The Vagabond

by Colette

  “What did you do that for? Max, how naughty of you!”

  He drags himself over to me, obediently, penitently, jostling a little table and some chairs along the way, with an occasional “Excuse me! . . . do it any more! . . . Darling, it’s so hard to wait,” slightly exaggerating the childlike supplication . . .

  I can’t make out his features clearly because night is falling. But in the abruptness of his attempt just now, I detected as much calculation as impetuosity . . . “You’d be caught! You’d no longer be tramping the roads all alone . . .”

  “Poor Max!” I say to him softly.

  “Are you laughing at me, tell me? Was I ludicrous?”

  He humbles himself pleasantly and skillfully. He wants to lead my thoughts to the gesture itself, thus keeping me from thinking about his real motives . . . And I tell just a little lie, to reassure him:

  “I’m not laughing at you, Max. You know, there aren’t many men who’d take the risk of pouncing on a woman the way you did, you big devil, without losing all their prestige! It’s your peasantlike bearing that saves you, and your eyes like a wolf in love! You looked like a day laborer returning from his farm work at nightfall and tumbling a girl by the side of the road . . .”

  I leave him in order to daub on my eyes again that bluish ring which makes them look soft and shiny, to put on a cloak, and to pin to my hair one of those deep hats whose well-chosen shape and colors remind Max of Grandville’s Animated Flowers, those little flower fairies wearing an inside-out poppy on their head, or a lily-of-the-valley bell, or a large iris with drooping petals.

  The two of us are going out for a sweet car ride in the darkness of the Bois de Boulogne. I love these nocturnal outings, during which I hold my friend’s hand in the dark, so I’ll know he’s there and so he’ll know I’m there. Then I can close my eyes and dream that he and I are departing for some unfamiliar land in which I’d have no past and no name, and where I’d be born afresh with a new face and a heart without knowledge . . .

  JUST ONE more week, and I’m off . . .

  Will I really go? There are hours and days when I doubt it. Especially days of premature spring, when my friend takes me out of Paris, to those well-traveled parks, furrowed by cars and bikes, but made mysterious, all the same, by the fresh, acrid season. A purple fog, at the close of the afternoon, makes the avenues of trees deeper, and the unexpected discovery of a bluebell, with its three narrow, naively blue cups swaying in the breeze, takes on the value of a stolen pleasure . . .

  Last week we took a long walk in the morning sunshine through the Bois, where the grooms gallop. Snuggled against each other, we were active, happy, and little inclined to talking; I was humming a little song that makes you walk fast . . . Turning into a deserted bridle path, we stopped, nose to muzzle, in front of a very young tawny doe that lost her self-control at the sight of us and halted instead of running away.

  She was panting with emotion and her delicate knees were trembling, but her long eyes, further lengthened by a brown line—like mine—expressed more confusion than fear. I’d have liked to touch her ears, which were pointed in our direction and as fluffy as great-mullein leaves, and her soft muzzle of downy velvet. When I held out my hand, she turned aside her forehead with a savage motion and vanished.

  “You wouldn’t have killed her when out hunting, Max?” I asked.

  “Kill a doe? Why not a woman?” was his simple reply.

  That day we had lunched in Ville-d’Avray, like everybody, at that restaurant with peculiar outdoor dining areas overhanging the edge of the pond, areas for sleeping in, as well. We were as well-behaved as lovers who have already had their fill. It pleased me to note that Max had the same impassioned serenity which trees and fresh, freely blowing breezes instill in me. Leaning on my elbows, I watched the flat water of the pond, clouded, rusty in spots, and the hazel bushes with their pendent catkins. Then my eyes turned back to my good life-companion, in the firm hope of constructing for him a happiness as lasting as that life itself . . .

  Will I really leave? There are hours when I prepare for my departure as if in a dream. My dressing case, the rolled traveling rug, and the raincoat, exhumed from my closets, have seen the light of day again, dented, scratched, as if worn out by wayfaring . . . Disgustedly, I’ve poured out jars of rancid white greasepaint and vaseline that had turned yellow and were reeking of petroleum . . .

  These tools of my trade I now handle unlovingly. And when Brague came to ask how I was doing, I welcomed him so absentmindedly and cavalierly that he left very cross and, what’s more serious, with an exceedingly polite “farewell, dear friend.” Bah! During those forty days I’ll have plenty of time to see him and cheer him up again! . . . I’m expecting him any minute now for his final instructions. Max will arrive a little later . . .

  “Good day, dear friend.”

  I expected this! My partner is still annoyed with me.

  “No, listen, Brague, enough of that! The aristocratic style doesn’t become you at all! We’re here for a serious talk. You remind me of Dranem playing Louis XIV when you call me ‘dear friend’!”

  Brightening at once, Brague protests:

  “The aristocratic style! Why not? I can beat Castellane at his own game when I put my mind to it! You’ve never seen me in evening clothes?”

  “No!”

  “Neither have I . . . Say, your little . . . boudoir is dark! What about going to your bedroom? There’s more light for talking.”

  “Let’s go to my room . . .”

  Brague immediately catches sight of a photo of Max on the mantelpiece: Max in a new jacket, stiff, the black of his hair too black, the white of his eyes too white, looking official and a little foolish, but still very handsome.

  Brague examines the picture, while rolling a cigarette:

  “This guy must be your boyfriend, right?”

  “He’s . . . my boyfriend, yes.”

  And I give a nice smile, with an imbecilic air.

  “He’s elegant, there’s no denying it! You’d swear he was a cabinet minister! What makes you laugh?”

  “Nothing . . . it’s that notion that he could be a cabinet minister! That’s not his style at all.”

  Brague lights his cigarette and observes me from the corner of his eye:

  “Taking him along?”

  I shrug my shoulders:

  “No, of course not! It’s impossible! How can you want that?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t want it!” Brague exclaims, reassured. “You’re right, kid, let me tell you! All the tours I’ve seen that got screwed up because Madame doesn’t want to leave Monsieur, or Monsieur wants to keep an eye on Madame! They quarrel, then they’re all kissy-kissy, they squabble again, and then they make it up so thoroughly that you can’t pry them out of the sack; Madame’s legs wobble onstage and her eyes have black rings: it makes life hell, I assure you! . . . Give me a nice trip with just buddies every time! You know me, I’ve never changed my mind on that subject: love and business don’t mix. Besides, forty days isn’t forever: you write to each other, then you get back together and shack up again . . . Does your friend have an office?”

  “An office? No, he has no office.”

  “Does he have . . . an auto factory? In short: he putters around with something?”

  “No.”

  “He does nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  Brague emits a whistle that can be interpreted in at least two ways . . .

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing. That is, he has forests.”

  “Amazing!”

  “What amazes you?”

  “That anyone can live like that. No office. No factory. No rehearsals. No racing stable! Doesn’t that seem funny to you?”

  I look up at him with an air of embarrassment and a little guilt:

  “Yes, it does.”

  I can’t answer differently. My friend’s idleness, his sauntering about like a high-school boy perpetually on vacation, is
a frequent cause of alarm to me, almost of shock . . .

  “I’d croak,” Brague declares after a silence. “A matter of habit!”

  “No doubt . . .”

  “Now,” Brague says, sitting down, “let’s make this short and sweet. Have you got all you need?”

  “Of course, what do you think? My new Dryad costume is a dream, green as a little grasshopper, and it weighs only about a pound! The other costume is mended, with new embroidery, laundered: you’d swear it was brand-new; it can hold out for sixty performances without weakening.”

  Brague puckers up his mouth:

  “Hmm . . . are you sure? You could have shelled out for a brand-new gown for Dominance!”

  “Oh, sure, and you would have paid for it, right? What about your embroidered doeskin breeches in Dominance, which have taken on the color of all the stage boards that have waxed them—do I find fault with you for them?”

  My partner raises a dogmatic hand:

  “Excuse me, excuse me! Let’s not confuse things! My breeches are magnificent! They’ve taken on a patina, subtle shades: they’re like a piece of artistic pottery. It would be a crime to replace them!”

  “You’re just a skinflint!” I say, shrugging my shoulders.

  “And you’re a grouch! . . . ”

  Oh, how good it feels to tackle each other a little! It’s restful. We’re both annoyed just enough for our squabble to resemble a lively rehearsal . . .

  “Halt!” Brague shouts. “The matter of costumes is settled. Let’s move on to the matter of luggage.”

  “As if I needed you for that! Is this the first time we’re traveling together? Are you going to teach me how to fold my slips?”

  Brague, under his eyelids creased by professional grimaces, casts a crushing glance at me:

  “Poor creature! Total lamebrain! Talk, talk, kick up a fuss, stir up the bee in your bonnet! Am I going to teach you? I’ll say I am! Listen, and do your best to latch on: we pay the excess-baggage penalties, don’t we?”

  “Shh!”

  I signal to him to stop. I’m upset because I’ve heard from the anteroom two discreet rings at the doorbell . . . It’s him! And Brague is still here! . . . After all, they’ve met.

  “Come in, Max, come in . . . It’s Brague . . . We’re discussing the tour. It won’t bore you?”

  No, it won’t bore him, but it does constrain me, somewhat. My vaudeville business is petty, detailed, commercial, and I don’t like to involve my friend in it, my darling, lazy friend . . .

  Brague, who can be very nice when he wants to, gives Max a smile.

  “Is it all right with you, sir? We’re fussing around in our professional kitchen, and I pride myself on being a thrifty cook who lets nothing go to waste and never pockets any of the food money.”

  “Absolutely!” Max assures him. “In fact, since I know nothing about it, I’ll be entertained; I’ll learn something . . .”

  The liar! For a man being entertained, he certainly looks cross and very unhappy.

  “I resume!” Brague begins. “On our last tour, in September, if you recall, we wasted up to ten or eleven francs a day on excess baggage, as if we were Carnegie.”

  “Not all the time, Brague!”

  “Not all the time. There were days when it was only three or four francs for excess. That’s already too much. As for me, I’ve had it! What luggage have you got apart from your carry-on valise?”

  “My black trunk.”

  “That big one? You’re nutty. I refuse to allow it.”

  Max coughs . . .

  “Here’s what you’re going to do: you’ll use mine. In the top compartment, stage costumes. In the second compartment, our underwear, your slips, your panties, your stockings, my shirts, my shorts, et cetera.”

  Max twitches . . .

  “And in the bottom, shoes, spare suits for you and me, odds and ends, et cetera. Got it?”

  “Yes, it’s not a bad idea.”

  “But . . .,” Max says.

  “This way,” Brague continues, “we’ll have just one big piece of luggage (the Caveman will look out for himself; his mother, who’s a feather plucker, will lend him a basket!), just one altogether. We get rid of the penalty, we give a smaller tip to the station porters, theater hands, et cetera . . . If we don’t save five francs a day each, I’ll go and become a tenor! . . . How often do you change your underwear on tour?”

  I blush because of Max.

  “Every other day.”

  “That’s your business. Since there’s laundry service in the big burgs, Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse, Bordeaux, I make it twelve slips and twelve panties, and the rest to match. Am I big-hearted and generous? In short, I’m trusting you to be reasonable.”

  “Relax!”

  Brague stands up, shakes Max’s hand, and says:

  “You see how quickly we’ve settled it, sir. You, Miss, I’ll meet you at the station at a quarter after seven Tuesday morning.”

  I walk him to the anteroom; on my return I’m greeted with a storm of protests, lamentations, and reproaches:

  “Renée! It’s monstrous! It’s impossible! You’ve lost your mind! Your slips, your slips, and your little panties (which are much too short, darling) all mixed up with that fellow’s shorts! And your stockings with his socks, perhaps! And all that to save five francs a day! What a mockery and what a misery!”

  “What do you mean, misery? It comes to two hundred francs!”

  “Oh, I know! Such penny-pinching . . .”

  I hold back a retort that would hurt his feelings: where would that spoiled child have learned that money, earned money, is something serious and worthy of respect, to be handled carefully and discussed earnestly?

  He mops his brow with a beautiful violet silk handkerchief. For some time my friend has been displaying an extreme concern for elegance: he has magnificent shirts, handkerchiefs that match his ties, shoes with doeskin spats . . . I haven’t failed to notice it, because, with this dear Big Ninny, whose build is a little heavy, the slightest detail of attire assumes an almost shocking importance.

  “Why do you consent to that?” he asks reproachfully. “Such promiscuity is hateful!”

  Promiscuity! I was expecting the word. It’s used a lot . . . “Backstage promiscuity” . . .

  “Tell me, dear,” I say as, with two fingers, I narrow the tips of his reddish-black, silky mustache, “if your shirts and your shorts were involved, that wouldn’t be promiscuity? Remember: I’m just a very sensible little vaudevillian living on her salary . . .”

  Suddenly he embraces me and crushes me a little, on purpose:

  “To hell with your career! . . . Oh, when I have you completely to myself, I’ll treat you to special railroad cars, their luggage racks filled with flowers, and dresses and more dresses! And everything beautiful I can find or think up!”

  His lovely dark voice makes this commonplace promise sound noble . . . In those ordinary words I sense the vibrant desire to lay the world at my feet . . .

  Dresses? It’s true, he must find it austere and pretty monotonous, my neutral chrysalis of gray, brown, or dark-blue tailored suits, which in the glare of the footlights I exchange for painted gauze, shiny spangles, and swirling, iridescent skirts . . . Special cars? What for? They don’t travel farther than regular ones . . .

  Fossette has slipped her bonzelike skull, gleaming like rosewood, between us . . . My little companion can tell I’m leaving. She has recognized the valise with scratched corners, and the raincoat; she has seen the black-enameled English box, the makeup case . . . She knows I won’t take her along, and she’s resigning herself in advance to a life, a pampered life, consisting of walks along the city limits with Blandine, nights with my concierge, dinners out, and picnics in the Bois . . . “I know you’ll be back,” her slitlike eyes say, “but when?”

  “Max, she likes you. Will you look after her?”

  There we go! Just because we’ve leaned over this restless little animal together, our tears are ov
erflowing! I repress mine with an effort that hurts my throat and nose . . . How beautiful my friend’s eyes are, enlarged by the two gleaming tears that wet his lashes! Oh, why leave him?

  “In a little while,” he murmurs with a choked voice, “I”ll go out and fetch a . . . pretty little handbag . . . that I’ve ordered for you . . . a very sturdy one . . . for the trip . . .”

  “Really, Max?”

  “It’s . . . pigskin . . .”

  “Max, come now! Be a little more courageous than I am!”

  He blows his nose rebelliously:

  “Why? I don’t feel like being courageous! Just the opposite!”

  “We’re both being silly! Neither of us would have dared to be self-pitying: Fossette acted as a catalyst to our emotion. It works like the ‘little table’ in Manon or the muff in Poliche, remember?”

  Maxime wipes his eyes, at length, carefully, in the simple way he does everything, which keeps him from looking ridiculous.

  “That’s very possible, Renée . . . Anyway, if you want my eyes to turn into fountains, all you need to do is speak to me of all your surroundings here in this little apartment, all the things I won’t see again till you’re back. This old couch, the easy chair you sit and read in, and the pictures of you, and the sunbeam that moves across the carpet between noon and two o’clock . . .”

  Deeply moved, he smiles:

  “Don’t speak to me of the fire shovel, the hearth, and the tongs, or I’ll collapse altogether! . . .”

  He has gone to fetch the pretty little pigskin bag.

  “When we’re together again,” he said to me coaxingly before he left, “you’ll give me the furniture from this little parlor, won’t you? I’ll have other pieces made for you.”

  I smiled, in order not to refuse. This furniture in Max’s home? It’s only for lack of money that I never replaced this flotsam and jetsam from my home with Taillandy, which he left in my hands as a measly compensation for the author’s royalties he had swindled me out of. What an aria of the “little table” I could sing about this fumed-oak piece with pretensions to be Dutch, about this old couch hollowed out by “sporting events” . . . to which I wasn’t invited! Haunted furniture, amid which I often woke up with the mad fear that my freedom had only been a dream . . . An odd wedding present for a new lover! A shelter, not a home, is all that I leave behind me: the second- or first-class rolling stock, the hotels of every category, the filthy dressing rooms in vaudeville theaters in Paris, the provinces, and foreign parts, have been more familiar to me, more protective, than what my friend calls “a lovely intimate nook”!