Claudine Married

by Colette

  ‘But, after all, what about Luce?’

  ‘Luce? All right, she loved me.’

  ‘And . . . nothing happened?’

  ‘Nothing! Do you think I’m ridiculous?’

  ‘Of course not, my Claudine.’

  With her cheek on my breast, she seemed to be listening to some inner voice of her own. Memories brought sparkles into her grey eyes . . . If she spoke, I knew I should want to hit her, yet I longed for her to talk . . .

  ‘Rézi, you didn’t wait till you were married?’

  ‘Oh, yes I did!’ she cried, sitting up, yielding to the impulse of telling me about herself. ‘The beginning couldn’t have been more ridiculous, more utterly commonplace . . . My singing-mistress, a peroxide blonde with bones like a horse. Because she had sea-green eyes, she affected arty clothes and a sphinx-like personality. An Anglo-Saxon sphinx! . . . With her, I didn’t merely increase my vocal range. I learnt to use the whole gamut of perversity . . . I was very young, newly-married, frightened and a little swept off my feet by her . . . I stopped the lessons at the end of the month – yes, exactly a month – appallingly disillusioned because of a little scene I’d witnessed through a half-open door. The sphinx, swathed in Liberty scarves, was bitterly accusing her cook of having done her out of something less than eighty-five centimes . . .’

  Rézi had grown animated; she rocked to and fro, tossing her silky hair and laughing at her comical reminiscence. Sitting, doubled up, in the hollow of my thigh, with one foot in her hand and her chemise slipping off, she seemed to be enjoying herself enormously.

  ‘And, after that, Rézi? Who came next?’

  ‘After that . . . it was . . .’

  She hesitated, gave me a swift glance, closed her mouth again, and then made up her mind.

  ‘It was a young girl.’

  I could swear, from the way she looked, that she had omitted someone, man or woman.

  ‘A young girl? Really? How interesting!’

  I longed to bite her.

  ‘Interesting, yes . . . But I suffered. Oh, never again have I wanted to have anything to do with a young girl!’

  Her mouth dropped; sitting there thoughtful and half-naked, she looked like an amorous child. How sharply I would imprint my teeth in two little red curves on that shoulder, pearly in the dimming daylight!

  ‘You . . . loved her, that girl?’

  ‘Yes, I loved her. But now I love no one but you, darling!’

  Whether from true fondness or instinctive apprehension, she flung her flawless arms round me and drowned me in the loosened flood of her hair. But I wanted the end of the story . . .

  ‘. . . And she – did she love you?’

  ‘Oh! how can I tell? Claudine, my dearest dear, there’s nothing to equal the cruelty, the cold, critical demandingness of young girls! I mean decent young girls; the others don’t count. They lack all awareness of suffering, all sense of pity and fairness . . . That one was more ruthless in search of pleasure, more avid than a last year’s widow, yet she kept me in suspense for weeks. She’d only see me when her family were there, she would watch my unhappiness with that frank, pretty face and those hard eyes . . . A fortnight later, I learnt the cause of my punishment . . . being five minutes late for a meeting, too lively a conversation with a man friend . . . And the spiteful remarks, the bitter allusions made out loud in public, with the shrill, crude recklessness of girls who haven’t yet been softened and scared by their first fall from virtue!’

  My pinched and shrunken heart beat faster. I wanted to annihilate the woman who was talking. Nevertheless, I respected her more, carried away into making a truthful admission. I preferred her stormy eyes, darkened by her memory to the childish, provocative gaze she turns on Renaud – and on any man – and on any woman – even on the concierge . . .

  Heavens, how changed I am! Not fundamentally changed maybe – I hope not – but . . . disguised. Spring is here, the Paris spring, a little bronchitic, a little tainted, quickly tired, never mind, it is spring. And what do I know of it but Rézi’s hats? Violets, lilacs, and roses have blossomed in turn on her charming head as if the sunshine of her hair had brought them out. She has presided authoritatively over my sessions with dressmakers and milliners, annoyed to find that certain smart women’s hats look so ridiculous on my short, curly hair. She forced me to go along with her to Gauthé’s to have myself fitted with this corset-belt of overlapping ribbons, a supple girdle that gives with every movement of my hips. She has fussed busily among materials, picking out the blues that enhance the yellow of my eyes, the strong pinks against which my cheeks look so exotically amber . . . I am dressed by her. I am inhabited by her. I find it hard to resist her. Before I reach her doorstep, I throw away the bunch of wild narcissus, brought from some man in the street. I love their over-rich southern scent, but Rézi does not like it.

  Oh, how far I am from being happy! And how can I relieve this anguish that oppresses me? Renaud, Rézi, they are both necessary to me, and there is no question of choosing between them. But how I wish that I could keep them separate, or, better still, that they had never met!

  Have I found the remedy? At any rate, it’s worth trying.

  Marcel came to see me today. He found me in an odd mood, at once gloomy and aggressive. That is because, for the past week, I have been putting off a meeting, though Rézi keeps imploring me, Rézi looking deliciously fresh, excited and stimulated by spring . . . But I can no longer endure Renaud’s presence between us. How is it he doesn’t sense this? The last time we were at the rue Goethe, my husband’s fondly perverse, Peeping Tom mood came up against such savage rudeness that Rézi jumped up anxiously and made him some sign or other . . . He departed at once . . . This kind of understanding between them exasperated me still more. I turned obstinate and, for the first time, Rézi went away without removing the hat that she takes off after her chemise.

  So Marcel teased me about my sour expression. He has long ago discovered the secret of my trouble and my joy; he guessed where the sore spot lay with a sureness that would have amazed me had I not known my stepson. Seeing me in a black mood today, he maliciously turned the knife in my little wound.

  ‘Are you a jealous lover?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Me? . . . Yes and no. Do you keep a sharp eye on her?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with you? Anyway, why should I keep an eye on her?’

  He shook his delicate, made-up head and lengthily arranged his cravat, shot with changing, iridescent gleams in the hues of a scarab; then he shot me a sidelong glance:

  ‘No reason at all. I hardly know her. It’s just a superficial impression she gives me – that she’s a woman who needs watching.’

  I smiled unkindly.

  ‘Really? Your own experiences must make you quite an authority on women . . .’

  ‘Charming,’ he conceded, without losing his temper. ‘That was a nasty dig. As a matter of fact, you’re perfectly right. I saw all three of you at the first night of the Vaudeville. Madame Lambrook looked delicious, I thought maybe that hair-style was a little too severe. But what grace! And how obviously she adores you . . . you and my father!’

  I controlled myself rigidly and gave no sign. Disappointed, Marcel stood up, with a provocative sway of his hips . . . goodness knows for whose benefit!

  ‘Good-bye. I must get back. You’d depress a writer of gay pornography if they weren’t all so dreary already!’

  ‘Who is it you’re leaving me for?’

  ‘Myself. I’m on honeymoon with my latest little find.’

  ‘You’ve got a new . . .?’

  ‘Home, dear, not homo. What, haven’t you heard that I’m a free man again?’

  ‘No. They’re so discreet!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your boy-friends.’

  ‘They have to be. Yes; I’ve got a little love-nest. But absolutely minute! You can just get two in with a tight squeeze.’

  ‘And they do squeeze tight?’

/>   ‘You said it, not me. Won’t you come and see it? By the way, I’d just as soon you didn’t bring my dear father. Your girl-friend, if it would amuse her . . . What about it?’

  Suddenly, impelled by an idea, I grabbed hold of his wrist.

  ‘You aren’t ever out in the afternoon, are you?’

  ‘The afternoon? Yes . . . On Thursdays and Saturdays. But don’t imagine,’ he added with a charming smile, like a modest girl’s, ‘that I’m going to tell you where I go.’

  ‘I’m not interested . . . Tell me, Marcel . . . it wouldn’t be possible to see it while you were out . . . your little haven of rest?’

  ‘Rest? Hardly that! Except afterwards, of course . . .’

  He looked at me with a vicious glint in his eyes – blue eyes, shot with sombre grey. He had understood.

  ‘It might be managed, at a pinch . . . Is she discreet, your pretty Madame Lambrook?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘I’ll give you the key. Don’t break my little knick-knacks. I’m attached to them. The electric kettle, for the tea, is in a little green cupboard to the left as you go in. You can’t possibly lose your way about; I’ve just got one room to work (!) in, another to talk in, and a bathroom. You’ll find the biscuits, the Château-Yquem, the arrack and the ginger brandy in the same cupboard. Next Thursday?’

  ‘Next Thursday. Thank you, Marcel.’

  He is a little blackguard, but at this moment I could positively hug him. When he had gone, a wild joy sent me pacing from one window to the other, with my hands behind my back and whistling my loudest.

  He has given me the key!

  The tiny key of a Fichet lock made a lump in my purse; I could feel it against my palm. I was taking Rézi there, in the crazy hope that we were hastening towards a ‘solution’. To see her in secret, to keep my dear Renaud right out of this business which doesn’t concern him . . . I love him too much – oh, indeed I do – to be able to see him mixed up in these intrigues without feeling appallingly uncomfortable . . .

  Rézi accompanied me meekly, amused at the idea, happy that my severity had melted at last after a week of sulking.

  It was warm. In the victoria, she opened the boyish jacket of her rough blue serge suit, and sighed, turning her head to get some air. Secretly, I studied the simple, fleeting line of her profile; the small girl’s nose, the lashes shot through with light, the velvet of the ash-blonde eyebrows . . . She held my hand, waiting patiently, and now and then leant forward a little to look at a flower-barrow that puffed its damp fragrance at us, a shop-window, or a well-dressed woman going past us. Heavens, how sweet she was! Wouldn’t anyone say she loved me, that she wanted no one but me?

  We arrived at the address in the Chausée d’Antin. A big courtyard, then a little door, a minute, well-kept staircase and landings so small that you practically had to stand on one foot. Having climbed three flights without pausing, I stopped: the air already smelt of Marcel, sandalwood and new-mown hay, with the faintest whiff of ether. I opened the door.

  ‘Wait, Rézi, we can only go through one at a time!’

  Honestly, I wasn’t exaggerating! This doll’s flat amused me immensely at first sight. An embryonic hall led to a scrap of a study; only the bedroom-drawing-room attained normal proportions.

  Like two cats in a strange house, we advanced step by step, stopping to examine every piece of furniture, every picture-frame . . . Too many scents, too many scents . . .

  ‘Look, Claudine, there’s an aquarium on the mantelpiece.’

  ‘See – fishes with three tails . . .’

  ‘Oh! There’s one with fins that look exactly like flounces! What’s this, an incense-burner?’

  ‘No, an ink-pot, I imagine . . . Or a coffee-cup . . . or something else.’

  ‘What marvellous old material, darling! It would make heavenly revers on the jacket of a suit . . . Look at that charming little goddess with her arms crossed.’

  ‘It’s a little god.’

  ‘No, Claudine, you’re wrong!’

  ‘One can’t see properly; there’s a drapery. Ow! Don’t sit down where I did, Rézi – on the arms of this green English chair!’

  ‘Goodness, you’re right! What a fantastic notion, these sort of shiny wooden lance-heads! You could impale yourself on them! Oh, quick, do come and look, my little shepherd!’

  I didn’t like her calling me ‘my little shepherd’; it is one of my Renaud’s special names for me. I felt offended with her, but even more with him.

  ‘Look at what?’

  ‘His portrait!’

  I joined her in the drawing-room-bedroom. It was unmistakably a portrait of Marcel dressed as a Byzantine lady. A rather curious pastel, boldly coloured, but feebly drawn. Red hair, coiled in plaits over the ears, the forehead loaded with jewels, she . . . he . . . oh, I give up! Marcel was holding one loose panel of the stiff, transparent dress away from him, with an affected gesture. The dress itself was of gauze, heavily embroidered with pearls, dripping down straight, like a curtain of rain. Between the folds you could see the pink of the tapering hips, the calf and the slender knee. With his face looking thinner, and his disdainful eyes bluer under the red hair, it was quite definitely Marcel.

  Gazing at it dreamingly, with Rézi leaning against my shoulder, another picture came back into my mind. I visualized again the dark, ambiguous youth of Bronzino’s brilliant portrait in the Louvre who had so suddenly vanquished me . . .

  ‘What pretty arms that boy has!’ sighed Rézi. ‘Pity he’s got queer tastes . . .’

  ‘Pity for whom?’ I asked, my suspicions promptly roused.

  ‘For his family, of course.’

  She laughed and put up her laughing mouth for a kiss. My mind switched to other things.

  ‘Oh, yes . . . What concerns me now is where does he sleep?’

  ‘He doesn’t lie down . . . he sits up. Going to bed is far too ordinary.’

  In spite of what she said, I had found a kind of narrow bed-recess behind a pink velvet curtain. In it was a divan draped in the same pink velvet, patterned with greyish-green plane leaves like the imprints of five fingers. I pressed an electric push-button and amused myself by flooding this altar with the light that poured down from an inverted crystal flower . . . It would be an orchid!

  Rézi pointed a slim forefinger at the cushions strewn on the divan:

  ‘There’s all you need to prove that no woman’s ever laid her head here . . .’

  I laughed at her malicious perspicacity. The well-chosen cushions were all covered in rough brocade or embroidered with spangles or gold and silver thread. A woman’s hair would have got pitifully tangled by them.

  ‘All right, we’ll remove them, Rézi.’

  ‘Let’s remove them, Claudine . . .’

  Perhaps that afternoon will be our most charming memory. I was unrestrained, and less harsh. She displayed her usual ardour, her usual submission to being mastered, and the inverted flower shed its opalescent light over our brief repose . . .

  A little while afterwards, from down below, came the sound of a tinny, broken-down piano and an equally broken-down tenor combining to hammer out insistently:

  Jadis – vivait – en Nor-mandie . . .

  At first it was annoying to have such an acute sense of rhythm as I have. But I got used to it. I adapted myself to it. And then it wasn’t annoying any more . . . on the contrary.

  Jadis – vivait en Nor . . .

  If anyone had ever foretold to me that, one day, a tune in six-eight time from Robert le Diable would affect me to the point of bringing a lump into my throat . . . But it needed a very special concatenation of circumstances.

  About six o’clock, when Rézi, appeased, was asleep with her arms round my neck, the doorbell rang so imperiously that it shattered our nerves. Terrified, she stifled a scream and dug all her nails into the back of my neck. Reared up on one elbow, I listened.

  ‘Darling, don’t be frightened. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Someone’s made a m
istake . . . One of Marcel’s friends – he can’t have warned them all that he wouldn’t be here.’

  Reassured, she uncovered her white face and lay back, in a disarray that could not have been more like a ‘gay’ eighteenth-century print. But, once again, came that trrr . . .

  She leapt up and began to get dressed. Terrified as she was, her conjurer’s fingers did not falter. The ringing went on, insistent, persistent; it was intelligent and teasing, it played tunes on the bell. I clenched my teeth with nervous irritation.

  My poor friend, pale and already ready to leave, clasped her hands over her ears. The corners of her mouth quivered each time the ringing started up again. I took pity on her.

  ‘Now, now, Rézi. It’s obviously a friend of Marcel’s.’

  ‘A friend of Marcel’s! Goodness, can’t you hear the malice, the purposefulness of those exasperating rings? . . . Nonsense. It’s someone who knows we’re here. If my husband . . .’

  ‘Oh! You’ve no courage!’

  ‘Thanks! It’s easy to be brave with a husband like yours!’

  I said no more. What was the good? I hooked up my corset-belt. As soon as I was dressed, I tiptoed to the door, silent as a cat, and strained my ears. I could hear nothing but that ringing, that infernal ringing!

  At last, after a final, prolonged trill, a kind of exclamation mark, I heard light footsteps running away . . .

  ‘Rézi! He’s gone!’

  ‘At last! Don’t let’s leave at once; someone may be spying on us . . . If you think I’ll ever come back here! . . .’

  What a sad ending to that meeting that was to have no sequel! My pretty coward was in such a hurry to leave me, to get right away from this building and this neighbourhood, that I dared not ask to go back with her . . . She went downstairs ahead of me, while I stayed behind to switch off the inverted flower and pick up the spangled cushions. Marcel’s portrait stared at me with its contemptuous chin and its painted, tight-shut lips.