She climbed the stairs and turned on the light. Before going out she had laid the table, and the supper really did present a handsome spread. She, too, looked handsome in her pleated skirt, plaid jacket, and careful make-up. Anyone looking at this whole scene in a mirror might well have felt confronted with an old dream come true. When she was twenty, in her dreary little bedroom, she used to set out pork-sausage canapés and carafes of rough red wine for Pierre: then she used to take pleasure in imagining that she was giving him a delicious repast of pâté de foie gras and old Burgundy. Now the foie gras was on the table, together with caviare canapés, and there was sherry and vodka in the bottles; and now she had money, any number of connexions, and a dawning reputation. And yet, she continued to feel herself on the outskirts of life: this supper was only a Barmecide feast in a counterfeit smart studio, and she was only a living caricature of the woman she pretended to be. She crumbled a petit four between her fingers. The pretence used to be fun in the old days: it was the anticipation of a brilliant future. Now she no longer had a future. She knew that in no way would she ever reach the authentic ideal of which her present self was only a copy. Never would she know anything other than these shams. It was the curse which had been cast upon her: everything she touched turned into papier-mâché.
The doorbell shattered the silence. Did they know that everything was spurious? Surely they knew. She gave a final glance at the table and at her face. She opened the door. Françoise was framed in the doorway, a bunch of anemones in her hand. It was Elisabeth’s favourite flower – at least that was what Elisabeth had decided ten years previously.
‘These are for you, I found them at Banneau’s just now,’ said Françoise.
‘You are sweet,’ said Elisabeth, ‘they’re so pretty.’ Something softened inside her. Besides, it wasn’t Françoise she hated.
‘Come in quickly,’ she said, as she led them into the studio.
Hidden behind Pierre was Xavière, with that timid, foolish expression on her face. Elisabeth was prepared for it, but it irritated her none the less. They were making fools of themselves, dragging this child with them wherever they went.
‘Oh, how pretty!’ said Xavière.
She looked at the room and then at Elisabeth with undisguised astonishment. She had a look which said: ‘I would never have expected this of her.’
‘This studio is a dream, isn’t it?’ said Françoise. She took off her coat and sat down.
‘Take off your coat, you’ll be cold when you leave,’ said Pierre to Xavière.
‘I’d rather wear it,’ said Xavière.
‘It’s very warm in here,’ said Françoise.
‘I assure you I’m not too warm,’ said Xavière with gentle persistence. They both stared at her unhappily and then looked questioningly at each other. Elisabeth repressed a shrug. Xavière would never know how to dress; she was wearing an old lady’s coat, much too big and drab for her.
‘I hope you’re hungry and thirsty,’ said Elisabeth invitingly. ‘Help yourselves. You’ve got to do justice to my supper.’
‘I’m dying of hunger and thirst,’ said Pierre. ‘Besides, I make no bones about my atrocious appetite.’ He smiled, and the others smiled too. All three of them looked hilarious and conspiratorial, almost to the point of seeming drunk.
‘Sherry or vodka?’
‘Vodka,’ they said in chorus.
Pierre and Françoise preferred sherry, she was well aware; had Xavière gone so far as to impose her tastes on them? She filled the glasses. Pierre was sleeping with Xavière, there was not the slightest doubt; and the two women? That was quite possible – it made such a perfectly symmetrical trio. Sometimes they were to be seen in pairs – they must have arranged a rotation – but most often the complete outfit was to be seen arm in arm, walking in step.
‘I saw you yesterday crossing the street at Montparnasse,’ she said. She smiled slightly. ‘You looked so funny.’
‘Why funny?’ said Pierre.
‘You were holding each other by the arm, and you were hopping about from one foot to the other, the three of you together.’
When he became infatuated with someone or something, Pierre lost all sense of proportion; he had always been like that. What could he see in Xavière? – with her yellow hair, her expressionless face, her red hands – there was nothing attractive about her.
She turned to Xavière.
‘Don’t you want to eat anything?’
Xavière suspiciously examined the plates.
‘Have one of these caviare canapés,’ said Pierre. ‘It’s all delicious. Elisabeth, you’re entertaining us royally.’
‘And she’s dressed like a princess,’ said Françoise. ‘It is certainly becoming to you to be smart.’
‘It’s becoming to everyone,’ said Elisabeth. Françoise surely had more than adequate means to be just as chic, had she bothered.
‘I think I’ll try the caviare,’ said Xavière after due consideration, and she took a sandwich and bit into it. Pierre and Françoise were watching her with passionate interest.
‘How do you like it?’ said Françoise.
Xavière took her time. ‘It’s good,’ she said decisively.
The two faces relaxed. In view of their behaviour, it was obviously not this child’s fault if she considered herself a goddess.
‘Are you really recovered now?’ Elisabeth asked Françoise.
‘I’ve never felt so full of beans,’ said Françoise. ‘My illness obliged me to take a good long rest, and that has done me the world of good.’
She had even put on a little weight. She looked flourishing. With a suspicious glance, Elisabeth watched her swallow a foie gras canapé. Was there really no flaw in this happiness which they were so ostentatiously parading?
‘Could I see your latest canvases? I’d like to very much,’ said Pierre. ‘It’s such a long time since I’ve seen anything of yours. Françoise told me that you’d changed your style.’
‘I’m in the very middle of a transition,’ said Elisabeth, with ironic emphasis. Her pictures! Pigment spread on canvas so as to give the appearance of pictures; she spent her days painting in order to convince herself that she was a painter, but it was still nothing but a lugubrious game.
She took out one of her canvases, put it on an easel, and turned on a blue light. There, that was all part of the ritual! She would show them her fraudulent paintings and they would bestow fraudulent praise on her. They would not know that she knew: this time they were the dupes.
‘Well yes, that’s a radical change!’ said Pierre.
He studied the picture with a look of genuine interest. It was a section of a Spanish arena with a bull’s head in one corner, and rifles and corpses in the middle.
‘That’s not in the least like your first sketch,’ said Françoise. ‘You ought to show that to Pierre too, so that he can see the development.’
Elisabeth took out her ‘Firing Party’.
‘That’s interesting,’ said Pierre, ‘but it’s not as good as the other. I think you’re quite right to avoid any kind of realism in the treatment of such subjects.’
Elisabeth turned searching eyes on him, but he seemed genuinely sincere.
‘As you have seen, this is the line along which I’m now working,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to use the incoherence and freedom of the surrealists, but by giving them direction.’
She took out ‘Concentration Camp’, ‘Fascist Landscape’, and ‘The Night of the Pogrom’, which Pierre studied approvingly. Elisabeth threw a puzzled look at her pictures. After all, taking all things into consideration, wasn’t it only a public that she lacked to become a real artist? Didn’t every exacting artist regard himself in private as a dauber? The real artist is one whose work is real. In a sense, Claude was not completely wrong when he panted to have his play put on. A work of art only becomes real by becoming known. She chose one of her most recent canvases, ‘The Game of Massacre’. As she was putting it on the easel, she caught
a look of dismay which Xavière had directed at Françoise.
‘Don’t you care for pictures?’ she said with a surface smile.
‘I don’t understand anything about it,’ said Xavière apologetically.
Pierre turned to her quickly with an uneasy look, and Elisabeth felt a sudden wave of anger. They must have warned Xavière that this was part of the evening’s entertainment, but she was beginning to grow impatient, for her slightest whim was accounted more important than Elisabeth’s entire fate.
‘What do you say to this?’ she said.
It was a daring and complex painting which called for considerable comment. Pierre glanced at it hastily.
‘I like it very much, too,’ he said.
It was obvious that he only wanted to get it over and done with. Elisabeth took away the canvas.
‘That’s enough for today,’ she said. ‘We mustn’t make a martyr of this child.’
Xavière cast a saturnine glance at her; she understood perfectly well that Elisabeth was not blind where she was concerned.
‘You know, if you want to put on a record,’ said Elisabeth to Françoise, ‘you can easily do so. Only take a fine needle, because of the tenant below.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Xavière eagerly.
‘Why don’t you try exhibiting this year?’ said Pierre, lighting his pipe. ‘I’m sure you’d interest a large public.’
‘It’s not the right moment,’ said Elisabeth. ‘In these uncertain times it would be madness to launch a new name.’
‘Still, theatres are doing very well,’ said Pierre.
Elisabeth looked at him, hesitated, then said point-blank: ‘Did you know that Nanteuil has taken Claude’s play?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Pierre with a vague look. ‘Is Claude pleased?’
‘Not terribly,’ said Elisabeth. Slowly, she inhaled the smoke of her cigarette. ‘I’m absolutely heart-broken. It’s one of those snap decisions that can ruin a man permanently.’ She took her courage in both hands. ‘Oh, if only you had taken Partage, Claude would have been made.’
Pierre looked embarrassed; he hated to refuse anyone anything. Only as a rule he managed to wriggle out of it when someone wanted to ask him for a favour.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to try to talk to Berger about it once more? It so happens that we’re lunching with them.’
Xavière had put her arm round Françoise and was making her dance a rumba. Françoise’s face was knit with concentration, as if her soul’s salvation depended on her prowess.
‘Berger won’t go back on his rejection,’ said Elisabeth. A flash of absurd hope struck her. ‘He needn’t come into it at all. You’re the only one. Listen, you’re putting on your play next winter; but not until October? If only you would put on Partage for a few weeks!’
She waited, her heart pounding. Pierre puffed at his pipe. He seemed uncomfortable.
‘You know what’s most likely to happen,’ he said at last, ‘is that next year we’ll go on an extended tour.’
‘Bernheim’s famous plan?’ said Elisabeth suspiciously. ‘But I thought that you didn’t want to have anything to do with it.’
She was defeated, but she would not let Pierre get out of it so easily.
‘It’s quite tempting,’ said Pierre. ‘We’ll make money. We’ll see the world.’ He glanced at Françoise. ‘Of course, it’s not finally settled.’
Elisabeth thought a moment. Obviously, they would take Xavière with them. Pierre seemed capable of doing anything for a smile from her: perhaps he was ready to give up his work to treat himself to a triangular idyll travelling round the Mediterranean for a year.
‘But if you didn’t go?’ she continued.
‘If we didn’t go …’ Pierre repeated lackadaisically.
‘Yes, would you put on Partage in October?’
She wanted to force a definite reply from him. He did not like to go back on his word.
Pierre drew at his pipe a few times.
‘After all, why not?’ he said without conviction.
‘Do you mean that seriously?’
‘Of course,’ said Pierre in a more decided tone. ‘If we stay, we can very easily open the season with Partage.’
He had agreed very quickly; he must be absolutely certain of going on that tour. In spite of everything, it was rash. If he did not carry out this plan, he would be committed.
‘That would be absolutely marvellous for Claude!’ she said. ‘When will you be quite certain?’
‘In another month or two,’ said Pierre.
Silence fell.
‘If there were some way of preventing this departure,’ thought Elisabeth excitedly.
Françoise, who had been watching them out of the corner of her eye for some time, quickly joined them.
‘It’s your turn to dance,’ she said to Pierre. ‘Xavière never tires, but, as for me, I’m worn out.’
‘You danced very well,’ said Xavière. She smiled good-naturedly. ‘You see, all that was needed was a little effort.’
‘You have enough for two,’ said Françoise gaily.
‘We’ll try again,’ said Xavière in a gently threatening tone.
This highly affected badinage which they had begun to use among themselves had become irritating in the extreme.
‘Excuse me,’ said Pierre.
He went with Xavière to choose a record. She had finally decided to take off her coat. She had a slender body, but one in which the experienced eye of the painter could detect a tendency to stoutness: she would put on weight very quickly if she did not keep herself to a strict diet.
‘She’s quite right to watch herself,’ said Elisabeth. ‘She could easily fill out.’
‘Xavière?’ Françoise laughed. ‘She’s a reed.’
‘Do you think it’s quite fortuitous that she eats nothing?’ said Elisabeth.
‘It’s certainly not because of her figure,’ said Françoise; she seemed to find the idea completely ridiculous. She had been lucid about her for a while, but now she had become as complacently foolish as Pierre. As if Xavière were not a woman like any other! Elisabeth had seen through her. She saw that beneath the mask of a golden-haired virgin, she was susceptible to every human weakness.
‘Pierre told me that you may go on a tour next winter,’ she said. ‘Is that serious?’
‘There’s some talk of it,’ said Françoise; she seemed embarrassed. She did not know what Pierre had said and must be on her guard against blundering.
Elisabeth filled two glasses with vodka.
‘What are you going to do with that child?’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I very much wonder!’
‘Do with her?’ said Françoise; she seemed dumbfounded. ‘She’s on the stage, you know.’
‘First of all, she isn’t,’ said Elisabeth, ‘and besides, that isn’t what I mean.’ She half-emptied her glass. ‘She isn’t going to spend her life hanging on to your coat-tails?’
‘No, probably not,’ said Françoise.
‘Hasn’t she any desire for a life of her own – love, adventure?’
Françoise gave her a one-sided smile.
‘I don’t think she’s giving it much thought just now.’
‘Not just now, naturally,’ said Elisabeth.
Xavière was dancing with Pierre. She danced very well. She had on her face a smile so flirtatious that it was actually indecent. How could Françoise tolerate all that? A coquette, a sensualist, Elisabeth had seen it clearly. Certainly she was in love with Pierre, but she was a sly, fickle girl; she was capable of sacrificing everything to the pleasure of the moment. It was in her that the flaw could be found.
‘What’s become of your lover?’ said Françoise.
‘Moreau? We had a terrible row,’ said Elisabeth. ‘About pacifism. I teased him and then he got angry. He ended up by almost strangling me.’ She rummaged in her bag. ‘Here, look at his last letter.’
‘I don’t think he’s so very stupid,’ said Françoise. ‘Y
ou’ve said so much to me against him.’
‘Everyone thinks a lot of him,’ said Elisabeth.
She had found him interesting in the beginning, and she had enjoyed encouraging his love. Why was she so completely disgusted with him? She emptied out the contents of her bag. It was because he was in love with her. That was the best way to lose value in her eyes: she had at least kept the pride of being able to scorn any ridiculous feelings that she might inspire.
‘His letter is most correct,’ said Françoise. ‘What did you answer?’
‘I was really embarrassed,’ said Elisabeth. ‘It was very difficult to explain to him that I hadn’t taken this affair seriously for one single minute. Besides …’
She shrugged her shoulders. How could she know what to think? She herself was bewildered. This sham friendship, which she had created for lack of anything better to do, might well have as much reality as painting, politics, or rows with Claude. It was all just like everything else – pointless play-acting.
She continued: ‘He followed me as far as Dominique’s, pale as a ghost, his eyes popping out of his head. He was furious. There was no one in the street. I was terrified.’
She gave a short laugh. She could not help speaking about him; however, she had not been afraid, there had been no scene. Just a poor fellow at his wits’ end, attempting to express himself in words and awkward gestures.
‘Just imagine, he pinned me against a lamp-post, grabbed me by the throat, while he shouted dramatically: “I’ll have you, Elisabeth, or I’ll kill you.”’
‘He really almost strangled you?’ said Françoise. ‘I thought that was only figurative.’
‘Oh no,’ said Elisabeth. ‘He really seemed on the point of murder.’
It was irritating; if things were related just as they happened, people did not believe that they had ever happened at all; and then, as soon as they began to pay attention, they believed something other than what had actually taken place. She remembered his glassy eyes quite close to her face and his pale lips coming nearer and nearer to her mouth.
‘I said to him: “Strangle me, but don’t kiss me,” and his hands tightened around my neck.’
She Came to Stay Page 27
