Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  'Why is everyone so interested by all this talk of love?' yawned Mattathias. 'I'd much rather hear about an end-of-year financial statement which showed a healthy profit.'

  'Why are we so interested?' said Michael aggressively. 'Can you not conceive, O unfledged egg, you son of a lily-spermed father, have you no conception of what delights await them on this hot and sultry night? Do you not comprehend, O mule-brain, that inflamed by the dance they will repair to the hotel wherein dwells Wealth, there to spend pleasuresome hours together, she as naked as the day she was born, stretched out upon a couch of silk, her eyes lozenged with blue mascara and her bosom as white as the snow that sits on a branch, spiced and aromatic and mettlesomely displaying her quadruple globu-larities on which a man may founder, ripely primed upon her gold-fringed sheet, and then the lord . ..'

  'Don't go on!' pleaded Solomon.

  'And then, having matched moist kiss with moist kiss and gambol with gambol, the lord will also lie down upon the bed, with no fig-leaf other than his hands, and then she, amply and illustriously proportioned, reaching the limits of her jubilance and burning with an itch, will laughingly reach out and remove the fig-hands of the favoured of her soul to inspect and savour the opulence of the male, savour his treasure with a smile of wonder all over her fair face! (Outraged, Solomon dropped into a fighting crouch, flailed with his little fists to limber up, then began pummelling at the ribs of the janissary, who, without losing his good humour and serenely unaware of the blows raining on his sides, let him get on with it and calmly continued.) And she will approve and will think well of him for being more abundantly equipped in a certain department than the husband she deceives, and she will unfurl her soul! (Giving up the unequal struggle, Solomon stopped punching and stuck his head into the hayrick.) For never forget, that certain department is a woman's life entire, her goal both by day and by night! And doubtless it is a department in which her husband does not please her, and therein lies the secret of her melancholy moods, her ill-temper, marital discord, contempt and ultimately divorce, for God made some as I am, but others made He puny and woebegone and like unto wax which grows more flaccid the more it is handled! (Appalled and not knowing where to put himself, Solomon half buried himself in the hay.) Yes, she will unfurl when she sees such mettle and such power, she will clap her hands, and she will know the lunging, plunging, puncturing force of his mettle, its ingress and its egress and its instantly rejoined congress, and then shall they enter the lists where man and woman do hard and lengthy battle, and she will be tender and acquiescent, with a rhythm in her loins, reaching out with her man-questing loins, and he shall find delight in his bucking, perspiring mount, and both shall call a truce to partake of good food and better wine and then will resume their lovely war and their indefatigable toings and their untiring froings, and the despairing retreats and ecstatic advances will continue until the time of dawn and the time of blood which is the sign, as the cognoscenti will know, that even the strongest man can go on no longer!'

  'Say on, Michael!' cried Naileater, 'for your subject gives wings to your tongue and verily it confers upon you a way with words of which I did not believe you capable. I shall listen to you with the ears of respect.'

  'No! Make the black-faced blackguard hold his tongue!' cried Solomon.

  'What more shall I say, Naileater old friend,' said Michael, 'except that the lord will do right to make her earth move and roughly use her during their night of love divine? For in this mortal life there is no other truth but bareback riding. All else is tinsel and taradiddle. For a man's life lasts no longer than the blink of an eye and is followed by everlasting putrefaction, and with each day that passes you take one more step towards the hole in the ground in which you will moulder numb and mute with no company save that of the same fat white worms as dwell in flour and cheese, and they will slowly, surely creep into all your orifices, there to feed. And so, my friends," I ride boldly each night of my life insofar as it is given to me so to do, that I may die at peace having discharged my duty as a man, for, mark my words, it is what women expect of us, it is the sole object of their brief lives and the only thought in their heads. Above all, it is the will of God that we should serve and satisfy them, and it was for this purpose that He made and created us. And if He put in us the hunger for meat, the thirst for wine and the need for sleep, it was so that this meat, this wine and this sleep should be distilled into dense seed which we must needs bestow on the poor females who await its coming! For my own part, dear lords and cousins, having no plans for rogering this night and consequently failing in my duty and my obligation, I feel presently oppressed by a great sadness, this I tell you candidly, for who knows how many beautiful women desire the approach of the male on this hot and sultry night? But where are they to be found?'

  'Though pleasant in form, your utterance calls forth my profound-est strictures in the matter of content,' said Naileater, 'except for the passage concerning everlasting putrefaction, which was apposite, true, legitimate, based on sound argument and most agreeable.'

  'Yes, my liegemen,' said Michael, 'all women desire night-riding, hard, clean and protracted! Even royal princesses desire it!'

  'That's a lie,' cried Solomon from the middle of his hayrick. 'They are pure!'

  'They've all got behinds!' retorted Michael.

  'And the appurtenances thereto pertaining!' sniggered Naileater.

  'That's a foul slander!' cried Solomon. 'Shame on you both, you blackguards! May your eyes lose their sight!'

  'Hear me, O little one,' said Michael, 'and listen well, for I shall now tell you what a king does to his queen as he turns her this way and that!'

  'Get thee behind me, Satan!' cried Solomon, emerging from the hayrick and stamping his foot. 'Behold, the worm turns! For I am tired of being the universal butt of all! This morning it was the flying-machine! This afternoon, in the hotel, Naileater took great pleasure in telling me about all the diseases which may some day visit my body, top, bottom and middle, plus all the operations that surgeons may perhaps perform on me and how in the end I shall die and how my face will be twisted by agony just before I do! It's not fair, for I am always nice to everybody! And now it's even worse, for this blackguard Michael speaks ignobly of unclean things, from which God preserve! What did I ever do that you should use me so cruelly? Listen to me Michael, O blackguard, O black of face, O man unworthy to belong to our saintly nation, O dishonour of Israel, hear me! If you persist in your unseemliness, I shall flee into the night and the heart of darkness where brigands hide behind trees and no matter if I am murdered, for I refuse to stay and listen to your vileness! I say long live virtue and morality and the chasteness of wives! So just put that in your pipe and smoke it! Moreover, I shall tell Uncle Saltiel everything, and he will make you know your shame and will even lay his curse upon your head! And quite right too! And make no mistake, his curse is efficacious, for he is a man of great saintliness, a true Jew, while you are a Muslim, and that's a fact! And if you should ever dare to set foot inside our synagogue I shall drive you out with whips!'

  'O little man,' said Michael, and plucking a stem of grass he began to chew it while he smiled at old memories. 'O man of virtue,' he went on, 'since you protest so warmly, pray tell me how it is that you have children and by what miracle they came to be in the belly of your wife!'

  'We used always to put the lights out,' said Solomon, blushing, eyes downcast. 'Besides, did not the Almighty, whose name be praised, enjoin us to go forth and multiply? So we have no choice. And anyway, it's perfectly respectable. That is what marriage is for.'

  After a long silence punctuated by yawns, for the hour was late, Naileater declared that, since they had nothing further of interest to discuss or eat, he would take a nap for the sake of his lungs until such time as the heatheness should put in an appearance.

  Stretched out in the grass, with his top-hat on his large feet to protect them against vipers, he fell into a sleep in which he was garlanded with roses by the Queen o
f England, who whispered in his ear and suggested that he should succeed her husband, who was just then strolling in the garden and whose head was suddenly crowned by a flowerpot which had fallen from the central balcony of Buckingham Palace.

  CHAPTER 76

  'That's all very well,' said Mattathias, 'but it's now ten past midnight and the shameless jade and daughter of Belial, chiefest of all the demons, has not come, and still the conveyance of ruination stands yonder, horrendously waiting. The last time I looked, the pocket-emptying counter had already clocked up forty-two Helvetic francs. The woman ought to be stoned. In sooth, a heartless creature. Forty-two gold francs of eighteen carats apiece! That's more than eight thalers!'

  'No matter, for the lord has furnished me with a well-stocked purse,' said Michael.

  'When I see money spent, I feel ill,' said Mattathias, 'even if it's somebody else's money.'

  'I do believe that what reconciles our Mattathias to the thought of dying is that when he's dead he won't have to pay any more taxes,' said Naileater. 'Moreover, I know why he never keeps spices in his house: it's because if he suddenly succumbed in the dread arms of the angel of death there would be some salt or pepper left, and that would be a waste, money down the drain! By the by, Michael, what is my role in this affair, and why was I not given authority to parley with the heatheness?'

  'It is none of my doing if the lord preferred to enlist the support of a fine figure of a man, one who is a connoisseur of oglements.'

  'But what do I stand to gain from a business which may possibly cost me my honour?'

  'The lord will surely give you thousands.'

  'In that case, count me in, lost honour and all,' said Naileater. 'Anyway, what is a sense of honour if not the despicable fear of what people might say, a truth which makes the tragedies of Corneille look pretty damned silly! But if there are bags to be carried, I shall not carry them. It would demean my standing as a man of intellect.'

  He yawned, cracked the knuckles of both hands, and wondered if it was worth digging a trench so as to give the husband a run for his money if he decided to attack. But his optimism was restored by the discovery of a remnant of nougat, and he began chanting a psalm in his resonant voice, beating time with his large bare feet.

  'All the same,' said Solomon, rubbing his nose, 'all the same, it's not right. If she were just some slip of a girl and there was marrying business in the air, then even if the parents were against it I'd say aye! But she's already married!'

  'Furthermore,' said Mattathias, 'if she were to come into money from some old aunt, he wouldn't stand to gain a penny, since in the eyes of the law they wouldn't be married!'

  'You could let me handle the case,' said Naileater.

  'What? And see all the money vanish into your pocket!' said Michael.

  Naileater gave a smug leer and roguishly made corkscrews in his beard with his finger. Yes, perhaps he might well make the money vanish into his pocket, and why not? All the best lawyers did it, for God's sake! But then he grew bored, stared at his veined and hairy hands, and yawned gloomily. What was he doing here playing second fiddle in these green pastures reserved for the use of the lowly, grazing beasts of the field?

  'The ideal solution,' said Solomon, 'would be if the lord were to run away instead with the husband, on the best of terms, like friends, go touring, and the two of them could enjoy themselves, spend their time together in honest pursuits, that's what I say, speaking as a good Jew. Who needs women?' he added, with scant thought for the logic of his train of thought.

  'Sometimes you say quite sensible things, O sprout of the bean,' said Naileater. 'My friends, what would you say if we could earn ourselves a sackful of moral credit by redirecting this young woman's feet into the paths of virtue? This we would do by dangling a choice plum in front of her.'

  'Has your brain curdled?' said Solomon indignantly. 'You're not suggesting that she'd ever give up her heart's delight for a plum! You can't seriously believe that to a handsome lord she would prefer a ripe victoria or a juicy greengage?'

  'A figure of speech,' said Naileater with all the weariness of the man of superior intellect.

  'For my own part,' said Mattathias, 'I say categorically that to make her forget Saltiel's nephew we'd need to get her interested in some good, solid commercial or preferably banking proposition, brokered through New York.'

  'That's just what I was going to say!' exclaimed Naileater. 'O Mattathias, O you of the red hair, you have taken the idea out of my mouth, where it lay basking in my saliva! A commercial proposition was exactly the kind of plum I had in mind, I swear! No, I won't swear, because it's God's truth! O companions in affection and in the length and breadth of time, this is what we shall do, so listen carefully! The instant we see the hussy coming, undulating, anointed with oils of cinnamon and holding her little finger in the air, we shall speak words of censure and make her feel shame for her sinful undulations! And when I have struck her with my prophetic fire I shall stroke my beard and put on my satanic but genial smile, and I shall give a little bow, assume a paternal tone of voice, with just a hint of an English accent to give her confidence, and propose the setting-up of a limited company for the purpose of founding a newspaper carrying advertisements costing one sou per line which we should sell for five francs per issue because the advertisements in it will be so riveting! Naturally the capital will be hers and the idea mine, so fifty per cent of the profits will be for me, twenty for you and thirty for her and her husband! To my sense it's a much more agreeable prospect than reciting poems at her lover-man under three palm-trees in Nice! Now that's my idea of living! And let's have an end to all those obnoxious embracings in tierce with grapple and follow-through!'

  'It's not a bad idea at all,' said Mattathias, stroking his ginger goatee with his harpoon. 'And I do believe, Naileater, that she'd be even more interested if the paper were to charge an extra ten per cent every time an advertisement produced a positive result.'

  Sitting on the grass, rinsed blue by the moon, Mattathias and Naileater argued at length before compromising on a figure of five per cent. Then it was settled, declared Naileater. As soon as the heatheness arrived, he would stand up, put the proposition to her with full panoply of moral argumentation, and would surely win her over! So it would all turn out well, and, instead of foolishly running away after love, she would join forces with the Valiant and her husband, and even, if she insisted, with lord Solal, and start up a profitable newspaper business with telephone and headed stationery, and that would put a stop to all this preposterous love business! Any losses would of course be borne by the husband, and the newspaper would have an all-white telephone, because the shameless jade was mad about poetry! What else could she possibly want? She would even be appointed Chairwoman of the Board of Directors and have her name printed on the headed stationery, as long as it was understood that only he could sign! Furthermore, they would get her to buy a refrigerated railway truck which she could then hire out to the countries of Europe! There were millions to be made that way! Enthusiastic but bashful, Solomon spoke up and suggested that the lady herself might be invited to recast the advertisements as verse, which would prevent her brooding and to some extent be a substitute for the pleasures of love. Michael, a connoisseur of the female heart, hummed and yawned and let the ignoramuses burble on.

  'And do you know what I'll do after Saltiel's nephew has been deserted by his poetess?' said Naileater. 'I'll send a wire to my two daughters telling them to come, and, smiling irresistibly, I'll put it to him that he might care to choose one to be his lawful companion in life, either would do, I don't mind which, as long as he says yes to one of them! And then I'll be his father-in-law, and just think of the lovely cushy job I'll be able to wangle for myself in the famous League of Nations! Just you wait! When you come to see me in my office, I'll be sitting at my desk with a telephone to my ear, giving orders right and left, hat tipped to one side, large as life! And my office will be next door to my own son-in-law's!'

&nbs
p; 'Don't be absurd,' said Michael. 'You don't think that he's going to give up so easily on this choice piece of mattress-fodder, young and supple and supplied with all the curves a man could ask for? You don't seriously think he'd look twice at either of your daughters, not even to pick his teeth with?'

  Naileater, immediately convinced, sighed. Ah yes, it was quite true, his two long daughters were like a couple of upturned carrots, both as pointed as they were dim, and all they ever did was snivel. Heigh-ho, so it was goodbye to a top job in the League of Nations. His lads, now, were a different kettle of fish altogether from those two stupid girls! He smiled, and his soul went forth to his three lovely boys, and upon a sudden he sensed that some day they would all be roaring millionaires and darlings of Parisian high society, of that there was no doubt. Oh, he would ask nothing of them, not even a farthing in pecuniary assistance, he would let them alone to enjoy their dollars. All he wanted was to see all three richly married, each riding in a long motor car, and then to die in peace. 'Yes, my pretty pearls,' he muttered, and wiped away the figment of a tear. Then he felt hungry.

  'My dear Solomon,' he said, 'I don't suppose you have any salted pistachios left which, out of friendship to me and your own natural kindness, you could see your way to donating to my cause?'

  'Alas, my dear Naileater, I am pistachio-less: I gave them all to you.'

  'In that case, drop dead,' yawned Naileater.

  'You don't mean that,' said Solomon with a smile, 'because I know you love me, and last year when I was sick and like to die with a temperature of a hundred and five you sat up all night by my bedside and you even cried, I saw the tears! So there! But tell me, old friend, you who know everything, how does a man get a young woman of unimpeachable morals to understand that he has been pricked by Cupid's dart? I mean, what is the proper procedure and manner of it?'