‘I’ll speak to her this evening,’ he repeated. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll tell you everything that happens, but I won’t torment you any more, I promise.’
‘You haven’t been tormenting me,’ said Françoise. ‘It was I who made you talk. You didn’t want to.’
‘It was a sore point,’ said Pierre with a smile. ‘I was certain that I’d be incapable of discussing it cold-bloodedly. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to you about it, but when I came in and saw you with your pathetic thin face, everything else seemed ridiculous to me.’
‘I’m no longer ill,’ said Françoise. ‘There’s no need for you to handle me carefully any longer.’
‘You see very clearly that I’m not particularly careful how I handle you,’ said Pierre. He smiled. ‘I’m really ashamed. All we do is to talk about me.’
‘Well, one can’t say that you never mention your own affairs,’ said Françoise. ‘In fact, you’re amazingly honest. You, who can be such a complete sophist in discussions, you never cheat about yourself.’
‘I don’t deserve any credit for that,’ said Pierre. ‘You know that I never feel compromised by what goes on within me.’ He looked up at Françoise. ‘The other day, you told me something that struck me – that I put my feelings beyond time, beyond space, and that in order to keep them intact, I did not live them. That was a little unfair. But where I myself am concerned, it seems to me that I do behave rather in that way: I always think that I’m elsewhere, and that each particular moment is of no importance.’
‘That’s true,’ said Françoise. ‘You always think that you’re above anything that happens to you.’
‘And therefore, I can do anything I want,’ said Pierre. ‘I take refuge in this notion that I am the man who is accomplishing a certain amount of work, the man who, with you, has achieved so perfect a love. But that’s too convenient. Everything else exists too.’
‘Yes, the rest does exist,’ said Françoise.
‘You see, my honesty is still a means of cheating with myself. It’s amazing how cunning one can be,’ Pierre added with an earnest expression.
‘Oh! We’ll foil your tricks,’ said Françoise.
She smiled at him. What was she uneasy about? He could easily cross-examine himself, he could question the world. She knew she had nothing to fear from this freedom that separated him from her. Nothing would ever change their love.
Françoise rested her head against the pillow. Noon. She still had a long period of solitude before her, but it was no longer the steady white loneliness of the morning. A warm anxiety had crept into the room; the flowers had lost their brilliance, the orangeade its freshness; the walls and the polished furniture seemed naked. Xavière … Pierre … Wherever her eyes fell, they caught only absences. Françoise closed her eyes. For the first time for weeks anxiety came to life in her. How had the night gone? Pierre’s indiscreet questions must have hurt Xavière. Perhaps, in a little while, they would be reconciled at Françoise’s bedside. And then what? She became aware of that burning in her throat, that feverish beating of her heart. Pierre had brought her back from the depths of limbo, and she did not want to plunge back there again. She did not want to remain here: this nursing-home was now nothing but an exile. Even illness was not enough to enable her to stand alone. The future that was taking shape on the horizon was her future beside Pierre – our future. She listened. During the past days, quietly settled at the core of her invalid’s life, she welcomed visits as a simple distraction. Today, it was different. Pierre and Xavière were approaching, step by step, along the corridor. They had climbed the stairs. They were coming from the station, from Paris, from the centre of their life; it was a portion of this life that they would spend here. The steps halted outside the door.
‘May we come in?’ said Pierre, as he opened the door. There he was, and Xavière was with him. The transition from their absence to their presence had, as always, been imperceptible.
‘The nurse told us that you had slept very well.’
‘Yes, as soon as the injections are stopped, I’ll be able to leave,’ said Françoise.
‘Provided you behave and don’t get too excited,’ said Pierre. ‘Relax and don’t talk. We’ll do the talking.’ He smiled at Xavière. ‘We have lots of things to tell you.’
He sat down on a chair beside the bed, and Xavière sat on the big square hassock; she must have washed her hair that morning, a thick golden fuzz framed her face: her eyes and her pale mouth had a caressing and secretive expression.
‘Everything went very well at the theatre last night,’ said Pierre. ‘The house was responsive, and we had a great many curtain calls. But for some unknown reason I was in a filthy mood after the performance.’
‘You were nervy during the afternoon,’ said Françoise with a half-smile.
‘Yes, and then I no doubt felt the lack of sleep – I don’t know. Whatever it was, when I was walking down the rue de la Gaieté, I suddenly became intolerable.’
Xavière gave a queer little triangular pout.
‘He was a real little asp, hissing and poisonous,’ she said. ‘I was very cheerful when I arrived. I had rehearsed the Chinese princess very nicely for two hours. I had purposely slept for a little while, so that I’d really be fresh,’ she added reproachfully.
‘And in my filthy mood, I did nothing but look for excuses to lose my temper with her!’ said Pierre. ‘Crossing the boulevard Montparnasse, she had the bad luck to let go of my arm …’
‘Because of the traffic,’ said Xavière quickly, ‘it was impossible to walk in step. It wasn’t at all convenient.’
‘I took that as a deliberate insult,’ said Pierre, ‘and I was shaken by a fit of temper that made my bones rattle.’
Xavière looked with consternation at Françoise.
‘It was terrible. He wouldn’t talk to me, except that now and then out came an acidly polite remark. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt so unjustly attacked.’
‘I can well imagine it,’ said Françoise, smiling.
‘We had decided to go to the Dôme, because we had not been there for so long,’ said Pierre. ‘Xavière seemed happy to be back there and I thought that it was her way of running down the recent evenings we had spent together looking for adventure. That added to my fury, and for nearly an hour I sat, tied up in knots with anger, over my glass of beer.’
‘I tried various topics of conversation,’ said Xavière.
‘Her patience was really angelic,’ said Pierre, embarrassed, ‘but all her efforts at goodwill only made me the more furious. I know, when I’m in such a state, that I can get out of it if I want to, but on the other hand I never see any reason to want to. I ended up by bursting into accusations. I told her that she was as inconsistent as the wind; that it was certain that if anyone spent one pleasant evening with her, the next was sure to be execrable.’
Françoise burst out laughing.
‘But what comes over you to make you so mistrustful?’
‘I actually believed sincerely that she had greeted me in a standoffish and reticent way. I believed it because, out of surliness, I had made up my mind in advance that she would be on the defensive.’
‘Yes,’ said Xavière querulously. ‘He explained that he was in that charming temper because he was afraid that he might not spend as perfect an evening with me as the night before.’
They smiled at one another with affectionate understanding. It seemed that Gerbert had not entered into it; in the end, of course, Pierre had not dared to talk about him, and he had got out of it with half-truths.
‘She looked so pathetically shocked,’ said Pierre, ‘that I was promptly disarmed. I felt completely ashamed. I told her everything that had gone through my mind from the time we left the theatre,’ then smiling at Xavière, ‘and she was magnanimous enough to forgive me.’
Xavière returned his smile. There was a brief silence.
‘And then we agreed the fact that for a long time now our evenings had
been perfect,’ said Pierre. ‘Xavière was kind enough to tell me that never once had she been bored with me, and I told her that the moments I spent with her counted among the most precious of my life.’ He added quickly, in a playful tone that did not ring quite true, ‘and we agreed that this was not so surprising since we were in love.’
Despite the gaiety in his voice, the last word fell heavily on the room and silence closed over it. Xavière wore a forced smile: Françoise composed her features with difficulty; it was only a matter of a single word, it was a long time since things had reached this stage, but it was a decisive word and before saying it, Pierre really might have talked it over with her. She was not jealous of him, but not without a fight would she lose this little sleek, golden girl whom she had adopted early one chilly morning.
Pierre continued easily and calmly, ‘Xavière told me that until that moment she had never been conscious that it was love.’ He smiled. ‘She knew well enough that the moments we spent together were happy and important ones, but she had not understood that it was owing to my presence.’
Françoise glanced at Xavière, who was gazing non-committally at the floor. She was unfair, Pierre had talked it over with her; she had been the first to tell him a long time ago:
‘You may fall in love with her.’ The night of the New Year’s Eve party he had offered to give up Xavière. He had every right to feel his conscience clear.
‘Did you think it was an extraordinary coincidence?’ said Françoise clumsily.
Xavière quickly looked up.
‘Of course not,’ she said. She looked at Pierre. ‘I knew quite well that it was thanks to you, but I thought that it was simply because you were so interesting and so pleasant. Not because – not because of anything else.’
‘But what do you think now? You haven’t changed your mind since yesterday?’ said Pierre with a winning air which did reveal a slight uneasiness.
‘Certainly not, I’m not a weather-vane,’ said Xavière stiffly.
‘You might have made a mistake,’ said Pierre, whose voice wavered between curtness and gentleness. ‘Perhaps in a moment of exaltation, you mistook friendship for love.’
‘Did I look exalted last night?’ said Xavière with a twisted smile.
‘You seemed caught up by the moment,’ said Pierre.
‘No more than usual,’ said Xavière. She clutched a strand of her hair and began to squint at it with a stupid, vicious look. ‘The trouble is,’ she drawled, ‘that big words immediately make everything so oppressive.’
Pierre’s face froze.
‘If the words are apt, why be afraid of them?’
‘Quite so,’ said Xavière continuing to squint atrociously.
‘Love is not a disgraceful secret,’ said Pierre. ‘To me, it’s a weakness to refuse to look squarely at what goes on inside you.’
Xavière shrugged her shoulders.
‘You can’t change human nature,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a public soul.’
Pierre had a disconcerted and helpless look that pained Françoise; he could be so fragile, if he chose to cast away all his defences and all his weapons.
‘Do you find it disagreeable that all three of us should discuss the matter?’ he said. ‘Still, that’s what we decided yesterday evening. Perhaps it might have been better had we each talked alone with Françoise.’ He look hesitatingly at Xavière. She threw him a vexed glance.
‘It’s all the same to me whether we’re two or three or a whole crowd,’ she said. ‘What seems strange to me is to hear you talk to me about my own feelings.’ She began to laugh nervously. ‘It’s so strange, I can hardly believe it. Am I actually the person you’re talking about? Is it me you’ve been dissecting? And do you expect me to put up with it?’
‘Why not? It’s you and I who are involved,’ said Pierre. He smiled timidly. ‘It seemed quite natural to you last night.’
‘Last night …’ said Xavière, and she had an almost painful sneer, ‘you seemed to live things, for once, and not just to talk about them.’
‘You’re being extremely unpleasant,’ said Pierre.
Xavière ran her hands through her hair and pressed them against her temples.
‘It’s crazy to be able to talk about oneself as if one were a piece of wood,’ she said fiercely.
‘You can only experience things in the dark, secretly,’ said Pierre in a rasping voice. ‘You’re incapable of thinking them and wanting them in broad daylight. It’s not the words that upset you. What does irritate you is that, today, I’m asking you to agree, of your own free will, to what you accepted last evening when it was sprung upon you.’
Xavière’s face fell, and she glanced at Pierre with a hunted look. Françoise would have liked to stop Pierre. She could easily understand that people were afraid of, and wanted to escape from, this domineering tenseness which hardened his features. He himself was not happy at this moment either, but despite his fragility, Françoise could not help seeing him as a man fighting desperately for his masculine triumph.
‘You’ve just let me say that you loved me,’ said Pierre. ‘It’s not too late for you to correct yourself. It would not surprise me in the least to discover that you experience nothing deeper than passing emotions.’ He gave Xavière a nasty look. ‘Go ahead, tell me frankly that you don’t love me.’
Xavière threw a desperate glance at Françoise.
‘Oh! I wish none of this had ever happened,’ she said, in obvious distress. ‘Everything was going so well before! Why must you spoil it all?’
Pierre seemed moved by this outburst. He looked first at Xavière, then at Françoise, unable to make up his mind.
‘Give her time to breathe,’ said Françoise, ‘you’re badgering her.’
To love, not to love – how laconic and rational Pierre was becoming in his thirst for certainty! In a sisterly way, Françoise understood Xavière’s bewilderment. In what words could she herself have described her feelings? Everything was in such confusion within her.
‘Forgive me,’ said Pierre. ‘I was wrong to lose my temper. It’s all over. I don’t want to think that anything is spoilt between us.’
‘But it is spoilt, you can see that!’ said Xavière. Her lips were trembling, her nerves were on edge. Suddenly, she buried her face in her hands.
‘Oh! What can we do now? What can we do?’ she said in a whisper.
Pierre bent towards her.
‘No, no, nothing has happened. Nothing has changed,’ he said insistently.
Xavière let her hands fall to her knees.
‘Everything’s so heavy now. It’s like a strait-jacket round me.’ She was trembling from head to foot. ‘It’s so heavy.’
‘Don’t think that I expect anything further. I ask nothing more of you. It’s just as it was before,’ said Pierre.
‘Look what’s happened already,’ said Xavière. She sat bolt upright and threw her head back to check her tears. Her throat swelled convulsively. ‘It’s a disaster, I’m sure of it. I’m not up to it,’ she said in a broken voice.
Françoise looked at her, helpless and heartbroken: this reminded her of one such occasion at the Dôme; now, however, it was even more dangerous than then for Pierre to make any gesture, for it would have been not only an effrontery but an outrage. Françoise wished she might put her arms round the trembling shoulders and find something to say, but she lay paralysed between the sheets. No contact was possible; she could only utter brittle words which were doomed not to ring true. Xavière, with no help available, was standing face to face with a menacing avalanche, alone, like one hallucinated.
‘There’s no disaster to fear between the three of us,’ said Françoise. ‘You must have confidence. What are you afraid of?’
‘I’m afraid,’ said Xavière.
‘Pierre is a little snake, but his hiss is worse than his bite, and besides we’ll tame him. You’ll let yourself be tamed, won’t you?’
‘I won’t even hiss any more,’ said Pierre. �
�I swear to that.’
‘Well?’ said Françoise.
Xavière took a deep breath.
‘I’m afraid,’ she repeated in a weary tone.
Just as on the evening before, at the same time, the door opened softly and the nurse entered, a syringe in her hand. Xavière jumped up and walked to the window.
‘It won’t take long,’ said the nurse.
Pierre got up and took a step forward as if he wanted to join Xavière, but he stopped in front of the fireplace.
‘Is this the last injection?’ said Françoise.
‘We’ll give you one more tomorrow,’ said the nurse.
‘And after that, I can just as easily convalesce at home?’
‘Are you in such a hurry to leave us? You’ll have to wait until you’re a little stronger, before you can be moved.’
‘How long? Another week?’
‘A week or ten days.’
The nurse inserted the needle.
‘There, that’s all,’ she said. She pulled up the sheets and left the room with an expansive smile. Xavière whirled round on her heel.
‘I loathe her, with her honeyed voice,’ she said with bitter hatred. For a moment she stood motionless at the far end of the room; then she walked to the arm-chair on which she had thrown her raincoat.
‘What are you doing?’ said Françoise.
‘I’m going out to get a little air. I’m suffocating in here.’ Pierre made a gesture. ‘I must be alone,’ she said fiercely.
‘Xavière! Don’t be obstinate!’ said Pierre. ‘Come back and sit down and let’s talk sensibly.’
‘Talk! We’ve already talked too much!’ said Xavière. She quickly put on her coat and walked towards the door.
‘Don’t go like this,’ said Pierre gently. He put out his hand and lightly touched her arm. Xavière started back.
‘You’re not going to issue orders to me now,’ she said tonelessly.
‘Go and get some air,’ said Françoise, ‘but come back and see me at the end of the day. Will you do that?’
Xavière looked at her.
‘I’d like to,’ she said with a kind of docility.
‘Shall I be seeing you at midnight?’ said Pierre in a curt tone.
She Came to Stay Page 25
