The Vatard Sisters

by Joris-karl Huysmans

  The worry and fear they’d suppressed until this moment overcame them now they were left alone to face the unknown, an unknown which they were committing themselves to with no possibility of retreat.

  The two sisters trudged down the boulevard. Désirée, tired and shaken, Céline, moody and fretful: ‘This is all very fine, but now I’ve finished worrying about you, I’ve got to start thinking about me, or rather about my painter. He’ll see the friendly manner in which I dump him, he will!’And she made a threatening gesture, revealing a glimpse of the mass of turpitude and infamy that a woman can unleash on a man she has once loved and now hates.

  XIX

  When Céline made up her mind, she made up her mind. Her affair with Cyprien was far too turbulent, far too acrimonious. Any last minute hesitations she might have had evaporated at the sight of Anatole who, strutting his charms, had greeted her with a wary politeness one morning when he met her on her way back from the artist’s studio.

  She unburdened her soul that day. At times pent up, exploding in fury at others, she told him about her disillusionment with the painter, the complete emotional turmoil in which she found herself.

  Anatole twisted his moustache, deliberately affecting an air of surprise. His woman had already practically abandoned him. He’d had enough of her anyway. She was as lazy as a snake, she was a bad investment, and the less she worked the more demanding she became.

  Besides, deep down he had a certain affection for Céline; he considered her as wholesome as bread, as suave as silk, a decent worker, amusing and amenable. He could ask for nothing better than to take up with her again; except that he didn’t want to make the first move, he wanted to appear hesitant, to only seem to yield because he was moved by her plight, overcome by a pity that disarmed him.

  ‘Well, what about you?’ Céline asked him, ‘what’s happened to you since we split up?’

  ‘I let myself be seduced,’ Anatole replied negligently, ‘by a corset maker, a woman as smooth as a glass of brandy and as warm as toast! Ah, a fine figure of a woman, a tasty morsel fit for a king. But, anyway, you must have seen her that day we met, an angel wearing a new hat, you saw her didn’t you?’

  Céline claimed she hadn’t noticed her.

  ‘Anyhow, that’s beside the point,’ he continued, ‘some people are lucky and others aren’t, that’s all there is to it. Me, I was lucky; you, you fell in with a dauber who treated you like the leftovers of a meal. Why were you as soppy as that? You should have marinated him in the brine of your temper, that would have softened him up.’

  But Céline didn’t try to defend herself, just cast him imploring glances; then a sudden gleam came into her eyes. The memory of the final insult Cyprien had inflicted on her came to mind and made her wince.

  One evening when they were in bed the painter had sniffed and made a face. He looked at Céline in a funny way but didn’t say a word. Surprised, she demanded an explanation, then he said: ‘Have you been eating garlic? The bed reeks of it.’ This remark had more cruelly wounded her than all the bitter ripostes, all the cutting words he’d so often lashed her with. ‘I can’t help it,’ she cried, ‘at home they smother the lamb roasts with shallots and garlic; that’s the way father likes it. I can’t stop eating because I’m meeting you in the evening.’ Cyprien didn’t deny she had a right to eat the lamb, but nonetheless he himself couldn’t bear smells like that. That pungent herb, heated by her breath and multiplied tenfold by the heat of the bedcovers, made him feel sick. Céline’s resentment revived every time she thought of that night. Anatole became aware, without understanding the cause, of the flush of anger burning on her cheeks. The moment seemed to have come; he decided to play his trump card. ‘Ah well, kiddo,’ he said, ‘I’m glad to have seen you again; I’ll say it again, leave your paint merchant and get yourself a real man, someone who has a bit of this,’ and he tapped himself on the left side of his chest, and just as he made a move to leave her she grabbed his arm, no longer thinking to make vague hints, resolved now to put aside all pride and ask him bluntly to take her back. He seemed hesitant, but gradually yielded. ‘Shall we play a little trick on him together?’ she ended by saying. Anatole smiled in agreement. The idea of being disagreeable to this man who wasn’t from his world and above all revenge himself for the fear his leaded cane had caused him when he was following Céline, pleased him immensely. They agreed to meet on Sunday at the Gaité music hall. Céline would go there with Cyprien. During the intermission she’d arrange it so that he’d be left there guarding their seats, or else she’d lose him in the crowd and then go and join Anatole near the door, out in the street.

  This plan put her in a better mood.

  So she began to ingratiate herself with the painter. He expressed a desire? It was immediately fulfilled. He didn’t want to go out? She gave in graciously. His laundry was checked and carefully folded, and all the seams were mended. Whenever friends came round, she was welcoming and practically silent; she would busy herself serving tea, smiling, no longer talking nonsense. This sweetness of character, this submission, this sudden lull of words and actions puzzled Cyprien, renewed his sense of foreboding. But it was no use searching his mistress’s wide-open eyes, he sought in vain to read in the lines of her face, in a careless remark, a clue to her intentions, he couldn’t discover a thing. Céline, until then so open and unguarded, became inscrutable.

  When Friday came, she insisted he escort her to the music hall on Sunday. Cyprien didn’t dare refuse her this pleasure, which she asked for with beseeching graciousness. He agreed to take her and was so touched by the gratitude she evinced that he himself became all tenderness and affection. It was a case of who could outdo the other. You’d have really thought these two people loved one another.

  On the appointed day, at about six o’clock, the painter had half a chicken and some vegetables sent up from the restaurant below, and he bought some preserves and wine from the grocer. They laid the table with much playfulness; he served her food attentively and she cleared up obligingly, carrying the dried plates to the cupboard then saying to him simperingly: ‘Hey, pour me something to drink,’ and ‘Come on let’s hurry up so we can get good seats.’ A new interlude of love seemed to be in the offing. Cyprien had lost all his suspiciousness. As the meal neared its end, Céline became sweeter and more expansive. She hummed as she was measuring out the coffee and wiping the filter, and squatting in front of the roaring stove she smiled at her lover, waiting for the water to get hot enough to pour. Cyprien felt as happy as a skylark. His legs stretched out and his buttocks resting snugly on velvet cushions, he had lit his pipe and was blowing smoke rings, admiring the coquettish way in which Céline was crouching, her body emerging, as if from a satiny pool, from petticoats that splayed out on the floor. She got up and, making pretty moues of fearful anticipation, wrapped her hand in a handkerchief in order to hold the handle of the coffeepot without burning herself, then she poured it from high up into the cups. She sat down again and, facing each other, they sipped their coffee slowly, waiting until it was time to leave. He passed her the small carafe of cognac, she moved the sugar bowl closer to him, they thanked each other with tender glances, they shared each other’s cigarettes and flirted, feeling at ease, smiling with an enthusiasm they thought had been lost.

  Cyprien would have much preferred to stay there, feet warm, wearing his smoking-jacket, rather than to go and be cooped up in order to watch a bunch of buffoons. The muggy fumes from the stove numbed his arms and legs, he didn’t budge from his armchair, feeling dazed and woozy. Céline called him lazy, and gently taking his hands she pulled him towards her to make him get up; she brought him his boots and his hat, dolled herself up, her fingers fiddling with curls of hair, then she gave the studio one last look and, passing in front of Cyprien, she waited for him out on the landing while he locked the door.

  She walked down the street, silent and a bit gloomy. Her jolly mood had evaporated. Cyprien felt uneasy about this change, he asked her if by chan
ce she were ill, but she replied ‘No’ and began to laugh.

  When they arrived, all the seats were already taken; they had to retrace their steps back beyond the doors, thread their way through the lobby, descend several stairs, and go down a corridor covered in chocolate brown and bright green distemper and permeated with the saline stench of urinals. As they passed through this dimly-lit bowel running behind the hall, they bumped into ladders fixed by clamps to the walls. A great din sounded over their heads and to their right. They went back up a staircase and skirted a glass partition that separated the theatre from the café. Condensation clouded the glass. Here and there, through the prints of hands and fingertips that had tried to clean the panes, one glimpsed couples playing cards, shaking dice in cups, swigging mugs of beer. Enormous shadows were outlined against this curtain of steam like Chinese shadow puppets against oiled paper. Billiard players were chalking their cues and the rapid circular motion of their arms conjured up an indescribably strange grinding image through this effect of the light, which distorted and exaggerated every movement, every pose; halting gestures, twisting buttocks, leaning bodies, bizarre profiles and gigantic hats loomed up vaguely on this transparent screen in black outlines that were blurred by the monstrous silhouettes of scurrying waiters.

  Cyprien and Céline bore to their right and found themselves once again in the hall. This side was even more crowded than the seats in the middle; so they doubled back down the corridor in order to get via the underground passageway to the other wing of the theatre. There, they managed to settle themselves on a bench, their noses pressed against the orchestra pit, watching the actors at an oblique angle and at foot level, disagreeably chilled by the draught coming from the swinging doors.

  Céline wasn’t very satisfied. She was too close and it spoiled the illusion, and besides this location wasn’t very well suited to the escape she’d planned. She rose up a little on her seat and searched for Anatole. She saw him; they mouthed a silent hello and with a wink of the eye indicated the door. Cyprien had seen nothing of this exchange of looks. He was contemplating the hall while some buffoon on stage sprinkled a seasoning of patriotism and love into a trite musical sauce. He considered this half-baked circus odious, with its heavy gilded ornamentation and its two tiers of galleries: the lower, snuff-coloured, glazed and scorched by gas lamps, supported by cast-iron columns draped halfway down with red velvet; the upper, divided into what seemed to be cages furnished with bars, as if to contain wild beasts, daubed that horrible bronze-green colour usually reserved for stoves. The ceiling, with its diamond shapes, floral patterns and palm leaf mouldings resembling those cheap Paisley fabrics they manufacture in France, made him feel ill.

  He paid little attention to Céline, who was continuing to make eyes at Anatole, because he was vainly trying to relieve the disagreeable after-effect these colours had on him by looking at the stage. It seemed to him no less depressing, no less seedy than the rest. Wide and deep, it was decorated on each side by panels of flowers and emblems in harshly rendered plaster relief, made more oppressive still by the vulgar masks grimacing from above. The curtain suddenly came down; three blows struck on the stage floor urged the public not to leave. So, as a last resort, the painter had to put up with the sight of this dustsheet, with its fake acropolis, its naff stream, its pitifully blooming bushes, its symbolic open eye on the shaft of a column that looked like a heating pipe; and then, in the midst of this hall exhaling whiffs of damp cardboard, of smoking lamps, of pipes, of old shoes and greasy sweat, in the midst of this swarm of people in felt hats and caps, slumped and sprawled on their benches, dimly lit by eight gas chandeliers hanging from the ceiling like spiders, the feeder pipe being the thread, the round hub the body, and the points of flame the ends of their legs, a good-for-nothing type with warts on his face and squinty eyes was threading his way through, barking: ‘Ask for your favourite song of the moment! Songs by M. Auguste! The Handsome Mexican, April, My Titles of Nobility…’

  Céline couldn’t take her eyes off Anatole. For once, she seemed uninterested in the inanities that were being spouted on stage. Cyprien, who was at first diverted to see lipsticked mouths opening in pallid faces, to hear false notes being sung, to listen to warbling screeches, the divinely rasping bugle-blasts of clapped-out female singers, was beginning to get prodigiously bored. He was struck by Céline’s distracted air and it raised his hopes that she would put an end to his torture.

  ‘This isn’t very amusing, is it?’ he murmured; but afraid that he might want to leave, she immediately said she was really enjoying herself. ‘That’s strange,’ he replied, ‘you don’t look very happy.’ Then, blushing, she leaned over and whispered a few words in his ear.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ he said. ‘Well this won’t last long, you can go during the intermission.’

  She tried to put on a happy face and squirm in her seat from time to time, like a person who was enjoying herself but wasn’t very comfortable.

  Cyprien went back to relishing an astonishing song, the verses of which a woman was wreaking havoc on to the cheers of the crowd. The intermission couldn’t come quick enough for Céline; now she was seething, impatient to break her ties. The momentary hesitation that had gripped her on leaving the painter’s studio had passed. The episode of the garlic returned to her mind and she was savouring her revenge, yearning for the moment she could carry it out. Then she thought of a way to refine her cruelty; she squeezed Cyprien’s hand, looked at him with limpid eyes, like a woman who was madly in love with a man and impatient to be alone with him. The painter felt a shiver run down his spine and he, in his turn, stared at his mistress with greedy eyes and moist lips.

  A string of inanities was continuing to play out on stage. Men gave way to women and women gave way to men, the women entering from the left and the men from the right. Seated as they were, Cyprien and Céline could see the wretchedness of their costumes, the parade of dirty gloves, of frayed pockets, and the hob-nailed boots of water-carriers beneath dancing costumes. Every imperfection, all the defects of the face – bloodshot eyes, cheeks etched by smallpox, scars, clusters of cold sores at the corners of lips – every bit of flabby flesh, their brutish arms and big fat ankle-joints, was displayed before them, barely concealed by greasepaint and layers of make-up, by cotton stockings, by corsets armed with whalebone stays and stuffed with wadding.

  The intermission came, the trombones dried up. Céline glanced to check that Anatole was no longer in his seat. The curtain fell. ‘Wait for me, I’ll be back,’ she said to the painter who, out of discretion, didn’t try to follow her. She threaded through the crowd that was streaming out of the doors. Anatole was there.

  ‘Oh heavens, it’s a kidnapping!’ he cried, ‘and it’s a toff’s smart bird I’m going off with!’ Céline took his arm and they rushed off down the street.

  Cyprien continued to look around the hall. Two, three, five people came back in. Soon a whole stream of young girls and working men crossed the threshold; finally, the serried ranks made their way inside. The hall filled up again. Céline didn’t come back. The painter twisted round in his seat, persuading himself that she’d met some friends from the workshop and that she was chatting with them outside. The show was starting again. The pitiful band of musicians sat in their pit and fidgeted. Cyprien was beginning to get worried. He was afraid that Céline might have been taken ill; he stayed for a few minutes more, then, unable to wait any longer, he left, to the jeers of the people he disturbed. He enquired among the stewards, who in the evenings stand at the entrance overseeing the distribution of seats and beer, whether they’d seen a woman of such and such appearance and dress. They laughed in his face. He realised that his request was stupid, that these men would have taken no more notice of Céline than they would any other girl. So he went and stood in the street, then wandered along the pavement, going down as far as the Mille-Colonnes dance hall; he looked in a pharmacist’s window, saw nothing but a dozing chemist, his bespectacled nose resting on a book; he l
ingered in front of the Iles-Marquises, an abominable eatery that Céline was quite taken with, a poky bistro with its strings of escargot shells and its pallets of oysters; then he walked back up as far as the music hall, went back in, found their seats were already taken by another couple, and going out again stood on the pavement at a complete loss.

  He felt as if he’d been bludgeoned by a club. After having suspected a sudden illness, he now feared a ruthless breakup. His forebodings were coming true, then. So that explained her renewed patience and friendliness. But in spite of it all, this seemed to him a bit unlikely. That they couldn’t agree with each other, nothing was more natural; that, at the end of the day, she should have preferred the caresses of some nasty piece of low-life to his own, that was her affair; but it would have been simpler, in that case, to part as friends. She could have said to him, without even making a big deal out of it: ‘Listen, I’ve had enough, I’m going.’ ‘Oh, I’m so stupid,’ he finally said to himself, ‘I’m unfairly accusing her of playing a dirty trick on me,’ and suddenly the idea came to him that, having felt ill she had simply gone back to his place.

  He returned to his apartment as quickly as he could. His heart sank when he noticed that it was still double-locked. The studio, when he opened the door, seemed darker than usual, and from the first step he felt an icy sensation, like a cold shower. He lit a lamp. The table was still in the middle of the room, near the dying stove; nothing had been disturbed, neither the napkins carelessly thrown aside on the furniture, nor the saucers in which cigarette ash was dissolving in tea slops. A sudden thought impelled him to go into the bedroom; he dashed over to the bedside table, looked for Céline’s slippers. They were no longer there. There was no doubt possible now. She had left him. This insulting way of breaking her tether threw him into a mad rage, then he was gripped by an immense despair.