by Colette
“That’s some way to make an entrance,” she said, fairly loudly. “You might take off your hat and say hello.”
“Hello,” said Chéri in an arrogant tone.
The sound of his voice seemed to surprise him; he looked around in a more human way; a sort of smile descended from his eyes to his lips, and he repeated more gently:
“Hello . . .”
He took off his hat and walked two or three paces into the room.
“May I sit down?”
“If you like,” Léa said.
He sat down on an ottoman and saw that she had remained standing.
“Were you dressing? Were you on your way out?”
She shook her head, sat down at a distance from him, picked up a
pas. Il alluma une cigarette et demanda la permission de fumer après qu’elle fut allumée.
“Si tu veux”, répéta Léa indifférente.
Ilse tut et baissa les yeux. La main qui tenait sa cigarette tremblait légèrement, il s’en aperçut et reposa cette main sur le bord d’une table. Léa soignait ses ongles avec des mouvements lents et jetait de temps en temps un bref regard sur le visage de Chéri, surtout sur les paupières abaissées et la frange sombre des cils.
“C’est toujours Ernest qui m’a ouvert la porte, dit enfin Chéri.
—Pourquoi ne serait-il pas Ernest? Est-ce qu’il fallait changer mon personnel parce que tu te mariais?
— Non. . . . N’est-ce pas, je disais ça. . . .”
Le silence retomba. Léa le rompit.
“Puis-je savoir si tu as l’intention de rester longtemps sur ce pouf? Je ne te demande même pas pourquoi tu te permets d’entrer chez moi à minuit. . . .
— Tu peux me le demander”, dit-il vivement.
Elle secoua la tête:
“Ça ne m’intéresse pas.”
Ilse leva avec force, faisant rouler le pouf derrière lui et marcha sur Léa. Elle le sentit penché sur elle comme s’il allait la battre, mais elle ne recula pas. Elle pensait: “De quoi pourrais-je bien avoir peur, en ce monde?”
“Ah! tu ne sais pas ce que je viens faire ici? Tu ne veux pas savoir ce que je viens faire ici?”
Il arracha son manteau, le lança à la volée sur la chaise longue et se croisa les bras, en criant de tout près dans la figure de Léa, sur un ton étouffé et triomphant:
“Je rentre!”
Elle maniait une petite pince délicate qu’elle ferma posément avant de s’essuyer les doigts. Chéri retomba assis, comme s’il venait de dépenser toute sa force.
“Bon, dit Léa. Tu rentres. C’est très joli. Qui as-tu consulté pour ça?
— Moi”, dit Chéri.
Elle se leva à son tour pour le dominer mieux. Les battements de son cœur calmé la laissaient respirer à l’aise et elle voulait jouer sans faute.
“Pourquoi ne m’as-tu pas demandé mon avis? Je suis une vieille camarade qui connaît tes façons de petit rustre. Comment n’as-tu pas pensé qu’en entrant ici tu pouvais gêner . . . quelqu’un?”
nail polisher, and said nothing. He lit a cigarette and asked permission to smoke after it was lit.
“If you like,” Léa said again, with indifference.
He was quiet, his eyes lowered. The hand holding his cigarette was trembling slightly; he became aware of it and rested that hand on the edge of a table. Léa was doing her nails with slow movements, occasionally casting a brief glance at Chéri’s face, especially his lowered eyelids and the dark fringe of his lashes.
“It was still Ernest who opened the door,” Chéri finally said.
“Why shouldn’t it be Ernest? Did I have to change my staff because you got married?”
“No . . . You know, I was saying that . . .”
Silence fell again. It was broken by Léa.
“May I know whether you intend sitting on that ottoman for very long? I’m not even asking you why you take the liberty of coming to see me at midnight . . .”
“You can ask me,” he said eagerly.
She shook her head:
“I’m not interested.”
He got up brusquely, making the ottoman roll away behind him, and he walked over to Léa. She felt him leaning over her as if he were going to hit her, but she didn’t recoil. She was thinking: “What should I be afraid of in this world?”
“Oh, you don’t know why I’ve come here? You refuse to hear why I’ve come here?”
He tore off his coat, flung it across the room onto the chaise longue, and crossed his arms, yelling right into Léa’s face in a muffled but triumphant tone:
“I’m back to stay!”
She was handling small, delicate tweezers, which she closed calmly before wiping her fingers. Chéri dropped onto a seat again, as if he had just used up all his strength.
“Good,” said Léa. “You’re back. That’s very nice. Whose advice did you ask on the subject?”
“My own,” said Chéri.
It was she who got up this time, in order to dominate him more easily. The beating of her heart, now calm, allowed her to breathe easily, and she wanted to play her part faultlessly.
“Why didn’t you ask my advice? I’m an old pal, and I know your bumpkin-like ways. Why didn’t it enter your mind that, by barging in, you might embarrass . . . someone?”
La tête baissée, il inspecta horizontalement la chambre, ses portes closes, le lit cuirassé de métal et son talus d’oreillers luxueux. Il ne vit rien d’insolite, rien de nouveau et haussa les épaules. Léa attendait mieux et insista:
“Tu comprends ce que je veux dire?
— Très bien, répondit-il. “Monsieur” n’est pas rentré? “Monsieur” découche?
— Ce ne sont pas tes affaires, petit”, dit-elle tranquillement.
Il mordit sa lèvre et secoua nerveusement la cendre de sa cigarette dans une coupe à bijoux.
“Pas là-dedans, je te le dis toujours! cria Léa. Combien de fois faudra-t-il que . . . ?”
Elle s’interrompit en se reprochant d’avoir repris malgré elle le ton des disputes familières. Mais il n’avait pas paru l’entendre et examinait une bague, une émeraude achetée par Léa pendant son voyage.
“Qu’est-ce . . . qu’est-ce que c’est que ça? bredouilla-t-il.
— Ça? c’est une émeraude.
—Je ne suis pas aveugle! Je veux dire: qui est-ce quite l’a donnée?
—Tu ne connais pas.
— Charmant!” dit Chéri, amer.
L’accent rendit à Léa toute son autorité et elle se permit le plaisir d’égarer un peu plus celui qui lui laissait l’avantage.
“N’est-ce pas qu’elle est charmante? On m’en fait partout compliment. Et la monture, tu as vu, cette poussière de brillants qui. . . .
— Assez!” gueula Chéri avec fureur, en abattant son poing sur la table fragile.
Des roses s’effeuillèrent au choc, une coupe de porcelaine glissa sans se briser sur l’épais tapis. Léa étendit vers le téléphone une main que Chéri arrêta d’un bras rude:
“Qu’est-ce que tu veux à ce téléphone?
— Téléphoner au commissariat”, dit Léa.
Il lui prit les deux bras, feignit la gaminerie en la poussant loin de l’appareil.
“Allez, allez, ça va bien, pas de blagues! On ne peut rien dire sans que tout de suite tu fasses du drame. . . .”
Elle s’assit et lui tourna le dos. Il restait debout, les mains vides, et sa bouche entrouverte et gonflée était celle d’un enfant boudeur. Une mèche noire couvrait son sourcil. Dans un miroir, à la dérobée, Léa
His head lowered, he inspected the room from side to side, its closed doors, the metal-armored bed with its sloping stack of luxurious pillows. He didn’t see anything out of the way, or anything new, and he shrugged his shoulders. Léa was waiting for something more than that, and she persisted:
“Do you understand what I mean?”
“Very well,” he replied. “The gentleman hasn’t come home? The gentleman is sleeping elsewhere?”
He bit his lip and nervously flicked his cigarette ash into a bowl containing jewelry.
“Not in there! I keep telling you!” Léa shouted. “How many times do I have to . . . ?”
She broke off, reproaching herself for having assumed the tone of their everyday arguments, against her will. But he didn’t seem to have heard her; he was examining a ring, an emerald that Léa had bought during her trip.
“What’s . . . what’s this?” he stammered.
“That? It’s an emerald.”
“I’m not blind! I mean: who gave it to you?”
“Someone you don’t know.”
“Delightful!” said Chéri, with bitterness in his voice.
That tone of voice gave Léa back all her authority over him, and she allowed herself the pleasure of leading him a little further astray, since he had left himself open to it.
“Isn’t it charming? I get complimented on it all over. Did you notice the setting, that powdering of brilliants which . . .”
“Enough!” Chéri roared in a frenzy, slamming his fist down on the fragile table.
At the shock, some roses lost their petals and a porcelain bowl rolled onto the thick carpet without breaking. Léa reached for the phone, but Chéri intercepted her hand roughly:
“What do you want with that phone?”
“To call the police,” Léa said.
He seized her two arms, pretending to be acting boyishly as he shoved her far away from the phone.
“Come on, come on, it’s all right, don’t do anything foolish! A person can’t say a thing without you dramatizing it right away . . .”
She sat down, turning her back to him. He remained standing with empty hands, and his puffy, half-open mouth was like a sulky child’s. A dark lock of hair covered one eyebrow. Léa was secretly observing
l’épiait; mais il s’assit et son visage disparut du miroir. A son tour, Léa sentit, gênée, qu’il la voyait de dos, élargie par la gandoura flottante. Elle revint à sa coiffeuse, lissa ses cheveux, replanta son peigne, ouvrit comme par distraction un flacon de parfum. Chéri tourna la tête vers l’odeur.
“Nounoune!” appela-t-il.
Elle ne répondit pas.
“Nounoune!”
— Demande pardon”, commanda-t-elle sans se retourner.
Il ricana:
“Penses-tu!
— Je ne te force pas. Mais tu vas t’en aller. Et tout de suite. . . .
— Pardon! dit-il promptement, hargneux.
— Mieux que ça!
— Pardon, répéta-t-il, tout bas.
— A la bonne heure!”
Elle revint à lui, passa sur la tête inclinée une main légère:
“Allons, raconte.”
Il tressaillit et secoua la caresse:
“Qu’est-ce que tu veux que je te raconte? Ce n’est pas compliqué. Je rentre ici, voilà.
— Raconte, va, raconte.”
Ilse balançait sur son siège en serrant ses mains entre ses genoux, et levait la tête vers Léa mais sans la regarder. Elle voyait battre les narines blanches de Chéri, elle entendait une respiration rapide qui essayait de se discipliner. Elle n’eut qu’à dire encore une fois: “Allons, raconte . . .” et à le pousser du doigt comme pour le faire tomber. Il appela:
“Nounoune chérie! Nounoune chérie!” et se jeta contre elle de toutes ses forces, étreignant les hautes jambes qui plièrent. Assise, elle le laissa glisser à terre et se rouler sur elle avec des larmes, des paroles désordonnées, des mains tâtonnantes qui s’accrochaient à ses dentelles, à son collier, cherchaient sous la robe la forme de son épaule et la place de son oreille sous les cheveux.
“Nounoune chérie! je te retrouve! ma Nounoune! ô ma Nounoune, ton épaule, et puis ton même parfum, et ton collier, ma Nounoune, ah! c’est épatant. . . . Et ton petit goût de brûlé dans les cheveux, ah! c’est . . . c’est épatant. . . .”
Il exhala, renversé, ce mot stupide comme le dernier souffle de sa poitrine. A genoux, il serrait Léa dans ses bras, et lui offrait son front ombragé de cheveux, sa tremblante bouche mouillée de larmes, et ses
him in a mirror; but he sat down and his face was no longer visible in the mirror. Now it was Léa’s turn to sense, with annoyance, that he was looking at her from behind, at her figure made broader by the loosely fitting tunic. She returned to her vanity table, smoothed her hair, put her comb in place again, and opened a perfume bottle as if absentmindedly. Chéri turned his head toward the fragrance.
“Nursie!” he called.
She made no reply.
“Nursie!”
“Apologize,” she ordered, without turning around.
He sniggered:
“That’s what you think!”
“I’m not forcing you. But you’re going to leave. And this minute . . .”
“I apologize,” he said promptly, in a surly way.
“Say it better!”
“I apologize,” he repeated, very quietly.
“Good!”
She came back over to him and passed one hand lightly over his bowed head.
“All right, tell me the story.”
He gave a start and shook off her caress:
“What do you want me to tell you? It’s not complicated. I’m back here, that’s all.”
“Tell me, come on, tell me.”
He was rocking back and forth on his seat, with his hands squeezed between his knees; he had his head raised in Léa’s direction but he wasn’t looking at her. She could see Chéri’s white nostrils flaring, she could hear his quick breathing, which he was trying to control. She merely needed to say once more “Come, tell me” and to push him with her finger as if to make him fall. He called out:
“Dear Nursie! Dear Nursie!” And he flung himself at her with all his might, hugging her tall legs, which buckled. She sat down and let him slip to the floor and roll against her with tears, broken phrases, and groping hands that clutched her lace and her necklace and reached under her gown to find the shape of her shoulder, and under her hair to feel her ear.
“Dear Nursie! It’s you again! My Nursie, oh, my Nursie! It’s your shoulder, your own perfume, and your necklace, my Nursie! Oh, it’s terrific! . . . And that little burnt smell in your hair! Oh, it’s . . . it’s terrific . . .”
Leaning back, he breathed out that silly word as if it were the last breath to issue from his chest. On his knees, he hugged Léa in his arms, offering her his hair-shaded forehead, his trembling, tear-soaked lips, and his eyes,
yeux d’où la joie coulait en pleurs lumineux. Elle le contempla si profondément, avec un oubli si parfait de tout ce qui n’était pas lui, qu’elle ne songea pas à lui donner un baiser. Elle noua ses bras autour du cou de Chéri, et elle le pressa sans rigueur, sur le rythme des mots qu’elle murmurait:
“Mon petit . . . mon méchant. . . . Te voilà . . . Te voilà revenu. . . . Qu’as-tu fait encore? Tu es si méchant . . . ma beauté. . . .”
Ilse plaignait doucement à bouche fermée, et ne parlait plus guère: il écoutait Léa et appuyait sa joue sur son sein. Il supplia: “Encore!” lorsqu’elle suspendit sa litanie tendre, et Léa, qui craignait de pleurer aussi, le gronda sur le même ton:
“Mauvaise bête. . . . Petit satan sans cœur. . . . Grande rosse, va. . . .”
Il leva vers elle un regard de gratitude:
“C’est ça, engueule-moi! Ah! Nounoune. . . .”
Elle l’écarta d’elle pour le mieux voir:
“Tu m’aimais donc?”
Il baissa les yeux avec un trouble enfantin:
“Oui, Nounoune.”
Un petit éclat de rire étranglé, qu’elle ne put retenir avertit Léa qu’elle était bien près de s’abandonner à la plus terrible joie de sa vie. Une étreinte, la chute, le lit ouvert, deux corps qui se soudent comme les deux tronçons vivants d’une même bête coupée. . . . “Non, non, se dit-elle, pas encore, oh! pas encore. . .
.”
“J’ai soif, soupira Chéri. Nounoune, j’ai soif. . . .”
Elle se leva vite, tâta de la main la carafe tiédie et sortit pour revenir aussitôt. Chéri, pelotonné à terre, avait posé sa tête sur le pouf.
“On t’apporte de la citronnade, dit Léa. Ne reste pas là. Viens sur la chaise longue. Cette lampe te gêne?”
Elle frémissait du plaisir de servir et d’ordonner. Elle s’assit au fond de la chaise longue et Chéri s’y étendit à demi contre elle.
“Tu vas me dire un peu, maintenant. . . .”
L’entrée de Rose l’interrompit. Chéri, sans se lever, tourna languissamment la tête vers Rose:
“. . . ’jour, Rose.
— Bonjour, Monsieur, dit Rose discrètement.
— Rose, je voudrais pour demain matin neuf heures. . . .
— Des brioches et du chocolat”, acheva Rose.
Chéri referma les yeux avec un soupir de bien-être:
“Extra-lucide! . . . Rose, où est-ce que je m’habille demain matin?
from which joy was flowing in the form of bright tears. She looked at him so fixedly, so totally forgetful of everything else in the world, that it didn’t occur to her to kiss him. She threw her arms around Chéri’s neck and hugged him gently to the rhythm of the words she was murmuring:
“My little boy . . . my bad boy . . . here you are . . . here you are back again . . . What have you done this time? You’re so bad . . . my beauty . . .”
He was lamenting softly, his lips closed, and was scarcely talking anymore: he was listening to Léa as he rested his cheek on her breast. He begged “More!” when she interrupted her amorous litany, and Léa, who was afraid she’d start crying, too, scolded him in the same tone of voice:
“Evil creature . . . little heartless devil . . . Big scoundrel that you are . . .”
He raised his eyes toward her in gratitude:
“That’s right, bawl me out! Oh, Nursie . . .”
She pushed him away, so she could see him better:
“So you still loved me?”
He lowered his eyes in childish confusion:
“Yes, Nursie.”
A little burst of stifled laughter that she couldn’t hold back warned Léa that she was very close to surrendering to the most awesome joy in her life. An embrace, a tumble, the turned-down bed, two bodies clinging together like the two living halves of a single severed animal . . . “No, no,” she said to herself, “not yet, oh, not yet . . .”