The Girls Read online

  'You who despise society, you who wallow in solitude, you tell me that!'

  'I live in solitude because I've won and paid for the right to live in solitude. When I was twenty-five I "met people" too. It's because I did things that bored me then that I can now do what I like. It's not a question of whether "meeting people" is fun. It's a question of whether you want to remain a penniless spinster in Saint-Léonard (Loiret). If not, you must make a suitable marriage, and you will only make a suitable marriage if you have an inexhaustible supply of suitable gentlemen parading in front of you, like stallions parading round a paddock. Which you can only do in Paris. Find a job there. If you like, I can help you to find one.'

  'I'll be saddled with her the whole time,' Costals had thought to himself. In spite of which, in this unfortunate fit of altruism he not only told her, 'I'll help you to find a job', but went further: 'I'll introduce you to people.' She agreed.

  If she had not been in love with him, he might perhaps have taken her on as his secretary, his own having just left him. But imagine taking on as secretary a woman who is in love with you! ... Costals had a friend called M. Armand Pailhès, an excellent man, a splendid paterfamilias, who was secretary- general of a big firm of robbers (a company formed for the reconstruction of the war-devastated North). He offered a job as a typist, and so Andrée landed in Paris.

  But when it came to doing a job that encroached on her inner life, Andrée bridled - she could not help it. She could not work for half an hour without heaving sighs which infuriated her boss. She would spend twenty minutes at a time in the lavatory reading Nietzsche. She arrived late and left early. After three or four days, with a volume of Valéry lying in her half-open drawer, she would bury herself in 'pure poetry' as soon as her boss's back was turned. Her habit of suddenly closing the drawer if he looked round gave her away. Apart from this, although she considered that her tact was nothing less than heroic, her notes to Costals, at the rate of one every three days ('Won't you come to the concert of Spanish music on Sunday? . . .' 'I'm going to the exhibition of prints at the Bibliothèque Nationale on Saturday. If by any chance you were free. ...') exasperated him. He excused himself two or three times, did not reply to the next few letters, and finished by tearing them up without opening them. And it must be admitted that he did nothing about 'introducing her to people'. He too considered himself heroic, for having got her settled in Paris, and his heroism was strictly limited. Take Andrée to parties! He would rather die. In short, both regarded themselves as heroic, which is always a bad sign. When, at the end of the month, enlightened about the girl's behaviour, M. Pailhès found a pretext to give her back her cherished freedom, everyone was happy, Andrée included. To live in Paris but to be imprisoned in that stupid office, to have everything she loved within arm's reach but to be unable to enjoy it, was worse than the provinces, where at least, if she suffered, she suffered without irritation. It was almost with a sigh of relief that she took the train back to Saint-Léonard.

  In the waiting-room of the War Pensioners' Review Board, awaiting examination, two hundred average Frenchmen, ex- service men, neither bourgeois nor plebeian, but of that intermediate class which is the backbone of France, with their characteristic French tendency to be buttoned up to the eyebrows, and their pallid and, my God, so unprepossessing Parisian faces.

  A restless crowd, with men coming and going, edging in and out, like bulls in a herd when they sense a man approaching; the one-legged men in particular stubbornly refuse to sit down. One man jumps at every name that is called; another asks the way to the lavatory: the thought that his request for a renewal of his pension will be refused has upset his inside. But there are also some quiet little men, old lags, reading their newspapers. How wonderfully brave of that one over there to open the Action Française in the middle of the crowd! (If they don't reduce his disablement scale, there's no government left.) And the doleful faces of the seriously wounded, escorted by their 'good ladies'. And the bourgeois with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour, sitting not with the common herd but a little apart, on the only chair in the room, in order to make it clear that his respectability has remained intact throughout this grim ordeal. (Costals, on entering, had put his gloves in his pocket so as not to be the only person there wearing them.)

  Costals imagined all these men in uniform, and then he loved them, whereas in their civilian clothes he had a tendency, typically ruling class, to regard them as malingerers. 'That fat one, for instance. ... Is it possible,' our professional psychologist asks himself, 'to be ill and fat at the same time? And this one here with his shifty look, there's obviously nothing wrong with him, absolutely nothing.' Whereupon the man with the shifty look turns round and shows the professional psychologist an empty coat-sleeve.

  A wave of respect, hope, fear, a sudden sharpening of attention, as a doctor passes through. Some of them salute him, to remind him who they are, although he has never seen them in his life. He passes by with his cigarette in the air - not that he is a smoker (he is nothing of the sort), but because smoking being forbidden here, it is a sign of his power. To two or three poor devils who are particularly keen saluters he offers, or rather tenders his hand, without stopping or turning his head. As he goes through, the man of power moves the men aside by taking them by the arm with an air of affable superiority, as one touches the backs of sheep when one is trying to make one's way through a flock. At first, when they do not know who is taking their arm from behind, they start indignantly; but as soon as they see who it is, their faces light up: the man of power has touched them, unworthy as they are! Ah yes, they are in good hands!

  If the doctor stops to speak to one of them, he is suddenly surrounded by three or four, then six, then ten, who crowd around him shamelessly and listen, hoping to pick up a hint which will help them to obtain something, or simply hasten their turn. They are suddenly so humble, so insanely, incorrigibly respectful towards people in authority, so ready to accept anything, that it is painful to see.

  A placard warns: 'Doctors are strictly forbidden to accept fees on the premises of the Review Board.' Why, O Administration, do you have to put the idea into our heads that there may be something shady about such fees? We know perfectly well that everything to do with pensions is as pure as the driven snow.

  What a superb play of expressions on the face of one of the men when a doctor leaves the room by the outer door! He struggles against his natural shyness, finally overcomes it, and quickly makes for the exit behind the doctor, whom he will buttonhole outside; and he lowers his eyes, feigning indifference, so that the others will not spot his game and follow him in order to accost the doctor at the same time.

  Some men leave, but more come in - so much so that (utterly convinced as one is that one will be the last to go in) one tells oneself that there will never be an end to it. Which is indeed a very 'wartime' sentiment.

  From time to time an assistant appears at the door of one of the consulting rooms and calls out the names of the men whose turn it is. Those whose civilian lives are on a par with their military ones for wretchedness, the eternal second-raters, answer 'Present!' like keen young recruits. When one of the assistants shouts the names in a stentorian voice, some of the men laugh, and the others, realizing that it was funny, laugh too. A great wave of laughter. They are suddenly right back at the Front.

  Some of the men hunch their backs on the way into the consulting-room to make themselves look iller. Others preen themselves and look ingratiating, thinking that this will make the best impression. The room concerned with the 'respiratory and circulatory systems' is much the most popular, because malingering is easiest there. Through the open door, the surgery appears bathed in a limpid, greenish glow, like an aquarium or an oriental night. One can catch a glimpse of what is happening in the consulting-room. One man tries to read what the doctor is writing about him, and goes on talking, lying into the void, while the doctor stands there casually turning his back on him. Another breathes heavily, oppressively. Ano
ther comes out pulling up his trousers, and the price-tag is still to be seen on his underpants, bought only yesterday because he was ashamed of his old ones. His furtive look betrays the fact that he has hoodwinked the doctor, or thinks he has hoodwinked him, and he walks with his eyes lowered, like a man going to the Communion rail, to hide the gleam of triumph in his eyes which might give him away. Others come out with collars and ties undone, which accentuates the guard-room aspect of the place (on his way here Costals had made the taxi-driver hurry, thinking that if he were five minutes late he would be court-martialled). Some of the men argue the toss as they come out, with their rapacious, tubercular Parisian faces. But they are peaceable rebels, very French. A swig of white wine and it will all be over - or another doctor has only to cross the room for that awful gleam of humility to appear in their eyes again. They hope to get something out of him, so they cease to be rebels. One only rebels when one has nothing to lose by it.

  As the hours go by, exhaustion begins to set in. Even the cripples have given up standing. The herd has become stupefied. When one sees how they have acquiesced, how one has acquiesced oneself, in waiting from half-past eight until ten minutes to twelve, one understands how it lasted four and a half years…

  A blind man came out of one of the rooms, led by a girl - and for Costals the war atmosphere collapsed there and then like a burst balloon. She had slender, slanting eyes - bluish below her black hair, as in Andalusia, and as disturbing as dark eyes in a real blonde; a tiny forehead (ah, nice and stupid!); curls down her neck - and although he had always proclaimed that he only liked clean-shaven necks, the pleasure of contradicting himself (his privilege, like God's) now made him adore these curls. Her skin was stretched so tight that it might have been marble, and it was matt, though her nose shone a little, as marble statues are polished in places where they have been kissed a great deal. She held her head a little to one side, as though to indicate the point on her neck where she should be kissed. He loved the way she patted and rearranged her hair: the gesture of the midinette. He liked this community of gestures among women. Her body was well-rounded and yet slender: what is known as morbidezza, is it not?

  As she passed by, Costals sniffed the odour she left in her wake, his nose quivering like a dog's. The couple went out. Without a moment's hesitation, Costals followed them. He would concoct a pretty lie for the head of the Review Board.

  He was about to offer to find them a taxi. But they were hardly in the street before an empty taxi drew up. They hailed it, and it was the distinguished novelist who was left standing on the pavement.

  He was delighted. 'Now I shall be able to work in peace,' he said to himself.

  On the very day she arrived in Paris Andrée went to a concert. In the past these hours of music had meant so much to her in her loveless life. They were a substitute for all the other ecstasies. It was as though thousands of lovers clasped her in their arms. What a let-down it was, afterwards, from this seventh heaven to the Parisian street! At such moments she felt strongly that she could never marry an ordinary person. This time she was bored at the concert - a mixture of dejection and indifference. This music, which she had once loved so desperately, for want of anything else to love, now seemed to her so insipid by comparison with the proximity of Costals.

  Costals spoiled her taste for everything else, demolished everything around her, everything she relied on, created a vacuum as though he wanted her to love nothing but himself. It was no longer Beethoven, it was he, his 'music of perdition'. Listening to the Pastoral Symphony, with its imitations of bird calls, she found it puerile. The sounds reached her across a layer of distraction and boredom. Actually, she was not listening, she could not listen. The most trashy music would have accompanied her daydreams quite as well.

  Costals had invited her to dinner the following night. The restaurant was a little twenty-franc bistro. They talked of nothing but literature. Flanked on either side by other diners a few feet away, she did not dare speak of what lay nearest her heart. But in fact she scarcely felt the need to. She was in Paris for a month: there was no hurry. And moreover, now that she was with him she felt a profound sense of unison, as though they were brother and sister. (She kept coming back to the phrase 'brother and sister' - although now she was thinking 'Byron and Augusta', which was to give it an extra twist.) Such peace, such well-being, such security, such abandon! An impression of the futility of words, and a feeling of being marvellously alone, almost more alone than when she was by herself...

  She was astonished to find herself unperturbed. It must, she thought, be due to their profound intellectual understanding, stronger than love and superior to it. And also because, ever since Costals' harsh letter, she was trying hard to keep to the plane of virile friendship on which he wanted her to remain, and to hold romance at bay. She had no desire, even, when she was with him, to indulge in those chaste caresses which girls love, except for an occasional longing to kiss his hand. And even this did not seem to her to be an amorous gesture, but rather an overflowing of gratitude, as though she could not find words to express her feelings, or dared not, or could not say them.

  As for him, at the other side of the table, his eyes never rested on her, but looked over her head; but she did not notice it. Besides, he never looked at anyone he did not desire; always beyond them.

  At one point, however, his eyes fell on the girl's bare forearms - and he could not take them away. Her arms were dirty. He tried in vain to persuade himself that their greyish tinge was the natural colour of the skin: the illusion was impossible. For a long while he kept his eyes glued to her arms, unable to utter another word. Perhaps, if he had desired her at all, he might have found her even more desirable (a big 'if'). Since he did not desire her, the sight froze him.

  The atmosphere of cheerful banter created by Costals (and quickly recaptured) became even more animated towards the end of the meal. Andrée thought it must be the effect of the wine, or even of her presence. In fact this gaiety had sprung up suddenly in Costals the moment he had decided he was going to cut the evening short and pretend he had to get away early: it was the gaiety of the horse that sniffs the stable.

  She accepted her dismissal with good grace, and went home on foot. This calm and serenity sustained her at each of their meetings. After the agonies induced by Costals' long silences, during which she longed for something shattering to happen to cure her of her love - silences which might have driven her to all kinds of folly - when she saw him again everything became simple and peaceful, everything happened in the same natural, easy rhythm - so much so that she found herself being almost cold with him.

  On leaving her, Costals had said: 'I'll get in touch with you in two or three days.' A week having elapsed, she wrote to him. Costals groaned, but decided that it would be cruel to go on depriving her of another meeting during this paltry month in Paris by which she had set so much store. He had two appointments in the same district, the avenue Marceau, two days later, one at four o'clock, the other at eight. Between them he would be free. He arranged to meet her at half past five in the rue Quentin-Bauchart, on the pavement in front of number 5. He would be leaving this house at that time, after visiting some friends.

  On the pavement in the rue Quentin-Bauchart at twenty-five past five, Andrée was already accusing Costals of being late. Obviously he had forgotten their appointment; he had come out early and gone away. She was a little surprised at this rendezvous in the street after dark, on a bitterly cold day in early February. 'Would he make such a rendezvous with a woman he really loved, or who meant anything at all to him?' But he emerged, her heart leapt, and off they went side by side down the dark street with its red and white lights.

  'I'm not in very good form,' Costals said straight off. 'The other day I saw in a shop a piece of jade which I coveted. A thousand francs. I decided to go back to the shop that evening and buy it. And then I ran into an old lady who used to keep a flower stall where I bought violets for my girl-friends a few years ago. She's a
widow; she told me her two children were both ill, her brother treated her badly, and she was destitute. Crash! There I was, utterly disarmed. I was ashamed to buy my piece of jade, and pressed the thousand-franc note into her hand. I haven't got over it yet.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I haven't yet got over the irritation I felt at giving her the thousand francs instead of buying the piece of jade.'

  'What was to stop you buying the jade as well?'

  'Oh! I bought it all right, but it wasn't the same thing. What annoys me is to have given away a thousand francs out of pure charity. It's ruined my week.'

  'Nonsense, the satisfaction of ... no, I won't say "of duty done" - that would be too pompous. But after all, don't you feel a certain satisfaction at having given pleasure to an old woman you were sorry for?'

  'No. I feel.

  'Go on, say it: you feel regret.'

  'Yes, regret. I'm ashamed. And at the same time there's something else that worries me. I feel that a thousand francs.... What's a thousand francs? I'm tormented by the desire to give her more.'

  'How complicated you are!'

  'But you don't know what pity is. It's a feeling that can ruin your life. Luckily I know how to protect myself. I have a very strict egotist's discipline. If I hadn't I wouldn't have written my books. I had to choose. You'll be able to test this egotism one day, God willing ... '

  'Did he do what he has done for me out of pity?' she wondered. She believed that he was fond of her, but could not make out in what way. Perhaps he would have been just as kind, just as devoted, to a male friend. Yet there were times when she thought to herself that one isn't as helpful and sensitive as that simply out of kindness. Had she not been afraid of annoying him, she would have asked him whether he treated her as he did out of pure comradeship - an exquisite sense of comradeship - or whether there was an element of love in it. In other words - how could she put it? - whether he was attracted to her.