Authors: Albert Cohen
CHAPTER 65
'She can be a real madam sometimes, and to show you just how contrary she can be I must tell you the tale of the lobster, no hang on, shut up a minute, it'll make you larf, the day I got back from Paris I brought this lobster for her as a present, a surprise, weighed a ton and very lively, it kept shifting about in its basket on the train, now when I told her I was going to cut it up while it was still alive so I could do it 'Merican style it's delicious done that way she lets out this horrible scream and shuts her eyes, I won't let you won't let you, she screams, you'll hurt it, so to calm her down I says right then I'll cut its head off first so it don't feel a thing, that made her yell some more as if it was her head that was going to be cut off, so, all kind and patient like, I says right I'll put it in boiling water, you should have seen her, talk about a paddy, she went white as if somebody was after her honour, but Madame Ariane that's how it's always done, for it to be fit to eat you gotter kill it live, that's the way with lobsters, they was meant to have their heads cut off or be dropped in boiling water, what else are you supposed to do with lobsters, put them to sleep like in horspital with chloryform? anyway a lobster don't suffer, it's used to it, you can cut off its head and it won't complain, but it was no good, you should have seen her, a real tigress, and here's the best bit, she took the lobster which was still alive and kicking, drove it by car to the airport, put it on the plane for Nice and left a tip so somebody could chuck it back into the sea, no shut up don't make me larf, the driver of the aeroplane must have thought it was his lucky day 'cos sure enough you can bet your boots he'll have ate it up hisself 'Merican style, and besides there was the tip to buy a nice bottle of wine to go with it, no but seriously she's a real lady, always does the proper thing, believes everybody else is like her, so she and her money are soon parted, but coming back to her fancy man, he's a burocart, that means he does writing about politics, but he's diddy Didi's big boss and a dab hand at wife-stealing, now according to what she says about him in her notebook he's as handsome as they come, oh yes I had a quick peep in her notebook, it's not me being curious or nosy, it's just so I know, so I'm in the picture, seeing as how I got her best interests at heart, she's like a daughter to me, besides it's tempting fate the way she just leaves her notebook lying around in that suitcase of hers, it's not my fault if she don't lock it, in the circs you got no option reely, specially when she's in the bath, and she's always in the bath you've no idea, if she likes doing fish imitations there's nothing to stop her, she's her own mistress, according to what she tells me she's over the moon on account of her chap is coming tonight, and do you know why she stays so long in her bath which she has ever so hot? I do, 'cos another woman can understand how she feels, it's so that she can imagine what it'll be like tonight with her darling boy, get along with you I been young meself, there isn't much she can teach me about being in love, and she don't fool me by trying to make out how I'm tired and saying I ought to get off home early today, four o'clock she said, pretending to be so concerned, but reely she was itching for me to go, it's all play-acting so she can have plenty of time to doll herself up without me being there to see her or more's the point to catch a sight of him, also so that they can get up to all sorts in peace, poor Didi, but Madame Ariane I could pop back and bring the tea in tonight for you when you got your gentleman visitor here it'll save you the bother, no thanks Mariette dear you need to rest up she says the little fibber, right you are, I'll take meself off at four like she says, but sh! mum's the word, just before nine, 'cos he'll be coming at nine like it says in the terrygram, just before nine I'll hide across the street and have a look at her Prince Charming, Mariette dear, she said, it was nice of her to say that and besides she's an orphing, and that Didi don't amount to a bag of beans, not if it's a man you want.'
CHAPTER 66
All that remained now was to try on the white crêpe dress and the four suits. She pointed out that the dress was a little too full round the hips, for she was most anxious that her stately rump should be clearly and visibly profiled, yet, being a well-brought-up young woman, had no wish to say so directly or even acknowledge it to herself. The dressmaker reassured her. She did not believe him, but out of weakness said nothing. Too late for alterations now.
It took her just one glance to know that the pale-grey suit was not a success. She decided she didn't want to see it ever again, and gazed at the clock the whole of the time Volkmaar was inserting pins with a view to one final alteration which, however, would be quite pointless since she had already made up her mind to give Mariette this obscenity which made her look like a factory-girl with a hump. 'And now, dear lady, the delightful charcoal grey.' In a daze she stared at the jacket which was too pinched, at the lapels which were clownishly wide at the top and idiotically narrow at the bottom, and at the overstuffed shoulders which would have been more at home on something from the ready-to-wear department. At last the penny dropped. The clothes she had seen modelled were perfect because they'd come from Paris, but this moron hadn't even been able to copy them correcdy. She pretended to let her mind be put at rest by Volkmaar, who said a once-over with the iron would cure the problem or kept pulling the parts he'd messed up, which made everything right for a few seconds. To confuse her and divert her attention from the two suits which were clearly disasters, he made flattering comments about Madame's heavenly figure, which made her feel sick. Why didn't the little squirt with breasts like a woman just keep his remarks to himself?
'And now, dear lady, the two heavenly numbers in the rustic and we'll be done.'
Meekly she allowed him to try them on her one after the other. Even more ghastly than the two flannel suits. What was the use of complaining? There was nothing he could do to put things right in a matter of hours. Anyway, he wasn't up to it, he hadn't the first idea about tailoring a suit. Oh why had she ever decided to have anything to do with a jackass like him? Why hadn't she just gone out and bought something off the peg? O God! When a person was on the brink of doing something really stupid,
that
was the moment when she might just as easily not have done it at all!
'Yes,' she said, 'that's fine. Thank you.'
When Volkmaar had gone, she sat down. Crying wouldn't help. Besides, the dresses hadn't turned out too badly, well at least one or two hadn't. Only the suits were a disaster. She'd burn them tonight, the moment they were delivered. No, burning was too fiddly and it would make a stink. Better to cut them up and bury them in the garden. That way it would be as though they had never existed, and she could simply put them out of her mind. Later on she'd go to Paris and order ten suits if she had to, yes ten, so that at least two or three would turn out well. If you wanted to dress well, you had to accept a certain level of wastage. But the linen lace-up dress was very nice, a kind of duck of sorts really, but so fine, so light.
'My ducky dress,' she said with a smile, highly delighted with the adjective, which she had made up all by herself.
She took off her petticoat, panties, stockings and the brassière which she'd worn as protection against Piglet's prying eyes. Yes, take everything off, it was so hot today, at least thirty in the shade. Stripped to the skin, she got into the darling dress with the criss-cross laces up the front, so soft and white, so generously scooped-out at the neck and so divinely sleeveless, a dress fit for a heroine, and those wonderful folds surely belonged on a statue. Oh she felt just right in it! Yes, not wearing anything under it was a good idea. It really was stiflingly hot. And besides, what a lark to go round cocking a snook at people in the street, knowing that they didn't know!
She took the lid off a cardboard box, took out a pair of white sandals which she had bought earlier, and smiled at them fondly. Bare legs and sandals were perfect with her ducky dress. She stuffed her petticoat, shoes, panties and stockings into the box. Good riddance. She'd tell the suit-butcher to send it on to Cologny along with her old dress and the rest of the order. In the triple mirror, all three Arianes in their ducky dresses were striking and tall: three sweeties.
CHAPTER 67
Victorious in her ducky dress, blithely she sailed down the street, a white galleon of youth, striding long and smiling, acutely aware of her nakedness beneath the fine linen, aware of her bare skin cooled by the caress of the breeze. Know that I am beautiful, O ye at whom I choose not to look, take heed and behold a happy woman. Tall did she walk, and gloriously in her hand did she hold the railway timetable in which, occasionally pausing, she followed the progress of the train which was carrying him to her. What bliss to be in love, how fascinating to be alive.
She ground to a halt, feeling suddenly very angry with a cat which had crossed the road so close to the wheels of a car that the silly thing would surely get itself run over one of these days! But she had better watch out for cars too, didn't want to go getting herself killed today, mustn't be damaged now. Today she was very precious. Roll on tonight! She set off again, keeping single-mindedly to the middle of the pavement. The two men she cannoned into turned round, mesmerized, but she was already far away. She caught the shoulder of a third, and because he smiled at her she knew that he knew that she was happy, for she was going to the man she loved, to her love beyond compare. Yes, they all stared, they all knew, and they all endorsed her happiness.
Over her head, a cloud. If rain tonight, they wouldn't be able to stroll through the garden hand in hand. Almighty God, I've been so looking forward to it, please make it fine tonight. What I want is the floor of heaven to be thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. Tonight, offer him tea, avoid strong drink, too depraved, make it tea, like you'd give a brother just back from his travels, a very-good-quality Ceylon with white tips. No, that cloud up there like a pink-and-white baby isn't going to amount to anything. Little cloud, be good, don't get any bigger. Please, pretty please.
A goddess reared up before her in the glass of a jeweller's window. She admired the fullness of the lower lip and the warm intelligence of the mouth, the corners of the mouth so thoughtfully modulated, the gilded cheeks glowing as it were with an inner translucence, the dark-gold mole on her cheek, the flaring nostrils thirsting for life and investing the chaste expression of the whole face with a secret irony. 'Hail, Ariane full of grace, the Lord is with you,' she murmured.
When the lake hove into view, she gave it a nod of greeting. Oh the warmth when he slept by her side! The terrace of a cafe: a crowd of stupid men who did not love and were reading newspapers, a shoal of ditto women who were not loved and to make up for it were ingesting huge chocolate ices smothered in large quantities of whipped cream. O God, what was the point of that fat old woman with the flat-faced pekinese? Get thee to a cemetery!
Three o'clock already. In six hours she would see him. Off home with you spit-spot and start getting ready, get tremendously ready so that he shall be presented with the most beautiful woman on this earth. A week from today, next Saturday, Wispy-Beard would be back. She shook her head, like a mare troubled by a horsefly. She'd deal with that later on, for today was a day of consecration. The crack of a whip made her start, for she felt responsible for the fate of all horses. She turned and checked. No, he hadn't been maltreated, and besides he looked well cared for and wasn't wearing blinkers either, always a good sign.
Quai Gustave-Ador. She hurried along the shore of the blue and pink lake, naked under her fluttering dress, which flared now and then like wings beating in the draught of her breezy progress. A couple of road-menders stopped digging to stare at the tall girl with the parted lips who bore down on them. She paid them no attention, her high breasts falling and rising to the rhythm of her abundant, easy step. 'Well slung,' one of the road-menders said. She smiled, and walked a little faster.
Chemin de la Côte. Little flowers lit up the grass. She walked on, finding everything quite delectable. Switzerland was a wonderful place, and those three cows over there, perhaps they were sisters, were extraordinarily delightful. 'You pretties,' she said. 'Tonight!' she proclaimed to the proud poplars and the poppies in the breeze-waved cornfields. When she got home she'd burn her arm with a cigarette-end for a proof. See, my love, how I've suffered for your sake? Hurry, hurry!
Love's march of triumph, the exhilarating stride of the huntress. It was quite simple, wonderful and clear: she would see him tonight. And in her mind she raised her sword in greeting archangelical, and her gratitude flew up into the firmament like a skein of turde-doves. Tonight! Tonight: she would see his eyes and his impetuousness and his way of turning suddenly to drink deep of her with hot eyes, and she would be defenceless and would melt. Tonight! Tonight: take him by the hand, enclose his heart-meltingly slender wrist, then she snug against him and their lips and her breasts and she naked and looked at. Oh the wonder of being looked at and found beautiful.
Love's march of triumph. Tonight! Oh the consecration and the hallowed weight upon her, and his precious face leaning over her, and the interludes when lips renewed their contact and at long last her joy, her moans. His woman, she was his wife and she worshipped him, his wife, his nun of love, his vassal and his vessel, fulfilled by the oblation of her depth, by the knowledge of him in her, happy in her who was doe-eyed with the happiness of knowing that he was in her, the cloistered nun of her lord. Yes, she was in love, at last she was in love. On the ice floe a wild rose had bloomed.
*
Love's march of triumph. She walked on quickly, opulent and serene, puissant and no less happy than the Queen of Sheba. Tonight! Oh make shift to please him, listen to his voice, and suddenly he would say nothing and she would be filled with fear because his face would be stone, but afterwards he would smile and she would swoon with rapture as she beheld such enchantment, which soared above and beyond his beauty. His smile, his teeth, oh best of the sons of man! And a little cruel too sometimes, though there was no harm in that. 'You will be my love always,' she told him. 'Death? What's death?' she exclaimed.