Claudine and Annie
Page 15
‘No,’ I admitted, slightly taken aback. ‘What for? They don’t belong to me!’
‘Of all the reasons!’ exclaimed Claudine very contemptuously, with a shrug. ‘Hell . . . I can’t think of anything. Have you any money?’
‘Yes . . . Very nearly eight thousand francs. Alain left me a lot when he went away.’
‘I’m not asking about that . . . Money of your own – any private means?’
‘Wait . . . there’s three hundred thousands francs of my dowry . . . and then there’s the fifty thousand francs in cash Grandmother Lajarrisse left me three years ago.’
‘That’s fine, you won’t die of starvation. Looking ahead, would it worry you if he divorced you?’
I replied with a haughty gesture.
‘Nor me either,’ said Claudine quaintly. ‘Well then, my dear child . . . go.’
I did not stir: I did not say a word.
‘My opinion and my prescription don’t produce loud cries of enthusiasm, Annie? I can understand that. But I’ve come to the end of my tether and my genius.’
I raised my eyes and looked at her through a mist of fresh tears. Without speaking, I indicated the trunk, the tough clothes, the long shoes, the waterproof cape . . . all that puerile glove-trotter’s gear I had bought in these last few days. She smiled and her piercing gaze softened.
‘Yes, I see, I see. I saw at once. Where are you going, my Annie, whom I’m going to lose?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is that true?’
‘I swear it.’
‘Good-bye, Annie.’
‘Good-bye . . . Claudine.’
I implored her, huddled close against her:
‘Tell me again . . .’
‘What, darling?’
‘That Alain can’t hurt me if he catches me up.’
‘He won’t catch you up. At least, not at once. Before you see him, you’ll see various unpleasant people who’ll fiddle about with papers, then will come the divorce, the blame laid on Annie – and freedom.’
‘Freedom.’ (I spoke almost in a whisper, as she had.) ‘Is it a very heavy burden, Claudine? Is it very difficult to manage? Or will it be a great joy – the cage open – all the world before me?’
She answered very low, shaking her curly head:
‘No, Annie, not all at once . . . Perhaps never . . . You’ll carry the marks of the chain for a long time. Perhaps, too, there are people who are born submissive? . . . But there’s something worse than that . . . I’m afraid for you . . .’
‘Whatever of?’
She looked at me in the face. I saw Claudine’s eyes and Claudine’s tears shining in all their beauty – small tears that did not fall, golden eyes that had refused me their light . . .
‘I’m afraid of the Meeting. You will meet him, the man who has not yet crossed your path. Yes, yes,’ she insisted as I made a gesture of violent dissent, ‘that man is waiting for you somewhere. It’s right, it’s inevitable. Only, Annie, my dear Annie, do you know how to recognize him? Don’t be deceived, because there are doubles, there are any number of shadows who simulate him, there are caricatures of him. Between you and him there are all the ones you have to step over or push aside . . .’
‘Claudine – suppose I got old before I met him?’
She raised her graceful arm in a gesture that transcended herself:
‘Still keep going on! He is waiting for you on the other side of life.’
I was silent out of respect for this faith in love. I was a little proud, too, of being the only person . . . or almost the only one . . . to know the true Claudine, exalted and fierce as a young druidess.
Just as in Bayreuth, I was ready to do her will, good or evil. She gazed at me with those eyes in which I wanted to see the light that had dazzled me in the Margravine’s garden . . .
‘Yes, Annie, wait. Perhaps there isn’t a man who deserves . . . all this.’
Her hand lightly brushed and caressed my shoulders. I leant towards her and she saw in my face my offering of my whole self, my utter abandonment, the very words I was going to say . . . Quickly she put her warm hand over my mouth, then raised it to her lips and kissed it.
‘Good-bye, Annie.’
‘Claudine . . . one second . . . only one second! I want . . . I want you to love me from a distance – you who could have loved me – you who are staying here.’
‘I’m not staying, Annie. I’ve already gone. Can’t you feel that? I’ve left everything . . . except Renaud . . . for Renaud. Friends are traitors, books are deceivers. Paris will see no more of Claudine. She will grow old among her relatives the trees, with her lover and friend. He will grow old more quickly than I shall, but solitude can work miracles. Perhaps I can give a little of my own life to prolong his.’
She had opened the door, and I was going to lose my only friend . . . What gesture, what word would retain her? Ought I not to have . . .? But already the white door had hidden her dark slenderness and I could hear the light rustle of footsteps, that had announced her arrival, dying away . . . Claudine had gone!
I have just read Alain’s telegram. In thirty-six hours he will be here, and I . . . Tonight I am catching the Paris–Carlsbad express on which we travelled only last month to Bayreuth. From there, I do not know yet. Alain does not speak German – that puts another little obstacle between us.
Since the day before yesterday, I have done so much thinking that my head is exhausted. My maid is going to be as astonished as my husband. I am only taking my two little black friends, Toby the dog and Toby the revolver . . . I shall be a very well-protected woman, shall I not? I am going away resolutely, not hiding my tracks, but not marking them with little pebbles either . . . This escape of mine is not a crazy flight on the spur of the moment. For four months I have been slowly gnawing away at my rope till it has finally frayed and parted. All that was needed was simply that the gaoler should carelessly leave the prisoner unguarded. Once his back was turned, she became aware both of the horror of the prison and of light shining through the chinks of the door.
Before me lies the troubled future. Let me know nothing of tomorrow, let no presentiment warn me of what is in store – Claudine has told me too much already! I want to hope and to fear that there are some countries where everything is new, unknown cities whose only lure is their name, skies under which an alien soul replaces your own . . . Somewhere in the whole wide world, shall I not find the nearest thing to paradise for a little creature like me?
Standing in front of the glass, dressed all in tawny frieze, I have just said good-bye to the Annie who once lived here. Good-bye, Annie! Feeble and vacillating as you are, I love you. Alas, I have no one but you to love.
I am resigned to whatever may come. Just for a passing moment, I can foresee with sad clairvoyance what this new life of mine will be like. I shall be the woman travelling alone who intrigues a hotel dining-room for a week, with whom schoolboys on holiday and arthritics in spas suddenly fall violently in love . . . I shall be the solitary diner, whose pallor provides scandal with an excuse for inventing all kinds of drama . . . the lady in black, or the lady in blue, whose melancholy reserve frustrates and repulses the compatriot she meets on her travels . . . Also the one whom a man remorselessly pursues because she is pretty and a stranger, or because of the big, lustrous pearls he has noticed on her fingers . . . The one who is murdered one night in a hotel bedroom and whose body is found outraged and bleeding . . .
No, Claudine, I do not shudder. All that is life, time flowing on, the hoped-for miracle that may lie round the next bend of the road. It is because of my faith in that miracle that I am escaping.
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Epub ISBN: 9781446467466
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Published by Vintage 2001
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Copyright © Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd, 1960
Claudine amoureuse, first published 1902
Published as Claudine en ménage, after the above edition had been destroyed, 1902
This translation published by Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd 1960
Vintage
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library