Sunday
It's First Communion Day. Bright sunshine. A dazzling May morning... I wept as I listened to those little girls' voices. A few years more, and, like me.... I flung myself on to my knees beside my bed, and said: 'My God, give me the strength to convince him!'
In a little while I shall be taking this letter to the post in the same hand as my missal. You see what you drive me to. I would not have to write such things if I were yours.
This letter crossed the following one.
to Andrée Hacquebaut
Saint-Léonard
Pierre Costals
Paris
6 May 1927
Dear Mademoiselle,
My last letter was more cavalier than chivalrous. Almost as soon as it had gone, I was smitten with remorse. Forgive me for it.
Logically, that letter must have given you the impression that I was making fun of your predicament. In fact, not only do I not find it funny, but I feel it personally and respect it. However, I must tell you why, and you must take my word for it; for you will never understand how a man of my sort came to find himself in a similar situation to yours. I will not try and explain it to you. Apart from the fact that it touches all too closely on my private life, I cannot really explain it to myself. I have come to the conclusion that it was an ordeal of the kind that initiates have to undergo, or like the descent into Hades of the gods of antiquity who alternated between a sojourn on earth and a sojourn in the underworld.
Years ago, for several months - say six months - I was 'walled in' like you. I had a solid mass of tenderness all ready, God knows, to be given to more or less anybody as long as they aroused my desire (for I have never seriously loved anyone I did not desire). But I could not make contact. And I felt certain that the world was full of girls who would have been only too happy to receive the tenderness and the pleasure that I was only too happy to give them; and they longed for it in vain, as I longed for it in vain. But still I could not make contact.
Do you know, Mademoiselle, I brushed against people in the street simply out of the need for human contact. I really did. I was younger than I am today; my freedom was unlimited; I had money to burn, and I've always been ready to pay for my pleasures - and for the pleasures of those I love. But I could not make contact. They were afraid of my desire, I don't know why. I saw people steer clear of me to whom I only wished to give and from whom I asked nothing in return, except what they themselves desired. And yet it seemed to me that my tenderness must be visible on my face, like perspiration, or like mist on a window-pane, blurring it.... I suppose it cannot be seen in this way. People fled as I approached, like sheep scuttling down the embankment on either side of a road as a car approaches. The whole human race was trickling through my fingers. There was something unforgettable about the expression of fear in eyes one would have liked to close with almost paternal kisses. Those girls one would have treated like goddesses.... I don't know what was wrong with me. Perhaps I had been guilty of some terrible infringement of the law, and it showed on my face. Perhaps it was merely the result of some misunderstanding, some calumny.... All around me I saw people coming together and going off two by two. But I could still make no contact. And it was spring, then summer; these things always happen in summer (August is a terrible month for the unsatisfied): the days are 'too beautiful', nature seems happier than one is oneself - Heaven knows I went through it. And all the time this one obsession, and a total inability to work, to tear myself away from this obsession. Loveless days going by one after the other. Another loveless day. Another day of defeat. And yet it counted, each day counted and brought me nearer to the grave - a right that only happy days should have. I have a horrifying memory of those days, and a strong desire to help others who long to give but can find no one to give to. It is a particularly tragic thing for women, for all sorts of obvious reasons: their youth passes more quickly, they are more dependent, more susceptible to other people's opinion of them, etc. I could almost take you to task for not complaining loudly enough about your case, as though you were not fully aware of your tragedy.
How did I get over it? I don't know. It just 'happened'. How? Just 'like that'. You will say this is a strange answer from a man who prides himself on being clear-sighted. But there it is. Nature, for a time, was against me; then she was on my side. Like a wind that changes during a game: now against you, now for you. Since then, I have put more trust in nature.
Let me conclude with a comparison similar to the one I made in my last letter. A bird flies into a room by mistake. It flutters around, seeking a way out. But there is none. Or rather there is, but the bird cannot see it, because birds cannot see everything, poor things. Suddenly it sees a thin streak of light - a half-open door. It swoops, and finds itself in a lumber- room lit by a paraffin lamp. But there again there is no way out, and again it beats against the walls. That bird is you, and the lumber-room with its paraffin lamp is me (you recognize my well-known modesty).
For, of course, nothing has changed as far as our relationship is concerned. Me, 'take' you (as you so nicely put it)? No, never.
Good heavens! For once, this is a long letter.
Believe me, yours sympathetically,
C.
p.s. I forgot to tell you that during the time I was unable to 'make contact' with women, I had four little sleeping companions, each one nicer than the next, whom I was very fond of. So I was only 'walled in' by a sort of mental blockage.
Costals' Notebook
At the Piérards'! O charming one! I want to lift her up in the palms of my hands, like a marine Venus in her shell. Exactly the right size for me: if she were smaller, I would overwhelm her; if bigger, there would be too much of her. She is much admired, which pleases me as though I were her papa. Dance with her. She dances so demurely that I wonder if she does it to tease me.
She came with the Saulniers. So, neither father nor mother. Divine absence! May it last for ever! If only girls knew how much they would gain by being foundlings.
No profound desire for her body. No sign of the tornado of desire - dry mouth, tottering legs, etc. An urge to say sweet, caressing things - an urge aroused by her, though these words could well have fallen on other ears than hers ...
How like a little cat as she watches me write my name in a book I had brought her, as if she expected to see a little bird fly out of my pen. (Before setting out, I had solemnly kissed the cover of this book that I was about to give her.) Exactly like a cat perched on your desk watching you write. And again like a cat when we were sitting side by side and I felt her body leaning lightly against mine, like a river against its bank.
My hand on the arm of her chair in a caressing gesture, a gesture of possession almost. Once, but fleetingly, almost imperceptibly, she put her hand on my arm. Yet she is very reserved. Obviously she is pleased that she attracts me, but with an entrancing simplicity and naturalness. Not a grain of coquetry, in spite of her looks. Simply, almost negligently dressed. Is this an affectation? She claims not to like social life, not to like luxury, etc. Making allowances for a bit of affectation, which is conceivable, there must be some truth in this, for, being what she is, if she liked social life one would meet her everywhere.
Apart from what she says about her own character (she speaks from the heart when she speaks about herself-like most young girls), nothing, literally nothing memorable about her conversation. Her intellectual education is nil. But so much the better: schooling is for fools. A girl who has obtained some diploma or other, even if she later forgets all she has learnt, will still retain, it seems to me, like a pretty vase which once contained a nauseous liquid, the bad smell of the half-knowledge she once ingurgitated.
She is twenty-one, it appears. Let's say twenty-two. One wouldn't think it: she looks really young.
She spoke of her father: 'Papa used to be very interested in physical culture. He's a real enthusiast.'
'Is he...does he have a profession?'
'No, he does nothing ... ' As sh
e said this, she was visibly embarrassed. She's ashamed that her father lives on a private income! When she pronounced the word 'enthusiast' I gave a shudder, as though I had touched a snake.
She talked of one of her cousins. The fact that she had a cousin seemed to me strange, offensive, almost a provocation. O foundlings!
My behaviour was as bad as hers was good - taking her by the arm, propelling her to the buffet with my hands round her waist, trying to show off urbi et orbi that she was mine. How coarse and vulgar and naively pleased with myself! Like a cavalry sergeant. One often sees a man with a pleasant and intelligent face suddenly transformed into an idiot, his smile at once inane and conceited, his whole attitude at once awkward and affected. What has happened? He has just met a woman who attracts him. And inside him it is just the same. For the apparition of an attractive woman instantly lowers a man's self-respect, as sharply as a lump of ice lowers the temperature of a drink. Which is why anyone who loves humanity cannot love women. But I don't care a damn for humanity, and I love women.
I would have invited her to the cinema, but to have her see a film full of half-naked gigolos - no thanks! And anyhow, it wouldn't suit such an 1890-ish young person. The Opéra- Comique seemed rather to suggest itself. I told her I had a box for Tuesday. 'I'll ask my parents and telephone you.'
The box will be a baignoire,[ Big ground-floor box (behind the stalls) (Translator's note).] and I shall have booked all the seats in it. Unfortunately we shall have those maddening musicians to reckon with, with their passion for noise. Ah well, if words are forbidden, gestures will have to do instead.
Of course, she may well refuse: because she hasn't the same degree of vitality as I have.
Next day - At one o'clock last night, my heart was still beating as fast as at eight o'clock in the evening when I left her. And then I was visited by a dream in which this chit of a girl betrayed me, as though I must realize that she was already capable of making me suffer. Oh, I didn't really suffer, but I felt a twinge.
Waiting for her telephone call: anxious all morning, convinced that the telephone would be out of order just at the moment she called, starting up at every bicycle bell in the street.
The telephone! She'll come! When I hear her voice on the telephone, Priapus himself could not outreach me - whereas, even when I was dancing with her, I could echo the words of the prophet: 'Tyre, though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again.'
I think of the day that voice will get on my nerves when I hear it on the telephone - and I shall leave France in order not to hear it any more.
How disgraceful of her parents to let her go out alone with Pierre Costals! A fine way to behave! Now, if anything happens, whose fault will it be? It's disheartening to see all moral standards crumbling like this in the France of 1927.
Wednesday - Opéra-Comique. Madame Butterfly.
After Madame Butterfly, Ouch!
Yesterday a sergeant, today an undergraduate.
Not a sign of life from the object. Or rather, yes, one: in the second act she moved her chair a little away from mine. Can the object be virtuous? The thought sent a shiver down my spine. I was crestfallen: 'I'll have to start again from scratch ... '
Paralysed. By her reserve. By the absurdity of a novelist kissing a girl in a box at the Opéra-Comique. I wanted to be 'ninetyish', but I had gone too far. A telltale remark by the usherette had revealed that I had reserved every seat in the box; how could the object not have guessed? The absurdity of this too carefully planned evening!
Not even the knowledge of my superiority over her from so many points of view could lift me out of my doldrums.
This knowledge became blurred, and I could only see what made me her inferior. She, a pretty twenty-year-old, and I an intellectual, an old thinking-pot of thirty-four.
Our conversation was a veritable swamp of platitude. I watched her hands, as though I hoped to see her twisting them in her anxiety at my failure to declare myself. When I said: 'It's frantically boring', she answered: 'Yes'. This 'yes' cut me to the quick; doubtless I expected her to throw herself into my arms, saying: 'How could anything be boring with you, my beloved?' The situation became so intolerable that I suggested we should leave. She said 'yes' once more without a moment's hesitation, which cut me to the quick once more. (How childish her 'yeses' are! The intonation of a doll when one squeezes its stomach.) We left, eyed by the usherettes with looks that powerfully suggested this thought: 'Well, well! There's a couple who must have been having a good time. But they can't hold out any longer, so off they go to the hotel.'
In short: a cold douche in the baignoire.[A pun here: baignoire = 'bath' as well as 'box' (Translator's note).]
The evening has made two things clear at least: that she is not in love with me, and that I am not in love with her.
Perhaps it was simply that, like racing cyclists, neither of us wanted to be the first to start. Perhaps her behaviour was calculated, to keep me in suspense. A rash calculation, then, for what's to prevent me from dropping her here and now? I'm not the man to persist if a woman refuses; there are a hundred more where she came from; they're all interchangeable. I'm glad to find that I don't love her any more than I did, and am therefore still free: I can take what I want from this game.
If today's set-back is not the sort of disaster from which one never recovers, it is the rock-bottom from which one may spring up even higher than before. What a leap it will be, with the impetus gained from the recoil. As a matter of fact I'm going to write to her: thus keeping the undergraduate touch. By means of this letter, I shall be reversing the situation, giving her back the initiative, driving her into a corner. My cards are on the table; now it's up to her.
The ethics of honour, or simply the proprieties, were invented to provide an exact counterpart to natural ethics, thus allowing us to win both ways.
If Rosine is ugly and importunate, natural ethics to the fore: 'How could I be such a monster! Me, do such a thing to your venerable father! (or your husband, my best friend!).' But if she is attractive and aloof: 'How could I be such a boor as to remain insensible to your charms? I refuse to be so insulting.'
One finds the two alternatives in every field. If someone insults you: 'What! kill someone for such a trifle? Is that what honour demands?' or else, contrariwise: 'I killed him because I was insulted. My honour.... ' Etc.
to Mademoiselle Solange Dandillot
Avenue de Villiers, Paris
Pierre Costals
Paris
12 May 1927
You must admit, dear Mademoiselle, that last night was not quite the thing, and that indeed we provided a somewhat distressing spectacle. You made me very nervous - froze me in fact. Did you do it on purpose? Or am I simply a donkey?
It will come as no surprise to you, I think, to learn that I have a rather special feeling towards you. If you find it objectionable, let us leave it at that. I shall feel some regret, perhaps a twinge of pain, but I do not want to be importunate, and after all, the world is big enough. If, on the other hand, like an intelligent girl, you would like us to try our luck again, just tell me. Only in that case you must also tell me that you will allow me a certain degree of familiarity with you, and a modicum of those gestures which not only Nature, but Society itself, expected of us last night. Those august moral personages are at present overcome with amazement and wrath at our attitude; it is up to us to appease them. But you must make your intentions clear to me, for I do not feel inclined to offer you a purely platonic friendship, and even less do I feel inclined to be spurned by a woman, something that has never happened to me in my life. [This is a lie (Author's note).]
Write to me or telephone me. But I'd prefer a nice letter; letters are more substantial. Not to mention all the advantages of the written word (I know what I mean, even if you don't).
Once more: failing a note or a telephone call from you telling me whether I behaved well or whether I behaved in an awkward and ill-bred manner last night, we shall not see e
ach other again. It depends entirely on you.
Au revoir, my dear Mademoiselle, or adieu. It is possible that I am about to entertain for you a feeling with a touch of profundity about it (but I'm not yet absolutely sure). There is an impulse there that it would be a pity to waste. See if it displeases you or not, without considering my pleasure but thinking only of your own. And give me your answer with the same frankness and trust that I pride myself on having shown here.
Costals
Written by Costals in his diary
Have written her a letter that isn't up to much. How strange it is that when I write to an unknown or scarcely known woman who attracts me, I can avoid flannel only through passion or cynicism. The language of passion being out of the question, this missive is a compromise between twaddle and impertinence. She will enjoy the twaddle, will fail to notice the impertinence, and will telephone me within 24 hours.
(In fact I have no idea. I'm incapable of foreseeing her reactions in any given circumstance. In dealing with her I have the impression that I'm the Quai d'Orsay [The French Foreign Office (Translator's note).]: I do everything gropingly and by the grace of God.)
There's something poignant for me in imagining the happiness I might have given to other women with such a letter but have refused them. And this feeling has a great deal of charm.
The Girls Page 14