“Has she had a great many lovers, then?” I asked.
“You know how difficult it is to be sure with these things. People know when a man and woman see a great deal of each other. But are they lovers? Who knows? … When I say ‘she had them,’ what I really mean is she took hold over their minds and they became dependent on her, she felt she could get them to do what she wanted, do you understand?”
“Do you think her intelligent?”
“Very intelligent for a woman … Yes … Well, there’s nothing she doesn’t know about. Of course, she depends on the man she loves for her topics of interest. In the days when she adored her husband, she was brilliant on colonial and economic issues; when it was Raymond Berger, she was interested in things to do with art. She has a great deal of taste. Her house in Morocco is a marvel, and the one in Fontainebleau is very unusual … She’s driven more by love than intellect. But, all the same, she has tremendous judgment when she has a clear head.”
“What would you say it is that’s so attractive about her, Hélène?”
“It’s mostly that she’s so feminine.”
“What do you call ‘feminine’?”
“Well, a combination of qualities and faults: tenderness, prodigious devotion to the man she loves … for a time, but also a lack of scruples … When Solange wants a new conquest, she’ll overlook everyone else, even her best friend. It’s not nastiness, it’s instinctive.”
“Well, I would call it nastiness. You could just as easily say a tiger isn’t nasty when it eats a man, because it’s instinctive.”
“Exactly,” said Hélène. “A tiger isn’t nasty, or at least not consciously so … What you’ve just said is actually very accurate: Solange is a tigress.”
“But she seems so gentle.”
“Do you think? Oh, no! There are flashes of steel; that’s one element of her beauty.”
Other women were less indulgent. Old Madame de Thianges, Hélène’s mother-in-law, said, “No, I don’t like your little friend Madame Villier … She made a nephew of mine very unhappy, he was a charming boy and he literally went off and had himself killed in the war, not for her, if you will, but because of her … he’d been so terribly hurt. He had a position in Paris and it was absolutely right for him … She won his heart, drove him mad, then abandoned him for someone else … Poor Armand didn’t want to stay and he died, so pointlessly, in a flying accident … I won’t have her in my house anymore.”
I did not want to relate this malicious gossip to Philippe, and yet I always ended up reporting it back to him.
He remained calm, “Yes, that could be true,” he said. “She may have had lovers. She has a right to, it’s none of our business.”
Then, after a while, he became agitated: “In any event, I’d be most surprised if she were cheating on him at the moment because her life is so transparent. You can call her at almost any time of day. She is at home a great deal and, if you want to see her, she’s always free. A woman who had a lover would be much more secretive.”
“But how do you know that, Philippe? Do you telephone her? And go to see her?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
. XIII .
A little later I had proof both that they had long conversations together and that these conversations were innocent. One morning after Philippe had left, I received a letter to which I could not reply without his opinion. I asked to be put through to his office, and it so happened that I ended up on the same line as Solange Villier. I recognized her voice and Philippe’s. I should have hung up but did not have the strength to, and I listened to their cheerful exchange for some time. Philippe came across as amusing and witty, a side of him I never saw anymore and had almost forgotten. I myself preferred the serious, melancholy Philippe as Renée had once described him to me and whom I met immediately after the war, but I also knew the very different Philippe who was currently saying pleasant, lighthearted things to Solange. What I heard was reassuring. They were telling each other what they had been doing and what they had read in the last couple of days; Philippe summarized a play we had been to see together the day before, and Solange asked, “Did Isabelle like it?”
“Yes,” said Philippe, “I think she quite liked it … How are you? You didn’t look very well on Saturday at the Thianges’; I don’t like seeing you that sallow color.”
So they had not seen each other since Saturday, and it was now Wednesday. All at once I felt ashamed and hung up. “How could I have done that?” I asked myself. “That’s as despicable as opening a letter.” I could not understand the Isabelle who had wanted to listen.
A quarter of an hour later I called Philippe back. “I want to apologize,” I said. “I asked to speak to you earlier and you were talking to someone. I recognized Solange’s voice and I hung up.”
“Yes,” he said without a hint of embarrassment, “she telephoned me.”
The whole episode seemed very clear and straightforward to me, and it calmed me down for a while. Then I started finding new signs of Solange’s influence in Philippe’s life. First, he was now going out two or three evenings a week. I did not ask him where he went, but I knew people saw him with her. She had a good many enemies among the women I knew, and they—seeing me as a natural ally—tried to befriend me. Those who were good-natured (I mean as good-natured as women can be toward one another) treated me with unvoiced pity and referred to my misfortune only with aphorisms and generalizations; those who were unkind pretended to believe I was resigned to facts that I actually did not know, so that they could have the pleasure of disclosing them to me.
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to go and watch acrobats with your husband,” one of them said. “It’s so boring.”
“Philippe went to watch acrobats?” I asked in spite of myself, curiosity gaining the upper hand over my pride.
“What? But he was at the Alhambra yesterday evening. Did he not tell you? He was with Solange Villier. I thought you knew.”
The men, on the other hand, affected concern so they could offer to console me.
If we received an invitation to dinner or if I suggested we do something, Philippe would often reply, “Yes, why not? But let’s wait twenty-four hours before making a decision; I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
I could find no explanation for this delay unless Philippe wanted to telephone Solange in the morning to ask whether she had been invited to the same dinner or whether she wanted to go out with him that evening.
I also felt that Philippe’s tastes and even his character now bore this woman’s imprint, very subtly so, but it was nonetheless visible. Solange loved the countryside and gardens; she knew how to tend plants and animals. She had had a bungalow built on the edge of the forest at Fontainebleau and often spent the second half of the week there. Philippe told me several times that he was tired of Paris and would like to have a small plot of land somewhere nearby.
“But you have Gandumas, Philippe, and you go there as little as possible.”
“That’s not at all the same. Gandumas is seven hours from Paris. No, I’d like a house I could nip to for a couple of days, or even go in the morning and be back in the evening. In Chantilly for example, or Compiègne or Saint-Germain.”
“Or Fontainebleau, Philippe.”
“Or Fontainebleau, if you like,” he said, smiling involuntarily.
That smile almost pleased me: it took me into his confidence. “Oh, yes,” Philippe seemed to be saying, “I know that you know. I trust you.”
And yet I could tell I must not press the point and he would not give me any precise information, but I was sure there was a connection between this sudden love of nature and my anxieties, and that a large proportion of Philippe’s life now depended on Solange’s decisions.
Interestingly, Philippe’s influence on Solange’s tastes was no less striking. I think it was invisible to anyone but me, but even though I am not usually very observant, I noticed the tiniest detail wherever those two were concerned. At Hélène’s Sat
urday salons I often heard Solange talking about what she was reading. It turned out she was reading the books Philippe loved, the ones he had given me to read, some of them books that François had once recommended to Odile and she had suggested to Philippe. I recognized the “François heritage” of strong cynical material; Cardinal de Retz was there, and Machiavelli. Then there were Philippe’s true tastes: Stendhal’s Lucien Leuwen, Turgenev’s Smoke, and the first volumes of Proust. The day I heard Solange talking about Machiavelli, I could not help smiling sadly. I as a woman knew only too well that Machiavelli meant as little to her as ultraviolet rays or Limousin enamelwork but that she was capable of taking an interest in any one of them and talking about it sufficiently intelligently to create an illusion for a man if she believed that would please him.
When I first met Solange, I noticed her love of strong colors, which suited her very well. For several months now, almost every time I saw her in the evening, she was in a white dress. White was one of Philippe’s preferences, inherited from Odile. To think how often he told me of Odile’s dazzling whiteness! It was strange and sad to think that, through Philippe, poor little Odile lived on in other women, in Solange, in me, each of us striving (perhaps, in Solange’s case, without realizing it) to reconstitute her long-lost grace.
Yes, it was strange and sad, but for me mostly sad and not only because I was painfully jealous but also because I suffered to find Philippe being, as I saw it, unfaithful to Odile. When I met him, I liked his faithfulness and saw it as one of his fine character traits. Later, when he gave me the record of his life with Odile and I knew the truth about her flight, I had even more admiration for Philippe’s steadfast respect for the memory of his only love. I admired it and understood it all the better because I had formed an image of Odile that was itself admirable. Her beauty … her fragility … her naturalness too … her lively, poetic intelligence … Yes, having once been jealous of her, I too now loved Odile. As described by him, she alone seemed worthy of Philippe as I perceived him and perhaps as I alone saw him. I accepted being sacrificed to such a noble religion; I knew I was beaten, I wanted to be beaten, I bowed before Odile with accommodating humility and in that very humility I found a secret satisfaction and, no doubt, a hidden source of pride.
Because, despite appearances, my feelings were not entirely pure. If I accepted that Philippe’s love for Odile endured, if I even wanted it to and if I willfully forgot Odile’s faults and her all too obvious extravagances, then it was because I believed this dead woman could protect me from the living. I am now painting myself as darker and more calculating than I was. No, I was not thinking of myself but of my love for Philippe. I loved my husband so much that I wished he were bigger and better than anyone else. His attachment to this quasi-divine creature (because death had shielded her from human imperfections) gave him that stature in my eyes. But how could it not pain me to see him enslaved to a Solange Villier, whom I could see and judge and criticize every day, who was of the same flesh and blood as myself, whom other women denigrated in front of me, whom I deemed beautiful and fairly intelligent but certainly not divine or superhuman?
. XIV .
Philippe had on several occasions said, “Solange has really tried to get close to you, but you’re evasive. She feels you’re hostile, odd …” It is true that, since our trip to Switzerland, Madame Villier had often telephoned me, and I had refused to go out with her. I felt it more dignified to see little of her. But to please Philippe and demonstrate my goodwill, I promised to go to her house once.
She received me in a small boudoir that struck me as quite “Philippe style,” very pared down, almost bare. I felt awkward. Solange, relaxed and cheerful, lay herself down on a divan and immediately started talking to me in confidential tones. I noticed she called me “Isabelle” while I was hesitating between “Madame” and “my dear friend.”
“How strange,” I thought as I listened to her. “Philippe loathes familiarity and impropriety, and for me the most striking thing about this woman is precisely the fact that she has no reserve whatsoever; she says everything. Why does he like her? … There’s something gentle in her eyes … She seems happy … But is she?”
An image of Villier with his balding head and tired voice flitted across my mind. I asked for news of him. He was away, as usual.
“I don’t see Jacques very much, you know,” said Solange. “But he’s my best friend. He’s such a frank, straightforward fellow … It’s just, after thirteen years together, sustaining the myth of a great love would be hypocritical … and I’m not like that.”
“But you married for love, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I adored Jacques. We had some wonderful times. But passion never lasts long … And the war kept us apart. After four years, we were so used to living separately …”
“That’s so sad! And you didn’t try to rebuild what you’d had?”
“You know, when you no longer love each other … or, to be more precise, when there’s no longer any physical desire (because I have a great deal of affection for Jacques), it’s difficult to remain, to outward appearances, a unified couple … Jacques has a mistress; I know that. I approve of her … You won’t understand that yet, but there comes a time when we all need our independence …”
“Why? I would have thought marriage and independence were contradictory terms.”
“That’s what people say in the early days. But marriage, as you perceive it, has an element of discipline to it. Are you shocked by this?”
“A little … It’s just …”
“I’m very forthright, Isabelle. I can’t bear posturing … By pretending to love Jacques … or to hate him … I would earn your support. But I wouldn’t be me … Do you understand?”
She was talking to me but not looking at me, drawing little stars in pencil on the cover of a book. When her eyes were lowered like this, her face looked quite hard and seemed to bear the mark of some obscure suffering. “Deep down, she’s not all that happy,” I thought.
“No,” I said, “I don’t really understand … A chaotic, disjointed life must be so disappointing … And anyway, you have a son.”
“Yes. But you’ll see for yourself when you have children: there’s hardly any grounds for communication between a woman and a twelve-year-old schoolboy. When I go to see him, I feel I’m boring him.”
“So would you say maternal love is posturing too?”
“Of course not … It all depends on the circumstances … You are aggressive, Isabelle!”
“What I don’t understand about you is that while you say, ‘I’m forthright, I won’t tolerate hypocrisy,’ you’ve never dared take that to its logical conclusion … Your husband has reclaimed his independence and gives you complete freedom … Why aren’t you divorced? It would be more loyal, more clear-cut.”
“What a peculiar idea! I don’t want to remarry. Neither does Jacques. So why should we divorce? Besides, we have common interests. Our land in Marrakesh was bought with my dowry, but it’s Jacques who’s farmed it, made something of it … And I’m always very happy to see Jacques again … It’s all more complicated than you think, my dear Isabelle.”
Then she talked of her Arabian horses, her pearls, and her hothouses in Fontainebleau. “It’s interesting,” I thought. “She claims to feel contempt for these luxuries, that her life is elsewhere, but she can’t help talking about them … And perhaps that’s something else Philippe likes, the childish pleasure she derives from things … Still, it’s quite funny seeing the difference between her lyrical monologues in front of a man and this inventory of her assets in front of a woman.”
When I left, she laughed as she said, “You’re probably scandalized by what I’ve told you, because you’ve not been married very long and you’re in love … That’s all very nice. But don’t overdramatize things … Philippe does love you, you know, he talks about you very kindly.”
Having Solange reassuring me about the state of my marriage and Philippe’s feelings for
me felt unbearable. She said, “See you soon; come back and see me.” I never went back.
. XV .
A few weeks after that visit I felt unwell; I was coughing and shivering. Philippe came and spent the evening beside my bed. The half-light, and perhaps my fever too, gave me courage, and I talked to my husband about the changes I had noticed in him.
“Philippe, you can’t see yourself, but it’s almost unbelievable for me … Even the things you say … It really struck me when you were talking with Maurice de Thianges the other evening—there was something so hard about your opinions.”
“Good God! You pay such attention to everything I say, my poor Isabelle, far more than I do, I assure you. What did I say the other evening that was so bad?”
“I’ve always liked your ideas about loyalty, about oaths and respecting contracts, but this time, if you remember, it was Maurice who was putting that argument forward and you were saying life’s so short that men are miserable creatures with few opportunities for happiness, and they should grab those they are offered. So you see, Philippe …” (and to say this I turned away and did not look at him) “so it seemed to me you were talking for Solange, who was listening.”
Philippe laughed and took my hand.
“You’re so feverish,” he said, “and you’ve such an imagination! Of course I wasn’t talking for Solange. What I said was true. We almost always tie ourselves down without knowing what we’re doing. Then we want to be honest; we don’t want to hurt the people we love, and, for muddled reasons, we refuse ourselves certain pleasures that we later regret. I was saying that there’s a cowardly sort of goodness in this, that we almost always resent those who’ve made us abandon our own longings in this way, and, when all is said and done, it would be better for them as well as ourselves if we had the courage to know what we want, and to meet life head on.”
“But what about you, Philippe, is there something you regret at the moment?”
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