The Collected Stories of Colette

by Colette

Bessier restrained her by laying his heavy white hand on her arm. “We’ve quite finished,” he said affectionately to Bernard. “Don’t get annoyed because your friends are sensitive to all the outward signs that show you want to be handsome and gay.”

  “I’m not . . . I don’t particularly want to . . .” Bernard clumsily protested.

  The blood was singing in his ears and he ran a finger between his neck and his shirt collar. He was afraid he would not be able to stand Odette’s little laugh, but Bessier had the situation well in hand and reproved his wife.

  “You’ve touched him to the quick, otherwise to the tie! Insult my mother but don’t dare suggest that I’ve chosen the wrong tie!”

  He was speaking to her with a paternal mildness. Suddenly he grabbed the nape of her neck and kissed her on her peevish mouth, on her moist, shining teeth. “He’s indecent, that fellow,” thought Bernard. But all the same, it gave him a pang to imagine the chill, the perfect regularity of the teeth Bessier had kissed. He turned away, paced a few steps, and returned to the couple.

  “For they certainly are a couple,” he admitted. Bessier was stroking the shoulder of a silent and softened Odette, stroking it with the hand of an indifferent master. “It’s unusual for a husband and wife to be a couple.” He felt annoyed, in spite of the soft green twilight and the wind laden with the scent of mint tea.

  “Here’s our Rose,” announced Bessier in a studied voice.

  Bonnemains, who had recognized the little short step, carefully avoided turning around, but an exclamation from Odette made him forget his discretion.

  “Whatever’s the matter with you? What’s gone wrong?”

  He saw that Rose had thrown her dark blue raincoat over the rather crumpled dress she had kept on ever since the morning and that she was coming toward them with her head bent and wearing a brave little martyred smile.

  “Have you lost a relation?” cried Odette.

  “Oh, I’ve such a migraine. It’s this afternoon. You dragged me through the bazaars, and I simply can’t stand the smell of leather there is everywhere here. Forgive me, Cyril and Bernard, I just hadn’t the energy. I’ve stayed just as I am without changing my frock. I know I look simply frightful.”

  “You look frightful, but you smell marvelous,” observed Odette. “How you can stand scent when you’ve got a migraine! Doesn’t she smell good, Bernard?”

  “Delicious,” said Bernard easily. “She smells of . . . wait a minute . . . marzipan tart . . . I adore that!”

  He even went so far as to pretend to bite Rose’s bare arm. Rose looked crosser than ever and went and sat very close to Cyril.

  “Either we’re the worst actors in the world,” thought Bernard, “or else the Bessiers can sense a kind of atmosphere around me and Rose. Which doesn’t stop the child being slyer than I supposed. Look at her now, got up in that dark thing over her light dress, a dress that’s already been rumpled in full view of everyone. It’s true that when it comes to deception, the stupidest of them has a genius for it.”

  After a thoughtful silence, Odette said in a resigned voice: “Well, we’re all going to bed early.”

  They had a strange dinner, served in the patio under a naked electric bulb, which was soon covered with little moths in a hurry to die. Rose pretended at first that she could not eat; then devoured her food. Bernard insisted on champagne and pressed his three guests to drink. The two women held back at first, then Odette pushed her empty glass across the tablecloth to Bernard like a pawn on a chessboard and drank glass after glass, only giving herself time to take a deep breath between each refill. She gave great gasps and “ahs” as if she had been drinking under a tap, and the glitter of her teeth between her lips, the sight of her moist palate and tongue in her open mouth dazzled Bernard in spite of himself. “Yet Rose has a lovely, healthy, desirable mouth too. But Odette’s great carnivorous mouth suggests something else.” After a spasm of uncontrollable laughter, Odette had absurdly to wipe away tears. She clutched Rose’s bare arm and Bernard saw the flat fingers, with the nails varnished dark red, print hollows in the flesh. Rose made no sound but seemed terror-stricken, and slowly and cautiously removed her arm from the fingers which gripped it, as if disentangling it from a briar. Bernard filled up the glasses and drained his own. “If I stop drinking, if I look at these people too close, I shall chuck everything and clear out.”

  He went on looking at them, however, and most of all, he looked at Rose. Her hair was standing out like the spokes of a wheel, her cheeks and ears were crimson, and there was a paler ring around her eyes. Her eyes were brilliant and vacant, but her quivering mouth had a majestic and dishonored expression as if she had just submitted to a long, passionate embrace. At the moment when all four of them stopped drinking and talking, she seemed so overcome that Bernard was afraid she would refuse to follow him.

  But suddenly she got up stiffly and announced that she was going up to bed.

  “You can’t want to more than I do,” said Bessier. “But permit me to drink a toast to the lady who’s watching us and listening to us.”

  He grabbed his glass and raised his bluish eyes, clouded by the wine, to the sky. Bonnemains followed his gaze and was astonished to see a pink moon, halfway to being round, appearing in the square of sky above the patio.

  “Well, of all things! I’d forgotten the moon. So much the worse. Anyway, what the hell! In its second quarter, and rather misty at that, the moon doesn’t give much light. It’s not the moon that’ll stop us from . . .”

  “Well,” said Odette gloomily. “I’m going to bed, too. What about you, Bernard?”

  “Aha!” said Bonnemains. “I’m not going to commit myself to anything. After all, I’m a bachelor. I haven’t renounced the pleasures of Africa.”

  When he saw all three of them vanish up the staircase, which did not yet boast an elevator, he felt at the end of his strength and his patience. His last gesture of sociability cost him an immense effort. With voice and hand, he acknowledged Bessier’s “Good night” as the latter went up the stairs behind Rose. “He climbs like an old man. He’s got an old man’s back.” Before the trio disappeared, he thought he saw the hand of the “old man” deliberately touch Rose’s buttocks. The second turn of the stairs, on the first landing, allowed him to see that both the women were well ahead of Bessier. “I made a mistake. I’ve had just one or two glasses too many.” He looked questioningly at the half-moon, which was rapidly ascending the sky. “Not a cloud. Well, it can’t be helped.” He waited till the little Spaniards in dirty white jackets had cleared the table and ordered a glass of iced water. “I smell of wine and tobacco. After all, so does Rose. Anyway, thank God she’s a woman who’s not squeamish about the human body—a real woman.”

  He watched the light in Rose’s room. “Now she’s brushing her teeth with lots of scent in the toothglass. She does heaps of little odds and ends of beautifying—unnecessary in my opinion. Now she’s gossiping with Odette through a closed door—or an open door. I’ve quite a bit of time to wait.”

  The light in the Bessiers’ windows went out. Ten minutes later, Rose’s window turned black. Then Bonnemains took cover under the arcades and made his way to a narrow door which opened out of the enclosure onto the waste ground beyond.

  Crushing flakes of plaster and scraps of broken crockery under his shoe soles, caressing the white arums which stood stiff, drinking in the damp night air, he passed through this pallid purgatory.

  Halfway along the rough little road which led to the pasha’s park, the sea suddenly appeared in the distance like a misted looking glass. “How beautiful it is, that horizontal line and the sky gently pressing down on it, and that dim reflection in the shape of a boat. It needs that—and only that—for me to stop being unjust or envious or anything that I don’t like being.”

  Leaning against the broken fence and reassured by the absence of dogs and barriers, he admired the black block of the cedars. Here and there the green showed less dark, softly massed in cloudy sh
apes which he knew were mimosas loaded with scent and flowers. Below him, the sleeping town gave out only a faint glimmer, and at moments, the silence was like a silence only known in dreams. During one of such moments, Bonnemains became aware of the sound of uneven footsteps and saw a wavering shadow on the broken road. “Amazing,” he exclaimed to himself. “I’d stopped thinking about her.”

  He ran back and once again made contact with an unfettered body, a scent too lavishly applied, some wiry hair, and a panting breath.

  “Here you are! Nothing broken?”

  “No . . .”

  “The Bessiers? You didn’t make a noise?”

  “No . . .”

  “You weren’t afraid?”

  “Oh, yes . . .”

  He held her firmly by the elbows, taking a peculiar pleasure in addressing her with a new sense of ownership. She lifted her face up to him, and in the nocturnal light, her lovely cheeks were tinged vivid blue and her painted mouth deep purple. “Am I never to have her all pink and white and red and golden?” He pulled open the silk raincoat to touch her dress, crumpled on purpose ever since the morning, and what the dress covered. Rose stood motionless, so as to lose nothing of the caress.

  “Come along, I tell you!”

  He passed his arm under her bare one and they crossed the confines of the park through a gap in the fence.

  “You see—that path goes straight up and then it divides in two. It’s the left one that takes us up to the lawn, to our bed walled in with stone and flowers. Rose, Rose . . . Come along! I’ll hold you up.”

  She hung heavily on his arm, then stopped.

  “It’s dark.”

  “So I should hope! You can shut your eyes if you don’t want to see the blackness. I’ll guide you.”

  “Are you sure? Bernard, it’s so dark.”

  He gave a low, patronizing laugh.

  “Shut your eyes, silly! Little funk! I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  Her confidence in him returned and she huddled close against him. But as they climbed the steep road full of ruts, Bonnemains could not recognize the path which had seemed so easy to find. He withdrew his supporting shoulder and guided Rose by her hand. His free hand fidgeted with the little flashlight in his pocket but he managed to refrain from using it. The forest darkness was impenetrable to the moonlight, and after a few moments, Bernard began to be aware of a rising tide of apprehension. He was beset by that nervous terror which afflicts any human being who braves the blackest hour of night in the redoubled darkness of a wooded place. He stumbled, swore, and switched on his flashlight. A round tunnel of light, edged with a rainbow, bored through the blackness.

  “No!” shrieked Rose.

  “You must really make up your mind, my child! You complain that it’s dark and you refuse to see clearly . . .”

  He switched it off, having seen that they were on the right road. Moreover, the vault of trees opened out above them, showing a river of sky in which stars twinkled.

  “We’re nearly there,” went on Bernard, more gently, moved to pity by feeling Rose’s hand grow damp in his without growing warm. But she said nothing and concentrated on following him: he could hear nothing but her hurried breathing. Twice he shone his light on the path, just long enough to recognize the white clematis above their heads, then an arch of wisteria with long bunches of flowers.

  “Do you smell their scent?” he asked very low.

  He ventured a kiss in the dark and found her mouth. Rose’s lips took fire from his. They set off again, going with as much difficulty as if they were hauling a load, helping themselves with occasional spurts of light. At last they found the fork of the avenue, the charming flowery margin of the pool, and the lion’s mask. The diverted trickle of water sparkled under the white beam of the flashlight.

  “Sit down there while I inspect our lawn.”

  Rose took off her raincoat and held it out to Bernard.

  “There, spread that on the ground, with the lining on top.”

  “Whatever for?” he asked naïvely.

  “But . . . for . . . well, after all.”

  She put her arm over her eyes to protect herself from the glare of the flashlight. He understood and was full of gratitude toward a Rose whom he scarcely knew yet, the Rose who was at once prudish and practical, a good companion in bed, entirely devoted to the material necessities of love.

  “I’m putting the light on the edge, don’t knock it over!” he whispered.

  “I’ve got one in my bag, too,” answered Rose. “Look carefully in case there are any creatures.”

  On its way, the vertical trickle of water, white against the background of greenery, encountered the remains of some mosaic which diverted it beyond the curb. The grass in the center was fine and concealed no mysteries. Small frightened wings fluttered from the branches, awakened by the electric beam. Bernard strode over the rim, bent down to feel the grass, and reared upright again with a start.

  “What is it? Creatures? I’m sure there are creatures! Bernard!”

  She went on imploring Bernard in a low voice as he stood there, staring fixedly at his feet.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said.

  At that, Rose raised her hands to her temples and was on the verge of a scream, which Bernard checked by threatening her with his open hand. He bent down again and picked up, in the circle of light, a brown hand and a white sleeve which promptly slid out of his grasp and fell back again.

  “He’s not dead,” he said. “The hand’s warm, but . . .”

  He held the light to his own hand, looked at it close to, then wiped his fingers in the grass. It was only then that he became conscious of Rose’s silence. She did not run away, but in the rising shaft of light, he could see that her chin was trembling.

  “Above all, don’t turn faint,” he said gently. “It’s only a man who’s bleeding.”

  Instinct made him glance questioningly into the darkness all about him.

  “No . . . if there were other men here, the birds wouldn’t have been asleep. I don’t think there’s anyone.”

  Under the crumpled dress, Rose’s knees were trembling.

  “Come, darling, give me a hand.”

  She took a step backward.

  “He’s not dead, Rose. We can’t leave him like that.”

  As she remained obstinately silent, he became impatient.

  “Give me your flashlight.”

  She took still another step back and vanished from the zone of light. He heard her clumsily groping in her bag.

  “Hurry up.”

  Rose’s hand and the cheap little flashlight appeared out of Bernard’s reach. Squatting down, he lifted a white sleeve and felt carefully all the way up the wounded arm.

  “Well, bring it here, can’t you?”

  “No,” said a muffled voice, “I don’t want to. I’m afraid.”

  “Idiot,” growled Bonnemains. “At least, put the flashlight on the coping. And switch it on—if that’s not too much to ask you. Don’t you realize the man’s wounded, Rose?”

  With both arms he lifted a light, slender body which he propped up against the coping. The body emitted a moan as it let its head, with eyes closed, fall backward on the stone curb.

  “But it’s Ahmed!” cried Bonnemains.

  The injured man opened his eyelids and moved his long lashes, promptly closing them again.

  “Ahmed! Poor kid! Rose, it’s Ahmed! Do you hear me, Rose?”

  “Yes,” said the voice. “So what?”

  “What d’you mean, so what? He must have—oh, goodness knows—fallen down, hurt himself. What a bit of luck we’re here.”

  “Luck!” repeated the hostile voice.

  Bernard’s eyes were dazzled so that he could barely make out where Rose was standing in the darkness. He lowered his eyes, saw that his hands and his sleeves were stained with blood, and fell silent. “He’s lost a lot of blood. Where is he wounded?”

  He arranged the two flashlights so as to give as
much light as possible and carefully tapped Ahmed’s body all over with his fingertips. The blood was coming neither from the chest nor from the loins nor from the stomach as hollow as a greyhound’s. “His throat? No, he’s breathing quietly.” At last, on the shoulder, he discovered the source of the blood, and once again, Ahmed groaned and opened his eyes.

  “Have you a penknife?” he asked without turning his head.

  “A what?”

  “A penknife or something of the sort. Doesn’t matter what, as long as it cuts. Hurry up, for God’s sake, hurry up!”

  He listened exasperatedly to the jingle of small objects in the handbag.

  “I’ve got some little scissors.”

  “Don’t throw them to me or they’ll get lost in the grass. Bring them here,” he ordered.

  She obeyed and then drew back into the shadow.

  “Can I have my raincoat back?” she asked, after a moment.

  Bernard, who was slitting Ahmed’s white sleeve, did not raise his head.

  “Your raincoat? No, you can’t. I’m going to cut it up. I haven’t anything else to bandage his shoulder with. The amount he must have bled, this boy.”

  Rose made no protest, but he heard her breathing in jerks and holding back tears.

  “Really, that’s too much! My raincoat! To make a bandage for a black boy. Couldn’t you use his shirt—or yours?”

  “Why not your bloomers?” broke in Bernard.

  He felt strangely exalted, almost facetious even, as he worked coolly at baring the wounded shoulder. His ears were alert to every crackle in the undergrowth, every sigh in the boughs. A short blade which lay in the grass caught his eye with its glitter.

  “Aha!” said Bernard. “You see that?”

  He picked the knife up and, holding it by its point, laid it on the coping.

  “Ahmed! Ahmed, can you hear me?”

  The black lashes lifted and the eyes appeared, calm and severe, like those of a very young child. But the weight of the lids veiled them again almost at once. Bernard discovered the wound, quite a narrow one, but brutally inflicted. It’s brown, swollen lips had still not stopped bleeding. With the palms of both hands, Bernard smoothed the bloodstained area around it so as to isolate the wound. “It’s hellishly difficult,” he said to himself.