The Flight

by Gaito Gazdanov

  “Tu n’es qu’un imbécile,” his aunt said coldly. “Suis donc ce triste enterrement et tais-toi.”*

  The procession would sometimes stop at a crossroads; each time the young man very nearly drove into the venerable Rolls-Royce in front of him, and, instead of cursing, was made to swallow his words and, following his aunt’s advice, respectfully remain silent.

  Lola was very satisfied with the funeral, and she was truly glad that everything had come off so touchingly and well. The crowd accompanying her husband’s coffin had been composed of devotees of her art; it was that same foule qui l’a toujours adorée, only more polite and reserved. Lola was so inane that no doubts in this regard ever surfaced in her head; those who attended the funeral had manifestly been guided by the most varied of reasons, which not in-frequently found a particular personal basis outside any feelings of sympathy for Lola in her hour of deepest sorrow, which she never felt. There were several journalists present who, having immediately sought each other out, gadded about en masse, one of them, a writer of obituaries, telling his colleagues the latest anecdotes as they bit their lips, trying not to laugh; there were people—and a great many of them—who had nothing to do in life and seized on the opportunity to attend a funeral; there were those who found the notion of missing Pierre’s funeral unthinkable, just as they would never miss a premiere at the opera or the races at Longchamp, and they composed by far the majority, but in the depths of their souls, the least stupid of them were indifferent to the premieres, and to the races, and to the funeral; there were those who came to settle their affairs, profiting by the fact that they could not later be accused of shamelessness—but what good fortune: “My dear friend, to think that you and I should meet under such terrible circumstances. What an awful death! By the way, forgive me, but those investitures that you so kindly…” There was also a very animated, very finely and sombrely dressed man of forty, with a beaming face whose expression was entirely out of keeping with a funeral; he was one of the first to go up to Lola and had a long conversation with her, greeting everyone earnestly and generally acting in such a way that no one present could possibly fail to notice him; he told everyone that his wife had regrettably been unable to come owing to illness; then he made an unexpectedly quick exit and got into the last motor car at the far end of the procession, where an uncommonly buxom blonde of around twenty-two awaited him and said: “Alors, on est libre, c’est fini les condoléances?”† The automobile lagged behind, then turned right and vanished.

  One could never have said that Lola was unprepared for this funeral; she had tried on a great many dresses, and then, alone in her room, she had rehearsed that particular funereal walk and practised with determination, trying to give her face the necessary expression—the solemn service would not catch her unawares; after the funeral, much was said and written about the regal dignity of the illustrious actress and the noble comportment of her sorrow. What was more, it seemed as though no event in Lola’s life had ever brought her so much happiness as did the funeral of her husband.

  Everything at home changed immediately. The maid, who had lately been obeying Pierre’s orders and not Lola’s, now reverted to her ways from before Lola’s marriage and lost the subtle disdain in her replies and general tone of voice, which had so vexed Lola. The Bugatti was sold post-haste, and in its place appeared a Delage just like the old one—with those same soft, firm cushions and those marvellous springs; travelling in it, Lola felt none of those sensations that had hounded her on the rare occasions when she had ridden in the low Bugatti—namely, as if someone had been dragging her down by the legs while the motor sobbed and roared after taking a corner, while in Pierre’s unskilled hands the shuddering vehicle would gather speed by fits and starts. Once again her evenings were quiet; Pierre’s many random female friends disappeared, and amid this heavy silence Lola, stirring, would from time to time hear the wind blowing through the trees in the garden overlooked by her bedroom window. The sound reminded her of distant, seemingly long-forgotten things: her childhood in the countryside, a rainy summer’s evening, the resonant squelch of cows’ hooves upon the wet earth, and that marvellous, beloved smell of dung, which was incomparable with any other smell. She saw herself as a fifteen-year-old country beauty, with firm legs, her feet in sabots, great black eyes and a strong white body, which knew nothing of the surgeon’s touch back then. She drifted off, smiling at the memory of all this.

  Lola was now totally free; she would spend whole days sitting in an armchair, and when she felt sleepy her head would drop onto her chest and she would doze off, since there was no one for whom she needed to maintain any pretence. She played solitaire, told her own fortune and even allowed herself, in the course of her first week of new-found freedom, to deviate from her strict diet—she ate roast chicken and beef broth, then one evening dined entirely alone at Prunier’s, which was not far from her apartment. After a few days she became ill, and so it was then necessary to starve and take medicines, yet she bore all this with such ease that even she was surprised; of course, it could be ascribed to the rule of delayed happiness, the onset of which had occurred that evening when she received the telephone call informing her of her husband’s fatal wound.

  As soon as this first happy period had passed, Lola’s former energy reawakened in her. She knew from long experience that she could not remain in the shadows, that her name had to appear in the newspapers as often as possible, no matter what the pretext. She scheduled several interviews; after successive readings of these one gathered that Lola did not intend, in the wake of her recent shock, to go to rest in the south at her villa near Nice, that she would remain in Paris where she was working intensely on the leading role in a play she did not yet want to name, that she had turned down a proposal from a leading American company, which had offered her a contract in Hollywood, that in the near future she would go touring in Central Europe, that she would go touring in South America, that she would go touring in North America, that she had engagements scheduled in Holland, that despite the rumours going about, she had rejected plans to go to Rumania and Greece. No one had been spreading any rumours about her, but this refutation of fictitious gossip was her usual ploy; none of these interviews or reports had any basis in fact whatsoever, apart from her convulsive desire not to be erased, not from the memory of her contemporaries—that was an irreversible fait accompli, since the majority of them had quit this world long ago, and those who still numbered among the living awaited death with trepidation and thought only of this—but from the memory of the society of the day, which had followed her for half a century. Then, after all these possibilities had been exhausted, Lola herself took to appearing in print, for which, ever since the days of her first benefactor, she felt almost as much of a weakness as she did for the theatre. Naturally, she never wrote anything herself (she would have been much too illiterate for this), and so she always had a regular collaborator, whom she would now have to pay in cash, which irked her greatly: only a few years previously, essentially not so long ago, she would never have used money to pay for services. Now she was forced to come to terms with the fact that times had changed. Her current nègre littéraire was a young man who was making a career for himself in the newspapers and wrote minor arts reviews; however, since the arts reviews brought in little money (he was unable to live on these alone), he also specialized in articles for government ministers, public figures, actors and singers; it was thoroughly unpleasant work, particularly because the majority of people who engaged him had absurd notions about style and would make demands that were all but impossible to meet without risking the readers’ derision. Of all his clients, there was only one whom he greatly esteemed—an old senator who would say to him, “Écoutez, mon petit,”‡ and commission an article on some theme, but would not demand that it be written in one way and not another, and would not even read it before handing it over to the printers: he would read the beginning of it in the newspaper or journal, but even then he never found the strength
to read it through to the end. He would stare at the nebulous letters, making out the first few phrases, and invariably say: “Splendid, my young friend, splendid.” He would pay better than the others, and he was entirely uninterested in the printed matter bearing his name. In the circle of people who read his articles, he was considered a shrewd and audacious politician who diligently followed all the vagaries of current affairs. Carrying out such work had been unpleasant at first, but then Lola’s collaborator became so used to it that he was entirely unsurprised when he learnt that the dismal bald man with the weary, haggard face, whom he frequently met in the editor’s office of one of the large newspapers, was, it so happened, that same Mathilde Marigny who gave such ample advice to female readers on the most varied of topics, from facial and bodily care to amatory woes and dilemmas: “I think that my husband is unfaithful to me. Should I leave him and go with my child to a man who has proved his love for me many times over?…”

  Lola met him with a businesslike air and said that they needed to talk; together they began to discuss plans for her appearances in the newspapers. The fact of the matter was that Lola had finally decided to realize her long-held dream: to write her memoirs. Her collaborator—Dupont was his name—coughed uncertainly: this sort of work was particularly disagreeable.

  “I’m flattered by your faith in me, Madame,” he said, “but—”

  “Of course, of course,” Lola quickly put in. “With your talent—”

  “The fact is, I’m afraid… Ultimately, I just haven’t the time—”

  “But, my dear friend, it’s so simple. I’ll tell you everything—everything, you understand?”

  “I think—”

  “I assure you, it’s a task that will bring you nothing but pleasure.”

  “I do not doubt it.”

  “Well, then. And you’ll receive a cut from the publisher when the book comes out.”

  On this point, however, Dupont objected most categorically; he insisted on dealing only with Lola, yet however unpleasant this was for her, her hands were tied. A discussion about the contents of Lola’s memoirs was due to take place a few days later. Their immediate tasks were to prepare for press, first, a long letter to the editor, in which Lola would express her gratitude to all those who attended her husband’s funeral, and secondly an article, ‘Why I Am Writing My Memoirs’. Two days later both texts were presented to Lola; she made a few corrections to them but was on the whole satisfied. The first piece, replete with expressions of restrained mourning, included a phrase that Lola found most pleasing, on the way in which people are accustomed to think of celebrities as if they do not live and suffer like mere mortals: “Hélas! Nous ne sommes, nous autres, que de simples mortels, doués peut-être d’un pouvoir qui…”§ and so on; in brief, everything was done properly and with a most touching sensibility—everything, right down to the appreciation shown to the newspaper that printed it, for its “gracious gesture”… It was especially pleasing that the same issue also ran a last-minute article about Lola, written by a renowned lady author—only later did it come to light that this had been pure coincidence. By and by, ‘Why I Am Writing My Memoirs’ appeared in print, having been penned, with a certain indirect inspiration, by Dupont, who had clearly been on good form that day. “We represent a chronologically inconceivable combination of two seemingly so different epochs; this singular combination will be revealed only if we deign to shed our theatrical garb and appear before you, dear readers, just as we are in reality. You shall then be certain that the numerous fictitious dramas of a few historical women, which you have become so accustomed to seeing embodied in our interpretation, have perhaps not passed without trace; in a single turn of my head, I apprehend myself making one of Sappho’s gestures and, with arm outstretched, the pose of Célimène…”

  Lola immersed herself in work on the memoirs; admittedly, her part in it was only to provide a detailed narrative, which Dupont would interrupt very occasionally, saying, “Yes, I understand… Of course…”, while taking it all down in his notebook. He depicted Lola’s life as one full of constant wonder, skipping over any “delicate” areas: on this point Dupont had insisted, redacting from Lola’s account any of the more risqué passages. Although this resulted in a somewhat curious situation in which it was stated that before her marriage to Pierre, Lola had known only platonic love for a few remarkable people, born of their mutual passion for art, and although it may have seemed unlikely that she had remained, essentially, a virgin until old age—to the extent that Lola herself noticed this and said so to Dupont—nevertheless, he insisted on such a redaction of the memoirs.

  “Everyone will know you’ve had such liaisons,” he said, “but what they’ll appreciate is your discretion.”

  “No, you mustn’t exaggerate like that,” Lola rejoined.

  “Everyone knows it’s impossible,” Dupont calmly objected, “but why make such a point of it? After all, one wouldn’t set down that windows are to let light in, that they can be opened and closed; one doesn’t waste time explaining this to the reader: one would hope that he knows all this himself. It’s the same here, Madame.”

  On the other hand, Dupont frequently described the rising and setting of the sun in Auvergne, where a young girl, looking out from the terrace of the house in which she had been born, dreamt of Paris and happiness. Lola’s family had immediately grown wealthy in the memoirs, and her parents had turned from ordinary peasants into representatives of the landed gentry. In Dupont’s imagination there appeared—thereafter migrating to Lola’s memoirs—a great many people who had never existed, but who were nonetheless very touching: an old teacher of French literature, who would say to her, “My child, cherish your amazing gift”; the mayor of the neighbouring town, who had wept when Lola appeared on stage one day during an amateur production; an aunt (the one Lola remembered as a wrinkled old woman with coarse hands, the one who had taught her how to conduct herself with benefactors in Paris), who had metamorphosed into a society beauty and retired to her estates in Auvergne to mourn the death of her beloved husband.

  Upon reaching Paris, the narrative took on an entirely pathetic tone. Here, in many respects, Lola’s and Dupont’s opinions coincided; they both regarded Paris as the greatest city in the world, and, for that reason only, they both believed that anything that happened in Paris acquired a special significance in itself—one that it would not have done had it happened elsewhere. The narrative focused primarily on theatrical premieres, Lola’s successes, how one person or another, usually a government minister or a president, would arrive with an enormous bouquet of flowers and congratulate her on her performance. Much was written about people who had died, and could not refute anything categorically. However, despite his adulatory description of this theatrical life, Dupont couldn’t but notice that everything was coming out rather monotonously and that his vocabulary of praise, among which the word “triumph” was repeated most often, had long been exhausted. And so he resorted to a new device—drawing simple people into all this; thus there appeared decorators and carpenters, who refused to take money from Lola for refurnishing her apartment, concierges, laundresses, chimney sweeps and cab drivers, who also drove her for free.

  Lola’s book was meant to create an impression of presenting the most fascinating memoiristic material and, at the same time, to be a stylistic masterpiece. Lola herself was very satisfied with it. Dupont had worked on it for many hours each day. The printed result, however, fared reasonably well, but was not a runaway success, and he was unable to comprehend the reason for this partial failure.

  The reason was that he disliked and despised Lola—he himself was convinced of her utter lack of talent. For him, there could be no doubt about it. He had long known—throughout the course of his literary career, he had often found this—that there were many famous and respected people who in no way merited their reputations or their accolades. In the majority of cases it was even unclear how these misunderstandings—which purportedly transformed Lola
into a fabulous actress, so-and-so into an eminent scholar and so-and-so into a great writer—could have come about and persisted for decades. In a very limited circle, among professionals, the appraisals were accurate and merciless, but they never, or almost never, reached the wider public, who believed blindly in everything that was written. Dupont harboured no doubts that they would believe Lola’s memoirs, which were a fiction of his own devising, just as they believed everything else; sometimes, when he was able to set aside his immediate concerns, this astonishing lack of understanding on the part of the reader and audience greatly irked him—for he was still young. Moreover, it was patently obvious that Lola was a poor actress, who would fail even to understand the role she was playing. True, no one was moved to tears by her performances, but everyone accepted her great talent. How? Why? He could not understand.

  He depicted her in relatively grand terms, perceiving, however, that no woman could live life as Lola did in his memoirs. Yet no one noticed this—no one at all. Even Lola, completely forgetting herself, would say to Dupont: “I’m amazed, my dear friend, how well you’ve understood my life.” He would smile politely in response, although he wanted to say that all he had done was to apply paint to a cardboard cut-out, and so her kind words were devoid of any meaning from the outset.

  Little by little, however, Lola was captivated by the thought that her life had really been just as Dupont described it. She knew, of course, that the factual part of the book contained many inaccuracies—in particular, the first chapter, dedicated to her childhood, seemed especially vague, and what followed in the book bore no resemblance to reality whatsoever. Yet here, for the very first time, she found herself as though standing before her own psychological portrait. She had never spared any thought for the sort of woman she was, the ways in which her life differed from the lives of others—what is death? what is desire? what is passion?—all these questions that have forever concerned others had never even occurred to her. The “ego”, about which she had occasionally read and which frequently figured in the plays in her repertoire, simply did not exist. She would react to something strongly only when it posed any palpable danger to her: she might view an impresario unfavourably if he failed to pay her promptly; she might hold an actress in contempt if she had obtained a role destined for Lola through her machinations or a love affair; however, in both politics and social life, as in everything else, that which did not immediately concern her failed to elicit any response in her at all—even when it was the most remarkable or the most scandalous occurrence. In almost exactly the same way, she completely lacked what intermittently appeared in other people and was termed “principles”, “convictions”, “opinions”, “taste”, all those words that were perfectly inapplicable to Lola. Dupont was convinced of this, having listened to her anecdotes at length, and each time that he left Lola’s, he could not escape a strange and exceedingly unpleasant feeling, which he had no desire to reflect upon. However, in working on Lola’s memoirs, he was obliged against his will to return to this, and then one fine day he felt as though absolutely everything had fallen into place. He was unable to work that evening and so went out, all the while thinking that he had never before come across such a remarkable case of spiritual poverty. He reflected on this, feeling something akin to horror: such a long life without a single thought, without any doubt whatsoever, without a second of understanding! Lola seemed like a cold and stupid animal to him, sufficiently well trained, but never having derived from this any human quality. Everything she said was trite and incorrectly expressed, phrases she had once read in a newspaper article or recalled from someone else’s conversation.