And as we happened to be standing by the buffet just then – as we frequently were! –I gave him my glass and I emptied his.
It was silly, romantic, a hoary old gesture, but I felt like it and it gave him pleasure.
At supper he had reserved one of the small tables and managed things so that we enjoyed a space of our own in the middle of the crowds.
We had had many dances together; he had made me enjoy dancing, which, honestly, I didn’t think was my forte. What pleasure then to feel young and energetic, to close your eyes and let yourself go, just go and keep on going as long as you can. But now, sitting down, a pleasant tiredness came over me, a well-being that pervaded every part of me.
He sat very close to me, then, with his chair, edged even closer. All around us there was laughter, songs, the headiness of revelry late into a beautiful night.
And putting a hand on mine, looking at me, or rather drinking me with his eyes, with his other hand, on the table cloth, little Carbonnel wrote me verses in pencil and read them out.
I don’t remember how the lines went exactly, but I can confirm, my dear friend, that they were very neatly turned.
When the music, from way off, in the ballroom, started up again, everything in my head seemed to sing, to swing, to crackle with fire.
Do you know, your Josiane was, if not plastered as you horrible men like to say, then at least gently tipsy, the only time in her life! Ah, it is nice, it’s delicious, to feel that little fizzing in your brain, and hurrah for the wine of Champagne which lends a rosy glow to all you see and feel! Ah, and he was good at keeping the glasses filled, was little Carbonnel; and what an enjoyable surprise to feel this tipsiness spreading through me, spreading to my every part!
I stood up, laughter on my lips and in my eyes, an immense and motiveless joy in my heart, needing to see still more light, hear still more merriment.
But suddenly, at one of the ballroom doors, I spotted little Carbonnel. Next to him, a commissionaire in braid and chains from the Hôtel Continental, where we were, was holding an overcoat over one arm, my long otter coat over the other…
And little Carbonnel was signalling me to come over.
Ah, these journalists! They can make you do anything they want, and they know exactly what that is…!
And when I was at his side, he said, speaking slowly and clearly –and in a manner, my word, that brooked no dissent: ‘And now, let us go home!’
What did I do? You know already, my friend.
I slipped into my fur, I put on my hat, I straightened my gloves as best I could… and we left.
Ah, such a marvellous evening… and if you will permit me, such a marvellous night!
But alas, it could be marvellous only if there was no aftermath: one of life’s windfalls, and not life itself. My happiness with the little journalist from the party was and could only be, like a newspaper article, a thing of a single day.
That was how I took it, and perhaps that is why I still think of it with a smile.
X
To the Same
I come now, my dear friend, to the Fleurignac chapter. Yes, you read that correctly: Fleurignac.
‘What, him too?’
‘Him too, yes. And more so than any of the others.’
Many women, from the Duchess of B*** to that poor Etiennette, the dancer from the Folies Modernes, have loved Fleurignac, handsome Fleurignac of the Théâtre Parisien, but none with anything like the intensity or devotion that I might have displayed.
How could anyone watch, listen to this great actor and not love him?
His looks are exactly right: a head of dark hair, a face of unexpected pallor and features deeply incised by both the passions he has acted out and the ones he has felt. There is no one in Paris of more striking appearance.
And certainly, in shop-keepers’ windows, his photograph always produces a terrific effect.
Fleurignac, old chum, is from Marseilles, which means I don’t need to tell you how passionate he can be and how vigorously he throws himself into every least thing; nor to say that his physical presence is magnetic enough to stir the hardest of spectators’ hearts.
Imagine the effect, then, on a mere woman!
I loved him. And to think when I first saw him on stage I thought he was awful, and even ridiculous!
But charm works in its own mysterious way, and one morning you wake up head over heels in love and desperate to have the man to yourself.
I wrote to him, without stopping to think he must be immune to fan letters. He admitted that he received at least two such letters a day on average and if he didn’t get any he considered his day a failure…!
But my letter caught his eye, it seems, and he sent me back a few lines that went straight to my heart.
For a fortnight, Fleurignac and I – who were both completely free – allowed ourselves the luxury of playing out a courtship, preserving the bounds of polite formality, spinning the threads of the perfect platonic love affair.
And I can assure you that this was by no means the least rewarding part of our story.
We appeared in public together, and before we had actually done anything we were already being talked of as a couple.
Finally I became his mistress, and for the first time I instantly felt that terrible and yet delicious thing – because it really lets you know you are alive – called jealousy.
Fleurignac was mine, but it did not prevent him from murmuring words of love every evening to other women, from folding them in his arms – and what arms!
It did no good telling myself it’s absurd, it’s his job, it’s ‘only pretend’, I still underwent torments, often strong enough to bring me to tears.
And when I stupidly confessed to this weakness, he shrugged his shoulders, smiled a masterful smile and said: ‘Come along to the theatre then, come to my dressing room and you’ll see!’
I went along constantly.
I was present while he made up, and for his costume changes.
Oh, that little room! Its walls were filled with oriental hangings, photographs of Fleurignac in his principal roles, photographs of his fellow actors with glowing dedications, reproductions of sets, cuttings from newspapers.
It made for such an alluring atmosphere, full of light and human warmth, I found it quite intoxicating.
And I shall always have before my eyes the image of Fleurignac standing there in front of his mirror, arms bare, vividly outlined, doing his face and all the time chattering away, whilst I sat there, in his atmosphere, close to him, in a low armchair, looking lovingly at him, breathing him in.
Yes, the dresser, the call-boy, various friends would come in and interrupt us; and sometimes the dressing room door would swing ajar and give a glimpse in profile of a passing female figure, powdered, cheeks and lips rouged, eyes outlined with kohl, a soubrette or coquette; but most of the time we were just there, as if at home, the two of us together.
And yes, that’s really how it was: we were left to ourselves; and I think on purpose, because it was known that a kind of honeymoon was taking place up in that room.
Nothing was more charming than enjoying such intimacy a mere step away from an auditorium packed with All Paris.
Good old All Paris, which we were part of ourselves: if it had suspected how completely, during the intervals, it was forgotten up in that little room!
As soon as he had left the stage, Fleurignac would meet me there. I would welcome him with my heart on fire and still trembling from his impassioned performance. And he would repeat for me the words he had been saying to the heroine of the play, adapting them to our own situation, with subtle variations that were so delicately telling.
And then… and then, yes… there were kisses and kisses again!
‘My dearest Josiane, she is everything I love,’ he would say to anyone who would listen.
And to me he never tired of saying that his whole life henceforward would flow like a river channelled between the twin banks of his art and his
love.
At one point, the rumour on the boulevards even had it that I was going to marry Fleurignac.
Marry him, why not? You know that the excellent M. Aubertin had sought and obtained a divorce. But I have never been attracted to that idea and I denied it forcefully. Become Mme Fleurignac! And what then? Happiness does not depend on these formalities, and what counts for me, the thing I’m looking for, is happiness for its own sake.
But if I had no thought of marrying my Fleurignac – although marriage is quite the fashion just now in our less respectable half of society – I did have another idea.
Picture this, my friend: your Josiane de Valneige, for a while, really thought she would go in for the theatre!
Yes, I had developed a real passion! It seemed to me that nothing in the world would be better or more splendid!
How good it must feel to bask in the audience’s applause, and for a woman, how triumphant, how intoxicating! A life of excitement, of legitimate fame built on successes that everyone can acclaim, what a change from the other life.
You are no longer Josiane de Valneige, you are an artist; you do something that raises you in the public eye, without losing any of your qualities in the process, or any of your prestige as a woman of beauty – quite the reverse! I would have seen my profile posted up on huge hoardings in beautiful colours, shimmering like some fine fabrics. And I would have given interviews to journalists.
But there was more to this belief in my vocation, to speak without embarrassment, than such fantasies as those. My dear, laugh if you like, I now believed in art, in the existence of a whole heap of things beyond the comprehension of bourgeois people, things far above our current petty concerns.
That was sweet of me, don’t you think? But it came quite naturally: Fleurignac and his powerful enthusiasms, his ways of seeing and feeling, were rubbing off on me. I was Fleurignac’s disciple.
‘Oh, teach me!’ I said to him.
‘What?’
‘What you know!’
‘You don’t ask much, do you?’
‘I want to have talent too… I will have if you help… it must be such fun!’
And I recited scenes taken from the plays he was in; I also tried some cabaret songs out on him, in the style of Judic or Yvette Guilbert, because I hadn’t yet settled on what sort of talent I’d have. One day I even performed many a dainty curtsey and step in the manner of Loïe Fuller, in my pink silk dressing gown.
I didn’t make anything of any of this, but I am persuaded, my dear friend, that I would have enjoyed as much success as any other woman!
A look would have been enough, a kind word or, to put it in a nutshell, some love from Fleurignac.
Ah, what worlds of possibility I had built on that love! Women are like that: we invest all our capital in one person; when it fails, everything collapses. After so many setbacks with so many different types of men, Fleurignac was for me the lover, the friend, the heart, the flesh, the pride, the giving of one’s entire self, so to speak, and I had said to myself: ‘At last!’
One evening, I told him the story of my life, the long series of defeats I had suffered, the lost illusions, and I described the state I was in when he met me. His response was magnificent: ‘Yes, you have been waiting… you have been searching for a long time… but it was all in order to find one man: me. We were made for each other, made never to be parted…! Forget – I, yes, I shall make you forget – those times of doubt and discouragement and solitude… I am here!’
That was true bliss, or at least as close as I had ever come to it.
To show you how genuinely I believed this was the definitive happiness, we lived for ourselves alone, for no one but us: I never saw anyone else but him, I had shut my door to the world with a joy I was positively proud of; and he, for his part, never left my side except to attend rehearsals and on the evenings when he was working.
During that time, the dishes served at Josiane de Valneige’s were homely stews, because he was very fond of them and I found the idea very simple and intimate. It made the house smell of lives shared, of lovers.
We had also agreed that he would move out of his little bachelor flat in rue Daunou. What did he need a place of his own for, which only served as a constant reminder to me of his past, his adventures, his love affairs? There was a certain little blue sitting room which had apparently been the scene of some very extraordinary ones and whose existence I found most trying.
We would live resolutely together and everything would be shared in common.
I remember how well we did share everything in common because one evening when he had allowed himself to be dragged away to his club I was happy enough, yes, very happy, to help extricate him from an awkward situation.
I mention this, my dear friend, not to put Fleurignac down in any way. My view on these things is that a woman who claims to love a man has a duty to do anything necessary and in any circumstances for the man she loves. I mention it rather to give you a true idea of our relationship and how things worked between us.
So I had come to trust Fleurignac. Despite the sort of jolt it gave me every time I saw him on stage take a woman in his arms or press his lips to hers, in real life I was sure of him. When could he have betrayed me, and above all why? For him I was the perfect mistress, I declare it openly, and not to my own credit, for I took pleasure in being so.
That, for me, is what duty means!
To be sure of a man! Ah, my dear, there’s a stupid remark you won’t hear me make again! I would gladly laugh at my naivety, my blindness, if I hadn’t suffered real grief because of it.
Fleurignac and most of the actors from his theatre used to take their productions on tour. Often you see sweethearts, and others, accompanying their loved ones on these tours. There are people known as camp followers, who travel round from hotel to hotel and who are pointed out to each other with secret envy by the locals.
Why wouldn’t I have switched roles to become one of them and follow my Fleurignac? It would be simply charming, a little elopement, enjoying praise and laurels out in the provinces, and love on the road!
I told him nothing of my plan. But when he took me in his arms to say goodbye, I showed him my trunk and my travelling costume.
I was expecting an explosion of joy: oh, you should have seen Fleurignac’s expression! No, he wasn’t pleased at all, I was making him look ridiculous, it wasn’t done! Then a sudden change of mood, and in the end a warm smile. We set off for Rouen.
One of Fleurignac’s pleasures, dear friend, is talking about actors from the past and the difficult conditions they lived under. For the whole journey, while we were in a reserved compartment, waited on by attentive staff, treated like royalty, Fleurignac never stopped talking about a book he remembered on the subject, called Le Roman Comique, and it gave him visible satisfaction to assert: ‘How times have changed!’
I pity those actors of the olden days! We, in contrast, found local dignitaries waiting to greet us at the station, and an apartment had been taken for us at the Hôtel de Londres on the embankment, and when we got there a reception committee of journalists was lined up either side of the entrance.
One of them even wanted to describe my hat, which I let him do with pleasure, it’s the least I owe my milliner!
Fleurignac’s performance was hailed as a triumph. I remember the emotions of the two of us, mine especially, which made me understand how much he meant to me.
When we arrived back at the hotel, I was the one carrying the crown of oak leaves he had been awarded, with its pretty inscription picked out in silver.
And it’s a curious thing, I didn’t feel the least bit awkward, walking in with this thing looped on my arm; the feeling was rather that the two of us represented a single entity.
The next morning, he wrote a number of telegrams for friends he had in the Paris press.
He meant the capital to know all about it.
And I can still see him in his shirtsleeves, hesitating between ‘ad
mirable’ and ‘sublime’. And in fact I was the one who told him: ‘Put both! It’s not worth getting into a state about things like that.’
It was just turned ten. I had a few errands to run across town. I enjoyed it, trotting round, strolling about by myself while he was resting, and I took the telegrams, leaving him ready to go back to bed, as he likes to do, windows open on to the river, which was bathed in sunlight and sending up a delicious breath of spring.
Normally, it rains in Rouen, Rouen rain is as famous as Rouen duckling: so I remember the sun that day as an exception, and also because the few hours it shone were in contrast a very sad few hours for me.
It was a little after twelve when I returned, light of step, with an excellent appetite and a contented heart.
There are days like that, when you are very happy without quite knowing why, and it is always on those days that something bad happens.
I climb the stairs, I am outside the door, I hear voices and laughter.
What’s this? Who can be with Fleurignac? It’s a woman, yes, a woman’s voice.
A colleague from the theatre dropping in, no doubt. No, theatre women have a tone and accent all their own, you can pick an actress out in any crowd.
And the voice I could hear through the door was… oh, my friend, if you’d heard it…! It was slow, sing-song, it was heavy, horribly common, it was a village voice, a fat Normandy wife chattering under the apple trees.
That voice made an unforgettable impression on me!
What were they saying? I listened. Suddenly there was nothing but murmurs. Then, again, a laugh, several laughs.
So, my dear… I did the wrong thing – but every woman would have done the wrong thing – I opened the door.
The loose kind of blouse she was wearing was unbuttoned, her skirt was pulled up, revealing enormous calves that were putting ladders in her blue stockings: a girl sitting on the bed…
It was plain she had just been lying on the pillow, my pillow, because it had been smoothed out before and now there was a new hollow in it. What’s more, I looked at Fleurignac and from the expression on his face, I understood everything!
Chasing the Dream Page 6