Woman Part 8

I was in that last speeding carriage. I had obeyed my mother's entreaties, I had agreed to figure in this masquerade.

So as not to rumple my fairy dress I forced myself not to make a movement but to remain impa.s.sive and avoid the least little stir. It was my role to receive the host of looks converging upon me as if levelled at a target, hard and fast, crowding, curious. I confess that beneath my snowy veil and sanctified air I lent myself to the situation with a bit of vanity.

It takes me a long time to undress. My bridal costume is fastened by a thousand hidden snaps and pins. I have trouble in getting out of it.

My room frightens me. "Take possession of us," say the chairs and tables. "Act, command, try your hand, you are in your own home, it is your life which is arising, we are watching you. What are you going to do?"

The more the furniture goads, the heavier the languor that settles upon me, the less I know, the less I advance. In vain I summon to my aid ideas from without; none takes hold. I repeat, for example, that this is the test of both of us, the beginning of our union. I fancy myself clutching at resolutions, but they fall back at my approach and sink routed into the folds of the curtains. Is it really necessary to struggle? Wouldn't it be better to put my head in my hands and drop into the softness and restfulness of my new armchair?

When we came here a little while ago, it was _he_ who was the first to experience this sort of trouble. We had been looking over our home and when the tour was ended he took me in his arms, and I felt the warm flesh of his kiss under my chin. A blow seemed to strike my bowels. I tightened up into a ball, my muscles tense, thrown on the defensive. An evil fear made me shiver. He raised his head. I had never seen him look so tragic. His features were hardened, his eyes swimming ... I fell away from him like a flower snapped from its stem.

A sudden instinct sent me to the looking-gla.s.s, as if it held an answer to everything. Maybe looking-gla.s.ses do offer the eternal answer to the riddle of the universe.

I had said to myself: "You will be close to him, you two will be alone together, perhaps it will be beyond human power to try to be happy." I used to fancy life as a struggle, a piece of work to be done, a masterpiece, and imagined what my acts would be--all voluntary and making for perfection. I forgot that they would have to be performed by these arms with their warm flesh.

I had thought: "He knows me through and through, I have made him read everything." But no, he knows nothing. He does not know the lovely shape of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the lyre of my hips, the curves of my legs, nor this unknown body the expression of which is so changing that it is like some murmured tale which the light embraces and tells aloud.

It remains for me to bestow a final confidence upon him; that of the body unveiling itself, _daring_ to confess itself. Is this not the purest confidence? But let it not come before its own hour, for it must lead to a moment of truth so naked and so unexpected that it frightens me a little.

It is strange: this evening I live with the whole of my body for the first time. I exist wherever it is. Even as I stand here fixed and tense in front of the gla.s.s, I follow a line which may arch, swell and melt away and which already bears the shape of love.

I can imagine everything ... for there's no need of having loved in order to be a lover. All I should have to do, if I dared, would be to twine my arms around his neck, press him hard, and harder still, and the moment would come when I should forget the modesty of my single life.

And without knowing any more one would be lost, distraught, acquiescent, lulled to sleep even to the soul, more beautiful than one is beautiful.

I can go still further, for the flesh that clasps cannot be deceived.

When the man and the woman are united, it is the woman subdued, armed with her weakness, who becomes the stronger. I am sure of it already. In the depths of my ignorant flesh, I already feel domination germinating.

It is not I; it is a law older than I that is seeking to fulfill itself.

And suddenly I am frightened....

But I am mad.... Man, woman, nothing but two words, which are not of the stuff of life. Is there a single emotion in which I recognize myself?

Truth? But it is the truth of others. The truth that reaches you is always different. Isn't it senseless to dread what depends upon yourself? Are we strangers that I should hesitate like this to run to him? Isn't he on the other side of the door, he of whom my body is _thinking_? Isn't it enough for us to look upon each other? Is there a single question he cannot understand? One seeks happiness. It is all so simple....

Ah, let us go astray every day, let us deceive ourselves, let us suffer alongside our own hearts, let us try to clasp the invisible! But this evening there is nothing but a thin part.i.tion between my secret and myself. I feel my heart throbbing as if it were laid bare. I am beautiful, I am alive....

Am I not right?...

BOOK II

_BEING_

I

It is her eyes in particular. Ever since her eyes have made a part of my life, I have known what nostalgia for Brittany means, and the infinite mournfulness with which it permeates a human being.

She is like the rest of her race, short-legged, round, thick-set, and her gestures conceal rather than reveal her hands. She talks in a singsong and ends with a sigh. Her name is Marie, as though she were a little nurse-maid of eighteen at thirty francs a month. Oh, it's not the room she takes up. But for her blue-thistle gaze and the plaint of her body, you'd scarcely know she was there.

Seven o'clock. I am already on the street with bent head, insensible to the allurements of the shops, driven blindly on with cheeks inflamed by the wind.

The great porte-cochere, the steps three at a time, two pulls at the bell, long, breathless minutes; finally the door opens, cautiously.

Marie behind the door squeezes herself up on tiptoe against the wall to let me pa.s.s.

It is almost a sacrilege to speak in a raised voice as I do and bring in so much of the outside air. "Is dinner ready, Marie, is everything ready?" Since Marie never answers, I go straight into the kitchen.

Goodness, nothing done. Well, I'll have to get at the supper myself.

There's still a good half-hour left, I believe.

As I hastily remove my wraps, I feel the dull pang that a.s.sails you at the sight of disorder.

There, I have the water boiling now and the cooking is well under way. I didn't know I was so quick and capable. After all, Marie's only a child.

Marie bustles about. I see her two reddish, porous, spatulate hands pounce on things, I hear the clash of utensils. Her person becomes many persons, she jostles me, moves. .h.i.ther and thither like a distracted tortoise, bends almost double to pick up a strainer.... To be sure the kitchen _is_ tiny.

I speak to her as one speaks to a child. "Do you understand me, Marie?

Don't be afraid, I am not unkind." The lifeless fixity of her face suddenly comes undone, her features contract. Marie was dulled by the monotonous gloom of an asylum in a distant quarter of the city. She slightly raises the heavenly blue of her eyes without fastening them on anything. I see her tenacious hatred wake up and stir. A single flash.

Then her red-rimmed eyes flutter and fall; she is in order again, in the vague sort of order characteristic of things inaccessible and forlorn.

I realize she cannot understand me. To her I mean constraint, uprooting, exile, that unusualness which throws simple people out of their orbits.

And though she has never been accustomed to anything else than maltreatment, neglect, and beatings, I understand.... I try to be gentler, to smile when I turn toward her, for in the end visible kindness should make itself seen.... And it would be so good to reclaim this nature, to explain everything to her, beginning at the beginning.

I recall the scene of yesterday evening. We were at table. She brought in the smoking soup-tureen at arm's length. Her heavy tread rolled like a cannon-ball upon our delight in being together, then she retreated to the kitchen like a dog slinking to its kennel. A crash of china. I jumped up.

"Something broken?"

"No, madam."

"But, Marie...."

"No, madam, no, madam...."

I was close beside her and this time looked deep into her eyes. I saw the freckles on her white skin, and there emanated from her the amazing innocence of an accused child. Her voice came from her palpitating throat with a quiver in it.

"No, no, no."

Poor Marie. I felt remorseful. "I beg your pardon, Marie, we were mistaken."

Nevertheless I didn't budge, as if I were at length going to learn why one human being can be so terrorized by another.... She too stood motionless. I did not notice that her att.i.tude was rather peculiar. I put my hand on her shoulders. "My little Marie...." At this she staggered and trod heavily on breaking china. Her face was imploring....