After four days, letters arrived from Solange and her mother, forwarded from Lausanne.
Solange wrote: '... You tell me you are shattered. I am completely overwhelmed. Your suffering may be great, you poor thing, but how much less than mine! Yours was active, so to speak; you are like the man who tears the dressing off his own wound, whose will-power to some extent annuls the pain. I am the one whose dressing is torn off by someone else, and that's worse.... And God knows you operate without anaesthetics!'
Mme Dandillot, for her part; took up some of the arguments against marriage in Costals' letter. She opined that a formal liaison with Solange would be a much heavier tie than marriage. She ended thus: 'Believe me, I have the utmost regard for you, but it hurts me to see my little Solange suffering so. Write to us. Best wishes, etc.'
Costals considered these two letters eminently reasonable. 'Really, what sensible people they are! Far from complicating things, they lubricate them rather. I might even go so far as to say that they were a bit easy-going. A great compliment in my eyes, however much it may be decried.'
Extraordinary how, after a few hours, the whole episode had become part of the past! His pain had been as it were overridden by relief. How often, dead beat, his muscles reduced to pulp by over-indulgence in sporting or cytherean exertions, he had said to himself: 'A couple of days and I'll be myself again.' But in two hours all trace of it had vanished. In the emotional sphere he recovered just as quickly. A few days of this Genoa régime, under which he did absolutely nothing he did not enjoy doing, were enough to put him on his feet again. The first round of his fight with the Hippogriff had been won by intelligent retreat. No doubt there would be a second round, but since it was not yet imminent, it was wiser not to think of it. Consequently, his euphoria was untroubled except by the thought of Solange's suffering.
This characteristic ability of his to achieve happiness to the full on the spur of the moment, was accompanied by another characteristic: the desire to share it with someone he loved. How often had he wired Mlle du Peyron, asking her to send Brunet post-haste to wherever he, Costals, happened to be, because he was in the seventh heaven in such and such mountains or such and such forests! This time, too, after a week of euphoria, he thought of bringing his son to Genoa. But the boy was staying with some friends in England and he had just written to his father saying he was 'perfectly happy'. One cannot disturb someone who is 'perfectly happy'. So Costals abandoned the idea of bringing Brunet to Genoa, and contented himself, in order to make him even more 'perfectly happy', with sending him a nice little chunk of pocket money. On the same impulse, he sent presents to two young ladies for whom he felt a solid attachment.
In ten days he received four letters from Solange. (Her handwriting, he thought, was beginning to look a little like his.) The first three were melancholy, but not excessively so. A touch of gaiety broke through from time to time. However, after he had neglected to answer the third by return of post, the fourth was an explosion similar to her 'geyser' in July:
'Our separation.... I am sucked down, as it were, by a force independent of my will, and this state of prostration from which I drag myself only to sink back even deeper leaves me gasping. If you ever doubted my feelings towards you, and if I myself perhaps was unable to guage [sic] them with absolute accuracy, I can no longer delude myself about their strength and profundity; I measure them by my suffering.'
to Solange Dandillot
Etretat
Pierre Costals
Via Carlo Felice, Genoa
19 September 1927
My darling,
I don't want you to be unhappy. It's quite simple: come.
Come and spend a fortnight here. You don't understand? I fled from you, and now I want you back! But you see, with me the absent are always in the right. Your absence in particular always does me good. The thing is, for the past ten days I've been working like a buffalo (or rather like half a buffalo, since I only work half the day). Now, there are two great sedatives in my life: a certain act which means little to you but which I find a great release; and work. On the 7th of September I had not written a single line for four months because of you. Now that I've unstopped myself, there is room for you once more, and I feel in the right vein to make you happy for a fortnight. I say a fortnight, because after that there is every likelihood that I shall start persecuting you again.
I shall take a suite in a hotel. You will sign yourself in as my wife.
And besides, for a girl who is as 'virginal' and well-brought- up as you are, there is something extremely improper about this plan of mine, which is an additional reason for you to give me the pleasure of agreeing to it.
With my fondest love,
C.
Beware! There are no hippogriffical implications in this plan of mine. I simply want you to have the 'fourteen days of happiness' of the Bibliothèque Rose. As you would stay for fifteen days, you see I give myself the right to make you unhappy for one day.
Written by Costals in his notebook the same day:
Charity commits one. If you write to a woman 'My darling', you must admit to yourself that it commits you. That you will never again be able to write 'Dear Solange' without causing deep despair, staring eyes, murmurs of 'Why has he changed?' and cow-like ruminations.
Costals had written this letter under the impact of the SOS from Solange. As soon as he had posted it, he began to feel uneasy. Not that he was afraid that his hesitations with regard to marriage might start up again: he felt that he was now firmly anchored in the negative. But a fortnight of Solange's continual presence would be a heavy burden. And moreover, in order to devote himself entirely to her, he would have to stop seeing Mlle Bevilacqua....
He had no need of Solange. No need at all. Neither his senses, nor his heart, nor his intellect nor his imagination needed her. He was calling her back simply because of the happiness his letter would give her. The difficulty would be to sustain this happiness. And for a whole fortnight. If only he had suggested a week. When he had written 'My darling' (it was the first time he had used the expression in a letter to her), he had asked himself: 'Why am I writing "my darling"? Pure affectation, that's all. In fact there's no reason.' The reason was that he loved her less. No doubt about it: it was because he loved her less that he called her 'my darling'.
He vaguely hoped that she would reply saying she was unable to come. He even thought of writing to tell her he had fallen ill. Only the pettiness and dishonesty of this stratagem prevented him. He had caused her enough disappointment without that. No more hot and cold showers!
Solange's reply was a little late in coming. He imagined that she had cooled off towards him, and was relieved at the thought: it would be easier for him to break with her. Then the reply came:
'My dearest love - your letter has given me enormous pleasure. The joy I feel is such that I can hardly contain myself from shouting it to the housetops. Mummy jibbed a bit at first. But when she realized the immense pleasure it would give me ... You've no idea how sweet she is. We spent last evening thinking up all the lies we shall have to tell our cousins here, to explain this trip to Italy. I shall arrive on the 27th at half past two. But I make one condition: that you should continue to be a semi-buffalo, in other words that you should in no way change your working hours or your way of life for my sake, and that I should not disturb you in any way.'
The letter went on, full of expansiveness and affection. Her happiness communicated itself to Costals: he was glad, and resolved to make this fortnight as nice as possible. Nevertheless, when he had to look for a hotel, and pack some of his things to move them there, etc., he sighed: what a lot of his time the girl was wasting! He dreamed of the day when she would be gone, and notched it on his calendar: October the 12th.
On the 25th he realized he had forgotten something very important, and wired Solange: 'Bring plush bunny. Important. Love.'
On the 26th, another telegram: 'Bring diary Tolstoy and Mrs Tolstoy. Important. Love.'
At 2.20, Costals was heading swiftly towards the platform at which Solange's train was due to arrive. Never before had he so badly wanted all the women he saw. Was he not about to be Solange's prisoner for a whole fortnight? Suddenly, in front of a newspaper kiosk, a seventeen-year-old girl. . . . 'Oh God, that girl inflames me. And to think that she's only one of my ribs! A supernumerary bone! [Woman, according to the Bible, is supposed to have been created from one of man's ribs. It was Bossuet who called woman 'a supernumerary bone' (Author's note).] I can't help it, that bone inflames me.' He panted. In a few seconds he had turned crimson, as though the blood was about to burst in droplets through the skin of his face. She had black hair and almond eyes; the long line of her forehead and nose receded, rushed back, as in the profile of Lionello d'Este by Pisanello; the Aztec type: yes, that was it, she was a Genoese Aztec; her chest was flat like that of a boy, a boy without an ounce of spare flesh (Costals hated this in a woman; it was indeed the opposite of what he liked, and that was why he liked it now). 'I'm mad about that girl ... I'm mad about that girl ...' Their eyes met. Costals began to zigzag in his course, like a wounded beast, then half-stopped. He had six minutes to spare, just time enough to approach her, to start something up. This passionate desire, this desperate need to escape from Solange at the very moment when the cage seemed to be about to shut on him, drove him to try and bring off this capture at any price. The girl headed towards the platform. Costals overtook her, stared at her again, intensely, and once more she turned her eyes towards him. Whereupon a train entered the station. Could it be Solange's? His watch said 2.26, but perhaps it was slow. Still, he could not allow his 'darling' to get off the train alone, and have to look for him … horrible thought! But it was horrible, too, to lose this woman, when all that was needed, perhaps, was for them to have met ten minutes earlier. He moved away from her to interrogate an official (no, it wasn't the train from France), then went back to her, almost at the double. At that moment another train appeared at the far end of the platform. How many seconds would it be before Solange's carriage stopped? Thirty-five? Could one, in thirty- five seconds, accost an unknown girl, of the Aztec type, and say to her: 'In heaven's name, let me see you again, tell me where we can meet,' with enough authority, supplication, sincerity, trust, etc., etc., in one's mien to etc., etc.? This he would like to do (perversity had now taken a hand in it) while Solange was there, two hundred yards away, a hundred yards, within eyeshot. 'Oh God! Oh God! How I long to make love to her! Oh God, inspire me! Oh God, help me!' (Inwardly he was on his knees.) 'All my life,' he murmured to himself, 'all my life will be devoted to making her happy.' The train glided along the platform. Costals lost his head. 'To think that I shall never have her!' Something akin to tears rose to his eyes. Exasperated, in despair, furious with Solange, he wheeled round and walked away from the unknown girl. Let him never see her again, at least! Let him never see that face again! Let him be allowed to forget her! Here, at a carriage door, was another face, once a promised land as that of the Genoese had been, but now too available and too familiar, too everyday …
Mlle Dandillot would never know how she had been deceived, betrayed and almost cursed at the very moment when, overflowing with trustfulness and joy, she was reunited with the man who had summoned her there.
In the midst of the crowd, he gave her a swift peck on the cheek, a husbandly kiss. Then he bustled around for a porter - quite unnecessarily, for she had only a small, schoolgirl's suitcase - as though he were looking for an excuse, because he could think of nothing to say to her.
As they entered the hotel there was an atmosphere of chilliness, of huddled whispering, in the foyer. From the moment he had appeared there the other day, simply because of the way he had asked: 'Can one hire a suite here?' they had hated him.
Solange bent over the registration form. 'How I love to see her lying!' he said to himself. He knew she was writing Solange Costals. The girl's face was grave and beautiful. The manager watched her intently as she wrote. The porter and the bell-hop muttered something to each other.
'You lie like an angel,' he murmured approvingly as they went upstairs. 'I was afraid you wouldn't know how to - and it's a real disease, not to be able to lie.'
'I can lie to people I don't care about. I couldn't lie to someone I loved.'
'No, nor could I. But I could lie to someone I only half-loved.'
Not for a moment had Mlle Dandillot suspected that Costals had invited her to Genoa out of 'niceness', in other words out of charity. 'Well,' she had thought, 'only ten days have elapsed and here he is calling me back!' What better proof that he could not do without her? How, after this, could there be any doubt of the outcome of their struggle? She came to the conclusion that Costals' flight had been providential. Mme Dandillot, too, was impressed. Lying on the bottom, belly upwards, on September the 8th, the Hippogriff was back on the surface again, more full of beans than ever, on the 21st. After some hesitation, she agreed to let her daughter go. She told herself: 'He will have lived with her, abroad, for a fortnight. Up to now I could pretend not to know the precise nature of their relationship. After this, impossible. Will he have the nerve to slink off again, when this time it will be tantamount to an insult?'
Mme Dandillot and Solange were agreed that it would be more than ever advisable for Solange to avoid the subject of marriage. She should give the impression, after Costals' two letters and his departure, of having given up her dreams of matrimony and of having come to Genoa simply for a final fling with him before resigning herself, so far as her mourning would allow, to grappling with suitors. Mme Dandillot thought of an even better idea, which involved arousing Costals' jealousy by means of these suitors. This was her plan.
Two years earlier, Solange had refused the hand of a young civil engineer, M. Jean Tomasi. But Mme Dandillot, attracted by prevarication as the magnetic needle is attracted by the North, had emphasized, in transmitting Solange's refusal, that 'the door was not finally closed', that her daughter was very young, and that 'later, perhaps … ' Once a year, then, the tenacious engineer had paid a visit to Mme Dandillot: everything still remained in the air, but the door was still kept half-open. Mme Dandillot therefore suggested to Solange that she should tell Costals that, since she had given up all hope of marrying the man she loved, her mother was about to reopen negotiations with M. Tomasi, and no doubt she would have no alternative but to accept the engineer.
At first Solange protested. When, a week later, she said to Costals: 'I could never lie to someone I loved', it was the truth. With a determined glint in her eyes, which she kept glued to the carpet, she repeated to her mother: 'No, I won't lie to him.'
'But, darling, it isn't lying to him. You know quite well that Tomasi comes to see me every year, and, as it happens, always in October. He'll be here in a month. It wouldn't be lying to tell Costals: "This young man is coming to see my mother at any moment".'
'That I can say, but I don't want to say that I shall agree to marry him, because I won't. I didn't marry him when I had no one close to my heart, and I won't marry him now. Now it's Costals or nobody.'
'You can say: "Since I've definitely got to give you up, you might as well realize that this fortnight in Genoa is the epilogue to our relationship. Mummy thinks that, after everything that's happened, the only solution is for me to marry as soon as possible. She's determined to get it over and done with this winter." Is that lying? How do you know I won't do that if Costals goes on shilly-shallying any longer?'
'I'll see,' said Solange. She turned it all over in her head, and much of it remained there.
Their suite in the hotel in Genoa consisted of two spacious rooms, separated by two bathrooms and a lobby. Costals had intended to show Solange round the town as soon as she had had a bath. He imagined her to be much more avid for the sights and smells of Italy than for love-making which, after their last encounter, he had every reason to believe might safely be postponed until the evening. He was therefore very surprised when, her ablutions com
pleted, he saw her reappear not in outdoor clothes but in deshabille - completely naked, in fact, under an almost transparent garment. The centre of her body made a dark patch under the pale material, like a tuft of submarine moss under a light veil of water. What followed may easily be guessed. He performed it with the same avidity with which he sought to lay his hands on posterity.
In the Antwerp cancionero, Tristan and Iseult remain on the bed 'clasped, mouth to mouth, as long as a sung Mass'. Costals and Solange remained on the bed an hour longer than the office of Tenebrae at Solesmes. They had lain down at half past three. They rose again at nine o'clock.
He had drawn her out of the well of sorrow to make her live beside him, no longer for a few hours at a time, but night and day, he alone with her alone, closer still to each other in the heart of the foreign multitude. He had told her to sign in at the hotel under his name, and she had written this name which was her soul-name: Solange Costals. And now here she was, 'Madame' in the eyes of all, in the very circumstances in which she would have found herself on honeymoon, and in the traditional land of honeymoons and orange blossom. Never since she had known him had she had such utter faith in what she hoped for - a sense of absolute security. And her love, which had been waiting to see a stretch of clear road in front of it before giving itself free rein, burst forward with all its strength, like a sledge launched down a slope.
Never had Costals seen her as she was that afternoon. Her indescribable tenderness. Her indescribably blissful face, radiating happiness, in the midst of her loosened hair, which was like a third being lying between them, full and thick in his hand. In fact, the third person was chiefly the plush rabbit lying on the pillow beside Solange's head, rather moth-eaten and dusty - it would be ungallant to say 'grubby' - with one ear flopping over its snout, and one eye replaced with a boot button. Frequently Costals would kiss it instead of Solange, or else the mouths of all three of them would meet. Costals, who knew his own propensities, was well aware of why he had asked her to bring along the rabbit. (On the other occasions he would make his women wear carnival masks representing animal heads during their love-making. How he outsoared them then, leaping beyond the narrow limits of their sex!) So violently did he involve the rabbit in their love-games that there came a moment when it completely took possession of his imagination to the exclusion of Solange. Then his sensuality took on a quasi-religious character; but soon, no longer in control of the myth he had unleashed, and in the grip of all that was most unbridled in his nature, he was overcome with a kind of terror, and, his eyes dilating, he took the rabbit and placed it on a chair, hiding it under his pyjamas. Whereupon he was restored to reason.
The Hippogriff Page 10
