Fred had a notion what the “library” and the “beautiful things” upstairs might be like. But he was mistaken. The beautiful things were paintings and objets-d’art, most of the eighteenth century. There was another Fragonard a little smaller than the one in the salon but still priceless, a Boucher, a pair of twinned Watteaus, and a small bust of Madame de Pompadour by Houdon. In glass cases there were rare and expensive bibelots, figurines, Chinese porcelains. The library, occupying a large room which evidently had originally been the master bedroom, specialized mainly in books on heraldry, genealogy, and history of the nobility, all in fine leather bindings. Some were incunabula, others were illuminated manuscripts on vellum. For ten minutes or so Julien showed Fred the books, while Marcel stood by offering a comment now and then, stroking his beard with a complacent air. It struck Fred that, compared to the elegance of the Hôtel Marigny, Marcel’s own apartment in boulevard Haussmann seemed small and cramped, even a little squalid. Boulevard Haussmann was the center of his more important world, the world of his novel, the world of Art. This was another world, the world of his secret pleasure, of his vice. For it was clear that Julien did not really own the Hôtel Marigny. It was the creature of Marcel’s imagination, made concrete and realized in its every detail through the working of his own highly refined taste and will.
“You see,” Marcel explained, “Julien was for many years footman in a number of the most aristocratic houses of Europe. I need only mention the Prince d’Essling, the Count Orloff, and the Due de Rohan.” Julien smiled in his careful feline way. He seemed not at all disconcerted that Marcel revealed his past as a servant. “It was then that he began his interest in the genealogies of the European nobility. If I have a question regarding custom, or the correctness of a social procedure, I always bring it to Julien. Now suppose, Julien,” he asked him, “that a lady were giving a dinner party and invited both a general and a bishop. Which would take precedence?”
“The bishop would take precedence,” said Julien immediately, “and would be seated on the lady’s right.”
“These are only games,” said Marcel with a sideways smile at Fred. “But Julien, I have a real question for you, for a page in my book. Let us take the Duchesse de Guermantes, who does not exist. Suppose she invited the Duchesse d’Uzès, who is the first duchess of France, and the Princesse Murat, who is higher in rank but of a more recent family.”
Julien said imperturbably, “The Duchesse de Guermantes would never ask the Duchesse d’Uzès and the Princesse Murat on the same evening.”
“He is my walking Almanack de Gotha,” said Marcel. “He is indispensable for the information he gives me. He can tell you immediately whether a Montesquieu or a De Bréyoures is of the Bonapartist or Orléanist line, or whether a cabinet minister takes precedence over a Spanish count. Without him I couldn’t write my book. Allow me to give you something, Julien, for your professional advice.” He got out his checkbook. “Let’s say fifty francs.”
Julien demurred; he wouldn’t hear of it.
“Very well, let’s say a hundred.” Finally Julien had to accept the check, to prevent the figure from going even higher.
They left the library and went back down the long hall toward the stairway. There were several rooms along the hall, and others on the corridor that led along the rear of the building. In one room Fred caught a glimpse of chains and shackles through a half-open door, and in another a tube of vaseline was clearly visible on the bedside table. The other two didn’t seem to notice these things. They went downstairs again to rejoin Reynaldo, who had not gone up with them but had stayed in the salon talking to the young men. Julien took up his position behind the desk. He looked at Fred and then at Marcel. “Monsieur is one of us?” he inquired politely.
Marcel lifted his shoulders, with a faint smile.
“In addition to the persons you see here,” said Julien, seeming to address himself to Fred but without looking at him directly, “I have a large selection of others who are available on call. There are many tastes. Some ask me for a footman, or a choirboy, or a colored chauffeur. There is one man who will have no one but a butcher. I have no butcher, but I have a young man who comes in a butcher’s apron, with real bloodstains. We spare no expense to have each detail right. Just now Scotsmen are at a premium, I don’t know why. Perhaps on account of their kilts.”
“Perhaps it’s because of the war,” said Reynaldo. “There are a lot of Scotsmen in Paris.”
“Ah, the war. What a terrible thing. And here you, Monsieur Reynaldo, are in uniform. They shouldn’t make fine gentlemen like you go to war,” he said in a concerned tone and without apparent irony. “With one of us, it’s different. But if a person like Monsieur should be killed, what a loss. It would be an atrocity. Every last one of the Boches should be killed. And think of what they did at Louvain, cutting off the children’s hands.”
“That’s all propaganda,” said Reynaldo.
“Do you think so, Monsieur?” said Julien, still polite.
Marcel, sensing a quarrel, changed the subject again. “Perhaps you would like to meet some of these persons,” he suggested to Fred.
They moved over to the carpet between the divans, in the center of the room. Several young men clustered around. Sherry was served and the conversation became general. The boy with the Byronic collar stared with admiration at Reynaldo. “Ah, what a fine uniform,” he said. Reynaldo wore an elegant black tunic with lieutenant’s stripes, tailored riding breeches, and cavalry boots. He had taken off his braided képi and set it on the table when he entered. “And you are going off to fight?” asked the boy.
Reynaldo made an indifferent gesture.
“Alas, if they ever come for me,” sighed Marcel.
“I hope they put you in the shock troops,” Reynaldo told him.
The young men were all very polite, even the toughs from the Halles and the dockworkers, who were perhaps not real either but only well-brought-up young men wearing costumes. They were particularly interested in Fred, who was still wearing his leather coat and had not taken off his Stetson.
“Are you a cowboy, Monsieur?” one asked respectfully.
“No.”
“But you are from the Far West?”
“Yes.”
“I am interested in cowboys and things of the Far West. I have some books in my room if you would like to see them.”
“No, thanks,” said Fred.
“You have other preferences?” inquired Julien politely.
“I have no preferences at all.”
“It’s late,” said Marcel. “We ought to be going. I have what I came for, Julien, your information about the Duchesse de Guermantes. I am infinitely grateful to you. And so, good evening.”
“If you would like to see my western books some other time,” said the young man.
“Yes, some other time,” said Fred.
“Good evening, Messieurs,” said Julien. “I am pleased to have been of service. And I am happy to have made your acquaintance, Monsieur Frédéric. Whomever Monsieur Marcel brings, anything in the house is his for the asking. Monsieur Marcel is a real gentleman, of the old-fashioned kind. There are not so many like him anymore.”
“Good night, Julien.”
Outside in the street it seemed unusually dark. After a moment Fred grasped that it was because the street lamps were out, perhaps because of one of the usual electricity shortages. They stood under the marquée for a moment waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. On the wall by the doorway, dimly visible in the starlight, someone had chalked in crude letters “Sodome.” Marcel saw that Fred had noticed it and smiled faintly.
They left the doorway and groped their way along the sidewalk toward the boulevard. When they came to the first cross street they saw far over to the east, in the direction of Vincennes, a searchlight beam stabbing up into the sky and then moving along the undersurface of a cloud.
“A Zeppelin raid,” said Reynaldo.
“Ah, they say they’re ex
quisite,” said Marcel. “You know, I’ve never seen one. There was one the other night but I was working and didn’t notice. Now I’ve given Celeste explicit orders to call me if there’s another one.”
“You’re welcome,” said Reynaldo. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got to report at ten in the morning.” He glanced at his watch, which was invisible in the darkness. “This morning,” he corrected.
There were no taxis, even after they reached the boulevard, and Reynaldo left them and set off on foot. He lived nearby in rue de Provence, only five minutes away. Marcel wrapped his shawl around his mouth and he and Fred set out in search of a taxi. “There’s sure to be one at the Madeleine,” came Marcel’s muffled voice through the shawl.
They found one, parked at the curb in the dark shadow of the church, but the driver explained that it was against regulations to take passengers during an air raid. Only if he picked them up before the alarm sounded could he continue to take them to their destination. And the alarm had sounded an hour ago. So if they were stopped by the police, Marcel and Fred would have to swear that they had been driving around in the taxi already an hour or more. “But doing what?” said the driver. “That’s the hard part of the question. You gentlemen had better make up your minds.”
Marcel cocked an eye at Fred.
“Looking for girls,” said Fred.
Marcel smiled at this. They got in and shut the door.
The driver, as well as could be seen in the dim starlight and the glow from his instrument panel, was a good-looking young man with dark hair. He had a slight accent, perhaps Italian. “Where to?”
Marcel looked questioningly at Fred. “To the Sacré-Coeur, to watch the Zeppelins.”
“Ah, that’s out of the question. I have the police to think of, gentlemen. If I break the regulations I can lose my license.”
“Ah, if it’s only the police, don’t trouble yourself,” said Marcel. “I’m a personal friend of the Prefect of Paris. Here’s my card.”
He passed a fifty-franc bill forward through the opening in the glass.
“It’s easy enough for you gentlemen,” said the driver, putting the car in gear and setting it into motion. “You’re rich. If a chauffeur loses his license, he’s out of luck.”
“I’ve known many chauffeurs,” said Marcel. “If you lose your license, I’ll …”
Then he stopped, in mid-sentence, and looked out the window into the darkness. Fred knew what he had been about to say. “… I’ll hire you myself.”
The car went on slowly through the pitch-black streets. There were more searchlights now, some from the Left Bank, perhaps in the Luxembourg Gardens. The streets were deserted. Now and then a spectator could be seen on a rooftop, silhouetted in the starlight or dimly illuminated in the loom of a searchlight beam. Rue d’Amsterdam, boulevard de Clichy, rue de Clignancourt. The taxi wound up the hill toward the white mosquelike church with its collection of domes, one large and four small, glowing in the starlight. It came to a stop not far from the balustrade under the church. Marcel told the driver to wait, with a ghostly little smile promising more fifty-franc bills.
They looked out over the vast city stretched out before them in the starlight. The spectacle was impressive and rather unearthly. The landmarks of the city were difficult to make out in the darkness. The outline of the Eiffel Tower was unmistakable against the sky, and a little to the left of it the dome of the Invalides. Except for that there were only unidentified shapes and lumps scattered out in the darkness before them, with the silver thread of the river dividing the city in two. The Ile de la Cité with the Notre-Dame on it could be made out because the river divided around it and then came back together again at the Vert-Galant.
There were perhaps two dozen or more searchlights now playing in the sky. The beams from the Luxembourg Gardens, splaying out and then coming together in an apex again, wandered slowly over the clouds. Then one found its mark, and the others followed it. A surprisingly narrow and graceful silver cigar, with four vanes at its tapering rear, was caught in the converging shafts of light somewhere to the left of the Luxembourg, perhaps near the Jardin des Plantes. There were others; a single searchlight beam followed a Zeppelin drifting slowly along the curve of the river near Boulogne.
“It is as beautiful as they said,” murmured Marcel. “These are machines that have never been seen before. And perhaps in a few years they will be obsolete; they will never be seen again.” He had forgotten his shawl now; it fell down revealing his pale face with its dark intent eyes in the starlight. “They appear only at night, and only to the elect—those who watch at night. It is as though they were odd gods from an unknown mythology. From another planet.”
There were flashes of light from the Left Bank near the Panthéon, and others along the quays, but whether they were bombs falling or guns firing at the Zeppelins was not clear.
Fred imagined the men high overhead in fur-lined leather clothing, moving about in the dimly lit interior of the gondola, adjusting the controls, watching the instruments of the engines, checking the apparatus that released the bombs.
“You poetize things a little too much,” he said. “They’re simply German machines to kill people.”
“Yes, they are death gods,” said Marcel quite calmly.
As they watched, a searchlight beam much closer than the others, perhaps in the Parc Monceau or the Montmartre Cemetery, found its own Zeppelin, this one so near that the gondola underneath and the small engine nacelles could be clearly made out. The stabbing beam played across the airship, lost it for a moment, and then swung across the sky and found it again. The Zeppelin was moving across the city from east to west, and the searchlight was now behind it. The beam struck its underquarters at the rear just forward of the tail and bored upward relentlessly, as if in an effort to penetrate it and destroy it. The Zeppelin seemed to sway a little, but the shaft of light stuck to it doggedly, following its every movement. Fred allowed himself a sideways glance at Marcel. But if Marcel noticed the analogy he said nothing.
14.
Herma woke up late. It was a rainy Sunday morning. She had no engagements and nothing to do with herself all day except do exactly what she wanted. She yawned, stretched sensuously in the bed, turned over, and dozed again for a few moments.
But she really wasn’t sleepy anymore. She got out of bed, lazily turned on the lamp (it was ten o’clock in the morning, but the autumn gray outside was depressing and she preferred to keep the curtains drawn even in the daytime), and went into the tiny kitchen for her breakfast: a single large Spanish orange, thick-skinned and pungent, more reddish and wild than the pale California oranges of her childhood. Standing before the sink in her nightgown, she cut the spongy skin into neat segments and removed them. Then she divided the orange into sections and ate them one by one, leaning over the sink so that the juice wouldn’t drip onto her gown.
It was always Herma who ate breakfast and never Fred, just as it was always Herma who slept at night and not Fred (unless he was with one of his lady friends, the promiscuous pig, and then precious little sleeping took place). Fred had a voracious appetite in the morning and if he had eaten breakfast it would have been croissants with butter and jam, scrambled eggs, sausage, fried chicken livers and heaven knows what, and then where would her famous slimness go. No, Fred, she thought complacently, you are not allowed to have breakfast. You lack self-control. You are charming in your boyish impulsiveness, your reckless and insouciant surrender to all the temptations of life, but you are not going to ruin my figure. She put the slices of orange peel away in the receptacle provided, wiped off the kitchen counter, held the tips of her fingers under the water tap, and dried them. She went into the bathroom, slipped out of her nightgown, and hung it carefully on a hook.
The Sunday morning bath was one of her secret indulgences. Everything about the bathroom pleased her: the gold-plated fittings, the tub of magenta-colored Carrara, the imported Italian tile on the floor, the warm fleece of the bath mat under her to
es, the delicate scent of lavender and rosemary. She turned on both taps and added a handful of scented salts. Then when the tub was full of water so hot that it steamed (this was very wasteful in wartime), she got in and sank into a luxury of violet-colored foam.
She didn’t mind it hot, The hotter the better. Now and then she disappeared entirely under the surface of the foam, emerging after a moment to gaze lazily at her toe arising from the violet lace at the other end of the tub. She squeezed a sponge over the top of her head. She didn’t bother to shampoo her hair or wash anything in particular. It wasn’t so much an ablutionary bath as a ritualistic one. She usually came out clean enough. A hot soaking for half an hour removed everything extraneous, and her short hair was as easy to wash as a boy’s. She stood up, waited a moment to allow the violet foam to slither off her, and stepped out onto the mat.
She dried herself with an enormous soft Turkish towel, threw the towel into the corner, and then stood with her chin lifted and her arms hanging straight down, examining herself in the mirror. She was a pretty thing, no doubt about that. Tall and slender, narrow-shouldered, finely modeled, still with an attractive combination of adolescent grace and slight gawkishness—even though she was not so young as all that anymore—she had the kind of body that was not destined, ever, to be old. (A little shadow—she dismissed this thought.) Her short hair, with one lock falling over the brow, was now in style and exactly the way everyone else was doing their hair in the new atmosphere of wartime casualness and economy. Stimulated by the bath, her smooth apricot-over-lemon complexion showed just a faint flush of blood at the corners of the cheeks. Her hands and feet were a little large for the rest of her, but this went with the adolescent awkwardness—all young animals had large feet. It was the grace of a young colt. Her face was a perfect oval, her glance steady-eyed with a trace of a smile playing on her lips. Just above the mouth there was a kind of peach-down that showed only when the light struck it in a certain way to make a shadow—as it did now, in the diffuse pink glow from the fixture overhead. Still staring fixedly at the image in the mirror, she raised her bands and placed them, thumbs and forefingers stretched in an arc, at the sides of her chest. She pushed upward. There was no mistake about it anymore. When she did this there was a slight suggestion now of little twin swellings around the roseate buds on either side—a phenomenon that appeared when she was Herma, only when she stood in a certain light, and only when she assisted things a little by raising the soft flesh with her hands. Yet it pleased her. It made her feel feminine, complacent, and faintly mysterious—magical was perhaps the word. She went on looking at herself for some time. Then she noticed something stuck into the side of the mirror—a polished glossy card, partly printed and partly in handwriting.
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