Idea Transcript
Jean Rhys
ral
try
By the AUTHOR OF WIDE
SARGASSO SEA
Boston Public Ltbrwy Boston, MA 02116
Digitized by the Internet Archive in
2015
https://archive.org/details/quartetnortonpapOOjean
Quartet
By Jean Rhys
in
Norton Paperback Fiction
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie
The Collected Short
Stories
Good Morning, Midnight Quartet Voyage in the Dark
Wide Sargasso Sea
Quartet JEAN RHYS
S3 Norton & Company New York London
W. W.
•
Copyright
©
1929, 1957 by Jean Rhys.
First published as a
Norton paperback 1997
Reprinted by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers,
Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
77—138795
ISBN 0-393-31546-0
W W Norton & Company, W W Norton & Company
1234567890
Inc.,
500
Ltd., 10
Fifth Avenue,
New York,
Coptic Street, London
N.Y.
WC1A
10110
1PU
...
Of good Samaritans — walk
Or hide thee by the Or greet them with
Beware
to the right
roadside out of sight the smile that villains
wear
.
— R. C. Dunning
I it
was about
when Marya
half-past five
on an October afternoon
came out of the Cafe Lavenue, which is a dignified and comparatively expensive establishment on the Boulevard du Montparnasse. She had been sitting there for Zelli
nearly an hour and a half, and during that time she had
drunk two cigarettes
face
six
caporal
and read the week’s Candide.
Marya was
Her
smoked
of black coffee,
glasses
was
a
blond
girl,
not very
tall,
slender- waisted.
short, high cheek-boned, full-lipped; her long
eyes slanted upwards towards the temples and
were gentle
and oddly remote in expression. Often on the Boulevards St
Michel and Montparnasse shabby youths would glide up
to her
and address her hopefully in unknown and spitting
tongues. distant
When
they were very shabby she would smile in a
manner and answer
‘I’m very sorry;
I
in English
don’t understand what you are saying.*
She crossed the boulevard and turned
down
the
Rue de
Rennes. As she walked along she was thinking: ‘This street is
very like the Tottenham Court Road -
own
sister to the
Tottenham Court Road.’
The
idea depressed her, and to distract herself she stopped
to look at a red felt hat in a shop
window. Someone behind
her said ‘Hello,
the world
Madame
Zelli,
what are you doing
?’
5
in this part of
De
Miss Esther
Solla, tall, gaunt,
broad-shouldered, stood
looking downwards at her with a protective expression.
When
Marya answered: ‘Hello! Nothing.
melancholy, to
tell
‘Come along
De
Miss
to
feeling
you the truth/ she proposed:
my studio
who was
Solla,
was
I
for a bit.
’
a painter and ascetic to the point
of fanaticism, lived in a street at the back of the Lion de
Her
Belfort.
studio was hidden behind a grim building
where the housewives of the neighbourhood came their clothes.
It
was
and that
saisons
complaints were
The
artist
explained that a
kept her stock in the courtyard,
woman was
as the
wash
a peaceful place, white-walled, smelling
strongly of decayed vegetables.
marchande des quatre
to
the concierge’s sister-in-law,
useless.
‘Though the smell’s pretty awful sometimes.
Sit
near the
stove. It’s cold today.’
She opened a massive cupboard and produced a bottle of gin, another of
vermouth, two
and a cardboard case
glasses
containing drawings. ‘I
bought these
this
morning.
What do you think of them V
Marya, helped by the alcohol, realized that the drawings
were to
beautiful.
form
Groups of women. Masses of
intricate
way
arranged
and absorbing patterns.
‘That man’s a Hungarian,’ explained Miss just over the
flesh
in the house
De
Solla. ‘He’s
where Trotsky used
know
He’s a discovery of Heidler’s. You
to live.
Heidler,
the
English picture-dealer man, of course.’
Marya answered:
‘I
don’t
know any
of the English people
in Paris.’
‘Don’t you?’ said Miss
added
hastily:
‘How
De
Solla,
shocked. Then she
perfectly lovely for you!’
6
‘D’you think so Miss ‘I
De
asked Marya dubiously.
?’
Solla assured
her that
do think that one ought
from the Anglo-Saxons good of being here either.
Not
to
it
was.
make an
what on earth
in Paris, or
And it isn’t woman, anyhow.
at all
easy for a
effort to get
?
away
is
the
an easy thing to do, But, of course, your
husband’s French, isn’t he?’ ‘No,’ said Marya. ‘He’s a Pole.’
The other looked
across at her and thought:
married to the Zelli man,
I
wonder ?
‘Is
she really
She’s a decorative
person - decorative but strangely pathetic.
I
little
must get her
to sit to me.’
She began to argue that there was something unreal about
most English people. ‘They touch
with gloves on. They’re pretending
life
about something
the time. Pretending quite nice and
all
decent things, of course. But
‘Everybody pretends,’ people pretend every bit
still
.’ .
Marya was thinking.
‘French
much, only about
different
as
things and not so obviously. She’ll
been here
as
long as
‘As long as
seemed
I
I
have.
have.’
.
know
that
when
she’s
’
The four
years she had spent in Paris
to stretch into infinity.
‘English people
.
.
.*
continued Miss
De
Solla
in a
dogmatic voice.
The drone of of the studio.
a concertina
The man was
have no bananas’. But listening to
it
it
sounded from the courtyard
really trying to play ‘Yes,
we
was an unrecognizable version, and
gave Marya the same feeling of melancholy
pleasure as she had
when walking
of one of those narrow streets 7
along the shadowed side
full
of shabby parfumeries ,
second-hand book-stalls, cheap hat-shops, bars frequented
by gaily-painted premises
.
.
and loud-voiced men, midwives’
ladies
.
Montparnasse was
Rue Vaugirard,
of these streets and they were
full
often inordinately long.
You could walk
for instance.
for hours.
The
Marya had never yet managed
Rue Vaugirard, which was a very thoroughfare on the whole. But if you went far
to reach the end of the
respectable
enough towards Grenelle and then turned down streets
.
.
.
Only the day before she had discovered, most
attractive restaurant.
patron
side
in this way, a
There was no patronne but the ,
was beautifully made up. Crimson was where crim-
son should be, and rose-colour where rose-colour. talked with a
The room was
lisp.
bawled intimacies
at
full
of
men
in caps
He who
each other; a gramophone played
without ceasing; a beautiful white dog under the counter,
which everybody
called Zaza and
threw bones
to,
barked
madly.
But Stephan objected with violence to these wanderings
And though Marya considered that he was extremely inconsistent, she generally gave way to his inconsistencies and spent hours alone in the bedroom of the Hotel de l’Univers. Not that she objected to solitude. Quite in sordid streets.
the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of
books. All sorts of books. Still,
there
were moments when she
realized that her
existence, though delightful, was haphazard.
were,
solidity;
it
It
lacked, as
lacked the necessary fixed background.
bedroom, balcony and
cabinet de toilette in a
it
A
cheap Mont-
martre hotel cannot possibly be called a solid background. 8
Miss
De
Solla,
who had by this time pretty well
exhausted
her fascinating subject, stopped talking.
Marya
said: ‘Yes,
but
it’s
knowing any
pretty lonely, not
English people.’
De Solla answered, What are you doing this
‘Well,’ Miss
pining for.
what you’re
that’s
‘if
Come
evening?
along
meet the Heidlers. You must have heard
to Lefranc’s and
of Heidler.’ ‘Never.’
‘Hugh Heidler?’ protested Miss De
Mr
She proceeded to explain
important person in his way, coveries; he helped the ‘I
Solla.
who was a seemed. He made
it
young men, he had
good now —
Provence in the winter and Montparnasse for the
know
‘I
De
like
Of course, people
say
—
Solla stopped.
Mrs Heidler anyway;
she’s a very sensible
no nonsense there. She’s one of the few people parnasse
whom
any good, and
‘Much
rest of the
the sort of thing. He’s had a kind of ner-
vous breakdown. Miss
dis-
a flair.
believe they intend to settle in France for
year - you
very
Heidler,
I
do
it’s
like.
Most of them
.
.
.
woman;
in
Mont-
But abuse
better to be clean than kind.
isn’t
’
better!’ agreed Marya.
‘Not that they are said the other.
mad on
‘Never mind.’ She got up and
‘Mrs Heidler paints, too.
hundreds of
baths or nailbrushes, either,’
women round
It’s
lit
a cigarette.
pretty awful to think of the
here painting away, and
all that,
isn’t it?’
She looked round her austere studio, and the Jewess’s
hunger for the softness and warmth of eyes.
9
life
was naked
in
her
Td
‘Well,’ said Marya,
phone
my
to Stephan, to
like to
husband.
come, but
Where
must
I
can
I
tele-
telephone
from?’
‘From the Cafe
on
a chair to put
put in electric
Buffalo.
my
light.
though the smell
is
Wait
gas out.
a minute, I’ve got to stand
My
shark of a landlady won’t
Mind you, I’m fond of
sometimes. That head over
really awful
there doesn’t look so bad in this light, does
De
this place,
it?’ said
Miss
Solla, wistfully.
*
Lefranc’s
is
up the Boulevard du
a small restaurant half-way
Montparnasse.
It is
much
frequented by the Anglo-Saxons
of the quarter, and by a meagre sprinkling of Scandinavians
and Dutch.
The
patron
is
provincial and affable.
The
beaming behind the counter, possesses
sits
patronne
,
who
a mildy robust
expression and the figure and coiffure of the nineties; her waist goes in, her hips coiled into a is
come
out, her long black hair
is
smooth bun on the top of her round head. She
very restful to the tired eye.
The Heidlers were
sitting at a table at the
end of the
room.
‘Good evening,’
said
Mrs Heidler
in the voice of a well-
educated young male. Her expression was non-committal. ‘
Encore
deux
vermouths- cassis
!’
Mr
said
Heidler to the
waitress.
They were
fresh, sturdy people.
so very sturdy that
from as if
a nervous
it
was
Mr
difficult to
Heidler, indeed, was
imagine him suffering
breakdown of any kind whatever. He looked
nothing could break him down. 10
He was
a
tall, fair
man
of perhaps forty-five. His shoulders were tremendous, his
nose arrogant, his hands short, broad and so plump that the knuckles face
were dimpled. The wooden expression of
was carefully striven
intelligent,
for.
his
His eyes were light blue and
but with a curious underlying expression of
obtuseness - even of brutality.
T expect he’s awfully fussy,’ thought Marya. Mrs Heidler was a good deal younger than her husband, plump and dark, country with a careful dash of Chelsea, and wore with assurance
a
drooping
hat
felt
which
entirely hid
the upper part of her face. She sat in silence for listening to Miss
De
Sofia’s conversation
some time
about the dearth
of studios, and then suddenly remarked to Marya: ‘H.
and
J.
have quite made up our minds that eating
I
the greatest pleasure in
any
rate, it’s
life.
Well,
I
mean,
it is, isn’t it?
one of the few pleasures that never
let
is
At
you
down.’
Her
eyes
were
beautiful, clearly
brown, the long
lashes
curving upwards, but there was a suspicious, almost a
deadened look
T’m
in
them.
well-behaved young woman,’
a
you’re not going to catch
me
they said, ‘and
out, so don’t think
it.’
Or
perhaps, thought Marya, she’s just thoroughly enjoying her pilaff.
Miss
De
that eating
land and,
Sofia,
was
looking
jolly.
finally,
more
ascetic than ever, agreed
They discussed
Marya,
were
person
as if she
strayed
animal - one not
whom
eating, cooking, Eng-
they spoke of in the third
a strange animal
quite of the fold.
* 11
or
at
any rate a
:
‘But you are English
He was
- or
aren’t you?’ asked Heidler.
walking along the boulevard by her
side, his
head
thrown back.
carefully
Marya assured him
that she was. ‘But
I
left
England four
years ago.’
He
asked: ‘And you’ve been
all
the time in Paris
without waiting for her to answer, he added
De Solla got to ? Oh, if Guy is in here, Lois.’
have Lois and Miss just
go and see
He
fussily:
?’
Then,
‘Where
there they are
!
I’ll
Dome. said Mrs Heidler.
disappeared into the Cafe du
‘It’s a
dreadful place, isn’t it?’
Marya, looking through the door tightly
packed assembly, agreed that
at the
it
mournful and
was rather dreadful.
Heidler emerged, puffing slightly, and announced in a
worried tone ‘He’s not here. We’ll
sit
on the terrace and wait
for
him.’
The
empty and
terrace was
ment they
all
sat
cold,
but without argu-
down and ordered
coffee and liqueur
brandies.
Marya,
who was
beginning to shiver, drank her brandy
and found herself staring eagerly and curiously
at
Mrs
Heidler.
A
strong, dark
like her face.
woman, her body would be
duskily solid
There was something of the earth about her,
something of the peasant. Her mouth was large and thicklipped, but not insensitive, and she had an
odd
wincing when Heidler spoke to her sharply.
would screw up one
A
habit of
tremor
side of her face so that for an instant
she looked like a hurt animal. ‘I
bet that
man
is
a bit of a brute sometimes,’ thought
12
Marya.
And
as she
thought
she felt his hand lying heavily
it,
on her knee.
He looked light,
kind, peaceful and exceedingly healthy. His
calm eyes searched the faces of the people passing
on the Boulevard Montparnasse, and possessively, heavy as lead,
his
huge hand
lay
on her knee.
Ridiculous sort of thing to do. Ridiculous, not frightening.
Why frightening?
She made a cautious but decided movement and the hand
was withdrawn. ‘It’s
‘Let’s
very cold here/ said Heidler in his gentle voice.
go on to the Select Bar,
shall
we?’
*
At
a little after
midnight Marya got back to the Hotel de
Rue Cauchois. She mounted five flights of steep, uncarpeted stairs, felt her way along an unlighted passage, flung her bedroom door open and embraced her husband l’Univers,
violently. ‘
Tiens,
He looked Mado
he
,’
The room was
so thin after the well-fed Heidlers.
said.
‘You’re very
large and low-ceilinged, the striped wall-
paper faded to inoffensiveness. a
huge dark bed. The
A
huge dark wardrobe faced
rest of the furniture shrank
comers, battered and apologetic. left
late.’
A
away
into
narrow door on the
led into a small, very dark dressing-room. There was
no carpet on the ‘I’ve just this
Marya
floor.
minute got back,’ remarked Stephan.
said: ‘Well,
was everything
all
right?’
And when
he answered, ‘Yes,’ she asked no further questions. Stephan disliked being questioned and, J
3
when
closely
pressed, he lied.
He
just lied.
Not
plausibly or craftily, but
impatiently and absent-mindedly. So Marya had long ago
stopped questioning. For she was reckless,
by nature, and for the near to being happy.
first
time in her
lazy, a
life
vagabond
she was very
2 Mary a, you must
understand, had not been suddenly
and ruthlessly transplanted from solid comfort to the hazards of Montmartre. Nothing like that. Truth to say, she
was used to
a lack of solidity
and of fixed backgrounds.
Before her marriage she had spent several years
Mr
member
of
odd
Morose
life.
Albert Prance’s No. landladies, boiled
i
as
touring company.
a
An
onion suppers. Bottles of
gin in the dressing-room. Perpetual manicuring of one’s
Sunday
nails in the
train.
(‘Swine, deary, swine.’)
Perpetual discussions about men.
The chorus knew
about men,
all
judged them with a rapid and terrible accuracy.
Marya had longed teen then
-
to play a glittering part - she
against the
was nine-
sombre and wonderful background
of London. She had visited a theatrical agent; she had sung-
some thing - anything a stout
in a quavering voice,
and weary gentleman, had run
downwards and remarked no
and the agent,
his eyes
upwards and
in a hopeless voice: ‘Well, you’re
Tetrazzini, are you, deary?
Never mind, do
a
few
steps.’
She had done a few steps. The stout gentleman had glanced at another gentleman standing behind the piano, was,
it
seemed,
Mr
Albert Prance’s manager. Both nodded
slightly.
A
contract was produced.
‘Miss
—
I
say,
what d’you
call
Hughes, hereinafter called the Clause 28
:
no
who
play,
no pay. 15
The thing was done. yourself? - Miss Marya
artist.’
:
The next day
she attended her
first
rehearsal and listened
to the musical director bawling, with a resigned expression
‘Sopranos on
Mr
my right,
on
contraltos
my left.’
Albert Prance himself had a curved nose, a large
stomach and
Something
He watched
long black moustache.
a
rehearsals and
would occasionally make
the
a short speech.
like this:
‘Ladies and gentlemen. This play wants guts!*
He
terrified
Marya; her knees shook whenever he came
anywhere near her.
Sometimes she would left to all this
reflect that the
way she had been
was astonishing, even alarming.
When she had
without expensive preliminaries, she
pointed out that,
would be earning her own
everybody had stopped
living,
protesting and had agreed that this was a good argument.
A
very good argument
For Marya’ s
indeed.
relatives,
though respectable people, presentable people (one might even go so
far as to say quite
stricken and poverty
is
good people), were poverty-
many compromises.
the cause of
There she was and there she
stayed. Gradually passivity
replaced her early adventurousness. She learned, after long
and painstaking
effort, to talk like a
chorus
girl, to
a chorus girl and to think like a chorus girl
Beyond
that point she
live
mechanically and
A
it
passionately.
to a point.
She grew thin.
her hard and monotonous
life
very
listlessly.
vague procession of towns
procession of
dress like
remained apart, lonely, frightened of
her loneliness, resenting She began to
- up
men
all
exactly alike, a vague
also exactly alike.
One
can drift like that
for a long time, she found, carefully hiding the fact that this
wasn’t what one had expected of
16
life.
Not
in the very least.
At twenty-four she imagined with dread growing in
old.
was
Then, during a period of unemployment spent
London, she met Monsieur Stephan
He was
that she
a short, slim, supple
Zelli.
young man of thirty-three
or four, with very quick, bright brown eyes and an eager
He spoke
but secretive expression.
English fairly well in a
harsh voice and (when he was nervous) with an American accent.
He
told
Marya
was of Polish
that he
nationality, that
he
lived in Paris, that he considered her beautiful and wished
to
marry her. Also that he was ‘Oh, you
sell pictures,’
a commissionaire d'objets d’art.
she said.
‘Pictures and other things.’
*
Marya,
who had painfully learnt a certain amount of caution,
told herself that this stranger and alien was probably a bad lot.
But she
as if life
as if
he were
about you. I
felt strangely
peaceful
when
she was with him,
were not such an extraordinary muddle
I
telling her:
know you
‘Now
then, look here,
far better than
I
after all,
know
all
you know yourself.
know why you aren’t happy. I can make you happy.’ And he was so sure of himself, so definite, with such
clean-cut mind.
It
was
a hard
mind, perhaps, disconcertingly
and disquietingly sceptical. But out in
all
sorts of
a
at
any rate
it
didn’t bulge
unexpected places. Most people hesitated.
They fumbled. They were
so full of reticences and pre-
judices and uncertainties and spites and shames, that there
was no getting anywhere ness and a jar
-
at all.
like trying to
One
felt after a
walk up
time a blank-
a step that wasn’t
there. But,
A
good or bad, there Monsieur
He
person.
criticized her clothes
enchanted her. that she
He
Zelli was. Definite.
with authority and
were too
told her that her arms
had a Slav type and a pretty silhouette, that
this
thin, if
she
were happy and petted she would become charming. Happy, petted, charming - these are magical words. And the
man knew what he was
Marya could see
talking about,
that.
As to Monsieur
from her
Zelli,
he drew
air of fatigue, disillusion
shadowed
his
own
conclusions
and extreme youth, her
eyes, her pathetic and unconscious lapses into
helplessness. But
he was without bourgeois prejudices, or
he imagined that he was, and he had though
impulse,
always
in
a
all his life
careful
and
acted on
businesslike
manner.
It
was the end of a luncheon in Soho Marya .
finished
smoking
her cigarette and remarked:
‘You know
I
haven’t got any money, not a thing, not a
’
cent.
She said
this because,
when he had
leaned forward with
the lighted match, he had reminded her of China Audley’s violinist.
China, also one of
by a
tall,
Mr
Prance’s discoveries, was beloved
fine-looking young
charming voice.
A
man with
a large
chivalrous young man.
income and
He had
a
fought
who considered that were unnecessary when dealing with
the good fight with his mother,
honourable intentions chorus
girls.
There the two were — engaged.
Then China had madly
jilted this marvel, this paragon,
and had secretly married the short, swarthy 18
violinist
of a
Manchester
cafe.
She had spent the rest of the tour getting
from her husband;
telegraphic appeals
pounds
once Antonio,’ or something
at
entailed putting her wrist
and taking doesn’t
it
the other
know; you
serves her right,
it
repeated Marya. ‘My father
My
aunt
.’ .
.
told me,’ interrupted
Monsieur
seem
exceedingly strange. But he had a pity,’
Monsieur
said
woman has some money, ‘I
owe
for the dress
I
I
life
all
there
reflected
what became of
to care in the least
her and that English ideas of family
‘It’s
He had
find out about Marya’s relations.
that they didn’t
who
Zelli,
had long ago asked adroit questions and found out
was to
Which
girls.
at all,’
and mother are both dead.
like that.
watch into various pawnshops
out again. Constantly. ‘Well
it?’ said all
‘No money. Nothing
‘I
‘Please send five
were sometimes
made no remark. Zelli.
think. It’s
‘It’s
much
better
when
a
’
safer for her.
have on,’ Marya informed him, for
make things perfectly clear. He told her that they would go next day and pay for it. ‘How much do you owe ?’ ‘It’s not worth that,’ he remarked calmly when she told
she was determined to
him. ‘Not that
it is
ugly, but
it
has no chic.
I
expect your
dressmaker cheats you.’
Marya was annoyed but impressed. ‘You know - you’ll be happy with me, he continued in a ’
persuasive voice.
And Marya answered
On a June afternoon,
that she dared say she would.
heavy with heat, they arrived in Paris. *
*9
Stephan had lived in Montmartre for her, but he had
Sometimes he took her with him
tances. cafe
fifteen years,
he told
no intimate friends and very few acquainto
some obscure
where he would meet an odd-looking old man or
smartly-dressed young one. She
would
sit
a very
in the musty-
smelling half-light sipping iced beer and listening to long, rapid jabberings: Authentique 4
An
and
La Vierge au coussin
— Documents —
Collier de
vert
-
-
Premiere version
V Imperatrice Eugenie
amethyst necklace, the stones
.’
.
.
as big as a calf’s
eye
The pendant pear-shaped, the size of a The necklace is strung on a fine gold chain and
set in gold.
pigeon’s egg. set
‘
with pearls of an extraordinary purity. The whole to be
hung
*
as
quickly as possible round the neck of
A. Butcher of something-or-the-other, willing to put
Pa.,
Mrs Buckell
or of any lady
up with an old-fashioned piece of jewellery,
because imperatrice
is
a fine
word and even empress
isn’t
so bad.
Stephan seemed to do most of his business in
cafes.
He
explained that he acted as intermediary between Frenchmen
who wished to sell and foreigners (invariably foreigners) who wished to buy pictures, fur coats, twelfth-century Madonnas, Madame du Barry’s prie-Dieu, anything. Once he had sold a rocking-horse played with by one of Millet’s many children, and that had been a very profitable deal indeed.
One
evening she had
come home
lying naked and astonishing
cedar-wood
to find Napoleon’s sabre
on her bed by the
side of
its
case.
(‘Oui, parfaitement ,’ said Stephan. ‘Napoleon’s sabre.’)
One
of his sabres, she supposed.
several of them, of course.
A man 20
like
He must
have had
Napoleon. Lots. She
walked round to the other side of the bed and stared
There was
feeling vaguely uneasy.
treasure
on the cedar- wood
a long description of the
first
of porcelain inlaid with
gold, the second of gold set with precious stones.
blade
is
in gold
worked
The
in the Oriental fashion.
of the finest Damascus steel and on
is
it,
case.
‘There are two sheaths, the
of the sabre
at
it is
hilt
The
engraved:
“In token of submission, respect and esteem to Napoleon Bonaparte, the hero of Aboukir
- Mouhrad Bey”.’
That night, long after the cedar-wood case had been
packed away in a shabby ‘Stephan,* she said at
‘I
lay
awake thinking.
last.
He was smoking
‘Well?* answered Stephan. the open window.
Marya
valise,
in front of
thought you were asleep.*
‘No,* said Marya. ‘Wherever did you get that thing?’
He
explained that
it
‘They’re very poor all.
Why
belonged to an old French family.
now and
they want to
man
don’t they what? The
sell it.
has to do
it
That’s
on the
because his mother and his uncle would stop him
if
sly
they
could.’
Marya said in an
sat
up
in bed, put her
arms round her knees and
unhappy voice:
‘He probably has no right to
sell it
without his mother’s
consent.’ ‘His
mother has nothing
sharply. ‘But she
to
say,’
would bother him
Next morning he went out very valise,
if
remarked Stephan
she could.’
early, carrying the old
and Marya never knew what became of the sabre.
‘America,’ said Stephan vaguely
when
she asked. As
who
should say ‘The sea.’
He never
explained his doings. 21
He was
a secretive person,
she considered. Sometimes, without warning or explanation,
he would go away for two or three days, and,
left
some
alone in the hotel, she dreaded, not desertion, but
vague, dimly-apprehended catastrophe. But nothing hap-
pened.
It
was a
fantastic life,
speak. There was
but
it
kept on
its
legs so to
no catastrophe. And eventually Marya
stopped questioning and was happy. Stephan was secretive and a
liar,
but he was a very gentle
and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished
child, the
desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She
was
all
- or
these things to Stephan
so he
made her
Marya hadn’t known that a man could be to a woman - so gentle in little ways.
as nice as all that
And, besides, she liked him. She liked and
believe.
his
wild gaieties
sudden, obstinate silences and the way he some-
his
times stretched his hands out to her. Groping. Like a boy, she would
little
think.
Eighteen months later they went to Brussels for a year.
By the time they returned picion had
left her.
She
to Paris
felt that
her marriage, though risky,
had been a success. And that was regularly,
every vestige of sus-
Her life swayed even monotonously, between two extremes, that.
avoiding the soul-destroying middle. Sometimes they had a
good deal of money and immediately spent they had almost none at
all
it.
Sometimes
and then they would skip a meal
and drink iced white wine on their balcony instead.
From
the balcony Marya could see one side of the Place
Blanche. Opposite, the
Rue Lepic mounted upwards
rustic heights of Montmartre.
It
was astonishing
ficant,
coherent and understandable
glass of
wine on an empty stomach. 22
it
all
to the
how
became
signi-
after a
The
lights
winking up
at a pallid
moon, the slender
painted ladies, the wings of the Moulin Rouge, the smell of petrol and perfume and cooking.
The Place Blanche, Paris, Life itself. One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the
shadow can be more important than the substance.
All sorts of things.
23
3 ‘good evening, Madame
‘Will you
the Hotel de l’llnivers.
moment?
I
Zelli,’
the patronne of
said
come
in here for a
have something to say to you. Edouard, give the
lady a chair.
*
There was
a small sitting-room
behind the hotel bureau
where Madame Hautchamp and her husband spent more than half their It
was a dim,
happily so far as one could see.
lives, quite
airless place
crammed with
furniture: a large
table, a small table, three straight-backed chairs.
Monsieur Hautchamp,
a hairy little
man with
vague and
kindly eyes, muttered something and withdrew.
‘Of course,’ decided Marya, ‘they are going to rent.’
raise the
She waited.
Madame Hautchamp, who was
a
large,
aquiline lady
with a detached and inscrutable expression, announced: ‘Your husband will not return tonight, Madame.’ ‘Oh!’ said Marya. ‘Ah! Bon\ Did he telephone?’ She looked at a loudly-ticking clock on the mantelshelf. It
was
just eight.
‘Monsieur,’ said the patronne
Madame,
arrested.
‘has
,
About an hour
been arrested. Yes,
ago, about seven o’clock.
An inspector and an agent came here.
Enjin
.’ .
.
She gesticulated with both hands and one eyebrow. ‘I
there
understand nothing of is
no doubt
at all that
all
this,
nothing. Unhappily,
he has been arrested.’ 24
Silence.
Then Marya asked
in a careful voice:
‘He didn’t - say
anything before he went?’
‘Monsieur asked,
think,
I
you, and the inspector refused.
‘Oh, did he
?’
said
he could leave
if
Marya, staring
Madame Hautchamp.
at
Her heart had stopped; then began that she felt sick.
a letter for
’
to beat so violently
Her hands were damp and
cold.
Some-
thing in her brain was shrieking triumphantly: ‘There you are
!
knew
I
The
it
!
I
patronne
told
you so
’ !
remarked,
another pause:
after
‘These
things are disagreeable, very disagreeable for everybody.
Nobody likes to be mixed up with these things.’ The inflection of her voice aroused in Marya some instinct of self-defence,
useful
and she was able to say that
it
was
evidently a mistake.
‘Oh, evidently,’ agreed She looked
at
Madame Hautchamp
politely.
her client with curiosity and added: ‘Well,
don’t torment yourself too much. The police! police arrest people for nothing at lous.
They have some
there
is
idea
-
I
all
don’t
a bolshevist plot in Paris.
!
It’s
the
perfectly ridicu-
know -
They
Why,
they say that
arrest this one, that
one. Meanwhile the voyous go free. In your place,
I
should
wait for news without tormenting myself, Madame.’
As Marya climbed the
stairs to
her
room her
legs
were
trembling. She was obliged to hold on to the banisters. ‘I
must go and
find
De
Solla,’ she told herself.
clung desperately to the thought of Miss
her deep and masculine voice. * 25
De
Her mind
Sofia’s calm,
It
was raining and the
lights of the
Moulin Rouge shone
redly through a mist: Salle de danse, Revue.
The Grelot was
The Place Blanche, some-
illuminated.
times so innocently sleepy of an afternoon, was getting
ready for the night's work. People hurried along cowering
beneath their umbrellas, and the pavements were slippery
and glistening, with pools of water here and there, sad
little
mirrors which the reflections of the lights tinted with a dull point of red. The trees along the Boulevard Clichy stretched ridiculously frail and naked arms to a sky without stars.
Marya emerged from the Metro onto the Place DenfertRochereau, thinking: Tn three minutes talking English. In
the
Avenue
two minutes,
I’ll
hear somebody
in a minute.' She ran along
De Solla's studio was in woman put her head out of a
But Miss
d' Orleans.
darkness. She knocked, and a
door on the other side of the courtyard and
said that
Mademoiselle had gone to London. Mademoiselle might
be away for some weeks, but a letter would be forwarded. ‘Ah,
I
didn't
know
she'd gone,' said Marya.
She stood staring at the dark windows for a minute, then
walked very slowly away. As she turned the comer of the
Rue Denfert-Rochereau she saw the Heidlers on the other side of the street. They were walking against the wind, both sheltering under a huge umbrella. A gust of wind flapped Heidler's mackintosh like a
blew
it
flag,
caught the umbrella and
sideways. She saw his annoyed face.
She thought: ‘What's
and what can they do
?'
it
got to do with them, anyway,
She went along up the
street.
People
turned and stared at her because she was walking so slowly in the pouring rain.
*
26
She spent several hours of the following day in the annexe of the Palais de Justice on the Quai des Orfevres. Every half-hour she consulted a
who, she had been
tall,
fat-faced
would be
told,
man
in a black robe
able to tell her
why her
husband had been arrested.
man would ask wearily. him, he would run his finger down
‘What name ?’ the
When and
say:
Then
she told
fat-faced
a
list
‘No information.’
would enter with
a lesser light
a pile of fresh
documents, and Marya would go back to her bench and
The bench was of an incredible hardness - the room was big and draughty - her back hurt. wait.
On black
one side of her
sat a
who had brought
was evidently
a bonne
very respectable lady dressed in
her bonne with her. The companion
,
for she
wore the Breton cap and
apron, and, in spite of the whiteness of the linen, she looked
very dirty. They both looked dirty, and they whispered interminably ssp
On
.
.
ssp
.
.
.
ssp.
.
the other side sat a young
man with new
bright reddish yellow, his coat and trousers his hat
very small, no overcoat.
and whistled a
little
tune
as
when
He
asked at
last
how
were
tight,
He seemed gay and carefree,
he looked with childish and
affectionate pride at his shoes, and then with
Marya.
shoes of a
sympathy
long she had been there, and
she told him: *Oh, they don’t hurry themselves,
messieurs.
at
ces
We’ll take root here in the end,’ he prophesied
cheerfully.
Everyone part of the
Sometimes
else sat as
mournfully
still as
though they were
sombre decor of some incredibly a dapper gentleman with an
dull play.
official air
would
walk quickly through the outer room and smartly into the 27
inner one and then reappear after an interval
looking
subdued. Five o’clock.
‘What name ?’ asked the ‘But
I
tell
you
know today Justice
it’s
for the sixth time.
have no information. No, none. too
late.
You’d better go
I
won’t
to the Palais de
tomorrow morning.’
‘Oh, but
know.
I
man
fat-faced
It’s
‘If it’s
must know now,’ Marya told him.
I
‘I
must
my husband.’
your husband or your brother, or your father or
your uncle,
it’s just
the same,’ said the fat-faced man.
‘I
don’t know.’
He added
very indignantly: ‘No
!
But
The warder who had directed her fat-faced
man
!’
to the office of the
asked, as she passed him,
she had the
if
information she wanted. She shook her head and began to cry.
Her back
hurt. She
was too tired to be able
to bear
a kind voice. 9
‘d/j, la, la ,
Nothing
said the
warder. ‘But
A
colleague asked
petite
probably nothing.
Three days. Come, come.
at all. Reckless driving.
Nothing to cry about, ma
it’s
dame
.
Courage
’ !
him what he knew about
the matter
and he turned to explain: ‘I
can’t see a
woman
cry.
When
forced to try to comfort her.
He began
again earnestly:
‘
C
est
Ma
I
see a
woman
plus fort que moi
petite
dame
cry,
I
am
.’
.’ .
.
Marya had already walked on. ‘Not that way out,’ said a vague voice. She faced round, passed under an archway, and was on the peaceful Quai des Orfevres. She stayed there for a long
time watching the trembling reflections of the 28
lights
on the
Seine.
Red
Yellow
winked at her.
lights like jewels, like eyes that
blood on the stealthy water.
lights like splashes of
Necklaces of lights over the dark, slowly moving water.
She stayed there one.
till
a passing
for tonight the suicide
Is it
Then she
hailed a taxi and
youth called: ‘He,
went back
Montmartre,
to
thinking indifferently as she paid the driver: ‘And
much money,
either. This
is
little
?’
a beautiful
I
haven’t
muddle I’m
in.’
* i
Next day she went
to the Palais de Justice.
Shining gates, ascending flights of steps. Liberte Fraternite in
golden letters; Tribunal de
,
Egalite ,
Police in black.
As
it
were, a vision of heaven and the Judgment. She was hurrying along corridors and up staircases after a bright little
formed her
man
that
in
said.
spectacles,
he was a journalist and asked
of any service to her.
he
horn-rimmed
He would
He knew
if
who had
in-
he could be
the Palais very well indeed,
dart at a door, tap
on
it,
ask a rapid
question and set off again in the opposite direction, and
Marya, hastening after him, began to
were playing some
intricate
feel as
though she
game of which she did not
understand the rules. As they ran he talked about the bolshevist scare. scandal, that
it
He
said that the arrests
had become a
was time that they were stopped, that they
would be stopped. ‘That’s
what we are here
for,
we
others,
we
journalists.*
Every time she thanked him breathlessly, he would answer: ‘I
am
only too happy to
She wondered
assist a confrere.’
why he imagined 29
that
Stephan was a
‘Now what have
journalist.
I
make him
said to
think that?*
she worried.
He rapped black robes, at
at a final door.
little
them with
Two
gentlemen wearing long
white collars and
black beards, looked
full
inquiry.
‘The husband of Madame,’ explained Marya’s friend,
Monsieur Stephan anxious indeed to
he smiled and bowed
Zelli, a confrere,’
been arrested. She
‘has
again,
know
‘a
naturally anxious, very
is
the reason of his arrest.’
Fluent explanations flowed gently and persuasively from
him. Clever
little
man! And he was going
to get
what he
wanted, too, for one of the lawyers got up, looked through a pile of ‘Zelli,
arrest
documents and came back with
? It is
The
You wish
Stephan. Aha!
an
,
know
of theft, of escroquerie.
affair
journalist cleared his throat
‘Bon soir
to
a dossier.
Madame bon
soir ,’
,
He
said:
the cause of the
’
and coughed.
he said hurriedly. ‘I’m most
happy to have been of service to you.’ He backed towards the door, looking nervous as though he were afraid she
would
try to
keep him with her, drag him by force into her
disreputable existence. in a bright voice. ‘Is it
And
‘
Bon
soir,
bon
all
l
he kept saying
vanished.
a very serious affair?’ asked
She thought of
1
soir
Marya.
the corridors and staircases which had
led her to this dim,
musty-smelling
room and
felt
be-
wildered and giddy.
Both the lawyers laughed heartily and one of them threw his
head back to do
it,
opening
his
mouth widely and show-
ing a long pink and white tongue and the beginnings of a
‘Theft,
Madame,’ he
said reproachfully,
30
when he had
finished laughing,
‘is
always a serious
affair.’
He
ran hard
eyes over her with the look of an expert passing intimate
judgments, smiled again and asked her nationality. ‘Polish, also
?’
‘No,’ said Marya. She got up.
The
gentleman with the longer beard
less flippant
that that
was
all
they could
tell
said
her.
‘Your husband has been arrested on a charge - several charges
- of
theft.
will probably hear
He
is
in the Prison
from him
de
la
in a day or two.
Sante and you
You can
permit to see him in the annexe, Quai des Orfevres.’
‘Thank you,’
said
Marya.
get a
4 A
letter from Stephan
My
dear
Mado
f
I fear that you
the reason that I
evening
I found
warrant for
my
must be most unquiet.
was not allowed
arrest. I is
Come
am
could not write for
When
till yet.
I
came
me go
However here ,
I
am, and
me on Thursday
to explain things.
My
,
I
don
t
as quickly as all that. Except I can
my
a very good lawyer. Everything will depend on to see
in that
accused of selling stolen pictures and
ridiculous.
think that they will let
fnd
up
to
Still I
two men waiting for me and they showed me the
This
other things.
arrived next morning.
the
day of the
visits ,
and
lawyer.
I will try
dear, I have such a cafard.
Stephan ‘It’s
a pity all the
Hautchamp, who
same/ thought the watching Madame
noticed that the young
and had a troublesome cough. ‘Ah,
Madame Hautchamp meant all couples who filled her hotel -
all
woman was
pale
these people/ she
of them. All the strange internationalists
variably got into trouble sooner or later. She
into the sitting-room and remarked as
much
who
in-
went back
to
Monsieur
Hautchamp, who was reading the newspaper, and Monsieur
Hautchamp shrugged sion
his shoulders; then,
of profound disapproval,
which,
as it
he continued
happened, began thus:
32
with an expreshis
article
‘Ie
melange des races
est
a la base de revolution humaine vers
y
le
type parjait. ‘I
don’t think,’ thought Monsieur Hautchamp - or some-
thing to that effect.
Marya folded her
letter,
which was written
cheap, blue-lined paper, put
it
in English
on
carefully into her handbag,
and walked out into the Place Blanche. She spent the foggy day in endless, aimless walking, for she
moved
that
hunted her.
seemed
was
a
fear
would never
it
was there - hidden
less pleasant surface
of things. Always.
her go. She had always
under the more or
if
vague and shadowy fear of some-
thing cruel and stupid that had caught her and let
to her that
enough she would escape the
quickly It
it
known
that
Ever since she was a child.
You could argue about hunger or cold or loneliness, but with that fear you couldn’t argue. It went too deep. You were too mysteriously sure of its terror. You could only walk very
fast
and try to leave
That evening she
sat for a
composed
a letter to England
some money. Then: ‘But they haven’t got any
to send,* she thought.
the use
behind you.
long while in a small bar drinking
coffee and after the third glass
asking for
it
‘I
won’t
tell
them yet anyhow. What’s
?’
She tore the letter up. She told herself: sensible.
to have
I’ll
get out of this
some
all
guts, as Albert
Opposite her
right
if
‘I’ve
got to be
I’m sensible.
Prance would
I’ve got
say.*
a pale, long-faced girl sat in front of
an
untouched drink, watching the door. She was waiting for the gentleman with
whom
she had spent the preceding
night to
come
waiting
in
along and pay for
it,
and naturally she was
Her mouth drooped, her eyes were
vain.
desolate and humble.
*
Marya went back
to her
bedroom from
and shut the door with a feeling of
the misty streets
relief as if she
had shut
out a malignant world. Her bedroom was a refuge. She undressed slowly,
thinking:
Stephan/ Empty
it
‘Funny
looked and
this
When
him coming along
she lay
pillow gently.
down
.
.
thought Marya. friends.
‘He’s
We’ve had
expect-
the passage.
He was
Stephan.
.
listen, half
now
she put out her hand and touched his
And what
Well, obviously.
without
is
of shadows. Every
full
and again she would stop undressing and ing to hear
room
if
been kind
fun together.
a
bad
he were?
I
to
lot.
‘I
Possibly.
don’t care,’
me. We’ve been
don’t care what he
is.’
She turned several times uneasily; then sighed, put on the light and all
was.
lit
a cigarette
The rotten
with shaking hands.
Humbug
it
The mean things away with - smirking. Nobody
things that people did.
they got away with
-
sailed
caring a bit. Didn’t she
know something about
she, though! But, of course, anything to
that? Didn’t
do with money
was swooped on and punished ferociously.
‘Humbug!’ she But again
as
soon
as she
- and now
endlessly.
A
said aloud.
it
redly
put the light out the fear was with her
was lit
like a long street
street, the
where she walked
houses on either side
tall,
grey and closely shuttered, the only sound the clip-clop of horses’ hoofs behind her, out of sight.
34
In the
morning she went back
was given
a
permit to
Quai des Orfevres and
to the
the Sante prison. Marya Zelli,
visit
aged 28 years, British by birth. Polish by marriage.
And
.
.
.
so on, and so on.
*
The outside wall of the Sante frowns down on the Boulevard Arago. Three hundred blackened yards of
and hopeless. Also
it,
sombre
seemed never-ending and there was
it
no sign of an entrance. Eventually Marya asked
a
policeman
who was pacing up and down outside to direct her, and when he stared, she told him in a low voice that she wished to visit one of the prisoners. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a side-street and turned his back. Inside the entrance a
shaped stomach,
who
sat
blond warder with a pear-
fat,
overlapping a very small chair,
waved her onwards with an austere and majestic
gesture.
She crossed a courtyard paved with grey cobblestones and ascended a
flight
of
stairs into
bevy of warders were waiting ‘It’s
an entrance
hall
where
a
fussily to take the permits.
rather like giving up one’s ticket in a Paris theatre,’
thought Marya.
She went into the parloir which was a huge room ,
the buzz of voices.
One
down on
stared steadily through bars
Her heart began
noise deafened and
of
of the warders opened the door of a
small cubicle, and she sat
animal’s cage.
full
benumbed
a
wooden bench and
were
like
bars of an
to beat heavily.
The buzzing
that
her. She felt as though an
iron band were encircling her head tightly, as though she
were sinking slowly down
into deep water.
35
Stephan appeared on the other side suddenly,
had somehow been shot out of
‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘I
he
a trap.
Mado!’
‘Hallo,
we
as if
‘My poor boy, what rotten
think,’ said Stephan, glancing
are supposed to talk French.
luck!’
round nervously,
Can you hear what
I
‘that
say?’
he asked.
‘Of course.’ ‘Well, this hellish noise.
of Paris
worst
in here, yelling.
is
is
You must write
Mado,
to England at
say that the
listen, the
happened when
that this has
written yet
One would
whole
worst, the very
have no money.
I
once for money. Have you
?’
She answered cautiously: ‘Well, I’ve written, but they
much to send, you know. What’s the use them when they can’t really help ? But I’ll be
haven’t
of worry-
ing
all right,’
she added fretfully;
‘I’ll
manage something
course, there must be heaps of things
an awful cold and
She
felt
I
awkward and
ill
at ease. It
was horrible to see
She said:
all.
me what happened
He moved ‘Well,
I
his
told
it
exactly.
I
would rather know.’
head from side to side awkwardly.
you
in
doesn’t want to
what does
drawn
can do, only I’ve got
I
can’t think properly.’
scarcely like Stephan at
He
Of
peering at her through bars, thin and furtive,
his face
‘Tell
for myself.
my letter, tell
didn’t
I
?’
me, she thought. And,
after all,
matter? The iron band round her head was
tighter.
He began
to talk rapidly, gesticulating, but
conveyed nothing
at all to her.
able to understand French.
what he
said
She had suddenly ceased to be
He had become 3*
strangely remote.
‘And not
a sou
on
me when
I
was arrested/ continued
Stephan.
‘That’s the stupid thing.
happened
just
you
am
I
‘Oh,
now.’
He swore
That
softly:
it
should have
‘Nom
de Dieul It’s
worrying about.’ be
I’ll
Marya.
all right,’ said
The warder banged the door open. They grimaced smiles at
each other.
At the beginning of the next week she sold her
dresses. She
her cold had become feverish. The garments
lay in bed, for
were spread over
a
ready for the inspection of
chair
Madame Hautchamp, who, sympathetic without for one moment allowing her sympathy to overflow a certain limit of business-like correctness, explained:
‘My
sister-in-law
is
a
and
teinturiere
arrangement with her to hang them for otherwise
could not buy them
I
sale in
And,
at all.
as it
you very much. This, for instance,
offer soiree
.
.’
.
would buy
She pointed out the it?
Fortunately,
gem
Nobody. Except
my
a
make an her window,
can
I
is, I
robe
this
of the collection:
woman
can’t de
‘Who
qui fait la noce.
sister-in-law has several clients qui font la
y
noce.
‘But
don’t see
I
why
it
must be
that sort of
woman,’
argued Marya.
not a practical dress,’ said
‘It’s
calmly;
‘it’s
bought
at all,
a fantasy,
Fortunately, as clients
it I
will
one may
Madame Hautchamp
say.
Therefore,
if it
is
be bought by that kind of woman.
have told you,
my
sister-in-law has several
.’ .
.
Madame Hautchamp was wheels of society clanking
formidable.
as she
37
spoke.
One heard the No mixing. No
ill
feeling either. All so inevitable that
one could only
bow
the head and submit. ‘I
can give you two hundred and
Madame Hautchamp, with a ‘All
right,’
how
dresses. ‘This
‘Dear
said
looking like a well coiffured eagle
Marya. She shivered, shut her eyes,
uneasily to find a cool place
stupid
I
am!’ said the
on the pillow.
lady, gathering
up the
pneumatique came for you.’
Madame
Zelli,’
address from Miss us
calculated
gift for bargaining.
moved her head ‘Ah,
fifty francs,’
De
wrote Mrs Heidler. ‘We had your
Solla.
tomorrow night and go on
can friend of ours half-past eight.
I
whom
Would you
care to dine with
to a party given
by an Ameri-
I’m sure you’ll like? Lefranc’s
do hope you will be able to come.’
at
5 ‘well,’ said heidler,
‘here’s hoping.’
Marya smiled and answered: ‘Here’s hoping.’ She was cold. Her feet were soaked. She imagined that
all
the people in the restaurant looked sleek, tidy and placid,
and envied their well-ordered
warmed her
lives.
Then the vermouth
throat and chest and she felt less physically
miserable.
‘Monsieur Lefranc,’ called Heidler.
The patron hurried up
to the table; a quick, lively little
man, but sparing of word and gesture, recommending or that with an everybody,
air as if to say:
‘And
mind you.’ One saw
I
wouldn’t do
at
this
this for
once why English
people patronized his restaurant. That decent restraint gave
them confidence. Mrs Heidler observed her guest with calm brown ‘But you’re
eyes.
wet through, poor child!’
Marya answered
that
was nothing,
it
just the sleeve of
her coat.
‘Then take
it off,’
advised
Mrs Heidler.
She looked past Marya at a
by two young men,
who
girl
dressed in red, followed
passed the table with coldly
averted head. ‘Well,’
H.
J. ?
she said,
‘did
you see Cri-Cri cut
Considering that she came to
Cri-Cri,
who was
a bold spirit
39
me
dead,
my party last Saturday.’
and a good
sort, sat
down
with her legs widely apart like some hardy cavalier, seized the
menu and began
tankerous voice.
to talk rapidly in a rather can-
She was a small, plump
with an
make-up which never
astonishingly accurate make-up, a
week
varied, day in and day out,
girl
in
and week out. Her
round cheeks were painted orange-red, her
lips
vermilion,
her green eyes shadowed with kohl, her pointed nose dead
much or
white. There was never too
too
of her sleek black hair out of place.
A
little,
or a lock
wonderful per-
formance. She was the famous model of a Japanese painter, also a cabaret singer
and a character; and she had ignored
the Heidlers because she realized that she could afford to display coldness, and that
no good ever comes from being
too polite.
Mrs Heidler watched her with
a wistful expression, for
she was unable to avoid putting a fictitious value on anyone
who snubbed
her, and she was really anxious to have people
like Cri-Cri at
her parties. People
who
got written about.
Characters. Types. She began to discuss the famous lady,
characters in general, beauty. ‘It’s
an angle of the eyes and
She repeated,
satisfied: ‘That's
ahd over again.
It's
what
it is.
said
Mrs
Heidler.
I’ve noticed
it
over
a certain angle of the eyes and mouth.'
Monsieur Lefranc served the
When Marya
mouth/
fish.
looked across the table
at
Heidler, she
noticed that he had oddly shaped eyelids, three cornered eyelids over pale, clever eyes.
Not
at all
an amiable looking
person. But nevertheless not without understanding, for
every time that her glass was empty he refilled
began to
feel
it.
She
miraculously reassured, happy and secure.
Her thoughts were vague and 40
pleasant, her misery distant
as the
sound of the people
a party of
the
She watched through
rain.
who had
just
movements of arms taking
come
a slight
mist
into the restaurant,
off overcoats, of legs in light-
coloured stockings and feet in low-heeled shoes walking
over the wooden floor to hide themselves under the tableAgainst
cloths.
enormous the
blurred
a
distinctness, a
row of
bottles
woman’s
sat
with
a
man’s shoulders and
very upright on the leather bench,
A
talking carefully and coherently.
voices
saw,
she
profile, another’s back,
on the counter,
Marya
his striped tie.
background
- Mrs Heidler’s loud and
murmur
confused
authoritative,
of
Heidler’s
gentle and hesitating.
‘Oh, Lola,’ Heidler was saying, ‘Lola
They were
still
The grey-blue room seemed walls had receded,
to
Now they looked like
‘Ah, there you are, Anna,’ said
neat American, with baby-blond
‘Lola
be growing
larger, the
the bulbs of the electric lights had
expanded mysteriously.
verv firm
Elizabethan.*
is
discussing types.
small moons.
Mrs Heidler hair, a
to a small,
keen eye and
a
mouth indeed.
is
in the Select,’
along in a minute.
remarked
this lady.
‘She’ll
be
’
Miss Lola Hewitt arrived, accompanied by a fresh-faced
youth
who wore
trousers. Lola
Her long
a beret basque
was
,
a jersey,
a pretty lady,
thin fingers twitched
and she announced: ‘Oh,
I
am
and very shabby
but she seemed moody.
on the stem of her not in
my
assiette ,
glass,
as the
dear French say.’ ‘Darling,*
Lois told her,
‘don’t get depressed.
Have
anoth ermine.’
A
gaunt lady wearing a turban was also,
it
seemed, going
to the party; so
was
a pleasant
gentleman
who
sat
next to Marya and invited her to meet him in the half-past ten ‘I
down
Dome
at
on the following morning. He added cheerfully:
And Marya
didn’t catch your name. Mine’s Porson.’
realized
from
person.
The turbaned
his tone that
Mr
Porson must be a celebrated
lady was saying jerkily:
about Rolls and the literary gathering,
‘It’s
a pity
isn’t it? Yes, he’s
got a literary gathering on this evening at the Cafe Lavenue.
Nine o’clock. Rolls and Boyes. Both of them. All the Middle Westerners are going. ‘I
persisted Porson,
say,’
’
‘couldn’t you turn
up
to-
morrow? I wish you would. I feel that I’d like to talk to you. I know that half-past ten is a bit early, but I’m going back to London in the afternoon.’ He added, drooping his head mournfully, that he had been getting divorced. ‘And it’s a It
miserable business. Oh, wretched! Most depressing.’
was
difficult to listen to the details
of
Marya heard the fresh-faced boy
divorce.
drink whatever
I
like,
Mr
Porson’s
saying:
and pull myself together in
a
‘I
can
minute
’
with the
stuff.
‘What
is it ?’
‘Would you
she said, leaning over to him. ‘Let like to try one?’ asked the boy.
her over a small capsule. ‘Break
Marya broke the capsule and
it,
me look.
’
He handed
sniff it up, that’s right.’
inhaled.
Her
heart stopped
with a jerk, then seemed to dilate suddenly and very painfully.
to
The blood rushed over her
face and neck. ‘I’m going
she thought with terror, and clutched the edge of
fall,’
the table.
‘That got you terested.
got that
He
all
all
said the fresh-faced boy,
right,’
appealed to the others:
right, didn’t she
?’
‘I
say,
in-
do look. She
From
Marya heard the voice of the lady
a great distance
with the turban: ‘Rolls Boyes - Boyes
is
is,
of course, the great
Then she
‘I’m so sorry,’ she began.
was
carefully, that she
party, that she
T’ve had
flu
stylist,
but
the pioneer.’
was
and
afraid she could not
pulled
me down
home,’ she muttered, looking ‘Of course,’ he
must go
afraid that she
it’s
explained, speaking
at
said. ‘It’s still
go on to the
straight
a bit.
I
home.
must go
Heidler with appeal. pouring; you must have a
taxi.’
As they walked to the door she to him. She tears.
felt passionately grateful
was sure that he knew she was
He was
a
rock of a
man with
ill
and near to
his big shoulders
and
his
quiet voice.
‘Good
we
night,’
he
said. ‘Lois will
look you up
as
soon
as
get back from Brunoy. Take care of that cough. Don’t
worry.
He
*
shut the taxi door.
43
6 ten days later
Stephan was tried and sentenced to a
imprisonment to be followed by expulsion from
year’s
Marya went
France.
exhausted,
listless,
But
as she
soon
as
Sante to
the
to
drained of
all
see
him, feeling
capacity for emotion.
entered the dark courtyard of the prison
her indifference vanished. In the parloir a warder opened the door of a cubicle and signed to her. She waited, breath-
trembling a
less,
When
come
I’d have
‘But
get
my
I
little.
Stephan appeared:
ill/ she began, ‘or
asked you not to/ answered Stephan. ‘Didn’t you
letter?
Well ... no
wooden
seat,
small voice
-
luck.’
collarless.
He
sat
huddled up on
staring at her with sunken,
eyes. ‘I’m not going to
be able to stand
a little boy’s voice.
The loud conversations from were
been
to the Palais de Justice for your trial/
He was unshaven and the
‘I’ve
‘I
can’t.
it,’ I
reddened
he said in
a
can’t
the neighbouring cubicles
like the buzzing of gigantic insects. Inexorable, be-
wildering noise. ‘I
have such a cafard
Marya
said:
‘Well,
when I
I
think of you, Mado.’
expect
I’ll
be
all
right.
The
Heidlers.’ She pressed her hands tightly together in her lap.
‘I
mustn’t cry, whatever
I
do,’ she
was thinking.
‘Heidlers?’ questioned Stephen vaguely.
‘Mrs Heidler came to see
me 44
just after
I
got your letter
and
told her. I’m sorry.
I
but
you know - awful.
felt,
I
didn’t
I
‘Oh, what’s
it
mean
to give
you away;
’
matter?’ said Stephan. Je m’enjiche .’ Then ‘
he added, curiously: ‘What did she say?’ ‘Nothing very much.
think she’s a good sort.’ She
I
when
stopped, remembering Lois’s voice
she remarked:
‘Of course, something’s got to be done about
A
it,
my
dear.’
masterful voice.
them
‘I’m going to see will probably
Besides
I :
tonight,’ she
me
be able to help
can get a
little
went on. ‘They
to a job or something.
money from
England.
I’ll
be
all
right.’
They
sat in silence for a
time, then he told her that he
was going to be sent to Fresnes, not ‘Fresnes
me
is
you come and see
quite near Paris. Will
?’
‘Of course, of course.
my
to a central prison.
.
.
.
Stephan, listen. Don’t worry,
dear. You’ll be free in September,
so long.
The time
will pass quickly.’
won’t you?
Not very
It isn’t
clever that.
But her brain wasn’t working properly. ‘Quickly!
He
My
God,
that’s funny! Quickly!’
laughed, but she thought that he looked as though
he were begging for help, and she
felt
desperate with the
longing to comfort him. ‘I
love you,’ she said.
‘C’est
vraiV asked Stephan.
‘Well,
perhaps.
I’ll
see
that.’
She repeated:
‘I
love you. Don’t be too sad,
But hopelessly, for she
felt that
enclosed in the circle of his
A
my
dear.’
he was withdrawn from her,
own
pain, unreachable.
warder behind him flung the door open and he jumped 45
up with an
which she thought dreadful, shocking.
alacrity
‘So long!’ he said in English, smiling his grimace of a smile.
The warder bawled something. He
started like a nervous
horse and disappeared from her view.
*
was
It
Outside,
air.
with a cold sharpness in the
a foggy afternoon,
London,’
the
lamps were
street
thought
The
Marya.
lit.
Boulevard
‘It
might be
Arago,
like
everything else, seemed unreal, fantastic, but also extraordinarily familiar, and she was trying to account for this
mysterious impression of familiarity.
She
felt
when
cold
she reached the
Avenue
d’ Orleans
and walked into a bar for some hot coffee. The place was
man who was sitting opposite drinking a demi of dark beer. He stared at Marya steadily and heavily as he drank, and when she took Stephan’s letter out of her empty
save for a big
bag and reread
‘My lawyer
me
it
didn’t
know
he told the court that
affair at Brussels
A this
he thought: ‘Doubtless a rendezvous.’ his metier. Instead of I
was referred
knew to.
six languages.
This did
stupid affair at Brussels. But
when
defending
A
me in quite
stupid ’ .
.
.
she tried to think
out her tired brain would only conjure up disconnected
remembrances of
Brussels
aloft tall, slim glasses
:
waiters in white jackets bearing
of beer, the Paris train clanking into
the dark station, the sun
on the red-striped umbrellas
in
the flower market, the green trees of the Avenue Louise.
She
sat
there,
after the large
smoking cigarette
man had
after cigarette,
long
disappeared. Every time that the
46
door of the cafe swung open
to
admit
a
customer she saw
the crimson lights of the tobacco shop opposite and the
crimson reflection on the asphalt and she began to picture the endless labyrinth of the Paris streets, glistening hardly,
crowded with hurrying people. But now she thought of
them without
fear, rather
with a strange excitement.
‘What’s the use of worrying about things?’ she asked herself.
‘I
don’t care. I’m sick of being sad.’
She came out of the cafe and stood for several minutes looking at the Lion de Belfort
fair
- the booths, the
swings,
the cro\yds of people jostling each other in a white glare of light to the gay, metallic
music of the merry-go-rounds. *
The Heidlers were waiting
at
August’s Restaurant on the
Boulevard St Michel. At a quarter to nine Heidler said: ‘I
hope nothing’s happened
And
as
to that girl.’
Lois was answering that she thought not,
hoped not, Marya entered the
restaurant. She
her eyes were shadowed, her
lips hastily
was very
she pale,
and inadequately
rouged. She was wearing a black dress under her coat, a sleeveless, shapeless, sack-like frail,
‘Shall
‘Why
I
tell
garment, and she appeared
and extraordinarily shabby.
childish,
her, H.
not?’
?’
J.
asked Lois.
answered Heidler, looking majestic but
slightly embarrassed.
‘Don’t look frightened,’ said Lois.
Marya glanced rapidly from one peated, ‘Frightened ‘It’s
—
to the other and re-
?’
something that you’ll 47
like,
or
at
any rate
I
hope
you
You know, H.
will.
about you. And, I
mean,
it’s
my
J.
and
I
have been thinking a lot
dear, you can’t be left alone like this.
impossible, isn’t it?’
She put out her hand caressingly. Marya thought
odd
it
how
was that she could never make up her mind whether
Mrs Heidler’s touch. went on: ‘Now, look here, we want you to move
she liked or intensely disliked Lois
room at the studio.’ Because she was nervous her voice was even more authoritative than usual. ‘It’s only a cubby-hole of a place, but you’ll be all right there. And you must stay till you’ve made up your mind what you’re into the spare
going to do. dear.
my
you’re better. As long as you like,
Till
’
Silence.
Monsieur August placed at
a large sole
on the
table, glanced
Heidler with light blue, very ironical eyes, and departed.
‘Imposing looking chap,
He
He seemed
fidgeted.
Marya you.
It’s
said in a
shy.
low voice:
so awfully
remarked Heidler.
August,’
good of you
know how
don’t
‘I
to
worry about me.
Heidler remarked with an air of relief that
decided
they needn’t
smiled a
difficult smile.
wonderfully kind, but
with them.
And
so
I
I
talk
to thank
about
as it
any more.
it
.* .
.
was
all
Marya
She told herself: ‘These people are certainly don’t
want
to go and live
shan’t go. There’s nothing to
worry
about.’
‘When can you move?’ asked
Heidler.
‘Tomorrow?’
be an awful bother.’
‘But,’ said
Marya, ‘I’m afraid
‘That’s
right!’ Heidler assured her. His eyes
all
I
shall
met
hers
for a second, then he looked quickly away.
‘I’m really afraid,’ she persisted,
48
‘that
it’s
quite im-
possible.
You're wonderfully kind, but
I
couldn’t dream
of bothering you.’
‘We’d
‘Rubbish!’ said Lois. all
love to have you and
arranged. After dinner you must
come round
it’s
to the
studio and we’ll talk things over. H. J.’s got to go over the
other side to see somebody.
Marya agreed with
’
‘Yes, we’ll talk things over.’
relief.
She was silent and subdued for the rest of the meal.
When
Lois announced:
you. In that black dress, shall
I
wonder why
want
to paint
think, and short black gloves.
have short green gloves?
she began to filled
I
shall certainly
‘I
What d’you
think, H.
it
?’
J.
the idea of living with the Heidlers
her with such extraordinary dismay. After
told herself,
Or
all,
she
might be fun. *
The two women walked along
the Boulevard St Michel
behind their distorted shadows. They walked in silence, close together, almost touching each other, and as they
walked Lois was thinking: ‘She can’t make her mouth up.
The poor
little
devil has got
mind doing her
a
good
no harm
turn. She
in her
coloured lights of the Closerie des
where the tops of the
I
shouldn’t
won’t be much trouble.’
They passed the deserted entrance of the street into the dimness of the
and
Bal Bullier and the
Lilas,
and crossed the
Avenue de l’Observatoire,
trees vanished, ghost-like,
in the
mist.
The Heidlers
lived
on the second
half-way up the street.
floor of a high building
The outer door was 49
shut, and, as they
waited, Lois began to talk about the concierge. She told
Marya
that they had a beast of a concierge.
‘At one of Grettle
my
Saturday parties/ she explained, ‘Swansee
— D’you know her?
She’s a fine gel. She sculpts.
men had kicked the other man out
Well, Swansee complained that one of the
man took
her on purpose. So Swansee ’s
on the landing and fought him.
’
The door flew open, and Mrs Heidler led the way up wooden, uncarpeted staircase, still talking.
the
man got a bang on the nose and bled all over the place, and when the concierge saw what she had to mop up next morning she made a dreadful row and has been vile to us ever since. Of course, this place is only a makeshift really till we can find something better. Come ‘Well, Swansee’ s
in here.’
The
studio
furnished,
was
dimly
high-ceilinged
a big, lit.
A
doll
room,
sparsely
dressed as an eighteenth-
century lady smirked conceitedly on the divan, with satin skirts spread stiffly.
several cards
There was an elaborate gramophone,
were stuck
into the looking-glass over the
mantelpiece. There was a portrait on the wall above the looking-glass, carefully painted but
smug and
tentious, like a coloured photograph.
slightly pre-
Marya thought:
perfectly extraordinary that Heidler should live in a
‘It’s
room
like this.’ ‘I’ll
go and get some cigarettes for you,’ Lois told her.
down on the divan. You look tired.’ She said when she came back: ‘You don’t want and stay with us, do you? Now, why? What’s ‘Lie
about?
If
you
really
mean
to
come
the fuss
that you’re afraid of being a
bother, put that right out of your head. I’m used to
50
it.
H.
always rescuing some young genius or the other and
J.’s
him
installing
in the spare
we’ve pulled out of pamesse,
can
I
tell
bedroom... Many’s the one we’ve been
a hole since
in
Mont-
you.’ She added: ‘And they invariably
hate us bitterly afterwards. Never mind! Perhaps you’ll be the brilliant exception.’
Marya answered vaguely: with
me
any money
really haven’t got
do something about
Marya with
a
at all
and
I
do
feel
I
I
ought to
it.’
‘Well,’ said Lois,
say:
‘Yes, but it’s not a question
of just tiding over a few days or a few weeks.
‘what will you do?’ She looked at
dubious but intelligent expression
‘Go on. Explain yourself. I’m
as if to
I’m making
listening.
an effort to get at your point of view.’
Marya began with
me
trouble with
is
difficulty:
‘You
see,
I’m afraid the
that I’m not hard enough. I’m a soft,
thin-skinned sort of person and I’ve been frightened to
death these frightened
.’
.
.
Mrs Heidler
brown
I
don’t
at
all
mean
physically
She stopped.
still
gazed at her with sensible and inquiring
eyes.
‘I’ve realized,
to
days.
last
you
see,
unprotected people.
I
that life
think
cruel and horrible
is
life is
cruel.
I
think people
are cruel.’ All the time she spoke she was thinking:
should ‘I
I
tell
her
all this?’
But she
may be completely wrong,
felt
how I cruelty. One
of course, but that’s
feel.
Well, I’ve got used to the idea of facing
can,
you know. The moment comes when even the
person doesn’t care a
damn any more; and
moment. One oughtn’t kind, but
if
I
come
to waste
to stay
with you 51
‘Why
impelled to go on.
it.
softest
that’s a precious
You’re wonderfully
it’ll
only
make me
soft
and timid and afterwards.
have to start getting hard
I’ll
don’t suppose,’ she added hopelessly, ‘that
I
you understand what Lois argued: getting hard
ogres as
all
over again
all
don’t see
‘I
all
mean
I
a bit.’
why you
should have to start
over again afterwards. People aren’t such
People can be quite kind
that.
you don’t rub
if
them up the wrong way.’ ‘Can they?’ said Marya. Lois coughed: ‘That’s
all
down
very well, but, getting
what exactly do you think of doing?
brass tacks,
certain responsibility for you.
1
why
don’t see
to
feel a
I
should.
I
I
suppose you’re the sort of person one does feel responsible
You were on
for.
the stage, weren’t you? Well,
you’re not thinking of trying for a job
hope
as a femme nue in a
They don’t get paid anything
music-hall.
I
at
all,
poor
dears.’
know
‘I
to
they don’t,’ answered Marya. ‘No,
be a femme
care,
and
nue.
I
know what
don’t
I
shall do.
I
won’t
...
I
try
don’t
that’s a big advantage, anyway.’
She leaned her head back against
cushions and
the
half shut her eyes. Suddenly she felt horribly tired, giddy
with fatigue.
‘Of course,’ Lois remarked a
man would
possibly
.
.
.
in a reflective voice,
yes, in a
thing must be done carefully, ghastly fiasco. it’s
I
mean, even
if
way
my
.
girl,
.
.
‘men
or
it’s
and however carefully you plan
it’s
it
.
.
the most
you make up your mind
your best way out, you must plan
.
But that sort of
that
very carefully,
often a fiasco,
it
seems
to me.’ ‘I
don’t think I’d ever plan anything out carefully,’ said
Marya, ‘and certainly not
that.
52
If
I
went
to the devil
it
would be because or because
I
wanted
all
or because
damn
don’t give a
I
woman, anyway. And
to,
my
for
‘I’ve
begun
body of
a
yap.’ She spoke
‘Now I’m
very quickly, flushed, then burst into tears.
gone coon,’ she thought.
good drug,
idiotic
who
the people
a
it’s
to cry
and
I’ll
a
never
stop.’
Lois said: ‘You see
how
must come and stay with
right
us, that
was to
I
Her voice trembled. Marya was amazed eyes.
.
.
,
terribly
.
They
.
and he
sat side
isn’t
left alone.’
to see tears in her
‘You know,’ Lois added, ‘H. .
you that you
tell
you mustn’t be
J.,
I
love
him
so
always awfully nice to me.’
by side on the divan and wept together.
Marya wondered how she could ever have thought Lois This soft creature,
hard.
bewildered by plucky than
I
life
even
this
as she
fellow- wo man,
hurt and
was. ‘She simply
is
more
am,’ she thought. ‘She puts a better face on
it.’
Lois was saying:
‘When you
told
me
that your
husband
was in jail - d’you remember ? - I felt as if you’d stretched out a hand for help. Well - and I caught hold of your hand. I
want
to help you.
you don’t allow ‘I
didn’t
me
mean
I’ll
be awfully disappointed and hurt
if
to.’
that,
really,
really,’
answered Marya
Then she remarked with earnestness: ‘You mustn’t think that I don’t see the — the angle you look at life from. Because I do. If I were you I’d hate, loathe, Lois blew her nose.
detest everybody safe, everybody with
‘But
I
wasn’t thinking of
money
so
money
in the bank.’
much,’ interrupted
Marya. ‘It’s
appalling, perfectly appalling,’ continued the other
53
complacent voice,
in a
money makes
to a
‘to
woman’s
think of the difference that
life.
I’ve always said so.’
‘Yes, doesn’t it?’ said Marya.
‘Come up and
see your room,’
Marya followed her up which smelt clean and
hung
a
narrow
Lois suggested,
staircase to a little
windows.
‘Now, when do you think you can move?’ do
room
cold. Striped grey and green curtains
straightly over the long
briskly. ‘Better
and
it as
soon
as
said Lois
you can, won’t you?’
‘You’re a darling to worry about me,’ answered Marya.
‘A darling.’
But felt
into
as
soon
as the
cold air touched her face outside she
sobered and melancholy. She hailed a taxi and climbed it
*Ahy
wearily.
ma
pauvre vieilleV she told herself.
54
7 when the
Paris tram
Cadran Bleu, Marya got down. She walked
cafe called the
up
a
to Fresnes stopped outside the
wide road bordered with magnificent
trees to the
prison, a high, grey building standing in large grounds.
The
whom
usual formalities.
The
usual questioning warders
she found herself regarding with a mixture of fear
Then she crossed
and hatred.
a
cobblestoned courtyard
and a dark, dank corridor like the open mouth of a monster
swallowed her up. At the extreme end of
this
corridor a
queue of people, mostly women, stood waiting, and took her place in the queue she realization
of the
essential
felt a
sudden, devastating
She
of existence.
craziness
thought again: people are very rum.
she
as
With
all
their little
arrangements, prisons and drains and things, tucked away
where nobody can
see.
She waited with cold hands and a beating heart, an unreasoning shame at being there at
all.
full
of
Every time the
warder approached her she moved her shoulders nervously, and when he
laid a fat, lingering
women touches me
to
the
I
happen to me?
hand on the arm of one of
push her into place, she thought:
shall I’ll
if
he
have to hit him, and then what will
be locked up, too,
as sure as
God made
Moses. Eventually she was conducted to the inevitable small, roofless cubicle.
A warder
paced up and 55
down
a
wooden
:
platform overhead, stopping every
now
and again to
listen
Stephan appeared with a piece of
to the conversations.
coarse sacking over his head.
He was
like
some bright-eyed
animal, staring at her, and she sat in an embarrassed silence,
wondering how she could ever have thought
that he
would
be able to talk things over with her or give her advice.
At
spurred by the knowledge that soon the warder
last,
would bang on the door and the interview be over, she began to murmur: ‘My poor darling,
my
poor
darling,
my
poor dear.’
$aV
‘0/i,
He
said Stephan.
shrugged, leaned forward and
asked: ‘What’s that scarf you’ve got on?
do
scarf,
They
him
I
I
don’t
know
that
?’
talked about the scarf for a time and then she told
that the Heidlers had asked her to go and stay with
them.
‘Look here, Stephan,
‘Why ‘I
I
don’t want to go a
bit,’
she added.
not?’
don’t know.’
why
‘Then, for God’s sake, vously.
not?’ asked Stephan ner-
‘They’re your country-people, aren’t they?
You
understand them and they understand you.’ ‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Marya answered in an obstinate voice.
He went on
fretfully
‘Do you want to drive
what a sou.
Is
me
for
it’s like
me mad?
I
wonder
if
you know
shut up here, thinking of you without
Mrs Heidler nice ?’
‘Very nice
!’
‘A good sort ‘Oh, yes.
.
.
?
Bonne camarade .
Oh,
very,
I
?’
should think.’ She added:
56
‘If
me
they weren’t awfully kind people they wouldn’t ask stay
to
with them under the circumstances, would they ?*
‘No, naturally not,’ Stephan answered with bitterness. ‘Well, stay
she’s as kind as
if
all that,
why
with her? You must go, Mado;
the best thing for you to do.
seems to
me
Look here, you must
so
much
go.’
She would have agreed to anything
‘All right!’ she said.
him and make him
to quieten
it
don’t you want to
happier, and she was
still
of the sense of the utter futility of all things.
full
As she walked back
to the
tram she wondered why she had
ever thought the matter important at
merry-go-round
all.
There was
a
Porte d’ Orleans where the tram
at the
stopped. Children were being hoisted on to the backs of
wooden
the gaily painted i
to clank:
pawing the
Je vous aime
girl,
who
horses.
And
Then the music
started
the horses pranced around,
mettlesome way.
air in a
Marya stayed there blond
1 .
for a long time watching a little frail,
careered past, holding tightly on to the
neck of her steed, her face tense and strained with
The merry-go-round made her
feel
more normal,
delight.
less like a
grey ghost walking in a vague, shadowy world.
The day before Marya received a money order namesake enclosed
My
dear
Your are a
you
.
Marya
the Hotel de l’Univers she
left
for five
pounds from her aunt and
in a letter:
,
letter distressed
me.
You are rather vague - you always
little
vague dear child. But
It is
difficult
,
for me
I
to offer
57
gather that all
is
not well with
any advice , since you write
so
seldom and say so
little
when you do
have lived for a long time in ,
money you ask for. Is
I
only wish
different worlds. it
However
were at all possible
your husband well ? You don
we
write. Ifeel that
t
mention him.
to
me and
Do
write soon
Ifeel so powerless to offer help
and
tell
me
I
and
send the
send more.
You have not
quarrelled with him, I hope, or he with you. As I say, distressed
,
live ,
of any
your
letter
sort.
that things are going better with
you. Your affectionate aunt,
Maria Hughes. P.S.
Have you thought of
resident in Paris? I believe,
several.
of them, or
I
He might
visiting
the
British
be able to help you.
clergyman There are,
You could easily find out the address of one
could find out and send
it to
you.
8 at nine o’clock every morning the femme de menage tapped at the door of the little room where the grey and green striped curtains hung straightly over long windows, to
announce that coffee was ready.
When Marya went down
to the studio she
would
find
Lois lying on the divan. Heidler sat in a big armchair near
the stove opening his letters, and
when
the
last letter
read he unfolded the Matin and asked for
Marya always brought the cup and the
more
seemed natural
that she should wait
coffee.
sugar, for he
very majestic and paternal in a dressing-gown,
was was
and
it
on him. He would
thank her without looking at her and disappear behind the
newspaper.
He had
abruptly
become
the remote impersonal
male of the establishment.
The
trio
would lunch
at
Lefranc’s,
and
as
Lois had
decided that she wished to begin her portrait of the sleeveless dress
and the short black gloves
at once,
long, calm afternoons staring through the
Marya spent
windows
at the
tops of the leafless trees and listening to stories about
Montparnasse. Lois wore a flowered overall and stood very straight as she
brown
worked, her chest well out, her round,
eyes travelling rapidly from the sitter to the canvas
and back that of a
The movement of her head was oddly like bird picking up crumbs. She talked volubly. She again.
would often stop painting
to talk,
59
and
it
was evident that
she took Montparnasse very seriously indeed. She thought
of
as a possible stepping-stone to
it
higher things and she
liked explaining, classifying, fitting the inhabitants (that to say, of course, the
is
Anglo-Saxon inhabitants) into their
The
Young Men, the Dazzlers, the Middle Westerners, the Down-andOuts, the Freaks who never would do anything, the Freaks
proper places
who
in the
scheme of
things.
Beautiful
just possibly might.
Sometimes she would ask questions, and Marya, longing to assert her point of view,
of her
life
would
try to describe the
charm
with Stephan. The vagabond nights, the fresh
mornings, the long sleepy afternoons spent behind drawn curtains.
‘Stephan’s a
stupid
word!
I
made me come Sometimes
-
a vivid sort of person,
mean alive;
just the
unutterably happy.
natural.
he taught
way
Natural as
me
What a an animal. He
you
see.
everything.
the light
I
was happy.
would make
fell
of course,’ Lois would say intelligently.
‘Yes,
quite see
how he
me
’
‘I
can
got hold of you. Quite.’
Lois was extremely intelligent. She held her head up.
She looked
at
people with clear, honest eyes. She expressed
well-read opinions about every subject under the sun in a healthy voice, and was so perfectly sure of that
And,
it
would have been
all
she said
a waste of time to contradict her.
in spite of all this, or because of
it,
she gave a definite
impression of being insensitive to the point of stupidity -
or was
it
insensitive to the point of cruelty?
was the question. But
that, of course, always
is
Which? That the question.
Marya admired her benefactress, but the moment of intimacy had
come and
gone. She
6o
felt
soft
remote and lonely
perched up on the model-stand, time she began to
known about
feel that she
listening. Besides, after a
knew
all
there was to be
the various couples of Beautiful
Young Men
or the charm and chic of Plump Polly. The Beautiful
Young Men undulated - they wore jerseys and berets basques; they were spiteful and attractive and talented, and could be
little
English gentlemen
‘And
that,’ said Lois,
call
me
a snob
if
you
‘is
like
and good dancing. And,
when -
they liked.
a very useful quality. In fact it’s
my
after all,
-
favourite quality. That
you’ve got to be careful,
haven’t you? There’s no knowing what you mightn’t be
There ’re some funny ones round here,
let in for.
you.
Some
of H. J.’s discoveries
I
‘She got
was very
up on
a
serious,
Dome on
bench and sang the tears in
can
tell
wouldn’t trust a yard.’
As for Plump Polly, a former Ziegfeld seemed, had started a riot in the
I
Folly,
it
the 14th of July.
Marseillaise.
her eyes and
she,
all
that.
Oh, she All the
Americans were delighted, but the French people thought that she
was singing an English parody - well, you know
what French people are sometimes. And
it
was the 14th
of July. They broke a lot of glasses and things, and
Plump
Polly had to be hustled out of the back door by the patron .’
Lois also discussed Love,
Childbirth (especially child-
birth, for the subject fascinated her),
Men,
Prostitution, and Sensitiveness,
Complexes,
Paris,
which she thought an
unmitigated nuisance.
‘Clergymen’s daughters without any money. Long slim fingers
and
all
the rest. What’s the use of
people don’t do any good in the world.
it ?
Those sort of
’
‘Well, don’t worry,’ answered Marya. ‘They’re getting killed off slowly.’
61
‘Lois
A
is
hard
as
as nails,’ she
would
find herself thinking.
sentence she had read somewhere floated fantastically ‘
into her
mind:
enjoys
too,” said the lady, watching her cat playing with
a
it
“It’s so nice to think that the little thing
mouse.’ *
Every Thursday Lois gave a party, and Marya at a loss during these gatherings
felt strangely
where everyone seemed
so
up and doing, so full of That Important Feeling and everything - even sin - was an affair of principle and efficient, so
uplift if
you were an American, and of proving conclusively
that
you belonged
to the
less
an anarchist,
if
upper
classes,
but were neverthe-
you were English. The
women were
long-necked and very intelligent and they would get into
comers and
say simple, truthful things about each other.
Sometimes they were both
would come
to
intelligent
and wealthy and
Montparnasse seeking cheap but effective
proteges.
‘Does that nice-looking young does
I
man
write? Because
if
he
my Ting-awoman who used
might be able to help him. You know
Ling, Lois? Sweet thing! Well, the little
to look after Ting-a-Ling writes. She writes
poems.
I
got
something of hers into our club magazine. Oh, well, then she got very careless and absent-minded and
on Ting. So
I
I
found a
flea
sent her off.’
Marya liked the everybody was a
parties
little
best
when, about midnight,
drunk. She would watch Heidler,
who could not dance, walking masterfully up and down the room to the strains of ‘If you knew Susie as I know Susie’ played on the gramophone, and wonder almost resentfully 62
why
his eyes
were always
so vague
when he looked
His sidelong, cautious glances slid over her as
it
at her.
were.
‘He looks very German,’ she decided. But when they
danced together she
felt a definite
sensation of
warmth and
pleasure.
*
Every Saturday Marya went to Fresnes and waited in the
queue of poor and patient people
till
she saw Stephan, who,
craning forward, would talk to her in a voice that seemed to be
growing
rusty.
She thought of him jumping about to
the orders of the fat red warder and felt repugnance, a pity
which seemed
would break her
as if it
heart, a dreadful,
cold loneliness. She would go back to the studio and
sit
very silent with haunted eyes.
go on doing
‘D’you intend
to
Marya told her
that she did.
remarked
‘Well,’
Lois,
atmosphere of a place .
is
awfully bad for you.
Marya, ‘don’t talk about
felt that it
common
would be
it.’
really unbearable to hear Lois
sense about prison and the punished in her
young man’s voice. Lois about
don’t approve. The whole
‘I
like that
.
‘Please,’ said
talking
asked Lois one day.
.’
Prisons
She
this?’
said that she
intended to talk
it.
‘Because
I
do
that your only chance
you and ‘Start
— we both feel so strongly put the whole thing behind
feel so strongly is
to
start again.’
what?’ asked Marya.
‘You’re a very tiresome child,’ answered Lois. ‘Very.
You know
that I’m pulling every string
I
can, and so’s H.
J.
We’re
certain to fix you up. For instance, I’m almost sure
I
could get you a mannequin job in about a month or six
weeks
at
What’s-his-name in the Rue Royale. You’ll be
right,’ she continued.
own
You’ve got your
row your
‘You’ll
little
little
all
boat along.
charm, and so on.’
Marya looked up suddenly. There was something very like a
menace
own
‘Your if
in her long eyes. little
.
charm and
.
.
so on,’ repeated Lois. ‘But
you try to help your husband, you’re done.’
Marya got up and walked
to
the
window. She was
watched her with a puzzled expression,
crying, and Lois
strangely without pity. She said:
a
bean
it’s
loose. Can’t
‘I
can’t.
I I
When
a gel
is
if
you want
you see
that
can’t,* said
marriages,
really lonely
no use asking why she does
comes when, ‘No,
make extraordinary
of gels
‘Lots
sorts of reasons.
things.
to save yourself,
for
all
and hasn’t got But the time
you must cut
?’
Marya. She repeated with violence:
don’t think about things in that way.’
Words
that
she longed to shout, to scream, crowded into her mind:
‘You
talk
anything.
and you It’s
all
talk
false,
and you don’t understand. Not second-hand.
all
You
say
what think
tell
you.
You
you’re very brave and sensible, but one
flick
of pain to
you’ve read and what other people
yourself and you’d crumple up.’
She muttered: ‘You don’t understand.’ ‘Well, else.
all right,’
said Lois, ‘let’s talk
Will you make
me up
about something
for the Russian ball at the
.You tomorrow ? I’m going to wear a purple wig. know I hate myself made up. I don’t think it’s my genre, as they say here. But H. J. likes it. And I always give way Bullier
.
64
.
to
H.
give
I
J.
him what he wants
mood
until his
changes.
found out long ago that that was the only way to manage him/ She suddenly looked complacent, smug, and very I
female and added: ‘H.
‘Oh,
is
J.’s
an autocrat,
start talking
it
‘I
do hope she
to fetch the
Marya answered
wig ?
I
want
isn’t
going to
Rue
St
be quite sure to have
to
Honore/
that of course she
would go.
She dined that night by herself in a St Jacques. After the meal,
last carefully
little
cremerie in the
which she paid
for with her
hoarded hundred franc note, she walked very
two rows of gas-
quickly along the winding street, between lamps, past the low doors of
phone played
gaily
the counters.
It
less cats,
think/
I
‘D’you mind going to the coiffeur’s shop
in time. It’s a place in the
Rue
is,
you.’
about love and the pangs of childbirth/
Lois said:
tomorrow
tell
he?’ said Marya vaguely. ‘Yes, he
She thought with horror:
But
can
I
little
buvettes,
where
a
gramo-
and workmen in caps stood drinking
was
a beautiful street.
she often thought. She never
The came
street of
into
it
at
home-
without
seeing several of them, prowling, thin vagabonds, furtive, aloof,
but strangely proud. Sympathetic creatures, after
There was a smell of spring in the
air.
excited, strangely expectant. She tried
She
felt
- and
all.
unhappy,
failed
-
to
imagine herself as a mannequin and she thought a great deal
with deliberate gratitude about Lois. Lois in her most
charming aspect, lying on the divan in the morning pouring out coffee, soft and lazy in a fragile dressing-gown, her beautiful strong
arms bare to the shoulder. The next night
she waited eagerly on Lois dressing for the dance and spent half an
hour carefully making her up. Ochre powder, a
little
rouge, the tips of the ears, just under the eyes. Huge, 65
sombre eyes and
mouth -
that’s
what she was getting
Lois sat before the mirror in the studio.
at.
so
a red
much
The
light
was
better there.
‘You ought always to do
it,’
said Heidler, looking at his
wife with interest.
‘Do you think so?’ answered
Lois. She pulled
purple wig carefully. Her reddened ordinarily hard,
Lois into the
Heidler
said.
He wore older, less
Marya thought.
bedroom: ‘No,
‘What
a fidget
mouth looked
When
you are
extra-
she was following
down
sit
on the
for a minute,’
!’
spectacles. She thought that
he looked kinder,
German.
‘Don’t rush
off,’
he
said.
And
then, ‘Oh, God,
D’you ever get
so utterly sick of myself sometimes.
yourself? No, not yet, of course.
Wait
a bit,
you
will
I
am
sick of
one of
these days.’
‘No,’
answered Marya
myself. I’m rather sick of
reflectively.
my
sort of
‘I’m not sick of
life.’
‘Well, I’m sick of myself,’ Heidler said gloomily. ‘And yet
it
goes on.
idiotic, futile,
One knows
whole damn
thing’s
not even pleasant, but one goes on. One’s
caught in a sort of trap,
He
that the
I
suppose.’
stared at the ground
between
66
his big knees.
9 the spring came that
early that year and very suddenly. So
one day the branches of the trees in the Luxembourg
Gardens were bare and grim and the next they waved cool
Or
leaves in a kind wind.
flowered and the to discuss their
girls
new
so
it
seemed. Then the chestnuts
walking along with linked arms began i
clothes endlessly.
Ma
mon costume gris. ... And on the Boulevard *
of young
men
robe verte
.
.
.
Michel bevies
St
of every nationality under the sun strolled
along smiling at every
woman
they passed.
gay and insolent, the Northerns lustful,
The
Latins
were
shamefaced and
condescending, the Easterns shy, curious and contemptuous.
Nearly every week-end the Heidlers went
down
to a
country cottage they had found near Brunoy on the way to Fontainebleau. Twice Marya Left alone at the
she
would dine
walks
when
flat
in the
went with them.
in the
Rue
St Jacques
felt
and go for
solitary
the meal was over. But she vaguely disliked
the Boulevard St Michel with
always
Avenue de l’Observatoire
relieved
when
its
rows of glaring
cafes,
and
she turned into the Boulevard
Montparnasse, softer, more dimly
lit,
more
kindly.
There
she could plunge herself into her dream.
Fancy being shut up in a
little
dark dirty
cell
when
the
spring was coming. Perhaps one morning you’d smell
it
through the window and then surely your heart would nearly burst with the longing for liberty.
67
One
evening, just outside the Cafe de
met Miss De
Solla.
That lady had been
la
Rotonde, she
ill,
and seemed
discontented with Montparnasse. She was going to Florence for
some months, she
said,
and would not be back in Paris
before June.
When Marya
informed her that she was living with the
Heidlers: ‘Yes/ said Miss sion, ‘as a
matter of fact,
I
De
Solla,
with an uneasy expres-
heard that you were.’
She added: T must be getting along.’
68
IO the bal du printemps Rue Mouffetard. There
is
is
a small,
a long zinc bar
dingy cafe in the
where the
clients
can drink a peaceful aperitif after the day’s work. There are
wooden
painted gallery violin.
tables,
long
where the band sits The couples dance in
Men
the room.
in caps
wooden benches and a small - a concertina, a flute and a a cleared space at the
and hatless
end of
girls cling together,
shake themselves and turn with abandon and a certain
amount of genuine enjoyment.
Two
policemen
and there l
is
Une tenue
The
Bal
at the
door supervise the proceedings,
a large placard
on the wall
correcte est rigour eusement exigde.
du Printemps
is
a family ball. If
’
you want some-
thing louche you walk further on and turn twice to the left.
Mr
weekly
Rolls, the author, always hired this place for his
parties.
Sometimes
in the midst of the proceedings
the surprised head of one of the usual clients thrust into the doorway. gesticulate, explain,
muttering something
The landlord would
would be
shrug, wink,
and the pale youth would disappear, ‘
like:
Mince de poules de luxel* But
the quality of the brandy left a great deal to be desired.
Imagining that of it, and
it
it
was very weak, people drank a good deal
on
their tempers.
Valencia
for the sixth
generally had a very bad effect
Midnight. The band struck up time.
69
Somebody
said to
somebody
else:
‘It’s all
very well to
talk
about Jew noses, but have you ever tried to paint
your
own mouth?’
The
artist
addressed burst into tears.
modem
‘He’s only trying to be
poor dear/ ‘Fine a
in
Mr
said
her friend.
Veau ,’ bawled a
.
.
tall
.
and brutal and
all that,
‘Don’t mind him.’
dark gentleman immediately
Rolls ’s ear.
‘Don’t shout in
my
ear,’ said
Mr
Rolls irritably.
‘Well, get out of the way,’ said the
tall
dark gentleman.
‘Always blocking up the bar.’ ‘It’s
my bar,’
remarked
Mr
Rolls with majesty.
‘Then you ought to give your clients a chance,’ said the other.
Mr
Rolls
wandered about,
chap?
How
did that chap get in here?
Nobody knew. An unknown lady seated
that chap
?’
It
asking:
‘Who brought
Who
that
on earth
is
did not matter.
herself at the end of one of the
benches and remarked to Marya: ‘Doesn’t Swansee Grettle look awful tonight?’ ‘She looks,’
said
unknown
the
lady,
smiling slowly,
Tike a hundred gone bad, don’t you think?’ She was very
unknown
healthy looking, was the
lady,
with long, very
sharp teeth.
How
terrifying
human
beings were, Marya thought. But
she had drunk two fines and a half-bottle of something
which the patron of the and
after all it
was
Bal
du Printemps
a lovely party.
called champagne,
Then she saw Lois
standing near the doorway with her coat on. She beckoned
and Marya got up with reluctance. twelve. 7°
It
was only
just half-past
‘H. J.’s had
enough of this/
said Lois.
‘He wants to be
taken home. D’you mind walking?’
‘Not a
bit,’
answered Marya.
They went arm silent streets.
St Michel:
in
arm through
As they passed a
‘This place
little cafe
still
is
the lovely, crooked,
on the Boulevard
open,’ remarked Heidler.
‘Let’s have a bock.’
Lois said that she was tired.
‘I’m going
home. Don’t be too
long,
you two.’
She disengaged herself, and walked on so abruptly that
Marya stood looking
‘Come It
was
her with some astonishment.
along,’ said Heidler.
warm
A
summer —
a wonderfully
still
sleepy waiter appeared with
two
as a night in
and brooding night. glasses of
after
beer and placed them on the only table
left
on the
terrace.
‘Do you know why Lois has gone ‘No,’ said Marya.
He spoke ‘She’s
off?’
asked Heidler.
‘Why?’
slowly, without looking at her:
gone away to leave us together - to give
me
a
chance to talk to you, d’you see? She knows that I’m dying
with love for you, burnt up with
why she’s gone off.’ He had tilted his
it,
tortured with
it.
That’s
hat to the back of his head and was
looking fixedly across the deserted street.
He looked much
younger, she thought, and extraordinarily hard.
‘You think I’m drunk, don’t you?’ he ‘Yes,’
she told him.
said.
‘Of course.’ She repeated: ‘Of
And I’m tired, so let’s go home.’ ‘Do you know why your door is open
course.
every morning?*
asked Heidler. ‘Have you noticed that
where you are and
Now
enough. because at
come up every
I
when one
that
is
open? No? Stay
I’ve got to say. I’ve
Your door
listen.
night and open
One
again.
it.
Then
look
I
does meaningless things like
time
first
had
open
is
know
tortured by desire. Don’t you
wanted you the
I
what
you’ve got to
you and go away
that
listen to
it’s
I
saw you?’ He nodded.
Dare say that you didn’t know.’
‘Yes.
She stared
at
knows
‘Lois
him, it
silent.
now, anyway.
didn’t I?
I
knew
out, and
I
kept off you.
that
.
.
Well,
.
kept off you,
I
could have you by putting
I
thought
I
it
my
hand
wouldn’t be playing
the game. But there comes a limit, you see. There comes a limit to everything. I’ve
tonight and
now
I
been watching you;
know
that
somebody
I
watched you
else will get
you
don’t. You’re that sort.’
if I
She
said:
And
fair.
realize
‘You’re abominably rude and unkind and un-
you’re stupid in a lot of ways.
how unfair you are.
‘Don’t be
silly,’
he told her calmly.
right to be like that if
you want to be
every right to take advantage of
and
stuff.
She thought: ‘Sob
stuff,
talk.
the rest
And
it if I
‘You’ve every
like that,
want
and I’ve
to. That’s truth,
sex
stuff.
That’s the
way men
they look at you with hard, greedy eyes.
them with
their greedy eyes.’ She felt
of hard rage.
wrong.
is
stupid to
’
sob
all
Too
’
I
hate
despair and a sort
wrong,’ she thought. ‘Everything’s
‘It’s all
’
‘Talk!’ she said rudely. ‘Talk. I’m going.’
She got up.
He
left
and took her arm in
money on
his.
When 72
the table, followed her
he touched her she
felt
warm and came
secure, then
weak and
so desolate that tears
into her eyes.
'It’s all right, it’s all
The
street
right!’ said Heidler soothingly.
was quite empty, a long
street glistening
with
Their footsteps echoed mourn-
light like a sheet of water. fully.
When ‘So
they reached the studio
you think I’m drunk J
you. But
I’ll
talk to
said Heidler. ‘So
’
7
I
am. So are
you tomorrow when I’m not drunk.’
Marya bolted the door of her room, collapsed on the bed and undressed
and with
dizzily
of the concertina of the bal musette was love you’ they played, and
sound was funny man.
Valencia
no endurance
necessary so that the strong
become more ‘I
still
music
in her ears.
and Mon
strong.
in
may
your
face.
Paris.
‘I
The
Victims are
exercise their will and
’
have to go away,’ she decided.
shall
nasal
still in her ears. And the voice of that little What was his name ? The little sculptor. ‘You’re
a victim. There’s
Naturally.
The
difficulty.
‘Of course.
’
Sleep was like falling into a black hole.
*
Next morning she woke early and blow the striped curtain outwards. ship, she thought. Voices, steps, a
lay It
watching the wind
was
like the sail of a
knock on the door. She
held her breath. Lois called:
‘Still
asleep,
‘No, but I’m tired.
I
Mado?’
don’t want any coffee. I’ve promised
to lunch with Cairn.’
73
‘Oh,
all right,
then,’ said Lois.
Marya did not get up
till
after she
heard the sound of the
front-door being shut. It
was
a cloudless, intoxicating day.
The
light pale gold,
the sky silvery blue, the breeze sweet and fresh as
blew up from the
A
sea.
tram-car lumbered past her, and she began to think
of the
women who
Fresnes and of the cally
if it
and
stood in the queue at the prison of
way they would edge forward mechani-
uselessly,
pushing her
as
they edged. So that she
was always forced to stand touching their musty clothes and their unwashed bodies. She remembered her tears and her submissions and the long hours she had spent walking
between two rows of pity as
by
street lamps, solitary, possessed
a devil. ‘I’ve
been wasting
my
life,’
‘How have I stood it for so long?’ And her longing for joy, for any joy, was a mad thing in her heart. It was sharp clenched her teeth.
It
was
like
by
she thought.
for any pleasure like pain
and she
some splendid caged animal was an unborn child
roused and fighting to get out.
It
jumping, leaping, kicking at her
side.
*
‘You’re very
late,’ said Cairn,
who was
restaurant in the Place Pigalle.
coming.
thought you weren’t
’
He looked as
‘I
waiting for her in a
solemnly through his horn spectacles at her
she explained that she had walked part of the way,
agreed that
it
was a lovely day and invited her to have
cocktail.
74
a
‘Olives?’
He was
an American, a writer of short stories; ugly,
broad-shouldered, long-legged, slim-hipped. ‘I
thought you weren’t coming,’ said Cairn, and added
astonishingly:
thought Heidler would stop you.’
‘I
Marya asked why he should stop her. ‘Because he
a
is
.
.
.
oh, well, doesn’t matter.’
‘But he’s very kind,’ said Marya.
There was a question
in her voice, for she felt a great
longing to hear Heidler spoken
She would have
of.
dis-
cussed Heidler with pleasure throughout the entire meal.
My
‘Kind?’ said Cairn. ‘Heidler kind?
God!’
‘Don’t you think he’s kind?’ she persisted childishly. ‘Don’t
let’s
about him,’ said Cairn impatiently.
talk
‘What’s he matter, anyway?’ ‘No,’ said Marya, with regret, ‘don’t let’s talk about
him.’ She added: ‘They’ve been nice to me, you know,
wonderfully nice.’
‘Have they?’
He
flashed a quick, curious look
tacles, hesitated,
from under the spec-
then said:
‘Ah, Marya mia Well, that’s all right, then.’ They talked about Cairn’s new hat - whether it was or .
.
.
was not too small for him, and about a short story that he wished to write and about money. ‘Haven’t any,’ said Cairn gloomily.
Then they ‘It
talked about Life.
frightens me,’ said Marya. But as they drank their
coffee, she said to
him: ‘Cairn,
isn’t
not caring a
damn
a
nice feeling?’
‘Of course
it is,’
said
Cairn cheerfully. ‘You’ve got to be 75
:
an
m
or a je
arriviste
of course,
if
1
He
en Jichiste in this life/
you are going
to be a je
m
added: ‘Only,
en Jichiste
,
you must
have the nerve to stand the racket afterwards, because there always
is
‘Yes,
you know.’
a racket,
know/
I
said
Tve
Marya.
found that out already/
*
It
was
when
late
she got back to the
toire.
When
were
in darkness,
Avenue de l’Observa-
she looked up from the street the
but
as
soon
windows
she opened the door
as
Heidler called out from the studio
There you are! You’re
‘Hullo!
Did you enjoy
late.
yourself?’
much,’
‘Yes, very
He was
Marya.
got up and turned on one of the of shadows.
still full
‘After
all,
He looked
and
And
I
but the
room
tired.
defiant.
love you,’ said Heidler.
you.
lights,
he’s quite old,’ she thought and faced him,
feeling ironical ‘I
said
wish
‘I
my
love you,
were dead. For God’s
I
dear,
sake,
I
be a
love little
kind to me. Oh, you cold and inhuman devil!’ ‘I’m not cold,’ answered Marya.
Suddenly she was
full
of a great longing to explain
herself.
‘H.
don’t
J.,
I
want
to
know how
be happy. Oh,
badly.
I
I
want
it
so badly.
don’t want to be hurt.
I
You
don’t
want anything black or miserable or complicated any more.
I
want
good times
me
to
like
be happy,
-
I
like other
want
to play
people do.
.
around and have .
alone. I’m so scared of being unhappy.’
76
.
Oh, do leave
‘You’ve got a fear complex,’ remarked Heidler, ‘that’s what’s the matter with you.’ don’t want to be hurt any more,’ she told him in a
‘I
low
voice.
know.
.
.
‘If .
I’m hurt again
How
won’t stand
shall
I
know?
can you
I
go mad. You don’t
can’t stand any more,
I
it.’
‘Rubbish!’ said Heidler tenderly. ‘Rubbish!’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ she went on
You can’t lay down the law about me because you don’t know anything.’ ‘But I want to make you happy,’ he exclaimed loudly. ‘It’s my justification that I want to. And that I will, d’you ‘Nothing!
fiercely.
hear? In spite of you, ‘Yes?’ said Marya.
I’ll
do
it!’
‘And what about Lois?’
Heidler leaned back in his chair, crossed his
legs, cleared
his throat.
‘My
‘Don’t
‘Not a
I?’
asked Marya.
bit.
persuasively, ‘I’ve
he remarked, ‘you don’t understand Lois.’
dear,’
Lois,’
‘is
he went on, speaking carefully and
not an excitable person.’
gathered that much,’ remarked Marya dryly.
‘You are so excitable yourself,’ declared Heidler. ‘You tear yourself to pieces over everything and,
your
fantastic existence has
of course,
made you worse. You simply
don’t realize that most people take things calmly. Most
people don’t tear themselves to proportion and so on. Lois and that’s
bits. I
They have
each go our
been the arrangement for some time,
own way and
if
you want
know. Why, look here; do you know what she you
a
few days ago
? I tell
that Lois simply doesn’t
you because
come 77
I
want you
into this at
all
a sense of
said
to
about
to realize
between you
and me.
.
.
.
She said: “The matter with
He nodded.
too virtuous”.’ that’s
‘Yes,
what she thinks about the
‘Oh,
He
is
that so
?’
asked her
Mado
that’s
is
that she’s
what she
said;
situation.’
Marya spoke thoughtfully.
if
she couldn’t understand that
all
that
didn’t matter. ‘I
safe
want to comfort you. - d’you see. Safe !’
‘H.
J.,
I
want to hold you
don’t.’ She put her
- and
hand up to her mouth
to hide her lips. ‘Oh, well! Give
please
tight
me
as if
a cigarette, will you,
?’
‘You smoke too much,’ he told her alone with you, never.
And
if
irritably. ‘I’m
I’m alone with you for
minutes, you smoke or you paint your
perform some other monkey trick of the listening to
‘She
‘Oh,
me. Lois
is in,’ is
said
she?’
will
Marya;
He
come ‘I
never
in, in a
five
mouth or you sort - instead of
minute.’
heard her some time ago.’
hesitated, looked at Marya,
went out
of the room.
She drew her feet up on to the
sofa, clasped
her hands
around her knees and stared fixedly in front of her.
7*
1 came into
lois
paper bag. darkness
‘
Hello,
room Mado, why the
are
you
all
Tve been
the afternoon. Tve bought you
cheer your black dress up.’
She opened the paper bag and took out touching
with careful
it
Tm
went on:
Lois
And
swollen
Tm
as if she
late.
a
low
voice.
going to dine with Maurice and
must
I
fly.’
Her
eyes,
had been crying, travelled
the room. ‘Get H.
a lace collar,
fingers.
‘Thank you/ said Marya in
Anna.
flowered
sitting in this half-
She put on the light near the door.
?’
running round the shops this to
carrying a small
which were
restlessly
round
to take you somewhere. He’ll be
J.
here in a minute; he’s gone for some cigarettes.’ She turned to
walk out of the room.
And stopped
‘Lois!’ said Marya.
‘Well, what ‘I
want
breathless.
is it?’
to talk to you.’
‘Won’t tomorrow do?’ Lois asked in an awful hurry.
‘Well, her.
‘I
it
want
think so?
I
because
I
you can
tell
I
coldly.
‘I’m really
don’t want to keep Anna waiting.’
needn’t be a long conversation,’ Marya told to go, and the sooner the better, don’t
must ask you
haven’t any
H.
J.
to lend
money
that
I
me
left at all.
insisted
on
All the time that she spoke she
79
a
I’ll
you
hundred francs go
at once,
and
it.’
was thinking: ‘This
is
:
word I’m saying. down me. Whatever I
perfectly useless. She doesn’t believe a
She hates me. She’s going to try to do, she’ll hate
‘Don’t be at
me
and try to down me.*
Mado,’
silly,
Marya with the
painfully intent expression of a slow-
who
brained person
She looked
said Lois uncertainly.
trying to think quickly.
is
‘What’s her game? What’s she up to?
and try to find out what she’s up
I
must be clever
to.’
‘Of course, you can’t go.’
‘And why not?’ ‘Well,’ asked Lois, ‘where
eyes
were
would you go
suspicious, troubled like pools
to
Her brown
?’
when
the
mud
beneath has been stirred up.
‘When
I
say:
go
off,’ said
Marya,
mean, go right
‘I
They watched each other cautiously and
some moments. Then
Lois sat
down
off.’
steadily for
in the chair facing
the divan and remarked with calmness ‘All this, of course,
to you,
I
know.
I
is
was
because H.
J.’s
listening just
been making love
now,
if it
comes
to
my
place you’d have
might come into the room and make
a hell of a scene,
Well,’ she added defiantly,
that.
done the same
‘in
thing.*
‘No,’ said Marya.
‘No ?’ echoed Lois unbelievingly. ‘I
but I’d never listen patience enough.
the door, because I’ve not got
at
We’re
different people, Lois.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Lois reluctantly. that’s
no reason why we should
‘I
suppose
quarrel,
we
are.
But
is it?’
She began to fidget nervously with the fastening of her
‘I
don’t see what good
it
will
80
do
if
you go
off. It
seems
such a pity to smash up
H.
all
our plans for you,
just because
imagines that he’s in love with you - for the minute.’
J.
She went on in a reflective voice: ‘Of course, mind you,
he wants things badly when he does want them. He’s a
whole hogger.’
am I,’ Marya told her.
‘So
if
or
‘That’s just
why I must go
off.
The other made an impatient and expressive gesture, as to say: ‘D’you suppose that I care what you are, or think feel
?
I’m talking about the man, the male, the important
person, the only person
who
matters.’
‘He’s a whole hogger,’ Lois repeated, ‘and
away now
go after you. That’s what
he’ll
‘It’s fatal
making a
one makes ...
I
fuss,’
if
you go
he’ll do.
more
she muttered. ‘The
fuss
don’t believe in making scenes about things,
forcing things.
I
believe in letting things alone.
I
hate
scenes.’
She stopped. All day she had tormented herself and she was
on the brink of an abyss of
her hands in her
lap, thinking:
Oh, no,
go away. You’ll stay here where It
won’t
last
long ...
alone and given It
won’t
fail
It
sincerity.
I
now
She twisted
my girl,
you won’t
can keep an eye on you.
can’t last long. I’ve always let
him
him what he wanted and it’s never failed me.
me now.
He’ll get tired of her as soon as she
You can see when you been chewed up. God! what have I
gives in. Pretty! She’s revolting.
look at her that she’s
done to be worried thing? This
She
is
like this?
the result; this
said bitterly:
but
I
is
what
‘Of course,
here, only a fool like that,
Didn’t
me would
I
I I
was
try to
get for
do
8l
decent
it.
a fool to have
you
have done a thing like
don’t see what good your going away
do.’
a
now
will
Her
when
eyes,
questioning.
she looked at Marya, were hard,
was
It
false,
were observing some strange
as if she
animal that might be dangerous, debating the best method of dealing with ‘I
you
tell
like.
Right
it.
that
I’ll
go off/ said Marya. ‘Tonight,
What more
if
you
won’t see H.
J.
woman
to
very dramatic and generous of you and
all
off.
can
I
do
?
I
again.’
(‘Come, come,’ answered Lois’s
woman, do you suppose ‘Well,
it’s
were you. As
should
if I
reason
why you
and then have devil
and
it
believe that?’)
I
‘Why don’t you
remarked.
that,’ she
my
all that.
talk it
don’t see any
conscience that you’ve gone to the
care what happened to you. so
I
1
don’t want to send you away
I
Well, that’s what you
Her voice was
over with him ?
I’m concerned,
far as
should go.
on
‘As
eyes.
prim
I
said, that
you didn’t
thought that a dreadful
that
Marya began
’
tiling.
to laugh, sud-
denly and loudly. Lois stared at her, got up, went to the looking-glass, arranged her side-locks carefully,
and con-
tinued in a calm voice:
‘We’re making
we? Drama
is
a great fuss about nothing at
catching,
Marya asked abruptly: is
find. In
aren’t
any case, you can’t go
’
tonight.
what
I
all,
the matter with
‘Well,
all
‘Tell
me
is
me, did you
that
I
am
this looks rather like
really say that
too virtuous
it,
doesn’t
?’
it?’
Lois
answered. ‘You must be rather worried about your virtue if
you want to rush
must be
off;
off at a minute’s notice.
I’m horribly
Look
here,
I
late.’
At the door she turned suddenly: ‘What? What did you say?’ she asked.
82
‘Nothing.' Marya lay back and shut her eyes. Lois was a shadow, less than a shadow. Lois had simply
ceased to exist.
The
front door banged.
Marya
lay very
listening to the hooting of the cars
still
outside. She felt sharply alive but very tired, so languid as to
A
be almost incapable of movement.
profound con-
viction of the unreality of everything possessed her. She
thought:
wonder
‘I
if
taking
opium
is
like this?'
*
up quickly. He was too
‘Hullo, H. J.,' she said, and sat
formidable standing over her. Lois that
‘Oh,
I
I
want
to
go -
I
little, pitiful
I
lost
on
All
my
life
been
telling
think I’d better,' she kept on
voice; but
when he took her
arms she thought: ‘How gentle he
knew him.
I’ve
think I’d better.'
think I'd better.
saying in a
‘Listen.
before
I
is.
I
was
in his
lost before
knew him was
I
like being
a cold, dark night.'
She shivered. Then she smiled and shut her eyes again.
He
whispered:
‘I
love you,
I
love you.
What
did you
say?'
‘That you don’t understand.'
‘Oh, yes,
I
do,
my
dear,' said Heidler. ‘Oh, yes,
I
do.'
4
12 the three dined ing.
They
together at Lefranc ’s the next evenalcove at the
sat, as usual, at a table in a little
end of the room, and Monsieur Lefranc
(also
as
usual)
hovered about them attentively. Monsieur Lefranc admired
He
Lois Heidler.
considered her a good-looking
a sensible, tidy, well-dressed
woman,
woman who knew how
to
appreciate food. Marya he distrusted, and he had told his
wife so
would
more than once. ‘And who
say.
On
she, that one?*
is
he served
this particular evening, then,
the soup and then the
‘fa vous plait y
fish
Madame
with
Heidler
his
own
he
first
hands and asked:
?’
‘Oh, very nice, very nice,’ answered Lois.
Then Monsieur Lefranc
cast
one astute glance
at
her
deeply circled eyes, another at Marya’s reflection in the glass
and told himself: ‘fa y
est.
knew
I
it!
Ah, the grueV
So he waited on Lois with sympathy and gentleness; he
waited on Marya grimly, and his expression said:
when he looked
‘Come, come,
my
dear
at Heidler,
As man to
sir.
man, what a mistake you’re making!’
Madame
Lefranc,
from behind her
bar,
was
also
the trio with interest and curiosity. But she
Marya every was
a
bit as kindly as she
plump and
placid
when her husband
(a
beamed on
woman who
watching
beamed on
Lois, for she
never took
sides,
and
very moral man) judged a female client
with severity, she would often
say: ‘Life is very droll.
never knows, Josef, one never knows.’ 8
One
Marya was unconscious of Monsieur Lefranc’s
hostility.
She was absorbed, happy, without thought for perhaps the first
time in her
life.
present: the flowers
mouth. She glanced
No
past.
on the at the
No
future.
Nothing but the
wine
table, the taste of
in her
rough texture of Heidler ’s coat-
sleeve and longed to lay her face against
it.
however, instantly reacting to the atmosphere of
Lois,
sympathy and encouragement,
sat
very straight, dominat-
ing the situation and talking steadily in a cool voice.
‘We must Heidler
get
Mado another
looked
sideways
H.
hat, at
J.’
Marya
and
cautiously
critically.
‘She
must be
chic,’ his wife
went on. ‘She must do
us
credit/ She might have been discussing the dressing of a doll.
‘Let’s
Mado on
go to Luna-park after dinner,’ she
‘We’ll put
the joy wheel, and watch her being banged about
ought to amuse us sometimes; she ought
a bit. Well, she
to sing for her supper; that’s
what
she’s here for, isn’t it?’
Heidler ’s face was expressionless. tell
said.
whether
this
‘Well, shall
It
was impossible to
badinage amused or annoyed him.
we
go to Luna-park?’ persisted Lois.
‘No,’ answered Heidler reflectively. ‘No,
I
don’t think
so.’
Lois said in a high, excited voice that she was bored to
death with Montparnasse. ‘I’m bored, bored, bored!
Look
here.
Let’s go to a
music-hall, the promenoir of a music-hall, that’s like.
Something
canaille ,
what?’
what
I
feel
:
Two
naked
girls
were dancing before
and mauve which was ‘If
like a picture
they’d only keep
be awfully nice But the
hopped with
girls
background of blue
by Marie Laurencin.
Marya thought. ‘They would
still,’
they were perfectly
if
a
still.’
away
persistence. She looked
from the
stage at an
in a black
and salmon georgette dress. The lady was worth
enormously stout lady promenading
watching. She had the head of a
Roman emperor and
paced up and down with great dignity, glancing
men with a good-natured but relentless The two the curtain
was the and
at various
expression.
having pranced smilingly off the stage,
and rose again on the Spanish singer
fell
star of the evening:
who
a slim creature in a black
gown, who wore her hair swept away from her
crinoline face
girls
she
ears.
and passionate
She was charming. She was like some child,
frail
and she sang her songs simply in a
sweet, small voice.
‘Oh, what a darling!’ said Marya after the
first
song. But
Lois ejaculated at intervals
‘Oh, very disappointing. Most!’ and that she
wanted
to
finally
announced
go to the Select bar (the Montparnasse
one) and eat a Welsh rarebit.
That night the place seemed to be ladies in robes de style.
Mr
of red-haired
Blinks, the brilliant
was balancing himself on a
Guy
full
stool at
American,
one end of the
bar.
Lester was at the other end, very drunk. All the dear
old familiar faces, as Lois said. ‘But a bit pink-eyed.
Or
are they not? Perhaps
I
just
think they are because I’m in a bad temper.’ She began to disparage the Spaniard at length: ‘Not half fine gel enough,
was she?’ 86
Mado ?’ much/
‘Did you like her, ‘Yes,
I
did, very
asked Heidler.
‘Oh, charming !’ said Lois. Her voice went up a semitone. ‘But small, small.
Marya remarked the dancers
at,
liked the dancers rather.
way
in a cold, hostile
1
that she thought
were bouncers.
‘Hate bouncers ‘I
I
!’
don’t see,’ went on Lois, ‘what the girl was driving
myself. She tries to get an atmosphere of fate and terror.
The weak creature doomed and And, besides, she doesn’t do stabbed her lover, for instance. little
all it.
- such nonsense. That song where she that
You don’t
stab a
man with
a
feeble gesture and a sweet and simple smile.*
Heidler said:
doesn’t believe in fate,
‘Lois
and she
doesn’t approve of weakness.’
‘Oh,
it’s
a
damn convenient excuse sometimes,’ answered
The two women
Lois.
‘After
all,’
stared coldly at each other.
remarked Marya suddenly, ‘weak, weak, how
does anybody really
know who’s weak and who
don’t need to be a fine bouncing
The
will to stab
girl to stab
would be the chief
thing,
isn’t?
You
anybody, either. I
should think.’
Heidler coughed.
‘Have some more stout,’ he said; ‘have another Welsh rarebit,’
He added with
relief:
‘Come along over
here,
Guy.*
Guy, who was a
tall
and beautiful and willowy young
man, came along. He fixed a severe,
slightly bleared blue
eye on Marya and declared that he thought she was a hussy.
He was
very drunk.
‘I’m young and innocent,’ said Guy, ‘but
when
I
see one.’
I
know
a hussy
laughing on a high note.
‘Darling Marya,’ said Lois,
‘You don’t know her, you don’t. She’s
A
made, Guy.
as they’re
sweet young thing on the sentimental
‘And one word
side.’
you both,’ thought Marya. The music-
to
had excited her. She
hall
harmless
as
pugnacious. She sat silent
felt
with a sullen, resentful expression on her
From time
face.
to time Heidler looked at her under his eyebrows with clever, cautious eyes.
woman
Lois began: ‘There was a young
Who
thought, “But
and so on.
.
.
I
must have
- er.”
And
so
on
which runs close
to
and enchanted
in
a caree
’
.
They walked home along the the
called Marya.
street
Luxembourg Gardens, empty,
silent
the darkness.
‘Good
you two,’
night,
went
studio. She
to her
said Lois
when
room and locked
they got to the
the door.
*
‘H.J.,’ said Marya. I
can’t stick
‘But
it. It
‘It’s
isn’t
no
my
use.
I
not playing the game,
that’s
on with
can’t go
this.
line at all.’ is
it?’
remarked
Heidler, in an impersonal voice. ‘Not any sort of game.*
‘What game?’ answered Marya Lois’s just
Why
game?
it, it’s all
a
should
game
I
I
fiercely.
play Lois’s
can’t play, that
I
‘Your game?
game? don’t
Yes, that
is
know how
to
play.’
He
said:
‘You’re making a stupid mistake, a really tragic
mistake about Lois. utterly.
You
I
tell
you that you misunderstand her
will persist in judging us
88
by the standards of
the awful
life
you’ve lived. Can’t you understand that you
are in a different world
People breed differently after
you know. You won’t be
a while,
no
trick,
now ?
trap.
down. There’s no
let
And look
You’re with friends.
here,
my
dear, what’s the use of starting this conversation at this
time of night? We’ll talk about
be given away; she doesn’t want anybody to know,
want
to
and
assure you that that’s
I
she’ll
tomorrow. Lois doesn’t
it
be furious
if
she cares about.
all
anybody knows, and
go off in a hurry you will make things
beg you not to make things so She
As she
felt
hypnotized
longs for vanished youth.
wiped
off the slate as
A
gay
I
me.’
with Stephan
as
one
a carefree life just
life,
were. Gone!
it
me.
him, impotent.
as she listened to
life
Of course, why if you
difficult for
difficult for
bed she longed for her
lay in
that’s
A
horrible nostalgia,
an ache for the past seized her.
Nous n irons plus au ’
bois;
Les lauriers sont coupes.
Gone, and she was caught was
like that.
afterwards.
Here you
Where
are
.
.
.
in this appalling
are, it said,
you? Her
muddle. Life
and then immediately life,
at
any
rate,
had
always been like that.
‘Of course,’ she told
herself,
‘I
ought to clear out.’
But when she thought of an existence without Heidler her heart turned over in her side and she
A
felt sick.
board creaked outside.
She watched the handle of the door turning very gently, very slowly.
And
during the few
moments
from the time she heard the board creak S9
that passed
to the
time she
saw Heidler and
said,
‘Oh,
it’s
you then,
it’s
you,’ she was
in a frenzy of senseless fright. Fright of a child shut
up
in a
dark room. Fright of an animal caught in a trap.’
‘What
is
it?
What
is it,
then?’ whispered Heidler.
darling! There, there, there!’
90
‘My
one afternoon at the Cafe du
the end of April, whilst sitting in
Dome, drinking
a gin
and vermouth, Cairn,
that imaginative and slightly sentimental
young man, wrote
the following pneumatique to Marya.
Mon I
vieux,
haven
met you for an age. Can you come
t
lunch tomorrow
—
Saturday, one o'clock
?
Do.
to
I'll
August's for be tickled to
death to see you.
Yours ,
Cairn
Then,
full
of imaginative and slightly sentimental resolution,
he went out and posted the pneumatique. ‘For/ thought he, ‘that girTs
not getting a
fair deal.’
However, throughout luncheon with Marya, he doubtful, cautious and
felt
somewhat embarrassed. That day
remembered her. ‘After all/ he himself, ‘I’ve got no money. I can’t do anything for She probably knows perfectly well what she’s up to,
she was not so pretty as he told her.
and can bargain while the bargaining’s good.’ ‘Shall
we
drink Burgundy?*
‘Yes, let’s,* said Marya.
He wondered
if
she
knew
the sort of thing people were
saying about her, and decided she probably did because her 91
mouth was
thing like that. beautiful
were so sad. Lost she The Babe in the Wood. Some-
so hard and her eyes
looked. L’Enfant Perdu or
And
she was the type he liked, too.
Not
a
specimen of the type, of course.
After the meal was over: ‘Let’s go and have coffee at the Closerie des Lilas.’ ‘Yes,
do
was
It
let’s,’ said
Marya.
sunny day and they
a
sat
on the
terrace. Cairn
sneezed and she started so violently that half her coffee
was
spilt
over into the saucer.
‘Nerves, nerves,’
said
‘Now
Cairn.
what’s the
then,
matter? Something’s the matter; you’re not looking well.’ She told him can’t stand
irritably:
it this
‘Don’t poor-little-thing me.
morning.’
‘You ought to be talked to have you got to look so peaky ‘Because
He
I
sensibly,’ said Cairn. all
‘Why
of a sudden?’
hate trailing about with the Heidlers.’
‘Oh!’ and looked taken aback.
said
don’t care,’ said Marya, ‘what
‘I
I
it
sounds
like.
There’s
the truth.’ Cairn’s
little
twinkling eyes behind his spectacles were
suddenly very wary.
but
how
Of course he was
clever, that
recognize the truth
a clever
young man,
was the question. Clever enough to
when he heard
it ?
Hardly anybody was
went ludicrously wrong. truth - or perhaps you gave it a
clever enough for that. People
You
told the truth, the stark
fig-leaf so as
said:
think
‘Come, come,’ and ‘Don’t I
was
‘Ah, the then,
not to harrow too
I
cri
bom
yesterday?’
You
much - and everybody tell
me,’ and: ‘Do you
told lies and they said:
du cceurV Supposing that she said: ‘Very well
will tell you. Listen. Heidler thinks
92
he loves
me
and
love him. Terribly.
I
a bit
don’t like him or trust him.
I
D’you get me ? And Lois
love him.
says that she doesn’t
and gives us her blessing — the importance of sex being and any
vastly exaggerated says that
them.
thing like that. But she
little
mustn’t give her away. So does Heidler. They
I
call that playing
And
the game. So
she takes
it
out of
my
can just keep
of ways.
I
be able
to.
And
me
all
trail
sorts
all
won’t
I
I’m conscience-stricken
see,
me. She’s
hasn’t a spark of pity for
—and she
around with
the time in
end up now, but soon
you
then,
have to
I
about her. I’m horribly sorry for her. But
me
I
mind
know
I
that she
down
just out to
will.’
Supposing that she said
young man? No,
that to this calm,
all
were too
his eyes
cautious.
clever
He wouldn’t
be clever enough, she decided. Besides, one didn’t say that sort of thing.
He was
asking her reasonably
why
she didn’t go off
if
she
was not happy. ‘Because talk
about
it isn’t
I
haven’t anywhere else to go. Oh, don’t let’s
it. I
realize
what
a feeble
excuse that
is.
Besides,
the real excuse.’
Cairn said slowly that
it
wasn’t so feeble as
all that.
‘Not for a woman, anyway.’ ‘For a
woman -
for a
ness for the female sex
?
woman. But,
my
Why
this
sudden tender-
poor dear,
’
she mocked,
‘you’re positively rococo, as what’s-her-name
would
say.’
it’s a
sad world!’
grumbled Cairn. ‘Sometimes
so difficult to
know what
the hell to say.’
‘Oh,
it’s
‘Don’t say anything,’ she told him firmly.
‘Look here,’ he haven’t got any
said,
money
‘I’ll
say
myself, as you
93
this
much anyhow.
know, but
I’ll
I
borrow
hundred francs
five
you can
live in the
much, but,
for you. It’s not
Dome on
after all,
coffee and croissants for quite
a long time on that. Besides,
when
America
get back to
I
probably be able to send you some more. Heidler
I’ll
humbug,’ he added don’t see
God
help you
if
a
you
it.’
‘You think so
?’
don’t think;
‘I
‘and
violently,
is
I
asked Marya.
know, and
Mrs Heidler low voice.
as for
‘She hates me,’ said Marya in a
.’ .
.
‘Of course she hates you,’ Cairn replied impatiently.
‘What do you expect? She’d be
a very unnatural
woman
if
she didn’t hate you.’ ‘But
‘What
I
I
don’t mind her hating me,’ continued Marya.
mind
is
that she pretends she doesn’t.’
‘That,’ said Cairn, classique
‘So
‘is
what
is
known here
as a
moyen
.’
it’s as
‘Oh, yes,
obvious
as all that
it’s fairly
?’
asked Marya after a silence.
obvious.’
Cairn looked away with an embarrassed, even alarmed expression, fidgeted and cleared his throat. ‘I
must
go,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to
meet Heidler.’
‘Oh, are you?’ said Cairn, looking grim. ‘Yes, at St Julien le Pauvre.
He wants
to
show
it
to me.’
‘He would,’ muttered Cairn; ‘he would choose a church for a background.
Oh,
my God
!’
But Marya had decided that Cairn couldn’t help her.
He
only added a sharp edge to her obsession.
‘You’ll
come on Tuesday?’
said Cairn,
air of being exceedingly embarrassed.
‘Yes,’ she said absently.
There he was, incapable of helping. 94
still
with that
Before she had walked three steps from the Closerie des
had forgotten
Lilas she
all
about him. *
The church was very cool and dark-shadowed, when they came in out of the sun. It smelled of candles and incense and ancient prayers. Marya stood for a long time staring at the tall
Virgin and wondered
why
she suggested not holiness
but rather a large and peaceful tolerance of miserable sinners and the dust of the earth.
We
are
all
A little more
or
sin.
i
a little less, a dirty glass or a very dirty glass, as Heidler
would
say
.
.
.
‘And you don’t suppose that tall
it
matters to me,’ said the
Virgin smiling so calmly above her candles and flowers.
Marya turned
to
watch Heidler go down on one knee
and cross himself as he passed the sideways at her as he did
it,
altar.
He
glanced quickly
and she thought: Til never be
now that I’ve am.’ And she felt
him do
able to pray again
seen
However
very desolate.
sad
I
that.
Never!
*
‘Hep!’ shouted Heidler to a passing here,’ he said, ‘All right,’
‘I
taxi.
‘Get
in.
Look
don’t want you to see Cairn again.’
answered Marya.
His hand was over hers. Peace had descended on her
and to that peace she was ready to
sacrifice
Cairn or anybody
or anything. ‘But
I
promised to lunch with him on Tuesday.’
‘Well, write and say that you can’t come.
Cairn right out, you see.’
95
You must cut
‘Very well. I’m sorry, because
I
think he’s kind;
I
like
Brunoy with us
this
him.’ ‘He’s hysterical,’ said Heidler contemptuously.
The
taxi jolted
‘We want you
onwards. to
come down
to
afternoon.’
‘Oh, no,’ she told him
hastily,
‘I
don’t want to come.’
‘But you must come. You’re not looking well.
We
both
think you need a change. What’s the matter?’ ‘Nothing.’
‘Why
did you stiffen
just to please
me ?
‘Yes,’ she said.
all
over like that? Can’t you
come
Can’t you not go to Fresnes for once
And stopped
herself from saying:
anything to please you - anything.
‘What were you praying about suddenly.
‘You!’ he said.
‘God’s quite a pal of yours?’ ‘Yes,’ said Heidler.
96
?’
‘I’ll
do
’
just
now ?’
she asked
him
they sat facing looked
her in the railway carriage and she
them with calmness,
at
clear-sightedly, freed for
one moment from her obsessions of love and hatred. They
were
so obviously husband and wife, so suited to each other,
they were even in some strange
pot has
its
way
a little alike. ‘Every
lid/ says the French proverb, or perhaps Belgian
- but French or
Belgian,
it’s
a
good proverb.
Lois sat sturdily, with her knees, as usual, a little apart;
her ungloved hands were folded over a huge leather handbag; on her dark face was the expression of the
who
wondering how she
is
is
woman
going to manage about the
extra person to dinner. She probably was wondering just
Her adequately becoming and expensive hat was
that.
well pulled
down over her
eyes.
Her beige coat was well
Obviously of the species wife.
cut.
There she was: formidable, very formidable, an
ment made,
instru-
exactly shaped and sharpened for one purpose.
She didn’t analyse; she didn’t react violently; she didn’t
go ‘I
in for
absurd generosities or
don’t think
selves.
and
I
I
don’t
women make
pities.
ought to make nuisances of them-
a nuisance of myself;
think that other
Her motto was:
women
I
grin and bear
ought to grin and bear
it,
it,
too.’
And
there he was, like the same chord repeated in a
lower key,
sitting
with
his
hands clasped in exactly the
97
!
same posture
Only
as hers.
his eyes
were
He
different.
couid dream, that one. But his dreams would not be manycoloured, or dark shot with flame like Marya’s, No, they’d
be cold, she thought, or gross tainly gross
at
moments. Almost cer-
with those pale blue, secretive eyes.
It
seemed
to her that, staring at the couple, she had hypnotized herself
into thinking, as they did, that her
mind was
part of their
minds and that she understood why they both so often exactly the
in
same tone of puzzled bewilderment:
then they wanted to be excessively
they’d think: ‘After
all,
we’re in
‘I
Of course modem, and then
don’t see what you’re making such a fuss about.
And
said
’
Paris.’
There they were. And there Marya was; haggard,
tor-
tured by jealousy, burnt up by longing.
They reached Brunoy. The cab was there and exactly as
Marya had known she would
say:
‘I
Lois said,
must stop on
way because there’s not much to eat in the house.’ The old horse set off at a jog-trot up the street and
the
stopped outside the grocer’s shop with
its
display of piles
of dried fruit, packets of coffee and a jovial advertisement for Pates de la Lune.
Next door,
in the hairdresser’s win-
dow, was the bust of a pink and white lady attitude and a
huge bottle of bright green
in a provocative
liquid; then
came
a shoemaker’s necklaces of hobnailed boots. It
was
Lois
all
very peaceful.
came
out, accompanied
by
a
boy carrying
the cabman flicked up his horse; they passed the
parcels;
last
houses
and the road stretched long and grey in front of them.
Marya
sat
squeezed between the Heidlers, listening to the
melancholy sound of the hoofs and the
rattling of the old
cab. In the dusk the trunks of the trees gleamed as though
9*
made of some
they were
when they had had grown dark and she
dull metal, but
been driving for half an hour
it
could only see the shadows of the branches running along in front of the cab.
There were
row of small
straggling
lights in the
windows of
a
houses.
The cab stopped. They got out, walked along a muddy path, and Lois pushed a door open and led the way into a
room with
gay check curtains, straw armchairs, and a divan
with coloured cushions. The table was
laid
ready for a
meal.
‘D’you want to go up?’ asked Lois. ‘Here’s a candle for you.
Marya kitchen,
You know where your room said that she
up
a
is?’
remembered. She went through the
narrow
staircase into a
room which smelt
sweet and cool. Rabbits chased each other over the wall-
The window was wide open and the stillness seemed wonderful after the shriek of Paris. Soft,
paper.
out-
side
like
velvet.
‘Hurry up,’ called Lois from the foot of the
stairs.
‘H. J.’s mixing the cocktails.’
Marya thought: ‘Oh, Lord! what felt as if it
a fool
I
am.’ Her heart
were being pinched between somebody’s
Cocktails, the ridiculous rabbits
fun and sweetness of
life
on the wallpaper.
hurt so abominably
fingers.
All the
when
it
was
always just out of your reach.
Dinner was
a silent,
solemn meal.
melancholy persistency.
Lois
expression on her dark face.
‘You can’t down me. heartily usual,
and rather
My
noisily,
It
A
dog howled with
sat
with an
was
as if she
invulnerable
were
saying:
roots go very deep.’ She ate
drank
a
good deal more than
and then announced that she was going to bed. 99
‘Goodnight, you two.’
The door shut
sharply behind her.
*
‘You’re not going,’ said Heidler to Marya.
He came
over
to take her in his arms.
‘You must be mad,’ she told him I
am
made
a bonne or something to be
the mistress’s back
fiercely.
‘D’you think
love to every time
turned? Can’t you see? You must be
is
the cruellest devil in the world.’ She burst into miserable tears.
‘I’m as unhappy as you are,’ muttered Heidler. His face
looked white and lined.
much
it as
as
He began
you do, because
to argue:
‘I
don’t show
I’ve trained myself not to
show things, but I’m so miserable that I wish I were dead. You don’t help at all, Mado. You make things worse. I love you; fault.
I
I
can’t help
love you; I’m burnt up with
nobody’s
fault.
straining against
for
Why it all
She asked him
if
between them. And
how many ‘I
it is.
you
can’t
the time
me and for yourself.
what
not your
It’s
it.
he
?
fault; it’s
it. It’s
a fact.
not
There
my
it is,
just accept it instead of
You make
things so difficult
’
imagined she could
really
as she
asked
times I’ve said that.
it,
A
live there
she thought:
‘I
wonder
vain repetition, that’s
A vain repetition.’
don’t see
why
not,’
he
supreme here; you’ve only
said slowly. ‘After
to say
all,
what you want and
you’re it
will
be done.’
There was a loud bump from indifferently:
100
upstairs. Heidler
remarked
‘There’s Lois falling about.’
‘Oh, you must go up,’ said Marya in a very low voice. ‘She
may be
ill
—
‘I’m going,’ he answered wearily,
taking one of the
lamps.
He was away
for quite a long time, and she waited with
her head in her hands, listening.
more bumps,
Steps,
cottage
the dog in the garden of the next
down
howling. Then Heidler tramped
still
the
creaking stairs again, the lamp with the green and yellow
check shade in ‘Poor Lois
his hand. is
quite seedy,’ he remarked, putting the
lamp down on the been awfully
table
with an expressionless
face. ‘She’s
sick, nearly fainted.’
Marya asked, without
lifting
her eyes:
‘What’s the
matter?’ ‘Well,’ said Heidler, ‘she thinks
do
I.
Of
I
it’s
the cassoulet. So
don’t trust this tinned stuff.’ course, there they were: inscrutable people, invul-
nerable people, and she simply hadn’t a chance against
them, naive sinner that she was.
*
The night before they were
to return to Paris she
woke
about midnight to a feeling of solitude and desolation. She
had gone with Lois
down
they had walked almost
to the village to
all
the
way
in
buy
plants,
dead silence.
It
and
was
comical, of course, and degrading. They were like two
members
of a harem
speak to her
it
who
was with
didn’t get on.
When
a strained politeness
101
Lois did
which
at
moments was a
-
cringing
as if she said:
I
must keep her
in
good temper. Marya was brooding, nervous, waiting
and hoping for the violent reaction that might free her from an impossible situation.
The room was full of night noises. ‘I
‘After
,
she thought,
all,
can’t lie here for ever listening to these cracks and tap-
pings.’ She got up,
lit
the lamp and
went downstairs
for a
bottle of Vittel and a book. There was a light under the
A
sitting-room door. Voices.
And
then Lois, very clear
‘And
she’s so rude
Her whole
nerves.
trust her, let
me
tell
vague
murmur from
Heidler.
and loud:
sometimes -
surly.
my
attitude gets
on
you
isn’t to
that.
She
on
gets
It
nerves.
my
don’t
I
be trusted.’
Another murmur from Heidler. ‘They’re talking about me,’ Marya told herself. ‘They’re sitting there talking
about me. Those two.
she thought. ‘Not a minute longer.
this,’
quick.
It’s
I
can’t stick
got to
finish,
’
Then she
realized that she
was holding the lamp
at a
down on the kitchen table. But her breath had gone. One moment to fill her lungs - she didn’t want to stammer stupidly — then she opened the dangerous angle and put
door
as noisily as
it
she could.
‘Hullo!’ said Heidler, looking round. Lois
made
a
wincing movement with her mouth and
pulled her dressing-gown together at the throat, looking frightened.
Marya ‘Well,
told them:
why
‘I
heard what you
said just
now.’
not?’ said Heidler with an expression of
good-natured sarcasm.
‘You were talking about me.’ 102
‘Well/ he asked
again, ‘and
‘You mustn’t think. her voice realize
.
.
that
.
I
.’
shouldn’t we?’
Her breath had gone
again and
‘You mustn’t think that
trembled.
.
.
why
don’t
I
haven’t realized for a long time the
arrangement that you and Lois have made about me.’ ‘You’re mad,’ said Lois with indignation.
‘You have made an arrangement!’ said Marya loudly. ‘Not in so many words, perhaps, a
he wants the I
don’t
know
woman
let
him have
arrangement.
tacit
her. Yes.
If
D’you think
?’
You Madame Guyot’s
Heidler got up and said nervously: ‘Don’t shout.
can hear every single word that’s said at
next door ‘
’ !
Tant mieuxV screamed Marya.
Lois
made
a nervous
‘No, let
me
understand
how
It
talk
‘
Tant mieux
,
tant mieuxl
’
movement.
to
her,’
Heidler.
said
‘You don’t
to deal with this sort of woman;
do.’
I
was horrible, the power he had to hurt her.
‘Look out, Heidler,’ she
said.
‘Don’t be hysterical,’ he told her with contempt, calmly.
What do you want ? What’s
it all
about
‘talk
?’
But every vestige of coherence, of reason had
from
fled
her brain. Besides, however reasonably or coherently she talked, they said:
wouldn’t understand, either of them.
If
she
‘You’re torturing me, you’re mocking me, you’re
driving
me
mad,’ they wouldn’t understand.
She muttered: ‘I’m not going to any longer.
I
‘Ah!’ said
live
with Lois and you
- am — not! And you must arrange Heidler, ‘it’s a question of money. .
thought that was what you were getting
She jumped forward and hit him 103
as
.’ .
I
rather
’
at.
hard
as she could.
‘Horrible
German !’
man! CrapuleV She stood
arm
his
that she
might
‘Damned Gerwaiting for him to drop
she said absurdly. panting,
hit again.
‘You’re quite right,’ he muttered, and put his head in his hands.
Lois at
Oh God! Oh
‘You’re quite right.
went up
to
him and he
lifted his
God!’
head and looked
her with hatred.
me
‘Leave
alone,’ he said. ‘I’ve
done with you.’
She began to talk in a caressing voice.
‘Damn
you, leave
me
alone!’ he shouted, and pushed
her so that she staggered back against the wall. Then he buried his face in his arms again and began to sob.
Marya’s calm came back to her
how
She began to think chilly, that she
wanted
ridiculous
as theirs it all
felt for these
had only imagined that such emotions all.
it
was
to go upstairs, that she had only
imagined the love and hate she
existed at
disappeared.
was, that
She stood looking
two, that she love and hate
as
at the floor, feeling
un-
decided and self-conscious. Then: ‘I’m awfully drunk,’ said Heidler suddenly, in a calm
and
as it
were explanatory way. ‘I’m going
remember
a thing about
‘He always does
all this
that,’
Lois
to bed.
was
as if she
shan’t
tomorrow morning.’ remarked
manner when he had gone. The contempt had It
I
in left
a
sisterly
her voice.
respected the outburst which seemed to
Marya more and more ridiculous and inexcusable.
‘When ing, that
there’s been a scene he always says, next
he was drunk and that he doesn’t remember any-
thing that happened.
Why did you come ‘I
was
morn-
It’s his
way of getting out of things.
downstairs
?’
thirsty.’
104
.
.
.
‘Oh, were you?’ Lois
said. ‘I’ll
bring you up a bottle of
’
Vittel.
Marya stared
answered with the uttermost
her,
at
politeness: ‘No, please don’t bother,’ and left her anxiously
picking up the chair that had fallen down.
*
When she woke
next morning the whole thing seemed very
unreal and impossible. But even while
had seemed unreal. She had
felt
it
was going on
a marionette,
like
it
as
though something outside her were jerking strings that forced her to scream and strike. Heidler, weeping, was a
And
marionette, too.
‘Anyhow,’
dressing-gown.
away.
I’ll
anxious-eyed, in her purple
Lois,
thought
Marya,
‘I’m
going
stick to that.’
Peace, the normal, reigned downstairs.
Madame
Guillot
was in the kitchen, bustling about and singing. mademoiselle ,’
‘Bo/your, ‘
Pardon
.
Madame
Twenty
Madame
said
Guillot,
smiling.
.’
Madame
years ago
Guillot ’s husband had killed
her lover - or the other way round.
In any case there
had
been a tragedy and a scandal, and things had apparently been made pretty hot for Madame Guillot by the in general.
But
now
village
here she was singing away among her
pots and pans, and her fat back seemed to say: ‘Life has got to
be
lived,
mademoiselle or madame.
be cheerful about
it.’ It
‘Good morning, be here
you to
at eleven.
find an hotel.
my
was
One might
as
well
fly
will
a lovely blue day, too.
dear,’ said Heidler.
‘The
I’m coming with you to Paris to help ’
105
He looked
calm that their dispute seemed more
so
incredible than ever.
gone to the
‘Lois has
on here
village to shop.
few days and
for a
I
She wants to stay
come
probably
shall
straight
back. About money. Well, we’ll talk that over at lunch.’
She flushed and turned her head away.
‘Look here, H.
.’ .
J.
.
‘I’m not going to discuss
last night,’
you’re not happy here
‘If
But
that’s all.
‘No,’
will.
I
Is
that.
that
Of course,
repeated:
somewhere.
you an
you force
what you’re trying
‘I’ll
that
Is
me
do
to
that.’
H.
J.’
make
to break
?’
’
break with her and take you away
what you want?’
‘No, not for anything,’ said Marya again. ‘No,
do
hotel,
You don’t understand me. I’m
‘No.
she said.
if
not trying to force you to do anything.
He
find
don’t intend to let you go. Don’t you
I
any mistake about
with Lois
we must
interrupted Heidler.
I
can’t
She added in a very low voice: ‘Be kind to Lois,
‘Ah?’ remarked Heidler. ‘H-m!’
He looked
half contemptuous, half pitiful, as
if
he were
thinking: ‘No, she can’t play this game.’
Marya^ent on I
couldn’t stick
sullenly: ‘But
ifc^fhy
I
couldn’t help
last night.
longer.’
‘I’m not saying,’ he told her, with a judicial expression, ‘that
I
She last
night ?
‘Why
did you say such a damnable thing to
About money.
me
’
remember saying anything about it, he answered. remember that you were rather damnable.’ ‘I
‘I
don’t see your point of view.’ said:
don’t
He was
’
still
looking steadily at her. His eyes were clear,
106
but something in the depths of them
cool and hard,
flickered and shifted. She thought: ‘He’d take any advan-
tage he could
-
stared back at
him
fair
or unfair. Caddish he
Then
is.’
as
she
she felt a great longing to put her head
To stop thinking. Stop the little wheels in her head that worked incessantly. To give in and have a little peace. The unutterably sweet peace of on
knees and shut her eyes.
his
giving in.
She pressed her
And I
I
hit you.
lips
together and said: ‘Well, you did.
And I’m jolly
glad
I
hit you, too.
must go and pack.’ ‘Lois will
come up and
remember your
When
hitting
help you,’ said Heidler. ‘Yes.
me -
am
I
quite well.’
Lois appeared she said, in an oddly apologetic
manner: ‘You know, Mado, you can’t think I
Look here,
about
all this.
What
an awful pity
I
think
how
sorry
it is.’
doesn’t matter,’ answered Marya coldly. She hated
‘It
She hated her
Lois.
air
of guilt. She hated her eyes of a
well -trained domestic animal. Lois continued, with suspicion: ‘You are not going to talk to
anybody
‘Who
could
in Paris about I
talk to?’
all this,
are you
?’
asked Marya in an aggressive
voice.
But
in the
cab she said to Heidler over and over again:
‘Oh, Heidler, be good to Lois, be good to Lois, you must
be good to ‘I
Lois.’
shouldn’t worry too
Heidler answered.
much about
Lois
if
I
were you,’
crowds of people were waiting at the Porte d’ Orleans for the
trams to Fresnes. They stood with phlegmatic
patience, craning their necks, and each tram was diately
packed when
did
it
spend Sunday in the country.
young man and two
seemed
like to
girls
imme-
come with parties going to With each party was a jocular
who
giggled, or that
Marya. The neat
and the endless row of sycamore
was what
it
little
houses slipped past
trees.
At the Cafe of the
Cadran Bleu she got down.
The warder who took
the permits
knew
her. His ‘Qui
was mechanical.
etes-vousV
'Sa femme.’ ’
l
Passez y
And
warder.
the
said
passed
she
into
the
cobblestoned courtyard. She had begun to have a dreadful feeling
the whitewashed
of familiarity with the place:
corridor that smelt of the queue of
That day
it
women was
all
damp and
rot, the stone staircase,
awaiting their turn in the cubicles.
arm-in-arm
as
it
were. The drably
terrible life of the under-dog.
The prison was
familiar,
but
it
seemed
to
her that
Stephan was a stranger: dark-bearded, shaven-headed, very thin, very bright-eyed.
He wore —
as usual
—
a piece of
sacking over his head and he gripped the bars and leaned
forward, talking slowly in his rusty voice.
He
asked her
why
she had
left
10S
the Heidlers.
‘Because you weren’t free there? Mais, tu esfolle , Mado.
What do you want to be free for? Have you got a job? What are you going to do now? Really you must be mad do a thing
to
like that
’
She reminded him, feeling nervous and awkward, that
he would be at liberty in four months.
My
‘Only four months! Only four months!
He went on
easy to talk, isn’t it?’
irritably,
with those imploring eyes of a small boy.
what
will
happen when
have to leave France.
my
am
You have
You’re not clever. But off
I
it’s
friends and
so
but always
‘How do
I
know
free? I’ve no money.
mean
don’t
I
God,
I’ll
you lose them.
to quarrel. I’m going
head here. You’re not vexed?*
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no, no.’ ‘Last Sunday,’
awful.
Of course,
waiting for
them
he I
‘when you didn’t come
said,
didn’t get your letter in time and
to call out
my number when
came. Every number that was called out mine.
listening for
She’s not
coming.” But
my number
still I
the time was up,
but
was awful. One goes mad shut up here.’
it
She smiled.
‘I
I
can
tell
you.
was
“She’s late as this.
She
couldn’t help
each time they called.
when
I
thought was
I
And it never was. And then I thought, And then I thought, “She’s never as late ill.
felt
visiting-time
today.”
must be
I
I
was glad
sounds nothing,
It
never will not turn up again, Stephan.
Never. So don’t worry.’
The warder banged open the door and
snarled. Stephan
disappeared.
As she walked away she knew why the prison had seemed closer and
more
terrible than ever before.
It
was because
the thought of Heidler had always stood between her and
log
0
the horror of
He
He was
it.
‘Don’t worry.
said:
hadn’t worried. At
She
least,
I
big and calm and comforting.
love you, d’you see?’
And one
not so much.
corner of the tram watching the sycamore
sat in the
trees speed past.
Heidler, Heidler, Heidler.
Supposing she asked him,
me. I’m
‘Heidler, save
Then he’d think her
And
reflected Marya. stick it
—
all
a
next time she saw him:
afraid.
coward.
Save me.’ Just like that.
wonder
‘I
if I
am
a coward,’
how many of them could who’d call me coward ? Not many -
then: ‘And
the people
with their well-fed eyes and their long upper
lips.’
Some-
thing hard and dry in her chest was hurting her.
When
she got back to her hotel, which was near the
Gare de Montparnasse, she took
all
Heidler ’s letters and
re-read them. Five letters. She had left Brunoy four days before.
Very good
letters they
were, too. Very convincing.
She had answered once - shortly and coldly. The last letter told
Dearest in
and
her that he was coming to the Hotel du
Bosphore to see her the next afternoon. all
fifth
It
began: ‘Dearest.
the world,’ and ended with an effect as of a
sudden attack of caution - ‘So
I’ll
be with you about four.
Yours H.’ *
The Hotel du Bosphore looked down on Montparnasse station, where all day a succession of shabby trains, each trailing its long scarf of
smoke, clanked slowly backwards
and forwards. Behind the
A
trains a
scarlet- haired
background of huge advertisements:
baby Cadum: 11
a horrible little
boy
in a
sailor suit: Exigez toujours du Lion girl
with
Noir.
A
horrible
little
a pigtail: Evitez le contrefagons.
An atmosphere
of departed and ephemeral loves hung
about the bedroom like
stale scent, for the hotel
was one
of unlimited hospitality, though quietly, discreetly and not
most of its neighbours. The wallpaper was vaguely erotic - huge and fantastically shaped mauve,
more
so than
green and yellow flowers sprawling on a black ground.
There was one chair and counterpane.
It
huge bed covered with a pink
a
was impossible, when one looked
bed, not to think of the succession of petites femmes
extended themselves upon pink or mauve chemises, savoir vivre and
On
all
of tact and savoir faire and
the rest of
it.
the morning after her visit to Fresnes, Marya
flock of goats
who
passed under her
about half-past ten, playing a
He was
a sturdy
he carried on Fromage de
But
it
Not
his
back
window
frail little
man who looked
He wore country
weathers.
her.
who had
clad in carefully thought out
it,
full
early and dressed slowly, listening for the
at
at that
as if
woke
man with
every morning
tune on a pipe.
he were out
clothes and a beret basque
a black
the
in all ,
and
bag marked in white letters
chevre.
was the
tune he played which enchanted
little
a gay blast
on
a
trumpet
like the glazier.
He
also
passed, but earlier. This was thin, high, sweet music like
water running in the sun, and the man played, not to attract customers, but to
were wonderful
keep
goats, five of
his flock in order.
them,
all
They
black and white, and
they crossed the street calmly, avoiding trams with dignity
and
skill.
One behind
the other and no jostling, like the
perfect ladies that they were. ill
’
Marya away
listened
the music of the pipe,
to
hope of happiness.
in the distance, persistent as the
Then
she lunched at Boots’
A
Bar (once
renamed by the proprietor, an
dwindling
la
Savoyard,
and after
anglophile),
lunch went back to her melancholy bedroom and slept, for she had lain
When
fears.
looking
awake
night,
all
tormented by doubts and
she awoke, bewildered, Heidler was there
down on
her.
She had meant to
him:
tell
making any mistake about
‘I
that, are
love you.
You
you?’ But
all
aren’t
she said
was: ‘Please will you draw the curtains?’
’
‘H. J
‘What
my
is it,
‘You aren’t sad
‘My
darling?’ ?’
dear, no, of course not.’
She said: ‘Listen.
‘You funny
feel as if I’d fallen
down
a precipice.’
thing,’ said Heidler.
But that was
would never be because,
I
when
how
she
felt.
knew
Because she
him
able even to pretend to fight
that she
again,
she looked anxiously into his eyes, she had
imagined that they were sad and cold like ashes. ‘Well, look here,
He stopped. Of course
and
my
dear one,
he’d been going to
I
must go.
say,
‘I’ve
I’ve got to
—
got to go back
to Lois.’
She thought: fuss,’
‘I
must get used
to this.
and fixed a mechanical smile on her
‘Don’t get up,’ said Heidler.
and some wine. And
a book.
‘I’ll
No
use making a
lips.
send you in dinner
Have you got any books?
horrible outside.’
112
It’s
When
he went he
left
The gramophone
the door open.
belonging to the South American gentleman next door
was playing
‘I
want
to
be happy.’ Naturally.
*
He was
very different next morning.
she had never seen before.
bowler
When
hat.
Versailles she
because
it
was
To begin
with, he
a
new
is
something
attitude.
in the
a
He looked
without a certain hard impressive,
which touches the imagination about the bowler hat
wore
thinking uneasily about the hat,
still
self-possessed, respectable, yet not
There
Heidler, one
they were seated in the Restaurant de
seemed symbolical of
rakishness.
A new
Rue de Rennes. ...
something
sight of an English
In the
middle of the
meal he announced ‘Lois
‘But
is
expecting you to tea this afternoon.’
don’t want to go
I
9 .
‘My darling child,’ said Heidler with calmness, ‘your whole point of view and your whole attitude to life is impossible and wrong and you’ve got to change it for everybody’s sake.’
He went on
to explain that
one had to keep up appear-
ances. That everybody had to. Everybody had for every-
body’s sake to keep up appearances. duty,
it
was
in fact
It
what they were there
was everybody’s for.
‘You’ve got to play the game.’
Marya can tear
me
said:
me
‘Lois simply
to bits
to bits.’ She
wants
me
around so that she
and get her friends to help her to tear
added slowly: ‘They’ll tear 113
me up
and
show you the see
it.
A
bits.
That’s what will happen.
Frenchman would see the game
won’t see
it,
or you pretend not
And you won’t but you
at once,
to.’
‘Rubbish!’ said Heidi er, looking vexed.
‘Lois
very
is
fond of you. One’s got to take certain things into account
which may not seem to you very important. But which
’ .
.
.
His nose seemed to lengthen oddly as he spoke.
Marya thought: ‘He looks exactly
Queen
like
of
Victoria.’
But he was convincing, impressive and
He overwhelmed want
possibly tell
you
her. She
made one me,’
doesn’t like
Lois
‘H.J.,
‘I
a picture
full
of authority.
last effort.
she
‘She
said.
can’t
to see me.’
that she’s extremely fond of you,’ asserted
Heidler. ‘She’s always saying so. She’s very sorry for you, for the dreadful life you’ve had and
all that.’
‘Ah,’ said Marya, helplessly. ‘I
fretfully.
‘I
these
let Lois
staying with us and
the whole
things,’
went
Heidler
on
hate talking about things, but you surely must
you can’t
see that
were
explaining
hate
show away.
I
down. Everybody knows
if
there’s a definite split
you
will give
can’t let Lois down,’ he kept saying,
‘we must keep up appearances,
Marya told him
it
that
we must
at last miserably:
play the game.’
‘Oh,
all
right,
of
course.’ ‘Savage,’
up
he
said,
watching her, ‘Bolshevist! You’ll end
in red Russia, that’s ‘I
what
will
happen
to you.’
thought that you understood that in me.’
‘Oh, theoretically,’ answered Heidler. ‘Theoretically, of course
I
do.
My
darling, have a chartreuse
so miserable.’
114
and don’t look
‘But he really
is
like
Queen
Victoria sometimes/ thought
Marya.
He took
bowler hat and they departed. They bought
his
cakes on the way. Lois greeted
Marya
in a high voice
and with
a
gleam of
triumph in her eyes. She wore a gown of purple georgette, silk stockings
and high-heeled shoes. She had changed the
colour of her face-powder and looked younger. Below the decollete of her dress was a glimpse of a rose-coloured
chemise.
Marya thought: ‘How ridiculous we both are/ and on the divan
feeling like a captive attached to
sat
somebody’s
chariot wheels.
Miss
Nicholson arrived,
Satterbys and
Guy and
and Mrs
O’Mara,
and the
partner, and several young
men
of
various nationalities.
Lois handed cups of tea and ordered Heidler about and called
Marya ‘Darling Mado’ when he was
spiteful
when he was out
new dance
club
there, and
was
of earshot. They talked about a
they were starting,
and whether the
Countess Stadkioff ought to be barred.
Marya expected
‘Bar a countess?’
to hear Lois say. ‘No,
certainly not.’ She turned politely in her direction. But, to her surprise, Lois nodded.
Everybody
said: ‘Yes, we’ll
Then they all looked to some tribal god.
bar the countess this time/
relieved, as though they had sacrificed
Miss Anna Nicholson,
who
a very bright talker indeed,
painted landscapes and was
was witty about the colour of
the countess’s hair.
She was Lois’s friend and confidante and,
as she talked,
:
she watched Marya with amused and virginal eyes. She was
thinking
‘The idea of a
woman making
herself. It’s hardly to
No is
poise.
.
.
.
such an utter fool of
be believed. Her hand
Lois needn’t be
a bit of a fool herself.
afraid of her.
is
trembling.
But then, Lois
Englishwomen very often
116
are.’
the little clock on so loudly that
the table by the bed was ticking
Marya got up and shut
But she could
hear
still
train gave a long piercing shriek
away
in a drawer.
and persistent. Then a
fussy
it,
it
and she sighed, turned on
the light and lay contemplating the flowers which crawled like spiders
over the black walls of her bedroom. The
mechanism of her brain got
to
work with
a painful jerk
and began to tick in time with the clock. She made a great effort to stop her mind a blank for,
it
and was able to keep
say, ten seconds.
Then her obsession
gripped her, arid, torturing, gigantic, possessing her
dying of affair,
and that was
that.
And
was
that
But of course ruthless, first
it
as
She had made an utter mess of her that, too.
wasn’t a love
merciless,
Marya,
is
She had made an utter mess of her love
thirst.
existence.
as
someone who
utterly as the longing for water possesses
affair.
three-cornered
It
fight.
was
a fight.
And from
A
the
was right and proper, had no chance of
victory. For she fought wildly,
with extravagant abandon -
with
all
tears,
with
futile rages,
bad weapons.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she would ask herself.
‘Why
are you like this?
Why
can’t you be clever? Pull
yourself together!’ Uselessly.
‘No
self-control,’
matter with me.
No
thought Marya. training.*
‘That’s what’s the
And
But of course he was very clever.
Lois, just sitting
tight
and smiling, was very clever. Oh, very clever! And
she,
Marya, was a fool
who
could do nothing but cry
behind a locked door. She shut her eyes and
at
once
his face
was close to hers,
hard and self-contained. ‘All that!’ his cool eyes yes, very nice.
my dear.
*
But
all
His cool eyes that confused and hurt her. course. as
His hands were inexpert, clumsy
say
when he
what he
He
No, not
kissed.
soon
He
didn’t really like
as
he touched her.
mouth was women, he could
at caresses ; his
a lover of
liked.
He
despised love.
thought of
it
might
He might be
just possibly
right.
On
be wrong. But
to
grossly,
himself, and then with ferocious contempt.
mattered.
‘Oh,
grows on every blackberry bush,
that
He wasn’t a good lover, of women. She had known that hard
said.
Not
amuse
that that
the other hand,
it
he
didn’t really matter
much.
What love,
who
mattered was that, despising, almost disliking,
he was forcing her lived in the Hotel
of being
made
love to.
to
be nothing but the
du Bosphore
that
A petitefemme.
It
was, of course, part
she,
‘.
you
.
.
You
darling.
it.
And
pretty thing I
it
with such
miserable weakling that she was,
found herself trying to live She lived up to
woman
for the express purpose
of his mania for classification. But he did
conviction
little
say, did
up
to his idea of her.
she had her reward.
- you
pretty, pretty thing.
you notice what
I
did with
Oh,
my wrist-
watch? Lois has got hold of two Czecho-Slovakians and
young American chap - you know - what’s-his-name ? — the sculptor - for tonight and I promised I’d turn up. Are
that
118
you
money?
right for
all
I’d better leave
some money,
?’ I
hadn’t
The
endless repetition of that sort of thing
torture. She
would wait
go now. Because Lois
for
him
became
‘Look here,
to say,
I
a
must
.’ .
.
As he dressed she would and think: ‘A bedroom in
with one arm over her eyes
lie
might look rather
hell
one. Yellow-green and dullish
like this
mauve flowers crawling over
black walls.’
Her
lips
Her body ached. He was He bore her down.
were
crushed her.
dry.
so heavy.
He
The dim room smelt of stale scent. She began to imagine all the women who had lain where she was lying. Laughing.
Or
crying
if
they were drunk enough. She
curiously light, as
if
she
were
floating
felt
giddy and
about bodiless in
the scented dimness. ‘It’s
mind
frightfully
if
I
hot in here,’ Heidler was saying. ‘D’you
pull the curtains
and open the window? Where’s
your handbag? Look here - do go and dine somewhere decent, for God’s sake.’
He
always hurried the end of his dressing, as
if
getting
out of her bedroom would be an escape. ‘Yes,’ said ‘It
Marya
dully. ‘All right.
oughtn’t to be like
this. It’s
this.
I
I
will.’
oughtn’t to
be
let it
like
ugly like this.’
All very well to think that. But he crushed her.
He bore
her down. Besides, she hadn’t a leg to stand on, really.
right down to the expression on when he brought up her breakfast. Every-
everything on his side the waiter’s face
He had
-
thing. Including Logic
and
Common 119
Sense. For he could
so easily say
- he often did
Avenue de l’Observatoire
‘Why
Or,
Come
leave the
come along with me and see Lois? tomorrow for lunch. Lois is very fond
don’t you
to Lefranc’s
of you.
- ‘Why did you
say
?*
And you must
my
turn up occasionally,
dear;
you
really must.’
They would be
de Versailles, a peaceful
sitting in the Cafe
place at three o’clock in the afternoon, given up to middle-
men
aged gentlemen drinking bocks and young letters.
The vague smell of lunch
Outside, the ‘I
don’t want people to
We
body’s business.
know
can’t let Lois
hung on the
still
Rue de Rennes stewed
writing air.
drearily in the sun.
anything.
It
isn’t any-
down, surely you must
see that. She’s been awfully generous and
we
can’t let her
down.’ ‘But everybody
knows
already,’
said
Marya.
‘If
you
think they don’t, your crest ought to be an ostrich.’
‘Nonsense
!’
She persisted. ‘Everybody cuts
me
dead
Boulevard Montparnasse, anyway. Even
I’m the
all
along the
Solla cuts
me.
of the piece, and they do know. They say
villain
that Lois picked
me up when
moment I got into And that there are what
De
else they say,
her house limits.
Or
the ones
I
was starving and that the
I
tried to get hold of you.
they say
who
-
shall
I
tell
you
have lived here long
enough ?’ ‘Oh, if
I
know
the sort of thing,’ said Heidler. ‘But what
they do? They can’t be sure.
My dear child,
you can
You must
live everything
live it
down, believe me,
you keep your head and don’t give yourself away.’ 120
down. if
‘And
if
you have
good
a
income. Don’t forget
little
that.’
‘Why
should
I
be a butt for Lois and her friends?’
me
Marya went on excitedly. ‘She wants she can talk at me. She wants
watch
me
moment
out for the right
there so that
there so that she can
enormous
to put her
foot down.’
She began to laugh loudly. There was a coarse sound in her laughter. Heidler looked
her sideways.
at
when she laughed like that. He told her coldly: ‘You talk
He
disliked
her
the most awful nonsense
sometimes, don’t you?’
‘What?’ Well,
think they are.
I
attaches
Marya.
said
when you
‘Aren’t
You
Lois’s
feet
enormous?
didn’t exactly look for fines
married, did you?’
His eyes were very hostile.
When
she saw his hostile
eyes she stopped laughing and her lips trembled. ‘All
‘What’s
It
it
of
Just as
you
like,’
it
hurt, of course.
started hurting like hell.
Pemods
at Boots’s
fully avoiding the
walk to
said
Marya.
matter, anyway?’
was no good arguing, there she was, the
piece; and it
Very well.
right.
When
Then she would drink
came
a couple
Boulevard du Montparnasse, she would
Michel and dine
restaurant, not frequented by the Mont-
pamos. ‘A Pernod
of the
Bar to deaden the hurt and, care-
a side-street off the Boulevard St
in a students’
villain
the lonely night
fils,
please.’
121
‘Pernod
is
very bad for the stomach, mademoiselle/
the patronne said disapprovingly.
Dubonnet
The
instead
patronne
‘If
mademoiselle had a
?’
was
really a wonderfully
good
sort.
Fancy
caring what happened to the stomach of a stray client.
the other hand, fancy facing
Heidler and Lois
- on
a
life
-
that
is
On
to say, facing
Dubonnet! Marya could have
cackled with laughter.
‘No, a Pernod/ she insisted.
And
minute afterwards the merciful
a
stuff
Then, dazed, she watched the lady
brain.
clouded her
who was
sitting
opposite dining slowly and copiously. Soup; a beefsteak; a salad; cheese. She lips,
a
close-fitting
was
with a pale
a lady
and eyebrows
black hat,
moons. She was indeed exactly
now and
like
crimson like
half
Pierrot and every
then she would turn and look at herself in the
glass approvingly. Eventually, gathering
moved out with
she
face,
stately
up her belongings,
and provocative undulations
of the hips.
But the students at the next table were camelots du
They were noticed.
talking politics and the lady passed out un-
Then Marya,
imitating her,
looked at herself in the mirror
and
face
reddened her
lips.
turned round and
at the back,
powdered her
But hopelessly,
thinking,
‘Good God, how ugly Tve grown!’ Loving had done to her
love
-
— among other this perpetual
things
the fear. That was the worst. little
— made her
aching longing, this
persistently and very slowly.
the
roi.
And The
ugly. If this
wound
was
that bled
the devouring hope. fear she lived
that
with -
And that
she had would be taken from her.
Love was
a terrible thing.
You poisoned
122
it
and stabbed
at it
and
and knocked it
down
it
into the
got up and staggered on, bleeding
-
awful. Like
like Rasputin.
down and muddy and
mud -
Marya began
well
to laugh.
to the hotel after her
As she walked back
meal Marya
would
have the strange sensation that she was walking under
water.
The people
passing
were
like the
wavering reflections
seen in water, the sound of water was in her ears.
sometimes she would that
was
all life
isn’t real’
‘it
A suite
and
A
comme
des
tall
dream.
a
- and be
dream.
comme
suite
feel sure that ‘It's
life
was
a
dream -
dream,’ she would think;
strangely comforted.
dream. ‘la revest
des revesd
a
her
Or
A
vie toute Jaite des
Who
morceaux. Sans
wrote that? Gauguin.
‘Sans
dream. Long shining empty streets
dark houses looking
down
at her.
Often during these walks she passed under the windows of the studio in the Avenue de l’Observatoire.
on
a
Once
side in the dark street imagining that she heard the
the gramophone playing,
‘
If you
Then she thought, ‘No, home.’ But the
was
lit
still
sound of
knew Suzie like I know Suzie
this is
’
too stupid. I’m going
she stood there listening, looking up at
windows.
Well, there she was. In a bad way. Hard a
it
Thursday night. Lois’s party, of course. She stood out-
hit. All in.
drunkard into the bargain. And she had to
And
stuff herself
with veronal before she could sleep. But when she tried to argue reasonably with herself
seemed affair,
to her that she
when
she had
her painstakingly. thing.
still
reacted and he had reconquered
She never reacted now.
Quite dead. Not
it
had forgotten the beginnings of the
a kick left in her.
123
She was a
When
Lois sneered she sat with bent head and never
answered.
‘Oh,
know
I
I’ve got a
say complacently.
‘One of
think:
terrible
And Marya, watching these days just when
something clever to say about
when
at, just
tongue/ Lois would
me
she’s opening her
her, silent,
would
thought of
she’s
for her friends to snigger
mouth
to say
it,
I’ll
smash
a wine-bottle in her face.’
her hands cold and a
Sitting there silent,
little
fixed
smile on her face, she would imagine the sound of the the sight of the blood streaming. As she
glass breaking,
lay
awake she imagined
she
would
mad
!’
Little
wheels in her head that turned perpetually.
love him.
I
want him.
out to hurt me. I
‘My God, I’m going
horrified:
herself,
tell
breathing quickly, and then
it,
What
I
hate her.
shall
I
do?
And I
I
he’s a swine. He’s
love him.
I
want him.
hate her.
So she would till
the morning
hours, tortured by love and hate,
lie for
came and the coloured tepid water which du Bosphore. Then she
they called coffee in the Hotel
would get up and look ‘Good Lord! can I’m a bad
Her
that
at herself in the glass,
be
me? No wonder
thinking:
people think
lot.’
eyelids
were swollen and
large, bright eyes.
flaccid
Her head seemed
over unnaturally
to have sunk
between
her shoulders, giving her a tormented and deformed look.
Her mouth drooped, her skin was greyish, and when she made up her face the powder and rouge stood out in clownish patches.
She would stare
at herself,
124
feeling a horrible despair.
A
feeling of sickness
at herself.
would come over her
as she stared
She would get back into bed and
lie
huddled
with her arm over her eyes. This was Marya’s
life
went
the seventh she
for six days of the
week.
On
and returned soothed,
to Fresnes
comforted, and, because she reacted physically so quickly,
once more desirable.
‘My never
how much
dear,
fail
to
remark the next day. ‘Not
darling child.
You
half so peaky.
My
pretty thing.’
Marya thought of her husband with and protection.
would
better you look!* Heidler
He
a passion of tenderness
represented her vanished youth - her
youth, her gaiety, her joy in
life.
She would
tell herself:
‘He was kind to me. He was awfully chic with me.’ Soon, for her sentimental mechanism was very simple, she extended this passion to to the fat
women who
warder, to
all
everybody
who
hard-eyed.
To
the inmates of the prison,
waited with her under the eye of the
unsuccessful and
humbled
wasn’t plump, sleek,
all
or gave them.
all
the people
who
To everybody,
prostitutes, to
satisfied,
smiling and
never went to tea-parties
in fact,
who was
utterly
unlike the Heidlers.
She went to the prison visit a friend,
and
all
the
gaily,
way
as if she
there she
were going
to
would revolve her
plans for Stephan.
*
It
was the beginning of August. Stephan was to be released
on the second Sunday ‘I’ll
in
September.
have to find a coiffeur,’ he said anxiously. 125
‘I
don’t
want
to go
my
around Paris with
a long beard.
hair
on
my
shoulders and
.’ .
.
The warder who shaved the seemed, a good released he let
sort.
them
A
heads was,
prisoners’
it
few weeks before they were
start to
grow
their hair.
‘Not a bad type,’ said Stephan. ‘Many of them are not bad.
They do
their
work, what do you wish?
I
daresay
they’d prefer to do something else.’
‘Oh, you’ll find a coiffeur,’ said Marya. for
you
in the Quartier Latin
somewhere,
‘I’ll
get a
will that
room
do
?’
‘Look in the Rue Tollman,’ he advised. ‘Well, you can go straight there from Fresnes and in the
afternoon ‘It’s all
How will
I’ll
turn up with the money.’
very well,’ said Stephan, ‘but what about you?
you manage about money?’
She answered:
me some
‘I’ve
told you, the Heidlers have lent
money.’
‘They’re chic,’ remarked Stephan.
126
!7 august was ing
down on
A hot, oppressive month, the sun beat-
sleepy streets, the cafes and restaurants nearly
empty, the staircase and passages of the Hotel du Bosphore
and
fellows pervaded by an extraordinary mixture of
its
smells. Drains, face
powder, scent,
drains, Heidler decided.
all,
and knocked
at
He
sat
down, with
when
she opened
a sigh, thinking: ‘Oh,
the bed, averted his eyes instantly and
‘Why
it,
lit
‘I
He looked
a cigarette.
at
When
shouldn’t you go into the country for a bit?
can’t go I
God, what
he suggested:
Somewhere not too far from Brunoy. August. And you really aren’t looking good?
‘Your clock’s
it.
depressing places hotel bedrooms can be.’
he had smoked
Above
garlic, drains.
reached the second floor
Marya’s door.
‘I’m not late/ he said fast.’
He
away
just
‘But look here,
my
is
hateful in
well.’
now,’ she told him. ‘What’s the
must be here when
‘Oh! Of course,’
Paris
my
husband comes out of jail.’
He coughed and
said Heidler.
dear,
you surely don’t intend.
added: ’ .
.
.
‘Intend what?’
There was an edge ‘If
you go back
see you
again,
to
to her voice.
your husband,’ he declared,
you understand
that?’
He
‘I
looking impenetrable and alert, like a chess-player has just
made
a
good move. 127
can’t
leaned back,
who
It
was
and she was
a greyish day
He
the light.
sitting
with her back to
couldn’t see her face well. She answered
sharply:
‘I’m certainly going to see Stephan and do what for him.
It
won’t be much. Are you thinking of trying to
damned
stop me, you and your
She was astonished ‘I’ve still
can
I
got a kick
Lois?’ ‘After
at herself.
left in
all,*
she thought,
me.’
Heidler began to argue patiently, talking
as it
were from
the other side of a gulf between them.
‘You don’t seem to
you from
save
France.
a very dreadful existence, an unthinkable
Your husband
existence.
And
I’m merely trying to
realize that
is
going to be expelled from
he’s in trouble with the Belgian police,
Have you imagined what your
say.
life
will
you
be? You’ll
money or any friends in a insecurity. And sooner or later he’ll
career about Europe without any
perpetual and horrible
probably try to get back to Paris. That’s what they it
come back
seems. They
arrested again.
simply don’t
my
I
can’t be.
know what
‘I
shall
for your
never
till
they’re
live
own
I
can’t afford to be.
You
you’re letting yourself in for,
dear. I’m trying to stop
do with him
and hide
do,
mean, I’m not going to be mixed up with
I
that sort of thing.
all
to Paris
all
you from having anything
to
sake.’
with him again. That’s
finished,’ said
Marya.
‘Oh!’ answered Heidler. ‘That’s She went on: ‘But d’you think miserable than
How
I
I
all
right then.’
could possibly be more
have been during the
last
few months?
could I? Don’t you understand that I’m unbearably
miserable
?’
128
Tm
‘No/ he answered, still patiently. don’t understand - I do my best.’ ‘Don’t you understand that
I
hate this louche hotel
and the bedroom and the wallpaper and the whole
and
tion,
‘Why
my
whole
I
She was excited and
‘Oh, don’t you? Don’t you?’ bitter.
afraid that
situa-
life?’
don’t you change your hotel?’
‘All these sort of hotels are the same,’ she said drearily. ‘It’s
the whole situation,
been a
fool. I’ve let Lois
‘Why not
do with
lot to
word
it,
you.
It’s
my own
fault. I’ve
She had nothing to do with
it.
‘Oh, one word to
tell
out of the question? She has
Lois
leave
nothing to do with
I
—
that,’ said
and you
’
it.
Marya rudely. ‘She had
know
it.
You drink
a
in every
she says about me.’
‘You imagine
‘You’ve smashed
That was
He looked
that.’
pitiful
me
watch and sighed.
up, you two,’ she was saying.
because
was so obviously
it
an obscure way rather
also in
at his
true.
It
was
flattering.
She put her hands up to her face and began to cry. Long-fingered hands she had with very beautifully shaped nails.
She cried quietly,
up and down
breasts heaving
‘I’m leave
still
all
soft
and quivering, her
little
in painful, regular jerks.
fond of her,’ he told himself.
‘If
only she’d
’
it
at that.
But no. She took her hands away from her face and started to talk again.
What
a
bore
!
Now,
of course, she
was quite incoherent. ‘The most utter nonsense,* nonsense about (of
all
thought
Heidler.
Utter
things) the visiting cards stuck into
the looking-glass over Lois’s
damned mantelpiece, about
:
damned smug
Lois’s
pictures and Lois’s
damned smug
voice. She said that Lois and he pretended to be fair and
were hard
underneath. She said they couldn’t feel
as hell
anything and pretended that nobody else could. She said that she hated their friends.
know
‘Imagining they
when
a thing
they
Marya. ‘And guzzling and yapping
said
know
its
name,’
at Lefranc’s.’
Heidler was stung and interrupted coldly:
how
extraordinary that you don’t see
‘It’s
unintelligent
of you to abuse Lois.’
it is
But she didn’t take the slightest notice. She just went
on
talking.
She drank so
hoarse as a crow.
He
much
that she
tried not to listen.
was getting
He wouldn’t
Then he heard her
to this torrent of nonsense.
as
listen
say in a
cold hard voice ‘Didn’t you say that sex was a ferocious thing?’
He
answered:
ought to
know
He was
still
‘Oh
yes.
So
it
A
is.
terrible thing.
I
that.’
watching the shape of her breasts under the
wore -
thin silk dress she
a dark-coloured, closely fitting
dress that suited her.
army
‘Terrible as an
and
futile,’
he thought.
She mocked: ‘So believe
it,
it
set in array. Terrible
And
‘All that. is.
So
it
is.
Get
my
said calmly:
‘I
several times that sort.
a nuisance, too.’
I’ll
-
kill
walk into your her, d’you see
?
hands round her thick throat and squeeze. Then,
perhaps, you’ll believe
He
pitiful
But you don’t really
do you? Well, one day
studio and strangle your cad of a Lois
and
So has she. So
it.’
know. As
you might I’ll
a
matter of fact, I’ve thought try
some nonsense of
that
simply give the concierge orders not
to let
you up
you do come. I’m not going
in future if
to have Lois threatened, don’t
‘Oh, H.
J.,’
you make any mistake.’
she said. ‘Oh, H.
J.,’ in a little
voice like a
child.
In the
He
shadow he saw her
face crimson and then go white.
got up then because she was so white and trembling and
took her in
his
arms and
said pityingly:
‘There! There! There!’
When he He
kissed her her lips
said again:
bed and
cold.
‘There! There! There!’
clumsy steps forwards, to the
were
He
as if
down on her, He knelt down and
stood looking
feeling helpless and rather alarmed.
stared at her.
and quickly
lay there breathing loudly
she had been running.
And took two
holding her. She collapsed on
still
Her head had dropped backwards over the
edge of the bed and from that angle her face seemed strange to him: the cheek-bones looked higher and
prominent, the nostrils wider, the little
He
Kalmuck
lips thicker.
A
more
strange
face.
‘Open your
whispered:
eyes,
Open your
savage.
eyes, savage.’
She opened her eyes and said:
‘I
love you,
I
love you,
I
love you. Oh, please be nice to me. Oh, please say something nice to me.
I
love you.’
She was quivering and abject in his arms, like some unfortunate dog abasing
They dined river,
and he
itself
before
at a restaurant felt
master.
on the other
side of the
tender towards her and very anxious
to see her smile and be happy.
studio he was going to take
the
its
way they were planning
He began
to talk about the
on the Boulevard Raspail and to decorate
131
it.
Then: thought.
‘I
suppose that will get on her nerves, too/ he
And stopped
abruptly.
She was tired, unable to respond to his gentleness
as
eagerly as usual.
While they were drinking going to see Stephan, you
coffee she said suddenly: ‘I’m
know/
‘Of course/ agreed Heidler. T quite understand that
you want
to help him.
I
meant
that your going back to live
with him would make an impossible situation/
The next time he saw her he suggested a meeting with Stephan in the Taveme du Pantheon, and Marya lost herself in
wonder
at this suggestion.
game? Or was decided.
Was
it
his idea of playing the
Lois curious? Probably
it
was
that,
she
‘monsieur has arrived,* announced
the landlady of
Rue Tollman. ‘Yes. Number
the hotel in the
Madame,
19,
room you booked.*
the
When
Marya opened the door of
Room
frail
and shrunken apostle,
When tremble.
he took her in It
was
She said: ‘Hello, coiffeur’s shop
He
arms she
as if a stranger
open
my
9 Stephan was
some
were touching
body
thin
felt his
her.
dear. Well, couldn’t
after
like
beard and hair flowed.
his
his
1
He looked
sitting at the table writing a letter.
you
find a
all ?*
explained that he had been kept at the Palais de
Justice for several hours.
you came. Oh, She smiled
I
at
Montpamo.* -
‘I
know
‘And
that
I
I
wanted to be here when
look awful.’
him and answered: ‘You look didn’t
know how
a regular
thin he was,* she
was
thinking.
‘There’s a place open just round the comer.
now,’
go there
said Stephan.
She walked restlessly up and
came back shaved and carrying cakes.
I’ll
down
the
a cardboard
As he opened the box, she watched
room
till
he
box of cream
his hands: thin,
brown, quickly moving. Clever hands he had. ‘A savarin, an
eclair,
two meringues - the ones you
like,
and I’ve ordered tea downstairs.
but
didn’t see any.’
I
133
I
looked for flowers
‘But
I
can’t eat
You don’t look
‘Well, you must. I
those cakes,’ she told him.
all
well,
don’t know; you’re changed. Oh, zut!’
‘Don’t
let’s
be
‘No, don’t
Mado. You look -
He
lit
a cigarette.
sad.’
let’s
be
sad,’ she said
and thought again: ‘He’s
simply dreadfully thin.’ Every bone in his face showed. His
hung on him.
clothes
The
tea arrived.
‘Arrange yourself on the bed, Mado.
He
able.’
It’s
more comfort-
piled pillows behind her back, poured the tea out
and brought the cup, waiting on her with anxious gentleness. She ate and drank quickly and then lay back, relaxed. Gradually an irrational feeling of security and happiness
took possession of her. She sighed deeply like a child
when
a
of crying
fit
slowly, luxuriously.
This was the only felt safe
over,
lit
a cigarette
and smoked
was extraordinary, but there
It
human
being with
whom
it
it
was.
she had ever
or happy.
His old grey
She
is
said:
was lying
felt hat
at the foot of the bed.
‘About your clothes -
I
packed them
all
away
in your trunk. They’re at the Hotel de l’Univers.’
‘Oh,
I’ll
have with
A tains
sell
me
the lot,’ answered Stephan.
the better.
shaft of sunlight
on the carpet.
made It
‘The
less
I
’
patterns through the lace cur-
was oppressively hot and
airless in
bedroom. From some distant - probably subterranean - region came the sound of a laboriously played the
little
piano.
She opened her handbag and looked at herself in the little glass,
and was astounded because her mouth was so
smiling and peaceful.
134
Stephan, seated in the one armchair near the window,
was saying: Til be able to
who
Fresnes with
left
me
A
stay four days in Paris.
this
morning
type
me
going to lend
is
some money tomorrow. And with what you’ve brought You know, I took care of the books at the end — the library — .
oh,
my
dear, what a selection of books!
one day. Well,
this
man,
We
name, was there, too. funny
life
-
well,
if
a Russian
Jew, Schlamovitz
talked sometimes
you knew.’ He was
remembering the bizarre and
.
you that
tell
I’ll
.
-
it
silent, as if
his
is
was a
he were
cynical conversations of the
Sante and Fresnes. ‘He lives with a girl in Montmartre and
she was there to
‘What
meet him
this
morning.
’
sort of girl?’ asked Marya, interested.
‘Oh, well, a grue
,
seems. But she’s a good
it
was awfully happy when she saw him.
girl.
She
’
‘Was she?’ ‘Yes. She cried. girls,
I
tell
Oh, they’re fond of
their
men, these
you.’
Marya looked away. But there had been no reproach his
voice,
in
and he went on speaking very quickly and
excitedly about the
man
Schlamovitz who,
it
seemed, spent
an extraordinary existence, being petted by
Montmartre (‘My dear, what
women
in
a beautiful boy!’) and at
regular intervals being arrested and taken to
jail.
He had
been expelled from Paris two years before. ‘Well,’ said Stephan.
was fourteen
a rich old
‘What can you expect?
woman
adopted him.
him very soon because he was died without leaving him a penny.’ love to
There was before,
known
also as
And
so beautiful.
When she
he
made
Then she
another individual released two days
Michel the nigger, a former soldier of *35
who would
the Foreign Legion,
back
as
was
apparently
soon
as
look at him. ‘But a bon camarade .’ Michel
contemplating
He had
honest sou or two. little
two-roomed
a
reform
and
turning
an
soap-making apparatus in
his
flat.
That transparent soap, you know. And he makes
‘Yes.
women
cold cream and the stuff night.
put a knife in anybody’s
put on their faces at
’
‘Skin food? ‘Yes,’
And he
Good Lord!
‘Of course,
said Stephan. sells it to
seems that
it’s
All that in his his
two rooms?*
wife helps him.
the big Paris stores very cheap. But
awfully cheap to make.
most expensive part of
The pots
it
are the
it.’
Marya considered him
all
the while he was talking, and
thought: ‘He’s changed, he’s awfully changed.’ ‘If
anybody tried to catch
me
me up I’d fight like me out or till I died.’
a wild animal; I’d fight
till
She said suddenly, lock let
and they
Stephan laughed. ‘Oh, no, you wouldn’t, not for long, believe
me. You’d do
as the others
do - you’d wait and
be a wild animal when you came out.’ He put his eyes
come
his
hand to
and added: ‘When you come out - but you don’t
out.
Nobody ever comes
out.’
She stared at him, impressed by ‘Let’s not talk of
it.
this phrase.
Later on, Marya, one day
I’ll tell
you everything, everything from the beginning, but
now for a while, let it down the room. ‘Imagine.
go
Paris for
me.
I
can’t believe
‘Don’t think about
Then he
.
it,’
.
.’
In a
He began few more
to
let it
walk up and
days,
no more
it.’
she said, ‘don’t let’s think.’
told her that he had determined to go to
136
Amsterdam,
who might
he knew a man there
that
help
him, a Jew, a friend of his father’s. ‘People abuse Jews, but sometimes they help you
nobody
when
else will.’
‘Yes,’ said
Marya,
think so, too. They often under-
‘I
stand better than other people.’
now
But to lie
still.
peace had
her again. She was too restless
left
She got up and, sitting on the edge of the bed,
watched him
His optimism seemed pitiful to
gesticulate.
remembered Stephan calm,
her, and strange. She
now
silent
and
him up. He assured her that in six weeks’ time he would have arranged something and that he would send for her. self-contained;
was
it
as if
prison had broken
‘Can you manage for another six weeks?’
must tell him,’ she can’t now - I must wait a bit.
‘Of course,’ muttered Marya. thought, and then: ‘Oh, It
I
would be too horribly
go out and then tore
it
cruel.’ She
look here,
the Heidlers.
the same
I
I
to
bed, Marya,’ said Stephan.
be able to thank your friends,
like to thank
them.
It
you into their house when
be your friends; ‘Wasn’t
want
my
suppose they can’t want to meet me, but
would
did, to take
I
a cigarette, let it
lit
to pieces.
‘Don’t strew tobacco on ‘And.,
‘I
yes,
it?’ said
it
was
Marya
chic
was I
chic
was
all
what they
in jail
and to
.’
in a hard voice.
She asked for another cigarette and went on: ‘They’ll be in the Taveme
this
evening at half-past nine,
if
you want
The Pantheon, you know. But why should you Don’t let’s go.’ She thought of Lois’s brown eyes
to see them.
want
to
?
raking Stephan, shabby and shrunken, and she repeated:
‘Don’t
let’s go.’
‘Are you ashamed of me?* he asked. scarecrow, so moche as
‘Good God, no
!’
all
‘Am
such a
I
that?*
she said. ‘You really want to see
them?
All right.’ ‘Is
Madame
Heidler pretty?’ inquired Stephan.
answered Marya. Then she added
‘No,’
don’t know. She has lovely eyes; she dances well.
‘Good!’ said Stephan,
bonheurl
la
‘a
about two Mominettes in the
little
once:
at
‘I
.’ .
.
And now, how
bar on the comer?’
*
Almost immediately
who had
reached the cafe Marya,
after they
her eyes fixed on the door, saw Lois come in and
look round with an expression of defiance. Heidler followed her.
They came up
moment
and
to the table
sat
down. The horrible
of meeting was over.
Lois began a
smooth and
tactful
monologue. As she
talked she fidgeted with her long necklace of huge, brownish
yellow beads and watched the ex-convict with antagonism
and curiosity. ‘Oh,
is
that so,
Madame ?’ from
Stephan.
Heidler had carefully arranged his face to look perfectly
but when he lit a cigarette his hand He cut Stephan’s thanks short with nervousness. Silence. And then more desperate conversation about the cafe - how old it was, how famous it was, how ugly it
expressionless,
trembled.
was.
Marya gazed
intently at a
woman
wondered whether she wore
a
behind the counter and
wig or whether her
hair had
by some extraordinary freak of nature remained blonde, 138
and
supple,
above her rather terrible mask of an
vital
woman.
avaricious and sensual old ‘If it’s
one
a wig,’ thought
Marya,
‘it’s
the most marvellous
I’ve ever seen. It’s darker at the roots. Can’t
She stared at the woman,
green
bow round
who was
be
a wig.
’
arranging a huge
the neck of a minute and hairy dog that
stood on the counter, shivering violently. Then she listened again to the careful and nervous conversation of her three
companions,
and every time she heard Lois’s sharply
patronizing accents a feeling of such intense irritation shot
through her that she clenched her hands under the table. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said suddenly, ‘ask the waiter for a fine; I’m so thirsty.’
Stephan began to protest. ‘Don’t have brandy, Mado. She oughtn’t to drink brandy, you gave
him
Another
Three
.
.’
Heidler
Madame .’
silence.
violin wailed
your love
.
a furious glance; Lois lifted her eyebrows.
‘Garmon, une fine pour
The
know
is
with pathos: ‘Laugh, Pagliacci, for
ended.’
girls
passed the table, disappeared into a door
marked telephone and emerged
powdered and
shortly afterwards, relieved,
smiling, their lips very red.
The woman
behind the counter kissed her dog passionately, calling it
the file de sa memere. Lois looked round her in an undecided fashion, fixed
her eyes on a wall painting and murmured: ‘Well, I’m afraid.
.’ .
.
‘You’re coming back with us, aren’t you?’ said Heidler to
Marya with authority. ‘We’ll drop you She looked at Stephan.
He made 139
at
a quick
your hotel.’
movement:
‘You’re very kind, Monsieur,’ he said;
‘Oh,
I
think she’d better
Heidler, staring over Stephan’s head.
‘And ‘I’ll
it’s
pouring with
meet you
‘I’ll
added
rain,’
said
The three got up. The
us,’
‘It’s all
on the way.*
near the Pantheon
Marya without looking violin
was
answered
Lois.
at the little restaurant
tomorrow, Stephan,’
take her home.’
come with
still
at
him.
wailing. Stephan
bowed, Heidler muttered something, looking rather awkward. At the door, she looked back and saw her husband leaning forward staring after them.
*
‘Well, he looks
all right,’
said Lois in the taxi. She
with cool contempt. ‘And
good thing
spoke
not short, that’s one
for him, isn’t it?’
‘No, on the contrary, ‘I
his hair’s
it
was too long,’ Marya told her.
think he seems quite
shouldn’t worry about
Marya stared
at
him
all
at all, if
‘I
I
continued Lois,
‘I
were you.’
her without answering.
As they passed Montparnasse you,’ she said.
right,*
want
station:
‘Stop here, will
to get a taxi.’
‘What d’you want another
taxi for?’ asked Heidler. His
when he was surprised. Marya said: ‘I’m only going home to get some things. I’m going back to the Rue Tollman; I’m going to stay with
mouth opened a
little as it
my husband while
always did
he’s in Paris, naturally.’
‘Naturally!’ she repeated, staring hardly at Lois.
She rapped on the
The driver looked and he stopped. She opened the
glass
round. She rapped again
in front.
door for herself and got down. 140
‘Good
night,’ she said
and shut the door on them. She
ran up to the nearest taxi. ‘First to the Hotel Bosphore,
then to the Rue Tollman, number -
I’ll
stop you.’
As she spoke, she was thinking with agony: Heidler! Heidler
‘Extraordinary thing to do,’ remarked Heidler.
He was
very pale. Lois said: isn’t
he
?
‘Yes.
Monsieur
is
man,
a funny little
But she’s obviously very fond of him.
He was
’
silent.
She went on poor, poor H.
in a
J.
low voice: ‘My poor H.
All this
is
at the
wet
my
Oh,
J.
so abominably sordid.’
She looked sharply at him
window
Zelli
as she
spoke, then out of the
streets.
‘That’s that,’ she thought.
And suddenly
she felt weak,
exhausted like someone at the end of a long and terrible effort.
Tears came into her eyes.
her
together, and told herself again: ‘Yes, that’s that.’
lips
She blinked, pressed
*
It
was very quiet
in the
room
at the hotel in the
Rue
Tollman. Only the gentle sound of falling rain came up from the dark street outside.
‘You don’t love I
know
it.
blame you.
You
A
me
stiffen
year in
any more,’ said Stephan.
when
jail
I
‘I
touch you. Well,
doesn’t
make
a
man
feel I
it.
don’t
appetizing.’
‘I’m awfully tired,’ said Marya, ‘and awfully sad. Will
you
just
be kind to
about love
at all.
me
for a little?
And
don’t
You know, sometimes I’m 141
let’s
think
so sad! Life
is
so hard and puzzling, awful,
I’m longing to
just for a bit.
He
said gently:
seems to me.
it
rest for a bit.
Ten
‘Don’t worry.
arms round her. ‘Can’t you sleep
his
If
I
could rest
*
fais pasl
He put
’
Are you
like that?
well like that?’
And
‘Oh, yes,’ she sighed.
sound of the
slept at once,
rocked by the
rain.
The next few days passed
dream. Lovely days,
like a
and washed and clean. And the knowledge that the
end of their
irrevocable
moment strange
in
life
Paris
was
this
made every
and very sweet. Those were
clearly cut
vivid,
fresh,
detached from everything that had gone
days,
before or would follow after.
On
their
last
evening they dined
Restaurant Chinois of the
Rue de
recklessly
l’Ecole de Medecine.
As they began the meal Stephan remarked:
enough money
left for
dred francs for when he
said:
‘Oh
I
my
the
in
‘I’ve just
Amsterdam and
fare to
hun-
a
Then
get there.’ Marya was silent.
‘Your friends the Heidlers don’t like me.’ yes,
taken aback.
they do,’ Marya answered feebly. It
was the
first
She was
time he had mentioned the
Heidlers since their meeting.
‘And
to tell
you the
truth.
.
.
.
drink? Here’s a good Sautemes.
I
Sautemes? To
I
tell
you the truth
what’s happened to
my
first shirt
What wine suppose you
care as
shall still
little as
whether they
I
like
we like
care
me
or not.’ ‘Stephan,’ Lois.’
she asked,
‘tell
me what you
She waited for his answer nervously
depended on
think about
as if a great deal
it.
‘Madame Heidler?
I
think she
142
is
absolutely primitive.’
‘You think she’s primitive?’ Marya repeated slowly.
‘You don’t think that she might be - very clever?’ ‘Look here, Mado,’
said Stephan, shrugging,
met Madame Heidler once you
all
that’s the cleverest thing
you ask me? Madame Heidler cruel,
I
can’t
is
a
one can do.
woman who
think, and very hypocritical, but
your hand under the likes
only
‘I’ve
I
tell
Primitive people follow their instinct and
that.
sometimes
for a short time,
table, so
I
I
Why
do
could be
saw her squeeze
can only suppose that she
you very much.’
‘Oh, she often does that,’ said Marya. Silence.
Then she added, with an them, don’t
let’s spoil
‘No, don’t
our
effort:
last
‘Don’t
let’s talk
about
evening.’
let’s spoil it,’ said
Stephan.
After they had dined they went upstairs to the red-lit
bar where several Chinese students were dancing with
very blonde
women
strutted past in a
long past their
stiffly
first
youth.
The students
correct way, melancholy for the
sake of dignity, but obviously highly pleased with them-
At
selves.
intervals the lights
were lowered and
a
good-
looking young violinist played sentimental music on muted
and
strings,
occasionally
the
something-or-other
girls,
four of them, pranced in and did a few acrobatics in strict time.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Stephan. ‘I’m going to talk to that boy,
I
know
him.’
‘What boy?’ ‘The
He
violinist.’
crossed the
At the next
room and began
a long conversation.
table a little flat-faced Japanese
H3
was drawing
on the tablecloth and she longed
what he was doing.
to see
The problem of her existence had got beyond brain had given up grappling with
it.
her, her
She stared curiously,
absorbed, at her neighbour’s thin beautiful hands.
The
smiling conversation with
finishing his
violinist,
Stephan, placed his violin under his chin with affection
and began to
seemed
play. It
played had fate in
it.
And what was
but that same idea of fate
life
on you didn’t
Marya
to
?
A
that the music he
there to catch on to in
dark river that swept you
know where - nobody knew where. What was
the use of worrying, anyway? Nitchevol ‘And have another Jine
,
for the Lord’s sake.’
was Stephan asking her to
It
have another Jine.
The Japanese
at the
next table got up and
which were of
lean over and and look at his drawings,
elongated and gracefully perverse
it.
it.’
playing,
is
Oh,
Fresnes.
to
I
absolutely had
I
If I
want
must go. And
at the
it
on the brain when Pitie.
on the brain;
I
I
I
was
the hotel for
call at
him
made up words
my
‘It’s
eleven
we
bag.’
‘Stephan, don’t
to say:
here. For God’s sake, take
in
asked him to
clock above the buffet.
In the taxi she turned to
me
it
to get a seat in the third-class carriage
must
I
had
called in French Par
it’s
He looked
o’clock.
leave
women.
a funny thing,’ said Stephan, ‘that Russian song that
‘It’s
the violinist
play
little
She could
left.
me
with you.’ But
before she could speak, he was talking to her: ‘Yes, only just the as if
money
for the fare
and
a very little over.
he had half forgotten her,
as if his
‘I
expect you
will,’
He spoke
mind had leaped
forward and was already in Amsterdam. ‘Oh,
be able to manage something,’ he
’
I
expect
said.
answered Marya mechanically. 144
I’ll
The Gare du Nord was dimly
lit,
gigantic in the half
light
Tm
not going to wait to see your train out/ she said
when he had found good luck
for you,
a seat.
my
‘It’s
unlucky and
I
do
so
want
Good-bye/
dear.
She kissed him and walked away, turning round several times to wave her hand.
She stood for a
moment
outside the station looking about
her with a bewildered, undecided expression. Then she
walked up
to a taxi stand.
‘Hotel du Bosphore, Place du
Maine, please/ She rang the night bell and was letter-rack.
There were no
let in.
She looked in the
letters.
Then she mounted the stairs to her room, where greenyellow and dullish mauve flowers crawled over the black walls.
She undressed, and as if
all
the time she was undressing
it
was
Heidler were sitting there watching her with his cool
eyes that confused and hurt her.
She lay down. For perhaps thirty seconds she was able to
keep her mind a blank; then her obsession gripped her,
arid,
torturing, gigantic, possessing her as utterly as the
longing for water possesses thirst.
someone who
is
dying of
i9 marya asked:
‘Any
Madame,’
‘Nothing,
me ?’
letters for
answered
the
patron,
smiling.
He
Smiling? No, grinning was the word. Hateful man.
when he looked
always grinned
at her.
She kept her mouth
steady with an effort and stood in the hall putting on her gloves deliberately.
Four days of
this.
Four days can be
a long time.
Across the street was a tobacco shop where they sold
pneumatiques. She went there, bought a card and wrote to Heidler, standing at the counter.
My
dear,
I
want
When but
to see you as soon as possible. Please.
she had posted the pneumatique she felt relieved,
numb and
grey, like a soul in limbo. Four days can be
interminable. She lunched, sat for a long while over her coffee,
walked for an hour.
When
she got back to the hotel, he had answered: ‘Can
you come
to the Versailles about nine this evening?
waiting for you. ‘I
must
trembling
I’ll
pull myself together,’ thought Marya. She all
be
*
over. Even her legs
As she was dressing, a
were trembling.
letter
from Stephan
Things weren’t going well, he wrote.
146
was
He might
arrived.
have to
Amsterdam and go
leave
which she read it
farther on.
An
evasive letter,
indifferently, almost impatiently, finding in
own
an echo of her
indifference. She put
away
it
in a
drawer and went on with her careful preparations.
‘Sit
here/
said Heidler, ‘and have a cafe fine.'
cold sidelong look. ‘Did
you
He
gave her a
see your husband off?'
‘Yes.’
‘He’s gone to Amsterdam, hasn’t he?’
She nodded.
A
waiter with a benevolent eye brought the coffee and
brandies.
From
the farther side of the cafe,
where Jimmie’s
Jazz performed nightly, the sound of music reached them faintly, as it
were with
regret.
‘Are you vexed with me?’ asked Marya.
‘Not
at all,’
‘My dear Mado deliberately. relief, as
answered Heidler. He cleared .
.
.’
He began
He spoke with
his throat.
to talk dispassionately and
dignity and with a certain
though he were saying something which he had
Towards the end of
often longed to say.
he became
definite,
his explanation
even brutal, though not to excess. All
the time that he was speaking she was looking into his eyes.
Then she
said slowly:
‘You’re horribly treacherous, Heidler. help
it. I
don’t suppose you even
know
suppose you can’t
I
it.
But you are.’
‘I’m not being treacherous; I’m being cruel perhaps/ he
added,
not without complacency.
treacherous. I’ve never shared a
‘But
woman
knowingly anyhow, and I’m not going to
He
I’m not being in
start
my
life,
not
now.’
folded his arms over his chest and looked across into
one of the mirrors.
‘You forced
Openly and
me
me
to share you,’ said Marya, ‘for
You used your wife
ridiculously.
to torture
with.’
He answered coldly: ‘I And she saw that it was Then she
said: ‘But,
H.
‘You haven’t behaved Heidler. ‘And
more
it’s
cold
it is
a little
true.
-
if
I
as
though you
I
she had
she couldn’t
Monferrat, Monlisson, Mon. It
seemed
remember
to her
the
was obviously
answered
to talk again
—
her persistence irritated him.
Marya when he stopped. on
a cafe
met when
Paris five years before, a little, yellow,
name was -
did,’
He began
that sitting
man whom
love you.’
J.,
in here,’ said
The odd thing was was
know what you mean.’
don’t
too late now.’
emphatically, as
‘How
his
months.
.
bench opposite
she
first
came
wizened man and
remember - something .
to
like
something.
.
enormously important that she should
name of
the
man who, staring ‘Who is she, where
little
also thinking:
at her,
have
I
met her?’ She couldn’t see his face clearly. There was a mist
round
it.
Her hands were
so cold that she felt
Mon. Monvoisin, that was it. low voice: ‘I have a horror of
the thin stuff of her dress.
Heidler was saying in a you.
When
He was
I
think of you
them through
I
feel sick.’
large, invulnerable, perfectly respectable.
to think that she had lain in his
Funny
arms and shut her eyes
because she dared no longer look into his so terribly and
wonderfully close. She began to laugh. After
you do when the man you
You
all,
what did
loved said a thing like that?
laughed, obviously.
She
said, still laughing: ‘So this
148
is
the cafe fine of rupture.’
‘Why I
about
said Heidler; ‘don’t get hysterical
‘It is,’
asked Marya.
?’
hysterical
can laugh
‘I
suppose. You’re funny enough to
if
it.’
want
I
to,
make anybody laugh
sometimes.’
‘Of course, laugh. Laugh, but don’t cry
same
at the
time.’
‘Oh,
up
am
I
crying?’ she said, surprised. She put her hand
to her face.
Monsieur Monvoisin was gazing sieur Monvoisin.
He was one
at
her with an expression
remember
of avid curiosity. She began to
all
about
Mon-
of Stephan’s friends. They had
been out together one night, the four of them; Monsieur Monvoisin had brought a
girl
had wandered from bar to bar
A
morning.
very
tall
who had hummed
Lisette
called till
and they
four o’clock in the
young man had joined the party,
‘Si j’etais roi
all
the time.
The
jingling
tune began to run in her head. she remarked to
‘Awfully funny,’ see that
man
opposite? Well,
me. And he knows, I’m
And
I
sure, that
‘Now
we’ve got several things
‘do
you
know him and he knows you are plaqueing me.
so does the waiter. Isn’t plaquer a
‘Very,’ he said.
Heidler;
good word?’
pull yourself together, because to talk about.’
He looked away
from her and added uncomfortably: ‘You haven’t got worry, you know.
‘What?’
me
about
said
Marya. ‘Oh, yes. Well, you can write to
that. Let’s
He seemed
to
’
go now,
shall
we?’
surprised and taken aback and
made
a feeble
detaining gesture.
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute.’
She turned and looked
at
him, and when he saw her eyes 149
he put
hand up to
his
Oh
‘Oh God!
and
it
said:
God!’
She passed her tongue over her dry kerchief into her bag and shut
He began
with
his tie, fidgeted
lips,
put her hand-
carefully.
it
talking again, hurriedly and uncertainly.
‘Look here, Marya, don’t suppose ...
down South
get well,
to
to
I
want you
to go
forget everything and get
me. Will you?’
well. It’s the only thing, believe
‘No,’ said Marya.
‘Well,
I
beg you
to.’
‘No.’
‘Why
not?’
‘I’m very tired,’ Marya said,
‘I
want
to go.’
Outside the cafe he told her: ‘Get your things packed,’ then he turned and
left her.
*
Marya walked
straight ahead, her face stiff
the boulevard which looked to her
with
lights,
on
fire
with
and
as if it
set, across
were blazing
the Place du Maine
lights, across
and up the avenue.
When
she passed under the railway bridge where the
cobblestones
are
walls ooze with
black and glistening,
always
damp, she
felt for
sensation of loss and pain, and tears
walked on with the fixed idea that she
the
first
came if
and the
time a definite
into her eyes. She
she
went
far
enough
would reach some obscure, dark cavern away from the
lights
and the passers-by. Surely
glaring
row of lamps
where she could
lie
she
and
would let
at the
find
end of it,
this
the friendly dark
her heart burst.
150
long and
And
as
she
woman man she
walked she was certain that every
was mocking her gleefully and every
mocking her contemptuously. After and went into a
The
electric
were arranged
overhead and for some reason
The orchestra was
a casino. in the
middle of the room;
Huguenots
,
passed was
a time she felt tired
echoing place, nearly empty.
cafe, a vast
lights
she passed
it
this
in
made
a
square pattern
the place look like
seated on a raised platform
had just finished playing The
and the pianist, in spectacles, leaned forward
arranging the music of The Barber of
Seville
with a
fussy,
conscientious look on her face. Jazz was far from her well-
ordered mind.
As Marya was drinking the brandy she had ordered, the music blared forth.
and a young
place,
table looked
away at
up with
his blotter;
echoed lugubriously
It
man who was a
in that
bam
of a
writing letters at the next
pained expression, sighed and pushed
then he proceeded to stare with interest
Marya. She paid the waiter, got up and went out, and he
followed her, leaving to her she looked
up
money on the table. When he spoke him with vacant eyes. He repeated
at
his question
‘Why
are
you sad V
‘I’m not sad/ answered Marya mechanically;
Tm tired.*
now she walked to the rhythm of the words. ‘Why are you sad? Pourquoi etes-vous tristel Pourquoi?
But
Pourquoi
?’
The young man by her all
sorts of things.
his nurse
had had
of the Annamite
side began to talk.
That he had been a
bom
name which meant
women seemed
He
told her
in Tonkin, that
spouse. That most
to have a
name which
meant spouse. That
when he was
family had returned to
his
nine years of age.
years ago. That he, also,
France
To Toulon. That was
was sad
as his mistress
ten
had be-
trayed him.
T ought sad.
I
to
know
know what
better by this time. Nevertheless, I’m
it is
to love.’
her carefully, glancing sideways. at last,
Racine.
‘Why
live
‘I
You must come up
you’re tired,’ he said
‘If
my room
‘won’t you come to
her firmly by the arm.
As he talked he observed
not so
to
away -
my room
not?’ said Marya. ‘What’s
She laughed suddenly, and
and rest?’
far
when
it
and
He took
in the
Rue
rest.’
matter?’
she laughed the young
man looked surprised, even shocked. Then he gripped her arm more firmly and led her across the road to a taxi. She went with him silently - like a sleep-walker. When they got to his room she said: ‘Oh, but I don’t like the light. Light hurts
me.’
‘Well,’ answered the young man, ‘don’t that.
I’ll
soon arrange
He went silk
to a
worry about
that.’
drawer and produced two enormous blue
handkerchiefs, which he proceeded to tie round the
electric light.
he continued,
‘I’ve often noticed,’
one reason or another.
.
.
.
Enjin.’
152
‘that
women,
for
20 heidler said: walked across
‘Well,
to the
He
your things packed?’
are
window and flung it wider open. ‘Much
too hot in here.’
Marya stubbornly. She was
‘I’m not going,’ said
huddled on the bed and he her hand in
sat
on
a chair near her
’
His eyes were very cautious.
He was
wouldn’t do to leave the girl trailing
were
broken somewhere. He
impatient and
everything.
it
round Montparnasse
felt at
once
if
there
flattered,
pitiful.
speaking very gently,
said,
thinking that
She was lying huddled. As
as all that.
ill
a spring
He
and took
his.
‘How cold you are.
looking as
lying
The
next day
train
at
that he had arranged
twelve, the night at
Lyons. ‘And you’ll be in Cannes the following morning.’ ‘I’m not going,’ repeated Marya. ‘You’ll like Cannes,’ said Heidler persuasively. ‘Sure to.
Everybody
be there. And you can stay
round for somewhere ‘I
won’t
Leave
me
go,’
‘Leave
I
else.’
Marya
said in a high voice.
‘I
won’t go.
alone.’
She jumped up. Her she gave
mean everybody wants to some days at Cannes and look
Well,
likes Cannes.
it
felt
hat was lying
a violent kick.
me
alone!’
153
on the
floor
and
Heidler looked at her sharply, then picked the hat up,
smoothed
it
and put
it
on the
table.
‘Don’t worry about your things. to pack for you. She’ll do
something to
eat.
He walked up
When
it all
He
said:
I’ll
tell
the maid here
Come out and before we go.’
right.
We’ll ring for her
to her and put his hands
have
on her shoulders.
he touched her, she flushed scarlet and her mouth
twitched. ‘There, there, there!’ said Heidler soothingly. right. It’s all right.
Come
along. Put your hat on.
154
‘It’s all .
.
the beach was
strewn with old sardine
tins
nets spread to dry in the sun.
A
Je m* en fous, heaved very slowly
up and down
its
little
and
fishing
white boat, called at the
end of
rope. Beyond the pebbles and the sardine tins the sea
was the colour of a
Marya
field
lay in the sun
were vague and
of blue hyacinths.
hour
hour and her thoughts
after
At the back of the beach
pale, like ghosts.
a sparse line of eucalyptus trees danced gaily in the wind.
Sometimes
a
dog would
pass and look
brown, sturdy fisherwoman or a thin yellow
down on
her, lying motionless
with one arm over her eyes. ‘But you ought to go to Nice,
Madame,*
said the land-
lady of the Hotel des Palmiers. She was pretty, dark and
fat,
and she enjoyed relating the complicated history of her inside. ‘
Helas ‘I
!
What it
is
to
be a woman, she would say at the *
finish.
don’t like Nice,’ answered Marya.
‘The tram stops outside the door every twenty minutes,*
continued the landlady, ignoring, last foolish
‘Well,*
why In
as
was proper, her
client’s
remark. said
Marya suddenly,
‘1*11
go
this
afternoon;
not?*
Nice the sun blazed down on the white houses along the
swooped and dived smiled complacently from
sea front and the strong-winged gulls gracefully,
and the stone
ladies 1
55
the front of the Hotel Negresco, as
you
like,
if
what
to say: ‘Think
curves are charming.’ There was a sort of sweet
reasonableness in the very air; everything logical, arranged, purposeful, under a surface of grace, lightness and gaiety. Life as
it
Marya
should be lived. sat in
an empty cafe out of the sun and looked
for a long time at the blank sheet of writing paper in front
covered with words, black marks on
of her, imagining
it
the white paper.
Words. To make somebody understand.
must make him understand,’ she thought. Then wrote
‘I
Dear Heidler
am
I
When
I
,
horribly unhappy. think of you
going mad. it's true.
and
Vm
I
can see
my body
as if all the blood in
very slowly , all the time , all the blood in
make you
I say to
Vm
me?
I
can
;
mean
I shouldn't
will
,
live
was
like drinking
something very bitter
And now
Nothing. But last thing I
I
I
know that
I
want
go back
Vm
I
to
see that.
go back
to
to Paris
want of you.
to the last
nothing at
,
me
I loved you.
It
drop when
all.
/
Nothing.
that I don't believe
you
That's one of the things ever
knew how much
loved you. Well y and I can see you smiling at all
my
dear for God's sake y send
go.
Vm
,
to
did love you. If I were dying , that would be the
would say that
that torments
What can
heart.
have come down here. Surely you must
therefor a week or two? That's all
wrote that.
smiling. But
being drained ,
is
my
you send enough money for me
and
you
think properly any more.
t
fichue. Please be patient with me. But
Paris I
believe
here.
Lois together I really feel as if I were
You don't believe me.
It's
mad down
simply going
me
the
being tormented here. Please.
156
this.
My
money at once and
I
dear , let
me
thought Marya. She sighed and
‘That's a rotten letter,’
more
asked the waiter for
looked sulky: ‘And another
The waiter looked
paper.
And, seeing that he
caje creme , take this
one away.'
at the first glass of coffee, cold
and
untouched, raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders
and departed, dragging
Marya watched
who was
a
As she waited for him,
his feet.
beak-nosed
fierce-eyed,
also writing rapidly.
As she wrote,
her eyes. Probably a letter of rupture.
came back with the
girl
opposite
tears
came
When
to
the waiter
and the paper Marya had
coffee
addressed her letter. can’t write
‘I
it
again,’ she thought.
She paid him and went out, leaving him staring after
her and smiling. But herent epistle she
as
soon
felt relieved
as she
had posted her inco-
and even peaceful. She went
back to the Hotel des Palmiers and with her eyes shut, thinking: in four or five days.
was
It
a large
I
must have an answer.
bedroom with
’
a stone-flagged floor,
palm
the
windows of the room. Outside ,
her bedroom
ought to have an answer
‘I
the
bonne
lay in
and
trees leant in a friendly fashion almost through
Marya’s namesake, sang
in the passage the little
as she
mopped
She was sixteen years of age, and pretty with a
broad-browed
minded the
prettiness.
patronne
wobbled about
1
s
She
baby,
sang,
who on
in an extraordinary
soft,
warm,
mopped,
she
unformed
legs
she its
the floor.
wooden contraption on
wheels. *
A
few mornings
later the patronne
to say: 1
57
knocked
at
Marya’s door
‘A lady to see you, Madame. She’s in the garden.’
‘Good morning,’
said Miss Nicolson
me
smile. ‘Lois asked
to look
Marya greeted her,
with an
efficient
you up.’ threw
then
backwards into the hotel with
a
a
desperate
glance
wild idea of escaping
this
reincarnation of her torment.
Miss Nicolson stood sturdily in the sun, long-bodied, short-legged, neat, full of
common
sense, grit,
wore
the rest. She was dressed in grey; she
and
a
becoming
dile-skin shoes.
hat. It
Her
small feet
pep and
all
a green scarf
were shod with croco-
was oddly shocking
to catch glimpses of
very hairy legs through her thin silk stockings. ‘I’m staying at Antibes,’ Lois’s letter about
Her eyes
you
travelled
this
said
Miss Nicolson.
had
‘I
morning.’
rapidly
upwards and downwards
gathering information, searching hopefully for the inevitable
weak
point.
Marya muttered an
invitation to luncheon
and the other looked doubtfully into the dark dining-room of the hotel.
‘We
can go to the zoo,’ suggested Marya,
Some Russian people have As they walked down the sunny
close by.
a
‘it’s
quite
restaurant there.’
road, Miss Nicolson
chattered gaily about Lois Heidler, about Heidler, (‘Dread-
man!’
ful
said Miss Nicolson),
about Lois’s extraordinary
affection for Marya.
They lunched
in the sun
on heavy Russian food.
It
was
very hot. There was a pungent smell of animals in the air.
Miss Nicolson
still
discoursed,
gradually approaching
her climax: Montparnasse, her darling Lois, the husband of her darling Lois,
men
in general,
15S
men who
get sick of
their mistresses and send
them away
into the country to
get rid of them.
Marya as if
listened with a curiously helpless feeling.
bandages were being
when
‘Lois thought,
that
tom from
It
was
an unhealed wound.
she read your last letter to them,
you must be seedy/
‘To them?’
Nicolson innocently, but with a shrewd
‘Yes,’ said Miss
them
sidelong look. ‘You did write to
saying you
were
ill
or something, didn’t you?’ She added after a pause: ‘Lois told
me
you that H.
to tell
very busy just now, but
J.’s
that she’ll see that he answers your letter in a day or two.’
Marya paid
for the meal in silence with the last
hundred
francs in her purse.
looking away into the blue distance,
Miss Nicolson,
remarked:
‘Women
are pitiful,
I
do think.’ Then, because
she was light of touch and by no means hard-hearted, she
stopped talking about Montparnasse. despised
weren’t
women from
all
we
‘all
of us.’ Father,
shiftless.
the Southern states because they
She said that her mother had divorced her
efficient.
father and that
She said that she
it
children sympathized with mother,
seemed, was from South Carolina and
She said that that marvellous blue made her
feel
peaceful, that she adored Beauty, that she lived for Beauty.
Marya looked
at
her curiously.
It
was strange
that Miss Nicolson adored beauty and yearned
to think
and
all
the
rest.
Because she looked such a tightly packed, shrewd-
eyed
little
person. But obviously she did yearn, for here
she was saying so. ‘I
don’t leap to
sadly.
‘I
it
any more, though,’ said Miss Nicolson
used to leap to beauty, but not now.’ 159
go and look
‘Let’s
There was
a
at the animals,’ suggested
young fox
and down, and Marya imagined
Up
and
it
up
turned
it
thought that
if it
ceaselessly.
Up
and run again.
strike its nose, turn
down, up and down,
ran,
it
Then, of course, there were the
escape was possible.
would
down
that each time
did so with a certain hopefulness, as
bars. It
end of the zoo -
in a cage at the
a cage perhaps three yards long.
Marya.
A
and
horrible sight, really.
‘Sweet thing,’ said Miss Nicolson.
‘You know, one sometimes takes great
who
aren’t at
all
dislikes to
what one imagines they
people
are,’ said
Miss
Nicolson. ‘People often aren’t, are they?’
agreed Marya.
‘Yes,’
you come back
mean, no, they
‘I
to the hotel for
the trains to Antibes.
Or
some
coffee
?
aren’t.
Will
They’ll
know
from Cagnes every
there’s a ’bus
half-hour.’
She was thinking: so
drunk
that
I
‘I
must get drunk
can’t walk, so
Miss Nicolson decided on a train about ‘Good-bye,’ she
said,
tonight.
drunk that
I
I
must get
can’t see.’
six.
as she leapt lightly
up the high
carriage-step with her scarf fluttering bravely behind her.
‘Will you say
come and lunch with me
Tuesday
next week -
?’
‘Yes,’ said Marya.
After the
at Antibes
fifth
‘Of course. Good-bye.’
Pernod drunk
beach Marya thought:
‘It’s
the
at
as if
I
little
cafe
on the
were drinking water.
Never mind.’ At the hotel she made
a pretence of dining, then
160
went
up to her room and took several cachets of veronal. As soon
as
down
she lay
she slept.
At about two o’clock She lay very
still
in the
still light.
morning she awoke moaning.
moment, then
for a
tightly pressed lips.
was
It
Every muscle
'Hold on! Don’t be a
up
sat
in her
bed with
in
body was
taut.
fool,’ she said to herself.
She lay back and shut her eyes and saw Heidler kneeling
down
to pray in the little
her to see
if
she
church and looking sideways
at
were impressed. He got up and walked out
of the church into the room. 'God’s a pal of mine,’ he said.
and
'He probably looks rather fattish hands.
one.
all
me, with cold eyes
I’m in His image or He’s in mine.
prayed to
I
like
Him
to get
you and
give you a letter of introduction? Yes,
you remind me.
Besides,
hysterical.
woman
No
trouble at
all.
Lois was there
and you are a bad one;
things are.
That’s what
is
it’s
I
got you. Shall
might do that
I
first.
Lois
meant by having
what would become of things
the
first
to think
question.
it
is
good
a
quite simple. These
My
Come, come
if
then, don’t be
a fair deal to a prostitute.
girl,
I
Now
Nobody owes dear
It’s
It
principles. isn’t
done.
if it
were?
over. Intact or not intact, that’s
An income
or not an income, that’s the
second.’
Then she found gave her
my
letter
stripped and laughed
herself thinking to
read,
with lucidity:
of course.
It’s
like
‘He being
at.’
She put the light on and looked
at the
red marks on her
arm, where her teeth had nearly met. ‘And
I
haven’t got a
dress with long sleeves, either.’
She worried about that for a while, then got up and arranged
the
bedclothes
carefully.
161
Her nightgown was
soaked with sweat. She took a fresh one from the cupboard
and her
lay down when she
again with relief.
The room had swayed with
stood up.
The croaking of frogs came
and, very faintly, the sound of the sea.
sound of the
sea,
open window
in through the
Then
it
was not the
but of trees in a gale. Dark trees growing
close together with thick creepers
which hung down from
the branches like snakes. Virgin forest. Intact. Never been
touched.
She sighed because the pillow was so hot, moved uneasily
and opened her eyes. She thought: ‘What
making
was
tonight.’ But there
a roaring noise,
a
row
the sea
is
a noise in her head, too,
and the bed kept sinking under her
in a
sickening fashion. ‘I’ve doped myself properly, she thought. ’
‘Perhaps
if
I
leaned out of the window.’ But she was too
giddy to get up. She was too giddy to keep her eyes open.
She shut them and again the bed plunged downwards
with her - sickeningly - into blackness. She was trying to climb out of the blackness up an inter-
minable ladder. She was very small, so heavy,
so weighted
down
that
hoist herself to the next rung. terrible, the vastness of space
was going to
‘Yes
I
fall.
She was
heard you being sick
Madame Moreau with ‘I’ll
I’ll
be
just stay in all
right
as small as a fly, yet it
was impossible to
The weight on her was
round her was falling.
this
terrible.
The breath
left
She
her
morning, Madame,’ said
an inquisitive look.
bed today,’ explained Marya, ‘and then
tomorrow.
she realized in time that
if
I
was
—
she said,
’
‘I
She stopped, because
was drunk,’ Madame
Moreau would be disgusted and shocked
to the core.
had an awful headache yesterday,’ she said.
‘You look
A
ill,’
‘I
have.’
said the patronne.
afterwards
of hours
couple
‘I still
she
came back, had
another look at Marya and then remarked:
went away
to Nice for a doctor?’ She
The doctor was many questions in
small and
to
do
‘If I
telephone
it.
brown and he asked a great Then he tapped and
a staccato voice.
pinched and probed with hands that hurt rather. ‘something to make
want,’ said Marya,
‘I
Something rather strong, please. but
it
me
makes
wear
sleep.
been taking veronal,
sick.’
He wrote
‘Ah?’ said the doctor. told her to
I’ve
me
a hat in the sun
out two prescriptions,
and went away looking
wise.
In
two days Heidler replied Dear Mado
y
had jour
I've
letter.
I
cannot for
large sum of money. I certainly
and
enough
to Paris yet.
to see
to get
back
reasons send you a
do not intend to help you
to
do not consider that you are well
join your husband
I
many
I'm glad Miss Nicolson came
you. Lois thought she might cheer you
up.
Here
is
Do
a cheque for three hundred francsfor your hotel this week. try to get well.
Yours
She read then. at all.
It
this letter indifferently.
,
H.
Nothing mattered
just
was extraordinary that anything had ever mattered Extraordinary and unbelievable that anything had
ever mattered.
The days were hot and very
Loveliest in the
lovely.
morning, because then there were grey and
silver in the
blue dream and cool shadows on the water that was so
hot and sticky at midday. Rather like bathing in warmish oil.
But sticky or not,
it
was
you were anything
guts; if
a caressing sea. If else
you had any
but a tired-out coward,
you’d swim out into the blue and never come back.
good way
When
you’d made a mess of your
to finish if
she had bathed she would
life.
and think of
lie
A
little
things, stupid things like a yellow dress that Stephan had
bought her once clothes.
He had
He
Ostend.
at
always chose beautiful
a flair for that sort of thing.
had been
It
fun to wear beautiful clothes and to feel fresh and young
and like a flower. The greatest fun in the world.
One that
suddenly,
quite
day,
morning she had
was coming back I
Vm
existing
going
again before
1
afraid ; there
for
quite safely the
police ,
t
want
to
no
am I
risk. I
all
am
your journey. Come
wont
depress
away
is
my
for the Argentine. But
and as long /
don
I
go and that's why I’m coming
hundred francs.
an address
1
he wrote,
,
that to get right
to try
is
to say that he
to Paris.
made up my mind and
weather changed and
from Stephan
a letter
can’t get any work here
I’ve been
the
I
tell
you how
you but ,
only chance ,
want
to see you
Don’t be
to Paris.
know a man with whom
I
can stay
as nobody actually denounces
right.
I’ve
managed
to
you
me
to
borrow eight
sending four hundred to help as quickly as
I’ve
you
can. I’ll let
to
pay
you know
to wire to.
She meditated over
this letter, seated in the
164
dark dining-
room
The grey sky and the cold were a relief and the mistral galvanized her into some sort of activity. She sat with her chin on her hand, a glass of of the Hotel des Palmiers.
black coffee before her, and
felt a faint stirring
of hope.
22 got
‘i’ve
a
room
Nord,’ said Stephan.
you
for
He took her arm
protectingly. ‘You’re
awfully tired, aren’t you? Stay here for a
me
the Jiche of your baggage.’
It
was
sky was the colour of train smoke.
Bemadet
lives in that quarter,’
Rue
the
‘in
Bleue. But
I’ll
that
tell
moment;
a grey
morning. The
‘My
friend Jacques
he explained in the
I
taxi,
you afterwards; you must
first.
where you can hide?’ inquired Marya.
‘Hide, well, hide,’ said Stephan, shrugging. as
give
’
have breakfast and a rest ‘Is
Gare du
in a hotel near the
‘As long
haven’t to register, the police won’t bother about me.’
‘D’you think so?’ asked Marya doubtfully.
He was felt
leaning back smoking a cigarette and smiling, his
hat at the back of his head.
felt reassured.
Stephan was like
When that.
she looked at
He was
him
she
always able to
make his doings appear reasonable. A comforting quality that. ‘Well, here we are,’ he said. ‘You remember that little round the comer, don’t you
cafe just
?
We often used to go
there.’
The
hotel,
brand new. pails of
It
which was
called the Hotel de Havane,
smelt of paint and there were ladders and
whitewash on the
staircase.
Marya had often wan-
dered about that part of Paris with Stephan lived
in
was
Montmartre,
when
they
and she remembered the dingy
streets, the vegetable shops
kept by sleek-haired
166
women,
the bars haunted by gaily dressed
prostitutes
little
who
seemed to be perpetually making the gesture of opening their bags to
powder
Over the whole of the
their noses.
quarter the sinister and rakish atmosphere of the Faubourg
Montmartre spread
like
some perfume.
Stephan came in to announce that the bath would be ready in half an hour, and that the bathroom was at the end
He added
of the corridor.
‘How much have you ‘I
much money
left.
got?’
don’t know,’ said Marya; ‘look in
‘You have talk
he had not
that
fifty-five francs,’
my
bag.’
he told her. ‘Well, we’ll
about that afterwards.’
He came towards
her with open arms and a mouth
that looked greedy.
‘What did you
say?’
‘Nothing.’
(She had said: ‘Heidler! Heidler!’) ‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ghastly journey.
down
The
‘I’m awfully tired.
carriage
was packed.
I
It
was
couldn’t
a
lie
at all.’
‘You’ll be able to sleep after
Then he benefactor, girl, that
we’ve eaten,’ he
said.
told her that he had promised to
meet
his
Monsier Bemadet, and Monsieur Bemadet’s
evening at half-past
six.
Monsieur Jacques Bemadet was
a
plump young man of
middle height. His face was round, smooth and carefully
powdered. He had large-pupilled, long-lashed, blue eyes
which he used small pursed
in a practised
mouth and
‘Madame,’ he
said,
‘I
and effective manner, a very
a high tenor voice.
am
enchanted to meet you.’
‘What
a dreadful
But the
girl
selle
man!’ thought Marya.
with him (her name,
Simone Chardin) was
it
seemed, was Mademoi-
certainly attractive. Astoundingly
pretty indeed. She was young, swarthy, and
wore
a red
dress tightly fitting and long sleeved, buttoning closely up to the throat. She spoke very little.
‘I’m here,’ her eyes seemed to say,
moment to
I
can’t find anything better to do. But don’t try
mix me up too much The
‘because for the
in
your
affairs.’
party sat in a very small cafe in the
There was
a bar upstairs
Rue Lamartine.
and a coal shop in the
cellar,
an
unexpected but usual combination. Through the open door they could see the Place Cadet and
red back of a newspaper
Metro
its
kiosk of flowers, the
and the open mouth of the
stall,
station.
Stephan ordered four Pemods.
‘We
come here for aperitifs,’ he explained to Marya, ‘because the man who owns the place is a good always
type.’ ‘
Tres delicat , cet
He began
homme
7u,’
affirmed Monsieur Bernadet.
a long, involved story illustrating the extra-
ordinary delicacy of the patron dividual
who
sat
behind
his
,
a heavily
moustached
bar with an immovable
in-
face,
pouring out the drinks at intervals with a steady hand.
The mirror
at his
back reflected
covered with a coarse mane of
row
of bottles.
white wine
A
hatless
at the bar
his head,
hair,
round
as a bullet,
and the multi-coloured
woman came
in,
drank a
glass of
counter and inquired after a certain
beau blond. ‘Tell
said
him from me
that I’m
and drifted out, laughing.
still
waiting for him,’ she
know
‘I
a type,’
Bemadet, gloomily
said
finishing his
Pernod, ‘who makes a fortune every three years in the Argentine, and then he comes to Paris to spend fool. Let
back
me
once be out of
in a hurry,
I
tell
you!
misery and
this
My
then? Without money Paris
God,
is as
I
it,
the
wouldn’t be
Paris. Paris.
Well, and
rotten as anywhere else
and worse.’ ‘It’s
nice
all
murmured the girl. Her hair, which was
the same, Paris,’
She had taken off her hat.
and worn cut to the neck, face
and smelt of some
curly
fell
very beautifully about her
warm
perfume. Her mouth was
like a child’s. ‘Paris is the
seriously.
most
beautiful place in the world,’ she said
‘Everybody knows
that.’
Monsieur Bemadet chanted with sarcasm:
Oh! Que cest beau
Mon
village-e ,
Mon ‘
Air connu.
,
Paris
.
.
.
’
‘What scent do you use ?’ asked Marya suddenly, speaking to Mademoiselle Chardin. ‘Chypre?’ ‘I?
L’Heure Bleue of Guerlain.’
‘Guerlain! Listen to that,’ said Bemadet.
He
gave a short laugh like a bark. ‘Guerlain
‘You get on
my
ask you.’
nerves,’ answered the girl with calm
Stephan suggested more Pernod and,
Chardin refused, three more the
‘I
!’
aperitifs
as
Mademoiselle
were ordered and
two men discussed the Argentine with
gravity.
You could make your way that
there,
seemed, provided
it
you turned your back on the towns. The country was
the thing. Ranches. Cattle. ‘But you can’t ride,’ said Mademoiselle Chardin to her
‘You’re talking about ranches and you’ve never
friend.
been on the back of
‘One
a horse in
your
life.’
learns that quickly,’ answered
hopefully.
‘Besides,
Monsieur Bernadet
there are other jobs to be had on
They want
ranches, aren’t there?
He spoke without
smiling.
cashiers, for instance.*
Marya had
swift vision
a
of Monsieur Bernadet clad in the becoming costume of a
cowboy, escaping with the cash box of some confiding ranch
owner under his arm. Rolling down to Rio as it were. But it would have to be a very confiding ranch owner indeed, she thought.
After the third round of aperitifs, Monsieur Bernadet rose and,
bowing
politely,
wished to conduct
remarked that Stephan doubtless
his lady to dine
somewhere.
‘The prix fixe place round the comer advised. ‘Three francs
mon ‘I
fifty,
is
wine included. A
not bad,* he tout a Vheure,
vieux .*
don’t like that man,’ said Marya at once. ‘Where ever
him ?’ Stephan twirled his empty
did you get hold of
glass in his fingers
moody expression. ‘I knew him at the Sante. He was my bour, and when we went out to take courtyard
I
with a
left-hand neigh-
exercise in the
spoke one or two words to him. Then
telephoned to each other. You don’t
know
that there
we is
a
telephone system in the prison, naturally. Well, I’d forgotten
all
about him,
when we met by chance ljo
in Rotter-
me
dam, and he told
that if
I
wanted
to
come
to Paris
I
could stay at his place quietly without anyone knowing understand quite well/ he added with bitterness, ‘that
it. I
these are not the sort of people you like, but voila.
I
think any respectable gentleman would risk lending
me
flat,
and
have to take what
I
I
don’t his
can get in the way of friends.’
‘You’re quite wrong,’ answered Marya, ‘about the sort of people
very
like,
I
far, if
I
only
were you.
wouldn’t trust
I
this particular
man
’
Stephan remarked scornfully: ‘Trust! You’re funny with
your I
No, of course,
trust.
trust
go and
anybody
else.
I
more than
don’t trust him, any
I
make
use of
him and
that’s all. Let’s
’
eat.
After
dinner,
in
the
evil-smelling
little
restaurant,
Stephan said suddenly:
‘You understand, don’t you, that lost
my
luck.
I
good. I’ve lost His
care too
my
much.
I
must get away?
I
my
did
mouth drooped
at the
comers. There was something
He went
can’t any more.
You don’t know what
boy night
Well, and what’s the use of that?
One
so
much
more.
And
all.
that
Life
To doubt away.
If
I
I
is
there’s so
much
that
don’t dare to think pressing
everything.
on
My
could get away,
me God,
I
all
I
of.
want
I
and
To
cries,
to forget
and
I’m not myself any
horrible,
might be myself
Constantly. I
must get
again. There’s
an emigration bureau at Genoa. I’m going there. Partir. Partir.
can’t.
after night.
stays
the time.
it’s
on:
it is.
I’ve cried myself to sleep like a little
that’s
I’ve
was no
it
luck.’
wolf-like about his sharpened features. ‘I
best but
.
.
.
get away,’ he muttered.
She said: ‘Stephan, look here. Don’t leave me. All the 17
way
to Paris
me,
leave
was thinking that
I
Take
please.
me
with you.
we? Because
Argentine, need
that
you
He
really
want
it.
Nothing
Nobody knows what
Don’t to the
would be horribly exIt
isn’t
impossible
is.’
‘You don’t know what
told her:
this.
We needn’t go
pensive. But there are lots of other places. if
you
I’d tell
it is till it’s
it
la
is,
misere.
got them.’
Marya looked away and answered slowly: ‘No. That’s true.
Nobody knows what it is till it’s got them. But suppose that I could borrow some money. I might be able to.’ He gave her a sidelong look. ‘Bernadet says that he may be able to lend me some in a week.’ ‘Oh, Bernadet,’ said Marya impatiently. a
word
‘I
don’t believe
of that.’
‘Neither do
I,’
confessed Stephan.
Silence. ‘I
must be somewhere where
I
can work,’ he muttered.
‘People talk, but let them be in
would
My
see.
want of a
little
God!
my
and they
situation
to go smash, to go right
under for
money.’
She looked at him, and said in a very low voice: write to
me
.
at the
.
.
I’ll
‘I’ll
write ... or perhaps there’s a letter for
Hotel du Bosphore.’
After that they talked again about Monsieur Bernadet.
His business, graphs.
seemed, was the enlargement of photo-
it
Marya
said
that she didn’t
know
that
anybody
ever wanted their photographs enlarged these days. ‘Well, they don’t,’ said Stephan. ‘Hardly anybody. But that’s
supposed to be his business. Well,
to see
them now
?’
shall
we
go along
The
rooms
three
where
Bernadet
and
Mademoiselle
Chardin lived were on the third floor of a dark and dilapidated house in the
went
Rue
Bleue. Stephan remarked as they
‘The concierge hates Bernadet,
shall
have
to be careful of her. She sympathizes with his wife.
You
upstairs:
know, Bernadet chased
his wife, sent
her
I
off.’
When he met this girl ?’ asked Marya girl? Oh no, another one; this one
‘What ?
innocently.
‘This
is
nothing.
Bernadet met her at the Moulin Rouge the other night and she had to
nowhere
to go,
nowhere
to sleep. So he asked her
come back with him/ ‘She’s awfully pretty,’ said Marya.
Stephan answered indifferently: ‘Oh, she’s a good
My
coat was torn and she
up with Bernadet. But
I
mended
it
mean,
must be
I
girl.
very nicely. She’s fed careful of the
concierge.’
Mademoiselle Chardin opened the door and led the
way
into
gigantic
a
a
great
middle of
the walls. There was a dusty counter
it
and
piles of
down
the
cardboard boxes in the corner.
was crowded with odds and ends of furniture.
like a bric-a-brac shop, smelling of dust selle
many
photographs - mostly family groups - stared
down from It
room where
high-ceilinged
Chardin’s perfume.
1
73
A
place
and of Mademoi-
23 ‘you think too much,’
said
Monsieur Bemadet kindly.
When
‘That’s what’s the matter with you.
night
I
saw you
I
said to myself: “That’s a pretty girl, but a girl
thinks too much.’’ For instance, just
what were you thinking
Marya
said:
‘Ah?’
He
now when
last
who
passed,
I
of?’
‘The newspaper kiosk.’ supple eyebrows.
lifted
She explained:
‘I
like sitting
on the terrace of
a cafe
near a kiosk and looking at the names of the newspapers.
Can you see? Magyar I
like looking at
— cause
’
Hirlap
Svenska
,
them ranged one under
She stopped and shrugged
‘Evidently,’
amusement
Poochi, Pesti Hirlap.
,
remarked
the other be-
a little.
Monsieur
Bemadet,
‘it’s
an
like another.’
(‘My God, what
a neurasthenic!’ he
was thinking. ‘But
she has beautiful eyes.’)
‘To at all
tell
you the
truth,’
he continued,
have no curiosity
about other countries. None. After
find in other countries that
Of
‘I
course,
if
I
all,
what can
I
can’t find better in France?
one went to make money
it
would be
different.’
‘Evidently,’ fils,
please.
answered Marya in her turn. ‘A
One
Pemod
pretends that one will find something
different. It’s only a game.’
Bemadet
said,
after a silence: 1
74
‘Stephan
is
waiting for
you
at the
few
for a
‘Yes,’
that
Rue
Bleue.
Do
days.
You know
answered Marya. And,
you were going away
Stephan told
‘Yes,
this evening.
me
You’ve been kind
Monsieur Bernadet. Thank you.’
to him, ‘It’s
that he’ll be alone there
you drink that without water?’
nothing at
muttered the other. ‘One does what
all,’
one can for a comrade.’
He
drew
fidgeted, then
his chair closer
and went on
in a
mysterious voice.
‘And
if
tell
I
you
quickly as possible,
I
he goes out while he quite safe.
Nobody
that Stephan ought to leave Paris as say
is
is
it
for his sake. Yes.
him on
sees
Next day the
‘Perhaps
it
makes them
feel
“I’m
goes out;
the boulevard and
police.
people play dirty tricks for no reason
the less
thinks,
me.” He
bothering about
someone who knows him there you are.
A man
here the better.
And
-
People are vache
,
at all. That’s life.’
warm
and comfortable,’
suggested Marya.
Monsieur Bernadet
‘What? Well,
said:
making philosophy about these will
be vache
to give
them
if
you give them
things.
a chance; the best
it
my
‘I
bet
it
be seen, not known will,’
after a pause,
away and
business. I’m going
will not
no use
way
is
not
a chance. That’s life.’
‘You understand,’ he went on not
it’s
Nearly everybody
if
as far as
‘that it’s
anything happens,
I’m concerned.’
thought Marya. But she liked him better
than she had done.
He
finished his aperitif.
Madame, I hope to see you when I come back. Don’t worry too much. Stephan is a clever boy and energetic. Anybody who looks at him can see that. He ‘Well,
1
75
won’t
stay long in la misere. But, of course,
money
little
talk,’ said
out any
He
him
to help
much
so
if
he can have a
may
the better. People
Monsieur Bemadet, ‘but without money - with-
money
at all
-
well.’
pressed his lips together and shook his head several
times.
Then he rapped
for the waiter, paid and got up.
street. He wore a very brown overcoat cut in at the waist. He sidled past people who got in his way with peculiar eel-like motions
She watched him walking up the
tight
of his shoulders.
‘Perhaps ‘I’ll
when
I’ve sat here for a while,’
Marya told
herself,
be able to think better. Can’t think now. So damn
tired.’
Her brain was working slowly and confusedly; seemed at moments to stop working altogether.
it
‘But I’ve lots of time,’ she assured herself again. ‘Lots.
Hours and hours.’ She stared
at the
newspaper kiosk and again began
imagine herself in the plain of Europe. for the
wind
Stephan. sad.
to
With
train,
Stephan. Hundreds of miles of plain
sweep over.
He looked
so thin and his eyes
and her heart twisted with
this
thudding across the great
She remembered him saying,
The
came
tears
damned
‘I
were horribly
cried like a
little
boy,’
pity.
into her eyes and she told herself: ‘That’s
aperitif.
I
must
pull myself together;
think properly.’ She pushed the glass, which was full,
to
I
must
still
half
away from her.
After a time she took Heidler’s letter out of her bag
and looked
at
it.
He had
written: ‘I’m sending this to the
176
Hotel du Bosphore and hope you’ll get
Why
about you.
Will you I
am
have you
come back
me know where
let
only too anxious to do
and
all
I
I’m worried
it.
to Paris so suddenly?
when we can meet?
can to help you. Please
believe that.’
When and where ? In some
cafe, of course.
The unvarying
background. Knowing waiters, clouds of smoke, the smell of drink. She would
sit
there trembling, and he would be
cool, a little impatient, perhaps a little nervous.
would
explain and he
try to
Top
expression.
would
listen
Then she
with a calm
dog.
‘Of course you want money,’ he would be thinking. ‘Naturally.
How much?
sum, the sum which stances,
loved you.
I
all
under the circum-
right and proper
and no more. Well,
She’d talk and ‘I
is
I’m willing to give the traditional
talk.
I’m
listening.’
the time her eyes
would be
saying,
loved you. D’you remember?’
But he wouldn’t look
at
her eyes, or
away again very quickly. He’d be
if
he did he’d look
feeling healthy-minded,
outrageously so. He’d long for cold baths and fresh
Can’t she explain and get ‘Didn’t
I
tell
it
air.
over?
her that she made
me
feel
sick?
The
extraordinary persistence of this type of woman.’
Explain? But she couldn’t explain.
She’d have to be
clever and cunning, or she wouldn’t get any ‘I’ve
got to be
something machine.
It
money
clever,’ she thought, ‘clever.’
at all.
Then
again
a
rundown
was cold on the cafe terrace. She began
to shiver.
in
her head clicked and jarred like
‘Must be pretty
late. I’ve
been here
a long time.’
She opened her bag, put away Heidler’s waiter and walked away, moving 1
77
stiffly.
letter, paid the
‘I
more -
can’t any
any more.
I
I
can’t.
I
must be comforted.
can’t any more. Can’t go on. Can’t
I
can’t
.’ .
.
*
Stephan had spread the table with cold sausage cut into slices,
potato salad, a bottle of wine and a half-emptied
The huge photographs
bottle of rum.
stared
down
at
them
with glassy eyes.
They
ate in silence. She noticed that the cardboard boxes
had disappeared and that he must have spent a long time
make
trying to
the
room look
tidy.
He had
a
mania for
order, had Stephan.
When
the meal was over Marya cleared away the plates
and piled them in the kitchen. She said to him I’ve
something to
when
she
came back:
‘Stephan, listen.
you.’
tell
‘Well?’ ‘I’ve
something to
you,’ she repeated and, turning
tell
her eyes away from him, fixed them on a big spider motionless on the dirty white wall.
‘What
Mado?’
is it,
‘It’s that.
.
.
.
D’you love me?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Really, really?’ ‘Yes.’
‘I’m terribly unhappy,’ said Marya.
She knelt knees.
him
down by
his chair
Then she thought
it
and put her head on
would be
like that.
‘Nothing to kneel about.
How perfectly ridiculous 1
78
his
ridiculous to talk to
!’
She got up,
one of the hard, straight-backed
in
sat
chairs, gripped the sides of
it
and fixed her eyes on the
spider.
Tm
She said:
unhappy. Help me, Stephan, do help
me.’ ‘I
see that you’re unhappy,’ he told her gently.
want
‘I
to help you.’ ‘I
‘I
.
found .1
.
want
to tell
She flushed
‘Yes.
you about him
as she
Then she went on in an empty room. But
from Heidler
a letter
...
I
.
.
and Lois.’
.
pronounced the name of her enemy.
in the voice of
There was
first
at the hotel,’ she said.
a letter
must
tell
someone
from him
When
you.
a little time, Heidler started
And
went
so
I
happening and away.
And
was that that
I
I
was
and
to her, to Lois, I
asked her to let
she said
.
.
.
that
me
at the hotel today.
I’d
them ...
talking aloud
I
been there with
making love
to
what was
told her
money
have the
me.
to
go
me
what was the matter with
was too virtuous and that she didn’t mind. And a fool not to trust Heidler.
went out somewhere and
left
me
And
that night she
alone with him.’
She was silent for a while. Then she repeated: ‘Lois said:
“What’s the matter with you
And
are too virtuous.”
with him.
He
she
went out and
that
is
me
left
you
alone
.’ .
.
leaned forward, and looking at her with an expression
of curiosity, said
‘Mado - did you
let
Heidler make love to you
She answered impatiently: ‘Wait and
When
she said that,
I
knew she was
her, hated her for lying, and
I
let
lying,
?’
me but
tell I
you.
despised
made up my mind not
to
And was awfully was tired. He kept saying, “I
think about her any more.
don’t know. ...
Over and over
And
I
I
4
again. Just
tired.
I
love you,
‘I
love you.”
my dear.
love you,
I
loved him too,’ she whispered.
‘I
You ’ ’
loved him too -
quite suddenly.’
Then she was
moment.
silent for a
went on.
‘Listening outside the door,’ she
‘Putting on
carpet slippers and creeping up outside the door to listen.’
‘Who
did, Heidler?’
‘No, she did. She used to put on carpet slippers and
come and
listen at the door.
with you
is
She said “What’s the matter
that you’re too virtuous.”
she said that.
And
She has that sort of mouth. You don’t lain
I
swear to
God
she sneered. She was always sneering.
awake and longed ...
know how
to smash her
mouth
often I’ve
so that she
could never sneer again.’
He
listened to this incoherent speech without moving,
but then she was
‘When
did
silent.
all this
happen?’ he asked.
Marya thought how ugly doing here with
this
with his ugly voice ‘It
his voice sounded.
because
I
me
man?’ she thought. ‘This foreigner
to go
on
‘oh,
quite soon.
staying with them, but
I
And
wouldn’t
heard them whispering together one night about
me. That was
why I went
‘You mean to
to the hotel.’
say,’ said
Stephan, ‘that
me
come and mistress? You used
see
away behind the bars
so that
used to
‘I
I
?’
happened,’ she said vaguely,
they wanted
‘What am
didn’t
come
to
in jail
come and I
all
the time you
you were Heidler’s
laugh at me, well put
couldn’t interfere
to laugh at you.
180
?’
Oh, no! But
I
wish
you’d
she exclaimed fretfully. ‘You keep stopping
listen,’
me. And
want
I
to tell you.’
‘I’m listening,’ said Stephan. ‘I’m listening.
You can go
on.’
‘She said to
me: “What’s the matter with you
you’re too virtuous.’’
’
Then
is
that
An
again she was silent.
expression of hatred convulsed her face. ‘But what’s the use,’ interrupted Stephan, ‘of going on
about what Heidler’s wife told you? She did the best for herself and
I
woman who
don’t blame her. D’you think she’s the only
More
shuts her eyes?
Come! Don’t be
necessary.
than shuts her eyes
a fool. If
if
you were so naive
When you went to the you ? When did he come ?
you have only yourself to blame. Heidler came to see
hotel,
Often
?’
‘No,
I
don’t remember,’ said Marya vaguely.
‘It
doesn’t
matter.’
‘Oh,
doesn’t matter!’ Stephan laughed loudly. ‘You
it
are funny, things.
you! You have a special way of looking
Well, and then?
‘He told me,’
more jail.
to
But
help me.
said
Go
at
on, go on!’
Marya, ‘that
I
mustn’t have anything
do with you, or see you when you came out of longed to see you. Because
I
I
I
thought
it
would
was awfully unhappy. Oh, awfully. But when
you’d gone to Amsterdam, you know, and She stopped,
passed
I
met him he ...
her tongue over her dry
’
lips,
swallowed.
‘He chucked you, hein?’ ‘Yes,’ said
And of
that
me
he
Marya. ‘He said he was disgusted with me.
he had
a
horror of
felt sick.’
me
and that when he thought
She stared unseeingly with the eyes of 181
:
:
a fanatic at a little pulse that
cheek
‘
passed his hand over his mouth.
he
Quelle saleteV
said,
Then he laughed and i
Cest bien boche
quelle saleteV
‘
said
ga .’
,
She went on: Tt wasn’t that that Because really, you see,
it
me,
to
you to be good unhappy that
to
know.
.
.
me
Help
.
I
doesn’t matter.
I
me
can
I
to tell you.
wanted
to
beg
be kind to me. Because I’m so
is
broken.
I
it.
feel.
My
heart
...
I
is
don’t
!’
‘You must think I’m Jesus Christ,’
‘How
wanted
think I’m going to die of
I
broken. Something in
again.
in Stephan’s
above the jawbone.
just
He
was throbbing
help you?
said Stephan, laughing
What
fools
women
are!
It
only that they’re beasts and traitors, but they’re
isn’t
above
all
Of course,
such fools.
that’s
how
they get caught.
Unhappy! Of course you’re unhappy.’
He began
walk up and down the room.
to
‘My poor Mado
!’
‘Help me,’ she
said.
he
said,
and
again,
But when he tried to take her in
‘my poor Mado his
!*
arms she shrank
away. ‘No, don’t touch me,’ she isn’t
what
I
‘Don’t kiss me. That
want.’
He looked
at
her in silence, then shrugged his shoulders,
poured himself out a ‘Wait a
said.
half-glass of
Where
bit.
is
rum and
said
the letter you told
me
you had
from Heidler?’
He took it from her bag. Wait a bit ... He seems ‘So, now .
.
gotten that you
.
make him
sick.
1
82
to have for-
Well, that sort of feeling,
it
comes and
it
you? Well, now you It’s
knows
goes. Everyone
that.
have a place for
not very chic, but
still.
He wants to to come
see
him
to.
So you will write to Heidler
comes here tomorrow afternoon. Go on, write now! And I’ll post the letter. He’s made a fool of you that he
me when
but he forgot waiting for
he did
Wait
that.
a bit.
him when he comes. You want me
I’ll
be
to help
you. All right!’
‘You must be mad,’
said
And
Marya.
added: ‘And do you suppose,
you have
if
with Heidler, that the concierge won’t at
once
to gain time she a
row up here
call in
the police
?’
‘She won’t,’ answered Stephan, ‘before
I
have had time
to break his back.’
‘You won’t break
back
his
easily as all
as
that,’
said
Marya.
‘No? Well, we’ll
see.
I
think
because he won’t expect me.
behind the door.
have a
I’ll
little
advantage
jump on him from have time to make a
I’ll
He won’t even
row.’
‘You must be mad,’ ‘Write the
go and post ‘No,
letter,’
Marya
said
again.
he told her. ‘Write
it
now and
I’ll
it.’
won’t.’
I
‘You poor thing!’ he mocked. ‘You poor thing! You have no blood, you. ‘Leave
me
You were bom
alone,’ she said.
you’d only hurt
me
worse.
began to cry. ‘Oh, God, ‘Well,’ cry. It’s
all
said
I
why
‘I
to
be made
might have known that
was crazy
did
I
tell
for.
I’ll
1*3
to tell you.’ She
you?’
Stephan with contempt,
you’re good
a fool of.’
‘stay
here and
go and find Heidler myself.
After
all,
A
this?
be better like
it’ll
You
revolver, yes.
that.
didn’t
Look here, d’you
know
that
I
had
it,
see
did
you ?’
He put
the revolver back in his pocket, muttering:
‘He thought a bit
I
was well put away behind the
bars.
Wait
’ !
‘No
!’
Marya.
said
She was standing near the door; she spread out her hands to prevent
him
passing.
‘You shan’t!’ she let
you touch him?
her
as she said the
‘I
love him!
And
said again. I
love him.’
A
then: ‘You think I’d
delicious relief flooded
words and she screamed again louder:
love him!’
I
He muttered
something,
collapsed
on
broken
the
armchair, and sat staring at her with miserable eyes.
much
looked small, shrunken,
‘You
me
left
all
‘And you didn’t care
older.
alone without any money,* she said. a bit
what happened
me.
hate you.
I
to
me. Not
And now you
not deep down, you didn’t. things to
He
really,
say beastly
’
She began to laugh insultingly. Suddenly he had become the symbol of everything that
tortured her.
hurt
him -
‘So,’
Her only
vile
words
all
her
life
idea was to find
to
scream
at
had baffled and
words
that
him.
he said when she stopped breathless,
know. Very
well.
in front of that
As you
like.
would
Now will
‘now
I
you get away from
door?’
‘No!’
He
gave an impatient click of the tongue and caught her
wrist to swing her aside.
She fought him wildly, with
184
Now, added being
to
her other terrors, was the terror of
all
alone in that sinister, dusty-smelling
left
the enlarged photographs of young best smirking
down
room
this
in their Sunday-
at her.
‘You shan’t go, you shan’t!
you go out of
men
room with
I’ll
call for
the police.
If
go straight to the police-station
I’ll
and give you up.’ She saw the expression in his eyes and was ‘No,’ didn’t
He with
she said piteously,
mean
backing away from him.
.
.
caught her by the shoulders and swung her sideways all
As she
his force.
fell,
she struck her forehead
crumpled up and
lay
still.
Voila pour toi ,’ said Stephan.
He
straightened his tie carefully, put
on
hat and
his
went out of the room without looking behind him. He dazed and
at the
went down the I
‘I
.’
against the edge of the table, ‘
afraid.
must be
loge,
felt
same time extraordinarily relieved. As he he was thinking: ‘The concierge;
stairs
careful of the concierge.’ But the concierge’s
when he
passed
it,
was
in darkness.
Outside in the cool street he found himself face to face
with Mademoiselle Chardin. ‘
Tiens ,’ she said,
‘good evening you ...
of scent upstairs; have you seen it?
Is
I
left
my
bottle
your wife there?’
‘No,’ said Stephan, ‘there’s nobody there.’
She looked sharply
at
him, took
his
arm and asked what
was the matter.
‘Why, ‘Nothing ‘Take
nothing,’ at all.
me
I
am
with
said
Stephan,
looking for a you,’
said
suddenly.
1S5
beginning
taxi.
I’m going
Mademoiselle
to
laugh.
off.’
Chardin
:
She had a very pretty voice. She thrust her hand into
arm and walked along with him.
his
me
She repeated: ‘Take ‘But
I
you
tell
I
am
I’m staying one night
going
in
a very
good
little
not expensive. We’ll
A
off.’ it
happens,
hotel around there. Comfortable,
talk.’
crawled past them.
taxi
Stephan. ‘Off, off!
Mademoiselle Chardin. ‘As
‘Exactly,’ said
know
off,* said
some hotel near the Gare de Lyon.
Tomorrow morning I*m I
with you, Stephan.*
Stephan signalled to the
driver. ‘I’ll
take you there,’ said Mademoiselle Chardin.
She climbed into the taxi and, leaning forward, gave the driver an address in an authoritative voice. Stephan hesitated, climbed in after her. ‘
Encore une grue ,’ he
At
that
horrible
was thinking.
moment women seemed
—
soft
the necks of
to
him loathsome,
and disgusting weights suspended round
men, dragging them downwards. At the same
time he longed to lay his head on Mademoiselle Chardin’s shoulder and
weep
She put her
‘My The
little
his life
warm hand
away.
over his firmly and said
Stephan, don’t worry.’
taxi rattled
on towards the Gare de Lyon.
186
.
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in
arrested,
is
Marya
A
dependent on them.
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