Fabrice, who had risen to his feet, shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“Go ask Rosette!” he said.
“She has gone out, monsieur.”
“Then putit down on the table or the armchair – it’s not important – wherever you wish.”
“Yes, monsieur,” said the laundry-maid.
She carefully took the clothes out of the basket, some folded and others not, taking care to place them on the table in good order; then, when the basket was quite empty, she gave a little childlike bow, which unsettled her hair even more, and hurried out.
Instead of lying down again Fabrice came over to the table. He looked down at the pile of clothes – at the delicate fabrics, the whites and pale blues, the pinks and the flesh-colours – and he smiled at the memories which they called to mind.
Yes, most certainly, he remembered them all!
That nightgown of Indian muslin, so nearly transparent, with the short sleeves and the trimmings of Valencienne lace – wasn’t that the one which he had seen sliding down from her lovely shoulders to reveal the length of her perfectly svelte and perfectly smooth young body, on that evening when, for the first time, Geneviève had surrendered her maidenly virtue? He remembered the rapt feeling inspired in him by the sight of her rounded, rose-tipped breasts, and the way he had hesitated before enfolding her in his arms, fearful of sacrificing to the intimacy of their kisses the delightful sight of her. How cruel it was that one must nearly lose sight of the person whose lips were pressed to one’s own!
The other nightgowns recalled other nights to mind – wonderful nights! And the stockings, too: woollen stockings, chequered stockings, everyday stockings, and stockings of raw silk with gold trimming. They made him think of her neat and slender feet, which he often held in his hands, where they would tremble like turtle-doves nestling together against the cold. And there was a pair of tights, too, which reminded him of a fancy which Genevieve had had, at the end of the carnival, to wear the costume of a page-boy beneath her discreet black domino.
And the light pantalettes of twilled silk! They too made him smile, for those pantalettes had caused a good deal of dissent between the two of them. She insisted on wearing them at all times, being too modest or too fearful of the wind which might lift her skirt to do otherwise, arguing in support of her insistence that she was afraid of having to descend a staircase at the same time that a man might be coming up, and observing that in winter it was so easy to catch rheumatism. He, in his turn, poured scorn upon the idea of hiding such a manly accoutrement beneath a petticoat, where it did not belong, and would not admit that any consideration of modesty, safety or health could possibly justify the inconvenience to which he was put in removing them. Oh, what merry squabbles they were! And yet, in spite of everything, how enchanted he was – how excited! – when Geneviève put on her pantalettes.
As he looked down at all these pretty garments which his beloved had worn next to her skin, Fabrice was overcome, little by little, by a boundless feeling of tenderness. His mistress was not only the prettiest of women, she was the most perfect; a paragon of all the virtues. She was so graceful – in her movements, her choice of perfumes, her smiles – and she was so extraordinarily open and honest! Yes, she was utterly virtuous, utterly faithful; he would not hear anything that might be said to the contrary!
Fabrice, let it be said, was not one of those benighted men who was easily abused; no one could make a fool of him, thank God! He was not one of those imbeciles who were ever ready to believe tales of visits to an aunt’s house in the Batignolles or the necessity of accompanying unhappily married friends to the solicitors in order to lend support to their pleas for separation. Oh no, he was a man who saw things clearly!
In all the time he had known her, Geneviève had never given him the slightest cause for alarm or suspicion. In her heart she had, undoubtedly, all the ingenuousness of a little girl; it was impossible for her to tell a lie – that was obvious in the innocence of her features, of her expressions, of her whole attitude. She, betray him! – the most hardened of sceptics could not conceive of such a possibility. The fidelity of Geneviève was so incontestable, so utterly beyond doubt, that Fabrice had never suffered a single pang of anxiety on those occasions when he was obliged, two or three times per month, to quit their love-nest and go to Paris to take care of his business affairs, leaving her all alone.
But even as he lost himself in this pleasant reverie – even as his heart slowly melted – he suddenly started with surprise. What was this that he had found? There, underneath the nightgown of Indian muslin, lurking among the woollen stockings and the chequered stockings, the everyday stockings and the raw silk stockings, and the light pantalettes, there was a black nightgown: a twilled silk nightgown which he did not recognise, which he had never seen before – no, never! – but which, in view of the fact that it had just come back from the laundry, must at some time have been worn.…which must have been put on – and taken off!
Carried away by awful conviction and intoxicated with fury, Fabrice would have reduced the tell-tale nightgown to rags, if Geneviève had not reappeared at precisely that moment, a little out of breath from having climbed the staircase, her cheeks quite rosy with the effort.
She cast herself down upon the chaise longue, with that pretty little “ouf” sound which no one else ever made in quite such a charming way.
At that moment, however, Fabrice could not care less whether she said “ouf!” well or badly!
“Madame,” he cried, “you have deceived me! Oh, your ruses have been so cleverly contrived that you were doubtless led to think that you could not possibly be found out, and that you acted with impunity. But you reckoned without the vicissitudes of chance – that great enemy of all betrayal! Chance has delivered into my hands the proof of your guilt.
“Look here! Is this a nightgown or is it not? Is it black, this nightgown? Is it silk? You can hardly hope to persuade me that it is white and that it is cotton! It is silk, and it is black! And it is a garment which I have never seen you put on or take off in my presence. It is a nightgown, which I have never seen you wear in our bed – and yet it has been put on, and it has been taken off!
“I must congratulate you on your exquisite taste, Madame: what a fine contrast the blackness of the material must make with the delicate whiteness of your sinful flesh! Clad in silk so dark, you must seem to be a flake of snow which falls in the dark night, or the feather of a turtle-dove between a raven’s wings. Miserable wretch! I wish I could put a bullet or a swordpoint into each of your white-rimmed eyes! Let us have it, if you please – your explanation! Tell me everything, without any reticence or subterfuge; and when I have heard it, we shall see whether my anger causes me to hurl you through the window, or whether my contempt will force me to show you the door!”
And while Fabrice – who, as one can easily judge, was not so very well brought up – was launched upon this tirade, what did Geneviève do?
She remained silent.
Advisedly so? Was she silent because she had nothing to say in her defence? Was she silent because, knowing as she did that the chemise was marked with her initials, it was impossible for her to pretend that there had been an error at the laundry? Or was it, perhaps, that she was completely innocent, and remained silent in the face of these calumnies because she would not lower herself to produce the explanation which would exonerate her?
When Fabrice had finished, the young girl got up.
“Adieu, monsieur,” she said, turning towards the door.
She seemed so deeply offended, and displayed so dignified an appearance, that Fabrice felt suddenly and singularly troubled. There was in that attitude of injured innocence an inimitable something which made him pause, and which caused him to reconsider the awful suspicions which had been raised in him.
“Genevieve,” he cried to her, “have you nothing to say in order to justify yourself?”
“No,” she said.
“The nightgown doe
s not belong to you, perhaps?”
“It is mine, monsieur.”
“Perhaps it was formerly pink or blue, but you have had it dyed at the laundry?”
“It has always been black.”
“Tell me, then, that you have not yet worn it – that you have neither put it on nor taken it off, because it is new, and that you sent it to the cleaners for some other reason.”
“It is not new; I have worn it. Once again, adieu.”
And she opened the door, evidently determined to leave. But then it seemed that her resolve faltered and that she was betrayed by her emotions. It seemed that she had not the heart to leave her beloved, no matter how jealous he was, no matter what insults he heaped upon her in his rage. The poor creature burst into a flood of tears.
“Oh, the ingrate!” she wailed. “He does not understand! He does not understand at all!”
Then, her stammering punctuated by the prettiest sobs in all the world, she said:
“You do not remember, of course, that you frequently leave me all alone, for days and nights at a time? Because of your business affairs, you say. And am I, desolate and abandoned, to put on one of the nightgowns – white, blue, or pink – that your impatient desire has so often slipped from my shoulders? How cruel you are to think so! No – for my nights of solitude, for my nights of widowhood, I have black nightgowns: mourning clothes, for the nights when I must go to sleep weeping for the lack of your caresses!”
He looked at her, hesitantly.
“Ah!” she continued. “How many times have I lain in my bed, full of bitterness and jealousy! How often, in the bitterness of my isolation have I wrenched and torn these dark nightgowns, while racked by memories of happier hours! Unless it has been mended, the very one you hold is torn – in more than one place, I think.”
Fabrice bent down, and quickly unfolded the nightgown of black twilled silk. Indeed it was torn, here and here. Torn, as she had said it was! With such proof as this before him, he would surely be a very great fool to retain the slightest doubt!
Fabrice threw himself at the feet of his mistress, profusely begging her pardon.
It was, of course, the wisest course which he could possibly have taken; for how could anyone possibly believe that Geneviève – who had such very beautiful eyes, more beautiful still when her eyelashes were prettily moistened with tears – could ever soil her rosy lips with a lie?
**********
9.
THE DOUBLE ROOM
by Charles Baudelaire
There is a room which resembles a daydream, a truly spiritual room, whose still, stale air is tinted with pink and blue.
Here the soul bathes in idleness, amid the aromas of regret and desire. There is something of the twilight here, in its blueness and its rosiness; it is as though one dreams sensuously during an eclipse.
The furniture extends itself, languidly prostrate. The furniture too seems to be dreaming, as if it existed in a state of permanent sleep, as all things vegetable and mineral do. The fabrics speak a language of silence, as flowers and daylight skies do, and sunsets.
These walls are undefiled by ugly paintings. Relative to the pure dream or the unanalysed impression, specific and assertive art is blasphemous. Here the light is perfectly sufficient in itself, harmonising with the delicacy of the shadows.
An infinitesimal hint of fragrance, chosen with exquisite taste, which carries with it a faint vaporous humidity, floats upon the air, lulling the drowsy mind as if it were a hothouse.
Hectic showers of muslin fall across the window and from the canopy of the bed, displayed like cascades of snow. Here upon this bed lies the Goddess, sovereign of dreams. Why is she here? Who brought her? What magical power installed her on this throne of dreaming and delight? What does it matter; she is here! I know who she is.
Those are the eyes which burn bright in the twilight; subtle and terrifying mirrors of the soul whose fearful malice I know so well! They draw, conquer and devour the unwary gaze of any who looks into them. I have made a study of them, those dark stars which command such curiosity and admiration.
What benevolent demon must I thank for thus surrounding me with mystery, silence, peace and perfumes? O bliss! That which we ordinarily call life, even when it can encompass happiness, has nothing to compare with this life beyond life which I have come to understand, and which I savour minute by minute, second by second.
No! There are no more minutes, there are no more seconds! Time is banished; it is Eternity which rules this place: an Eternity of delights!
**********
But a heavy and terrible crash has thundered upon the door, and in nightmarish fashion I feel that I have been struck in the stomach by a pick-axe.
A Spectre has rudely intruded upon the feast. It is some bailiff come to taunt me in the name of the law; or some shameless courtesan come to tell a tale of woe and add the trivia of her existence to the sorrows of my own; or perhaps some editor’s errand-boy come to demand a manuscript.
The heavenly room, the sovereign Goddess of Dreams – the Sylphide, as she was called by the great René – all their magic is dispelled by the crude hammering of the Spectre.
O horror! I remember! I remember! Yes, this tawdry place of infinite tedium is indeed where I live. There are the ridiculous furnishings, dusty and bumped; the hearth devoid of flames and glowing embers; the sad windows where the raindrops have made patterns in the grime; the manuscripts scribbed-over or incomplete; the calendar marked with crayon to show the inauspicious passing of the days.
And that otherworldly perfume which exalted me with heightened sensibility is replaced, alas, by the stale odour of old tobacco, mingled with a sickening dampness. The rankness of desolation lies upon everything here.
In this narrow world, full to the brim with disgust, only one familiar object makes me smile: the vial of laudanum; an old and terrible mistress. Like all mistresses, alas, she gives too freely of her caresses and her treacheries.
Oh yes, Time has resumed control! The sovereignty of that hideous ancient Time is now restored, and with him has come his demonic train of memories and regrets, fits and fears, anguishes and nightmares, angers and neuroses.
I can assure you that every passing second now carries a strong and solemn stress, and that each one, leaping from the clock, says: “I am Life: unbearable, implacable Life!”
There is but a single second in a man’s life whose mission is to bring good news – the good news, which strikes such inexplicable terror into everyone.
Yes, Time rules again; he has resumed his brutal tyranny. And he drives me on, as if I were an ox, with his duplicate threat: “Get on with it, churl! Sweat, slave! Live, and be damned!”
**********
10.
THE POSSESSED
by Jean Lorrain
“Yes,” Serge told me, “I must be ill. I can no longer live here – and it isn’t because I’m still feverish in spite of all the blood which the doctors have given me. My chest is much better, thank God!, and I can keep the bronchitis at bay if I’m careful – but I can’t spend the winter here, because as soon as the November weather sets in I begin to hallucinate and I become prey to a truly frightening obsession. To put it bluntly, I’m too terrified to stay.”
He read the thought in my eyes, and was quick to contradict me.
“Oh, don’t blame it on the ether! I’m cured of that habit – completely cured. Besides which, it’s poisonous. For two painful years it spread its poison through my being and filled me with I don’t know what delicious sensations, but we know nowadays what it can do to one’s arms and legs, and I began to notice an actual deformation in my limbs. It’s been a year now since I last took ether.
“Anyway, why should I want to take it? I don’t suffer from insomnia any more and my heart’s okay. All that trouble with my lungs, and the atrocious pains which used to strike so suddenly in my left side while I lay in bed, making my flesh creep – all that is no more to me now than some far-off nightmar
e, like a vague memory of the Edgar Allan Poe stories which were read to me when I was a child. Honestly, when I think about that awful period of my life it seems more as if I dreamed it than actually lived through it.
“Nevertheless, I do have to go away. I’d be sure to fall ill again as soon as November arrives, when Paris becomes fantastically haunted. You see, the strangeness of my case is that now I no longer fear the invisible, I’m terrified by reality.”
“Reality?” I was a little disconcerted by what he had said, and could not help but repeat that last word questioningly.
“Reality,” repeated Serge, stressing every syllable. “It’s reality that haunts me now. It’s the creatures of flesh and blood which I encounter every day in the street – the men and women who pass me by, all the anonymous faces in the hurrying crowds – which seem to me to be horrid apparitions. It is the sheer ugliness and banality of everyday life which turns my blood to ice and makes me cringe in terror.”
He perched himself on the corner of the table.
“You know, don’t you, how I used to be afflicted with visions? When I was a miserable wretch addicted to ether, I changed my apartment three times in two years, trying to escape the persecution of my dreams. I would literally fill my rooms with the phantoms of my mind; as soon as I found myself alone, behind closed doors, the air would be filled with the gibbering of ghosts. It was as though I were looking down a microscope to see a drop of water seething with microbes and infusoria; I would see right through the curtains of shadow to behold the frightful faces of the invisible beings within. That was the time when I couldn’t look around my study without seeing strange pale hands parting the curtains or hearing the patter of strange bare feet behind the door. I was slowly being destroyed by my incessant struggle with things unknown: half-mad with anguish, dreadfully pale, cringing away from shadows and nervous of the slightest touch.
The Dedalus Book of Decadence, Volume 1: Moral Ruins Page 11