Belle De Jour

by Joseph Kessel

  Marcel’s hand flew to his coat pocket and his three adversaries followed suit. But Hippolyte’s fist was wrapped around Marcel’s hand.

  “We don’t want any trouble here, my friend,” he said softly, “not with these double-crossers.”

  Pushing the table aside he gripped the pocked man’s wrist and dragged it from the pocket in which it was buried. The fingers were curled round a revolver. Hippolyte directed the barrel at his own belly and said, “It’s a little better like that, I think.”

  For a second it seemed the man might fire, then his eyes faltered under Hippolyte’s gaze.

  “All right, let’s have it,” said Hippolyte. “I know you’ve got it on you.”

  As if hypnotized the pocked man took a small package from his other pocket and handed it to Hippolyte.

  “The weight’s O.K.,” commented the latter. “You can go now.”

  The three got to the door. Marcel shouted after them, “For what you called me, don’t worry, I won’t shoot you in the back. We’ll settle that later.”

  “Your man’s doing O.K. tonight,” Hippolyte remarked proudly to Belle de Jour.

  Séverine’s mind whirled, but no longer with fear. Her widened eyes grew even more beautiful as they fastened on Marcel’s. He saw that she recognized his courage, and the fact that he’d been the first to unleash death.

  “I’ll get that guy,” he said, “just like I did the other one, even if I have to follow him to Valparaiso to do it.…”

  Hippolyte broke in gruffly, “You don’t have to tell stories to look big. You go to bed, I’ve got work to do.”

  He turned to Séverine.

  “You were all right. Want any, by the way?”

  She hadn’t the faintest idea what he was offering, but she refused.

  “Sure,” said Hippolyte, “that’s only for street whores, correct. Have yourselves a ball, kids.”

  Alone with Marcel again Séverine asked, “What was it he wanted to give me?”

  “Cocaine,” her lover replied with marked distaste. “The little guy just now gave him a few kilos’. You saw it. He’s going off to get rid of it somewhere, and we’re rich for a month.”

  Séverine didn’t want to go to Marcel’s place, nor even leave the part of town they were in. She felt that the rue Virène, the wine-store, Marie’s restaurant and the bar they were leaving were the only places suitable for her excesses. But excited by all she’d just seen, she began to feel a burning desire for Marcel. She let him take her to a dirty hotel nearby; in a vile room, she knew unutterable joy.

  Dawn had scarcely begun to show when Séverine slipped out of bed.

  “I have to go.”

  Marcel, reverting to his usual self, said threateningly —“You’re kidding.”

  “No, I have to,” said Séverine.

  As on the day when she’d grabbed his belt, he felt behind her some nameless invincible power.

  “O.K.,” he muttered, “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.”

  Once more that unbearable stare of someone fighting for life. Marcel gave in. He got Séverine a taxi and let her go. As long as he could see the cab’s rear lights he stayed in the street as if spellbound. Then he cursed horribly and went to consult Hippolyte.

  Only when she was safe in bed could Séverine think about what might have happened had Hippolyte’s reflexes been slower, or if the pockmarked man had fired. She began to shiver as if in fever.

  Pierre came back a few hours later, his face drawn with fatigue.

  “Please don’t leave me alone,” Séverine begged him. “I can’t live without you.”

  For several days Marcel didn’t put in an appearance at the rue Virène. It didn’t bother Séverine; she didn’t want any more from him. When he did come he said immediately, “We’re going out tonight.”

  She refused quite calmly. She had the feeling that he was now a harmless stranger. And, in fact, Marcel showed no violence. In an almost gentle tone he asked, “Would you kindly tell me why not?”

  “Everyone here knows I’m not free to do as I like.”

  “Then get free. I swear on my word of honor you’ll have everything you want.”

  “No, it’s impossible,” Séverine answered.

  “You’re in love with him, then?”

  She was silent.

  “O.K.,” said Marcel. And he left.

  She thought she’d finally subdued him. All the same, on the way out she glanced back several times to see whether Marcel or Hippolyte were following her. Not noticing anything suspicious she continued on home.

  That evening Hippolyte and Marcel drank silently in a bar off the Place Blanche. A young man joined them.

  “I have the whole story, Monsieur Hippolyte,” he began deferentially. “I got in as an electrician.”

  He gave the address, apartment number and real name of Belle de Jour.

  Hippolyte released his spy and turned to Marcel.

  “There you are, then. Whenever you want it.”

  But if he had known the fate he was preparing for the only being in the world dear to him, Hippolyte —though he in fact detested bloodshed—would have murdered his pallid young informer before he had ever opened his mouth.

  VIII

  Whether out of kindness or some more complex emotion over which he had no control, Marcel at first made no use of the weapon he held over Séverine. While he delayed, a shadow intervened.

  One Thursday around four—each detail remained inscribed in Séverine’s memory—Mme Anaïs summoned her girls.

  “And look your best,” she instructed them. “It’s a rich gentleman. He wants to see all of you.”

  No warning lit in Séverine’s mind as she followed her companions. With her quiet grace, her beautiful shoulders back, she went into the big room. The man was at the window; only his back was visible. But a glimpse of that narrow bony figure made Séverine start away. A second more and she’d have opened the door to run, to bury herself alive somewhere. And Mme Anaïs would never have seen her again. But Séverine never made that movement. The new client of the rue Virène swung around and, suddenly drained of strength, Séverine found herself unable to take a step, nor to release the great groan that went through her.

  The small weary eyes of Henri Husson fell on her. It only lasted a moment, but she felt trapped at the end of a thread no human power could ever sever. Hippolyte’s heavy bulk was light beside the fleeting focus of that gaze.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” said Husson. “Do sit down, please.”

  “He’s nice, isn’t he, Mathilde?” giggled Charlotte.

  The contrast in the two voices, representing the meeting of her two existences, broke Séverine. She slipped onto a chair, hands clenched, as though the deadly grip of her fingers could prevent her remaining reason and life from running out.

  “If you’d care for some refreshment, sir,” suggested Mme Anaïs.

  “Of course … whatever the ladies want … But what are their names again? Ah yes, Mlle Charlotte, Mlle Mathilde, and—Belle de Jour. Now that’s an unusual name, Belle de Jour, very odd.”

  All the musical resources of his voice were put into play, all his wearing charm. Séverine’s hands unclenched, her arms hung loosely against her body as if stuffed with straw.

  Drinks were brought. Charlotte tried to sit on Husson’s knees. He courteously declined.

  “Later on, Mademoiselle,” he said. “For the moment let me just enjoy your presence, and your conversation.”

  He began to discuss various trifles, but with more and more studied care, more and more pointedly, until each of his phrases tore up Séverine’s soul piece by piece. She didn’t feel any shame in particular, nor even fear, rather a horrible undefinable sense of sickness. With the same skill Husson provoked Charlotte into ambiguous retorts and coarse laughs. He prolonged this game of double-entendre for a whole hour, during which he barely glanced at Séverine; but when he did, flickers of light deepened his eyes. Séverine realized with horro
r that these feeble symptoms denoted lust.

  What won’t he do to feed and increase it, she thought. She knew the dark depths the pursuit of that divinity led to.

  But Husson paid for the drinks, put a few bills on the mantelpiece and said, “Please share this little souvenir of my visit among you. Farewell, ladies.”

  With a sense of prostration, Séverine watched him leave the room; but as soon as he’d gone a desperate impulse hurled her after him. She had to know whether, be certain that … she had to.… Husson was taking leave of Mme Anaïs in the foyer. Had he really meant to go, or was he waiting for Belle de Jour to appear? Probably he wasn’t sure himself, but had let his more morbid instincts guide him toward that difficult pleasure which only certain facial expressions, certain perversities, now gave him.

  “Stop,” Séverine stammered out, stretching her arm out to Husson. “I have to.…”

  “Now look, Belle de Jour,” protested Mme Anaïs. “You’re usually so polite. What’s Monsieur going to think of you?”

  Husson was silent for several seconds in order to lose nothing of the triumph of this call to order. Then he said:

  “I’d like to be alone with Madame … completely private, that is.”

  “All right, what are you waiting for, Belle de Jour?” Mme Anaïs exclaimed. “Take Monsieur to your room.”

  “Not there.”

  “But I beg you, please don’t change any of your usual customs for me,” added Husson in a slightly unsteady voice.

  When the door was shut behind them a sort of hysteria flamed up in Séverine.

  “How could you, how did you dare?” she cried out. “Don’t go and tell me you came by chance. You knew I was here, didn’t you … you gave me the address yourself. Why? Why?”

  She allowed him no time to answer. An idea had crossed her mind.

  “You don’t think you’ll get me this way, do you,” she continued more rapidly. “I’ll scream, throw myself out the window … Stay where you are. You disgust me more than any human being has ever disgusted me.”

  “This your bed?” inquired Husson quietly.

  “Ah, that was what you wanted to see, wasn’t it? Yes, this is my room, and that’s my bed. What else do you want to know? My specialty, how I do it? Dirty photographs? You’re worse than anyone I’ve seen here.”

  Then she stopped, because the delight with which he was listening to her became too obvious.

  Husson waited a while. Then, seeing that Séverine insisted on remaining silent, he took her hand and began stroking it with the tips of his thin cold fingers. An enormous weariness, compounded of gratitude, melancholy and compassion, suffused his face.

  “All you say is quite just,” he observed quietly, “but who could forgive me better than you?”

  Séverine was stunned by his reply. She fell back on the bed. Her haggard schoolgirl look … the scarlet coverlet … Husson felt the resurgence of a desire he thought he had entirely exhausted. He took his pleasure in silence; afterward, fatigue, sadness and pity kept him hunched forward. For a second Séverine and he stared at each other like pitiable animals under the ban of the same incomprehensible, incurable evil.

  Husson rose. He managed not to make the slightest sound, as if frightened of awakening the impure power that had brought them together in that room. Séverine, however, had still not won from him the only promise which could restore her to life.

  “One minute, just a minute,” she begged.

  Her impassioned entreaty brought a quizzical expression to Husson’s face, but in her agony she didn’t notice. Still lying back over the bed, her dress pulled up by the movement of her body, hands fisted on the coverlet, she whispered:

  “Promise … for God’s sake … Pierre won’t ever know?”

  Even in his most depraved moments the idea of such a denunciation would never have entered Husson’s head. And it didn’t then, in those fateful seconds. But he couldn’t resist prolonging the voluptuous thrill the sight of Séverine’s agony afforded him. To make her hold her broken expression, he shrugged evasively.

  Then he was outside. He couldn’t maintain the pose a moment longer, and he didn’t want to lose the most unexpected, venomous fruit the day had brought him.

  Séverine heard the outside door slam. She got up, ran to Mme Anaïs, gripped her wrists, and whispered like a lunatic—“I’m going away, going away. You’ll forget all about me, won’t you? If anyone comes and asks after me, you don’t know where I am. If anyone forces me to come back, you won’t recognize me, right? Every month you’ll receive a thousand francs. More? No? Thank you, Madame Anaïs … if only you knew.…”

  IX

  The hours Séverine spent waiting for Pierre that evening can hardly be described. She was both impatient and terrified of seeing him. Did he know already? Perhaps Husson had the address of his clinic and on leaving Mme Anaïs … Séverine suddenly remembered that Husson and Pierre belonged to the same sporting club. Pierre didn’t go there often, but maybe he’d gone tonight.

  Extreme terror has in common with jealousy that the sufferer takes the slightest likelihood for certainty. The hypotheses racing through Séverine’s head began to be based on a succession of conflicting facts. She had no doubt that the worst had happened. The pure unreasoning fear of final martyrdom made it somehow absolutely certain that Husson had talked. What moral principle could conceivably have restrained him? In any case, didn’t she herself know how little moral principles stood for? Hadn’t he shown himself free of any respect for her when he’d treated her as his double in the brotherhood of perversity? Oh, he’d talk all right. But when? When was known only to the demon Husson held inside him. As she held hers.…

  She alone, pathetic creature with inflamed dry eyes, could have described the bitter impotence with which she thought of her pitiless debauch. Not with remorse, nor even regret. The inhuman grip had sunk too sharply into her skin at each staggering step, dragging ever deeper furrows into her. But if fate had allowed her to pick up even one of the broken fragments of her life, Séverine would have passed again through all the stations of that calvary of burning mud. So she felt, so she knew. In her final agony even the poignant sweetness of repentance was denied her, even the diversion of hating Husson. He, too, only followed the path marked for him by forbidden, deadly deities.

  A crushing punishment had been dealt her for a fault she had undoubtedly committed, but committed in a state of semi-madness. Her sense of the injustice of her fate made of Séverine’s hell not only a mere matter of anticipating what would happen to her and Pierre; beyond this now was the realization that a universe of shadows was pitting against her its ghosts and goblins, its giants, its potions. From time to time she moaned feebly, like a child lost in the dark.

  Séverine’s instinct of defending her love, even to the point of absurd (which she felt had been reached) was so strong that, sensing Pierre’s coming, she could artificially re-animate her ravaged features. But she couldn’t get herself to go to meet him. Everything she heard him doing reverberated in dull shocks through her system: his assured walk … now he was taking off his hat, pausing in front of the hall mirror … just as he always did. But possibly he was just trying to control the savage, rending emotions he was suffering by now. Séverine held her breath, stared at the door by which he would enter. She’d know in a moment. Every second she became more fatally certain. Why should Husson hesitate to tell him? She knew the strength of such inner compulsions … Fat insects stirred their feelers through her skull. Their rustling stopped. The doorknob turned.

  If Séverine hadn’t known that the wonderful deliverance she experienced then was only provisional, she would actually have blessed the tortures leading to it. Life rushed into her veins like a gush of water dammed up and suddenly released. Pierre smiled at her. Pierre kissed her. She had nothing to fear, until tomorrow. Joy flooding into her eyes accorded them the purity and delicacy of tears.

  They spent the night together. Once Pierre had fallen asleep she
sat up slightly. She didn’t want to sleep. Surely the condemned man tried to fill his last moments with happy memories? Séverine listened to Pierre’s breathing.

  “Mine. He’s still mine,” she said to herself. “But he’s going to leave me.…”

  That fine body, that handsome face and noble heart filled with love for her, were soon to be destroyed. Bent over Pierre’s head Séverine murmured half-consciously:

  “My darling, my beloved love, when you find out don’t be hurt too much. Why not? Oh, because my love for you is so much greater than all that. It’s just that without all that I’d never have known. Don’t be hurt. I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t bear it.…”

  She fell back on the pillow. She wept for him, she wept for her, she wept for the human condition which so irreconcilably separates spirit and flesh, the misery each man bears, but which no one forgives another.

  Then she reviewed their life together. Small details she’d thought forgotten returned to her. And at each memory she brushed his shoulder, his head, repeating like an incantation the words: “Don’t be hurt … not too much. Do what you like to me, only don’t be hurt too much, my darling.”

  Sunk in these reminiscences, these agonies and prayers, she saw the first glimmers of dawn. Once before, after her first visit to Mme Anaïs, Séverine had thought the first light would mark the end of all hope for her. Now she felt only pity for her childlike terror. How innocent she’d been then to imagine she’d be found out without revealing some sign. Then, everything depended on her. Whereas today … someone else had to speak only once to dirty that dearest life. And he would speak. Husson wouldn’t resist a pleasure like that.

  She stopped thinking. Pierre was waking up. The night had been so short.

  Séverine did all she could to delay her husband’s departure for the hospital. To her, the way there seemed sown with danger. She envisaged Husson, or some messenger from him, lying in wait for Pierre at every intersection. But she had to let her husband go.