The Beauties and Furies

by Christina Stead

  ‘No, it’s so dead, Georges! I’m expecting to see a couple of new young friends of mine at the Capucines, besides.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll meet you after. Where’ll you be?’

  ‘Come and join us, Georges. Snap out of it! Have some fun! You’re too gloomy for a young man.’

  ‘I want to be quiet: I’ll meet you after. Where’ll you be? Or at any rate come and have an apéritif with me at the Univers.’

  Marpurgo wiped his hands. ‘You win, Georges: I’ll come to the Univers. It’s one of the few lively places, and I want to talk to you.’

  ‘The waiters know me: they give me service.’

  They went off. Georges was pink with content at getting someone to drink with him. He for the moment forgave Marpurgo for the legendary figures in his expense account. At table he talked steadily, humourlessly, with the bumbling persistence of a bee in a basin, about business affairs. He rarely mentioned outside matters or persons, but this evening, after he had had his inevitable quinine pick-me-up, which he drank down, smacking his lips, Georges, leaning over the tablecloth, said grudgingly:

  ‘You ought to meet the feller I was telling you about, you know who I mean!’—with exasperation—‘the chap I told you about to-day, Paindebled’s the name, rue Jacob: go over there some day. He has an antique-shop. Don’t know how much money he makes, but he lives in the back of the shop. You know how these antique dealers live. They own the shop and live in the back on spinach and veal. He used to be a designer in Raguse’s in Calais. His wife too. His wife’s crazy now, but she inherited some tin from a sister who went crazy too, after getting married. They bought this antique-shop in the rue Jacob, and Paindebled’s put quite a bit of cash into laces. He says it has antiquarian and aesthetic value some day translatable into real round berries. You ought to go along and give him the benefit of your canvass, Marpurgo. You’d get along like a house on fire. He invited me to dinner, but I don’t want to go. I hate social events. I’m no good at them. You go along and excuse me and get to know him: then he won’t bother me.’

  ‘You come along and introduce me.’

  ‘And get nabbed for another date? No. I’ll give you a note for the lady. You take it. That’s the best thing. They’ve got a daughter, a long high-brow blonde.’

  ‘And you’re a bachelor!’

  ‘You’ve got the idea.’

  ‘You can’t fade out of parental pipe-dreams as easily as that.’

  ‘Can’t I, though? I’ll use parental pipe-dreams for a smoke-screen. And you’re a married man. You have nothing to fear.’

  ‘I never mention my wife in society,’ said Marpurgo.

  ‘Well, tell ’em you’re an ascetic,’ grinned Georges. ‘Is it a deal? You hold off the high-brow blonde, and I’ll pass your expense accounts—this time.’

  Marpurgo darkened, but said delicately:

  ‘It’s like you, Georges, to do me a favour, introduce me to your connoisseur friend and with the same motion wipe the debt off my slate by pretending I’m obliging you.’

  Georges said: ‘Oh, have it my way.’

  ‘I have to telephone,’ said Marpurgo: ‘some young friends who wanted to have dinner with me—young lovers, hi, hi, quite a little romance, charming little adultery…’

  ‘No, go on, an adultery? And you call that romantic? That’s like calling the postman romantic. You’re romantic yourself, Marpurgo. Adultery!’ He put the drink greedily to his lips. ‘You often see a beautiful young woman, you know, all curves, married to some dry stick of a civil servant. Everyone looks at her on the street and says, What did she marry him for? Then if she does meet another man, her own age, and in business, that she likes better, and she goes out with him, it’s adultery. Of course, what did she marry him for? She could have waited. But I suppose they’re all worried they’ll be old maids. They won’t wait: they want a fellow to tie himself down. And then the husband is always between them and has a right to her.’

  His round face looked childishly at Marpurgo, ‘I—’ he noticed Marpurgo’s smile, ‘it’s nothing; I often think, it’s like putting your brand on a heifer and turning her loose on the pampas and then laying bets on what colour the calves will be.’ This seemed a great joke to Georges. He went on argumentatively, ‘What does she care what colour they are? A mother’s a mother to any colour calf!’

  ‘That’s so,’ Marpurgo murmured, with lowered eyes.

  ‘You can’t blame them: they want to make sure of an income before they lose their looks. We oughtn’t really to blame them.’

  Marpurgo coughed. ‘Law is on the husband’s side; ruminating doesn’t alter that.’

  The face of Georges, completely softened, leaned towards Marpurgo: ‘I suppose we all have girls in our lives…’

  Marpurgo got up testily. ‘I must telephone.’

  He went away. When he came back he found Georges his normal self, ready with a crusty remark. Marpurgo was discomforted.

  ‘They must have forgotten: they went out.’

  ‘Well, now you can come to the Pyramides with me: you’ve got nothing else to do.’

  Marpurgo was forced to go and while away the dull, lost evening. After supper they walked to the left bank and passed along the rue Jacob where Georges pointed out die house of Paindebled, the antiquary. It was now shuttered and completely dark. A ham-and-beef shop and some other small-goods shops glowed along the next street. At the corner two street musicians sang a sentimental song in Parisian slang.

  ‘Delightful,’ said Marpurgo, ‘there’s something here that will bring me back again and again. This is mellow, old, full of charm and peace.’

  ‘Parlez-moi d’amour,’ sang the musicians.

  ‘These old buildings are probably full of bed-bugs, that’s all,’ said Georges.

  They passed a boring evening which rested Georges, whose evenings were all empty. Marpurgo went home furious and restless, very hurt that Oliver and Elvira had deserted him. He went back to look at the Paindebled house when he had seen Georges home (Georges insisted on it). There was now a light burning in the top-storey. Anaemic stars were lost in the black sky above. Marpurgo walked up and down the rue Jacob twice, talking to himself:

  ‘Dark, dark, dark, without a ray of light; no companion heart, despised and suspicioned, a lonely old wreck, alone, alone, aimless, going out with blockhead fools, adultery, heifers, ha! I used to dream about angels of light, diamond crowns of glory. I am a genius: much good it does me! Where is my equal? Much good it does me! Where are all the books I thought of writing? That imbecile Griffin published his theorem in last month’s Mathematica—I always made him a laughing-stock in company. He doesn’t know what’s the sum of two and two. I could have written a symphony. Nothing! If I had been one of those who could have fooled themselves into having a “career”! Lumps that decorate themselves with wreaths of roses. But it works. Look at me! I see their satire. Not even loved. No love. There must be someone—Young Girl, can’t you see what a beautiful soul I have? Can’t you see what it would be to have a lover who would worship with his spirit? Parlez-moi d’amour. Ha, ha, don’t worry! I have everything. Now I’m old. There must be a way of fighting old age. I’ll wrestle with it: it can suffocate me but I’ll never be old. I won’t be old, I’ll love again and better. I’ll succeed. There’s time. There’s time.’

  He found himself standing in front of the Paindebled shutters.

  He went home and to bed. He tossed as he remembered that Georges had given him all his mail opened. ‘You know how I go through the mail,’ Georges explained in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion; ‘I go through the mail backwards and just slit the letters. I didn’t mean to open your letters. I thought they were for Antoine or me.’

  He had allowed himself to say spitefully:

  ‘Why don’t you hire Harris, the detective, to write reports on the cafés I visit?’

  Georges had only said lazily:

  ‘Don’t get hot in the collar, Marpurgo. Anybody’d think I did it purposely. As s
oon as I see, Dear Marpurgo, I slap ’em back again.’

  Marpurgo switched on the light and took his wife’s letter, unopened, from his pocket. He read:

  MY DEAR FRIEND,—The weather continues charming: my friends come and go: I continue my régime. Our old friend Dr. Eggeli visits me regularly, and I continue the same. Naturally I do not improve, but I do not get worse. I am grateful to God for so many peaceful, happy years of life, I whom everyone expected to die at sixteen. Only one thing lacks, my dear Annibale, and that is my husband. You are busy: you cannot realise that it is fourteen months since you visited me. Your own ill-health occupies you. How I wish we were a little better off, so that you too could spend your days by my side in some beautiful alpine resort like Pontresina. I hear that Pontresina is excellent for bronchial troubles.

  I am sure you no longer believe that you have consumption. No one continues to have consumption for so many years, Dr. Eggeli tells me. But you are fatigued. I have not been much of a wife to you; my physical indisposition has prevented that. Ours has been a spiritual relationship and has avoided the crudities of another kind. I hope that you will soon be reconciled to me, my dear friend, and that we will be able to pass the remaining years of life together. You are, after all, my husband. You are all I have in this world. I want you to come to see me. It is not very pleasant for me to sit here alone all the year round. I know your affection for me, but I am exposed to the sympathy of my friends. They think it strange that you cannot tear yourself away from Paris and London. You know the childish pictures these names call up in innocent and foolish minds. A friend actually hinted that she thought we were separated. I want you to come here to me, my dear, and give yourself a little rest while doing me a little service. I ask very little of you: you give no account of your time, your life is yours. I have lived under water in the calm pool of your life. Telegraph me when you are coming and I will engage a room for you. This little anxiety is irritating my heart and, as you know, if I am to see middle-age, I must take greater and greater care.—All my love to you as ever, affectionately,

  CLARA.

  P.S.—Dr. Eggeli has just told me that you can take me to Paris for the spring if you can get an easily-run apartment facing a garden. In summer we should leave again. Think this over and let me know what you are arranging when you come. This is only in case you can’t get away yourself for an alpine spring.

  Marpurgo, in a rich fancy-striped poplin pyjama-suit, went and looked at himself in the long mirror. After staring into his own eyes for a long time, he murmured:

  ‘Why not? What have I to live for? At least I can give her some pleasure. I hardly know her now. She’s so alien that she will rest me.’

  He went back to bed, tossed and coughed. He woke up once to find his heart throbbing wildly and tears in his eyes.

  CHAPTER III

  It was Wednesday. All the morning Elvira was wayward, languid, idle, untouchable: she looked youthful when she was so. She teased Oliver and refused to say good-bye to him when he went out to be shaved. Then she looked out of the window at him in the street and laughed but would not wave. She took a handful of chocolates and a handkerchief to the bed, and lay down wondering what Oliver was thinking about her, and whether her husband Paul would write to her or come for her. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers many times through her hair slowly until it began to crackle, thinking disconnectedly. Then she put her hands behind her head and began to think of the past night, addled memories of the theatre, ‘Faust’ at the Opéra which she had not liked although they had a box to themselves, because she had been hungry. Afterwards Oliver, eager, leaned towards her asking, ‘Well? well? Now what did you think of it?’

  ‘I didn’t like it: it was so artificial with the old-fashioned scenery, she was so clumsy with the jewels.’

  He had been so hurt and angry. She laughed to think of it: that young man angry with her. She thought of the street-lights, dresses, the splendid ceilings when they promenaded in the intervals, the taxi whirling home, Oliver’s white shirt, her pale-blue silk dress, which although dowdy had not looked worse than most there: it was not a dress-night, and the suburban women were in. She saw Oliver’s agate eyes in their clear whites smiling at her.

  Then she thought of the days before, the winds blowing, the fire roaring in the chimney, the snow, Oliver when he began to appear so often unannounced, the circle of her husband’s men friends around her, idle scraps of her bitter conversations with Paul, about nothing in particular, Paul away and Oliver holding her hand, the postman bringing her Oliver’s letters, the last hurried foggy morning with the luggage all bundled up in the taxi, the train, the snow.

  Then everything was dark, she was very tired and was soon wrapped in a warm half-slumber, wherein she dreamed of nothing, but seemed to be suspended, a full-blooded great body in a dark scene where an obscure tower or veiled monument took the centre of a vast colourless plain. She opened her eyes placidly for a few moments, imagining she had heard the door click; then she closed them, and obscure images hopped into her mind’s eye. She saw a rod with two headless snakes emerging from a dusky ivory egg, jagged lightning issuing from the great letter O, flame coming from a periwinkle’s shell, a lake at the end of a row of dark clipped trees, a sea-lion creeping slowly towards her with melancholy head, a mushroom turning into a silver pheasant, a long stretch of yellow and black strand with the fringed sea invading it on one side and the black coarse grass on the other. She saw two cranes drinking from a soaring fountain, an hour-glass in the form of two swans embracing two eggs, a snake swallowing a blindworm twice wrapped round a bundle of wheat, a headless tree growing out of a thousand-fibred root like a peacock’s-tail, a white hand balancing an empty retort, and many dull images impossible to recognise.

  She got up, walked languidly to the dressing-table, undressed and made poses before the long mirror. Then she walked slowly, with a childish swagger, to the bathroom, turned on the water, and lay naked on the bed till the bath filled. She spent a long time in the bath, massaging herself, washing herself over and over with love for her soft skin, watched herself floating in the green water, like a strange sensuous water-animal, and got out to get her hand-glass so that she could see how she looked to strange eyes. She examined her head, neck and breast, grimaced to see how she looked when she was crying. She got out of the bath with reluctance, letting the water run slowly off her limbs, held up her arms in the warm air to see how slowly they dried, put her hands beneath her breasts and so carried them, glad to feel their weight, into the bedroom. She folded her hands round her waist, passed them round her thighs and looked at the profile of her belly. She glanced sideways at her olive shoulder and kissed it. She kissed her arms, tried to reach her breasts with her mouth, but could not. Then she threw herself across her bed, and with her arms raised above her head, imagined an old ivory female idol, old ivory sucking human children, she imagined children clustering over her like grapes, curtaining her. She suddenly felt naked, and getting up, put on her mandarin gown. She wandered about the room, giving her body hundreds of small attentions, using ear and nose syringes, sponges, files, scissors, chamois leather, swan’s-down puffs, sticks of orange-wood, creams, powders, and the rouge that Oliver had brought her home. She rarely used rouges, but now that she had several of different kinds and a pot of dark powder for the eyes, she tried them on different parts of her naked body, and almost thoughtlessly began to move, lifting her arms, advancing and retreating. After one or two steps, she made an impatient face and began to dress. When she had put on her thin silk stockings, she stood before the mirror, admiring her legs and wondering if she would buy the new short stockings. Then she finally put on her dress, a close-fitting one of French blue, low cut, which she had almost never worn, because in London it seemed too low to suit her. She drew the belt tighter, polished her nails and divided her hair in the middle of her head so that it fell in equal curls on each side. She thought, ‘I never noticed how well this dress suits me: silly what prejudices
you get! At the same time, a woman with a pretty figure who wears high-throated dresses—and occasionally a low neck, they see how white her skin is!—to be desired! H’m, of course it is every woman’s duty: instinct, that’s why you do it without thinking. A pretty woman probably has more instincts: made for it, made to succeed as a woman.’ She looked towards the door and started violently. Oliver was sitting on the valise in the entry looking at her.

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Since before you had your bath.’

  She blushed faintly and asked him to wait while she put on some powder. She kept him waiting for some time and then came forward into the dark room, with her self-absorbed smile. Oliver thought he had never noticed how thick the languorous graces clustered round her, robing her shoulders and thighs, nor how eloquent of dark enclosed beauty her body.

  She loved him: she had learned to love him. His ardent eyes were fixed on her face; she looked away slowly. He turned her face to him and looked on the tide at its full, dark, lustrous, and full of internal music. He felt, if he ventured forth on it, it would bear him without storm or whirlpool, and he would finally reach the white thread of the distant shore.

  He drew her unwillingly to the window to look at Paris, just lighting up. She did not want to look outward. She went from the window and brought out some cigarettes.

  When she had smoked two or three cigarettes, she rested her head back, so that her round uncovered throat spoke to Oliver.

  She thought, ‘If I wished to, I could love him without being at all attached myself: I despise sentimental women.’ Paul had always been in her power: now Oliver was too. She looked at Oliver’s sanguine cast. He was very unlike Paul. She trembled a little and thought of the women he must have known already. Would she be able to manage him? But he was very young and she was a married woman. She took courage at this last idea. She would have been very lonely and aimless in life if she had not been married. Her wifely status was all she had to give her confidence. She was a timid beauty. But being so well-married, to a patient man, she had thought she would always be warm, eat, have someone to get angry when she was injured, and would hear advanced ideas without ruining her skin or eyes peering over books long enough to swallow them.