Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  'You don't think there's a bit too much? Lobster, then sweetbweads, then snipe followed by foie gwas. Isn't it a twifle on the heavy side? And later on, these two icy things, the mewingue and then the bombe.'

  'Adrien approved the menu, that's good enough for me. Anyway, as you probably don't know, at formal and official dinners one eats just a littel of each course. A few spoonfuls of soup, a mouthful of lobster and so on. That's the correct thing.'

  'Well, if Adwien's appwoved evewything, then it must be all wight.'

  'Everything, that is, except the foie gras, because that's also a surprise from me to him. I ordered it myself and I shall pay for it with my own money, and believe me it doesn't come cheap, but it is the best, they had foie gras a la Colmar at the Elysee Palace in Paris when they gave a dinner for the Shah of Persia. So, as you see, we've got excellent precedents on our side. We'll serve the caviare right at the start, it isn't on the printed menu because Adrien has only just decided to have it, but it can't be helped. The Under-Secretary-General will take good note just the same.'

  'And is it cowwect to put cigars on the menu?'

  'They cost seven francs each. Didi told me they're the best money can buy in Geneva.'

  'Fair enough. And what's this lobster something?'

  'Thermidor. It's not an English word, it's Greek, came in at the time of the French Revolution. I do hope you're not going to say Lobster Something in front of our guest.'

  'What's it made out of?'

  'It's a complicated recipe. It was served to His Majesty the King of England at the royal castle at Laeken. But look, I've far too much to do to be telling you what goes into all these dishes.'

  'Just one thing. How do you eat caviare?'

  'Just watch what our guest does, and me too of course. I haven't got time to go into it now.'

  'One vewy last thing. How shall we be seated wound the table?'

  From a drawer she solemnly produced five small cards.

  'It's another surprise for Didi. You see, when I was about it, I also ordered printed place cards with our names on them. In a while, when the table's set, I'll put them out according to precedency.' (She sucked on the word as though it were a chocolate, then gave one of her refined salival gurgles.)

  'But the one for that chap has just got "The Under-Secwetawy-Genewal" witten on it. Why is that?'

  'Because it's more correct that way.'

  'And where are we going to put him?'

  'In the place of honour.'

  'Which is?'

  'Always on the hostess's right. Anyone with manners knows that. (That salival gurgle again.) So he'll be on my right. You'll be on my left — that's the next place of honour. Ariane will sit next to him, since she's the wife. Always assuming, of course, that her ladyship decides to put in an appearance, and if she doesn't we'll be well rid. Adrien and I will see to the conversation. And Adrien will be next to you.'

  'I'm not fussy about having the second-best place of honour, you know. Because if I do have it, I'll be diwectly acwoss the table from this chap and that means I'll have to make an effort to talk to him. Put Adwien on your left. That way he can talk to his boss, he'll be opposite him.'

  'No, it's a matter of seniority, and the next-best place is yours by right, it's all settled, so we shan't mention the subject again. Well, there we are, I think that's you put fully in the picture.'

  'Listen, in that book of mine, it says that soup-plates ...'

  'Say potage.'

  'It says they mustn't be more than half full.'

  'I know, dear, I know,' said Madame Deume, making a mental note of this useful tip. 'And now, I'd like to be left alone,' she added demurely.

  He took this to mean that she wished to offer up a prayer, and left. Back in his den, he walked up and down reading his etiquette book. Suddenly, his face lost all its colour, for the manner recommended for eating asparagus in polite company was nightmarish. Absolutely petrifying. You had to pick the stuff up with a pair of tongs fitted with three rings into which you were supposed to insert the first three fingers of your hand! He went downstairs and listened outside the drawing-room door. Silence. She was undoubtedly still at her orisons. He decided to wait, and began pacing feverishly. He looked at his large pocket-watch every few seconds. When ten minutes were up he decided that she'd had plenty of time to say everything she wanted to say, and anyway God didn't need to have His ear bent quite so hard. Feeling none too sure of himself, he knocked on the drawing-room door and boldly poked his head round it. She was on her knees in front of the sofa and turned round with the startled air of a nymph surprised while bathing.

  'What is it?' She gave a soulful and slightly martyred sigh, but was still too close to God not to forgive this trespass against the serene intimacy of the moment.

  'Tewwibly sowwy to intewwupt, but listen, you've got to have tongs for the aspawagus!'

  Levering herself up by means of the sofa, she rose slowly to her feet, as though taking her regretful leave of a secret assignation. She turned and gave him a look still suffused with celestial bliss.

  'I know, dear,' she said with an air of sweet-tempered patience. 'When the van Meulebekes gave dinner parties, they were Belgian aristocracy, I was very close to them before I married, we always put out asparagus tongs. (Crooning inwardly, she looked back nostalgically to that brilliant time of her life, now long gone.) I bought a half-dozen the day before yesterday.'

  'You think of evewything, my sweet. There's just one thing, though: I won't know how to use the dwatted wossnames, tongs.'

  'Hippolyte, I do wish you'd perlease make an effort to speak properly.'

  'What I'm afwaid of with this business of putting your fingers thwoo the wings is that I'll panic and forget which fingers you're supposed to use.'

  'You can watch me and see how I do it,' she said, smiling radiantly like a saintly child of God who has resolved to be loving to all and sundry, come what may. 'And now, would you perlease mind letting me be? I still haven't finished,' she added, lowering her chastely adulterous eyes.

  He left on tiptoe. On the landing, he paused to think, patting down the drooping wings of his moustache to consolidate his straggling goatee. No, there was no getting away from it: he'd never be able to cope with those tongs. The thing to do was to get Martha alone for a moment and ask her to put his portion of asparagus to one side for tomorrow.

  'And tomowwow I guawantee. I'll have a good old feed: I'll scoff the lot with my fingers!'

  CHAPTER 17

  Responding to her strident summons, his mind in a whirl, he rushed " into the bedroom, where, arrayed once more in her bodice and striking a pose indicative of undeserved suffering, his wife was sniffing her smelling-salts.

  'Whatever is the matter, my sweet?'

  'I'll tell you what's the matter! That person you think the sun shines out of. . .'

  'Me? I think the sun shines out of a person?'

  'Yes, Lady Hoity-Toity! I've just been to see her! In a manner of speaking, that is, since she didn't even do me the courtesy of opening the door! She was playing the piano, naturally! I knocked politely, and do you know what she said? She said she couldn't open the door because she was in the nude! Her exact words! Can you imagine? Playing Chopin with no clothes on! Perhaps it's normal practice in Geneva among the aristocracy, going about naked at five o'clock in the afternoon! Yet I, Madame Antoinette Deume, nee Leerberghe, swallowed the indignity of talking through a door! I put up with it for Didi's sake, because you can take it from me if there wasn't that poor boy to be considered I simply wouldn't stand for it, I don't care if she is an Auble! So, very naicely, I said: (She spoke in an angelic voice.) "Will you be ready soon?" You know what I'm like, soft as can be and not one to forget my manners. Well, do you know what answer I got out of this . . . person you go round smirking at all the time who is supposed to be so very charming? (She surveyed herself in the wardrobe mirror.) She said, and these are her exact words:

  (Twisting her features into a horrible sco
wl and putting on a reedy voice.) "I don't feel very well. I don't know if I'll be able to come down to dinner this evening." And said it in a tone I couldn't possibly imitate, it's not in my nature. Lady Head-in-the-Air wasn't in it! And to think that there are Aubles who haven't got two pennies to rub together and, incidentally, won't have anything to do with her! Well, not Aubles exactly, cousins, but gentry for all that, at least so they say! Didn't I tell you the marriage would end in tears? All that money she makes him spend! Trips to the Riviera! The presents he buys her! When have I ever asked for presents? Mark my words, she'll be the ruin of him! Do you remember the business of the bathroom-just-for-her? When we bought the house, there were two bathrooms, ours on the first floor and another on the second for the newly-weds, and two was quite enough, thank you very much! But oh no, Madame wouldn't share with her husband, perhaps she finds the idea off-putting! Madame had to have her own bathroom! Acted up as if she was a princess! Separate bedrooms, separate bathrooms! The poor boy had to fork out four thousand three hundred and ninety francs for a third bathroom, which is what it came to in the end! When I think of all those poor people in India who live in the streets! Well? What do you think?'

  'It's like you say, dear. You'd have thought a bwace of washwooms should have been ample.'

  'Washroom is vulgar. Well-bred persons say bathroom, I've told you before, several times. It's a matter of being brought up properly, of background. But let's not go into that. And what about the expensive restaurants he takes her to? Have you nothing to say about that?'

  He swallowed, gave a little cough, and did what was required of him.

  'It's twoo that when you've got a home of your own you don't go eating out a lot in westauwants, there I'm absolutely with you.'

  'She's a fine one, I must say! What good has she ever done him, I ask? I mean, for all the social advantages he's got out of her! To think. that she's never introduced him to anybody, do you hear, not to anybody from her so-called upper-class circle! What do you make of that?'

  'I'd say!'

  'Express yourself properly. You'd what?'

  'I'd say what you said.'

  'Hippolyte, I'm sorry to have to say this but where this creature's concerned you're no comfort to me.'

  'But, poppet, I am a comfort.'

  'In that case, perlease say clearly what you think.'

  'Vewy well. I'm saying clearly that you are wight.'

  'Right about what?'

  'That the way she behaves is a pwetty state of affairs,' the wretched man said, wiping his forehead.

  'Well, it took you long enough! That poor boy let himself be talked into it! That's what comes of us not being there when he took up with her. Because you can take it from me, if I'd been there they'd never have got married in the first place! I'd have made the scales drop from his eyes in no time at all and he'd never have fallen into the trap!'

  'I quite agwee,' said Monsieur Deume, and he promised himself that the very next day he would buy his daughter-in-law a present, an elegant ivory paper-knife, and slip it to her on the q.t.

  'And what do you make of this business of not wanting to come down to dinner this evening?'

  'I suppose if she's not feeling well. ..'

  'If she wasn't feeling well, she wouldn't be playing Chopin in the nude! There you go again, always taking her side!'

  'On the contwawy, dear . . .'

  'I only hope that you'll think it's all right the day I start playing Chopin with no clothes on!'

  'But I didn't say it was all wight.'

  'Of course, I'm not an Auble! Oh no, I merely come from a family which was ever a stranger to scandal! Oh yes, I know a thing or two! (She sniffed hungrily at her smelling-salts and gave him a withering look.) One of those Auble girls got up to all sorts, and not so very long ago at that! I won't say what, I wouldn't dirty my mouth! ("And what about your sister and that chemist?" Monsieur Deume thought bravely to himself.) Anyway, she's not ill at all. She's only doing it to annoy us, to show that an Auble is not impressed by the fact that we've got an eminent visitor coming.'

  'Who earns seventy thousand in gold-equivalent a year,' said Monsieur Deume, eager to say the right thing.

  'That's beside the point. He is an eminent man. He'd still be eminent even if he wasn't earning a penny.'

  'Natuwally,' nodded Monsieur Deume in agreement. 'Look, I'll go and have a word with Awiane myself

  'That's right, run along and butter her up! I forbid it, do you hear! Never shall it be said that Monsieur Hippolyte Deume went down on bended knee and pleaded with a little snob who has one black ewe already in her family and . . .but never you mind, I know what I'm talking about! If she doesn't come down to dinner, we'll have to do without her, that's all! Thank heavens Didi'll be there to help out with the small talk.'

  'And you'll be there too, poppet. There's nobody better at small talk than you,' said the cringing coward. 'You've got this gift for knowing the wight things to say. You could charm the birds out of the twees.'

  She gave a delicate sigh, assumed her expression of refined melancholia, and put down the smelling-bottle.

  'Right then, we won't give her another thought. She's not worth it. Come here and let me fix your tie, it's all crooked.'

  'Tell me, why have you taken off your best fwock? You looked so pwetty in it.'

  'I noticed it was creased at the back. Martha's ironing it for me now.'

  Hearing a ring at the front door, she hastily donned a kimono which featured dragons spitting fire, and ran to the top of the stairs. Holding on to the banister rail with hands whose warts showed up like metal bolts, she leaned over and asked who it was. The maid, her hair dishevelled, visibly perspiring and wide-eyed, paused on the next-to-bottom step and said it was ' 'im about the dinner'. At that moment the alarm went off and Madame Deume remembered.

  'You mean the butler?'

  'Yes, mum.'

  'Tell him to wait. Oh, and Martha,' she added in a whisper, 'don't forget what I told you. Don't let him out of your sight, do you hear?'

  After a brief visit, for petits besoins to what she called the buen retiro, she went downstairs just as the half-hour was striking by the Neu-chatel clock, one of the most prized possessions of Monsieur Deume, who took enormous pride from the fact, so the story went, that Napoleon had once checked the time by it when on his way through Switzerland. Highly conscious of her superior social position, she swept into the kitchen as majestically as a battleship. The instant she set eyes on the butler, a stubble-cheeked man of fifty who was taking his tailcoat out of a cheap suitcase, she knew him for an enemy and made up her mind to bring him to heel there and then.

  'Dinner must be served at eight. Our guest will be arriving at seven thirty. He is Under-Secretary-General at the League of Nations. When you open the door, you will show him all the deference due to a person of his rank. (The butler stood impassively and she detected a certain slyness in his manner. To put him in his place and show him just who he was dealing with, she handed him one of the menus. When he'd read it, he put it down on the kitchen table without a word, his face as expressionless as before. How insolent could you get! He could whistle for a tip!) Except for the caviare, which is not marked on the menu and has been ordered separately, everything will be brought at six by Rossi the caterers, they're very reputable.'

  'I am acquainted with the establishment, Modom.'

  'All the last-minute reheating will be seen to by the man from Rossi's. So all you have to do is serve.'

  'Quite, Modom. That is what I am paid to do.'

  'You can begin setting the table now. A formal arrangement, of course. We shall be five to dinner, including the Under-Secretary-General. I've given the dining-room key to the maid, who will assist you. Serviettes set out in the usual way, like fans.'

  'I beg your pardon, Modom?'

  'I said the serviettes are to be folded in the shape of fans, as they always are when we entertain.'

  'Folded like fans? Very well, Modom. But I would po
int out to Modom that the fan arrangement has not been favoured for some considerable time past. For luncheon, the napkin is folded once and laid on the plate. At dinner, also folded once and containing the roll, it is placed on the bread-plate to the left of the plate for the soup, which is laid in advance. At least, such was the practice obtaining at the residence of His Royal Highness the Prince Duke of Nemours, whom I had the honour of serving for ten years. But, if Modom insists, I am able to fold napkins into a variety of fancy shapes, fans, sunshades, wallets, bicycle wheels, swans and even, if required, cows. As Modom wishes. I am entirely at Modom's disposal.'

  'Pooh! I don't attach any great importance to such trifles, myself,' said Madame Deume, purple in the face. 'Do whatever you wish. It's hardly worth bothering about.'

  Her teeth well to the fore, she made an exit clothed in the pomp and majesty of She-Who-Owns-the-Place, corseted by dignity and head held high, and as she went she gave three little swishes with one hand over her hindquarters, a gesture which might have been a caress but was probably an automatic precaution designed to reassure herself that she had made herself decent and that her kimono had not remained hitched up behind in the wake of her sojourn in the room which her husband called variously 'the little nook' or 'the place where kings don't go on horseback'.

  'Her menu's rubbish,' the butler said to Martha. 'I never saw anything like it. Bisque and then lobster, and apparently caviare as well! And sweetbreads and snipe and foie gras! They've shoved in every old thing any old how. You can tell at a glance that they don't know the first thing about the proper drill. A dinner must be carefully put together, it's got to be thought out proper. And fancy, a printed menu at a dinner for five! It's a hoot! And to cap it all they fetch me along here at half past five for a dinner that don't start till eight! Oh dearie me, the things you do see!'

  His attention was caught by a framed notice hanging over the sink. He put on his glasses and peered at a small work of literature, handsomely copied out in Monsieur Deume's best hand, which, on instructions given by Madame, the maid was required to read each morning: