Slumped in an armchair, Cyprien would smoke cigarettes without answering. He was forced, for the sake of some peace, to threaten that he wouldn’t come back at all on nights like these. Then she’d go quiet, but she’d become very jumpy, she’d start to have anxiety attacks and was even more troublesome than when she was standing in front of him and barking in his face.
He tried another method. He would read, letting her writhe and hurl herself about, tearing her handkerchief with her teeth.
His indifference resulted in a cessation of these crises; calmer, though still out of sorts, Céline now contrived, using every possible means, to please her lover, to make him love her.
Seeing him always painting heavily made-up women, one evening when he was out she shook a powder-puff over her face, dabbed some flour on her nose, took a pastel crayon and rouged her cheeks. These daubings, applied without style or practice, made her look like a savage. When the painter returned and saw her all mottled like this, he laughed; she became angry, started to cry, and rubbed her face with her fingers, smudging the colours on her smeared and grotesque cheeks, staining her hands, her lips unblemished in spite of everything amid this mess of pink goo.
After that, she despaired of ever subjugating this man. Nevertheless, he did become more indulgent and more patient. As long as she didn’t moan or cry, he considered himself lucky. He’d come to feel a sincere sympathy for Céline, only he realised after a certain amount of time that it was a mistake not to be always on his guard with her. Céline had a heart of gold, but she needed to be tamed, whenever she no longer felt the leash, she’d revert to her former, more tempestuous, more unruly self.
In any event, the kind of uneasy affection she felt for the painter was beginning to change. The pride she’d had in possessing a gentleman for a lover had vanished. The charm of having a new lover was gone. Now she thought about the good times she’d had in her previous affairs; after a tempestuous day with the painter, yapping at his heels and kicking up a fuss, maddened by his silence and his disdain, thoughts of Anatole would come into her mind.
This man who had so deeply wounded her, abandoning her without even giving her the satisfaction of being the one to break it off, began to seem like a lively fellow, a fun companion. The simple pleasures they’d enjoyed together seemed charming to her, were made more agreeable by distant memory; the brutalities with which he sometimes seasoned them no longer repelled her, she excused them as the inevitable consequences of a heartfelt passion. He’d worn her down with his violence, with his pilfering, but all in all he was better than Cyprien. With Anatole, she could laugh and say ‘damn’ when she wanted, she could skip down the street, sing like a bird, dance the cancan or drink, and he didn’t get self-conscious or embarrassed. And besides, she had hardly gained by the exchange. Cyprien didn’t give her enough to support herself; the other, it’s true, stole from her, but at the end of the day, in order to make the disappointment of life with Cyprien bearable she needed to have something by way of compensation. Did she get money? No. Was there partying into the night like with Anatole? No. Were there caresses, cuddles, affection even? None of them either. Ah, if Anatole started following her one evening now, she certainly wouldn’t ask Cyprien to protect her.
Little by little, she reached that point where a woman, though not yet possessing the material means to do so, wishes to cheat on the man with whom she lives, to get even with him for his contempt or for his kindness, to take her revenge. These desires became more fixed, more ardent, on one particular Sunday. After a struggle of more than an hour, she’d broken Cyprien’s resolve and he’d taken her out. Arm in arm, they tussled with each other down the street. He flung unpleasant remarks at her along the way, or else replied in an offhand way, making it obvious he wasn’t even listening to her. She fell silent, studying with an offended air the shops in front of which she wasn’t even allowed to stop, when a couple came towards them on the opposite pavement. She nearly fainted. It was Anatole who, with a triumphal air, was hanging adoringly on the arm of an attractive woman in a new outfit. They seemed to be very happy. The exaggerated tones of a man who knows how to amuse a girl, and the sound of laughter provoked by his smutty jokes, could be heard as the couple went by. For them, it was obviously a happy-go-lucky day of carousing in local cabarets and drinking whenever they felt like it in bars. Anatole noticed Céline; he gave her a sidelong glance, an inviting wink, and then strolled on, with his cap cocked to the right and his hair curling at the temples, feeling very satisfied that his former mistress had seen him in the company of a mature, smartly-dressed woman.
The sight of this tart threw Céline’s heart into turmoil. If the woman had been some poor slut dressed in rags picked up from a pimp, if her cheeks had been hollowed by debauchery and plastered with make-up, Céline would certainly not have been tortured by the jealousy that now gripped her. Her rival being attractive, she wanted to supplant her in Anatole’s affection.
This change in Céline didn’t go unnoticed by the painter. The first sign that made him think his mistress might cheat on him was her absorbed silence, the passion with which she disobeyed him, her tendency not to come to his studio as regularly as before.
But the day he really became apprehensive was when Céline let drop a word that revealed things in a different light. In the hope of arousing his jealousy, she’d spoken to him about her former love affairs, laying stress especially on her relations with Anatole. She told him: ‘Now he was common like me, we understood one another; he swindled me, stole from me, but even so, he was affectionate; he wasn’t like some others who are frigid, who treat you like some poor dimwit, like some good-for-nothing who isn’t even worth beating.’
XVII
Céline would sometimes be astonished by her sister’s apathy; she’d tell her: ‘You’re going to be late, hurry up!’ Désirée would reply: ‘No I’m not. I didn’t give Auguste a precise time, I simply promised to meet him between eight and nine. It’s only half past, I’ve got plenty of time.’ Céline would leave. Désirée waited until the water was hot enough to wash her hands. That made her lose another ten minutes, five more to get dolled up and walk down the stairs; by the time she’d gone through the hall and out the door, Auguste would have been kicking his heels for more than three-quarters of an hour.
One evening, she didn’t come. It was the first time she’d completely missed a meeting.
Auguste had strolled along the boulevard, going up as far as the junction by the observatory, asking in a bar where they’d often met if anyone had seen her. He wandered about like a lost soul, keeping an eye on the pavement, watching the road, not daring to enter a tobacco shop from fear she’d pass by while his back was turned. Nor did he dare go any further than the Rue du Montparnasse, as Désirée could get to the boulevard either by that street or via the Rue du Depart, and so he stood there, waiting, on that poorly lit street, attracting the attention of two policemen as they walked slowly up and down, staring suspiciously at this man leaning against a tree or lounging on a bench.
Désirée was evidently not coming. So he slowly went back down the boulevard, turning round every three minutes to scan the narrow horizon, waiting until the black dots moving in the distance grew bigger, had changed into a woman other than the one he was hoping for.
It was already long past the time when he could still believe she hadn’t let him down. Sometimes he’d glimpse a figure coming from the opposite direction who resembled Désirée, and he’d run up to her, thinking that she’d perhaps taken a different route, arrived at the embankment and, vexed at not seeing him there, was now returning home. Up close, he’d discover a woman who didn’t look like her at all. The woman would stare at him, alarmed or delighted by his sudden movement towards her; and would either smile or make a sharp turn to avoid him. He arrived at the bridge at the bottom of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and, despondent, got his breath back; then, slowly, he again walked past the railings of La Halle aux Vins where, by the bleary glimmer of lanterns pla
ced at the four corners of a gaping hole of blackness, he examined a mass of gas tubes and water pipes undergoing repair; crossing the road, he leaned his elbows on the parapet above the blackly flowing Seine, streaked here and there with twists of fire reflected from the street lamps. Eleven o’clock chimed. No Désirée. Ah, she really wasn’t very kind, she’d lazed by the fire, had gone to bed, lovely and warm, without thinking of him. Then he tried to persuade himself that she was ill, but no, during the day she’d chatted and laughed as usual. At six o’clock she’d left the workshop happy and in good shape. It would have been, in truth, very surprising if she’d fallen ill after getting back home. Perhaps her father had detained her? That was even less probable. Vatard only went out on set days. Désirée knew the evenings when he went to play cards at Tabuche’s. She knew, consequently, the times when she was going to be free; besides, her father didn’t bother her anymore, letting her go out for walks. Even if he had wanted to spy on her and keep her on a leash like before, she could have pretended to go and buy a spool of thread or a packet of needles, could have run as far as the bar and asked them to give Auguste a message when he arrived, and then rushed home again if she was really too pressed for time to wait for him.
He tried to recall phrases she’d uttered over the last few days; hadn’t she said that her temples were throbbing, that she felt queasy? Perhaps a migraine had suddenly come on after all and she’d been forced to take to her bed as she was about to leave. With that egotism that lovers have, he would have preferred her to be ill than lacking in feeling for him. Despite having accused her of laziness and indifference, he kept telling himself over and over again that she was doubtless moaning and groaning in pain. But he couldn’t quite convince himself of it.
The same thing kept recurring at ever shorter intervals. And the next day, pressed by his questions, she would reply: ‘I was unwell.’
The first time, he questioned her anxiously, concerned; the second, he urged her vehemently to see a doctor, was up in arms when she claimed that it wasn’t worth the effort, that her headaches went as quickly as they came; the times after that, he became very confused, thinking that she looked too well for someone supposed to be ill. One day he let slip a hint of a doubt. Her cheeks flushed red, she got angry, she demanded he apologise, and only forgave him after long pleadings with her.
But as these excuses kept being repeated, especially on cold, rainy days, as this illness which she claimed gripped her in the evening left no trace the following morning, he became convinced she was lying and he was gradually made to understand, intimidated though he was and uncertain even whether he was right during those reproachful outbursts when she would be astonished at not being believed, would find it strange he suspected her, would declare in any event that that’s how it was, that’s how it would be, that he could take it or leave it. He took it.
Life between them became very awkward. When, after having broken one of her promises, Désirée was getting ready to see Auguste again the next day, she would always be sullen and quick-tempered by the time she met him. She knew she would have to put up with his nagging, to repeat over and over again: ‘I couldn’t come!’, to take care not to contradict herself, to shut him up with sulky, menacing looks, to listen to his pointed sighs, to submit to his bouts of suppressed anger, to his suspicions and his brooding sense of injury.
It wouldn’t have taken much to make her stay home.
Their meetings, so happy in the early days, became glum. And what’s more, perhaps without her being aware of it, her observations and remarks began to take on a sarcastic tone. Formerly, if they were walking along together and it suddenly began to rain, she would happily accept it as an adventure; now, she would grumble: ‘Oh great, here’s the rain, I’m going to get soaked, that’s all I need!’
At times, their love seemed to be tottering under the pressure of a thousand foolish nothings, a thousand trivialities which, like termites, were boring their holes, quietly gnawing away the last bonds holding them together. He began to despair, feeling his girl escape him; she began to be defiant, seeing him determined to fight her. It was Auguste, however, who would end up giving way, admitting to faults that later, when he’d left her, he could no longer recognise, hanging his head, almost thanking her for having come when, with a wicked irony, she hinted that she ought to have broken her word again and stayed at home in her room.
And yet how many resolutions he’d made before going to meet her. How many times he’d promised himself not to give in to her. Then, at the first glance she threw in his direction, all his firmness would dissolve into uncertainty and fear. He was like a man who, after having been battered and bruised, deems his adversary merciful because he consents not to finish him off.
Some evenings, while walking slowly down the Boulevard Saint-Germain keeping an expectant eye out for Désirée, he was accosted by a streetwalker, a sad blonde who wandered around, her hands in a muff and her head bare. She would say to him: ‘Hello, handsome!’ but he would continue on his way, without paying her any attention. When, not having seen Désirée, he came back down the street alone and passed this woman again, she would look at him and ask him curiously: ‘Well, didn’t she come then?’ As a result of meetings like this, they began to exchange a few words. Besides, she was very friendly when she didn’t have any clients. Auguste was so unhappy, so agitated from having his hopes disappointed, that he would blurt out some of his grievances, though the girl always sided with Désirée. ‘If only men knew. Women couldn’t always do what they wanted. Ah, men…what egotists they are, they always suspect the worst.’ A similar thing had happened to her. Her first lover had beaten her up because she wasn’t punctual, and she wasn’t even cheating on him. Moreover, he’d battered her for vices which, at that period, she hadn’t yet committed. Ah truly, women were to be pitied. And she would stubbornly defend Désirée, without having met her.
On these evenings, Auguste would return home more cheerful. On days when he caught sight of Désirée, he’d hastily leave the streetwalker, who would immediately move away, recommencing, twenty paces further off, her slow promenade, humming a soldier’s marching song in her husky voice.
And the two lovers would try to rediscover the passion, the rapture that had previously bound them one to the other; they would try to rekindle the joy of those past encounters, the voluptuous ache of separations imposed by the lateness of the hour. But the clichés they recited now fell flat like damp squibs; they remained miserable and at odds with one another.
They would end up not saying another word, hearing the streetwalker’s refrain whenever she was stopped, going back up towards the Boulevard Saint-Michel feeling their passion derailed, like a toy train wrecked by the heedless curiosity of a child. Each of them came to their own conclusions once they were alone. Auguste would tell himself: ‘Ah, if only I’d had her, things certainly wouldn’t be like this now…’ She, by contrast, would be thinking: ‘If I’d yielded, things certainly wouldn’t be any better; I’ve had a rare piece of luck in getting out of this unscathed…’
All the petty spite, meanness and bitterness, all the dregs of human character that had dried up and fallen silent while the affection they had for each other smothered any idea of conflict and strife between them, now began to show themselves, like a cheap lining shows itself through the worn seams of a jacket. Auguste’s dutifulness, his devotion, already counted for nothing with Désirée.
Deep down, she was perhaps the more unhappy of the two. She laid the blame, in spite of everything, on herself, but was careful not to admit it in front of him. She knew that he was in the right, but was furious when he ventured to say something that made it obvious, and almost contemptuous when he didn’t say anything and seemed to believe in her banal excuses for her absences.
There were days, moreover, when she no longer recognised herself. She would cry without knowing why, see black butterflies flutter before her eyes, her kidneys would ache, her legs felt as tired as those of a woman after a hard
day’s shopping, she’d start with a cry of alarm if the least thing fell over or made a noise, everything irritated her and she barely responded to her father’s questions or her sister’s caresses. The doctor came, pronounced the grandiose word ‘anemia’, and prescribed various tonics: quinine water, cod liver oil and iron tablets. She swallowed these drugs for a week, then she got fed up and threw the phials and pills down the privy.
Céline tried to cheer her up, to shake her out of this torpor, this apathetic remorse that left her slumped in a chair, her eyes dead, her limbs numb. One day when Vatard, more worried than ever by his daughter’s pallor, asked Céline to go and find the doctor she replied simply: ‘It’s not worth it, there’s nothing he can do. What Désirée needs is a husband, a pharmacist can’t cure maladies like that.’ Vatard held his tongue, but he too became pensive and depressed.
As for Auguste, he started to get his confidence back, to think that he should have been braver, more forceful. His friends at the workshop, who were aware of the situation, urged him to be firmer with her. ‘You’re not tough enough!’ said one. ‘She’s going to have some fun with you when you’re married!’ added another. ‘Shake ’er like you would a plum tree, and if need’s be mess ’er face up a bit!’ cried old Chaudrut. And they all reeled off their own experiences, mistresses they’d knocked into submission. ‘A couple of slaps like you’d give a crying child and that was that, it was plain sailing afterwards.’
Auguste refused to go along with these arguments, but after a lot of indecision, a lot of struggle, he decided to speak firmly to her, to give her a piece of his mind if necessary. However, as timid people tend to do when they want to appear brave, he completely overstepped the mark that evening.
Désirée was stunned, so stunned she couldn’t find anything to say. Indignant, she turned her back and, without paying him any further attention, got ready to go back home.
The Vatard Sisters Page 19
