by Colette
‘Ah, your dreaming is the dreaming of the boy Narcissus, your soul, like his, is full of bitterness and sensuous delight.’
‘Monsieur,’ I told him firmly, ‘you are completely off the track. My soul is full of nothing but haricot beans and little strips of bacon.’
Dumbfounded, he said no more.
Renaud scolded me a little and laughed a great deal.
‘You’re going to start having your day again, dear Renaud?’
He had ensconced his large body in a wicker armchair and I was undressing with my usual chaste unselfconsciousness. Chaste? Let us say, innocent of any ulterior motive.
‘Yes. What do you intend to do, my darling child? You looked very pretty and very wan just now at the hook-nosed Barmann’s.’
‘What do I intend to do when you start your day again? Why, I intend to go and see you.’
‘Is that all?’ said his disappointed chin.
‘Yes, that’s all. It’s your day, isn’t it? How else do I come into it?’
‘But, hang it all, Claudine, you’re my wife!’
‘And whose fault is that? If you’d listened to me, I’d be your mistress, tucked away all nice and quiet in a little hideout, somewhere, miles away from all your social world. Then your receptions could go on in their old normal way. I do wish you’d behave as if you were my lover . . .’
Good heavens, he took me at my word! Because I had just picked up my mauve silk petticoat from the floor with an agile foot, my big husband advanced on me, excited by the double Claudine reflected in the glass.
‘Get away from me, Renaud! That gentleman in evening dress, that little girl in her knickers, no really! It’s like a scene out of Marcel Prévost . . . when he’s looking licentious in a big way . . .’
The truth is, Renaud likes tell-tale mirrors and their bright, lewd connivance, whereas I fly from them, disdaining their revelations, instinctively seeking darkness, silence, and blind ecstasy . . .
‘Renaud, you wretch! We were talking about your day.’
‘To blazes with my day! I prefer your night!’
Five
So papa has gone away exactly as he came. I did not accompany him to the station, having little desire to witness his tempestuous departure. I did not need to be there to know what it would be like. Wrapped in a storm-cloud, he would rage against the ‘filthy rabble’ of railway employees, shower them contemptuously with sumptuous tips, and forget to pay for his ticket.
Mélie is sincerely sorry to leave me but ‘at moment’, the permission to take Fanchette with her will be staunching all her regrets. Poor Mélie, her lammy remains incomprehensible to her! What, I’ve married the man of my choice; what, I sleep with him as much as I want to – and even more – I live in a pretty höam, I have a manservant, a carriage hired by the month – and I don’t put on any more swank? Mélie thinks I ought to go about positively flaunting my good fortune.
I wonder . . . is there possibly a grain of truth in her criticism? In Renaud’s presence I don’t think of anything except him. He is more engrossing than a petted woman. His intense vitality manifests itself in smiles, in words, in constant humming, in amorous demands; tenderly, he accuses me of not wooing him, of being able to read in his presence, of having my eyes too often fixed on some point in space. Out of his presence, I feel the embarrassment of an abnormal, illicit situation. Am I totally unsuited to the ‘estate of matrimony’?
Yet I ought to be able to get used to it. After all, Renaud has only got what he deserves. All he had to do was not to marry me . . .
Oyez! Oyez! My husband has resumed his at-home day.
Word has gone round.
What can Renaud have done in the sight of the Lord to deserve so many friends? The manservant Ernest has ushered at least forty people into the leather-upholstered study that smells pleasantly of Turkish tobacco and the long hall to which we banished all drawings and sketches, whoever the artist. The crowd included men, women, and Marcel.
At the first ring of the bell, I leapt to my feet and ran and locked myself into the comforting dressing-room. It rang – it rang again. At every trill, the skin of my back stirred unpleasantly and I thought of Fanchette who, on rainy days, watches the big drops dripping from the broken gutter with the same nervous ripples running down her spine . . . Alas, I was all too like Fanchette! For, in a few moments, Renaud was parleying with me through the locked door of my refuge.
‘Claudine, little girl, this is becoming impossible. At first I said you hadn’t come home yet, but, I assure you, the situation’s getting critical: Maugis is insisting that I keep you in the cellar, God only knows where . . .’
I listened to him, looking at myself in the glass and laughing in spite of myself.
The beast! He had said the one thing that would have any effect! I brushed my hair over my forehead and made sure my skirt was properly done up; then I opened the door.
‘Can I appear in front of your friends like this?’
‘Yes, of course. I adore you in black.’
‘Oh, you adore me in all colours!’
‘Most of all in flesh-colour, it’s true . . . Come quick!’
People had already been smoking a lot in my husband’s flat; the smell of tea hovered in the air along with that of ginger – and those strawberries, and those ham and foie gras and caviare sandwiches. How quickly a hot room begins to smell like a restaurant!
I sat down and I ‘paid a call’. My husband offered me tea, as if I were simply the latest arrival, and it was the pretty Cypriot with the paradoxical name, Madame van Langendonck, who brought me cream. What luck!
Here, at . . . Renaud’s, I could identify various figures I had vaguely met at theatres and concerts: critics, great and small, some with their wives, some with their mistresses. That was just as it should be. I had insisted that my husband should not do any purging – horrible word! the thing itself would have been just as ugly. And, as I have said, I was not the hostess.
Maugis, with a claret glass full of Kümmel in his hand, was questioning, with marvellously simulated interest, the author of a feminist novel, who was explaining at length the theme of his next book. The novelist talked on, indefatigably: the other never stopped drinking. When he was sufficiently drunk, he finally asked in a thick voice:
‘And . . . and the title of this powerful work?’
‘It isn’t decided yet. Not till I’ve polished off the book.’
‘I hope you’ll polish yourself off first.’
With which he moved quickly away.
Among the numerous foreigners, I picked out a Spanish sculptor with beautiful eyes, like a horse’s, a clear-cut mouth, and an incomplete knowledge of our language. He was mainly interested in painting and I admitted, without embarrassment, that I hardly knew anything in the Louvre and felt no particular passion to enlighten my ignorance.
‘You no know the Rubenses?’
‘No.’
‘You have not the wish to see them?’
‘No.’
At this, he rose to his feet, ‘made a leg’ with Andalusian grace, and, with a deep, respectful bow, announced crushingly:
‘You are a swine, Madame.’
A lovely lady who belongs to the Opéra (and to one of Renaud’s men friends) gave a start and stared at us, hoping for a scene. But she wasn’t going to get it. I had completely understood this Spanish aesthete, who had only one disparaging term at his disposal. He only knows the word ‘swine’; in France we have only one word for the different varieties of ‘love’, which is every bit as ridiculous.
Someone had come in and Renaud exclaimed:
‘I thought you were in London! So it’s sold, then?’
‘It’s sold. We’re living in Paris,’ said a tired voice with a faint, hardly perceptible English accent.
The man was tall and fair, and held himself very upright, carrying his small head, with its brick complexion and opaque blue eyes, very straight on his square shoulders. He was, as I say, square shouldered an
d well built, but he had the stiffness of a man who is thinking all the time about holding himself straight and appearing robust.
His wife . . . we were introduced to each other without my really listening, I was too busy looking at her. I noticed almost at once one of the most definite sources of her charm: all her movements, the turn of her hips, the arching of her neck, the quick raising of her arm to her hair, the sway of her seated body, all described curves so nearly circular that I could see the design of interlacing rings, like the perfect spirals of sea shells, that her gentle movements left traced on the air.
Her long-lashed eyes, of a changeable amber-shot grey, looked darker under the light gold wavy hair that had a greenish tinge in it. A black velvet dress, its too sumptuous material very plainly cut, clung to her round, mobile hips and her slim but not squeezed-in waist. A tiny diamond star, the head of a long pin, glittered among the drooping feathers of her hat.
She drew a swift, hot little hand out of her fox muff and put it in mine, whilst her eyes looked me up and down. I was almost sure she was going to speak with a foreign accent. I don’t know why, but, in spite of the faultless dress, the absence of jewellery – she did not even wear a necklace – she struck me as a trifle flashy. Her eyes did not look like a Frenchwoman’s. She spoke . . . I pricked up my ears . . . and she spoke without the faintest trace of accent! How stupid one is to get preconceived ideas! Her fresh mouth, tight in repose, became flower-like and tempting when she opened it. She broke at once into complimentary remarks:
‘I’m so delighted to meet you. I was sure your husband would unearth a little wife who would surprise and ravish us all!’
‘Thank you on my husband’s behalf! But now won’t you pay me a compliment that doesn’t flatter anyone but me?’
‘You don’t need one. Just resign yourself to looking unlike anyone else.’
She hardly moved and made only restrained gestures, yet, merely in the act of sitting down beside me, she seemed to swirl round twice inside her dress.
Were we already mutually attracted or hostile? No, definitely attracted: in spite of her praise just now, I felt not the slightest desire to scratch her; she was charming. From closer range, I counted her spirals and her multiple curves; her supple hair swirled on her nape, her ear traced complex and delicate whorls, while her ray-like lashes and the quivering plumes swathed round her hat seemed to be whirling round, independent of her, in invisible gyrations.
I was tempted to ask her how many spinning dervishes she numbered among her ancestors. But I knew I mustn’t; Renaud would scold me. And, anyway, why be in such a hurry to shock this endearing Madame Lambrook?
‘Have you heard Renaud talk about us?’ she inquired.
‘Never. Do you know each other very well?’
‘I should think we do! . . . We must have dined together at least half a dozen times. And I’m not counting big dinner parties.’
Was she laughing at me? Was she sarcastic or silly? That was something I should find out later on. For the moment, I was enchanted by her slow speech, and her caressing voice that lingered now and then, coolingly, on a rebellious rrr.
I let her go on talking and, all the while, she gazed closely into my eyes with her short-sighted ones, coolly verifying their colour that matches my short hair.
And she told me about herself. In a quarter of an hour I knew that her husband was a retired British officer sapped and burnt-out by India, where he had left the last of his physical strength and his mental activity. He was nothing now but a handsome carcass – she made that very clear. I knew she was rich, but ‘never anything like rich enough,’ she said passionately, that her Viennese mother had given her beautiful hair, a skin like a white convolvulus (I quote), and the name of Rézi.
‘Rézi . . . it sounds like a delicious fruit . . . What an unusual name!’
‘In France, yes. But in Vienna I believe it’s anything but unusual. Almost as common a diminutive as Nana or Titine here.’
‘I don’t care . . . Rézi. How charming it is, that name Rézi!’
‘It’s charming because you say it charmingly.’
Her bare fingers stroked my bare nape, so swiftly that I started, more as a nervous reflex than in surprise. For I had been aware, for the last two minutes, of her darting eyes encircling my neck with a chain of glances.
‘Rézi . . .’
It was her husband this time, wanting to take her away. He had come to say good-bye to me and his opaque blue eyes embarrassed me. A handsome carcass! I thought it might still house a good deal of jealousy and tyranny, for, at his laconic summons, Rézi rose at once, making no demur. That man expresses himself in slow, spaced-out phrases (like an actor being prompted every three words, Maugis says). Obviously, he is careful about his diction so as to suppress all trace of English accent.
It was agreed that ‘we would see each other often’ and that ‘Madame Claudine was a marvel’. If I keep my promise, I shall go and see that blonde Rézi in her flat, only two steps away, in the Avenue Kléber.
Rézi . . . Her whole person gives off a scent of fern and iris, a respectable, artless, rustic smell that I find surprising and enchanting by contrast. For I can discover nothing artless or rustic in her, least of all anything respectable, she is far too pretty! She talked to me about her husband and her travels, but I know nothing about herself, except her charm . . .
‘Well, Claudine . . .?’
My dear giant, worn out and happy, was contentedly surveying the drawing-room, empty at last. Dirty plates, little cakes nibbled at and left, dead cigarettes on the arms of chairs and the edges of tables (have they no shame, these beastly visitors?), glasses sticky with appalling mixtures of drinks. I had caught a classically hirsute poet from Provence busy combining orangeade, Kümmel, cognac, cherry brandy, and Russian anisette! ‘A liquid Jezebel,’ little Madame de Lizery (Robert Parville’s mistress) had exclaimed, and then told me that at Les Oiseaux the girls, well up in Athalie, used to call all ‘horribles mélanges’ Jezebels.
‘Well, Claudine, aren’t you going to say anything to me about my at-home day?’
‘Your at-home day, my poor sweet! I think you’re as much to be pitied as censured . . . and that we must open the windows. Several of these little walnut cream cakes left over look quite appetizing. Are you sure nobody’s “wiped their feet on them”, as my noble father would say?’
Renaud shook his head and pressed his temples. He could feel migraine threatening.
‘Your noble father always shows commendable prudence. Follow his example and don’t touch those dubious cakes. I saw Suzanne de Lizery brush her hands over them, hands that had just been touching goodness knows what and had been “in mourning” a good while, judging by their black-rimmed nails.’
‘Ugh! . . . Shut up or I shan’t be able to eat my dinner. Let’s go into the dressing-room.’
My husband had received so many people that I felt abominably tired. But he – young Renaud with the silver hair – seemed more animated than ever. He wandered about, chattering and laughing, inhaled deep breaths of my person (which apparently drove away any hint of migraine), and kept circling round my chair.
‘Why do you keep on gyrating like a buzzard?’
‘A buzzard, eh? I’ve no idea what a buzzard is. Let me guess . . . I imagine the buzzard as a little animal with a hooked nose . . . Buzzard! A little chestnut beast that kicks with its hooves and has a horrid disposition. Right?’
This picture of a four-legged bird-of-prey threw me into a paroxysm of such youthful gaiety that my husband stopped and stood still in front of me, almost offended. But I only laughed louder than ever and his eyes changed and became excited.
‘My little curly shepherd, is it as funny as all that? Laugh again, so that I can see right to the back of your mouth.’
It was a warning! I was in danger of being made love to somewhat violently . . .
‘No, really . . . not before dinner.’
‘After?’
‘I do
n’t know.’
‘Very well, before and after. Don’t you admire my genius for compromise?’
Feeble, cowardly Claudine! There are certain kisses that are ‘Sesames’ . . . and after which I want to be conscious of nothing but darkness, nakedness, and the vain, silent struggle to hold myself back one minute, just one minute longer, on the edge of delight.
‘Renaud, who are those people?’
Now that the light was out, I had sought my place in the bed, my place on his shoulder, where the rounded joint of the arm made me a soft, familiar bolster. Renaud stretched out his long legs and I cuddled my chilly feet against them; then he settled the back of his neck on the exact centre of the small pancake cushion, stuffed with horsehair, that serves him as a pillow. Invariably ritual preparations for the night, followed or preceded almost as regularly by other rites . . .
‘What people, my own child?’
‘The Rézis . . . the Lambrooks, I mean . . .’
‘Ah! . . . I was sure you’d like the wife . . .’
‘Tell me quick, who are they?’
‘Well, they’re a couple . . . charming, but ill-assorted. What I appreciate in the wife is a bosom and shoulders with milky blue veins that she displays at dinner parties. No young creature anxious to give pleasure to others could display more of them. Also an insinuating coquetry – of gesture, rather than word – and something gipsyish about her . . . a taste for pulling up her stakes and moving on. In the husband, what interested me was that inner collapse, disguised by his square shoulders and rigidly correct deportment. Colonel Lambrook has remained behind in the Colonies; all that has come back is his physical wreck. He goes on living a mysterious unknown life out there; the moment you mention his beloved India he stops answering you and immures himself in haughty silence. What magnet keeps him eternally fixed out there? Suffering, beauty, cruelty? No one knows. And it’s such a rare thing, little girl, a mind so firmly sealed that it can keep its secret.’
Is it such a rare thing, dear Renaud?
‘The first time I dined with them, a couple of years ago, in the fantastic bazaar that served them as a home at the time, they gave me an extremely attractive Burgundy. I asked whether I could get hold of some of it. “Yes,” said Lambrook; “it isn’t dear.” He searched his memory for a moment, then raised his terra-cotta face and added: “Twenty rupees, I think.” And he had been back in Europe ten years!’