During those dark years there was a suddenly a bright spot, a marvellous clearing, a heavenly moon rising from among the dark poplars. They wanted to introduce us to death—our adolescence introduced itself to love. How did the revelation take place? Through a book. I will never forget the indescribable enchantment. The college library was strict, carefully sifted, pruned, puritan, irreproachable. Nothing but the lives of saints, historical works, accounts of voyages. There was also among them, by what chance I could not say, Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. We only had half an hour for reading, in the evening, after prep. As if by magic there was an apparition in the course of the mysterious book, which started to sing between my fingers like a piece of music—Lamartine! His face materialised on the white of the pages, handsome as a god… and another face emerged beside it: Elvire! Their hair intermingled… The Mediterranean drew them to its shore… The lines murmuring one after another. They were blue waves… and they broke. I too was walking there, kissed by those waves… Where was I? I was being carried off on a dream journey… The big lamps in the study room shed a radiance pale as moonlight… Their heavy shades seemed like haloes. Elvire! So she was love! Oh, her face, her hair black as night; her olive complexion, the colour of a pineapple, like that of girls from the south; and the scent of her skin which must sweeten her lips as well! Lamartine knew—since he had kissed her.
So that was love? And what else? Indescribable inner turmoil… Why did they talk to us about death, those dismal priests? There is love first. Oh, when will it come for us? Elvire was approaching. We were thinking of kisses… We were also thinking, trembling a little, of the mystery of breasts, a mystery dimly known, dimly seen on statues, glimpsed on our walks in the bared bosom of wet-nurses. An exciting vision! Our hearts seemed to stop beating. We were out of breath, as if after a race or a sudden shock. Elvire’s breasts? Had Lamartine touched them, put his hands on them—his lips, as we did with our flasks in summer? Elvire! We compared her to girls we caught sight of on holiday, a cousin who had come to visit our parents with her family and whom we looked at, blushing. She was pink. Elvire was bronzed. But she, too, had a rounded bust we didn’t dare look at—doubtless the same breasts as Elvire…
Oh, this first revelation of love! The touch of fever that brought a flush to our cheeks… We were no longer aware of time or place… We dreamt… We drifted… We evoked images that were full of passion but not shameless, for the moment it was solely our imagination at play. We were still innocent, sufficiently so to be quickly alarmed at these mirages, at love, at Elvire, at the cousin who resembled her. Religious fear quickly raised its head, fear of sin, the sin of bad thoughts and bad desires, into which we had perhaps slipped, the deadly sin… And the thought of death returned, the fear of death, which quickly made love flee!
Because death more than love—a too distant dream—was a reality. Especially when one of our classmates fell seriously ill. He had to go home to his parents. A few weeks later we were told he was dead. Immediately each one of us thought of the words of the preacher at the retreat. ‘People die at all ages. Beware of being damned. You will be clothed in fire in Hell.’ Had our poor classmate been saved? Or was he already clothed in fire? So he would have met Elvire, who was also dead… Was she damned or saved? Their memories merged… Was it him or her who was missing from that unoccupied seat in the classroom? No one would agree to sit in it. Oh, the void that we found unbearable!
It was as if an opening had been cut in a hedge in blossom to let a coffin through. A gaping hole. Were they not going to fill in the grave? His absence had to be covered over. Everyone was trembling. No one wanted to replace our dead classmate, so he seemed to keep his place, to remain with us…
A sinister emblem! Death was ever present amid our adolescence. Oh, those years when we ought to have been taught to love life but during which their sole concern was to familiarise us with death. A too-religious school. And, all around, a too-dead town! Given our fear of death, everything was transposed, took on a funereal sense, even love which approached us with the look of the dead Elvire…
To such an extent that even when the great bell rang out, when its immense sounds fell, it seemed to us, poor children that we were, that it was to fill in the silence—like the spadefuls of earth filling a grave.
The Urban Hunter
The other day I recognised my friend X from behind, walking in front of me down the avenue. You could see he was happy from his jaunty gait and from the lively flourishes of his cane with which he was drawing arabesques in the air, perhaps matching the lines on his hand containing his destiny… After a while I realised he was following a woman. What, him? A discriminating and serious man, intelligent and sociable, still attractive, who would have had no trouble making conquests in the salons of the city.
He had never been known to have an affair, nor even to flirt with women. He was married and people assumed he was quite simply faithful. But, I told myself, he showed an interest in women he saw passing in the street, so he must be a more complicated case than people assumed. However, given his discerning character it was difficult to imagine him addicted to low vice, to random lechery. He halted at the end of the avenue, as if he were giving up, and suddenly turned round in my direction. We met more or less face to face.
‘Aha, I’ve caught you,’ I said. ‘You follow women.’
‘Of course. That’s the only reason I go out.’
My expression must have shown some surprise or a suspicion that he was being ironic, for he repeated his statement, as if his explanation was perfectly reasonable and, that being the case, it was necessary to put it into words.
‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘everyone’s away hunting during this season. I’m not a huntsman, this is where I hunt. The great capital cities are forests teeming with game of every shape and size—women. I go out hunting every afternoon. I check the state of my gloves, my hat, my whole appearance, just as a huntsman does with his gun and his dogs. And I have the thrill, the delightful anguish of the wait, the watch, the pursuit, the kill— just like the huntsman. And there is the same variety as there is in game: there are women who flit about the street, quivering like birds, some who walk past in the brightly coloured plumage of a pheasant, others who appear and disappear among the crowd like a hare in the grass or those who would charge furiously like a boar at the first approach. Oh, to hunt all this game, to follow all these women! And, like a good huntsman, to load your gun immediately, change the ammunition, choose the right cartridge, adjust your aim. Bird-shot or buck-shot, riddle with pellets or drop with a single bullet. Accost her with a clever remark or quickly pepper her with several brief comments to benumb the protesting voice like winging a bird. That means it requires great calmness and clarity of vision to recognise immediately the type of woman, just as the huntsman can recognise the nature of the game from the noise it makes in the silence as it passes, while still invisible.’
‘And there was I thinking you were a faithful husband!’ I exclaimed, amused and somewhat astounded.
‘But I am,’ my friend replied, ‘and in a very physical sense. This is a different matter. A true huntsman never eats the game he kills. He doesn’t like game, neither partridge nor pheasant, nor hare, nor venison. I never sleep with the women I follow— or hunt, if you like. Hunting is a pleasure that’s all in the mind, a thrill in the nerves that is sufficient unto itself. All the pleasure is in what precedes it and what follows: getting up, equipping yourself, setting off, lying in wait, tracking down your quarry, forcing it to break cover, bringing it to bay; and then all the little incidentals: the tactics, the wait, the thrill, the uncertainty of the outcome, the brief moment your quarry comes within range, on which everything depends; then afterwards: satisfied pride, the exaggerated account, to others, of your exploits… Those are the secret joys of the hunt, no matter whether the quarry is a woman or game. The moment of the shot is nothing…’
‘Very witty,’ I told him, ‘but it seems to me to be nothing more t
han wit, an ingenious fantasy.’
‘It’s a reality. I do what I told you, I’d die of boredom just walking round the streets on my own if I hadn’t invented this sport. I do hunt. There’s all sorts of hunting stories I could tell! And the misadventures, the hazards of pursuit, the thrill of the little danger when you hunt the game down to its den! That’s happened to me more than once. Pursuing a woman can arouse you to a fever, you can’t stop… In such cases I entered the buildings where the women I was following perhaps lived, or hotels where I didn’t know whether they were staying as guests or whether, as willing accomplices, they were leading me. You need a flexible mind, subtle intuition, to be able to make immediate judgments and to act on them: follow now from a distance, now from close to, hurry up or slow down, smile or put on a languorous expression, adopt a sentimental or masterful air, pursue them onto the stairs or stand outside their windows. Some women are best approached in out-of-the-way streets, others in the throng on the boulevards, some should be led into an alleyway, others to a cab. That is the way I have been proceeding, with subtle variations—a thousand subterfuges. And that up to the point at which I was certain, up to the moment when the woman acquiesced: instant docility, agreement to a rendezvous or simply amiable high spirits, still a portent of ultimate success, each was enough to satisfy me. Immediately I gave up the game. That is, I slipped away from our conversation, did not keep the promise to see her again, avoided the consummation, whichever was the case and which, after all, are but the three stages of success. It was the guarantee that mattered to me, I was happy with that once it had been given. As I said before, a true huntsman does not eat the game he kills, nor am I interested in the women I have hunted down…’
My friend fell silent. He was looking into the distance, his grey eyes already fixed on something, as if a new prey had appeared. After what he had told me, I noticed for the first time how grey his clear eyes were, a steely grey, the grey of a gun barrel… At the same time his nostrils twitched, like a hunting dog scenting a trail. It seemed to me that what he had said was true, concentrated within him was the whole apparatus of the hunt. In the distance women were walking past with their bird-like charm, their dresses as he had described them, like the brightly coloured plumage of the pheasant—game there for the hunting!
However, I had found my friend’s story disturbing and was worried about him. What was this arousal with no goal, this mental debauchery? Concealing my unfavourable impression behind a smile, I still managed to express a little of my concern.
‘Be careful,’ I told him, ‘it’s a pleasure that could become dangerous. It’s a strange obsession, with a touch of sadism about it, perhaps.’
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I’m not the only one. The great capital cities are full of hunters like me. Sometimes, when I’ve been following a woman for a while, I realise that there are three or four of us walking behind or alongside her. It’s like a battue, a hunt where the prey are driven between several guns. Anyway, there are all sorts of hunts and widely differing tastes. And there are those who specialise. Some only like a certain type of woman, brunettes or blondes, slim ones, as slender as a sapling, or fat ones like a well-fleshed animal, there are those who only follow redheads, others young women who already have white hair. Women in mourning have their connoisseurs, in public parks where their black crepe goes well with the dead leaves. Some are only after widows—they are hunters who like to finish off game that has already be wounded. For here, too, there are different kinds of hunters. One who pursues young virgins corresponds to the huntsman who only enjoys hunting wild duck, one who persists in following severe beauties to a boar hunter.’
‘And how many actually get taken?’ I asked. ‘If there are so many hunters in the forests of the big cities, the weak female game must often succumb.’
‘Yes! They’ve done some statistics: among women who are accosted, one in four yields. A large proportion of those are women from the provinces and foreigners whose heads are turned by the fever of Paris: in a whirl and blind to everything around them, they easily fall. For the rest it depends on some trifle—a word, a moment, destiny, the man’s technique. It’s in that above all that the analogy with the huntsman is convincing. It’s the same with women as with game, you miss them as often as you get them.’
A Woman in the Jardin du Luxembourg
Crossing the Jardin du Luxembourg one day, Dronsart paused for a moment, carried away by the October splendour, by the old trees adorning the horizon with russet tapestries, by the sky above with palaces crumbling in a blaze of glory, glass staircases, a vast expanse of pink embers. Evening was approaching in crimson and grey, as majestic as the end of a reign. Dronsart felt himself succumbing to the nostalgia of autumn and of the gardens. He stopped by the basin into which the jet of water fell back incessantly—unstilled desire.
His mind, over-stimulated, formed other analogies. The colour of the leaves crackling under his feet evoked that of horns sounding in forests with red foliage. And because of the contrast of colours, his attention was all the more attracted by the woman in black amid the red-and-gold fresco of the old gardens which continued inside his head. Sober and sombre dress, without her being in mourning however.
It looked as if she had taken great care to cut out any bright colours. No gay ribbons, no jewellery. Not even a flower on her hat. It seemed impossible that it had not been done deliberately, so as to be dressed in accord with her thoughts. For she looked pensive, pale in the dark cloth, like a statue representing half-mourning beside a path. She was sitting on one of the stone benches, staring into the distance, at the trees, the sunset, even farther, somewhere beyond life… Dronsart immediately felt attracted, carried away by her weary air. Was her sadness due to some real sorrow, or was it just the bereavement of the moment?
There are nerves that feel pity, sensitive threads on which are strung all the tears of things… Dronsart had fixed a bold, but still tender gaze on the young woman. She turned her head away. He persisted, walked round the bench, finally made up his mind and went to sit down beside her. Seen from close to she was even more moving. The sky, the glass staircases, the pink embers were in her big eyes. Her mouth was a sinuous line, as if moulded from a fruit. Her shapely ear had the complex whorls of a seashell. Her copper hair epitomised the golden splendour of the autumnal gardens. And freckles here and there on her cheeks, the first dead leaves in flight… Very pale, with a delicate, white complexion which looked as if it were lit from within, like a candle burning inside a nightlight.
Dronsart, aroused, looked at her, surveying her slim hands with their criss-crossing veins, her slender waist with, rising above it, the swell of a bosom that was never at rest. It rose and fell like the water-spout before them, just as restless… Dronsart made contact with her eyes, held them, insistent. The eyes of the unknown woman acquiesced. For eyes can speak, can make themselves understood like lips. So Dronsart, pardoned in advance, was emboldened to speak to her. A tentative venture. Stammering. Words drawn out. Lips following behind when two hearts, linked by destiny, have already met and recognised each other! Dronsart spoke of the beautiful evening, of her big eyes, the loneliness of youth…
‘You feel sad as well?’ he asked the young woman.
‘Yes!’
‘Where are you going on this fine evening?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘You have no lover?’
‘Oh, don’t talk to me about love! Don’t even mention the word.’ She looked distraught.
‘So you’re going home to your parents, then?’
‘Please, don’t keep asking me these questions,’ she begged, looking even sadder.
Her eyes misted over, her unresting bosom heaved even faster. ‘I’m not going home anywhere,’ she went on. ‘I don’t know anyone any more. We can spend the evening together if you like. But no questions. You will talk, you will say nice, sad things, very gently. And you will not ask me anything about myself.’
‘Your name, just your na
me. I’d like to call you by your first name, so I need to know that. It’s strange! It feels as if we’d known each other for ages, for months and months.’
‘My name! I haven’t got one any more. I’d like to have a new name for you, a different name, one just for us, just between you and me. You give me a name, as if I had just been born.’
She paused for a moment, then corrected herself sadly, ‘As if I were being born again.’
At that moment two girls passed by, hitting a shuttlecock to each other as they walked along the avenue. One called out to the other, ‘Nel! Nel!’
‘Now that’s a pretty name,’ the unknown woman said. ‘Nel, presumably short for Nelly. I don’t know… Why not? You can call me Nel.’
Two years had passed since the first evening when Dronsart had taken the unknown woman, unresisting, to his small apartment. She had immediately felt at home, settled in, found a niche for herself.
The two years had slipped by. Dronsart still called her Nel. They often reminded each other of the twilight of the evening when they had first met, the splendid golden trees and the fountain rising and falling like her bosom—and the pretty name tossed towards them by the little girls, like a shuttlecock, with the rackets. Nel no longer looked sad. She smiled, laughed, though always with a touch of seriousness. She seemed happy. Dronsart was happy as well. Sometimes he asked himself how this affair, which had started as the whim of an evening and was already a long liaison, was going to end. No matter! At the moment he did not feel he had the strength to break the tie that had become dear to him; above all he lacked the strength to send this woman back into the world after she had left it like someone coming out of the sea—that first evening in the Jardin du Luxembourg she had certainly seemed like someone shipwrecked on the shores of life. But what shipwrecks had she suffered? During the two years he had been living with her, he had known nothing, learnt nothing, guessed nothing. Nel had remained impenetrable. When he did venture to ask her about her past again, she would implore him, ‘No! Please leave me alone!’
Hans Cadzand's Vocation & Other Stories Page 9