The Misunderstanding

  Yves’s father was a member of a ‘special club’, as they were called at the time, a pure-bred Parisian who led the leisured yet bustling existence of all his peers; he had two passions, though: women and horses. Both had given him the same heady sensation of wild abandon and danger. Thanks to horses, and thanks to women, he could say, as he lay dying, that he had never left Paris except to go to Nice or Trouville, having never known any world other than the grands boulevards, the horse races and the Bois de Boulogne. Having limited his attention to women’s eyes and his desires to their lips, when dying, he could tell the priest, who was promising him eternal life: ‘What use is that to me? All I want is peace. I’ve experienced everything else.’

  Yves was eighteen when his father died. He clearly remembered his soft hands, his tender, slightly mocking smile, the faint, annoying perfume that always followed him, as if the folds of his clothing had retained the sweet smell of all the women he’d made love to. Yves looked like him: he had the same bright, striking eyes and beautiful hands designed to be idle and make love; but his father’s eyes had been so sharp, so passionately alive, while in his son they were sometimes lifeless, so full of world-weariness and apprehension, as dark as deep water …

  Yves also remembered his mother extremely well, even though he had lost her when he was very young; every morning his governess took him to see her in her room, while her hair was being done. She wore delicate peignoirs with frills and flounces of lace that made the sound of birds taking flight when she walked. He even recalled the black satin corsets that shaped her pretty, slim figure into the hourglass silhouette demanded by the fashion of the day, and her red hair and rosy complexion.

  He’d had the happy childhood of a little rich boy who was healthy and pampered. His parents loved him, worried about him, and since they believed they could foresee the future life he would surely lead – free, wealthy, never needing to work – they made an effort to instil in him, from an early age, a taste for beauty, a way of thinking that dignified life, as well as a thousand subtle nuances of elegance and luxury that enhance that existence and give rise to unsurpassed pleasure. So Yves grew up learning to love beautiful things and how to spend money, how to dress, how to ride a horse, to fence and also – thanks to his father’s discreet example – how to regard women as the only worthwhile worldly possession, how to see sensuality as an art and life as elegant, light-hearted and beautiful, from which the wise man should take only joy.

  At the age of eighteen, having finished his studies, Yves found himself an orphan and quite a wealthy one. Forced into relative solitude because he was in mourning, he began to get bored, vaguely thought about starting a university degree, then got the idea to travel, for he was different from his father in that respect, different from his father’s entire generation in that the world was not limited to the Avenue de l’Opéra and the Sentier de la Vertu in the Bois de Boulogne; he had a keen sense of curiosity about foreign lands which his father had mockingly labelled ‘romantic’. So Yves spent several months in England, dreamed of a trip to Japan that never materialised, visited some small dead old German villages, spent a few wonderful, peaceful days in Siena and the spring in Spain, inspired to go there by his happiest childhood memories of Hendaye, on the Spanish border, in an ancient house that belonged to his parents, and where he and his governess used to be sent to spend the summer holidays. He travelled constantly for a little more than two years, finally returning to Paris at the beginning of 1911. He settled there once and for all, arranging to do his military service in Versailles. The next two or three passed years quickly and calmly. He remembered them now as one recalls certain springtimes: brief, full of sunshine and fleeting love affairs, which all seem so empty yet enchanting. And then, abruptly, war exploded right into his existence, like a thunderbolt straight out of a blue sky.

  1914: his departure, initial enthusiasm, the horrors of death. 1915: cold, hunger, mud in the trenches, death becoming a familiar companion who walks alongside you and sleeps in your dugout. 1916: more cold, filth, death. 1917: exhaustion, resignation, death … A long, long nightmare … Some of those who had survived, the calm middle-class men, had returned unchanged; they slid back into their former way of life, their former state of mind, as they slid back into their old slippers. Others, the passionate men, had returned to society with their outrage, their fervour, their tormented desires. Still others, like Yves, had simply come home exhausted. At first they believed it would pass, that the memories of those dark hours would fade as life became peaceful, normal, serene; they believed they would wake up one beautiful morning as energetic, joyful and young as before. But time passed, and ‘it’ remained, like some slow-working poison. ‘It’: that strange faraway look which had seen every sort of human horror, every type of misery, every fear; a disregard for life and the bitter desire for its basest joys, its most carnal pleasures; idleness, because the only work they had done back there, for so many years, was to sit by, with folded arms, waiting for death; and a kind of bitter hostility towards others, all the others, because they hadn’t suffered, because they hadn’t seen … Many men had returned with these or similar thoughts; many had continued to exist, like Lazarus risen, walking among the living, arms outstretched, steps hindered by a shroud, pupils dilated in desolate terror.

  It was only in 1919 that Yves, who had been wounded three times and awarded the Croix de Guerre, returned to Paris for good. He began to put his affairs in order, to calculate what remained of his fortune. His inheritance had been divided into two parts and held in trust by a lawyer until he reached his majority. The portion he had inherited from his mother had been invested in a factory belonging to his maternal uncle, a fabulously wealthy industrialist. Nothing left of that: his uncle had died penniless in 1915. As for his father’s money, it had been used before the war to buy foreign stocks and shares, Russian and German for the most part. In the end, Yves found himself with an income that was sufficient to pay for his cigarettes and taxis. He would have to work for a living. Later on, he could never think back on those years without a shiver down his spine. This young man, who for four years had been a kind of hero, was cowardly when faced with the daily grind, the need to work, the petty tyranny of existence. He undoubtedly could have taken a rich wife, as many others did, by marrying the daughter of some nouveau riche family or a wealthy American; but this went against his upbringing which had given him all the scruples and sensitivity that are a luxury, just like others, but more burdensome, along with certain principles that furnish a conscience similar to a Gothic chair: very hard with a high back, very beautiful and very uncomfortable. Yves had finally found a post in the administrative offices of a large agency specialising in international news – two thousand five hundred francs per month, better than he could have hoped for.

  Since 1920 – it was now August 1924 – Yves had led the life of an employee, a life he hated in the way certain small boys who are very lazy and very sensitive hate boarding school. He had kept his old apartment; it was full of memories, flowers, beautiful objects lovingly displayed. Every morning at eight o’clock, when he had to get out of bed, quickly dress and leave its shadowy warmth for the brutally cold street and his hostile, bare office where the entire day was spent giving and receiving orders, writing and talking to people, Yves felt the same despair, the same hateful, vain impulse to rebel, a horrible, black, crushing boredom. He was neither ambitious nor motivated; he carried out his duties with care, almost the way a pupil prepares his lessons for school.

  The very idea that he might be good at business or might fight to try to become rich again never even crossed his mind. As the son and grandson of rich men, idle men, he suffered from his lack of comfort, the inability to be carefree, the way other people suffer from hunger or cold. Gradually he grew used to his life, because people eventually get used to everything, more or less, but his grim resignation weighed heavily upon him. The days dragged on, each the same, bringing with them, come the evening, a feeling of extreme w
eariness, headaches, a bitter and unhealthy need for solitude. He would eat quickly at a restaurant, or sitting by the fire with his dog Pierrot at his feet, a curly white Spitz that looked like a china figurine of a sheep, and he would go to bed early because cabarets and dance halls were expensive, because he had to get up early the next day. He had mistresses, affairs that lasted two or three months at the most, quickly begun and quickly ended: he very soon got bored with them. He changed women often because he concluded that only the first encounter was worth anything: he was an expert at the essentially modern art of ‘dropping women’: he knew how to get rid of them gently. Sometimes, after he’d just broken off with one of them, he felt as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders and he would remember his father, who believed he could find the meaning of life in a woman’s eyes, her breasts, those brief explosions of pleasure. A woman … To Yves, a woman was nothing more than a pretty, useful object: firstly, he’d had so many since the war, they were so easy … and then because really … no, no, he did his best to look deep into those loving, lying eyes but never found that intimate essential thrill, that elusive glimpse of the unknown that his father believed he had attained and which Yves too, perhaps, was searching for blindly, without realising it. And he thought that for someone who had looked deep into the eyes of dying men, someone who had fallen in battle, wounded, someone who had opened his eyes wide in despair to catch a glimpse of sky before he died, for a man like that a woman held no secret, no mystery, no other attractions except her willingness, her beauty, her youth. Love … love must be a feeling of peace, of calm, of infinite serenity … Love must be so soothing … if it even existed …

  4

  EVERY SUMMER YVES got a few weeks off and, since he led a very frugal life all winter, he could allow himself to spend his holidays as he pleased. This year he had gone back to Hendaye, moved by the idea of seeing once more the enchanting beach of his childhood, and because he thought that Hendaye held fewer temptations than other places while still being close to Biarritz and Saint Sebastian, two of the most attractive cities on the cosmopolitan circuit. Besides, he loved both the wild, free waves and the dazzling light of the Basque country. And the idle, easy life of the best hotels gave him the same pleasant sensation of renewed comfort that you feel when you sink into a bathtub full of warm water after a long train journey.

  The day after arriving, Yves left his room at two o’clock; he had taken his time to dress meticulously; he finished lunch almost alone in the immense dining room. In spite of the lowered canvas awnings that shaded the large bay windows, the sun spread through the dining room in waves: gleaming, tawny-coloured, like a fabulous mane of hair. Yves forced himself to resist the childish temptation that came over him to wave his fingers through the golden rays that danced over the tablecloth and cutlery, and lit up his glass of vintage Burgundy as if it were filled with blood and rubies. Nearby, a few Spanish families were finishing their meal, jabbering at the tops of their voices. The women were heavy-set and losing their looks; the young men were very handsome. But almost all of them had wonderful eyes, fiery and lush as velvet, and as he watched them Yves recalled how close Spain was and dreamed of going there in October, to see the pink houses and patios with water fountains again. But, just in time, his hazy daydream was brutally invaded by the annoying reminder of the date when his holidays would end, just as if it were a figure representing the value of the peseta during this month of August in the year of our Lord 1924, so, sadly but sensibly, he looked away, letting his gaze wander off towards the Pyrenees and back to the fat, juicy pear he was peeling. He finished eating it, then went out on to the terrace.

  A few people were sitting around wicker tables in groups, drinking coffee and reading the newspapers from Paris or Madrid. Some musicians were lazily tuning up their instruments on a small platform. In the garden energetic teenagers were already playing tennis. The sea breeze filled the large cloth awnings, making them flap like the sails of a boat. Yves walked over to the balustrade to look out at the sea: he never grew tired of it.

  He heard someone call out his name: ‘How are you, Harteloup? Have you been here long?’

  He turned round and recognised Jessaint. Next to him, in a rocking chair, the young woman he had glimpsed earlier was swaying back and forth. She was dressed all in white, with bare legs and no hat, and wore sandals tied with ribbons on her delicate feet. Beside her, her little girl was romping about on the warm paving stones of the terrace.

  ‘Do you know my wife?’ Jessaint asked. ‘Denise, this is Monsieur Harteloup.’

  Yves bowed; then he replied to the first question he had been asked: ‘I just got here yesterday. That should be obvious,’ he added, smiling as he stretched out his pale Parisian hands.

  The young woman began to laugh. ‘You’re right! We’re all as dark as Africans here …’

  Then she looked more closely at Yves and continued: ‘Am I wrong or … was it you my little girl threw sand at earlier, on the beach? I should have apologised right away; but I preferred to pretend I thought you were asleep … I was embarrassed to have such a naughty little girl,’ she added, pulling the child close; her daughter raised her round, happy face and looked at her.

  Yves put on a gruff voice. ‘So, Mademoiselle, you’re the one who tortures poor little boys who have never done a thing to you?’

  The child burst out laughing as she hid her head between her mother’s knees.

  ‘She seems to be in a good mood,’ said Yves.

  ‘She’s impossible,’ said her mother, but with much pride in her eyes.

  She lifted the tiny round chin buried in her dress. ‘Well, you must forgive us, even though we are very mischievous and very naughty, because we are still very young, isn’t that right, Mademoiselle Francette?’ she said. ‘We’re not even two and a half yet.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Yves, ‘I won’t forgive her.’

  He took the pretty little girl in his arms and started throwing her up in the air and catching her; she kicked her bare legs with all her might and squealed with laughter. When Yves pretended to put her down on the ground she begged: ‘Again, again, please, Monsieur’; and Yves, delighted to have a game with this rosy, tanned little bundle, started all over again, even more vigorously than before. Both of them were disappointed to say goodbye when her nanny came to take Mademoiselle Francette to the beach.

  ‘Do you like children?’ asked Jessaint after the reluctant infant was taken away.

  ‘I adore them, especially when they are good-looking and healthy and always laughing, like your little girl.’

  ‘She’s not always like that,’ said Denise, smiling, ‘especially here. The sea goes to her head. She goes from laughter to tears so suddenly and with such ease that sometimes I despair.’

  ‘What do you call her?’

  ‘Francette, France, because she was born on the anniversary of the Armistice.’

  ‘It’s funny that you like children …’ said Jessaint. ‘I’m crazy about my daughter, it’s true, but I can’t stand other people’s children. They make a noise and are deadly boring.’

  ‘Well, what about yours?’ Denise protested. ‘She makes more noise than an entire school all by herself!’

  ‘First of all, you’re exaggerating … And besides, she’s mine, as you said, and especially, yours,’ he concluded, lightly kissing his wife’s hand.

  Yves looked at him and saw that his face lit up with affection when he spoke to Denise. Jessaint noticed the keen look the young man shot at them; he was afraid that Yves might think such effusiveness was in bad taste.

  ‘You must think me foolish …’ he said, somewhat embarrassed, ‘it’s just that I’m going away, so I’m feeling rather emotional …’

  ‘Ah, so you’re going away?’

  ‘Yes, to London … for a few weeks … I’m leaving tonight.’

  Then, feeling guilty for talking too much about himself and his family, he asked: ‘And what about you, my friend, what have you been up
to?’

  Yves made a vague gesture.

  Jessaint continued to explain to his wife: ‘Harteloup and I were at the Saints-Anges Hospital together, in that horrible, gloomy little village in Belgium whose name I forget …’

  ‘Wassin … or Lieuwassin?’

  ‘Lieuwassin … that’s it … he was badly smashed up, poor man …’

  ‘I was shot through the left lung,’ said Yves, ‘but it’s healed now.’

  ‘I’m so glad, really glad … My leg is still painful; I can’t ride any more.’

  ‘Have you seen each other since then?’ asked Denise.

  ‘Yes, occasionally at the Haguets’ and also on the rue Bassano, that’s right, isn’t it? At Louis de Brémont’s place? But I didn’t know you were married, Jessaint.’

  ‘I wasn’t at the time … just engaged. Since we got married we rarely go out. I travel a lot for work.’

  ‘I know,’ said Yves. ‘I’ve heard about your invention.’

  He was talking about a device that could capture and recycle the smoke from factory chimneys, which had earned the young engineer Jessaint a huge fortune during the war and a great deal of fame.

  Jessaint blushed slightly; he had a kind face, even though it was somewhat simple with rugged features, but lit by his very soft, very clear blue eyes.

  The maître d’ had just brought the coffee, so Denise poured it out; the sunlight shimmered on the downy hair of her bare arm; she had the serious smile of a statuette. Then she crossed her hands behind her neck, closed her eyes and started gently swaying back and forth in her rocking chair, while the men continued talking in low voices about the war, about the people who had come back and the ones who hadn’t.

  A little while later she interrupted them: ‘Excuse me … Can you tell me what time it is?’