The Man in a Hurry

by Paul Morand

  “Do you know a Pierre Niox, an antique dealer?” she asked her brother excitedly.

  “By name… and by reputation,” mumbled Monsieur de Rocheflamme sourly.

  “He’s bought the Mas Vieux.”

  “Congratulations. So is he very wealthy, this swindler?”

  “He didn’t strike me as a swindler in the least,” said Hedwige.

  Monsieur de Rocheflamme’s spitefulness was not merely the distaste of a second-hand goods dealer for a licensed colleague, or that of an old man for a younger one—in short, that natural antagonism that arises from the confrontation of two opposing situations; it was also his passive yet heartfelt antipathy for anything he didn’t know and that did not concern his family.

  “Uncle André, have some cold leg of lamb; there’s still a bit of meat left on it.”

  Uncle André stopped talking, forgot about Pierre, whom he knew nothing about in any case, and continued to gnaw away at the leg of lamb.

  CHAPTER VIII

  PIERRE’S STAY IN BRUSSELS went on long enough to arouse the anxiety of the Boisrosés even though they had no notion of time. Hedwige, in particular, was rather more impatient than her sisters, who never stopped teasing her about her very successful initiative.

  Finally, very early one morning, that is to say at about eleven o’clock, the dairywoman who normally provided their telephone link came to tell them that Hedwige was wanted on the phone.

  “It’s Hédiard, the mangoes have arrived!” cried Madame de Boisrosé, a gluttonous expression on her face.

  “It’s Monsieur Pierre Niox!” yelled Fromentine simultaneously, with a gleam in her eyes. “Hurry up, Hedwige!”

  Hedwige descended the stairs at the nonchalant pace of a goddess. A moment later she came back upstairs.

  “It was indeed Monsieur Pierre Niox. He’s inviting us to dinner at a restaurant and to the cinema afterwards.”

  “What,” said Madame de Boisrosé, “he’s inviting the entire family? And why to the cinema? That’s a weird idea. Why not to his office since it’s a business matter?”

  Hedwige explained not without some difficulty that, from Pierre’s point of view, it was a way in which to establish a connection, to initiate future conversations in order to clarify—

  “What a curious language you’re speaking in, Hedwige. Where did you pick up these expressions? It sounds like an official announcement,” Angélique interrupted. “At last we’re to see this famous Monsieur Niox!”

  “Not you, Angélique,” said Hedwige. “Only Fromentine and I are invited.”

  Pierre called at Saint-Germain to collect Hedwige and Fromentine in his small car. Being seldom invited out, they had made a great fuss about the occasion and had begun to get themselves ready immediately after lunch. Hedwige had foregone her siesta, and at three o’clock Fromentine had started to do her hair; she was now trying on her few little dresses before deciding on her elder sister’s evening dress (clothes, stockings and shoes were interchangeable in the Boisrosé family).

  As he drove up the hill to Saint-Germain, Pierre repeated Hedwige’s remark to himself: “We shall try not to keep you waiting.” “I hope they’re going to keep their promise,” he thought. “For my part, I want to respond to this effort to be punctual, not by being punctual myself, I always am, but by restraining and controlling myself should they not be. It’s just too absurd to turn pleasure into suffering.”

  Pierre drew up his car in front of the Boisrosés’ house. Those were his instructions. Since, however, it had gone half past seven and Hedwige had advised him not to come up, “given that the entrance to their house was via a dark alleyway and badly lit by old lights buried in the ivy, there was no concierge and he would certainly get lost”, he started to sound his horn, gently at first, then very loudly.

  Pierre began to feel distressed and was not very proud of the fact. He liked to cope with things. He felt cold beneath the hood and the canvas material was vibrating. Beads of mist were forming on the windows. A smell of damp leaves and grass seeped in through the doors. “After all,” he thought, “waiting for one woman is not unpleasant; waiting for two is even better.”

  Cats could be heard mewing. Diligently, Pierre kept himself busy by smoking, dipping the headlights on and off, then the sidelights. He thought about his appointments for the following day, and the day after, he checked his diary.

  “Being a chauffeur is the last thing in the world I’d want to do, especially a chauffeur to a Parisienne. I’d rather drive a bus in the country with suitcases that need tying onto the roof rack.”

  He took a bet with himself that the Boisrosé girls would be there by ten to eight, lost his bet, risked another fortune and got nothing for his money.

  “One ought to have a collection of books in the car pocket. For years I haven’t found the time to reread my classics. Nowadays they print lengthy masterpieces on India paper… I feel like bounding up the steps four at a time, but I risk going through the wrong door and then causing them to wait, which would be a disaster… I should have brought Placide along. It’s true the car can only fit three and it’s raining so hard I couldn’t ask him to sit in the dickey-seat.”

  Two shadows passed by in the gleam of the lamplights. Pierre gave a start: “Here they are.” No, it was servant girls on their way to the cinema.

  “My waiting is a sacrifice,” he said. “May the smoke be pure, at least, and the aroma pleasing to the gods. It is good for me to be here, to be hanging around (an odd expression for a man who is seated) and widening the range of my connections, because if my tendency to hurry increases, I shall need to surround myself with new friends, friends who can forewarn me as it were, who are not yet used to me and can give the alarm call.

  “If I did not desire what are conventionally termed pleasures, it would be simple; I would obtain them on my own. But I want something else; I want to feel myself being projected forward through my own will; I long for Russian mountains, to be out of breath, to have an empty stomach, for a life gulped down in a trice. I shall kick the bucket one fine day if someone doesn’t hold me back, but if anyone does I should prefer, much prefer, that it should be the pretty arm of a woman doing so rather than a sermon from Dr Regencrantz.”

  “Watch out!” whispered Pierre’s liberating angel to him, “you’re setting out today on an unfamiliar path, in which you will meet with only troubles and disappointments; you’ve received an attractive gift from me and it could be a wonderful one if you had an ounce of genius (that ounce of genius that you lack). That noble instinct that singles you out from the throng of mankind, that practical ability to move quickly and alone amid the general mêlée, you’re going to lose all that if you become interested in ladies.”

  These angelic comments tempted Pierre, for one is never tempted quite so dangerously as one is by angels. He struggled with difficulty against the unpleasant thoughts that beset those who are impatient. Thus it was that he happened to see the image of his alluring bed pass by, thus it was that it occurred to him he could very well dine on his own. It would be a good trick to play on these girls. He drummed his fingers nervously on the window pane and traced esoteric monograms in the condensation on the windscreen.

  “I hope we’re not late,” said a voice suddenly from deep inside an upturned collar.

  Hedwige pressed her face to the window.

  “Absolutely not,” Pierre replied politely.

  At the restaurant Pierre sat opposite the two sisters, the better to enjoy that glamour women have that reaches its apogee within the first two minutes.

  Hedwige placed her elbows on the table in a manner that emphasized the sturdy shape of her shoulders. Impossible not to admire the power of the neck that supported her fine head, whose austereness was softened by her nonchalant gaze and her fleeting, quickly removed smile. Hedwige spoke very little, that was her way. More alert, more of a chatterbox, more respectful of fashion, with her plucked eyebrows and the neat set of her reddish hair, it was Fromentine who ca
ught the eye more; her slender figure with its hint of fieriness was dazzling. Fromentine gossiped and cooed, her lips scarcely moving, like those awkward young girls who are starting out in society. Pierre was amazed that the small town of Saint-Germain should have been able to keep such beauties to itself and he congratulated himself on his discovery. Once more he experienced that sedative feeling he had already encountered on his first meeting with Hedwige. The great wave of sweetness, her inner warmth and her muted voice made this impatient man want to slow down, to put his feet on the ground, to breathe freely at last.

  “The film doesn’t begin until half past ten. Let’s not hurry,” said Pierre. “We have plenty of time. Ah! How good it is to relax…”

  “I can arrive whenever I want at the cinema,” said Fromentine confidently, “I always understand.”

  “I never understand,” Pierre replied. “I’m not saying that in order to appear more intelligent than you, but because that’s the way it is.”

  Seeing Hedwige’s astonishment, Pierre did not press the point. He realized that he had just made the kind of remark used in his circles that these young creatures would be unable to understand, being far too natural and unused to such sophisticated simplicity. Among some of Pierre’s customers and friends, there were people of proverbial preciousness and subtlety who, either because it was the fashion or because it was tactically astute, pretended to be naive, simple, gauche, to imitate Abbot and Costello, to read large-print books or be whipping boys. “We take pot luck when we entertain,” boasted the marquises; “I’m a peasant,” a certain painter used to say who took care to conceal his devilish cunning; “I write in my sleep,” proclaimed the most far-seeing critics; “What a clumsy oaf I am,” announced an elderly witch; and all the vicomtes who buy their shoes from Hellstern & Sons and the millionaires dressed in sackcloth at 200 francs a metre, who awkwardly dunk bread in their coffee, who read aloud the serialized novels of Jean de La Hire, who assert that one should arrive at the theatre “before the lights are dimmed” and who peel oranges in the boxes, the boxes at the Châtelet, because the Châtelet is a thousand times “more attractive” than the Salzburg Festival.

  “I don’t like,” Pierre went on, “being shut up for three hours in a large, dark room criss-crossed by beams that are meant to be projecting onto a screen endless frames showing the most stunning sights in the universe, but which only succeed in making me, unwillingly, the lazy accomplice of vulgar sentiments, foul manners, and actors who are paid so highly that they don’t even do you the favour of blinking an eyelid. At the cinema, I always expect the unexplored, some powerful incantation, I want to be drained of myself by the originality of the show. And then… nothing at all!… What are we going to eat? Oysters? How long does it take to open thirty-six oysters?”

  The maître d’hôtel came out with the customary misleading estimates. Without listening to him, Pierre calculated: “They’ll need a good ten seconds per oyster; the man who opens them is on his own; if he uses a serrated knife, they’ll have to allow fifteen seconds; for three dozen that’s about ten minutes!”

  “We’ll have whatever you have,” said Fromentine, who was stunned by the elegance of the room and whose wide-open eyes resembled those of a Negro being taken to the circus.

  “I’m a petite marmite man myself; there are five ingredients in the petite marmite: soup, bread, boiled meat, vegetables and cheese.”

  “Let’s have that then,” said Hedwige in a placatory manner.

  “The petite marmite is finished,” replied the maître d’hôtel.

  Pierre was not sorry about this, for the soups are always scalding-hot and it would be awkward for him in front of the uninitiated to ask for several cups into which to pour the soup and so cool it more quickly; you don’t display your bad habits straight away.

  The maître d’hôtel fiddled around impatiently with his blank notepad. The Boisrosés contemplated their menus without saying a word. Pierre took the matter in hand since, with women, you could be in the restaurant all night.

  “It’s late already to offer you a sumptuous dinner, so let’s all have the plat du jour.”

  “Yes, yes,” Hedwige exclaimed, “never mind the sumptuous dinner.”

  “Bravo,” said Pierre.

  “What an electric man!” said Fromentine with a laugh as she exchanged glances with Hedwige.

  Pierre realized that both the sisters had already discussed his hastiness and had laughed about it between themselves. This pained him; he promised himself to be more alert.

  “We’ll make up the time with the wines. Let’s wait a little and order a soufflé beforehand. Maître d’hôtel, how long would a soufflé take?”

  “Twenty minutes, monsieur.”

  “We’ll have it.”

  “And while you wait?” said the maître d’hôtel, who was beginning to wilt.

  “But mademoiselle has told you that we are having the plat du jour!”

  “The plat du jour takes ten minutes, monsieur. Nothing beforehand?”

  “Why do we have to wait ten minutes longer for the plat du jour than for the other dishes?” sighed Pierre. He sensed that he would appear far too unpleasant, or too ridiculous, or too insane were he to get angry over such a minor matter.

  “Waiter! Pass us that bowl of crayfish,” he said, half leaning over the table and pointing to the crayfish on the nearby trolley. “That bowl there, and not any other, do you understand! And right away!”

  “And the wine?”

  “Some good champagne as long as it’s chilled and ready to drink.”

  “We’ll put it on ice for you,” said the wine waiter.

  “Which means that you’re going to give us warm champagne beforehand.”

  “We can’t chill the champagne beforehand, monsieur, it will ruin it.”

  “And you prefer to ruin me!” moaned Pierre, cracking his metacarpal joints impatiently.

  The peeling, cleaning and sucking of the crayfish tails made Pierre miss the oysters which, after all, can be opened immediately with a good knife and an expert hand.

  “How lovely it is,” said Hedwige, a very gentle and very happy expression in her eyes, “to eat food one hasn’t prepared oneself!”

  Pierre looked at her, admiring once more the beauty of her face and that silent melody that emanated from her. She was wearing a turban made of very hairy fur that called to mind something from sixteenth-century Poland and made one want her to wear (which she was not wearing) a slightly orange-red dolman. Pierre felt quite affectionate when he recalled that she had not laughed when Fromentine had started to tease him, and that on the contrary she had seemed saddened. No doubt Fromentine combined the natural maliciousness of redheads with the innocent sadism of girls who suffer and enjoy making others suffer because they are unhappy themselves.

  The waiter came to present the plat du jour: duck with peas.

  “It’s very nice, very nice,” said Pierre, “but just leave the duck on our table. Dishes that are presented to one ceremoniously only to be spirited away immediately afterwards drive me to despair.”

  “But I’m about to bring it back to you, monsieur!” said the waiter, half turning around.

  Pierre grabbed him by the apron.

  “No, no, my friend, bring the chopping board and tell the maître d’hôtel to carve it here, in front of us. I’m fed up with waiting!”

  Fromentine squirmed. Hedwige smiled in embarrassment. In this way did Pierre gradually ruin an evening that had begun so well. There he was sitting opposite two beautiful, undiscovered girls, at a well-attended table, in a warm restaurant, where everything was progressing normally, according to ritual, with that quiet sophistication and smooth good manners that generations of Parisians had perfected. And yet he had only one desire, one longing, which was to create panic and commotion there. “What a boor I am!” he told himself. “If all these delectable things collapse on me one day, I shall be sorry, but I shall have brought it upon myself.”

  Pierre
had already wolfed down his duck before the waiter had even begun to reheat the legs over the burner. At a nearby table, a woman was shelling some fresh nuts.

  “Let’s hope they’re not planning to offer us any of those!” sighed Pierre as he stole an apple from the passing trolley, which he ate without peeling it.

  Fortunately, the soufflé did not take long and the Boisrosé girls did not take coffee, which put a smile back on the face of their host.

  “We only drink what we make ourselves; away from home they only ever have Costa Rican. The family coffee comes from Anse à Banane.”

  “Anse à Banane! What is this wonderful place?”

  “It’s the Boisrosés’ house, in the West Indies,” said Fromentine. “I’ve never been there, nor to the Trou Dauphin, the sugar cane plantation that belongs to us through our mother’s side.”

  “If you don’t accept a glass of rum after that, mademoiselle!”

  “When I was little, my nanny used to give me baths in rum. It’s put me off rum for good,” said Hedwige.

  “I’m sorry,” said Pierre. “They only have glasses here. I hadn’t anticipated baths.”

  Hedwige’s voice had a strong accent when she pronounced the word rum: the initial r was slightly suppressed, in the Creole way, followed by a low nasal sound that made the whole of her palate tremble like an echoing chamber and then fade away behind her teeth as the final m died on her sealed lips.

  “I’ve heard it said that the smell of molasses hovers over the Antilles just as the scent of the maquis does over Corsica,” said Pierre.

  “Molasses, do you think that’s a nice smell? It stinks of old leather!” cried Fromentine, bursting out laughing.

  “Used you to take tafia baths or just rum?” asked Pierre, who was trying desperately to make Hedwige pronounce the r again that had enchanted him.

  Pierre had forgotten it was time to leave, but all of a sudden he stood up, remembering that it was past ten o’clock.