A Love Story Page 24

  ‘I did not get anything, you know,’ said the Tissot boy to Pauline, who was telling him about a painter whose pictures she had been taken to see by her father.

  ‘What? You didn’t have anything?... I brought you a cup of coffee.’

  ‘No, Mademoiselle, you didn’t, I assure you.’

  ‘But you simply must have something. Wait, here’s some chartreuse!’

  Madame Deberle had discreetly nodded to her husband. The doctor understood, opened the door of the big salon himself, and they went through, while a servant took away the tray. It was almost chilly in the large room, which was lit with the bright white light of six lamps and a chandelier with ten candles. Some ladies were already there, sitting in a semicircle round the hearth. Amongst their spreading skirts stood two or three men. And through the half-open door of the pale yellow drawing room you could hear the shrill voice of Pauline left alone with the Tissot boy.

  ‘Now I’ve poured it out, you’ll surely drink it... What can I do? Pierre has taken the tray away.’

  Then she came into view, all in white, in her dress trimmed with swansdown.

  With a smile that showed her teeth between her young lips she announced:

  ‘Our handsome friend Malignon.’

  The handshakes and greetings continued. Monsieur Deberle had taken up a position next to the door. Madame Deberle, who was sitting in the middle of the ladies on a very low pouffe, kept getting up. When Malignon arrived she pretended not to see him. He was dressed very correctly, his tonged hair parted down to the nape. On the threshold he had fixed a monocle in his right eye, with a slight grimace, ‘as chic as anything’, as Pauline kept saying. And he looked around the salon. He casually shook the doctor’s hand without a word, then went over to Madame Deberle, cutting a tall figure in his tight black costume, and made her a deep bow.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she remarked, aloud so that everyone could hear. ‘So it seems you are swimming these days.’

  He did not understand what she meant, but nevertheless answered, in order to show how witty he was:

  ‘That’s right... One day I saved a Newfoundland dog from drowning.’

  The ladies found that delightful. Even Madame Deberle seemed to have dropped her defences.

  ‘I allow you to save dogs,’ she said. ‘But as you are well aware, I didn’t bathe once at Trouville.’

  ‘Oh, that lesson I gave you!’ he cried. ‘Well now, one evening in your dining room did I not tell you that you had to move your hands and feet?’

  All the ladies started to laugh. He was so charming. Juliette shrugged. One could not have a serious conversation with him. And she rose to go and talk to a lady who could play the piano very well and was visiting her house for the first time. Sitting by the fire, quietly composed, Hélène looked and listened. She seemed to find Malignon especially interesting. She had seen him making a sly move to get closer to Madame Deberle and she could hear them chatting behind her armchair. Suddenly the voices changed. She leaned back, to hear more clearly what they were saying. She could hear Malignon’s voice:

  ‘Why didn’t you come yesterday? I waited for you till six.’

  ‘Leave me alone, you’re mad,’ whispered Juliette.

  At that point Malignon’s voice was raised, and rolling his ‘r’s he said:

  ‘Oh, so you don’t believe my story about the Newfoundland dog. But I got a medal, I’ll show you.’

  And he added very softly:

  ‘You promised, remember...’

  An entire family arrived, Madame Deberle gushed compliments while Malignon appeared again in the midst of the women, monocle to his eye. Hearing these rapidly spoken words, Hélène had grown pale. It was like a thunderbolt, something unexpected and monstrous. How could this fortunate woman with the lily-white complexion, so calm and unperturbed, how could she be unfaithful to her husband? She had always taken her as something of a birdbrain, an engagingly egotistical person, who was thereby prevented from doing anything stupid that would cause her trouble. And with a man like Malignon, at that! Suddenly she saw those afternoons in the garden again, Juliette smiling and affectionate beneath the kiss planted so lightly on her hair by the doctor. Yet they loved one another.

  Then, with a feeling that she could not explain to herself, she was full of anger at Juliette, as though she had been personally betrayed. She was humiliated on Henri’s behalf, a jealous fury came over her, and her discomfort was so evident on her face that Mademoiselle Aurélie asked:

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?... Are you unwell?’

  The old maid had sat down by her when she saw she was on her own. She felt most warmly towards Hélène, this serious and beautiful woman who was kind enough to listen for hours to her gossiping.

  But now Hélène did not answer. She needed to see Henri, to know there and then what he was doing, what his face was like. She got up and looked around in the salon and in the end found him. He was standing there, completely unruffled, chatting to a stout man with a pasty complexion and he looked at ease and wore his habitual distinguished smile. She studied him for a moment. She felt pity for him, and it diminished him a little in her eyes, but at the same time she loved him more, with a fondness in which there was something protective. She felt in some still very muddled way that she should compensate him for his lost happiness.

  ‘Ah, good,’ whispered Mademoiselle Aurélie. ‘It will be fun if Madame de Guiraud’s sister sings. It’s the tenth time I’ve heard her sing “Les Tourterelles”. That’s her only song this winter. She’s separated from her husband, you know. See that dark man over there, near the door. They are intimate. Juliette is obliged to invite him otherwise she wouldn’t come.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Hélène.

  Madame Deberle was moving from one group to the next, asking them to be quiet and listen to Madame Guiraud’s sister. The salon was full, about thirty ladies were sitting in the middle, whispering and laughing; but two remained standing chatting loudly, shrugging prettily, while five or six men seemed very much at home there, as though they were lost amongst the skirts of the women. A few discreet ‘shushes’ could be heard, the talking stopped, faces took on a fixed, bored expression; and the only sound you could hear was the beating of the women’s fans in the warm air.

  Madame Guiraud’s sister sang, but Hélène was not listening. Now she was staring at Malignon, who seemed to be savouring ‘Les Tourterelles’, affecting a great passion for music. Was it possible! That fellow! No doubt it was at Trouville that they had been playing with fire. The words that Hélène had overheard seemed to point to Juliette not yet having surrendered to him, but it seemed as though she very soon would succumb. In front of her, Malignon was tapping out the rhythm in a delighted fashion; Madame Deberle seemed warm in her admiration, while the doctor remained silent, patient and pleasant, waiting for the piece to come to an end before resuming his conversation with the pale stout man.

  When the song was over, a ripple of applause broke out.

  And voices gushed:

  ‘Delightful, superb!’

  But the handsome Malignon, arms stretched out over the ladies’ coiffures, was clapping his gloved hands silently, repeating ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ in a sing-song voice louder than all the others.

  Abruptly then, this enthusiasm ceased, faces relaxed and smiled, a few ladies rose, and conversations began again, in the midst of the general relief. It grew hotter, the scent of musk wafted from the ladies under the beating fans. From time to time in the murmurings of conversation a pearly laugh rang out, a witty remark made in a loud voice made heads turn. Three times already Juliette had gone into the small drawing room to beg the men who had taken refuge there not to abandon the ladies like that. They followed her. But ten minutes later they had vanished again.

  ‘They are too bad,’ she said crossly, ‘we can’t keep a single one here.’

  Meanwhile Mademoiselle Aurélie was telling Hélène who the ladies were, for it was only the second time she had attended one of the doc
tor’s parties. All the high society of Passy was there, very rich people. Then, leaning over:

  ‘Goodness me, it’s happened... Madame de Chermette is marrying off her daughter to that tall fair-haired young man she has been seeing for the last eighteen months. Well, at least that’s one mother-in-law who will get on well with her son-in-law.’

  But she broke off in great surprise.

  ‘Look, there’s Madame Levasseur’s husband chatting to his wife’s lover!...’

  Yet Juliette had sworn she would stop inviting them both together.

  Hélène cast her eyes slowly round the drawing room. In this worthy company, amongst this bourgeoisie which seemed so respectable, were there then only guilty women? Her strict provincial morality was shocked by the promiscuous behaviour tolerated in Parisian society. And she was bitterly chiding herself for having put herself through so much self-inflicted suffering, when Juliette took her hand. Truly she was stupid to be so scrupulous in her behaviour! Adultery was becoming part of bourgeois society — quite smugly, with just a little edge of coquettish refinement. Madame Deberle now seemed to have made it up with Malignon, and the soft, pretty brunette was cosily and curvaceously ensconced and laughing at his jokes. Monsieur Deberle happened to come by.

  ‘So you are not quarrelling this evening?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Juliette replied very gaily. ‘He says too many silly things... If you could hear all the silly things he’s saying...’

  The singing started again. But now it was harder to get people to be quiet. The Tissot boy sang a duet from La Favorite* alongside a very mature lady with a youthful hairdo. Pauline, standing at one of the doors, surrounded by dark suits, was gazing at the singer in open admiration, just as she had seen people do when looking at paintings.

  ‘Oh, how handsome he is,’ she murmured during a quiet passage in the accompaniment, and so loudly that the whole drawing room could hear. The evening wore on, people’s faces were suffused with tiredness. Ladies who had been sitting in the same armchairs for three hours, wore an unconsciously bored expression, though they were not unhappy to be bored there. Between two numbers listened to with half an ear, the chatting began again and it was as if the piano itself continued its empty noise. Monsieur Letellier was saying how he had gone to supervise a silk order in Lyons; the waters of the Saône did not mix with the waters of the Rhône, that had struck him forcibly. Monsieur de Guiraud, a magistrate, uttered a few sententious words about the need to contain vice in the streets of Paris. A man who knew a Chinaman, and was telling everyone about him, was surrounded by guests. Two ladies in a corner exchanged confidences about their servants. Meanwhile, in the group of women where Malignon held court, they were discussing literature: Madame Tissot was declaring Balzac to be unreadable; he did not dispute it but simply remarked that Balzac did have the odd page that was well written.

  ‘Quiet!’ Pauline cried. ‘She is about to play.’

  It was the pianist, the lady who had such a fine talent. All heads politely turned. But in the middle of the calm you could hear loud male voices talking in the small drawing room. Madame Deberle looked desperate. She was having a very bad time.

  ‘They are a nuisance,’ she said under her breath. ‘Let them stay there since they don’t want to join us. But at least let them be quiet!’ And she sent Pauline, who was delighted to go and fulfil the mission.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said the young girl, brash, unperturbed and virginal in her queenly gown. ‘Someone is going to play the piano. You are requested to be quiet.’

  She spoke loudly and in a shrill voice. And as she stayed there with the men laughing and joking, the noise grew ever louder.

  The discussion continued and she gave her opinion. In the salon Madame Deberle was in torment. Anyway, they had had enough music and were indifferent to it. The pianist sat down again, with pursed lips, in spite of the exaggerated compliments the mistress of the house felt she ought to bestow on her.

  Hélène was suffering. Henri seemed not to notice her. He had not come over. From time to time he smiled at her from across the room. At the beginning of the evening she had felt relieved that he was being so sensible. But ever since realizing what the other two were doing she wanted something, she didn’t know quite what, some sign of affection, and she was even prepared to be compromised. She was stirred with a vague desire mixed up with all sorts of bad feelings. Did he not love her any more then, since he remained so cold towards her? He must be biding his time. Oh, if only she had been able to tell him everything, make him aware of the unworthiness of the woman who bore his name! So while the piano was tinkling out a series of little notes she was lulled into a dream: Henri had rid himself of Juliette and she, Hélène, was with him as his wife in far-off countries with unknown tongues.

  A voice made her start.

  ‘Won’t you have anything to drink then?’ Pauline asked.

  The salon was empty. People had just moved into the dining room for tea. Hélène got up with difficulty. Her head was spinning. She thought she must have dreamed it all, the words overheard, Juliette’s impending downfall, the cheerful, insouciant adultery of the bourgeoisie. If those things were true, Henri would be near her and both of them would already have left the house.

  ‘Will you have a cup of tea?’

  She smiled and thanked Madame Deberle, who had kept her a place at table. Plates of cakes and sweetmeats covered the tablecloth, and a large brioche and two cakes stood on symmetrical cake stands. Since there was very little room, the teacups were almost touching, separated every two cups by narrow grey napkins with long fringes. Only the ladies were seated. They had removed their gloves and were eating petits fours and glacé fruits with their fingers, passing the cream dish along, pouring with elegant gestures. However, three or four of them had unselfishly taken it upon themselves to see to the gentlemen. The men standing against the walls were drinking, taking the greatest possible care to protect themselves from unintended elbowing. Others remaining in the two drawing rooms were waiting for the cakes to be brought to them. This was Pauline’s hour of triumph. People talked more loudly, laughter and the tinkling of silver could be heard, the scent of musk was enhanced by the pungent scent of tea.

  ‘Pass me a piece of brioche please,’ said Mademoiselle Aurélie, who sat by Hélène. ‘All these sweetmeats do not satisfy one.’

  She had already emptied two platefuls. Then, her mouth full:

  ‘Ah, everyone is going... All the more room for us.’ Some women were indeed leaving, after shaking hands with Madame Deberle. Many men had discreetly vanished. The rooms were emptying. Then some men took their turn to sit at the table. But Mademoiselle Aurélie did not relinquish her place. She wanted a glass of punch.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch you one,’ said Hélène.

  ‘Oh no, thank you... Please don’t trouble yourself.’

  Hélène had been observing Malignon for some little while. He had gone to shake hands with the doctor, and was now saying goodbye to Juliette in the doorway. Her face was pale, her eyes limpid, and from her happy smile you would have thought he was complimenting her on her party. As Pierre was pouring out the punch on the dresser, near the door, Hélène went forward and manoeuvred herself into a position where she was hidden behind the other side of the portière. She listened.

  ‘Please, please,’ Malignon was saying, ‘come the day after tomorrow... I shall be waiting at three...’

  ‘Can’t you be serious for once?’ Madame Deberle answered with a laugh. ‘You say such silly things!’

  But he insisted, repeating:

  ‘I shall be waiting for you... Come the day after tomorrow... You know where?’

  Then she whispered hurriedly:

  ‘Yes, all right, the day after tomorrow.’

  Malignon bowed and left.

  Madame de Charmette was leaving with Madame Tissot. Gaily, Juliette went into the hall with them, saying to the former in her most amiable manner:

  ‘I’ll come and see you t
he day after tomorrow. I’ve got so many visits that day.’

  Hélène had remained motionless, very pale. Meanwhile Pierre had poured out the punch and held it out to her. She took it automatically and carried it to Mademoiselle Aurélie who was attacking the glacé fruits.

  ‘Oh, how kind!’ the spinster exclaimed. ‘I could have waved to Pierre. They should really offer punch to ladies as well... When you are as old as I am...’

  But she broke off when she saw how pale Hélène was.

  ‘But you really don’t look well... Why not have a glass of punch?’

  ‘No, thank you, I’m fine... It’s very hot in here...’

  Unsteadily she returned to the deserted drawing room and collapsed into an armchair. The lamps had a reddish glow; the candles on the chandelier burning very low, threatened to crack their rings. From the dining room you could hear the farewells of the last guests. Hélène had forgotten all about leaving, she wanted to stay there and think. So it was not her imagination, Juliette would go and visit this man. The day after tomorrow. She knew what day. Oh, she would no longer be so afraid of letting herself go, that was what her inward voice was telling her all the time. Then she decided she ought to talk to Juliette, to prevent her committing that sin. But this charitable but unwelcome thought made her freeze and she pushed it to the back of her mind. She stared into the hearth and a dead log crackled. The close, drowsy air retained the perfume of the ladies’ coiffures.

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ cried Juliette as she came in. ‘Oh, how nice of you not to go home straight away! We can breathe at last!’