The Vatard Sisters

by Joris-karl Huysmans

  Anyway, it was just a case of making a decision and then finishing with Anatole one way or another. Once she’d had a bit of a whirl with her new man, she’d tell Anatole, who seemed to suspect something already because he was constantly prowling around the neighbourhood, to clear off. A slap and that would probably be it. A sore cheek, and she’d be rid of him. The sole difficulty to figure out was this: how to cover up her face sufficiently well so that it wouldn’t get bruised black and blue?

  Désirée was amazed. That her sister should dump a drunk like Anatole was only natural, but that Céline should have a rich man for a lover, that was beyond her. ‘So what does he do then, this gentleman?’ Her sister replied that he must work in an office, because his fingernails were trimmed and his hands were white. He might, however, be a house painter as his thumb was sometimes stained pink and green. ‘Perhaps he paints pictures,’ suggested Désirée, but Céline didn’t think so, her gentleman didn’t have long hair and didn’t wear a velvet jacket.

  Whatever he was, the younger girl thought that all these changes were hardly proper. She didn’t see anything immoral in living with a working man without having stood in front of some fat mayor first, it was simply a bit naïve, but that her sister should act like a tart and let herself be taken in by an aristo, that really and truly was a stain on the family honour. Désirée thought Céline was making a mistake but said only that she was still too young to understand anything about men, and she decided not to speak about her own news, to wait and surprise her when she was all dressed up to go out in her new hat.

  Except that another difficulty presented itself. Désirée couldn’t put her mother to bed by herself. Her arms weren’t strong enough and the poor woman weighed a ton. Until her father came back, Céline would be obliged not to go out in the evening, or at least not to leave her room, until mother had been rolled under the bedcovers. All this wasn’t very convenient because, to be blunt, when a girl wants to beguile a man, there have to be occasions when he gets to see a wiggle of the hips, a languid smile, a suggestive look, all the usual tricks of the trade. Consequently, Cécile came to think of Ma Teston as her guardian angel, a female messiah who every evening would announce the coming of the moment, anticipated since the morning, when she could let her hair down and talk dirty in one of the nearby dives.

  But in the mean time, since the departure of their father, waiting at home wasn’t much fun. They were all missing the stout man, the sputter of his smouldering pipe and the splat of his saliva in the spittoon. They were all disoriented, especially Céline, who didn’t like darning linen and who would spend her time twiddling her thumbs, pacing between table and window, and leaning over the balustrade casting glances down the Rue Vandamme.

  Their building was situated on the corner of that street and the Rue du Château, so naturally it sprouted the red railings and sheet-metal blue grapes of a wine-merchant’s. The girls’bedroom was at the back of the apartment, with a view of the tracks of the Western train line. At this spot the line, overlooked by a wooden tower embellished with clocks, was cut by a suspension bridge with six-foot high grating and, underneath, by a level-crossing for vehicles.

  When they were younger, the two girls had found all this movement, this teeming life of machines, very entertaining. Now that they were accustomed to the noise, they were aware of only one unbearable inconvenience, that of having copious amounts of coal dust and black smoke in their room.

  They had often noticed when combing their hair that the teeth of the comb would squeak as it dragged from their heads those specks of soot that nestle in the hair and beards of men who lean out of carriage doors when a train sets off. They were forced to rake their hair with a fine-tooth comb every day the good Lord sent; but Vatard remained deaf to their complaints. The inconveniences of the apartment were the very reason the rent was so cheap. As for him, he was perfectly accustomed to the screeches and the whistle blasts; besides, his window opened onto the Rue Vandamme. ‘A little dust in your ears won’t kill you now, will it?’ he’d reply. ‘You’ll just have to scrub a bit harder with the soap, that should do it!’

  ‘Hey, how about a game of beggar-my-neighbour?’ suggested Céline, spreading out a pack of cards on the table that were greasy enough to season noodles. But she didn’t even have time to separate the red cards from the black, when there was a sudden pounding on the door and it burst open. They sat there speechless; it was Anatole.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ he growled, ‘why are you staring at me like someone who’s just seen a ghost? That’s not very polite is it? Exactly, yes, it’s me, Anatole, better known as the Handsome One. I found out from the wineseller below that your father had left. Since you don’t like to entertain me when he’s here, I thought I’d come round now he’s not.’

  Désirée snapped out of her stupor and, fearing they’d wake her mother who was dozing in an armchair, head slumped on her shoulder, led Anatole and Céline into her room. As soon as the door was closed, Anatole, who’d been drinking like a fish and who seemed in the mood for some fun, kissed his sweetheart on the forehead, bowed to Désirée and, leaning with his elbow on the windowsill, exclaimed: ‘Very nice!’

  Céline was expecting a hail of slaps. She cast him a look of dazed gratitude.

  ‘Very nice,’ he repeated, ‘it’s right jolly here; well look at that, the train for Versailles is about to depart. God it’s hot, girls…’ And overcome by another wave of tenderness, he drew Céline towards him by the waist and they leaned over the balustrade together.

  Above them, clouds of dark chiffon were being rent asunder in a long crackling sound; the sky spread out like an immense, scabious-coloured surplice, the turned up hems of which were held in place by pins of lightning. The smell of burnt coal and hot metal, of smoke and soot, of steam and grease, intensified. In the distance, the train station was blurring into a yellow fog, lit by stars of orange gaslamps and white signal lanterns that marked the open rail lines.

  Behind the railway terminus, the sky seemed to be charged with even heavier and more torrential clouds, and above two triangles of flaming glass a clock dial lit up, like a full moon crossed by two black bars.

  Just opposite the window the pointed roofs of a mass of buildings, their lower floors disappearing into the shadows, stood out against the darkness, which became less intense the higher you lifted your eyes; and squeezed between fences and huts, between plots of cabbages and trees, the train line stretched out to infinity, scored by rails that glistened beneath the lantern beams like thin streams of water.

  Two locomotives were working away, wailing and whistling as if asking for directions. One was strolling along slowly, belching showers of sparks from its funnel, pissing dribbles of water, and dropping burning embers, lump by lump, from its bare backside. Then a cloud of red steam enveloped it from cabin to wheels, its gaping mouth flamed and a black shadow, alternately straightening up and hunching over again, passed in front of the glare of the furnace, stuffing the beast’s throat with shovelfuls of coke.

  It roared and growled, puffing harder, its rounded paunch sweating, and amid the grumbling of its belly the clank of the shovel against its iron mouth rang out more clearly. The other engine was dashing along in a whirlwind of smoke and flames, calling to the pointsman to direct it over to a siding signalled in the distance by the yellow disk of a lamp; then it slowed its pace, shooting out jets of white steam, making the skirt of its tender, spotted blood-ruby red, sway on the zigzagging rail that connected the two tracks.

  To one side, a small green light glimmered, indicating a fork in the track, and whistle blasts, sometimes shrill as if impatient and sometimes stifled as if pleading, criss-crossed in the night.

  From time to time, a horn blast rang out, reverberated, died away, and then brayed again. The gatemen closed the barriers of the level-crossing; an express train was approaching in the distance. A fierce snorting, a shrill cry repeated three times, tore through the night; then two headlights like enormous eyes raced along
rails that shimmered as the train rumbled along. The earth shook and from a white fog streaked with flashes of lightning, from a squall of dust and ashes, from a spattering of sparks, the train sprang forth with a terrible clatter of juddering iron, of shrieking boilers, of pumping pistons; the convoy threaded past beneath the window and its rumbling thunder died away, soon one could see only the three red lanterns of the final wagon, and then the jolting sound of freight cars bumping over the turntables echoed out.

  Men were moving around indistinctly over the track left free by the passage of the train; the signals grated; a splash of blood pierced the darkness of the sky indicating that the line was clear; the barriers opened again, and carts passed through.

  Anatole was thinking things over. He’d practically seduced a young girl in a neighbouring workshop. She was a poor creature with a limp, her large, sad eyes illuminating a pale and sickly face; she’d probably remained a virgin because no one wanted her; be that as it may, she was a very able worker who was earning a good wage and supporting her widowed and frequently ill mother. Anatole thought, reasonably enough, that this young girl would be affectionate and that she wouldn’t refuse him the money necessary to drink a few bottles of beer to her health. So he wasn’t exactly sorry to see Céline fluttering her eyes at another man; now that he’d plundered her savings she could go to the devil if she wanted to!

  He was, moreover, in the best of moods that evening. He’d wet his whistle and was just drunk enough to make him affable, not churlish; he was very pleased with himself, thought himself irresistible and stood with a foppish air, as if ready to reel off a whole spool of romantic rubbish to the first woman who came along.

  Ensconced by the window, he swaggered and swayed, working himself up to deliver a long monologue, a deluge of observations that touched on and swamped everything, from the copper-clad locomotives of the Gare du Nord, which he claimed were finer than the ones just over there, to the kinds of liqueurs sold in bars, and finally to love, the enchantments of which he extolled; but as the two girls only responded to all this verbiage with monosyllables and exclamations, he held his silence for several minutes and then, abruptly addressing himself to Céline, said to her:

  ‘So you’ve no sense of shame, then? You’re running after toffs now are you?’

  She blushed. He cut short all her stuttering attempts to reply, and continued:

  ‘It’s very sad. You love a woman, you make sacrifices for her, and then there comes a day when that woman says to you: “Oh, shut up, put a cork in it, you’re annoying me. All you ever say is: ‘Do you want to or not?’ I’d like a man who can afford a new pair of trousers and wears gloves on his maulers; I want to ride in cabs, I don’t want to eat any more hard-boiled eggs, I want Ostende oysters and maybe one of those little forks to eat them with.” Damn it, that new man of yours, I could break him in two if I thought it was worth the effort; but no, I don’t want to upset the bourgeoisie now, do I? So, it’s agreed then, we’re going to untie the knot? Right, we’ll do it politely and without any kicks up the backside. I’m not going to give you a slap since it’s me who’s leaving you. I know it’s stupid, because in the end it doesn’t matter which of us begins it, the result is still the same, but I’m doing it like this for the benefit of the people we know, oh yes indeed, suppose I meet Colombel or Michon, and they say to me: “Hey, what’s going on with that little gal of yours?” and I tell ’em: “Another man is taking care of her now,” then I’ll look like an idiot, but if tomorrow I say: “It’s no big deal, I’ve dumped her!” you can see the difference. Besides, I’ve noticed that your sex only respects a man if he’s dumped a lot of women, and above all he must never lose his reputation. As for me, in the first place, I’m a decent fellow, that’s the result of a good education. You know there are men who say to the tarts they want to chuck: “I’m leaving for Algeria, so long gorgeous, don’t cry, I’ll send you some dates…” and inside they’re thinking: “I’m not going anywhere, it’s raining!” Now is that a decent thing to do? No, it’s not. Me, I’m not like that, I always give my girl a week’s notice before I scarper. It’s only honest and proper, that’s the way I see it. Now give me a kiss, babydoll.’

  Céline was dumbfounded. So Anatole didn’t care for her at all; he was leaving her without even a hint of regret. He was an immoral man, a blockhead, she knew that; but she would never have believed he could be so mean. When a woman gives you to understand that she’s had enough of you, the very least you can do is get a bit angry and upset! Without that, what pleasure does a girl have left? All the men she’d had up to now had kept an eye on her, had got jealous and slapped her around as soon as she began to desert them. In letting herself be seduced by a gentleman she’d revelled in the thought that Anatole would carry on like the very devil. Yes, he’d kick up a fuss, he’d follow her, he’d shout at her the length of the Avenue du Maine, but at the end of the day, while she was getting her thrashing, she’d be able to say: ‘You can beat me all you like, loverboy, I’m cheating on you all the same.’ But if he responds by laughing, ‘I don’t give a damn,’ then what did he get out of toying with her affection? Anatole was a brute, but only when she refused to lend him money. Heartless and indifferent; a man like that would really put you off all the others!

  Anatole twisted around graciously and repeated in a soft voice: ‘Kiss me, babydoll.’ Céline became purple with rage, her blood boiling in her veins, and she shouted at him: ‘Have you finished talking now? Well then, yes it’s true, I’ve found a rich gentleman…and he’s a lot nicer than you!’

  Anatole was inordinately amused. ‘Don’t get angry,’ he replied, ‘that won’t do any good. Now just think about it for a moment: I like you and you like me, I tell you so and you blush like a poppy and flutter your eyelids, all women do that to soft-soap a man. You say to yourself: “I’m going to get the better of him.” As for me, I tell myself the same thing. So by God it’s the smarter of the two who comes out on top! And besides, nothing’s broken. I kept the property in good order, I wasn’t responsible for any wear and tear; you still look beautiful, by moonlight at least, since that wimp, who’s so delicate he wears two overcoats one on top of the other, practically knocks himself out trying to catch you up when you’re making your way down the Boulevard de Montrouge. People give things up when they cease to please, so why shouldn’t I give you up? There’s no danger of you getting left on the shelf because you’ve already got a buyer. Look, do you want me to spell it out for you: you made a mistake, you’re not really suitable, you turned your nose up at everything, it had to be this, it had to be that, you were hungry, you weren’t hungry…and since we were both eating the same dish, you should have been quicker if you wanted some grub. Me, I stuffed myself, while you were just picking, I finished first and I’m no longer hungry. I’m thirsty now, for example, but do you offer me anything? No? So, no hard feelings, eh? Well, goodnight, give my regards to the judges and my respects to the ladies!’

  Anatole was already a long way off, while Céline still stared stupidly at the floor in front of her. Finally, tears like silvery beads ran down her cheeks. Désirée had to put their mother to bed alone, her sister having collapsed by the window, choking back her emotion, staring vacantly at what was going on outside.

  Night had completely fallen. No more trains were ploughing through space; in the distance, near the suburban line, one could hear an engine hooting, seeming to sob in the darkness; sometimes a gust of wind would sweep over the telegraph wires and make them vibrate with a shrill jingling which died away like a doleful lament, then the rumble, deep and low, of a departing locomotive; under the bridge, the window of a pointsman’s hut opened slightly and a ray of light leapt out of the tangle of ivy that framed and straggled around it. The window closed again; a thin thread of golden pink dashed itself against the spiky cluster of leaves, zigzagged rapidly, and then all became black again; to the left, two men seated on a bench were talking, their lighted pipes gleaming in the darkness, revealing sudd
en glimpses of edges of faces, tips of noses, ends of fingers. Then, further off still, lost in the night, seven or eight engines were belching smoke, backs turned and fire holes gaping. They looked like red moons, lined up one next to the other, with the yellow moons of the clock dials on the platform and the bridge rising above them, dominated in turn by the twinkling disk of the real moon, which, emerging from the clouds as if from the dark waters of a lake, dusted the whole railyard with flecks of silver.

  VIII

  Désirée wasn’t happy about Anatole and Céline falling out. Her sister had become bad-tempered and sullen, a proper holly leaf that you couldn’t touch without getting pricked. Up to now she’d found it completely natural that Désirée should look after the house while she ran off with her man to some fun spot in the Montrouge quarter, but now the younger girl, too, wanted to go out in the evenings and have a good time. Arguments followed. One day Céline abruptly announced at the table that she could neither clear up nor wash the dishes. She had a date that evening at eight o’clock. Désirée made a little groan, and, exasperated by her sister’s bad temper, declared that she had a date as well and that she hadn’t got time to dry the plates and glasses; but as Céline, chewing a last mouthful, was already disappearing out the open door onto the landing, the younger girl was forced stay in the house and wait until Teston’s wife came to deliver her and keep watch in her place over their mother.

  All this wrangling caused by Céline’s stubbornness resulted in them putting mama to bed earlier than usual. Now they’d hoist her onto the mattress at eight o’clock. Anyway, she didn’t complain, like all those who suffer she was happy to change position, only lifting up her nose from time to time like a worried animal, wondering why the days seemed shorter now.

  Auguste took a dislike to Céline during this time. He had to hang around for long periods and he reckoned Désirée was very stupid to let herself be bossed about like this by her sister. Selfish like all lovers, he wasn’t interested in Madame Vatard’s state of health, unusual though it was. He saw and understood only one thing: Désirée was only free in the evenings for a few minutes, and he would tell her, rightly enough, that once her father returned their meetings would be even fewer than they were at present. It was now or never to get together while he wasn’t around. If they didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, how would they ever truly get to know each other?