by Albert Cohen
Over her head, a cloud. If rain tonight, they wouldn't be able to stroll through the garden hand in hand. Almighty God, I've been so looking forward to it, please make it fine tonight. What I want is the floor of heaven to be thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. Tonight, offer him tea, avoid strong drink, too depraved, make it tea, like you'd give a brother just back from his travels, a very-good-quality Ceylon with white tips. No, that cloud up there like a pink-and-white baby isn't going to amount to anything. Little cloud, be good, don't get any bigger. Please, pretty please.
A goddess reared up before her in the glass of a jeweller's window. She admired the fullness of the lower lip and the warm intelligence of the mouth, the corners of the mouth so thoughtfully modulated, the gilded cheeks glowing as it were with an inner translucence, the dark-gold mole on her cheek, the flaring nostrils thirsting for life and investing the chaste expression of the whole face with a secret irony. 'Hail, Ariane full of grace, the Lord is with you,' she murmured.
When the lake hove into view, she gave it a nod of greeting. Oh the warmth when he slept by her side! The terrace of a cafe: a crowd of stupid men who did not love and were reading newspapers, a shoal of ditto women who were not loved and to make up for it were ingesting huge chocolate ices smothered in large quantities of whipped cream. O God, what was the point of that fat old woman with the flat-faced pekinese? Get thee to a cemetery!
Three o'clock already. In six hours she would see him. Off home with you spit-spot and start getting ready, get tremendously ready so that he shall be presented with the most beautiful woman on this earth. A week from today, next Saturday, Wispy-Beard would be back. She shook her head, like a mare troubled by a horsefly. She'd deal with that later on, for today was a day of consecration. The crack of a whip made her start, for she felt responsible for the fate of all horses. She turned and checked. No, he hadn't been maltreated, and besides he looked well cared for and wasn't wearing blinkers either, always a good sign.
Quai Gustave-Ador. She hurried along the shore of the blue and pink lake, naked under her fluttering dress, which flared now and then like wings beating in the draught of her breezy progress. A couple of road-menders stopped digging to stare at the tall girl with the parted lips who bore down on them. She paid them no attention, her high breasts falling and rising to the rhythm of her abundant, easy step. 'Well slung,' one of the road-menders said. She smiled, and walked a little faster.
Chemin de la Côte. Little flowers lit up the grass. She walked on, finding everything quite delectable. Switzerland was a wonderful place, and those three cows over there, perhaps they were sisters, were extraordinarily delightful. 'You pretties,' she said. 'Tonight!' she proclaimed to the proud poplars and the poppies in the breeze-waved cornfields. When she got home she'd burn her arm with a cigarette-end for a proof. See, my love, how I've suffered for your sake? Hurry, hurry!
Love's march of triumph, the exhilarating stride of the huntress. It was quite simple, wonderful and clear: she would see him tonight. And in her mind she raised her sword in greeting archangelical, and her gratitude flew up into the firmament like a skein of turtle-doves. Tonight! Tonight: she would see his eyes and his impetuousness and his way of turning suddenly to drink deep of her with hot eyes, and she would be defenceless and would melt. Tonight! Tonight: take him by the hand, enclose his heart-meltingly slender wrist, then she snug against him and their lips and her breasts and she naked and looked at. Oh the wonder of being looked at and found beautiful.
Love's march of triumph. Tonight! Oh the consecration and the hallowed weight upon her, and his precious face leaning over her, and the interludes when lips renewed their contact and at long last her joy, her moans. His woman, she was his wife and she worshipped him, his wife, his nun of love, his vassal and his vessel, fulfilled by the oblation of her depth, by the knowledge of him in her, happy in her who was doe-eyed with the happiness of knowing that he was in her, the cloistered nun of her lord. Yes, she was in love, at last she was in love. On the ice floe a wild rose had bloomed.
*
Love's march of triumph. She walked on quickly, opulent and serene, puissant and no less happy than the Queen of Sheba. Tonight! Oh make shift to please him, listen to his voice, and suddenly he would say nothing and she would be filled with fear because his face would be stone, but afterwards he would smile and she would swoon with rapture as she beheld such enchantment, which soared above and beyond his beauty. His smile, his teeth, oh best of the sons of man! And a little cruel too sometimes, though there was no harm in that. 'You will be my love always,' she told him. 'Death? What's death?' she exclaimed.
Love's march of triumph. Those bushes there made her heart sing, as did that police station, and this cow which was licking its calf as though plying a trowel. This copse stirred her senses, and that glen looked friendly, and all creation sent her into raptures, but especially did she enrapture herself. 'I am wonderful,' she said, and she walked on still faster.
Love's march of triumph. Yes, wonderful, because he had chosen her above all other women, chosen her at the first flutter of her long curved lashes, while he was the handsomest, the craziest, oh wonder of him dressed up as an aged relic, the most desperate, oh the words he had spoken that night at the Ritz, arrows of bitter truth, yet the most loving, the saddest, oh his eyes, the gayest, oh his lips, the proudest, the tenderest, the loneliest, a king without a people.
Love's march of triumph. Wonderful? Most certainly. Was this not conceit? Why not, it was a day for conceit. Only ugly women are modest. That's it, yell at the first woman she met. Yell: my teeth are perfect! Yell: I dare you to show yours! Yell: I dare you to point out the man you love, that is if you dare to without feeling ashamed! A raucous rooster clamoured in the distance and she halted, wondered if chickens ever sneezed, laughed because she was in love, and went on her way.
Love's march of triumph. In this hour when the sun shone bright and hot, she went on her way victorious, lips parted, smiling like a statue, and her divers claims to superiority came to her in bursts and warbles. What were all those other women good for? For plucking their eyebrows and shaving their legs. For wearing brassières with bones to hide their shame. For having their teeth filled, for burbling on about their yearnings, for varnishing their nails with horrible red for the benefit of horrible men, for reading a novel so they could talk about it and pretend to be cultured. Anyway, more often than not they just read the reviews, which they trotted out in drawing-rooms. And did ever woman receive such a telegram? Oh her darling who could not live without her and languished with waiting? 'And I too languish!' she told him. She quickened her step again, hands stretched wide to gather the wind, and she shrieked in a panic of happiness. 'My darling!' she shouted silently, for no one's benefit but her own.
The triumphal march of the tall nymph, striding long, confident of tonight, proud of her enslavement. Suddenly she stopped, struck by wonder. She was a woman who belonged to a man, his property. Oh the wonder of being the woman of a man, the prey of a man, a man's frail chattel. 'Thank you, God,' she said. She paused by a tree, stripped away the resin which oozed from the trunk, smelled its virile tang, the tang of life, held it for a moment between her lips before discarding it, smiled enigmatically, and then went out into the colossal sun, perspiring and happy. Life, this at last was life!
Love's march of triumph, the long march of Ariane now like unto a goddess as she skirted cornfields which waved in the hot wind. Out of a dip in the road, three honey-tressed virgins appeared, three little Swiss farm-girls who walked as bold and nervous as wagtails and broke into unexpected snatches of song with miraculous, instinctive assurance. But when they passed her they fell silent because she exuded the majesty of bliss, fell silent and nodded to the rippling gold and tan goddess, who smiled and sailed on. 'Tonight!' she proclaimed a little further along to a fifth cow, which was unable to grasp this startling intelligence and continued grazing. 'Stupid cow!' she told it, and, head held high, went on her way.
&nbs
p; A march of triumph, stepping out by the side of a lord taller than she.
Grave-faced and halo-haired, drunk with health, intoxicated by so glorious a day, sun-kissed and bursting with all the hormones of youth, her hand in the hand of her lord, she walked on, striding long, beloved of her lord, her dress flapping and flaring in two beating wings. The snap of her dress as she walked was the flap of a windjammer bearing down on a fantastic island, and love was the wind which filled her sails. The snap-and-flap of her dress was exhilarating, the wind on her face was exhilarating, the wind on her face and her head held high.
Love's march of triumph. On she walked, proud, absurd, inspired. Ideas teemed in the recesses of her brain, thrilling ideas which, fanned by her heart's blood, spread like a peacock's tail, thoughts which would have been quite exquisite had she a mind to see them. But she had no time. She was going to make herself beautiful, was going towards the man she loved, proud and trusting, and in her wake followed melodies as golden as she who was their big sister, airs which were happy, absolutely carefree and as pure as springtime, Oh the white flowers dancing in the tall grass, such loving harmonies, so certain of the power of their spell, so serene and full of grace.
Love's march of triumph. Regally did she go, transformed by love as were in olden times her sisters of yore who now countlessly sleep the sleep of the earth, walking ever on, immortal in her progress, governed in her progress like the stars in their motions, legions launched by love on perennial trajectories, solemn Ariane, barely smiling, walking to an accompaniment of such celestial music, love, sweet love in love's beginning.
CHAPTER 68
Prone in the grass of the lawn, she reread the telegram while the little birds who lived in the cherry-tree exchanged friendly greetings, like schoolchildren at playtime, and a blackbird on the roof whistled because the country was a pleasanter place than the city, and a sparrow puffed its feathers and took a dust-bath just in front of her, its wings aquiver. 'He'll be here tonight at nine,' she announced to the quivering puff-ball, which greeted the news with indifference. So thoughtful to have remembered, the minute he had got back to Paris, to confirm that he would be coming, in spite of being so terribly busy. Such important missions, and secret too, most probably. 'He is a Very Important Person,' she explained to the sparrow, which had straightened up, pleased to be clean, and was looking at her with interest, leaning its head prettily to the right, wondering what to make of her.
'You are my lord. I proclaim it with trumpets.'
Revelling in the sacrilege and because she was happy, she repeated her oath of vassality in accents severally English, Italian and Burgun-dian, and then in the quavery voice of an old lady in an advanced stage of senility. She yawned, lit a cigarette with her last sulphur match. Terrific these French matches, you could strike them on anything, even the sole of your shoe like the men of the mountains did, and when you'd lit one the fumes went up your nose, very enjoyable. Next time she went to Annemasse she'd buy a dozen boxes.
No, don't smoke, don't want to be reeking of tobacco tonight at nine, when . . . She tossed the cigarette away, made up a story to herself that she was a cow, and mooed to prove it. On reflection, she decided she wasn't a cow at all but the friend of a black and white cow which was very sweet, clean and well-brought-up, followed her everywhere, and was called Flora. 'Come on, moo-cow, sit down by me and chew your cud nicely.' She patted her knee, which she pretended was the head of her moo-friend, noted the absence of horns, and explained to herself that it was a very young cow. 'I say, Flora, he's coming tonight.' She yawned again and chewed a blade of grass. Oh damn the cow, which couldn't sit still and had wandered off to graze. 'Flora! Will you come here at once! Come here, and if you're good I'll take you to the botanical gardens tomorrow, I'll show you flowers from the mountains, it'll be an education.'
To make it sit still, she sang it a Mozart aria in Italian, asked if it understood Italian, seeing that it hailed from Savoy. 'No,' said the cow. So then she explained what 'Voi che sapete che cosa è amor' meant: 'You who know what love is'. 'And do you know what love is? No? Poor cow. That's because you're just a poor cow. But I know. And now push off, I don't want to see you any more. I'm going to start getting ready.'
In her small sitting-room, she knotted the crested tie he had given her round her neck, gave a military salute in the mirror, then played at twirling round and suddenly sinking to her knees to make her ducky dress balloon up around her. Then she went into the kitchen to see if there was any chocolate left. There was just one bar. Back in her sitting-room, she decided to make it last a long time by letting it melt in her mouth, forgot what she had decided, and polished it off inside two minutes. 'Never mind,' she chanted in a singsong voice, and then she stretched out on the sofa, for a preview of what was to come tonight. Four thirty. He'll show up at nine, that is four and a half hours from now. Two hundred and seventy minutes, two hundred and seventy little waits. The answer would be to get ready in a very meticulous sort of way so that the two hundred and seventy minutes would be just long enough. Yes, draw up plan of action, allotting so many minutes for each stage of the titivations. Bath and get dried. Shampoo hair and dry with the hot-air thingummy. Face-pack with the new formula as given in that stupid woman's weekly. Pop in and check this and that in the sitting-room and hall. Try on dresses, compare, give serious thought, eliminate progressively, and make final choice, allowing ample time for the whole operation. Out of all of Volkmaar's dresses which had just been delivered, there were at least several possibles. Allow for extra bath, possibly. Sundry other preparations to include time-wasting, sessions in front of mirror, practice runs in the smiles and expressions department, final touches to hair, bursts of song, pauses to make happy faces, unforeseen eventualities and disasters.
When she'd finished scribbling her plan of action on the back of the telegram, she totted it all up and found a preparation time of two hundred and thirty minutes. What time was it now? Twenty-five to five. Which meant he wouldn't get here for another two hundred and sixty-five minutes. Which meant a balance of thirty-five minutes of doing nothing. Which meant thirty-five minutes of waiting proper, since she'd be fully occupied the rest of the time. A wait of thirty-five minutes wasn't too long, she'd managed the thing rather well. Damn! She still hadn't opened the letters from the awful lawful. Best read the last one at least. You never knew.
His long letter was addressed from the Chateau van Offel, Brussels, and was dated Wednesday 22 August. She ran her eyes over it, skipping whole passages, singling out the odd sentence or two here and there.
'My sweetest darling Arianny,
'Been in Brussels a couple of hours and am settled in the luxury guest room which Monsieur and Madame van Offel have been kind enough to make available to me where I've just sat down to write this letter on a genuine Empire table.' Skip the next bit. 'So here I am, almost at the end of my diplomatic travels. And to think that only yesterday I was in Jerusalem! With aeroplanes, distance doesn't mean a thing any more.' How true, but let's move on. 'Darling, thanks for the loving telegram which reached me in Jerusalem. I must say, though, I would have rather had a nice long letter giving details of what you do each day, but I know how much my Arianny hates writing.' Too right. And on we go. 'In earlier letters I gave you all the relevant gen about my four weeks in Palestine as I went along. All I need do now is to bring you up to date about these last few days, because I've been much too taken-up by my all-absorbing official duties to pen the thrice-weekly missive as promised, for which I duly weep and wail and gnash my teeth. But on second thoughts I won't give you an update now, because these past few days have been the high point of my trip and have brought me two tremendous accolades in Palestine, the first being a wide-ranging review of the situation with His Excellency the High Commissioner himself, and the second an invitation to lunch at His Excellency's palace. It grieves me not to tell you all about it all here and now, because I really was highly honoured, but I do so want us to discuss and enjoy it together. And i
f I put my accolades down on paper it'll spoil the effect. Besides, you can't write down all the little details which build up the atmosphere. So the story of the two accolades will have to keep until we see each other! And now I turn to the last and most delicate part of my visit, our major concern being not to ruffle the legitimate susceptibilities of governments.' We can skip all that. 'I hope you haven't found the foregoing too dull, but whom can I tell about my struggles and my hopes if not my wife and companion through life?' Poor Didi, but on we go. 'You are my dearest wife, and I have missed you so! It's been sheer hell for me to be on the receiving end of so much flattering official attention without having you by my side to enjoy it with me. And I expect you've been in the dumps all these weeks, my little deserted wife.' Skip and skip. 'I enclose a photo taken in London, in the hope that a picture of me will be a foretaste of the real thing. The young man with me is Baron de Baer, First Secretary in the Belgian Legation, I had lunch at his house, a very nice chap.' Blah-blah. 'And so, my little geisha, for the above reasons, job oblige but also because I'm stuck with social and family obligations, I'm unfortunately going to have to stay on in- Brussels for another ten days, until Friday 31 August inclusive. So I'll have to wait until Saturday 1 September for the joy of seeing my Arianny again, whom I so much look forward to telling about everything I've achieved, because honestly, modesty apart, I shall return very much the conquering hero!' Blah-blah-blah. 'Darling, just keep telling yourself that the separation is almost over and that very soon now we'll know the bliss of seeing each other once more. Until that marvellous moment comes, I'll hold you tight to my manly bosom.'