Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  'Generally speaking, you inform her by registered post, making sure you get a receipt as proof of delivery.'

  'But what does one say in the letter?'

  'Generally speaking, you say this: "Adorable girl, I have the honour of informing you by the present of today inst. that, beguiled by your modest bearing and the judiciousness of your spoken remarks, I shall, this evening, setting aside all other matters, hasten to deliver my flame by hand to your very own front doorstep."'

  'That's not bad,' said Solomon. 'But if it was me I'd rather say that I loved her with all my soul and with intention honourable.'

  'And she'd just laugh at you,' said Michael.

  'I don't agree,' said Solomon. 'She'd think I was very nice, because girls warm to the respect of an upright heart. And now I'm going to answer another call of nature,' he said in conclusion, and he scurried away.

  'Naileater, how did you end your letter?' asked Michael.

  'Deliver my flame by hand to your very own front doorstep.'

  'Yes, that might do, I suppose. But, if she's married, it would be a good idea to add: "unbeknownst to your clod of a husband", to make her laugh. A woman who laughs is ripe for the plucking. But why bother with a letter at all? Just ask her to dine on strong salted meats, followed by red mullet with chillies and she'll be on fire before you reach the pudding.'

  'You are, alas, not far wrong,' said Naileater. '"Fishy dishes and strong salt meat Will fan the flames and raise the heat; For did not Venus, or so they say, Rise from the waves one sunny day?" That's how I put it in my Treatise of Medical Poetry.'

  'Or else,' said Michael, 'I place a golden guinea between my teeth in her presence and I bite it clean in two, whereupon she goes mad for me. Or again, if I'm dancing with her, I give her to understand by means of a certain manifestation of my physiology that I find her attractive. This never offends women as long as it is accompanied by words of subtle import and bottomless respect.'

  'It's true, the blood of the Arab does run in your veins,' said Naileater, suddenly repelled by Michael's thick lips. 'But hold your peace now. Our little friend returns.'

  'One o'clock in the morning,' announced Mattathias.

  He stood up and said it was more than a man of parts could bear, that he was being roasted on a slow spit by the debt rising remorselessly on the clock which ticked in Helvetic francs. Having extracted a promise of reimbursement from Michael, he wandered over to the taxi-driver, reluctantly handed over the sum registered by the meter, heartily wished him broken bones on his road to perdition, and furnished him with unexpected details concerning the morals of his female relations, both close and collateral.

  CHAPTER 77

  Perched atop the hayrick and once more wearing his frock-coat, Naileater, a full metre above the ground, regardless of danger, was discharging the function of lookout. Now shading his eyes with one hand, now peering through his marine telescope, he swept the horizon, ready to give the signal the moment the lady hove into view.

  'Land ho!' he cried suddenly in a half-choked voice.

  Whereupon Michael hurried into the forest where the two horses had been tethered, while the watchman, gripped by emotion of the strangest kind, carefully climbed down from his hummock. So there was such a thing as love after all, he thought. The tall, beautiful figure now approaching was headed in the direction of happiness, docile and compliant, drawn by the prospect of happiness, was walking towards the happiness of love.

  'Atten . . . shun!' he bellowed, and broke wind to clear his mind, to feel at his best, and to ensure that his command of his rhetorical powers was free of all material concerns.

  Not wishing to have anything whatever to do with the adulterous she-devil, Mattathias drifted away, while Solomon, whey-faced with shyness but obeying the order, stood motionlessly to attention. When she halted before them, like a statue of youth, the little man's face turned scarlet, he lost his head and he gave a low bow. 'Delighted, Your Excellentness, he managed to say. For his part, Naileater strode nobly forward, kindly-eyed, hand on heart, already putting a value on the ermine wrap which she carried over her arm.

  'Sir Pinhas Wolfgang Amadeus Solal,' he said by way of introduction, then removed his hat with a wide gesture, 'my nom de plume being Naileater, gentleman of leisure and no stranger to soap, friend of humanity at large and humble relation of lord Solal, whom I dandled on my knee when he was one week old on the occasion of his circumcision, by which I intend no unseemly allusion, that would be entirely misplaced, and in whose name and by the right of proxy invested in me, implicitly or tacitly, as you wish, I bid you welcome in fervent words inspired by the Song of Solomon, chapter six, verse ten, to wit, Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners? Or, to put it another way, How do you do? Sir Pinhas, I repeat, honourable gentleman and thinking reed, a man noble in Israel and customarily attired in fashionable tails but tonight in frock-coat only by reason of this sojourn in dank nature's bosom, former vice-chancellor and a galloping consumptive since my tenderest youth! (He manufactured a dramatic gale of coughing and then proceeded, with a smile, to remark upon it, thus:) Proof positive of the truth of my allegations! Furthermore, in a PS, I declare twelve small infants who have been humbly starving to death for many years! In short, behold an unhappy father and gentleman, to suffering condemned!'

  Having spoken, he bowed again with a flourish of his top-hat. She looked on bemused, her eyes moving between these two eccentric apparitions: the long, thin streak of Byronic gloom with the bare feet, and the small, round figure frozen in mid-obeisance as though he were looking for worms in the grass and doubtless thinking that in the circumstances this posture was a reasonable way of maintaining his dignity.

  'Peace be with you, adorable Highness,' Naileater resumed, 'and may no care gnaw your vitals in the matter of your cordial but honourable tryst at the delightful house of dancing. The underling with the moustache has even now taken himself off with a view to procuring for Your Grace a mode of hippie locomotion, or should I say a hippie mode of locomotion, to convey you whither your heart desires, and you may set your mind at rest, for soon you shall have dancing and sorbet in abundance! So nothing presses, for there is but one indispensable thing in life, which is charity, the giving of alms to the poor, that sad class of humankind to which I have the painful misfortune and honour to belong,' he concluded with a woebegone smile which revealed his long-in-the-tooth fangs as he held out his inverted hat like a begging-bowl.

  Assuming a pose of modest but dignified expectation, he then fell silent, while Solomon, who had slipped away unnoticed, was now standing some way off, bent over in the grass, absorbed in a mysterious task. Observing that nothing was forthcoming and that his topper remained innocent of coinage of any kind, Naileater resorted to a new tactic in his attempt to soften the heart of this daughter of Gentiles who was decidedly of the stingy variety.

  'A beautiful night, is it not, dear lady?' he went on. 'In sooth, a velvety night, made for the languid labours of love, which leads me, not without tact and with all due reverence, to express my sincerest wishes that your sorbets be delicious and your prancing pleasant, in short that you may have all the joys which your heart quite properly desires. (He sighed with feeling.) Youth must have its fling of pleasures, be they legitimate or not, and I am a tolerant and understanding man, say I with a paternal wink. I am all the more broad-minded in my views for having standing, before me Youth at its zenith and Beauty taken to such a pitch that I should have no difficulty in comparing Your Hoity-Toityness to the mare which once drew Pharaoh's chariot, or better still to a fresh young gooseneck generously stuffed with pinenuts. (She bit her lip to suppress her giggles.) Besides, I have observed that generosity is invariably the companion of grace and beauty! (He coughed and waited. What on earth was the matter with the girl that she should stare at him thus without saying a word? He decided to pluck the patriotic string.) Ah, dear lady, how happy I am to be here in this Genev
a of yours, Geneva which is my third or fourth home, whose citizens I admire so much for their charitable instincts! As for the few fleeting moments of discomfort which you inflicted on Michel Servet, such things happen, errare humanum est. So we'll say no more about it! But coming back to the matter of charitable instincts, what, for example, could be finer than your Red Cross? The very thought brings tears to my eyes! Inter anna caritas! Verily, it is a noble motto! Still, I would add that to my sense charity should also be shown in time of peace! In short, fair lady, I'll put my cards on the table and say in all frankness that if I deserted Uncle Saltiel, whom I left groaning in his bed of sickness laid low by jaundice, and came unto this place so far removed from urban comforts, it was certainly with the intention of presenting you with the respects and charmed greetings of an honourable man but also, I freely confess, crippled as I am by lack of the ready, in the hope of lawful pecuniary gain!'

  He stressed these last three words, because quite clearly the heatheness was not terribly quick on the uptake. Replacing his top-hat on his head, he stood and waited, arms crossed and bare feet set wide apart. Was the miserly tightwad going to make up her mind or was she not? It was at this juncture that Michael returned, leading the two horses by the reins. Bustling Naileater out of his way, he dropped on one knee before her beauty and kissed the hem of her dress. Then, rising to his feet, he took her around the waist and, holding her more closely than was strictly necessary, lifted her on to the white horse and sat her on it side-saddle.

  Only then did she say to Naileater: 'I'm sorry, I haven't any money on me.'

  'Don't let that stop you, dear Highness!' he exclaimed forcefully. 'I also accept banker's drafts and promissory notes, which are highly convenient forms of payment, and I have about my humble person the necessary paper and pencil! Over and above which, my poor daughters shiver with cold, and the chattering of their crooked teeth can be heard as far away as the stronghold of the podestas,' he added, with a wheedling look in his eye and one hand on the ermine wrap, which he chastely fingered. 'The wretched girls have always longed for warm raiment. They talk about it at night in their dreams. The upshot of which, dear benefactress, is that they would bless your open palm and God will reward you a hundredfold,' he ended, snatching away the wrap, which Michael immediately wrested from him and restored to the lady on the horse. 'Damn you to hell, you interceptor of ermine!' screamed Naileater. 'And the devil take the lewd bones of your grandam too!'

  She stroked the neck of her horse, took a firm hold of the reins, and handed the fur wrap back to Naileater, who gestured his thanks by placing one hand to his heart and then raising it to his lips, after which he winked cheekily at Michael, who was now sitting astride the other mount, his water-pipe tucked underneath his arm. It was at this moment that Solomon suddenly reappeared like a small tornado, clutching with both hands a bunch of poppies which he held out, gasping and puffing, to the lady on her horse. Then, as his two cousins looked on in amazement, he began, in a voice half-choked with emotion, to recite a dainty little poem of his own devising which made mention of 'flowers, fairest work of nature's art, The very emblem, lady, of your heart'.

  When he had finished, the sweet little man in his sheepskin coat stood on the tips of his toes to receive his reward. Leaning down, she picked him up and gave him such a kiss that he felt as though his soul would fly away on the wings of bliss. Set down once more on terra firma, he ran off quickly and, to give unimpeded expression to his delight, began running round and round in circles with all the concentration of a circus horse, while the lady on the white palfrey, attended by the janissary, cried out with a joy so unconfined that it was almost awesome, uttered a protracted whoop of gladness, a song of youthful praise, heedless of the reins and with arms spread wide, before vanishing into the shadows of the night.

  Then Solomon, who was still galloping round and round, gave vent to his pride and joy. He had been kissed, but the others had got nothing! They, poor fools, did not know that he had been planning his master-stroke for the last hour and had composed his pretty poem with much counting of syllables on his fingers! With arms raised, he frolicked and capered and yelped until he was fit to choke that Solomon had won, that Solomon had been kissed, while Naileater, the ermine wrap slung carelessly over his shoulders, was refusing to sell it to Mattathias and was inwardly devising a scheme whereby he could sue Michael for damages on the ground that he had inserted a spoke into his wheel.

  'You saw it, Naileater?' asked Solomon, when he had returned to earth once more. 'She kissed me!'

  'Yes, just as if you were a toddler of three,' said Naileater. 'If I were in your boots I'd be ashamed.'

  Whereupon, consumed by sudden passion, he whipped the wrap from his shoulders and kissed it ardently, his eyes starting out of their sockets. Murmuring words of tenderness to it, telling it that he would turn it into three pretty little capes for his three pretty little boys, clutching it to his bosom, he waltzed with it on his great, wanton, erratic feet. And there in the moonlight, under the astounded gaze of his cousins, he whirled and gyred interminably with the white fur wrap, the tails of his frock-coat flying, gracefully whirled and leaped and skipped, his bare feet entrechating.

  CHAPTER 78

  Waking at seven, he stretched and smiled because he was home again, in his own bed, which was so much more comfortable than any hotel bed, an old friend really, on top of which no need to worry if everything was clean. Home, sweet home again. And next door, only yards away, was his wife! His wife, for goodness' sake! He'd be seeing her soon and they'd chat just like old friends. Yes, he'd tell her more about his mission.

  'If only you'd seen how interested she was, old bean, quizzing me about my interviews, especially about the one with the High Commissioner, a Field Marshal, I don't suppose you come across many Field Marshals, do you, old man? And then when I told her I'd begun my novel about Don Juan, made a start on it when I was away on my official travels, got three chapters under my belt already, forty pages in all, she wanted me to read it out to her. You should have seen the pair of us, old sport, me in my silk dressing-gown reading, because before starting I changed into my dressing-gown, it's a Sulka, my dear Vermeylen, bought it in Paris, in the Rue de Castiglione, it's the shop you know, anyway if you could have seen me reading in my ultra-stylish dressing-gown, gave me that sophisticated look, you know, leading-man-of-letters stuff, and she listening deferentially, hanging on my every word, dead keen, fully entering into the spirit, if you follow me. Oh yes, old friend, marriage is the thing! (He emitted a series of short, sharp yawns and then hummed his "Home, sweet home again".) I say, Arianny, two hundred kilos of documentation! What do you say to that! I must find a way of making damned sure Monsieur Solal is put fully in the picture. Know what I'll do? As an appendix to my report, I'll draw up a complete list of all the documentary material I've brought back with me, it'll run to pages and pages single-spaced. Of course he won't read all of it, but he can't fail to be impressed by the quantity. Naturally anything that qualifies as documentation has been sent on directly to the Secretariat, but if you're interested you can come along to the Palais sometime and I'll show you the whole lot. By the by, I've brought back masses of photos, of native dances put on in my honour and of me standing next to high-ranking officials, I'll show them to you. There's one taken in Paris where this head of section in the Colonial Office is holding me by the arm, ever so matey, and him being a very big gun indeed, you know, marvellous chap, just about to be pitchforked up to Director-General, I'll show you that one, it'll interest you, though I must say we were both a bit squiffy after that dinner at the Laperouse. I'll stick all the photos in a special album, with a note in white ink under each one, and naturlich the date. So you like my three chapters, do you? Now if you've got any criticisms to make, don't hold back, honestly I'd be very interested, I'm not above criticism, you know. Forty pages! It's starting to mount up! I've got about another two hundred to go. I've worked it out: forty thousand words. To my mind, forty thousa
nd words is the right length for a novel, not too long and not too short. I've decided to call it Juan, my first thought was Don Juan but I felt Juan would be more original, everybody's got so used to Don Juan. Listen, the more I think about it, the more I reckon it would be a good idea to invite Monsieur Solal here as soon as possible because then I could fill him in about my official visit. A face-to-face is much better than a report, it's more sort of reciprocal, and besides with a report you never know whether your stuff's been read seriously or not, while with a conversation, they're bound to listen to what you say. Don't you agree? But coming back to my novel, I was really bucked, you know, that you particularly liked the passage about primordial contempt, and also the bit where he explains why he has this mania for seducing women. Those are two themes I'm particularly keen on, in fact they've been haunting me for ages. Yes, tremendously bucked, because really, you know, everything I write is intended for you. I really believe I've hit the jackpot with this novel. What I need now is a transfer to Paris, to our office there. If I had a big flat in a smart part of town and scattered the invitations about right, left and centre, I'd make loads of personal contacts. Then next stop the big literary prizes, like the Femina or the Interallie, see? 'Cos getting to know people, making friends, is the pathway to success. And now, Vermeylen old man, we shall rise and make her some tea. But mind you don't make a noise, mustn't wake her before taking up her tea. She loves her morning tea. (He gave a delicate, dreamy smile.) In fact she's mad about anything English, she picked the habit up in England. Three years at Oxford, old bean, in a fashionable women's college where they only admit really high-class girls. I don't think your wife could say as much for herself, now could she? Morning tea! I'll explain what it means, old bean. It's a cup of tea you drink first thing when you wake up. But I shall make it in a teapot, because sometimes she fancies a second cup and also because I'll have some too, it's such bliss being there sipping together. Very strong tea, a little milk, no sugar, that's the English way. Breakfast comes later, after you've had your bath, that's how the best people do it. She's not a bit like your wife, you know. She's not the type to whinge about the cost of living or sit at home darning socks. No, old man, she is pure delight, poetry in motion! So now you know. Ready! Steady! One, two, three, and away we go!'