If Mme Anaïs’ guess was not what decided Séverine, it certainly relieved her of any further hesitation. She had already, during the interview with Hippolyte, felt a blind desire to escape. But escaping the house on the rue Virène was not enough. Séverine couldn’t—wouldn’t—breathe the same air as her tormentors. She had to put distance between herself and Marcel, between herself and Hippolyte. Summer was starting. As a rule Pierre liked to take his vacation later on. He’d put up objections about the hospital, the clinic, about the doctors’ fixed roster for vacations. But Séverine knew herself sufficiently hardened by suffering now to win him over. Once again her love made her unite her feelings of deepest tenderness with her most wretched writhings.
As she’d suspected, she was easily able to persuade Pierre, arguing her health and her longing to be alone with him. A week after Hippolyte’s warning the Sérizys left Paris by train for a little beach near Saint-Raphaël.
Even on the platform Pierre and Séverine were nervous, each for different reasons. Pierre was worried about the way this sudden departure would interfere with his work; Séverine was in dread of seeing the evil gold thread of Marcel’s smile, or the monstrous shadow of Hippolyte. The first jolts of the train shook up and carried off these worries. The wonderful isolation of private sleeping compartment enveloped Pierre and Séverine. The same pristine pleasure shone in both their eyes. They felt their love as fresh as on their honeymoon, and considerably stronger. Above all, Séverine was moved by the nearness of gentle, quiet days ahead—stretching on, so it seemed to her, into eternity.
They were indeed among the happiest days of her life. The weeks she’d just lived through, together with the threat hanging over her life, increased her capacity for happiness. And that capacity, which had sufficed Séverine so long, was deep and powerful. So she proceeded to extract from all the elements around her—sea, sand, sunlight, hunger and sleep—their most intense essence. The sky was a clear blue. The air overhead was like a delicate, precious balm. It bathed her body—a body which began to forget the touch of many hands, began to belong to her again, as it chastely unfolded.
Pierre too was happy. He loved the relaxation, the beloved countryside, and above all he adored the sight of the young woman who was all his joy in the fullness of her innocence. They swam together. When they hired a boat their oars dipped together easily. They played like two schoolboys on the sand. It was in this sort of life that Séverine felt truly close to Pierre. In Paris, his patients, his books, and his learned articles all came between them; but here every game they played—vigorous, innocent exercise at which she was almost as good as he—served to unite them in common contentment.
How sweet, how beloved Pierre was to her during those matchless days. How she pitied and despised herself for risking the ruin of such total harmony.
After some hurt or moral shock too strong for the system, certain vices so frighten their victims that they become horrified by their addiction, and, as a result, think they’ve freed themselves from it for ever. So it was with Séverine. In the heat of her new-found happiness and resurrected love she would have considered it mad even to think of the house in the rue Virène. Since she no longer felt the sting that drove her to that shadowed house, she was amazed—and disgusted—to remember her enslavement to it. She’d got away in time. There would be no trace left of her visits. Nobody—not even Hippolyte—would know where to find Belle de Jour. She held her safety in her own hands. And what could keep her from feeling invulnerable as she lay under a July sun, at the edge of a gentle sea, protected by Pierre?
But her own weapons turned against her. Her self-assurance had been won too rapidly, too totally. Distance had served to reduce to human proportions what in Paris had haunted her like a nightmare. As soon as Séverine had begun to be realistic, and could see Mme Anaïs’ apartment as an apartment, Mathilde as just a poor kid, Marcel as the pimp he was; and when Hippolyte himself had turned into a sort of inarticulate wrestler: then Séverine thought she was safe. And her best guard—her sense of mystical terror fell. Only reason was left to protect her. Crouching in her carnal depths, the enemy became quick with life.
One morning it rained. Later, Séverine thought that if only the weather had been good that day everything would have been all right; as if the powers that drove her could have remained indefinitely patient, those powers that had waited so many years for their sweet sad prey.
The bad weather kept Pierre and Séverine in. He took advantage of the rain to revise an article on surgery. Mechanically she picked up the illustrated magazines she’d bought on leaving Paris but hadn’t bothered to read during the trip. They’d lain on a table since. She glanced through a couple, opened the third. The stories and the illustrations were equally boring. She turned to the ads. All at once her eyes stumbled on a sequence of lines which at first made no sense to her. Then the letters turned into words she could understand:
9b rue Virène
Mme Anaïs receives daily
in her intimate home
surrounded by her three Graces
Elegance, Charm, Specialties
Séverine read it over and over again. For a moment she imagined she’d given her name away. Then she remembered that all she’d left behind in the rue Virène was a nickname. She gave a frightened glance at Pierre—but he was studiously working away—then she looked out of the window. Sea and sky were growing brighter.
Briskly she said, “Let’s go out. It’s clearing up.”
But neither the bathe nor a run on the beach allowed her to forget that greasy insert. At night she took up the magazine again and, folding it so that Pierre couldn’t see the page, gave the advertisement a dull scrutiny. It was the tally-ho of the whore-house keeper, the rallying cry to Belle de Jour’s bed … and how different the printed name, Mme Anaïs, seemed when it was—spoken. Her house, her girls, eventually Séverine herself, stood transformed and debased by euphemisms dirtier for their insipidity than honest filthy language.
Intimate home … the three Graces … Specialties.
Séverine’s mouth filled with the strange baleful taste of a drug both familar and new. A shameful, bountiful heat spread through her. She calculated, and realized that Pierre’s vacation was almost over. And she felt sorry for him, not for herself.
How did Marcel know immediately that Belle de Jour was back? He never told her; but Séverine hadn’t been in the rue Virène more than an hour when she heard his voice. Her head swam. She’d expected to see Marcel, but that he was there so quickly testified to both his tenacity and his methods of getting information. But she didn’t have long to think about it. The door slammed angrily. In front of it stood Marcel, white in the face, trembling with a fury built up by days of waiting.
“So you’re by yourself,” he said almost inaudibly. “Too bad. I’d have liked to have caught a man here.”
Without realizing it, Séverine had retreated to the wall.
“I had to go away,” she murmured, “I’ll tell you why.”
The gold jawline snickered.
“You’ll tell me why! Just wait, I’ve got something to tell you, too.”
He took off the belt that enclosed his narrow waist. Then he locked the door. Séverine watched him like an idiot, uncomprehending. Swung by that angry hand, the lash whistled through the air.
Séverine never knew where she managed to find the agility, the strength, to dodge the cut and cling to his belt—nor indeed where the savage energy came from that held Marcel back as she said, “Don’t make a move or whatever you do, any of you, you’ll never see me again.”
They stayed like that for some time, separated by the width of the room. Their panting breath filled the silence. Gradually they grew calm and gradually also there vanished for Séverine the ghastly image that had hurled her into action—Pierre staring at a squalid welt across her face. As this picture faded so did her will-power. She needed it no longer. Head low, Marcel was saying:
“You’re different from the
others. I don’t care what Hippolyte says.…”
A thud made him look up. Séverine had fallen to the floor. He ran and carried her to the bed. Semi-conscious, she raised her arms to protect herself.
“Don’t be scared, don’t be scared,” he muttered in bewilderment.
He didn’t touch her that day. There was something deeper than desire on the face of that fallen angel.
But by the next day he’d recovered and went in to Séverine with his usual sneer. But when he took her in his arms, an imperceptible watchfulness in his muscles showed that he was afraid of hurting her, and that he wanted to please her. Consequently, she enjoyed their love-making less than usual. And her enjoyment continued to decrease as she became more and more aware that their union was no longer purely sensual.
Before Belle de Jour’s flight Marcel had suggested going out with her one evening. Naturally she had flatly refused. At that time he’d wanted to keep up his reputation as a tough guy, and so had simply shrugged and dropped the subject. Now he persistently returned to it. In a confused way he’d sensed something strange and unknown to him in his new mistress, and he wanted to be linked to her by something more subtle than daily meetings in a public brothel.
On her side Séverine was victim of the fatal laws of that purely physical pleasure which, as it loses its sharpness, pushes its pursuer into seeking it out by ever more factitious means. In order to stimulate her desire for Marcel she had increasingly frequent recourse to imagining the dangerous and mysterious circles in which his young life moved. But her imagination soon wore out this resource. She became more amenable to the idea of going out with him. She hoped to watch him in the underworld and revive in herself, if only for a while, the sense of fear which was at the core of her sensuality. She got all the more pleasure from imagining such an evening because she knew it to be impossible. How could she ever get out late at night without Pierre?
But unconsciously she was watching for just such an opportunity. It came, as it always will for those whose secret self is waiting for it. An operation in the country took Pierre out of town for twenty-four hours.
Marcel and Hippolyte waited for Séverine in the wine-store near Saint-Germain-l’ Auxerrois. As was usual when they were together, they didn’t speak; but tonight the deep security that usually fed their silence was lacking. Hippolyte wasn’t worried by the fact that Marcel wanted to take a woman out. Their customary consorts knew their place, and didn’t interrupt when the men were talking or thinking. But it was wrong for Belle de Jour to be his date. How could Marcel confer on that woman the honor of spending a whole evening with them, after she’d insulted him by going away like that without his permission? And Hippolyte felt sure he hadn’t even punished her properly. It made him unhappy, for Hippolyte recognized a hint of cowardice quite foreign to his friend in this behavior, just the sort of thing he’d watched break up really good guys, loyal and brave as you could ask for.
“Oh hell,” growled Hippolyte, “and to think I was the one to take him to Anaïs to start with.”
Then out of the wisdom of his unfathomable past he rolled a cigarette and thought how good it’d be to eat, since he was hungry.
Séverine arrived ahead of time. A sign of respect that mollified the colossus somewhat. He was equally pleased with the casual way Marcel remarked to Belle de Jour, “You look all right in a hat.”
But in his unbounded joy the youth knew he’d never have achieved that tone without Hippolyte beside him.
The latter now inquired, “Where are we going to eat?”
Marcel suggested some well-known restaurants on the boulevards. Séverine turned them down one after another.
“Shut up,” Hippolyte told her, “Marcel was talking to me.” To his friend he added, “Your big mouth. We’ll do it up good at Marie’s. The guys will be there.”
When Hippolyte made a decision he wasted no time over having it accepted. He paid and went out. The two others followed, but not without Marcel throwing Séverine a look. Hippolyte’s animal awareness intercepted it.
“You go on ahead, Belle de Jour,” he ordered.
Alone with Marcel the menace in his voice combined oddly with a note of request— “If you don’t want me to get rough, act like a man, see … at least while I’m around.”
The restaurant Hippolyte had singled out lay at the start of the rue Montmartre. They walked there. In a bad dream Séverine accompanied the two silent men leading her God knew where. They crossed the empty market of Les Halles. If Marcel had been by himself she would have gone no further; but Hippolyte’s padding footsteps were enough to drive away all her will-power. And in any case the room they finally went into reassured her. Like everyone ignorant of the secret life of Paris, Séverine thought that since her companions led marginal existences they must spend their time in gangster joints. This small restaurant, however, was clean and welcoming. A counter shone brightly by the entrance. A dozen freshly laid tables completed the scene.
“Marie’ll be pleased to see you two,” said the man behind the counter; he wore a wool vest and his eyes were kindly.
While he was hospitably greeting Séverine a ball of a woman in a skirt and blouse shot out of the door that led to the kitchen; a strong smell of garlic and herbs came with her.
“You crooks, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” she exclaimed, planting vigorous kisses on the two men. “Four days without coming to see Marie.”
Her southern accent was quite touchingly warm and youthful and Séverine smiled as the woman looked her over. Her fine black eyes were so filled with goodness, and they were still huge, despite the fat that had made her face prematurely shapeless.
“Hello, sweetheart,” said Marie. “Whose are you?”
“Wait a minute,” declared Hippolyte gravely. “Let me do the honors here. My good friend, M Maurice”—he indicated the man behind the counter—“and Mme Maurice”—this was Marie. Then drawing Séverine forward he pronounced, “Mme Marcel.”
“I thought so,” Marie said maternally. “That Marcel, what a guy.”
Then she became serious and inquired confidentially: “Now what are you going to have? My stuffed cabbage, to start. And afterwards?”
Hippolyte ordered for them. Maurice threw in aperitifs free.
Marcel drew Séverine close. She yielded almost tenderly, since everything in the room had a strong, virile and somehow forbidden quality.
Men came in. They shook hands with Maurice, and Hippolyte, and Marcel. They greeted Séverine. A very few were followed by women, who didn’t stop by the counter but went and sat down discreetly at the table indicated by their escort’s glance or some brief word. These men might differ as to breadth of shoulder, dress, or accent, but they all bore an indefinable sign: that of leisure. Time lay on their gestures, on their words, their manner of holding their heads, on their lively idle eyes. Their conversation revolved about the turf or matters they spoke of by allusion.
The stuffy room grew hotter. The rich heavy dishes, highly spiced by Marie, and the heady wines added lively internal warmth. And though everyone in the place was highly “regular”—as Hippolyte liked to put it—the ponderous manner in which the men ate, the curve of their shoulders, even the bend of their necks gave Séverine the feeling of some dangerous, clandestine repast. She tried not to look around, tried not to hear the drawn-out conversations at nearby tables, nor even the one going on between Hippolyte and Marcel. She was held in a state of suspended, sensual well-being by all the anonymous suspect lives surrounding her—“free” was Marcel’s expression for them. She knew what he meant. It all had the effect of some powerful potion on her.
No one seemed in a hurry to leave, except the women, who drifted off one by one.
To do what? Séverine asked herself with a faint shudder, as a tide of images more luridly sensual than even those of the rue Virène flowed over her.
“Time to go,” announced Hippolyte all of a sudden. “We’ll have a nightcap somewhere else.”
&nb
sp; Marcel paused, whispered, “I can’t … Belle de Jour.”
“Say, Maurice,” Hippolyte raised his voice, “if there was the chance of trouble for you in a certain place, would you take your wife there with you?”
“She’d make me take her.”
Hippolyte got up. Then Marcel, and Séverine. Out in the street Hippolyte deigned to give Belle de Jour his arm.
“Looks like you’ve got guts.”
His shoulders slid up and he added to Marcel, “But after all, for all the danger there is …”
Séverine was in an agony of mortal fear, not so much at the idea of some unknown peril as at the crazy promiscuity she was letting herself get into. But there was a strange contagion in Hippolyte’s touch, as there had been about the bistro they’d just left, and her terror lay dormant.
Hippolyte led them to a little all-night bar opposite the vegetable market in Les Halles. This was more like the low life: soiled tables, trash on the floor, a sense of emptiness in the room, and a queer light, dim but tiring. Séverine felt her heart catch. Slow carts passed by outside, piled with obscure plunder and drawn by gleaming horses in charge of sleepy men who wore huge boots and were armed with big whips. There was something barbaric about the place.
Hippolyte and Marcel settled for cheap brandy and gave up any interest in the outside world. But Séverine gripped her lover’s hand when she saw the group come in; for a second he seemed her sole protection against a ghastly threat.
“Take it easy,” he got out between his teeth. “It’s a good thing I came. All three of them.”
The men sat down peacably at Hippolyte’s table. The smallest, a seedy individual with a pocked face, cast a quick look at Séverine.
“Marcel’s wife,” explained Hippolyte. “Don’t worry.”
Séverine’s head was a dull void, but in any case she’d never have understood the talk that took place then, so mysterious and rapid. She was sitting between Hippolyte and the pockmarked man, each of whom was backed up by the silent presence of his own men. Suddenly Séverine heard the little man growl—“Thief.”
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