The Woman and the Puppet

by Pierre Louys

  She was still dancing away, hot and breathless, with her face crimson and her breasts bouncing around wildly, as she waved her deafening castanets about in each hand. She didn’t look at me, but I was sure that she’d seen me. She was bringing her bolero to a close in a movement of furious passion, the provocative thrusts of her legs and bust aiming randomly at someone in the crowd of spectators.

  Suddenly she stopped, amidst roars of approval.

  “Bravo!” the men shouted. “Bravo! Isn’t she lovely! Bravo, my girl! Bravo! Encore!”

  Hats were sent spinning onto the stage. The entire audience was on its feet now. Still panting, she bowed to them, with a little smirk of triumph.

  As is customary, she then came down off the stage in order to take a seat somewhere among the drinkers, whilst another dancer replaced her in front of the footlights. And, knowing full well that in the corner of the room there was a being who adored her, who’d have prostrated himself at her feet for all the world to see, and who was suffering unspeakably, she nevertheless went from table to table, and from one man’s arm to another’s, right before his very eyes.

  They all knew her by name, and I heard cries of “Conchita!” that sent shivers running up and down my spine. They gave her drinks and they touched her bare arms. She put a red flower that a German sailor offered her in her hair, she tugged the braided locks of a bullfighter who was playing the fool, she pretended to behave voluptuously in front of a young fop who was sitting with some women and she caressed the cheek of a man that I’d have liked to kill.

  *

  I haven’t forgotten a single gesture that she made during this atrocious manoeuvre, which went on for fifty minutes.

  A man’s past is filled with memories such as these.

  She stopped at my table last of all, because I was sitting at the back of the room – but she came over nonetheless. Was she embarrassed? Did she try to act surprised? Oh! Not at all! Not her! She sat down in front of me, clapped her hands to attract the waiter’s attention and shouted out:

  “Tonio! A cup of coffee!”

  Then, displaying the most exquisite composure, she looked me straight in the eye.

  “Aren’t you afraid of anything, Concha?” I asked, very quietly. “Aren’t you afraid of dying?”

  “No. Besides, if anyone’s going to kill me, it certainly won’t be you!”

  “Are you defying me to, then?”

  “Right here, or anywhere you please. I know you, Don Mateo, as if I’d had to carry you for nine months. You’ll never touch a hair of my head; and you’re quite right, for I don’t love you any more.”

  “You actually have the nerve to say that you once loved me?”

  “You can think what you like. You’ve only got yourself to blame.”

  So now she was reproaching me! I should have expected some such nonsense.

  “That’s twice now,” I went on, “twice that you’ve done that to me. What I gave you came from the bottom of my heart, but you received it like a thief and took off without a word, without a letter, without even asking anyone to come and bid me farewell on your behalf. What have I done that you should treat me like that?”

  And I muttered several times under my breath:

  “Wretch! Wretch!”

  But she was ready with her excuse:

  “What have you done? You’ve broken your word, that’s what. Didn’t you swear to me that I’d be safe in your arms, and that you’d let me choose on which night and at what hour I’d commit my sin? But last time – don’t you remember? – you thought that I was asleep, and that I couldn’t feel anything. But I was awake, Mateo, and I realised that if I spent another night by your side, I wouldn’t get to sleep without you surprising me into giving myself to you. And that’s why I ran away.”

  It was quite absurd. I just shrugged my shoulders.

  “So that’s what you reproach me for,” I said, “when I can see for myself the sort of life you lead, and the men who share your bed.”

  “That’s not true!” she replied furiously, rising to her feet. “I forbid you to say that, Don Mateo! I swear to you on my father’s grave that I’m as pure and innocent as a new-born child – and also that I hate you for having doubted it!”

  I found myself alone. A few moments later I got up and left as well.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IN WHICH MATEO FINDS HIMSELF PRESENT AT AN UNFORESEEN SPECTACLE

  All night long I wandered up and down the ramparts. The incessant sea wind cooled my feverishness and dispelled my cowardice. Yes, I’d felt like a coward in front of that woman. I could only blush with shame at the thought of us both, and I mentally subjected myself to the worst possible insults. And, what’s more, I foresaw that I’d still deserve them every bit as much the following day.

  After what had happened, there were only three courses of action open to me: to leave her, to force her, or to kill her.

  I chose the fourth, which was to submit to her.

  Every evening I returned to my seat, like an obedient child, in order to watch and wait for her.

  Little by little she calmed down, by which I mean that she no longer bore me any grudge for all the wrong she’d done me. Immediately backstage there was a large white room where the dancers’ mothers and sisters dozed while waiting for them to finish. Concha allowed me to stand there too, by a special privilege that each of these young girls could bestow on her chosen sweetheart. All in all, delightful company, wouldn’t you say?

  The hours I spent there were particularly miserable. You know me: I’ve never been the sort to spend my life propped up on my elbows in cheap taverns, and to do so now made me loathe myself.

  Señora Pérez was there, like the others. She didn’t seem to know anything about what had happened in the calle Trajano. Was she lying too? I didn’t even care. I listened to her confidences, I paid for her brandy … But let’s not talk about that any more, if you don’t mind.

  The only joy I experienced came from Concha’s four dances, when I would stand in the open doorway through which she made her entrance and, during those rare moments when her movements required her to turn her back on the audience, I’d have the fleeting illusion that she was facing, and dancing for, me alone.

  Her greatest success came in the flamenco. What a dance that is, sir! What tragedy it expresses! It’s a passionate love story in three acts: desire, seduction, and final enjoyment. No stage play ever conveyed the nature of woman’s love with the intensity, the grace, or the fury of these three consecutive scenes, in which Concha was quite incomparable. Do you fully understand the drama that’s being played out? Anyone who hasn’t already seen it at least a thousand times would need to have it explained to them afresh. They say that it takes eight years to train a flamenco dancer and, given the precocious maturity of our women, that means that by the time they’re old enough to know how to dance, they’re no longer beautiful. But Concha was a born flamenca; it came from intuition, not experience. You know how it’s danced in Seville. You’re familiar with our best bailarinas, and none of them is perfect, for this exhausting dance, which lasts a full twelve minutes – and just try to find me an opera dancer who’d agree to a twelve-minute variation! – comprises three successive rôles which have nothing in common: the lover, the ingénue and the tragedienne. It requires a sixteen-year-old to mime the second part, in which Lola Sánchez is currently performing wonders with her sinuous gestures and her graceful attitudes, and it requires a woman of thirty to act out the conclusion to the drama, in which La Rubia, despite her wrinkles, still excels every evening.

  Conchita is the only woman I’ve ever seen remain consistently true to form throughout the entire length of this formidable undertaking.

  I can still picture her there, advancing and retreating with short, rhythmical steps, peering out sideways from beneath an upraised sleeve and then, with a movement of the hips and torso, slowly lowering her arm, above which would appear a pair of dark eyes. Yes, there she is: delicate or passionate,
her eyes bathed in languor or sparkling with humour, striking the boards of the stage with her heel, or making her fingertips crackle at the end of her gesture, as if to provide a life-giving cry for each of her undulating arms.

  When she’d finished, she’d come off in a state of excitement and exhaustion that only enhanced her beauty. Her flushed face would be covered in sweat, but her bright eyes, quivering lips and young heaving bosom all combined to lend an expression of exuberance and abiding youthfulness to her upper body. In short, she was radiant.

  For a month our relationship remained on this footing. She tolerated my presence in the back room, behind the platform where she performed, but I wasn’t even allowed to see her home afterwards, and I only kept my place beside her on the condition that I wouldn’t reproach her in any way, either with regard to the past or to the present. As to the future – I don’t know what her thoughts were on the subject, but for my part I was at a loss for any solution to this pitiful affair.

  I was vaguely aware that she lived with her mother in the town’s only working-class suburb, near the Plaza de Toros, in a large white and green house that they shared with six other bailarinas and their families. I hardly dared imagine what might be going on in such a city of women. And yet our dancers lead a well-ordered existence. From eight in the evening until five in the morning they’re on stage, and when they get home at dawn, utterly exhausted, they sleep, often all alone, till mid-afternoon. So that only really leaves the early evening for them to take advantage of, and even then fear of the ruin that would result from falling pregnant holds these poor girls back. Besides which, they’d never be able to bring themselves each evening to add to the strain of an already arduous night with any further exertions.

  *

  Nevertheless, I couldn’t help feeling anxious. A couple of Concha’s friends, who were sisters, had a younger brother who shared their room with them, or else those of their neighbours, and he aroused a good deal of jealousy, as I myself witnessed on several occasions.

  He was known as El Morenito, on account of his dark complexion. I never learnt his real name. Concha used to invite him over to our table, feed him at my expense, and help herself to my cigarettes, which she then placed between his lips.

  Any display of impatience on my part was met with a shrug of the shoulders, or an icy remark that made me suffer more than ever.

  “Morenito belongs to everyone,” she’d say. “But if I took a lover, he’d be mine as surely as the ring on my finger, and you’d know about it, Mateo.”

  I never made any reply. Besides, the stories going around concerning Concha’s private life portrayed her as being irreproachable, and I so wanted to believe this was true that I accepted on trust even the most groundless rumours to this effect. No man ever came up to her wearing the distinctive expression of a lover meeting in public the woman he’d been with the night before. I had a few quarrels on account of her with various suitors, who doubtless found my presence rather annoying, but never with anyone who boasted of having enjoyed her. I tried on several occasions to get her friends to talk, but they always replied: “She’s a virgin. And she’s quite right to stay that way.”

  As far as she was concerned, there was never any question of a reconciliation between us. She didn’t ask me for anything, nor did she accord me anything. Once so cheerful, she’d grown serious and she hardly ever spoke any more. It would have been a waste of time trying to interpret the look in her eyes, for I could no more read what was going on in her secretive little soul than what lies behind a cat’s inscrutable stare.

  *

  * *

  One night, on a signal from the manageress, she left the stage along with three of the other dancers and went upstairs to the first floor, in order, she told me, to take a siesta. She’d often disappear like this for an hour or so, but I never let it upset me for, despite all her lying and deceitfulness, I implicitly believed her every word.

  “When we’ve had to do a lot of dancing,” she explained, “we’re made to go and take a nap. Otherwise we’d start nodding off on stage.”

  So once again she’d gone upstairs and, feeling in need of some fresh air, I went outside for half an hour.

  On my way back into the hall I met one of the other dancers in the corridor, a rather simple-minded girl from Galicia, nicknamed La Gallega, who happened to be rather tipsy that night.

  “You’ve come back too early,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Conchita’s still upstairs.”

  “I’ll wait for her to wake up, then. Let me get past, will you.”

  She didn’t seem to understand.

  “For her to wake up?”

  “Of course. What’s the matter with you?”

  “But she’s not sleeping.”

  “She told me …”

  “She told you she was going to have a nap? Ah! Well, that’s all right then!”

  She did her best to contain herself, but however hard she tried, and in spite of keeping her lips tightly pursed, she was unable to stifle the roar of laughter that now welled up inside her.

  Deathly pale, I grabbed hold of her arm, and shouted:

  “Where is she? Tell me at once!”

  “Don’t hurt me, caballero. She’s showing her belly button to some foreigners. Honest to God, it’s not my fault. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have told you. I don’t want to fall out with anyone. I’m a good girl, caballero.”

  Believe it or not, I remained quite impassive. I just felt a terrible chill spreading through me, as if a draught of dank cellar air had crept in beneath my clothes. My voice wasn’t trembling, though, when I said:

  “Gallega, take me upstairs.”

  But she shook her head.

  “No-one will ever know you’ve spoken with me,” I went on. “Quickly now … She’s my sweetheart, you see … I’ve every right to go up there … Show me the way.”

  And I pressed a gold coin into her hand.

  A moment later I was standing alone on the balcony of an inner courtyard, looking in through a pair of French windows, where a hellish sight met my eyes.

  Inside there was a second room for dancing, smaller but very well lit, with a platform and two men playing guitars. In the middle Conchita, naked, was dancing a frenzied jota, along with three other nude, nondescript girls in front of a couple of foreigners who were sitting at the back. In fact she was more than naked. She had on long black stockings that came right up to the top of her thighs, like the legs on a pair of tights, whilst on her feet she was wearing little shoes that made the wooden floor ring out as they struck it. I didn’t dare interrupt. I was afraid I might kill her.

  Alas! Never, but never, have I seen her looking so beautiful! It wasn’t because of her eyes or her fingers this time; no, her entire body now seemed as expressive as someone’s face – more so, in fact – and her head, swathed in hair, hung down over her shoulder like a useless object. Smiles hovered in the folds of her hips, blushes coloured the curves of her sides, and her breasts seemed to be staring straight ahead through two large, dark, and unblinking eyes. No indeed, never have I seen her looking so beautiful. Dresses have creases that spoil a dancer’s expression and cause her graceful outline to twist round the wrong way; but now, in a kind of revelation, I could see the gestures, vibrations, and movements of her arms and legs, of her supple body and her muscular back, endlessly emerging from a single visible source, which lay at the very centre of the dance: her little brown and black belly.

  Then I broke down the door.

  Just to look at her for ten seconds, and swear to myself that I wouldn’t murder her, had been too much for my will-power to stand. And now nothing was going to hold me back.

  I entered to a chorus of shrill screams, and went straight up to Concha.

  “Follow me,” I said to her curtly. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. But come with me this instant, or else woe betide you!”

  But, oh no! She wasn’t afraid of anything! She b
acked up against the wall, and there, stretching her arms out on either side of her, she cried:

  “I’ll no more move from here than Christ did from the Cross! I won’t! And you won’t lay a finger on me either, because I forbid you to come any nearer than that chair.”

  Then, turning to the manageress, she added:

  “Leave me now, madam. And the rest of you – go downstairs. I don’t need anyone’s help. I can take care of him!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HOW THERE SEEMS TO BE AN EXPLANATION FOR EVERYTHING

  They left the room. The foreigners were the first to make themselves scarce.

  Up until then, sir, I’d have called any man who was supposed to have hit a woman a scoundrel. And yet, faced with that woman there, it’s a mystery to me how I managed to contain myself. My hands kept opening and closing again, as if around someone’s throat, strangling them. A gruelling struggle was going on inside me between my will-power and my wrath.

  Ah! This immunity with which we shield women is surely the ultimate sign of their omnipotence. If a woman insults you to your face and hurls abuse at you – bow to her. If she hits you – protect yourself, but make sure she doesn’t get hurt. If she’s ruining you – let her get on with it. If she’s unfaithful to you – keep quiet about it, lest you compromise her. If she wrecks your life – please go ahead and kill yourself! But, above all, never, through any fault of your own, allow the skin of these fierce, exquisite beings, for whom the pleasures of evil almost surpass those of the flesh, to suffer any kind of painful sensation, however fleeting.

  The Orientals – those great voluptuaries – don’t treat them with the same consideration as we do. They’ve cut off their claws, in order to soften the look in their eyes. They bridle their malevolence, the better to unleash their sensuality. I admire them.