale se répandit dans la pièce en même temps qu’un arôme de tartines grillées et de cacao. Chéri s’assit près des deux tasses fumantes, reçut des mains de Léa le pain grassement beurré. Il cherchait quelque chose à dire et Léa ne s’en doutait pas, car elle l’avait connu taciturne à l’ordinaire, et recueilli devant la nourriture. Elle mangea de bon appétit, avec la hâte et la gaieté préocupée d’une femme qui déjeune, ses malles bouclées, avant le train.
“Ta seconde tartine, Chéri. . . .
— Non, merci, Nounoune.
— Plus faim?
— Plus faim.”
Elle le menaça du doigt en riant:
“Toi, tu vas te faire coller deux pastilles de rhubarbe, ça te pend au nez!”
Il fronça le nez, choqué:
“Écoute, Nounoune, tu as la rage de t’occuper de . . .
— Ta ta ta! Ça me regarde. Tire la langue? Tu ne veux pas tirer la langue? Alors essuie tes moustaches de chocolat et parlons peu, mais parlons bien. Les sujets ennuyeux, il faut les traiter vite.”
Elle prit une main de Chéri par-dessus la table et l’enferma dans les siennes.
“Tu es revenu. C’était notre destin. Te fies-tu à moi? Je te prends à ma charge.”
Elle s’interrompit malgré elle, et ferma les yeux, comme pliant sous
Left alone, Chéri took deep breaths, realizing that he had been holding his breath ever since Léa got up. He arose, put on the pajamas, and opened a window. “It’s stifling,” he puffed. He couldn’t shake off the vague, uneasy impression that he had done a rather ugly thing.
“Why did I pretend to be asleep? After all, I’ve seen Léa get out of bed a hundred times. But this time I pretended to be asleep . . .”
The bright daylight gave the room back its flowery pinkness; the pastel hues of the blond and silvery Chaplin portrait were smiling on the wall. Chéri tilted his head and shut his eyes so that his memory could bring the room back to the way it had been the night before, mysterious, with a color like the inside of a watermelon, the magical dome of the lamp, and, above all, the excitement and delight he had staggered under . . .
“You’re up! The chocolate is on its way.”
He noted gratefully that in the last few minutes Léa had done her hair, put on delicate makeup, and doused herself with the perfume he knew so well. The sound of her kindly, cordial voice permeated the room, along with a good smell of toast and cocoa. Chéri sat down next to the two steaming cups, and took the heavily buttered bread from Léa’s hands. He was looking for something to say, though Léa didn’t suspect it, because she had usually found him taciturn and meditative when food was served. She ate with a hearty appetite, with the haste and preoccupied cheerfulness of a woman who has packed her trunks and is having lunch before catching a train.
“Another slice of toast, Chéri . . .”
“No, thanks, Nursie.”
“Not hungry anymore?”
“No.”
She shook a finger at him, laughing:
“You’re just asking for two laxative pastilles, I can see it coming!”
He wrinkled his nose, very upset:
“Listen, Nursie, you’re much too concerned with . . .”
“Ta ta ta! That’s my business. Stick out your tongue. You don’t want to stick out your tongue? Then, wipe off your cocoa mustache, and let’s talk, briefly but seriously. Unpleasant subjects should be discussed rapidly.”
She reached across the table for one of Chéri’s hands and held it in both of hers.
“You’re back. It was our destiny. Do you trust me? I’ll look after you.”
Unwillingly she interrupted her speech, closing her eyes as if she
sa victoire; Chéri vit le sang fougueux illuminer le visage de sa maîtresse.
“Ah! reprit-elle plus bas, quand je pense à tout ce que je ne t’ai pas donné, à tout ce que je ne t’ai pas dit. . . . Quand je pense que je t’ai cru un petit passant comme les autres, un peu plus précieux que les autres. . . . Que j’étais bête, de ne pas comprendre que tu étais mon amour, l’amour, l’amour qu’on n’a qu’une fois. . . .”
Elle rouvrit ses yeux qui parurent plus bleus, d’un bleu retrempé à l’ombre des paupières, et respira par saccades.
“Oh! supplia Chéri en lui-même, qu’elle ne me pose pas une question, qu’elle ne me demande pas une réponse maintenant, je suis incapable d’une seule parole. . . .”
Elle lui secoua la main.
“Allons, allons, soyons sérieux. Donc, je disais: on part, on est partis. Qu’est-ce que tu fais, pour là-bas? Fais régler la question d’argent par Charlotte, c’est le plus sage, et largement, je t’en prie. Tu préviens là-bas, comment? par lettre, j’imagine. Pas commode, mais on s’en tire quand on fait peu de phrases. Nous verrons ça ensemble. Il y a aussi la question de tes bagages, — je n’ai plus rien à toi, ici. . . . Ces petites choses-là c’est plus agaçant qu’une grande décision, mais n’y songe pas trop. . . . Veux-tu bien ne pas arracher toujours tes petites peaux, au bord de l’ongle de ton orteil? C’est avec ces manies-là qu’on attrape un ongle incarné!”
Il laissa retomber son pied machinalement. Son propre mutisme l’écrasait et il était obligé de déployer une attention harassante pour écouter Léa. Il scrutait le visage animé, joyeux, impérieux de son amie, et se demandait vaguement: “Pourquoi a-t-elle l’air si contente?”
Son hébétement devint si évident que Léa, qui maintenant monologuait sur l’opportunité de racheter le yacht du vieux Berthellemy, s’arrêta court:
“Croyez-vous qu’il me donnerait seulement un avis? Ah! tu as bien toujours douze ans, toi!”
Chéri, délié de sa stupeur, passa la main sur son front et enveloppa Léa d’un regard mélancolique.
“Avec toi, Nounoune, il y a des chances pour que j’aie douze ans pendant un demi-siècle.”
Elle cligna des yeux à plusieurs reprises comme s’il lui eût soufflé sur les paupières, et laissa le silence tomber entre eux.
“Qu’est-ce que tu veux dire? demanda-t-elle enfin.
were buckling beneath the weight of her victory; Chéri saw his mistress’s impetuous blood mantling her cheeks.
“Oh,” she resumed in a lower tone, “when I think of all I never gave you, all I never said to you . . . When I think that you seemed to be just a little temporary lover like the rest, though a bit more precious than the rest . . . How stupid I was not to understand that you were the love of my life, my love, the love that comes only once . . .”
She opened her eyes again, and they looked bluer, of a deeper blue in the shadow of her eyelids; she breathed jerkily.
“Oh,” said Chéri beseechingly to himself, “let her not ask me a single question, let her not call for a single answer right now; I couldn’t say even one word . . .”
She shook the hand she was holding.
“Come on, come on, let’s be serious. So, I was saying: we’re leaving, we’re already gone. What will you do to settle things in that other place? Have Charlotte make the financial arrangements, it’s the wisest thing, and generously, please. How will you let the people in that other place know? By letter, I imagine. It’s not easy, but you can manage it if you don’t make any fancy declarations. We’ll work it out together. Then there’s the matter of your belongings—I don’t have anything of yours here anymore . . . These little things are more annoying than a major decision is, but don’t worry about them too much . . . And please don’t always be pulling off the little bits of skin around the nail of your big toe! That’s the kind of tic that leads to an ingrown toenail!”
He let his foot fall mechanically. His own silence was weighing on him, and he had to muster an exhausti
ng attention to listen to Léa. He was scrutinizing his mistress’s animated, joyful, imperious face, and he was wondering vaguely: “Why does she look so happy?”
His dullness of mind became so obvious that Léa, who was now delivering a monologue on the advisability of buying old Berthellemy’s yacht, stopped short:
“Would anyone expect him to give me even an opinion? Oh, you’re always just twelve years old!”
Chéri, freed from his stupor, passed his hand over his forehead, and gave Léa a melancholy glance.
“With you, Nursie, I have every chance of staying twelve years old for half a century.”
She blinked her eyes several times as if he had breathed on her eyelids, and she let a silence fall between them.
“What do you mean?” she asked finally.
— Rien que ce que je dis, Nounoune. Rien que la vérité. Peux-tu la nier, toi qui es un honnête homme?”
Elle prit le parti de rire, avec une désinvolture qui cachait déjà une grande crainte.
“Mais c’est la moitié de ton charme, petite bête, que cet enfantillage! Ce sera plus tard le secret de ta jeunesse sans fin. Et tu t’en plains! . . . Et tu as le toupet de venir t’en plaindre à moi!
— Oui, Nounoune. A qui veux-tu que je m’en plaigne?”
Il lui reprit la main qu’elle avait retirée.
“Ma Nounoune chérie, ma grande Nounoune, je ne fais pas que me plaindre, je t’accuse.”
Elle sentait sa main serrée dans une main ferme. Et les grands yeux sombres aux cils lustrés, au lieu de fuir les siens, s’attachaient à eux misérablement. Elle ne voulut pas trembler encore.
“C’est peu de chose, peu de chose. . . . Il ne faut que deux ou trois paroles bien sèches auxquelles il répondra par quelque grosse injure, puis il boudera et je lui pardonnerai. . . . Ce n’est que cela. . . .” Mais elle ne trouva pas la semonce urgente, qui eût changé l’expression de ce regard.
