The juggler

by Rachilde, 1860-1953

  "I know men . . . yes . . . they all want the same thing.

  "I know women less, they do not know what they want. 6

  "And that is why ... I forgive them.

  "So I must juggle from afar?

  "I consent. I am going to tell you the story of my real first love letter.

  "Well! that first letter fell into the water

  "I was supposed to write it to . . . my husband, during the time he stayed in China, after our marriage, not having been able to accompany him because I was unwell.

  "At that time, I resembled a wild little cat that one could have crushed by walking on it, without meaning to, and I would often wish that someone would finish me off, because I could not imagine that such was happiness.

  "However, I believed quite tenderly that one had to love one's husband, and I resolved to write to him, as he had ordered me to do.

  "It was on a beautiful spring day (like the beginning of a novel) my window opened onto a garden filled with roses, a beautiful garden out of the fairy tales of Perrault, illustrated by Gustave Dore. The bees entered, went, came, perfume under their legs, and they traced golden signs around me, humming to me to go outside, to run, to gather the flowers

  and take advantage of my freedom to make as rapidly as possible . . . the bitter honey of experience! I was, at that time, eighteen years old.

  "Ninaude, my old negro servant, laying curled up on the ground, began to snore from time to time to tell me that all was calm, that all would be silent, even her devotion, if I wanted to go out and attempt the flight to the unknown.

  "I looked lazily at the blue sky, the roses and the black skin of Ninaude.

  "I said to myself: / have to think of my husband I began to think heaps of funny things at once. It is amazing how they came to me naturally, the funny things. And it all hung together so badly! It was just like when one prepared a general confession at the convent, we never failed to remember . . . what we didn't mean to say Good Lord! A love letter? How difficult it is to do, and I was supposed to send him a beautiful letter, he had told me: 'My Eliante, you will write ... a beautiful letter, full of kisses, you will write me all that you do not yet want to tell me, you will write . . . remembering*." Yes, I remembered, only, one does not write those things.

  "With a big kick, I woke Ninaude who was snoring too much.

  "'My little mada, she be hungry?'

  "She was still dreaming about the convent.

  '"Or thirsty, my little mada?'

  "She opened big terrified eyes.

  '"No, Ninaude, sing me a song. . . . I'm bored!'

  "And I leaned my elbows on my paper so as to no longer think about that paper of despair the color of hope.

  "Ninaude sat tailor-style, brushed away the flies that were running all over her (I must admit she was a bit dirty and always had splashes of sugar on her), smoothed out her kerchief and without further ado sang:

  'Me, little nigger Love this Missy Dream 'bout her lips Want her ... '

  "(Taken in that sense, the name of this animal must not be said out loud, must it?)

  'Dance for her Like a lost soul, alas Think she's beautiful Show my ... '

  "(That also begins with an a, and it rhymes . . . )

  "All Ninaudes songs were in this vein. I cannot tell you the impression that made on me to see the old negress squatting solemnly like a buddha, very properly seated on her heels and singing crazy things with the serenity of one who is telling her beads. She sang in a half-voice because I made her be quiet . . . just in time, but she suspected so little the effect produced that she would have shouted the most scabrous couplets.

  "I laughed and laughed, nervously, I cried from laughing. She did not understand, not knowing very well the value of the French words. Nothing was funny for her, only, stupefied, she shook her head.

  "'Good that, laughter, for little mistress . . . that will chase the humors out of her body.'

  "My husband brutalized her. She sang behind his back, did not complain about the blows from the cane. To stay with me she would have swallowed iron.

  "'Good that, the blows, mistress, to chase the humors out of my body!'

  "That day of the letter, Ninaude paraded all her rosary of

  horrors, there were some so extravagant that I covered my ears, especially since I began to understand them better. I must tell you that Ninaude was my last family. She had been brought back from Martinique, and, in the Paris convent, she took care of me, for Mummy had left a huge sum when she died for me to be raised well. The good nuns let us die of hunger, but we each had our chamber maid. Mine, Ninaude who was nicknamed Coffee, prevented us from falling asleep standing up at the main prayers because of her strange devotion. Picture it, she would roll on the ground for the love of God, she would cry out, about anything: It's my very great fault I had explained to her that the nuns took a dim view of her and that they might very well end up depriving me of a chamber maid who smelled of fetishism (unusual odor; a mixture of musk, sweat, coconut oil and rum!). Full of an extraordinary fervor, Coffee-Ninaude implored the holy Virgin by emitting the cries of a wild goose and rolling her white eyes while mixing in all the names on the calendar which she deformed as she pleased, a mixture in which even the devil would not have recognized himself! There was above all a Saint Firmousse or Frigousse whom we could not admit to the collection. Saint Frigousse had as special mission to give boys to pregnant women. That did not concern us, but that intrigued us, and it was necessary to pray to Saint Frigousse for heaps of other reasons (fortunately): migraines, chilblains, the destruction of vermin, lost handkerchiefs, etc. And naturally he had his song or his complaint, which began thus:

  'Saint Frigousse By my blunderbuss!'

  "An appalling hackneyed song of drunken sailors that Ninaude knew in its entirety . . . with variations!

  "You think perhaps that Ninaude knew only dirty stories, as filthy as her madras? No, she knew folk legends that

  make you cry, and those that make you afraid, her black soul contained equal measures of mud and marvelous precious stones. If she has endowed me with quite a few superstitions since my childhood, she spoke to me sometimes like a book. She was very old and informed us about things forgotten in her country or in ours.

  "... When Ninaude had sung her entire repertory, I stopped laughing, and I fell back on my paper, discouraged. I was haunted by baroque ideas having nothing to do with love, I wanted to confess, admit my imaginary sins, tell him that, despite his prohibition, I let Ninaude tell me stories all day long.

  "Then, all of a sudden, my heart broke in my breast, I began to cry because I had laughed too much.

  "Ninaude, still squatting on the ground, crawled up to me and kissed my knees.

  "'Little mada, he is unhappy then?'

  "And she rocked me while rocking her big black head— where there were probably fleas—in my dress.

  "Yes, Ninaude, I am unhappy, I realize that I cannot write to my husband: I am too stupid.'

  " 'Poor little mada!' (And her kind eyes like a dog's shone with shrewdness.) 'That is not it! Little mada is not stupid! little mada is like a bouquet I dare not smell; but, if she wanted, I would indeed tell her why she cannot talk to the paper ... it is because she is afraid of Mr. Officer!'

  "Yes, Ninaude! I am much more afraid of him now that he is gone!'

  " 'Oh! He will come back,' she said sighing, 'he will come back ... do not torment yourself . . . and little mada will be a lot more unhappy.'

  "What can I do, Ninaude. I still have to write him a beautiful love letter, he is so good! All the same he left us together, and he could have dismissed you, before leaving.'

  "Yes, my little mada, he is a good Mr. Officer, only the big red monkey has pinched his nose in its claws, and that is what torments you.'

  " 'No! It is not that, you are silly, Ninaude, with your big red monkey '!'

  "This monkey represented for Ninaude fire, gunshots, and generally everything connected to war.

&nb
sp; "Yes, my little mada, I am very silly, it is quite true.'

  "Fatalistic, Ninaude sighed, acquiescing with a gesture.

  "And my letter did not progress by one line.

  "Finally Ninaude, scratching furiously, came across a brilliant idea, along with a flea.

  "She got up to go and kill her flea far away from me, and she stretched out her arm in the direction of the garden.

  "'Little mada,' she cried, 'look out of the window! It is springtime in France, isn't it, there are roses, there is sunshine, there is a warm sky. You must write him all that and tell him that you love all that because it is his image, that you are happy to see him in it now that he is far away . . . That will please him.'

  '"So, dictate to me, Ninaude, I am so lazy, yes, that is an idea, make up a kind of song for him.'

  "Immediately (one would have thought Ninaude was drinking rum) she began to talk, to talk nonstop, I could not follow her, even galloping with my new pen. She told stupefying stories, calling him one minute Mr. Officer, the next my darling dear, and the flowers, the kisses, the red monkeys of which one must beware, the big green pearl necklaces he would bring back for me, sugar, rice, liqueurs, all that cascaded together in a swirl of passionate phrases. The letter ended by placing him under the special protection of Saint Frigousse, who would certainly give him a boy one of these days.

  "As for me, I wrote, overcome by vertigo, whitening a

  little the light turns of phrase; I translated, and it was one of the most curious collaborations.

  "I reread my missive punctuating it and adding some capital letters.

  "It held together, but it was somewhat incendiary, a real letter for the tropics! It left by the evening post beneath a handsome dark green seal with my father's arms. What a relief! my spirit was at rest. My duty was done.

  "Ninaude and I, we calculated, on our fingers, that it would take six weeks for the glorious sealed envelope to reach him, counting the train journey, to the vessel the Californian, the closest transportation . . .

  "This love letter, the first I wrote . . . and which I had not thought, never arrived at its destination . . . because the vessel the Californian never entered a Chinese port ... it was lost with all hands on a reef, it sunk with my letterl

  "One must never lie, Leon, in love the smallest lie brings down the greatest vessel and the lives of many good people!

  "That, my dear fiance, is the story of the letter that my servant Ninaude had dictated to your servant, but that I made the mistake of not knowing how to write myself.

  "When are you coming?"

  Eliante Donalger.

  "P.S.—I beg you to be the proper gentleman, I have a day, do not forget it!"

  "No, I do not want to live this way, Eliante! Now it is my turn to lie, to juggle! You have a nerve!

  "At a distance, you arrange yourself in such a way as to prove to me that you are a sick child, crying with love in a corner, and when I go to see you, on your days, I find a beautiful, very dignified Madam, who offers me her niece in marriage!

  "And then, there is the decor! You feed me a Californian line! You are a bit too much.

  "You leave me the time to think, so I puzzle over my subject, I study my fever—for I have a fever—and I discover that your juggling has the same effect on me as the coquetry of an old woman who is afraid of giving herself . . . undressed! You surround yourself with such a wealth of precautions that I end up wondering what is beneath it. I continue to not want to admit love, or pleasure, in their pure state. What the devil, I am a doctor, or quite close to being one, and I am becoming as doubting as Saint Thomas.

  "Your dear niece, could she be right?

  "Wait! There is a way to cure me! Come and show yourself at my apartment, disguised as a woman of forty, in the broad daylight of my fifth floor. After, I agree to marry Mademoiselle Chamerot, so as to respect you all my life."

  Leon Reille.

  x T was three o'clock when she rang discreetly at his door. He came to open it, not thinking in the least, of her, his mind very preoccupied by the molding of an anatomical piece, a curious deformity of the ear presenting the exact circumvolutions of the shell called auricula, half flesh, half conch, and he was wondering if man before the flood . . .

  "Man is descended from the octopus. Unless it's the oyster! By thunder, who is going to disturb me to smoke all my tobacco while telling me idiotic things?"

  "Here 1 am," she said simply. "I have come to see you, while passing by in this neighborhood because the weather is fine. We're leaving behind the mists of winter, spring is advancing, and I had to talk to you about Missie. I am her mother a bit, aren't I? so I supposed you would willingly see me for her sake. I bring broad daylight, dear sir."

  She pronounced these terrible phrases without any difficulty, in a calm tone, her eyes confident, although barely open. She always blinked, in front of large bay windows without curtains, and in Leon's room, there was a very large one, overlooking the treetops, the Luxembourg Gardens.

  Leon stepped back, a rush of blood in his heart.

  The woman who presented herself at his door did not resemble Eliante. She was not even Madame Donalger, she was . . . the widow of a naval officer, someone who must have been very pretty and retained elegant tastes, because they are habits difficult to lose.

  For that woman to have dared to come, the Eliante of love, the Eliante of dreams, must have died.

  But who then had killed her? Or better still, had she ever existed? Yet another horrible juggling act, unless . . .

  No doubt, she was no longer juggling!

  Leon felt a veritable spasm of pain.

  "Madam," he stuttered, his fingers spread out, all white with plaster and unable to shake her hand, "Thank you for your visit, I wasn't expecting it, no, I would never have believed . . . well, I'm very glad ... to receive you at my house. You must excuse this disorder . . . and my clothes. . . . I was working. . . . No! don't take that chair . . . it's dirty . . . That armchair there. ... I'm very sorry, Madame Eliante."

  She sat down and, with a serious look, very even, she looked around the room.

  It was a room like any student room. Masses of books, a tapestry of books prevented one from contemplating the bareness of the walls, a few small knickknacks denoting youth and that one moved in high society.

  Leon threw himself on the molded ear, letting slip a terrible piece of bloodless flesh. He covered the whole thing, ear and plaster, with a cloth, wiped his hands and brushed his jacket with a furious gesture.

  Ah! He was a fine one, he was, for a love tryst.

  And what about her!

  Madame Donalger, still seated opposite the window, was now looking at the large frame of gray wood which framed in this room a superb painting by a master landscape artist, the

  treetops immobile at that moment under the sun like a painting undet varnish.

  She was dtessed in an outfit of black wool, very sober, an astrakhan jacket thickened her waist, and net hair arranged in little flat bands, she wore a bonnet of black tulle, decotated with a plume of jet. She had an ivory complexion, yellower because of a little veil of black tulle, all smooth, which blocked her face with folds a hard as wrinkles.

  She was not smiling, she was terrifying.

  "I'm disturbing you, dear sir, for indeed, you weren't expecting me," she said, in an affectionate tone, without any bantering equivocation, in a very resigned tone, "but I made up my mind today, in the fine weather. If you only knew how one breathes outside? It smells almost of lilac, even though it's only March. Everything seems decided by the smell of the new flowers! And then you still didn't come. I have someone crying at home, that impels me towards you, despite the impropriety of my initiative. We must finish with it!"

  Leon, standing in front of the fireplace, masking a very skimpy fire, a widow's fire, was wondering if she was going to continue, or if he should cut her off by bursting out laughing. But he was really in an intensely bad mood, poorly dressed, poorly combed, his han
ds were clammy, he had nothing but his fine youth left as any kind of excuse, and even then was it not an insult, in front of this woman so serious, so maternal?

  "Someone crying at home, madam ... I no longer grasp ..."

  Eliante, her hands meticulously gloved, stroked her little astrakhan muff, a muff which had the appearance of a shivery little animal, rolled into a ball.

  "Does that surprise you, dear sir?"

  "Yes, let's be clear: I have caused no pain, it has been caused me. I abstained . . . because . . . work . . . my exams."

  He made a vague gesture indicating the books.

  The famous fever was falling. He was no longer addressing Eliante. He was talking to a stranger, a woman instructed to report his words to her.

  "Listen to me," she continued gently, "I know quite well that its not your fault. It's fate, foreseen from all eternity. But a girl's love is always a very respectable thing, and one must do whatever possible to avoid complications. Missie loves you and told me so. Love at first sight! You surely realize that, if I take it upon myself to come and repeat it to you, it's because I hope for a good solution. You are free to withdraw, of course; however you don't have the right to avoid the customary explanations."

  "Ah! Madam," bellowed Leon, clenching his fists, "I forbid you to touch my liberty, I alone am responsible for it. I'm listening to you because I'm polite, that's all!"

  Eliante raised her eyelids.

  Her eyes were as deep as chasms, without a glimmer. She must have been crying herself before coming there, but she would not shed a tear in front of him, one sensed it in the blackness of the look.

  "Monsieur," she said coldly, "this is your house."