by Colette
“I’m not going to bore you, my dear, with the details of our lovers’ meetings that first week. In any case, Louisette and I didn’t have any lovers’ meetings, properly speaking. I used to climb the little hill around the really scorching hour, eleven or half past. The drought was making the leaves fall early. Up at the big house, my host’s shooting guests brought bad reports of game grown lean and haggard. But I never listened to them. My own private game was always to be found, now here, now there, fresh, not in the least exhausted by the heat, and plump as ever. The strange thing was that my tentative affair, which was proving pleasant rather than amusing, was making no progress. Louisette, though she laughed easily, showed no fundamental gaiety. Being fifteen and a half and living in extreme and dangerous solitude, probably on the verge of poverty, is not, admittedly, conducive to a very gay life . . . Her answers to my questions never went beyond the strictly necessary.
“For example, when I asked her: ‘Do you live very much alone?’
“‘Oh, yes,’ she answered.
“‘Don’t you find that rather dreary?’
“‘Oh, no. We have visitors on Sundays. People we know.’ She added: ‘Not every Sunday. That would be a lot.’
“Her little hands, dimpled at the base of each finger, told me more than she did about the heavy household chores imposed on them. Idle, they would have been very pretty and like Louisette herself: rather short, dimpled, with fingers that turned up at the tips. As she walked beside me, she picked a pointed twig and used it as an orange stick to clean her nails.
“Another time I said to her: ‘Do you read a great deal?’
“She nodded twice, with the air of an expert.
“‘Papa left us a big library.’
“‘Are you fond of novels? Would you like me to give you some books?’
“‘No, thanks.’
“The refusal was always very definite. I could not make her accept either books or a bottle of scent or a suede belt or a trumpery bracelet or a lawn handkerchief . . . Nothing, do you understand? As she said herself: ‘Not the leastest thing.’ This inflexibility never yielded an inch. ‘And what would Mamma say?’ She invariably floored me with that one argument, produced in severe, triumphant tones. ‘You must have a terrible mother,’ I risked saying one day.
“Louisette shot me the same nasty look she had given me when she spoke of selling the spring.
“‘No, I haven’t. She never does anything wrong, she doesn’t. If she knew I talked to you, she’d be very upset. So, as I’ve got to keep it a secret from her that I do talk to you, I mustn’t do anything to give it away. I think that’s the least I can do for her, take pains to stop her knowing.’
“And in such a tone! The young lady was instructing me in her personal morality and it was I who was being given lessons! To mollify her and flatter her, I listened with an air of being much impressed. She was watching me covertly, as if she expected something from me and I did not know what it was she wanted or did not want. We men who fall in love with young girls, we don’t take any risks till we’re sure of success. The one thing that disconcerts us and holds us back is simplicity, firstly because we don’t believe in it, secondly because our success depends on choosing the right moment. Those interviews, with the light beating down on us and Louisette always with one eye or one ear cocked in the direction of her mother, left me nervy and exhausted by so much sunshine. When I returned to —— I found a definite charm in playing bridge on a shady terrace, in reading the illustrated papers with the cool six o’clock wind ruffling their pages. Until the day, when that week had gone by, that I had the idea of telling Louisette, ‘I’ve only got ten more days here.’ The corners of her mouth quivered, but all she said was: ‘Oh!’
“‘Yes, alas. And tomorrow the owner of —— is organizing a series of motor expeditions and picnics in the local beauty spots. I can’t always go off on my own, and be unsociable. But if, instead of getting myself roasted up here, I came and took a breath of fresh air on this little mountain in the evening, mightn’t I possibly happen to meet you?’
“I assure you I gave a quite marvelous imitation of shyness and I did not even hold her hand. I had the surprise of seeing her begin to fidget, biting one of her nails, and thrusting and rethrusting the hideous japanned hairpins into her bun from which the little tendrils escaped like a haze of fire. She looked all around her, then said hurriedly: ‘I don’t know, I don’t know . . .’ and as she raised her arms, I caught a drift of feminine odor. I pretended to hesitate, then to lose my head, and I seized Louisette by that slim waist so many plump little things have. I whispered into her hair, under her ear: ‘This evening? . . . Six o’clock?’ and I refrained from kissing her on the lips before going off with long, hurried strides. I went down quickly through the undergrowth so as to give her no time to think of calling me back, and when I had already left her far behind, I realized we had not uttered one word that implied tenderness, desire, or friendliness.
“My dear, it isn’t only to drink up this glass of water that I’m breaking off. No, thank you, I’m not tired. When one’s talking about oneself, one doesn’t feel tired till one’s finished. But I observe you’re looking apprehensive, not to say disapproving. Why? Because my heroine is only aged sixteen minus three months? Because I’ve fastened my covetous gaze on too young a blossom? Don’t be in too much of a hurry to judge me and, above all, to pity the tender ewe lamb. At fifteen, or even less, they threw a princess to an heir-apparent, probably an innocuous young man. Queens were married at thirteen. To search even higher than thrones for my justification, do I have to remind you what Juliet meant, at fifteen, by ‘hearing the nightingale’? If my memory does not deceive me, didn’t you tell me that, at sixteen, you yourself fell madly in love with a bald man of forty who looked twice that age? I think I’m using your very words. Old boughs for tender shoots, as our fathers used to say with genial lechery. I claim indulgence, at least your indulgence, considering that, with a few exceptions, I’ve been mad about tender shoots nearly all my life without withering one of them or making her produce another shoot. So I will now continue a story you brought on yourself and I shall lower neither my eyes nor my voice.
“Well, I had solicited a meeting at dusk, but because of my deliberate flight, I was not sure whether Louisette would turn up. I did find her there, however, and in a setting that seemed quite new at that late hour, among long shadows that marked the divisions between the little mountains and made them look higher. You know that country, you know how, as the light goes, valleys take on quite a different color from the blue of midday. That periwinkle, almost lilac blue, barred with pale yellow and dark green, the humpbacked, complex landscape, hitherto blotted out by the ferocious noonday sun, the smell of wood fires lit for the evening meal, it was all so enchanting that I was not in the least bored as I waited for Louisette. Frankly, I was already consoling myself for not seeing her when she arrived, running, and flung herself, as if in play, into my arms, where she was very well received. I admired her at once for having avoided, by an impetuous rush, the usual ‘It’s you at last!’ or ‘How sweet of you to come!’ Whatever her social level, the female creature does not leave us a wide choice of phrases to greet her arrival. As I say, Louisette flung herself, breathless, into my arms as if she were playing Wolf and had reached ‘home.’ She laughed, unable to speak, or at least apparently unable to speak. Her ugly metal hairpins dropped out of her pretentious little bun and her hair hung about her head, not very long, but so frizzy that it stood out in a thick, fiery bush. As to her palpitation, I assured myself, with one cupped hand, that it was genuine. Our physical intimacy was established in one moment in an unhoped-for way and on entirely new ground. I say physical, because I can’t say plain intimacy. I think an ordinary man, I mean an ordinary lover, would have thought that, in Louisette, he’d met the most shameless of semi-peasant girls. But I was not an ordinary lover.
“I gave Louisette time to calm down before kissing her. When I did,
she received my kisses so naturally, so eagerly . . . Don’t raise your eyebrows like that, my dear, do I surprise you as much as all that? Yes, with an eagerness that would have been the ruin of a lover who was both careless and in a hurry, as they nearly all are. But I was not a careless lover. So Louisette gave herself up to the pleasure of being kissed, and in the intervals, she smiled at me and looked at me with wonderfully clear, radiant eyes, as if she were delighted to have found the real way to talk to me and not to have to be bored anymore with a stranger. The twilight had already fallen, and high in the sky, it was barred by a long cloud, still rosy with the setting sun. And, looking up from my supporting arm, I saw a happy face, exuberant hair, eyes no longer bashfully drooped but wide open, all echoing the color of the cloud. It was very lovely and, I assure you, I did not miss one iota of it. A cry broke out from the direction of the house and Louisette wrenched away from me everything I was holding fast; her hard little mouth, her slim, rounded torso, her feet I had gripped between mine. She listened, waited for a second cry, her eyes and ears on the alert to decide exactly where the cry came from, then fled full speed, with no goodbye beyond a little wave.
“That night, I made mistake after mistake at bridge. Away from Louisette, it was easier to admit that I was disconcerted. In her presence—as you can well imagine, I met her again the next day and every day after—I let myself be guided not only by my own experience but also by Louisette herself. Without going into a lot of details that would embarrass us both, I admit I have never met anyone like Louisette either in her simplicity or in her baffling mystery. To make myself clear, I believe that the sensuality of any grown-up woman who behaved like Louisette would have revolted me. Louisette was avid in the way children are, she was vicious with grace, with majesty. Physical confidence is always admirable. Louisette’s preserved her from certain dangers, it is true, but it must also be said she was lucky to chance on me and not another man. She treated sensual pleasure as a lawful right, but nothing gave me reason to think that she had had any previous experience. This strange affair lasted longer than the fine weather and kept me staying on, rather inconveniently, with my friend the ostentatious retired chemist.
“At the end of a fortnight, I told myself quite sincerely: ‘You’ve had enough of this. Any more would be too much.’ Perhaps, in my heart, I was . . . how can I put it? I was shocked, I was . . . well . . . a little scandalized that this wild pony caught in the fields didn’t show me a little . . . hang it all, a little affection, a little . . .
“What’s that, my dear? Begging your pardon, I am not a brute—I proved that at least once every twenty-four hours—and I did not think it was asking too much to hope that Louisette, softened and satisfied, would come to treat her unselfish lover as a friend. So much so that, when my nerves were on edge, for very obvious reasons, it was I who said to Louisette, bending over her little shell-like ear: ‘You won’t quite forget your old friend when he’s far away?’ I was sitting on a granite boulder, coated with dry lichen that made it less hard. Louisette, sitting lower down, was leaning her head against my ribs. She turned up a face like a ripe peach—raised her eyes, which at that moment were very bright under their chestnut flecks, and I thought that, for the first time I was going to hear . . . a gentle word, a childish avowal, perhaps just a sigh. She merely said ‘Oh, no!’ exactly like a child answering an imbecile parent who has asked the imbecile question: ‘You don’t love Mamma more than Papa, do you?’ And I left her that day earlier than usual without her appearing to notice it in the very slightest. We talked so little. She listened to me, certainly. But she was also listening to many other sounds I did not hear and now and then would sign to me, sometimes rather rudely, to be quiet. I was in the process of telling her something or other, goodness knows what, to make myself believe we enjoyed talking together, and seeing the fixed gaze of her beautiful flecked eyes, and her parted lips whose color I had just warmed to a rich glow, I felt flattered by her attentiveness. She was lying, leaning on her elbow, and we were in one of those tiny clearings that make bare patches among the tall heather. I was sitting, leaning over her, when she suddenly began to flutter her eyelids, overcome by a lassitude that pleased my vanity. One of Louisette’s charms was to exclaim suddenly: ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘I’m sleepy,’ to yawn with hunger or suddenly to fall asleep for a few moments. As I say, she was fluttering her lids, and at every blink, her red eyelashes glinted like fire, when suddenly she opened her eyes wide, sat up, grabbed me by the shoulders, and pushed me over on the ground, where she held me down by main force. I tried to get up, but she threatened me with her fist, and her child’s face became quite terrifying. All this lasted about the space of ten heartbeats. Then Louisette let me go, her cheeks and lips went white, and she collapsed, quite limp, on the grass.
“When her color returned, she explained: ‘Your head was showing. There was someone on the path.’
“‘Who?’ I asked.
“‘Someone who lives around here.’
“I think she had recognized her mother’s footsteps. Without any embarrassment, she fastened her open blouse. Everything she allowed me to see of herself would have rejoiced what one calls a gay dog. Quite unlike a gay dog and a Don Juan, it made me feel solemn to see how much childhood and newly achieved womanhood can have in common. So much beauty, with no adornments except cotton underclothes, a little blue ribbon, and cheap, coarse stockings. No scent except the slightly russet fragrance of the hair. When she was violently excited I could breathe in the smell of that plant . . . what is its name? . . . one of the pea family, with pink flowers . . . that blondes give out when they sweat. Restharrow, that’s right, thanks. When I was away from Louisette, I used to think what she might have been, which is always a stupid thing to do. I used to imagine her as a nymph, leaning over the spring, naked as she was worthy to be. We never rise to great heights when we try to mingle art and literature with the religious feeling inspired by a beautiful body.
“After a few days Louisette changed the time of our meetings, and for my host’s benefit, I had to assume the role of poet and night walker, so as to be able to climb up to the ‘château’ around ten at night. ‘Why so late?’ I asked my little sweetheart.
“‘Because Mamma goes to bed at nine. She gets up before five all the year round. At half past eight, I’ve just finished washing up the supper things and putting them away. After that, I can do as I like, as long as I’m very careful.’
“‘You don’t sleep near your mother, then?’
“She lowered her red-gold eyebrows.
“‘Fairly near. Look, I’ll show you.’
“She led me as far as the lion-guarded entrance, walking along the narrow path as if it were broad daylight.
“‘That square tower, behind the spring. There’s only one room on each floor. Mamma has the top one, she’s given me the other one because it’s nicer. But as soon as it gets cold, Mamma brings her bed down into my room where it’s warmer. The cold weather comes early up here.’
“She fell silent. I could hear the spring and its imaginary fishes leaping in their basin.
“‘But, Louisette, darling,’ I said, ‘it’s dangerous for you, going out at night.’
“‘Yes,’ she said.
“That considered, almost gloomy ‘yes’ was so far removed from the cry of a girl in love flinging herself recklessly in the path of danger that I did not express my gratitude. A ‘yes’ that did not even seem to have any concern with me. She was staring vaguely at the square gable and the silver leaps of the spring at the end of the avenue. The moon was blurred that night, showing pink through its surrounding haze. So near the main gate, we might easily have been seen. But I trusted entirely to my little companion, who knew how to make us invisible at the right moment, making me walk in the dark at the foot of the garden wall, pushing me into the thick shadow of a laurel bush that left its fragrance on her hands. We only met stray ramblers she could trust not to betray us; a silent dog, guilty of going off hunting on
his own; the white horse belonging to the ‘château,’ who was trailing his chain slackly behind him and taking advantage of the warmth of the night. The clouded moon threw few strong shadows, but from time to time, she emerged from her halo and I could see my long shadow welded to a shorter one, moving ahead of us.
“Don’t you get the impression that I’m telling you rather a sad story? Curious, so do I. Yet the story of Louisette starts off as something rather charming, doesn’t it? But tonight I’m feeling sentimental. In any case, it’s the nature of affairs of this type to get tiresome very soon, to lose their freshness. Otherwise, the only thing that keeps the edge on them for those of us who are addicted to a particular type of woman is when we find ourselves coming to grips with young demons. Oh, they exist all right, there are more of them than you think. Louisette was nothing more than a young girl whose whole body had burst into blossom, a young girl whom I was relieving of her boredom, for I was not fatuous enough to think I was relieving her of her innocence. In country girls, there is no such thing as physical innocence. Louisette accepted, she even fixed the character of our relationship. She hardly ever used my Christian name; when she called me ‘Albin,’ she sounded self-conscious. I’ve always thought she had to restrain herself from calling me ‘Monsieur,’ and I should not have been offended if she had. On the contrary. This reserve redoubled the astonishment—I may also say the desire—that Louisette aroused in me.
“One day, I brought her a little ring, made of diamond chips, a jewel for a child, and taking her by surprise, I slipped it on her finger. She turned red as . . . as a nectarine, as a dahlia, as the most divinely red thing in the world. But it was with rage, you must understand. She tore the ring off her finger and brutally flung it back at me. ‘I’ve already commanded you (she said commanded!) not to give me anything.’ When I had sheepishly taken back my humble jewel, she made sure that the little cardboard box, the tissue paper, and the blue tinsel ribbon were not still lying about on our chair of rocks and lichen. Odd, wasn’t it?