Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  He stood before the opulent residence, built Swiss-chalet style of wood so highly burnished it looked like mahogany, and gazed up at the cupules of the anemometer as they turned slowly above the slated roof. Suitcase in hand, he carefully opened the gate and went in. In the birch-tree which hung its incandescent head, small birds kicked up a senseless twittering fuss in homage to this enchanted garden. To avoid the crunching gravel of the drive, he made a leap for the flower-beds where hydrangeas grew protected by outcrops of rockery. He reached the large bay window and there, hidden by the ivy, he watched. In the gold-wainscoted drawing-room hung with red velvet, she was sitting playing the piano. 'Play, my lovely, you have no idea of what lies in store for you,' he murmured.

  He climbed into the plum-tree and pulled himself up on to the first-floor balcony, found a foothold on a stone pier and gripped a projecting wooden support with one hand, steadied himself, hauled himself up to the window-sill on the second floor, opened the half-closed shutters, pulled back the curtains, and sprang into her room. He was there, he was in her house, just like yesterday and the day before, only this time he would reveal himself to her and he would dare. Quickly now, make ready for the deed.

  Leaning bare-chested over the open case, he took out an old tattered greatcoat and a moth-eaten fur hat and stared in surprise at the tie of the Order which his searching hand had found. It was crimson and very handsome. Might as well put it on since it was there. When he had tied it around his neck, he struck a pose before the swing-mirror. Oh yes, disgustingly handsome. An impassible face beneath a crown of raging shadow. Narrow hips, flat stomach, broad chest and, under the tanned skin, muscles like intertwining serpents. So beautiful, yet such beauty was destined for the graveyard, to be tinged with green here and yellow there, consigned to a coffin split by the damp earth. How the tables would be turned on all the women if they saw him then, silent and stiff in his casket! He smiled to himself, resumed his prowling, occasionally testing the weight of the automatic pistol in his hand.

  He stopped and stared at his small, squat, ever-ready, ever-willing accomplice. It was already loaded with the bullet which later, yes much later ... No, not the temple, too much risk of ending up still alive but blind. The heart, then, but take care not to aim too low. The right place was at the angle formed by the base of the sternum and the gap between the third and fourth ribs. With a pen he found lying on a small table next to a bottle of eau-de-Cologne, he marked the spot and smiled. That was where the small star-shaped hole would appear, in a halo of black particles, a few centimetres from the nipple which so many nymphs had kissed. Why not shrug off the burden of living now? End his dealings with the ghastly human race, which was never happier than when hating and spreading slander? He was freshly bathed and newly shaved and would make a most presentable corpse — and a Knight of the Order to boot. But no: first attempt the impossible. 'Blessings upon thee if thou art truly as I take thee to be,' he murmured, while the piano below went on pouring out its delightful tinklings, and he kissed his hand, then resumed his pacing, a half-naked, absurd Knight, holding the bottle of Cologne to his nose, uninterruptedly breathing its fragrance. He halted by the bedside table. On its marble top, a book by Bergson and a box of chocolate fondants. No thanks, I couldn't. On the bed a notebook. He opened it, raised it to his lips and read:

  'I have decided to become a great novelist. But this is my first shot at writing and I need the practice. It would be a good wheeze to write down in this notebook everything that comes into my head about my family and about myself. Then, when I've got a hundred or so pages together, I'll go back and use all the true things I've written for the start of my novel, pausing only to change the names.

  'As I begin, I feel a thrill. I think I might have the sublime gift of creation. At least I hope so. So each day I shall write not less than ten pages. If I can't finish the sentence I've started or if I get bored with it, I shall write telegrammese. But of course I shall only put proper sentences in my novel. So here we go!

  'But before I start, I must tell the story of Spot, the dog. It's got nothing to do with my family but it's a very fine story and shows the moral character both of the dog and of the English people who looked after it. Anyway, it's always possible I'll be able to make use of it in my novel too. A couple of days ago, I read in the Daily Telegraph (I buy it from time to time so as not to lose touch with England) that Spot, a black-and-white mongrel, was in the habit of waiting for his master every evening at six o'clock at his bus-stop at Sevenoaks. (Too many ats. Rephrase.) Now one Wednesday evening his master did not get off the bus. Spot did not budge from the bus-stop and waited by the side of the road all night in the cold and fog. A passing cyclist, who knew him and remembered seeing him a little before six the previous evening, noticed him again the next morning at eight, still sitting in the same place, patiently waiting for his master to come, the pet. The man on the bike felt so sorry for Spot that he shared his sandwiches with him and then pedalled off to inform the local inspector at the Sevenoaks RSPCA. The matter was looked into and it was learned that Spot's master had fallen down dead the day before in London of a heart attack. The paper gave no further details.

  'I was terribly upset by the suffering of the poor little dog who had waited there fourteen hours for his master. So I sent a telegram to the RSPCA (actually, I am a Patron) saying that I was prepared to adopt Spot the dog and that they could send him to me by air at my expense. The same day I got a reply: "Spot adopted." I telegraphed back: "Spot adopted by reputable person? Send details." The answer, which came in a letter, was priceless. I shall copy it out to show just how marvellous the English are. This is how it ran. "Dear Madam, In reply to your query, I am pleased to be able to inform you that Spot has been adopted by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, who is, in our view, a perfectly reputable person. Spot ate his first meal in the Archbishop's Palace with relish. Yours sincerely."

  'But now: My Family and Me. I was born Ariane Cassandre Corisande d'Auble. The Aubles are very top-drawer in Geneva. They came from France originally to join up with Calvin in 1560. Our family has provided Geneva with scientists, moral thinkers, frightfully distinguished, tight-lipped bankers, and a gaggle of Protestant ministers and moderators of the Venerable Company. And there was one ancestor who did something scientific with Pascal. Genevan nobility ranks second only to the English aristocracy. Grandmama was an Armiot-Silly-oh. There are the Armiot-Silly-ohs, who are very comme il faut, and the Armyau-Billy-ohs, who are definitely not. The second names, Silly-oh and Billy-oh, don't really exist at all, of course: they are used for convenience, so there's no need for anyone to go to the bother of spelling the last letters of Armyau and Armiot, which sound exactly the same. It's a shame, but our name is dying out. All the Aubles have snuffed it except Uncle Agrippa, who is not married and therefore without issue. And if I have children some day, they'll only be Deumes.

  'Now I must say something about Daddy, Mummy, my brother Jacques and my sister Éliane. Mummy died when she bore Éliane. I'll have to change that sentence in the novel, it sounds silly. I don't remember anything about Mummy very clearly. She doesn't look very nice in her photos, her face very stern. Daddy was a minister and a professor of theology at the University. When he died, we were still very young: Éliane was five, I was six and Jacques was seven. The maid said Daddy was in heaven and that scared me. Daddy was very kind, very dignified, and I looked up to him. From what Uncle Agrippa has told me about him, he appeared cold because he was shy, but altogether a most scrupulous and upright person: he had that moral uprightness which is the glory of Genevan Protestantism. There are ever so many dead people in our family! Éliane and Jacques were killed in a car accident. I can't say anything about Jacques and dear Éliane. If I did, I'd only cry and then I wouldn't be able to go on.

  'As I write, the radio is playing "Zitto, zitto" from the Cenerentola by horrible old Rossini, who was a silly man only interested in cannelloni, which he made himself. A moment ago, it
was Samson and Delilah by Saint-Saens. Even ghastlier. Talking of the radio, the other night there was a repeat of a play by somebody called Sardou, entitled Madame Sans-Gêne. Awful! How could anybody be a democrat after hearing the audience guffawing and clapping? The imbeciles positively hooted at some of the lines given to Madame Sans-Gene, Duchess of Danzig. Such as, for instance, when she was at a court reception, she said in a plebeian accent: "'Ere we are then!" Can you imagine it? A duchess who was once a washerwoman and proud of it! And her tirade against Napoleon! I thoroughly despise this man Sardou. Of course, old Madame Deume loved it. Another thing that's horrible on the radio is the vulgar braying of the mob at football matches. How can anyone not despise people like that?

  'After Daddy died, all three of us went to live with his sister Valérie, whom we called Tantlérie. In the novel, don't forget to describe her villa at Champel, with its walls crammed with bad portraits of a whole string of ancestors, verses out of the Bible and Views of Old Geneva. Tantlérie's brother, Agrippa d'Auble, also lived at Champel. I used to call him Uncle Gri. He's quite interesting but I'll describe him some other time. For the time being, I'll stick to Tantlérie. She's one character I shall certainly put in my book. While she was alive she did her best to show me as little affection as possible, though she was deeply fond of me. I am going to try to describe her properly, as though this were the start of the novel.

  'Valérie d'Auble was very aware that she belonged to the Genevan aristocracy. In reality, the first of the Aubles was a draper in the days of Calvin, but that was a long time ago and there is no sin but has its pardon. My aunt was a tall, regal woman with handsome, regular features, who always dressed in black and professed the utmost disdain for fashion. Whenever she went out, she always wore a peculiar flat hat, rather like a large apple-pie, which had a short black veil hanging down behind. Her purple sunshade, from which she was never separated and which she held out in front of her like a walking-stick as she leaned on it, was famous in Geneva. She was given to good works and shared the bulk of her income among various charitable organizations, evangelical missions in Africa and an association for the preservation of the beauties of Old Geneva. She had also endowed bursaries for good behaviour for which pious girls were eligible. "Will you do the same for boys, Aunt?" She said: "I won't have anything to do with scallywags."

  'Tantlérie was part of a group, which has now all but disappeared, of particularly strict Protestants who were called the Very Holy. To her way of thinking, people were divided into the elect and the damned, most of the elect being Genevan. There were a few elect in Scotland, though not many. But she certainly did not believe that being Genevan and Protestant was enough to save your soul. To find grace in the sight of the Almighty, you needed to fulfil five further conditions. First, you had to accept the literal inspiration of the Bible and consequently believe that Eve was made of Adam's spare rib. Second, you needed to be a member of the conservative party, then called, I believe, the National-Democrats. Third, you had to feel Genevan and not just Swiss. ("The Republic of Geneva is allied to various Swiss cantons, but beyond that we have nothing in common with those people.") In her eyes, the inhabitants of Fribourg ("Ugh! Papists!"), the Vaud, Neuchatel, Berne and the rest of the Confederation were all as much foreigners as the Chinese. Fourth, you had to be connected with the "good families", that is to say, families like ours with ancestors who were members of the Little Council before 1790. Exceptions to this rule were ministers, though only serious ministers "and not these beardless young liberal flibbertigibbets who have the impertinence to go around, saying that Our Lord was simply the greatest of the prophets!" Fifth, you should not be "worldly". This word had a very particular meaning for my aunt. For example, she viewed as worldly any minister who was cheerful or wore a soft collar or sporty clothes or light-coloured shoes, which she loathed. ("Tsk! I ask you! Brown boots!") Also worldly were any Genevans, however well-connected they might be, who went to the theatre. ("Plays are made up. I do not care to listen to lies.")

  'Tantlérie had a regular subscription to the Journal de Genève because it was a family tradition and because, moreover, she "believed" she owned shares in it. Yet she never read this highly respectable paper and left it unopened in its wrapper because she disapproved not of its political views, of course, but of what she called its "unsuitable" bits, which included: the women's fashion page, the serialized novel at the bottom of page two, the offers of marriage, and the space given to Catholic affairs and meetings of the Salvation Army. ("Tsk! I ask you! Religion with trombones!") Also unsuitable were advertisements for corsets and "places of entertainment", an expression she used as a generic term for any suspect establishments such as music-halls, Palais de Danse, cinemas and even cafes. While I'm on this subject, in case I forget: her snooty disapproval the day she found out that Uncle Agrippa, who was dying of thirst, had on one occasion gone inside a cafe for the first time in his life and, taking his courage in both hands, had ordered tea. Oh, the scandal! An Auble in a place of entertainment! And while I'm still on this subject, say somewhere in my novel that as long as she lived Tantlérie never told the weeniest lie. "Live in truth!" was her motto.

  'Being a very thrifty person, though she was also quite generous, she never sold any of her stocks and shares, not because she was attached to worldly goods but because she considered herself to be no more than the steward of her wealth. ("Everything which came down to me from my father must be handed on intact to his grandchildren.") I said earlier that she "believed" she owned shares in the Journal de Genève. In reality, not having much of a clue about financial affairs, she regarded her shares and debentures as necessary but base matters which should be mentioned as little as possible and considered them unsuitable subjects for her attention. She deferred blindly to Messrs Saladin, de Chapeaurouge & Co., bankers to the Auble family since the winding-up of the Auble Bank, an impeccably respectable firm, though she did suspect them of reading the Journal de Genève. ("But tolerance is my middle name: I quite understand that the gentlemen at the bank have to. They must Keep Abreast.")

  'Naturally, we only saw people of our own kind, and all of them were madly pious. Within the "crème de la crème" of the Protestant tribe in Geneva, my aunt and her cronies formed a small clan of die-hards. It was quite out of the question for us ever to have anything to do with Catholics. I have a memory of when I was eleven: Uncle Gri took Éliane and me for the first time on a trip to Annemasse, a small town in France not far from Geneva. In Tantlérie's two-horse open carriage driven by our coachman, Moses — also a strict Calvinist, despite his name — we two little girls were greatly excited at the prospect of at last seeing Catholics, a peculiar race of mysterious natives. As we bowled along, we sang to the tune of "Why are we waiting?": "Wee roffto see the Cath-er-lix, wee roff to see the Cath-er-lix..."

  'But to get back to Tantlérie. Wearing her flat hat with the little veil at the back, she would sally forth at ten of a morning in her open carriage driven by top-hatted, top-booted Moses. She went off to inspect her dear city, to see if all was as it should be. If some imperfection offended her, a railing that had worked loose, a piece of ironwork that was threatening to fall down or a public fountain that had dried up, she would "pop in and see one of their lordships", which meant that she was about to give one of the members of the Genevan government a good wigging. The prestige of her name and her force of character, backed by her liberalities and connections, were such that their lordships always bent over backwards to keep her hat straight. An illustration of Tantlérie's Genevan patriotism: she once broke with an English princess who, though every whit as pious as she, had written a letter containing a joke about Geneva.

  'By eleven she was back in her handsome villa at Champel, which, with her open carriage, was her only luxury. She was, as I've said, most charitably inclined, but spent hardly anything on herself. I can still see those black, very stylish dresses with a hint of train at the back, but they were all old, shiny and carefully mended. At noon
the gong was sounded. At half past twelve it was sounded again and everyone had to go into lunch at once. Lateness was not tolerated. Uncle Agrippa, Jacques, Éliane and I had to remain standing while we waited for the arrival of the "chieftainess", as we sometimes called her among ourselves. Of course, we never sat down until she did.

  'At table, after grace had been said, the conversation would turn on respectable subjects such as flowers ("with sunflowers, you must always bruise the ends of the stems if you want them to last") or the colours of setting suns ("I have always loved them so, I was so terribly grateful for the gift of such splendour!") or changes of temperature ("I felt rather cold when I got up this morning") or the latest sermon of a favourite minister ("it was thoroughly thought out and prettily expressed"). There was much talk too of the progress of evangelization in the Zambezi, which explains why I am very well up in the black tribes of Africa. For instance, I know that in Basutoland the King's name is Lewanika, that the Basutos call their country Lesotho and speak Sesotho. On the other hand, it was not the done thing to speak of what my aunt called "material things". One day I remember being scatty enough to say that I thought there was a mite too much salt in the soup. She frowned and froze me with these words: "Tsk, Ariane, really!" I got the same reaction another time when I could not prevent myself commending a chocolate mousse which had been served. I felt my heart in my mouth when she cast her cold eyes on me.