The Beauties and Furies

by Christina Stead

  ‘How enervating! I think you’re a fraud, Marpurgo: but I’ll confess you to-morrow. You’ll come, I know.’

  ‘I’ll come, and with tribute: that’s your style. Men are your tributaries and you’re the sea.’

  ‘I don’t want your tribute: bring yourself. I’m lonely enough: and I hate that café crowd.’

  ‘Good: I’ll come, and catch the late train. You’ll have a message for me, too, for England. I wanted you to know this before I left, but only just before, so that you could make up a strong decision on the spur of the moment.’

  ‘You’re right, Marpurgo.’

  He sent a pneumatique immediately to Blanche d’Anizy to her club, asking her to meet him at six at the Deux Magots. They would go from there to the antiquary’s shop and if possible meet the young lady in question. He was sure Blanche would turn up. He returned to his office in the rue du Faubourg Montmartre cheerfully smoking his cigar. He did nothing all the afternoon but told amusing tales to the accountant and went out twice for coffee. About five, when he was preparing to leave, Georges dropped in on him.

  ‘Hullo, Marpurgo: I hear you’ve got a better offer from Severin? You’ve been hanging round with heavy swells in the rue de la Paix recently, they tell me. Why don’t you take it? You’re too lively a personality for the lace-business. It’s more your line.’

  Marpurgo bit his cigar thoughtfully.

  ‘I told your brother, privately, that I had had an offer: but it was in the course of conversation. He said to me, We need you, Marpurgo: you don’t want to be mucking round with that type of cheap promoter. He suggested a rise in salary, and we agreed on the amount, but it was to be left over till his return.’

  ‘I know all about your private conversations. You seem to think this is a vending-machine for salaries.’

  Marpurgo took his cigar out of his mouth, and whipped round to Georges, like a snake.

  ‘A man’s worth his money or he isn’t. If he is, the courtesy of business relations would suggest to any man of ordinary feeling that he gets it and his expenses without nagging and backbiting. You’re incapable of that. You hate me. I know it. I wish you’d nurse your grudge in silence. I don’t mind being hated: any man of ability gets plenty of that commodity: but I prefer the compliment to be tacit.’

  Georges was unruffled. In fact, he was pink with a pleasant decision.

  ‘Well, I can’t. I’m interested in making money. I’m part of the firm, but I don’t regard it as a milch-cow like you do.’

  ‘We all know you’ve looked after yourself well.’

  ‘I do my best to look after the firm well, for Antoine’s sake. And if you don’t like the way I run things you have an alternative.’

  ‘You’d like to drive me to it. I get on well with Antoine. He’s not parsimonious, no hoarding soul: his is a beautiful nature, he is generous, and he buys personality, not accountants. You don’t get business through adding-machines.’

  ‘It’s my punch,’ said Georges with good-humour, ‘and it’s below the belt. Antoine went away because he’s too kind-hearted to give you your walking-ticket. He left me to do it. I’m the bounce in this firm. I’m sorry, Marpurgo, but it’s so. You’ll get a year’s salary and everything’s wiped out between us.’

  ‘Who’ve you got in my place?’

  ‘We’re getting a new man, and perhaps a sort of supercargo: we haven’t enough personnel.’

  ‘You can take two on, but I’ve always got to go? Well, I know quite well from what quarter this wind blows. I deny your power to fire me. I’ll stick around till Antoine comes back. Or rather, I’ll go through with this trip to England—Antoine was agreed on it, we talked it over together—and I’ll come back and see Antoine.’

  ‘Do what you like. Don’t forget I’m a partner. You can talk to Antoine, of course. In the meantime, you’ll get a year’s salary. If you like to work during part of the year, it’s O.K. with me, just as long as you don’t stick around here and don’t send in any expense sheets of any kind.’

  Marpurgo was lime-white, and faint. He sank into a chair.

  ‘Get me some water, Georges, please. I can’t stand enmity. Not physical enmity. Inhumanity is not in my nature: I don’t understand it in others.’

  Georges moved off grudgingly and came back with a glass of water.

  ‘There you are. I’m sorry if it was rather a blow. But you’ve seen it coming, Marpurgo. I wish it had been while you were in England.’

  ‘No, I prefer to take it like that, in the breast. But—as if I could have seen it coming! Antoine and I have had some of the friendliest, kindest and most fruitful conversations the last few weeks. I’m sure Antoine is incapable of conspiracy, of duplicity. It’s so evident this has been a put-up job—and by you, Georges! Your work isn’t dexterous, but it’s like you. However, I can’t believe in dramatics. I’ll see Antoine, and I hope he’ll convince you, Georges, that this hideous prejudice, treachery and sapping, all based on a pure physical antipathy, should not be allowed to ruin a good business. I’m known as the Fuseaux man from Lyon to Saint Gall. They’re happy to see me, to hear my stories, have my dinners: those dinners you so pettily count mean thousands of francs of goodwill to the business…If you’re getting in a supercargo, as you say, get him in: but give him to me to train. I’m the only man who knows your business through and through. I don’t say you can’t get along without me—I haven’t that popular illusion, but I say you’ll lose ground for a long time if you fire me.’ He looked up pallidly. ‘And the successor?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know him.’ Georges laughed rudely.

  ‘Oliver Fenton,’ Marpurgo said clearly, grasping his stick. ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’m answering no questions.’ Georges walked out.

  Presently he left the office. He had his appointment with Blanche at six. Never had an appointment come so badly.

  He telephoned to Coromandel, met her at the Deux Magots, introduced her to Blanche and left the two women together. He could not hear what he was saying himself or what they were saying. He had gone deaf with anxiety. He got cramps so badly that there was no question of going to England till the next day. He went to a picture-show and did not see the pictures. He coughed all night, and turned over in his head a thousand schemes and conjectures. As soon as it was light he got up and began to walk the streets. It was true that Georges had promised him a year’s salary, but his expenses were enormous, his tastes very luxurious and his invalid wife was coming to town. She was nothing more than a pleasant whim when he was well off, but if he were poor and had to live with her, and she could no more go to those delightful watering-places that he had kept her in for years, life would be unbearable. He knew. His father had been a poor french-polisher, his mother sick and a hypochondriac: he and his brothers had grown up amidst squalls and filth. He fell on to a street-bench and watched a concierge putting out a garbage-tin, sluicing and sweeping. He talked to himself.

  ‘Fate will get Georges, as it has got everyone who has ever opposed me or crossed my path with evil intention. Justice triumphs, in some strange mechanistic way. Everything is linked up in our lives. Disaster has inevitably followed in my path, hitting me, but hitting more violently, to death often, those who have hated me.’

  He thought of his youth. He had never been handsome, as Oliver was: he had then been thin, active, with a white face and clear eyes with slaty lights, the face of a student and mystic. He had studied Sanskrit and thought of founding a theatrical troupe; he had known all the Elizabethans and had written fourteen plays, all profound, paradoxical, symbolic. His family and all his relatives had regarded him as the intellectual ugly duckling, he who had been their swan. He had begun a book of accounts at twelve. He had a page for each relative, beginning with his father and mother, and had entered on each page the insults and injuries each had done him. The page was divided in two columns: on one side were the insults and injuries; on the other side was an ‘impartial’ itemisation of the traits of the individual. A police captain,
a cleaner, the butcher, all sorts of people had appeared in his book of accounts. When insulted he usually kept still, thoughtful, indifferent. Afterwards he would relate the incident calmly to a friend and smile. ‘I will show them.’ His whole life was a thirst to show these perpetual enemies, through misunderstanding, how wrong they had been, how foolish and shallow. Those who despised him would be put to shame, those who did him wrong would be put out of the way. He had often said to people:

  ‘The world is full of angels and devils: the angels shoot arrows for those fated to them, the devils injure those who are fated to them.’

  He would laugh at this fantasy, but he firmly believed it whenever he was in misery. He thought of Coromandel. What a pity he had not met her when he was young and their ages had been nearer. He imagined her as having lovers, young, brilliant, intellectual men, in a galaxy around her floating flared skirts and her long smooth dancer’s limbs. He sighed and looked round him. He had a good four miles before him to walk back to his habitual café. He went into a little chauffeurs’ bar and drank some bad coffee mixed with powdered milk. It heartened him. When he thought Oliver would have gone out, at ten o’clock, he went to see Elvira. She was surprised to see him.

  ‘Hullo, you don’t work any more?’

  He twisted his face into a lamentable smile.

  ‘Yes: and where is your lover?’

  She looked at him drily.

  ‘What makes you such a scheming old sinner, Marpurgo? Oliver assured me there is no other English student in the Archives, and that the girl in the street was Blanche. We met Blanche later in the evening, and she agreed she had been walking with him, even holding his arm; telling him how faithful he should be to me. Without any prompting. Do you like evil for its own sake? It’s really very interesting. You’ve picked the wrong subject in me. Or rather, I enjoy it, in a way.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘My dear, perhaps I am swayed by a certain mistrust of Oliver’s talents. A young man makes the mistake of mistrusting good fellows, hearty chaps, and an old man makes the mistake of mistrusting the scholars. It’s natural. You’re a lovely lady. I don’t want you to have any trouble, that’s all. Shall we conclude a peace-treaty? I’m miserable to-day; I did not sleep all night. I was too fevered to go to England. I’m not too long for this little scheme of things, I’m afraid. I want to enjoy myself while I’m here. May I lunch with a pretty lady to-day?’

  ‘Me? If you like. Oliver has gone to see some men in the city.’

  ‘Get on your bonnet and shawl then, and let’s walk out. The day’s cooler.’

  His stick tapped about the room. He sank on to the divan.

  ‘I’m dead weary.’

  She brought him some brandy.

  ‘Oliver always has it here. Drink some.’

  He drank.

  ‘Oliver’s in business, then?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know; it’s problematic,’ she drawled.

  He took her straight to a café and telephoned Blanche. She yawned through the telephone:

  ‘You bore me with your plots: I only got to bed at four.’

  ‘Come and have lunch, and bring Coromandel with you. I know she’s always in for lunch. Mind you, I have nothing to do with this. You walk in by accident to Lafon’s. Let Coromandel suggest it. She goes there. You’ll find me there with the lady.’

  He came back. ‘I was just telephoning my office. I’m too ill to look in this morning. They’re so decent to me: they treat me like a partner more than an employé. In fact, I’ve never considered myself an employé.’

  He was amused by the coldness of Elvira’s face, thinking, ‘This little lady’s a cool hand: she knows Oliver is at the Fuseaux.’

  He went on: ‘I was telling Georges yesterday that I am going to bring my wife to Paris and settle her here, if she can stand the climate.’

  ‘Your wife? Is she the skeleton in your cupboard, then?’

  ‘She’s quite plump, pretty, gracious and loving, on the contrary. But a permanent invalid. She’s devoted to me.’ He unfolded a paper from his pocket. ‘I am glad that we shall not be separated this autumn. In the autumn you only console me:

  “What if its leaves be falling like my own?

  The murmur of thy mighty harmonies

  Would take from each a deep autumnal tone,

  Sweet though in sadness.”’

  He looked at her with an inexplicable triumph. ‘That’s quite a tribute. Because we have lived together very little we have for each other the love and understanding of old friends. You understand that: it is the feeling no doubt you have for Paul and Paul has for you. It is a consolation in the fall of the year.’

  She took out a letter from her purse.

  ‘Here is the letter for Paul. You didn’t call yesterday. Tell him I am well and hope he is.’

  ‘You’re not sending him anything—a memento?’

  ‘No. Why should I? He wouldn’t understand it.’

  ‘I see: I see.’

  ‘No one would suspect you of being so sentimental.’

  ‘None understands me, my dear. You all half understand—you perhaps most of all—besides my wife Clara.’

  ‘Why have you never mentioned your wife before? It’s so queer, it seems to me.’

  He delicately shifted his feet.

  ‘Who can understand these delicacies of the soul? I can’t explain to everyone why we live apart, why she is ill, how long she is ill. I can’t split into dubious banalities the exquisite strangeness of our relation. She is my good angel: I like to pretend that I am crafty and cold: she knows I am not.’ He touched her gloved hand finely. ‘Let us go, my dear. Do you know the little restaurant Lafon on the quays? I think you will like it. I know the head waiter there: he will do things for me.’

  CHAPTER X

  After the lunch, Marpurgo left, pretending he was going to the rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and Blanche left later after piloting the two women, who had taken a liking to each other, to the Café de Cluny. She considered this café strategic: it was near Elvira’s home and also Coromandel’s. Elvira had Jean Christophe under her arm, and the two were discussing literature when Blanche left. Marpurgo had given her a hundred francs under the table during lunch, but with a pained air. Coromandel was in high spirits, piqued and intrigued by this friend of Marpurgo’s of whom he had never breathed a word. Elvira was irritated to know that Blanche was also a friend of this Mlle Paindebled of whom Marpurgo had spoken, but had never mentioned her.

  ‘I do not often come to a café,’ said Coromandel. ‘I am afraid to. It’s too easy to become an habitué. I have my work.’

  ‘In Montparnasse, Matisse, Othon Friesz and—lots of painters, go regularly to cafés. It doesn’t cramp their style, it seems,’ intervened Elvira.

  ‘I suppose one can work anywhere under any conditions. You are studying here yourself, I think, Madame? French, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, I was going to take the full course at the Alliance Française, but it appears it is too childish for one who knows as much as I do. I can read it so well and know all my grammar, but I can’t speak.’

  ‘You should go to the Institut du Panthéon.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I am thinking soon of returning to England.’

  ‘But if you wish to become a teacher of French…?’

  ‘My time is not my own. Like most married women,’ Elvira said, with slight emphasis, ‘I have to consider another.’

  ‘Your husband is here, too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Coromandel examined her closed expression and, after a moment, murmured:

  ‘There is a certain charm in a café. It’s a kaleidoscope: a parterre of artificial flowers uprooting themselves in a slow ballet.’

  ‘Yes, you see life in coloured pictures: through the apéritif glasses.’

  ‘Crystal-gazers. They find out about the nature of truth and the primaries of life: the atom is dissolved in wine and perpetual motion invented over a draughtboard.’

 
; ‘My husband said the very same thing to me,’ drawled Elvira. ‘What is it, a quotation, what? I must scold him: I thought he made it up.’

  Coromandel flushed, and looked at the small, dark, gentle-seeming woman who was changing instantly and becoming her antagonist.

  ‘I thought I made it up. What does it matter? If mathematicians can invent problems at the same instant with continents between them, and Leverrier and Adams came to the same conclusions independently, your husband and I can think of this paltry joke at the same time.’ She looked cheerfully at Elvira. ‘It shows our minds are limited: similar streams of thought end in similar platitudes.’ She bowed, imitating the prince in the Fledermaus. ‘Je vous exprime toute ma platitude, Madame!’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t care about perpetual motion, especially the draughtboard kind. But it amuses me to sit here and read till my husband comes to collect me. I’m rather lonely here. I’m a true woman. I never discuss these things. To me it seems futile. I suppose to you I seem futile. I have a direct mind. I can’t sit and thrash out to-day everything I came to a conclusion about yesterday.’

  ‘What woman can? And yet I have a weakness for it, when I’m not working.’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t if you were married to—if you had a—if you married a man like my husband. I’ve heard all these things over and over again for years: not here but in my home in England.’

  ‘But I’ve heard there are no cafés in England—that the reason for its intellectual dullness is the absence of coffeehouses—that there has not been a brilliant social age since they died,’ said Coromandel.

  ‘Yes—my husband says that too,’ confessed Elvira. ‘I don’t know if it’s true. I suppose all people say the same things.’

  ‘I heard it from an Englishman,’ said Coromandel. ‘You are English, aren’t you? I like the English very much. I get on with them; they are charming people, and quite continental.’

  ‘You think so?’ said Elvira, without gratitude. She hated to have her nationality guessed. She was swart, and small-boned, and imagined she would be taken for a Central European.

  ‘I am French,’ said Coro, to cover the hurt. ‘I have never travelled anywhere, but I do desire very earnestly to do so. I am very anxious to see England.’