The Last of Cheri

by Colette

  An hour later, he found his ancient accomplice at her post. But she was wearing some sort of parson’s hat, bunched up with shiny black ribbon, and she held out to him a sheet of blue paper, which he waved aside.

  ‘What’s that? . . . I haven’t the time. Tell me what’s written on it.’

  The Pal lifted puzzled eyes to his: ‘It’s my mother.’

  ‘Your mother? You’re joking.’

  She did her best to appear offended. ‘I’m not joking at all. Please respect the departed! She is dead.’ And she added, by way of an excuse, ‘She was eighty-three!’

  ‘Congratulations. Are you going out?’

  ‘No; I’m going away.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘To Tarascon, and from there I take a little branch line train that puts me down at . . .’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Four or five days . . . at least. There’s the solicitor to be seen about the will, because my younger sister –’

  He burst out, hands to heaven: ‘A sister now! Why not four children into the bargain?’ He was conscious of the unexpectedly high-pitched tone of his voice and controlled it. ‘Good, very well. What d’you expect me to do about it? Be off, be off. . . .’

  ‘I was going to leave word for you. I’m catching the 7.30.’

  ‘Catch the 7.30.’

  ‘The time of the funeral service is not mentioned in the telegram: my sister speaks only of the laying out, the climate down there is very hot, they’ll have to get through it very quickly, only the business side can keep me there, and over that one has no control.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  He was walking to and fro, from the door to the wall with the photographs and back to the door again, and in doing so he knocked against a squashed old travelling-bag. The coffee-pot and cups were steaming on the table.

  ‘I made you your coffee, come what might. . . .’

  ‘Thanks.’

  They drank standing up, as at a station, and the chill of departure gripped Chéri by the throat and made his teeth chatter secretly.

  ‘Goodbye, then, dear boy,’ said the Pal. ‘You may be sure that I’ll hurry things as much as I can.’

  ‘Goodbye – pleasant journey.’

  They shook hands, and she did not dare to kiss him. ‘Won’t you stay here for a little while?’

  He looked all round in great agitation. ‘No. No.’

  ‘Take the key, then?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘You’re at home here. You’ve fallen into the habit of it. I’ve told Maria to come every day at five and light a good fire and get the coffee ready. . . . So take my key, won’t you? . . .’

  With a limp hand he took the key, and it struck him as enormous. Once outside, he longed to throw it away or take it back to the concierge.

  The old woman took courage on her way between her own door and the street, loading him with instructions as she might a child of twelve.

  ‘The electric-light switch is on your left as you go in. The kettle is always on the gas-stove in the kitchen, and all you have to do is to put a match to it. And your Japanese robe – Maria has her instructions to leave it folded at the head of the divan and the cigarettes in their usual place.’

  Chéri nodded affirmation once or twice, with the look of courageous unconcern of a schoolboy on the last morning of the holidays. And, when he was alone, it did not occur to him to make fun of his old retainer with the dyed hair, who had placed the proper value both on the last prerogatives of the dead and on the little pleasures of one whom all had now deserted.

  The following morning he awoke from an indecipherable dream, in which a crush of people were all running in the same direction. Though he saw only their backs, each was known to him. As they hurried by, he identified his mother, Léa – unaccountably naked, and out of breath – Desmond, the Pal, and young Maudru . . . Edmée was the only one to turn and smile at him, with the grating little smile of a marten. ‘But it’s the marten Ragut caught in the Vosges!’ Chéri cried out in his dream, and this discovery pleased him immeasurably. Then he checked and recounted all the one-way runners, saying over to himself: ‘There’s one missing. . . . There’s one missing. . . .’ Once out of his dream, on this side of awakening, it came to him that the one missing was none other than himself: ‘I must get back into it. . . .’ But the efforts of exerting every limb, like an insect caught on flypaper, served only to widen the bar of blue between his eyelids, and he emerged into that real world in which he was frittering away his time and his strength. He stretched out his legs, and bathed them in a fresh, cool part of the sheets. ‘Edmée must have got up some time ago.’

  He was surprised to see beneath the window a new garden of marguerites and heliotrope, for in his memory there was only a summer garden of blue and pink. He rang, and the sound of the bell brought to life a maid whose face was unfamiliar.

  ‘Where is Henriette?’

  ‘I’ve taken her place, sir.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Why – for the last month, sir.’

  He ejaculated an ‘Ah!’ as much as to say, ‘That explains everything.’

  ‘Where’s your mistress?’

  ‘Madame is just coming, sir. Madame is ready to go out.’

  Edmée, indeed, did appear, as large as life, but stopped just inside the door in so marked a manner that Chéri was secretly amused. He allowed himself the pleasure of upsetting his wife a little by exclaiming, ‘But it’s Ragut’s marten!’ and watching her pretty eyes waver under his gaze.

  ‘Fred, I . . .’

  ‘Yes, you’re going out. I never heard you get up.’

  She coloured slightly. ‘There’s nothing extraordinary in that. I’ve been sleeping so badly these last few nights, that I’ve had a bed made up on the divan in the boudoir. You’re not doing anything special today, are you?’

  ‘But I am,’ he replied darkly.

  ‘Is it important?’

  ‘Very important’ He took his time, and finished on a lighter note: ‘I’m going to have my hair cut.’

  ‘But will you be back for luncheon?’

  ‘No; I’ll have a cutlet in Paris. I’ve made an appointment at Gustave’s for a quarter past two. The man who usually comes to cut my hair is ill.’

  He was childishly courteous, the lie flowering effortlessly on his lips. Because he was lying, his mouth took on its boyhood mould – poutingly provocative and rounded for a kiss. Edmée looked at him with an almost masculine satisfaction.

  ‘You’re looking well this morning, Fred. . . . I must fly.’

  ‘Are you catching the 7.30?’

  She stared at him, struck dumb, and fled so precipitately that he was still laughing when the front door slammed behind her.

  ‘Ah! that does me good,’ he sighed. ‘How easy it is to laugh when you no longer expect anything from anyone. . . .’ Thus, while he was dressing, did he discover for himself the nature of asceticism, and the tuneless little song he hummed through pursed lips kept him company like a silly young nun.

  He went down to a Paris he had forgotten. The crowd upset his dubious emotional balance, now so dependent on a crystalline vacuity and the daily routine of suffering.

  In the Rue Royale he came face to face with his own full-length reflection at the moment when the brightness of noon broke through the rain-clouds. Chéri wasted no thoughts on this crude new self-portrait, which stood out sharply against a background of news-vendors and shopgirls, flanked by jade necklaces and silver fox furs. The fluid feeling in his stomach, which he compared to a speck of lead bobbing about inside a celluloid ball, must come, he thought, from lack of sustenance, and he took refuge in a restaurant.

  With his back to a glass partition, screened from the light of day, he lunched off selected oysters, fish, and fruit. Some young women sitting not far away had no eyes for him, and this gave him a pleasant feeling, like that of a chilly bunch of violets laid on closed eyelids. But the smell of his coffee
suddenly brought home the need to rise and keep the appointment of which this smell was an urgent reminder. Before obeying the summons, he went to his hairdresser’s, held out his hands to be manicured, and slipped off into a few moments’ inestimable repose, while expert fingers substituted their will for his.

  The enormous key obstructed his pocket. ‘I won’t go, I won’t go! . . .’ To the cadence of some such insistent, meaningless refrain, he found his way without mishap to the Avenue de Villiers. His clumsy fumbling round the lock and the rasp of the key made his heart beat momentarily faster, but the cheerful warmth in the passage calmed his nerves.

  He went forward cautiously, lord of this empire of a few square feet, which he now owned but did not know. The useless daily arrangement of the armoury had been laid out on the table by the well-trained charwoman, and an earthenware coffee-pot stood in the midst of charcoal embers already dying under the velvet of warm ashes. Methodically, Chéri emptied his pockets and set out one by one his cigarette-case, the huge key, his own small key, the flat revolver, his note-case, handkerchief, and watch; but when he had put on his Japanese robe, he did not lie down on the divan. With the silent curiosity of a cat he opened doors and peered into cupboards. His peculiar prudishness shrank back before a primitive but distinctively feminine lavatory. The bedroom, all bed and little else, also was decorated in the mournful shade of red that seems to settle in on those of declining years; it smelt of old bachelors and eau-de-Cologne. Chéri returned to the drawing-room. He switched on the two wall lamps and the beribboned chandelier. He listened to faint far-away sounds and, now that he was alone for the first time in this poor lodging, began trying out on himself the influence of its previous inmates – birds of passage or else dead. He thought he heard and recognized a familiar footstep, a slipshod, shambling old animal pad-pad, then shook his head: ‘It can’t be hers. She won’t be back for a week, and when she does come back, what will there be left for me in this world? I’ll have . . .’

  Inwardly he listened to the Pal’s voice, the worn-out voice of a tramp. ‘But wait till I finish the story of the famous slanging-match between Léa and old Mortier at the Races. Old Mortier thought that with the aid of a little publicity in Gil Blas he would get all he wanted out of Léa. Oh! la la, my pretties, what a donkey he made of himself! She drove out to Longchamp – a dream of blue – as statuesque as a goddess, in her victoria drawn by a pair of piebalds. . . .’

  He raised his hand towards the wall in front of him, where so many blue eyes were smiling, where so many swan-necks were preening themselves above imperturbable bosoms. ‘. . . I’ll have all this. All this, and nothing more. It’s true, perhaps, that this is a good deal. I’ve found her again, by a happy chance, found her here on this wall. But I’ve found her, only to lose her again for ever. I am still held up, like her, by these few rusty nails, by these pins stuck in slantwise. How much longer can this go on? Not very long. And then, knowing myself as I do, I’m afraid I shall demand more than this. I may suddenly cry out: “I want her! I must have her! Now! at this very moment!” Then what will become of me?’

  He pushed the divan closer to the illustrated wall and there lay down. And as he lay there, all the Léas, with their downward gazing eyes, seemed to be showing concern for him: ‘But they only seem to be looking down at me, I know perfectly well. When you sent me away, my Nounoune, what did you think there was left for me after you? Your noble action cost you little – you knew the worth of a Chéri – your risk was negligible. But we’ve been well punished, you and I: you, because you were born so long before me, and I, because I loved you above all other women. You’re finished now, you have found your consolation – and what a disgrace that is! – whereas I . . . As long as people say, “There was the War,” I can say “There was Léa.” Léa, the War . . . I never imagined I’d dream of either of them again, yet the two together have driven me outside the times I live in. Henceforth, there is nowhere in the world where I can occupy more than half a place. . . .’

  He pulled the table nearer to consult his watch. ‘Half past five. The old creature won’t be back here for another week. And this is the first day. Supposing she were to die on the way?’

  He fidgeted on his divan, smoked, poured himself out a cup of lukewarm coffee. ‘A week. All the same, I mustn’t ask too much of myself. In a week’s time . . . which story will she be telling me? I know them off by heart – the one about the Four-in-Hand Meet, the one about the slanging-match at Longchamp, the one about the final rupture – and when I’ve heard every one, every twist and turn of them, what will there be left? Nothing, absolutely nothing. In a week’s time, this old woman – and I’m already so impatient for her, she might be going to give me an injection – this old woman will be here, and . . . and she’ll bring me nothing at all.’

  He lifted beseeching eyes to his favourite photograph. Already this speaking likeness filled him with less resentment, less ecstasy, less heartbreak. He turned from side to side on the hard mattress, unable to prevent his muscles from contracting, like a man who aches to jump from a height, but lacks the courage.

  He worked himself up till he groaned aloud, repeating over and over again ‘Nounoune’, to make himself believe he was frantic. But he fell silent, ashamed, for he knew very well that he did not need to be frantic to pick up the little flat revolver from the table. Without rising, he experimented in finding a convenient position. Finally he lay down with his right arm doubled up under him. Holding the weapon in his right hand, he pressed his ear against the muzzle, which was buried in the cushions. At once his arm began to grow numb, and he realized that if he did not make haste his tingling fingers would refuse to obey him. So he made haste, whimpering muffled complaints as he completed his task, because his forearm was hurting, crushed under the weight of his body. He knew nothing more, beyond the pressure of his forefinger on a little lever of tempered steel.

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  Epub ISBN: 9781446475355

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Vintage 2001

  10 9

  Copyright © Estate of Colette, 1926

  La Fin de Chéri first published in Paris 1926

  First published in Great Britain by Gollancz, 1933

  This translation published by

  Martin Secker & Warburg, 1951

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