by Colette
Yesterday, as I passed through the hall, I caught the four little Meider girls in pinafores, carefully smoothing out a crumpled number of La Vie en rose with their grubby hands. The four little Meider girls will learn French from it – and something else into the bargain.
No, it was not Madame Meider. They were speaking French . . . Why, it was Marthe! Marthe who had come to inquire after me: I had not expected such devoted solicitude! Marthe’s voice and a man’s. Léon? No.
Half-undressed, sitting on my bed with my legs dangling over the edge, I strained my ears to hear but I could not manage to. The ether was still buzzing, faintly, in my ears . . .
My chignon was coming down. A tortoiseshell hairpin slid down the nape of my neck, soft and cold as a little snake. Whatever must I have looked like, with my bodice undone and my skirt pulled up showing my dusky skin and my shoes still on my feet! The greenish mirror reflected my ravaged face – pallid lips; glazed eyes, puckered at the outer corners, with purple shadows under them like bruises . . . But whoever was that talking in Marthe’s bedroom?
There was an incessant murmur of voices, punctuated now and then by a loud laugh or by an ejaculation from my sister-in-law . . . Definitely, a very peculiar kind of conversation . . .
Suddenly there was a shriek! A man’s voice let out an oath, then Marthe’s voice exclaimed irritably: ‘Keep your foot still, can’t you?’
Shocked to the core, for Marthe had used the familiar tu which she never used to her husband, I did up my blouse with trembling hands and pulled down my skirt as if someone had suddenly come into the room. My clumsy fingers kept ineffectively sticking the same pin into my hair a dozen times without making it stay up . . . Whoever could it be behind that wall, alone with Marthe?
There was complete silence now. What ought I to do? Suppose the man had hurt Marthe? Ah, how I wished he had done her some physical injury, that he had been a thief, a prowler armed with a knife, for now I was imagining all sorts of things more revolting than any crime going on behind that door. I wanted to see, I wanted to know . . .
I grabbed the handle and pushed the door open with all my might, one hand put up to shield my face as if I were afraid someone was going to hit me.
What I saw, without fully taking it in at first, was Marthe’s milky-white back and her plump shoulders naked above her pulled-down chemise. Then I realized, to my horror, she was sitting on Maugis’ knees. Maugis, scarlet in the face, was slumped in an armchair . . . apparently fully dressed. Marthe screamed, then leapt to her feet revealing the disarray of that loathsome man with her.
Planted there squarely in front of me, in a pair of long linen drawers with voluminous, frilly legs, with her white face and her wobbling red chignon, she irresistibly suggested a female clown at a carnival. But what a tragic clown, paler than the traditional flour could make her, her eyes dilated and deadly! I stood there, unable to speak.
Maugis found his tongue first. He said in a caddishly flippant way:
‘Come on, Marthe, now the kid’s caught us out, we might as well finish our little orgy . . . What’s the risk?’
With a curt nod, she showed him the door. Then she bore down on me and pushed me into my room so roughly that I staggered and nearly fell.
‘What are you doing here? Did you follow us?’
‘Good heavens, no!’
‘You’re lying!’
I straightened myself up and dared to look her in the face.
‘No, I’m not lying. I had a migraine and I came home. I gave something to the man at the door so that he’d let me through. I . . . .’
Marthe laughed, without opening her mouth, as if she had hiccups.
‘Ah, so you know that dodge too . . . the mark to the man at the door? You’re ripe for the big stuff now, Alain had better watch out . . . I admit your migraine, but why the hell did you come bursting into my bedroom?’
How bold a woman can be! This one was back in her element, she was once again the indomitable little flame-thrower on the barricade. With her hands on her hips, she would have braved an army, with the same white face, the same hard, unflinching eyes . . .
‘Are you going to talk? What do you expect to get for running off to Léon to tell him he’s a cuckold?’
I blushed, both at the word and at the suspicion.
‘I shan’t do that, Marthe. You know that quite well.’
She stared at me for a moment, her eyebrows raised.
‘Nobility of soul? No. I can’t swallow that. More likely a trick, to keep a hold on me for the rest of my life. You can get rid of that notion. I’d rather go and tell that other imbecile myself.’
I made a gesture of weary impatience.
‘You don’t understand me. It isn’t only the . . . the thing itself that shocks me . . . it’s your choosing that cad . . . Oh, Marthe, that man of all men . . .’
That wounded her, and she bit her lip. Then she shrugged her shoulders, with a gesture at once sad and cynical.
‘Yes, yes. You’re another of those simpletons for whom adultery . . . a conventional word you like, eh? . . . ought to be hidden in bowers of flowers, and to be ennobled by passion, by the beauty of the lovers, by their oblivion of the world . . . There, there, my poor girl, keep your illusions! Personally I’ll keep my own particular worries and my own particular tastes . . . That cad, as you call him, possesses among other qualities an open purse, a kind of lewd wit I rather enjoy, and the tact to ignore jealousy. He smells of the bar? Maybe he does. Even so, I much prefer that smell to Léon’s – he smells of cold veal.’
As if suddenly exhausted, she collapsed on a chair.
‘Everyone hasn’t the luck to sleep with Alain, my dear. In fact it’s a privilege reserved to a small number of females . . . whom I don’t envy all that much.’
What was she going to say next? She flashed me a malicious smile before adding:
‘Anyway, without wishing to be unjust to him, that delicious brother of mine must be a rotten lover. “Toc, toc, that’s that. See you again soon, dear lady.” Eh?’
I turned away my head; there were tears in my eyes. Marthe swiftly hooked up her dress, pinned on her hat and went on talking in a dry, feverish voice:
‘. . . So I can’t understand why Valentine Chessenet was crazy about him for so long . . . considering she’s an expert in men . . .’
It was indeed the name I was dreading. But I too was brave in my own way; I waited for what was to come without flinching.
My sister-in-law put on her gloves, grabbed her parasol and opened the door.
‘Eighteen months, my dear, eighteen months of letter-writing and regular meetings. Twice a week . . . as regularly as a piano lesson.’
I stroked the little bull-terrier with a hand that had gone quite cold. Marthe lowered the veil of a hat entirely covered with roses, licked the superfluous rouge off her lips and studied me covertly in the glass. But I made sure she saw nothing.
‘Was it a long time ago, Marthe? I certainly heard plenty of rumours but nothing very precise.’
‘A long time ago? Yes, quite a long time. It’s been over since last Christmas . . . so I’m told. Nearly eight months – it’s ancient history . . . Farewell, noble soul!’
She slammed the door. She was undoubtedly telling herself: ‘I’ve hit back. A good, telling blow! Let Annie talk now if she likes! I’ve had my revenge in advance.’
She did not know that what she thought was a mortal blow had been dealt not at a person but only at her empty garment.
When she had gone, I felt utterly exhausted, physically and mentally. Every muscle in my body was stiff and aching; my mind was a whirling fog in which depression, the shame and shock of what I had seen, the inability to decide what I ought to do, all mingled together in wearying confusion. At last I was clearly conscious of one thing – the impossibility of seeing Marthe every day, every hour, without seeing the odious face of that gross, almost fully clothed man beside her insolent grace . . . Was that adultery and could one belie
ve that what they were doing bore any resemblance to love? Alain’s brief, monotonous love-making did not soil me as much as that, and, thank God, if I had to choose . . . But I did not want to choose.
Neither did I want to stay on here, even though I would not hear Tristan, and not see Claudine again . . . Good-bye, elusive Claudine! For, ever since that troubled hour when she guessed so much of my misery, when I felt so close to loving her, Claudine has avoided any occasion of seeing me alone and smiles at me from a distance as if at some place she were sorry to leave.
No, I must look for some other way out! The summer was nearly over. For the first time, I realized that Alain would soon be embarking on his return voyage and I childishly pictured him loaded with great sacks of gold, red gold like his hair . . .
A paragraph from his last letter came back to my mind: ‘I have noticed, my dear Annie, that certain of the women in this country resemble you in type. The most pleasing of them have, like you, long, heavy black hair, beautiful thick eyelashes, smooth brown skins, and the same taste for idleness and day-dreaming. But the climate here explains and excuses these tendencies of theirs. Perhaps living here might have altered many things between us . . .’
What! Could that clear-cut, positive mind become hazy too? Was he confusedly thinking of revising and modifying our . . . our ‘timetable’? Mercy, how many more changes, surprises, disillusions! I was weary at the prospect of having to begin my life all over again. Some clean, quiet corner; new faces which conveyed nothing to me of what was going on behind them . . . that was all, absolutely all, I wanted!
With a great effort, I got up and went off to look for my maid . . . I found her in the kitchen, surrounded by the four ecstatic little Meiders to whom she was singing in a robust baritone voice:
‘I lov-er yew with love so trew
Night and day, I dream of yew . . .’
‘Léonie, I want you to pack my things. I’m leaving at once.’
She followed me, too dumbfounded to answer. The four little Meiders would never know the end of that waltz . . .
Cantankerously, she dived into my trunk.
‘Am I to pack Madame Léon’s trunk too?’
‘No, no I’m leaving alone, with you and Toby.’ I added nervously: ‘I’ve received a telegram.’
Léonie’s back expressed complete disbelief.
‘You’ll take a cab to the station with the luggage as soon as you’re ready. I’ll meet you there with the dog.’
I was so terrified they would return! I kept glancing every minute at my watch. For once I blessed those interminable performances. At least they would cover my escape.
I paid my bill without looking at it and left an enormous tip that made the four little girls in pinafores jump for joy. The Franconians have no false pride!
At last, there I was alone with Toby, wearing his leather and badger-hair travelling collar. His little black face followed my every movement; he understood and sat patiently waiting, his metal lead trailing on the carpet. I had still a quarter of an hour to spare. I wrote a hurried note to Marthe and sealed it in an envelope. ‘I’m leaving for Paris. Make whatever explanation you like to Léon.’
My heart was heavy at the thought of how alone I was in the world. I would like to have left a more affectionate farewell message to someone . . . but to whom? Suddenly, I thought I knew.
My dear Claudine,
Something unexpected forces me to leave immediately. It’s a very upsetting, very hurried departure. But don’t go and suppose some accident has happened to Alain or Marthe – or to me. I am leaving because everything here oppresses me. Bayreuth is not far enough from Arriège, nor Arriège far enough from Paris, to which I am returning.
You have made me see only too clearly that where there is no great love there is only mediocrity or misery. I do not know yet what remedy I shall find: I am going away to make a change, and to wait.
Perhaps you could have kept me here, you who radiate faith and tenderness. But, ever since the Margravine’s garden, you no longer seem to want to. No doubt you are justified. It is right that you should keep that flame that you warmed me with for a moment whole and intact for Renaud.
At least write me a letter – just one letter. Comfort me and tell me, even if you have to lie, that my misery is not beyond all alleviation. For the thought of Alain’s return fills me with such troubled apprehension that even hope seems dim and unreal to me.
Good-bye . . . give me some advice. Let me lay my head, in spirit, on your shoulder as I did in the Margravine’s garden.
Annie
NINE
IT WAS ELEVEN in the morning when I arrived in Paris. It looked arid and dejected as Paris always does at the end of summer. I felt empty and sick: I seemed to have come back from the other end of the world with only one desire, to lie down on the spot and go to sleep. Leaving Léonie to struggle with the Customs, I fled straight home in a cab . . .
When it stopped outside the house, the concierge, out of uniform and in shirtsleeves, came out on the doorstep with his wife, my cook. Her mottled cheeks turned streaky white and red at the sight of me . . . Absent-mindedly, I read on their dull faces surprise, embarrassment, and the offended dignity of correct servants confronted with someone who has behaved incorrectly . . .
‘It’s Madame! . . . But we never received Madame’s telegram!’
‘That’s because I didn’t send one.’
‘Ah, that’s what I said too . . . Monsieur is not with Madame?’
‘Obviously not. Get me some lunch as soon as possible . . . Anything will do . . . some eggs, a cutlet . . . Léonie’s following on with the luggage.’
I walked slowly up the stairs, followed by the concierge who hastily put on a green livery coat with tarnished buttons. I stared, feeling like a stranger, at this little house Alain had insisted on buying . . . Personally, I had not wanted it in the least. But my opinion had not been asked . . . Nevertheless, I think that, below a certain price, a small town house is more commonplace and more uncomfortable than a flat . . .
What did all that matter now? I felt as indifferent as if I were a traveller arriving at a hotel. There were dirty finger-marks on the white door of my bedroom . . . the electric light bulb in the passage had gone . . . From force of habit I opened my mouth to order the paint to be washed, and the bulb renewed . . . Then I changed my mind and turned away.
When I opened the door of my yellow and white bedroom, I softened a trifle and lost some of my courage. On that little lacquered desk, where not much dust was visible, I had written the first lines of my notebook . . . In that great flat bed, where my light weight barely makes a hollow, I had experienced, as if in a dream, migraine, fear, resignation, the fleeting shadow of love, unsatisfied desire. What should I dream about in it now, deprived of my fear, my resignation, of even the shadow of love? It was extraordinary that a creature as weak as myself, so dependent on physical and moral support, should somehow find herself alone and not perish at once like a convolvulus whose tendrils have been torn away from what they clung to. Perhaps one did wither away like that – so quickly . . . Mechanically, I went over and looked at myself in the glass over the chimney-piece.
I would not have been astonished to see a wasted, diminished Annie appear in the glass, an Annie with even narrower shoulders and an even more drooping body than before the summer began . . . My reflection surprised me and I leant on my elbows to study it at closer range.
The dark hair, matted by the night in the train, made a harsh frame to the still slender oval of a brown face. But that pucker of weariness at the corners of the lips was not the only thing that altered the line of the mouth, a mouth firmer and less beseeching than formerly . . . As to the eyes, their gaze was more direct; the eyelids kept steady instead of constantly fluttering and drooping under the weight of the silky lashes. I would never be able to look at you again, ‘wild chicory flowers’, my amazingly clear eyes, my one real beauty, without thinking of Claudine bending down over them and say
ing teasingly: ‘Annie, they’re so clear, you can see right through to the other side.’ Alas, it was true. Clear as an empty bottle. Moved by that memory, vaguely intoxicated by the novelty of my reflected image, I bent my head and touched my ungloved hand with my lips . . .
‘Am I to unpack Madame’s trunk?’
Léonie had come in, out of breath, and was running a hostile eye over the room which would have to be given ‘a thorough good do’.
‘I don’t know, Léonie . . . I’m waiting for a letter . . . Only take out the silk dresses and petticoats – the rest can wait . . .’
‘Very good, Madame. Actually I’ve got a letter for you here from Monsieur that the porter was going to send on to Germany.’
I snatched the unexpected letter from her. So as to read it by myself, I went off into Alain’s study where I pushed back the shutters myself.
My dear Annie,
It is a very tired husband who is writing to you. Don’t be alarmed; I said ‘tired’, not ‘ill’. I have had a hard struggle. I have already told you of the difficulties of converting bulls into ready money and I will tell you again in more detail when I see you. I am delighted to have emerged from them honourably and to be bringing back a handsome sum. You should be grateful to me, Annie, for undertaking this journey which enables me to increase the amenities of our home and to offer you a sable stole as handsome as the one belonging to Madame . . . you know whom I mean? . . . my sister disrespectfully calls her: ‘the Chessenet’.
The sun is oppressive at this hour so I am taking advantage of it to catch up with my correspondence. Out in the courtyard a girl is sitting sewing, or pretending to sew. There is really a quite singular resemblance, which I have remarked many times, between her bent, motionless profile, with the chignon on the nape of the neck, and yours, Annie. The red flower is an addition, of course, so is the little yellow shawl. All the same, it amuses me to watch her and makes my thoughts stray towards you and towards my return which is now only a matter of days . . .
