Authors: Albert Cohen
He went outside and. listened at her door. He could hear her sobbing. He smiled again. The poor girl was in tears, she was fully occupied, she had more important things on her mind now than how to stifle yawns. Praise be, she was crying, was more conscious than ever of how much she loved him, of how she never grew tired of being with him. He tiptoed back to his room. Saved! He was saved! But, more than that, he had saved her! After a while there was a quiet knock and a small voice spoke through a blocked nose on the other side of the door. 'Listen, the weather's nice now,' said the little voice. He rubbed his hands. The manoeuvre had worked! Her head was filled with a need to get on the right side of him. She had a goal in life. 'So?' he said, exaggerating the tetchiness in his voice. 'Wouldn't you like us to go out?' said Little Damp Voice. 'No. I'd rather go out by myself,' he said. 'My treasure,' he said to her inwardly, and he stroked the wood of the door behind which she had come to life once more.
Outside, he traipsed through scenery which gave him the horrors: the sky was too blue, the trees were dry and dusty, and the rocks were razor-sharp. He felt elated and aimed kicks at stones. At this minute she was acutely aware of exactly how much she missed him, and shortly she would be so happy when it was safe again for him to be nice to her. As he sauntered along, he imagined he had met a man of God who spoke words of reproach to him, saying that he never behaved like that to his own dear wife, that he made her happy.
'Hold it there, Parson, you're talking through your hat,' said Solal. 'If your wife is happy, there are ten reasons for it and, of those ten, nine have nothing whatsoever to do with love. To wit: her place in the social order which she owes to you and the respect she enjoys thereby, her attendance at church sewing-bees, your common friends and your at-homes, what you say about the people you have to deal with, your children, the things you tell her about your work, the contribution she makes to your ministry, the pleasure she gets out of visiting the sick, the kiss you give her when you get home each evening, the prayers you say on your knees together at the side of your bed. What's that? She likes a roll in the hay with you? But of course she does: civilized and fully dressed by day, naked and biological by night, though not every night. And she enjoys it because of the sheer contrast, because the pair of you who were so proper and so properly dressed only moments before suddenly turn into nakedly sexual beings. But we two, we two poor specimens, behave like animals all the time.'
Fine, then. This evening, soon, when he got back, she'd have a few intensely lived hours, he would smile at her and she would fling her arms round his neck, and she would cry tears of happiness and there would be de-luxe kisses, kisses from the depths of her soul, kisses from the old Geneva days, and she would say that she never felt bored with her darling, even though he was a beast, and she would believe it utterly. Praise be. Fine. An evening of bliss lay waiting just around the corner, of bliss for the pair of them. But what about tomorrow? Could he really go on telling the poor girl each and every day that he felt bored when he was with her?
CHAPTER 84
The next day, she suggested they might have lunch downstairs, in the hotel restaurant, just this once of course, it was so much more pleasant taking their meals in their rooms but just for once it might be amusing to take a peek at their respectable fellow guests, rather as if they were in the theatre in fact. They went down in high spirits, arm in arm.
All through lunch she made ironic remarks about people's faces, made guesses about what they did for a living and what they were like. She was proud of her Sol, so elegant, so unlike the rest of the browsers and sluicers here present, proud of the looks she got from their wives, who were all perfect frights. One, however, found favour in her eyes, a rather handsome woman in her forties with red hair, who was reading a newspaper propped up against a water-jug and had a little dog with her which was sitting as good as gold on a chair.
'The only likely proposition in the whole place,' she observed. 'English, I'd say. I haven't seen her before. Her little Sealyham is a pet. Just look at the way he looks at his mummy.'
In the lounge where coffee was served, they perused a magazine together. Close by them, two couples who had just checked in, sensing they might be social equals, had struck up a conversation. After a preliminary exchange of pleasantries, they had dusted down their antennae and proceeded to probe each other's social standing, casually slipping into the conversation details about their respective professions and connections. Reassured, recognizing fellow denizens of the same ant-heap when they saw them, they blossomed and bloomed, communed loudly, and trumpeted their delight: 'Well, well! Isn't it a small world! Of course we knew them, we used to see a great deal of them! What a pity they left! Such lovely people!'
Further along, two other husbands, who had also been sniffing each other out by dropping the prestigious names of lawyers and bishops, were talking motor cars in the face of constant interruptions from the younger of the wives, a doll-like creature with a moon face who bore a striking resemblance to the wife of Petresco and, like Petresco's wife, was doing her adorable, skittish number, shrieking at frequent intervals, as she bobbed up and down and clapped her hands like a little girl, that what she wanted was a Chrysler, she did, a nice Chrysler, so there! All these people were aquiver to run with their kind, itching to be happy clots and lumps in the collective porridge. In silence, holding hands, the two lovers read on, noble and remote. Suddenly, she stood up.
'Let's go. They're making me feel ill.'
In their loving-room, they listened to the new records they had bought, discussed them, and then there were kisses. At two thirty he said he had a headache and wanted to lie down in his room, so they arranged to meet again for tea. Left to herself, she went back downstairs.
She found a chair in the lounge and flicked through a pile of tourist guides on a table, while, next to her, happy future corpses were making noisy plans for outings and the podgy doll again ran through her pretty-little-girl routine. Jumping up and down and clapping her hands, sillier than an American majorette, the oh-so-spontaneous little kitten again told her husband that she wanted a Chrysler, she did, a nice Chrysler, so there, highly delighted not only to be seen to be so headstrong but also to let their new friends know, by means of her endlessly reverberating childish refrain, that she and her husband were more than able to afford a Chrysler, thank you very much. But when Ariane got up and left she stopped her antics, and the conversation lapsed and gave way to whispers.
Ariane walked slowly along the gravel drive, where the woman with red hair was also strolling. Going up to the little dog, which was sniffing busily around, she bent down and stroked him. Smiles were offered, views- on the attractions of Sealyhams were exchanged -jealous but loyal — then on the weather, so warm and it was the twenty-seventh of November too, quite extraordinary really, even for the Riviera.
Eventually they sat down in cane chairs under a sickly, dust-laden palm. Ariane made further enquiries as to the character of the little dog, which, having taken due note of all the ambient smells and judged them to be of no interest whatsoever, rested its chin on its front paws, heaved a great bored sigh, and pretended to go to sleep, but kept one eye half open on the progress of an ant.
The conversation having been carried on in English, the lady with the red hair confessed to being amazed by the perfect accent of her new acquaintance, who at once proceeded to evoke the wonderful years she had spent at Girton, Cambridge, and thereafter at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. A gleam.of renewed interest flickered in the eyes of the Englishwoman at the mention of these women's colleges, both so exclusive and attracting only students from the very best circles. She looked fondly at her new acquaintance. Lady Margaret Hall! Really! But how fascinating! Wasn't it a small world! Barbara and Joyce, dear Patricia Layton's twins, Viscountess Layton, you know, absolutely, were currently up at LMH and were very happy there, such a wonderful place. But look, she said with a smile, it's the hols after all, and a person might quite properly dispense with etiquette and introduce herself. She was Kathleen Forbes, wife of the British consul-general in Rome. After a momentary hesitation, her acquaintance also gave her name and said that her husband was an Under-Secretary-General at the League of Nations.
Whereupon Mrs Forbes became ebullient and utterly charming. Under-Secretary-General! Really! But how fascinating! Eyelids fluttering and with a fond look suffusing her face, she declared that she adored the League of Nations, a wonderful institution where so much wonderful work was done to promote international peace and mutual understanding! When people understood each other, they would love each other, now wasn't that so? she said with a smile, and her eyelids fluttered more exiquisitely than ever. Sir John was such a kind man, and Lady Cheyne was so accomplished, so considerate. Actually, one of her nieces had just got engaged to a second cousin of dear Lady
Cheyne! All at once her beating eyelids turned into butterfly wings and she grabbed Ariane's hand. But of course! She remembered now! Her cousin, Bob Huxley, worked in the Secretariat! Madame Solal must surely know him, for he had spoken a great deal about Monsieur Solal last year, had sung his praises! But how fascinating! Her husband would be delighted to meet Monsieur Solal, because he too took the keenest interest in the League of Nations!
In response to a polite question from Ariane, Mrs Forbes, like a silvery trout safely returned to its native waters, said that she had been at Agay since the day before yesterday but that her husband would not be arriving until that afternoon, perhaps with dear Bob in tow. Yes, he'd had to make a detour to call on his dear friend Tucker, that's Sir Alfred Tucker, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, who was alas receiving treatment in a clinic which, as it happened, was in Geneva. 'A very, very dear friend,' she concluded with a dying fall and a modicum of melancholy tinged with coyness. But she had felt desperately run-down and had not had the strength to make the stopover at Geneva. After the social whirl of Rome, which was simply too wearing, all she had wanted to do was to get to the good old Royal, where she felt thoroughly at home, though its clientele was not of course entirely congenial nor very interesting, save naturally for a few exceptions, she added with a sweet smile, but it was so marvellously situated, perfectly heavenly surroundings. From one point of view it could be considered an advantage to stay in an hotel frequented by people of quite dissimilar backgrounds to theirs, because it meant that one could enjoy one's privacy. Oh yes, after the social round in Rome, which made such inroads into one's time, she so enjoyed this chance to relax and respect one's physical being, she said with an intellectual smile. Oh, were she free to follow her own tastes, she would gladly turn her back on the social whirl and settle for a hermit's life of solitude, indulge her passion for nature, and be nearer God, with only a few good books for company. But it was the duty of the wives of holders of official positions to sacrifice themselves and to some extent assist their husbands, she affirmed, giving her companion in executive matrimony a sweet smile. And in addition to the ghasdy social round, which was so invasive, there was also the requirement to keep abreast, was there not, of anything that was of interest from the intellectual point of view -
vernissages,
concerts, lectures, social problems, the books which people were talking about, not to mention tedious staff problems when, as she was, one was expected to maintain a certain social style. Oh yes indeed, she was only too happy to be a simple body for these two weeks, to bathe in the dear old Med and play a set or two of tennis every day. By the by, perhaps Madame Solal would care to make up a mixed foursome with them tomorrow? And perhaps Monsieur Solal might like to join them?
So it was agreed between them that they should meet outside the hotel at eleven next morning. Having had her social appetites whetted by the reserve and refinement of the Under-Secretary-GeneraFs delightful wife, Mrs Forbes took her leave, her teeth bared affectionately, then retired, followed by her little dog, quite delighted with the catch she had landed.
CHAPTER 85
The following day, a little before four o'clock, they went down to take tea in the small lounge of the hotel and sat down by the window overlooking the terrace, which she opened so that they might enjoy the balmy air. Seeing him blink, she drew the curtains to take the edge off the sun's brightness. When she had drunk her first cup of tea, she said that anyone would think it was April, not November. This was followed by a silence. To fill it, he suggested they should give marks out of twenty to the clothes she had bought in Cannes. The conversation got under way immediately, and they saw eye to eye on giving top marks to the evening dress in that truly ravishing deep pink. An evening dress, he thought, what was the point? For what reception, official dinner or ball was it intended?
They moved on to the other items and she argued fiercely, not suspecting for a single moment what pity he felt to see her falling so easily for the lure. As she hesitated between a seventeen and an eighteen for the ruby cardigan, he felt an urge to kiss her on the cheek. But no, they were lovers. They were sentenced to lips.
When everything had been given a mark, she suggested a stroll along the shore. 'The sea, the ever changing yet unchanged sea,' she said, quoting Valery for his benefit. Not particularly taken with artiness of this kind, he smiled appreciatively then said he had a headache. She immediately suggested aspirin, and got up to go for some. He refused the offer, saying that he would rather He down for an hour or two, and asked her if meantime she would pop over to Saint-Raphaël and buy some more records. He had a yen to hear the Brandenburg Concertos.