The Vatard Sisters

by Joris-karl Huysmans

  Then he reflected on how much money he owed to his friends. All these extravagances were ruining his finances. He thought that Désirée could have at least offered, like all the other girls, to pay her half of the expenses.

  IX

  Both hands behind her head, Désirée was delicately fishing with her fingers for hairpins amid a quivering mass of hair. Placing them one next to the other on the fake marble mantelpiece, she was thinking about the Folies-Bobino and the dark street where Auguste had kissed her; her eyes filled with tears and a shiver ran up her spine at the memory of the humid warmth that had touched her mouth. Whether she’d been right or wrong to let herself be held so close like that by a man, it was nonetheless true that such foolery in the darkness was causing a singular disturbance within her. Except that these delights were not going to last much longer. Vatard had written, that very morning, to say that as his sister seemed reluctant to die he was going to take the train and return home. This was an annoying turn of events. It didn’t bother Céline a bit, she was allowed to do anything, she could run out the house still chewing her food and their father would just let her go; but never, absolutely never, would he agree to his younger daughter going off after supper. Of course, she could resort to the same expedient as other working-class girls hampered by parents who, not so much for moral as practical reasons, come to look for them after work so as to take them in hand and escort them safely home: these girls go out with their lovers during the day and only return to the shopfloor ten minutes before closing time. But if the supervisor closed her eyes to this daily pilfering of working hours it was because those that did it were gadabouts and good-for-nothings, she certainly wouldn’t allow one of her best workers to go out and get mixed up with a man all day long in some cabaret or rented room. She would certainly inform Vatard. In truth, working late evenings would be more practical. Then she could leave the Débonnaire workshop at seven o’clock, and instead of returning home go and eat with Auguste, not coming back and settling down to the household chores till eleven at night. This trick had a chance of success: her father would think she was eating at the workshop, and the supervisor that she was eating at home with her father; but for some time now orders at the bindery had been slack and evening work was becoming rare.

  Whichever way one looked at the question, her meetings with Auguste would necessarily become less and less frequent, unless the young man asked for her hand in marriage and Vatard, keeping his promise not to contradict his daughter, left her free to marry the first person who came along; but this wasn’t very likely. Désirée could make some good points in his favour: no other man was as pleasing to her; he was the only man who attracted her; she was bowled over by his eyes and when he held her hand in his it made the blood rush to her head. But her father would only reply that the gift of attracting women with a wink of the eye didn’t constitute sufficient qualities in a man to make a good husband. He would bluntly tell her, between a couple of puffs on his pipe: ‘He’s nothing but a lowly labourer is your lover, he’s a bodger, a good-for-nothing.’Auguste wasn’t a drunkard, that much was true; whenever a new bar opened in the quarter and the owner, seeking new customers, announced that he’d give away free drinks between such and such an hour, the workers, always on the lookout for such windfalls, would hurry along; Auguste would go too, but he’d come back before all the others after he had a drink or two in his belly. He may not have been a very good worker, but he wasn’t a very good drinker either.

  Nevertheless, it was evident that this last circumstance wouldn’t seem particularly extenuating to the old man, and besides there was still one final question: there was nothing to prove that Auguste was disposed to ask for her hand in marriage. The more Désirée thought about the situation, the more undecided she became. Suppose she said frankly to her lover: ‘Auguste, do you want to marry me?’ and he didn’t answer, then all would be finished between them, and, unless she agreed to do something stupid, it would only remain for her to tell him to be on his way. Her eyelids grew wet with tears thinking that she would have to stay at home, alone, every evening; before she’d known this boy she never thought about having fun; now she was hungry for a man’s caresses, for walks together, for those smiles that lit up their eyes when their glances met. She realised for the first time that her father’s house was as dull as a wet Sunday afternoon.

  In the meantime, the only thing she could do was to ‘get under the tarpaulin’, as her sister would elegantly refer to it when she was in a cheerful mood; but whatever she did, turn her nose to the wall, twist round the other way, stretch out at full length, curl up like a dog, sigh, yawn, grunt or groan, the same ideas kept trotting through her brain and sleep eluded her.

  In the midst of all this, the key turned in the lock and Céline came in.

  For a fortnight the two sisters had barely spoken to each other; a few words in the evening while getting ready for bed, a few words in the morning while pulling on their stockings, and that was all. But neither the one nor the other felt like sleeping that night, on the contrary, they were itching to talk; they resumed their former discussions as if all the resentments and all the differences between them had come to an end.

  Céline was, moreover, in a strange mood. Agitated, her nerves on edge, she paced the room back and forth. Her cheeks were flushed and she had a moist glint in her eyes. Désirée asked her if she had a temperature and she laughed silently to herself.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ Céline said.

  ‘What?’ asked the other.

  ‘What else? I’m his mistress.’

  ‘You weren’t already?’ exclaimed Désirée, surprised.

  ‘No, can you believe it, Cyprien didn’t have the nerve. I’d have been angry if he’d gone too far straightaway, I’d have hit the roof and said to him: “What do you take me for?” Ah, even so my dear, one shouldn’t blame men who make the mistake of being too nice; there are so many who aren’t. But all the same, it was getting tedious. I couldn’t make advances to him or shout: “Well, come on then you idiot, that’s what I’m here for!” How would I have looked then, I ask you? I’d played my part, I was just waiting for him to come to the boil. But nothing of the sort, he didn’t budge. I said to him once: “There’s a stay in my corset pinching me.” Do you know what he replied? “Well then, my dear girl, you should take it off,” so I went into his bedroom thinking he’d follow to help me, but not a bit of it. He continued painting, putting yellow on his trees! As you can imagine I was furious, I’d unlaced my corset and so as not to look stupid I was forced to wrap it up in a newspaper and carry it back home under my arm.

  ‘So, I’d decided it was all or nothing tonight. Every evening after supper for a week now, I’ve put my best shoes on to go over to his place, the ones that really suit me but which kill my feet. That’s no way to live, when all’s said and done.

  ‘Listen, here’s how I got myself caught. When I went in, Cyprien was in front of his painting, next to a lamp with something over it that made the room very dark and the canvas very bright. He was painting a woman taking an evening stroll. He kissed me, but didn’t interrupt what he was doing; he continued to put red on the lips of his woman. I could have killed him! I said to myself: “This is doing me in. I’ll send him packing so I will, I’ve had enough!” But then I thought it was unfair to be rude to a man who was so shy, and as I didn’t know what to do with my hands and was searching for something to say, I started fiddling with his tubes of paint, and I had a bit of fun opening them and making them ooze onto his palette. I got paint all over my fingers, so he took me into his bathroom, a little room about as big as a pocket handkerchief, and he poured some water into a basin for me. We had to squeeze against one another as there wasn’t any space, so I flicked some water at him for a laugh and he shouted out: “Stop that or I’ll kiss you.” I continued, so he took me in his arms and while I was struggling he planted a dozen kisses all over my face.

  ‘He was holding me round the waist when we went back into
his studio, and then, when he sat down on his stool, I sat on his knees and wrapped my arms around his neck, and as I had my mouth next to his ear, I breathed hotly into it. I was sliding about on his trembling knees, we weren’t saying anything now, but there was a damn piece of furniture in the room that was squeaking all the time; you have no idea how irritating that can be! In any event, I was heavy and his legs were tired, I was going to fall, but he held me with his hands; his eyes were ablaze, his forehead dripping with sweat, and only the tips of his teeth showed between his lips. I thought to myself: “You’re done for, you are!” He ended up by kissing me passionately, here, on the neck, near my curls, which he was nibbling as he moaned; I turned my head round a bit, our noses and mouths touched; his eyes kept opening and closing with a wild look; in short, I tumbled to the floor still clinging to him. The annoying thing about it all is that I broke one of the hoops of my crinoline, but so what, it’s nothing; what’s funny though is that afterwards this fine gentleman, who was as cold as ice, was like a dog that’s found its master again. There wasn’t another moment’s peace with him. He’d go off, he’d come back, he’d kiss me, smack! on the nose, smack! on the eyes, full on the mouth! Ah, I tell you he lost all his shyness, and for a moment he even made fun of his painting.

  ‘In short, he’d become as passionate as Anatole. He no longer put on airs, he called me his “chicky” in the same tone as Anatole when he called me his “kiddo”. It’s amazing how alike men are! I’m sure that even the Emperor, were he in their position, would behave no differently to them; in the end, they’re all obsessed with taking your head in their hands and kissing it slowly.

  ‘Oh and what’s more you know, he seemed to notice that my dress was a bit shabby, so he’ll probably buy me a new one, I’m counting on a hat as well, because I’ve noticed that it vexes him that I always come bare-headed. There’s some superb blue and black striped material at the Bon Marché at the moment; you could make a nice tight-fitting dress from it, one of those dresses like Rosine has, that makes a rustling sound when you walk. Only it’s a bit expensive…but that’s tough, I want one like that anyway. Rosine will be so mad when she sees me as well rigged out as her!’

  ‘But,’ the younger girl ventured, ‘that gentleman of yours can’t be very rich if he’s a painter; perhaps he won’t be able to afford a dress as nice as that.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Céline replied, ‘Cyprien must have some money because he’s got a pile of antiques at his place. Me, I wouldn’t give you two sous for them, but I know they’re worth a lot of money; he’ll have to make a sacrifice that’s all. Anyway, it’s all the same to me, he’ll at least give me the material and I can make the dress myself. But what about you, how are things with you and your man?’

  Désirée recounted her evening. ‘Well, that’s all very nice,’ replied Céline, ‘but you’re not taking it seriously. If you play that game, my girl, you’ll come a cropper. Tell me truthfully, how far are you going to go with Auguste?’

  The younger girl didn’t reply. ‘You don’t want to be his mistress, do you? Well then, you’ve got to make a decision. You can’t go on like this, because you can see what’ll happen in the end. No promises have been made, you’re out for a walk, you’re feeling calm, then a little shiver runs through you straight to the heart, and dammit you’re done for. If men knew, we’d be undone quicker than they ever thought possible. But they’re so stupid! They don’t suspect a thing most of the time; it’s not when they’re on the attack that you need to be wary of them, it’s when they seem tender and squeeze you in their arms that they do you the most damage, without even meaning to. You’re not like me, I know, but take care all the same. They say it happens most on stormy nights, but that’s another of their jokes. So what does it depend on? On what you ate, what you drank, being tired from not sleeping the night before, on the way you walk, on the words they whisper in your ear, on everything and nothing, in other words. Marry him or chuck him out, there’s no halfway house. Now then, let’s think a bit…Papa will be back tomorrow; Auguste will become very unpredictable because you’ll only be able to see him now and then; look, do you want me to talk to him if you’re too scared? It’ll be clean and simple: “Do you want to marry my sister? Yes? Then go ahead, my good man. You don’t want to? Well then, it’s time to do some dusting, you’re making the room look dirty and I’m going to dust you out of here!” Is that all right with you? Well, answer me then, instead of sitting there like some dimwit who doesn’t understand a thing.’

  Désirée felt uncomfortable; ‘I know all that,’ she stammered, ‘I’ve been telling myself the same thing for the past hour; you’re right, but first I need to know if Papa would accept Auguste.’ ‘Ah, that’s another thing altogether,’ exclaimed Céline, a little taken aback by this consideration which she hadn’t foreseen, ‘but what’s most important now is to know if your lover has honourable intentions. I’ll take care of that.’ And Céline considered her plan of attack, hesitating between having it out with the young man straightaway and another idea that had come to her as she was putting out the lamp: to wait instead until the moment when Auguste, exasperated at only seeing her sister at rare intervals, would be desperate enough to submit to all her whims and caprices. ‘And since,’ she concluded to herself, ‘I’ve put my painter in his place, I can easily do the same with Auguste,’ and she went to sleep without even the shadow of a doubt that she was completely mistaken.

  First of all, she hadn’t put Cyprien Tibaille in his place. The sin of this particular Don Juan was certainly not shyness, as she thought. When he’d first met her he was suffering from a certain indisposition, and so for both their sakes he was waiting until he was completely recovered before beginning his attack on her virtue.

  He was, in fact, quite a philanderer, a lover of all the nuances of vice, as long as they were subtle and complex. He had made love, by the grace of God, to both actresses and scullery maids. Delicate and highly-strung, obsessed by those secret passions that overwhelm wearied constitutions, he’d reached a point where he fantasised only about sensual pleasures that were spiced up by a semblance of perversity or by ostentatious clothing. In art, he understood nothing but the modern. Caring little for ideas handed down from older periods, he asserted that a painter should only render that which he could know and see; however, since he knew and saw few women except whores, he only attempted to paint whores. In truth, he really only admired the vice of the aristocracy and the working class; as far as prostitution was concerned, the bourgeois attitude seemed particularly odious to him. He was infatuated by the look of common prostitutes, by their vulgar, provocative airs, by their gestures, which exposed slabs of bare flesh beneath loose jackets whenever they knocked back wine or smothered the drunken faces of their men with kisses. He was infatuated still more by the depravity of seductresses of a higher order: their heady perfumes, their tantalising make-up, and their wild eyes ravished him. His fantasy even ventured into the realm of the eccentric. He wanted to accentuate his pleasures against a backdrop of despair. He would have liked to have made love to a woman dressed exuberantly as a clown, beneath the jaundiced grey sky of a winter’s day, a sky about to let fall its snow, in a bedroom hung with Japanese fabrics, while some half-starved organ-grinder emptied his barrel-organ of the sad waltzes with which its belly was full. His art was very strongly marked by these tendencies. He would sketch with an astonishing speed the suggestive poses, the weary lassitude of whores on the game, and in his paintings, brushed with broad strokes, spattered with oil, slashed with strokes of pastel, often boldly outlined at first like an etching, then reworked on the canvas, he succeeded in producing watercolours, scarred by a furious hammering of colours, that suggested a furious intensity of life, that gave themselves up to or sprang from the rendering of unconventional impressions. He had been a student of Cabanel and Gérôme, but these two impotents had tried in vain to instil their clichéd formulas into him. He had immediately spat insults over their chaste
nudes. He also made a brief port of call to the famous landscape painters of the day, who howled in protest when confronted by his theories. His landscapes of suburban life, of the run-down gardens along the Rue de la Chine, of the wasteland near Gobelins, of vice-ridden cafés, all his sickly, shabby locales, had made him a disgrace. Having gone so far as to declare one day that the pitiful spectacle of wallflowers withering in a pot seemed to him more interesting than the sunny laugh of roses blossoming in an open field, the doors of respectable studios were closed to him.

  It goes without saying that Céline had understood nothing of the character of a man so supremely unbalanced. As for him, he took her at face value. She attracted him, even though there was no audacity or spice of mystery about her; but he needed a working-class girl for a painting, a strong-backed, solid girl, a girl who was up for it and who stirred your senses with every step she took. He was rightly contemptuous of those models who sprawled their freshly-washed nudity in every painter’s studio. The ‘Venus de Medici’ type, to use his expression, seemed stupid to him; he didn’t accept for a moment that one should represent, in a conventional pose, a woman sketched from the body parts of five or six others; in his opinion it was necessary to capture her, to paint her when she wasn’t expecting it, when, without any pompous or affected gestures, she was moping about gloomily or skipping with joy like a free animal, with no one watching her. Above all, it was the whore, young but worn out, her complexion already wasted by late nights, her breasts still supple but softening and beginning to sag, her face seductive and wicked, licentious and caked in make-up, that attracted him. Céline, in default of this seasoning of vice which he so relished, had an animatedness in her features and in her upper body that he found pleasing. She wasn’t very well built, being short and stocky like her sister, but that mattered little to him, his only idea was to create a work of art that was alive and true.