Fundamentally she resembled Elisabeth. Once and for all time she had performed an act of faith, and she was now resting calmly on out-dated proof. She would have had to re-examine everything from the beginning; but that required a superhuman strength.
‘And you? What do you think about it?’
‘Oh, it’s up to you,’ said Gerbert with a smile. ‘It depends on whether you feel like drinking or writing.’
Françoise looked at him.
‘I’ve often wondered just what you expect to get out of your life,’ she said.
‘First of all, I would like to be sure that I’ll still be allowed to live it for a little while,’ he said.
Françoise smiled.
‘That’s fair enough. But supposing you have that amount of luck.’
‘Then I don’t know,’ said Gerbert. He thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps, in other times, I might have known better.’
Françoise assumed an air of detachment. Perhaps if Gerbert did not see the importance of the question he might answer.
‘But are you satisfied with your life or not?’
‘There are some good spells and others not so good,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Françoise, a little disappointed. She hesitated a moment. ‘If you limit yourself to that, it’s a little depressing.’
‘It depends on the day,’ said Gerbert. Then he made an effort. ‘Whatever you may say about life, it always seems to me to be just so many words.’
‘To be happy or unhappy – are they simply words to you?’
‘Yes, I don’t really understand what it means.’
‘But you’re rather gay by nature,’ said Françoise.
‘I’m frequently bored,’ said Gerbert.
He said it calmly. Long periods of boredom punctuated by short bursts of pleasure seemed completely natural to him. ‘Good spells and others not so good.’ Wasn’t he right, after all? Wasn’t the remainder of time just illusion and fiction? They were sitting on a hard wooden bench; it was cold, and there were soldiers and family parties all round them. Pierre was sitting at a different table with Xavière; they had smoked cigarettes and drunk a few glasses and spoken some words, and those sounds and that smoke had not been condensed into mysterious hours whose forbidden intimacy Françoise must envy; they would part, and nowhere would a bond remain that bound them one to the other. There was nothing anywhere to envy, or to regret, or to fear. The past, the future, love, unhappiness, were no more than a sound made with the mouth. Nothing existed except the musicians in their crimson blouses and the black-robed doll with a red scarf around its neck; its skirts, raised above a wide embroidered petticoat, revealed a pair of thin legs. It was there, it was enough to fill the eyes that could rest on it for an eternal present.
‘Give me your hand, my beauty, and I’ll tell your fortune.’ Françoise shuddered and automatically held out her hand to a handsome gypsy dressed in yellow and purple.
‘Things aren’t going as well for you as you’d really like but have patience, you’ll soon receive some news that will bring you happiness,’ said the woman in one breath. ‘You have money, my beauty, but not as much as people think. You’re proud and that’s why you have enemies, but you’ll triumph over all your enemies. If you come with me, my beauty, I’ll tell you a little secret.’
‘Do go,’ Gerbert urged her.
Françoise followed the gypsy, who produced a little piece of light-coloured wood from her pocket.
‘I’ll tell you a secret. There’s a dark young man in your life, you’re very much in love with him, but you’re not happy with him because of a blonde girl. This is a charm. You must put it into a small handkerchief and keep it on you for three days and then you’ll be happy with the young man. I wouldn’t give it to anyone, for this is a very precious charm; but I’ll give it to you for a hundred francs.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Françoise. ‘I don’t want the charm. Here’s something for the fortune.’
The woman seized the coin.
‘A hundred francs for your happiness is nothing. How much do you want to pay for your happiness, twenty francs?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Françoise.
She came back and sat down beside Gerbert.
‘What did she tell you?’ said Gerbert.
‘Just a lot of twaddle,’ said Françoise. She smiled. ‘She offered me my happiness for twenty francs, but I found that too dear, if, as you say, it’s nothing but a word.’
‘I didn’t say that!’ said Gerbert, startled to have been involved to such an extent.
‘Perhaps it’s true,’ said Françoise. ‘With Pierre one uses so many words, and what exactly lies behind them?’
The anguish that suddenly overcame her was so violent that she wanted to scream. It was as if the world had suddenly become a void; there was nothing more to fear, nor was there anything to love. There was absolutely nothing. She was going to meet Pierre, they would exchange meaningless phrases and then they would part. If Pierre’s and Xavière’s friendship was no more than an unsubstantial mirage, then equally Françoise’s and Pierre’s love did not exist. There was nothing but an infinite accumulation of meaningless moments, nothing but a chaotic seething of flesh and of thought whose termination was death.
‘Let’s go,’ she said abruptly.
Pierre was never late for an appointment. When Françoise walked into the restaurant, he was already sitting at their usual table. A wave of joy swept over her when she caught sight of him, but immediately she thought: ‘We have only two hours ahead of us,’ and her pleasure vanished.
‘Have you had a pleasant afternoon?’ said Pierre affectionately. A broad smile expanded his face and imparted a kind of innocence to his features.
‘We went to the flea-market,’ said Françoise. ‘Gerbert was very nice, but the weather was so wretched. I lost two hundred francs by betting on the three-card trick.’
‘What on earth made you do that? You are an idiot!’ said Pierre. He handed her the menu. ‘What will you have?’
‘A Welsh rarebit,’ said Françoise.
With a worried look, Pierre studied the menu.
‘There’s no egg mayonnaise,’ he said. His puzzled and disappointed face did not soften Françoise; she noted coldly that it was a touching face.
‘Well, two Welsh rarebits,’ said Pierre.
‘Would you like to know what we talked about?’ said Françoise.
‘Of course I would,’ said Pierre warmly.
She looked at him warily. In the past, she would simply have thought: ‘He wants to hear about it,’ and she would have told him at once; when Pierre’s words and smiles were directed to her, that was Pierre himself. Suddenly, she felt as if they were ambiguous symbols: Pierre had deliberately created them, he himself was behind them. All that was certain was that he had said that he would like to hear about it, and nothing more.
She put her hand on Pierre’s arm.
‘You tell me first,’ she said. ‘What did you do with Xavière? Did you manage to get some work done?’
Pierre looked at her a little sheepishly.
‘Not much,’ he said.
‘Well, really!’ said Françoise, making no secret of her annoyance. Xavière had to work for her own sake and for theirs; she could not go on living for years as a parasite.
‘We spent three-quarters of the afternoon squabbling,’ said Pierre.
Françoise felt she was controlling her expression, but was not too certain what it was that she feared might be revealed.
‘About what?’ she said.
‘About her work,’ said Pierre smiling into space. ‘This morning in the miming class, Bahin asked her to walk in the woods and gather flowers; she told him with horror that she loathed flowers and she never budged an inch. She told me about it with great pride and it made me furious.’
Quite quietly Pierre was drowning his steaming Welsh rarebit with Worcester sauce.
‘And then?’ said Françoise with impatience. Pierre c
ertainly was taking his time; he could have no suspicion of how important it was for her to know.
‘Oh! Then the band played,’ said Pierre, ‘she became embittered. She arrived, all sweetness and smiles, certain that I was going to pat her on the hand, but I – well, I dragged her through the mud! Clenching her fists, she began to explain – but with that silky politeness that you know so well – that we were worse than bourgeois because we crave for moral comfort. She wasn’t far out, but I got into a hell of a temper with her. We sat face to face at the Dôme for over an hour, without so much as uttering a word.’
All these theories about life without hope, about the futility of making an effort, became very irritating in the long run. Françoise held her peace; she did not want to spend her time criticizing Xavière.
‘That must have been a pretty sight!’ she said. This constraint, which made a lump rise in her throat, was so stupid. Surely she had not reached the stage where she had to keep up appearances in front of Pierre!
‘It isn’t so disagreeable to sit simmering with rage,’ said Pierre, ‘I don’t think she dislikes it either; but she has less resistance than I, and in the end she broke down. Then I made an attempt at reconciliation. That was difficult because she had immured herself in her hatred, but I won in the end.’ He added with a self-satisfaction: ‘We signed a solemn peace and to seal the reconciliation she invited me to her room for tea.’
‘To her room?’ said Françoise. It was a long time since Xavière had invited her inside her room, she felt a little stab of resentment.
‘Did you finally manage to drag some good resolutions out of her?’
‘We talked about other things,’ said Pierre. ‘I told her stories about our travels and we pretended that we were on a trip together.’ He smiled. ‘We made up a number of little scenes. An encounter, in the heart of a desert, between an English woman on her travels and a famous adventurer – you know the sort of thing. She has imagination, if only she could make use of it.’
‘She has to be handled firmly,’ said Françoise a little reproachfully.
‘I’ll manage that,’ said Pierre. ‘Don’t scold me.’ He had a queer smile, humble and saint-like. ‘All of a sudden she said to me: “I’m having a wonderful time with you!” ’
‘Well, that’s a triumph,’ said Françoise. ‘I’m having a wonderful time with you …’ Had she been standing with a vague look in her eyes, or had she been sitting on the edge of the sofa, looking straight at Pierre? There was no use in asking him. How could her exact tone of voice, the scent of her room at that moment, be described? Words could bring you nearer the mystery, but without making it any less impenetrable; it only masked the heart in a more chilling shadow.
‘I can’t quite make out her feelings towards me,’ said Pierre, as if preoccupied, ‘I think I’m gaining some ground, but the ground is constantly shifting.’
‘You’re progressing every day,’ said Françoise.
‘When I left her, the signs were ominous again,’ he said. ‘She was angry with herself for not having had her lesson, and she had a fit of self-disgust.’ He looked gravely at Françoise. ‘Be very nice to her when you see her later.’
‘I’m always nice to her,’ said Françoise a little stiffly. Whenever Pierre tried to tell her how she should behave to Xavière, she shrank into herself; she had no desire whatsoever to go and see Xavière and be nice, now that it was expected of her.
‘That vanity of hers is terrible,’ said Françoise. ‘She has to be certain of an immediate and striking success before committing herself.’
‘It’s not only vanity,’ said Pierre.
‘Then what is it?’
‘She’s told me a hundred times that she loathes having to stoop to scheming and waiting for opportunities.’
‘And do you consider that “stooping”?’
‘I haven’t any morals,’ said Pierre.
‘Do you honestly think that her behaviour is due to her moral sense?’
‘In a way it is,’ said Pierre with some annoyance. ‘She has a very definite outlook on life, and she doesn’t choose to compromise. That’s what I call morals. She’s looking for completeness; and that’s the kind of exactingness we’ve always admired.’
‘There’s a lot of listlessness in her case,’ said Françoise.
‘Listlessness, what is listnessness?’ said Pierre, ‘a way of shutting yourself up in the present; it’s the only way in which she can find completeness. If the present has nothing to offer, she buries herself in her lair like a sick animal. But you know, when you carry inertia to the point to which she carries it, the word listlessness is no longer valid; it assumes a kind of power. Neither you nor I would have the strength of mind to stay in a room for forty-eight hours without seeing a soul or doing a thing.’
‘I don’t deny it,’ said Françoise. She felt a sudden, painful need to see Xavière; there was unusual warmth in Pierre’s voice. Yet, admiration was a feeling which he maintained that he never experienced.
‘On the other hand,’ said Pierre, ‘when something does appeal to her, it’s quite amazing how she enjoys it; I feel very thin-blooded beside her; I almost feel humiliated.’
‘That must surely be the first time in you life that you’ve experienced the feeling of humility,’ said Françoise, with an attempt at a laugh.
‘When I left her, I told her she was a little black pearl,’ said Pierre gravely. ‘She shrugged her shoulders, but I really meant what I said. Everything about her is so pure – and so violent.’
‘Why black?’ said Françoise.
‘Because of that kind of perversity of hers. It almost seems as if she has moments when she must harm others and herself, when she must make herself hated.’ He let his thoughts wander for a moment. ‘You know, it’s curious. Often, if you tell her that you think highly of her, she jibs as if she were afraid; she feels herself fettered by our esteem.’
‘She was very quick about shaking off the fetters,’ said Françoise.
She was beginning to be uncertain; she almost had a desire to believe in that seductive face. If she now so often felt estranged from Pierre, it was because she had allowed him to progress alone down these paths of admiration and affection. They no longer saw things eye to eye. Where she beheld no more than a capricious child, Pierre saw a wild and exacting soul. If she were willing to stand by his side once more, if she were to give up this obstinate resistance …
‘There’s some truth in all that,’ she said. ‘I very often feel something pathetic about her.’
Again, she felt herself stiffen from head to foot; that alluring mask was a trap, she would not yield to such witchcraft. Of what might happen to her if she were to yield, she had not the faintest idea: all she knew was that some danger was threatening her …
‘But it’s impossible to be true friends with her,’ she said bitterly. ‘Her selfishness is something monstrous. It isn’t only that she considers herself superior to other people, she is utterly unaware of their existence.’
‘Still, she’s extremely fond of you,’ said Pierre a little reproachfully. ‘And you’re quite hard enough with her, you know.’
‘Hers isn’t a very pleasant affection,’ said Françoise, ‘she treats me at one and the same time as an idol and as a doormat. Perhaps deep in her heart she worships me in the abstract, but she treats the poor flesh-and-blood creature that I am with an off-handedness that’s rather embarrassing. It’s quite understandable: an idol doesn’t get hungry, or sleepy, or suffer from headaches, it is adored without being asked its opinion on the form of adoration it receives.’
Pierre began to laugh. ‘There’s some truth in that; but you’ll soon think me biased. Her inability to have human relations with people makes me feel sorry for her.’
Françoise, too, smiled.
‘I think you are slightly biased,’ she said.
They left the restaurant. Once again they had talked about nothing but Xavière. When she was not with them, they spent the
entire time talking about her; this was becoming an obsession. Françoise glanced sadly at Pierre; he had not asked her a single question, he was completely uninterested in the thoughts that had passed through her mind during the day; and when he did listen to her with interest, was that only out of politeness? She pressed her arm against him, so that she might at least feel some contact with him. Pierre gently squeezed her hand.
‘You know, I’m a little sorry I’m not sleeping at your hotel any more,’ he said.
‘Still,’ said Françoise, ‘your dressing-room does look very handsome now that it has been repainted.’
It was a little frightening. In his tender phrases, his affectionate gestures, she saw only an intention of kindness: they were not wholly convincing, they did not register properly. She shivered: it was as if a stop-watch had been set going to check her feelings; and now that it had been started, could her doubting ever again be stopped?
‘Have a pleasant evening,’ said Pierre tenderly.
‘Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ said Françoise.
She watched him disappear through the small side door of the theatre and an agony of doubt assailed her. What was there beneath the phrases and gestures? ‘We are but one.’ With the help of this convenient confusion she had always been relieved from worrying about Pierre – but these were only words: they were two separate persons. She had felt that one evening at the Pôle Nord. That was what she had held as a grievance against him several days later. She had not wanted to increase her qualms, she had taken refuge in anger, that she might not see the truth; yet Pierre was not at fault, he had not changed. It was she who had made the mistake of looking upon him only as a justification of herself. Now, she was aware that he lived his own life, and the result of her blind trust was that she suddenly found herself facing a stranger. She quickened her pace. The only way she could bring herself nearer to Pierre was by joining Xavière and trying to see her through his eyes. How far away was the time when Françoise only thought of Xavière as a part of her own life! Now it was towards a strange world that would barely be opened to her that she was hurrying with an avid yet hopeless anxiety.
She Came to Stay Page 16
