“You didn’t find anything? Didn’t you by chance take a letter that began: ‘Oh, no, I’m not bored. We ought to get away from each other for one week out of every month,’ and then went on to say something or other about a honeysuckle vine that was climbing by the window? . . .”
He stopped talking only because his memory was failing him. He made a slight gesture of impatience. Edmée, slender and rigid before him, didn’t lose heart:
“No, no, I didn’t take anything,” she emphasized with curt irritation. “Since when have I been capable of taking things? So, you allowed a letter that’s so precious to you to just lie around somewhere? I don’t need to ask whether a letter like that was from Léa!”
He gave a slight start, but not in the way Edmée expected. A transitory half-smile passed over his handsome, expressionless face, and, with his head leaning to one side, his eyes watchful, and the delectable bow of his lips relaxed, he might have been listening to the echo of a name . . . With all of her young strength, loving but not yet under control, Edmée burst out into shouts, tears, and gestures of her hands, either contorted or open as if to scratch:
“Go away! I hate you! You’ve never loved me! You care no more about me than if I didn’t exist! You hurt me, you have contempt for me, you’re rude, you’re . . . you’re . . . All you think about is that old woman! Your desires are those of a sick man, a degenerate, a . . . a . . . You don’t love me! Why, I wonder, why did you marry me? . . . You’re . . . You’re . . .”
She was tossing her head like an animal that has been grasped by the neck, and when she threw her head back to gasp for air in a choking fit, he could see the gleam of the small, milky, evenly matched pearls of her necklace. Chéri was stupefied as he observed the unruly motions of that charming, swelling throat, the supplication in those tightly clasped hands, and, above all, those tears, those tears . . . He had never seen so many tears . . . Who had ever wept in his presence, on his account? Nobody . . . Madame Peloux? “But,” he thought, “Madame Peloux’s tears don’t count . . .” Léa? No. In the depths of his most profoundly hidden memories he recalled two eyes of a frank blue which had never glistened except with pleasure, mischievousness, and a somewhat mocking tenderness . . . So many tears on the face of that young woman thrashing about in front of him! What can be done for all those tears? He didn’t know. All the same, he held out an arm and, when Edmée recoiled, perhaps fearing some rough treatment, he placed on her head his beautiful, soft, scent-steeped hand, and he caressed that disheveled head, trying to imitate a voice and words whose power he knew:
“Là . . . là. . . . Qu’est-ce que c’est. . . . Qu’est-ce que c’est donc . . . là. . . .”
Edmée fondit brusquement et tomba sur un siège où elle se ramassa toute, et elle se mit à sangloter avec passion, avec une frénésie qui ressemblait à un rire houleux et aux saccades de la joie. Son gracieux corps courbé bondissait, soulevé par le chagrin, l’amour jaloux, la colère, la servilité qui s’ignore, et cependant, comme le lutteur en plein combat, comme le nageur au sein de la vague, elle se sentait baignée dans un élément nouveau, naturel et amer.
Elle pleura longtemps et se remit lentement, par accalmies traversées de grandes secousses, de hoquets tremblés. Chéri s’était assis près d’elle et continuait de lui caresser les cheveux. Il avait dépassé le moment cuisant de sa propre émotion, et s’ennuyait. Il parcourait du regard Edmée, jetée de biais sur le canapé sec, et il n’aimait pas que ce corps étendu, avec sa robe relevée, son écharpe déroulée, aggravât le désordre de la pièce.
Si bas qu’il eût soupiré d’ennui, elle l’entendit et se redressa.
“Oui, dit-elle, je t’excède. . . . Ah! il vaudrait mieux. . . .”
Il l’interrompit, redoutant un flot de paroles:
“Ce n’est pas ça, mais je ne sais pas ce que tu veux.
— Comment, ce que je veux. . . . Comment, ce que je. . . .”
Elle montrait son visage enrhumé par les larmes.
“Suis-moi bien.”
Il lui prit les mains. Elle voulut se dégager.
“Non, non, je connais cette voix-là! Tu vas me tenir encore un raisonnement de l’autre monde! Quand tu prends cette voix et cette figure-là, je sais que tu vas me démontrer que tu as l’œil fait comme un surmulet et la bouche en forme de chiffre trois couché sur le dos! Non, non, je ne veux pas!”
Elle récriminait puérilement, et Chéri se détendit à sentir qu’ils étaient tous les deux très jeunes. Il secoua les mains chaudes qu’il retenait:
“Mais, écoute-moi donc! Bon Dieu, je voudrais savoir ce que tu me reproches! Est-ce que je sors le soir sans toi? Non! Est-ce que je te quitte souvent dans la journée? Est-ce que j’ai une correspondance clandestine?
— Je ne sais pas. . . . Je ne crois pas. . . .”
Il la faisait virer de côté et d’autre, comme une poupée.
“Est-ce que j’ai une chambre à part? Est-ce que je ne te fais pas bien l’amour?”
“There, there . . . What’s wrong? . . . What’s wrong, now? . . . There . . .”
Edmée melted all at once and dropped onto a seat, on which she curled up and started to sob passionately, with a frenzy that resembled tempestuous laughter and the upheavals of joy. Her graceful bent body was shaking up and down, agitated by sorrow, jealous love, anger, and an unconscious feeling of inferiority; nevertheless, like a wrestler in the midst of a match, like a swimmer in the heart of a wave, she felt herself enveloped in a new element, one that was natural and bitter.
She wept for a long time, coming out of it only slowly, through periods of calm that were interrupted by violent shudders and irregular hiccups. Chéri had sat down beside her, and was continuing to caress her hair. He had passed the most painful moment of his own emotion, and he was already bored. He cast his eyes over Edmée, who had flung herself diagonally across the hard sofa-bed. He didn’t like seeing that outstretched body, with its pulled-up dress and unrolled sash, increasing the disorder of the room.
Though his sigh of boredom was very low, she heard it and sat up.
“Yes,” she said, “I’m trying your patience . . . Oh, it would be better . . .”
He interrupted her, fearing a flood of words:
“It’s not that, but I don’t know what you want.”
“What do you mean, what I want? . . . What do you mean, what I . . .”
She showed her face, which was red and wet with tears.
“Follow me.”
He took her hands. She wanted to pull away.
“No, no, I know that tone in your voice! You’re going to make me another absolutely incredible speech! When you take on that tone and put that expression on your face, I know that you’re going to show me that your eyes are shaped like mullets, and your mouth looks like a figure 3 lying on its side! No, no, I won’t listen!”
Her recriminations were childish, and Chéri grew calmer when he realized how young they both were. He shook the two hot hands he was holding:
“But just listen! My God, I’d like to know what you’re blaming me for! Do I go out at night without you? No! Do I leave you alone frequently during the day? Am I carrying on a secret correspondence?”
“I don’t know . . . I don’t think so . . .”
He was turning her this way and that, like a doll.
“Do I have a separate bedroom? Don’t I make love to you properly?”
Elle hésita, sourit avec une finesse soupçonneuse.
“Tu appelles cela l’amour, Fred. . . .
— Il y a d’autres mots, mais tu ne les apprécies pas.
— Ce que tu appelles l’amour . . . est-ce que cela ne peut pas être, justement, une . . . une espèce . . . d’alibi?”
Elle ajouta précipitamment:
“Je généralise, Fred, tu comprends. . . . Je dis, cela peut être, dans certains cas. . . .”
Il lâcha les mains d’Edmée:
“Ça, dit-il froidement, c’est la gaffe.
— Pourquoi?”
demanda-t-elle d’une voix faible.
Il siffla, le menton en l’air, en s’éloignant de quelques pas. Puis, il revint sur sa femme, la toisa en étrangère. Une bête terrible n’a pas besoin de bondir pour effrayer, — Edmée vit qu’il avait les narines gonflées et le bout du nez blanc.
“Peuh! . . .” souffla-t-il, en regardant sa femme. Il haussa les épaules et fit demi-tour. Au bout de la chambre, il revint.
“Peuh! . . . répéta-t-il. Ça parle.
— Comment?
— Ça parle et pour dire quoi? Ça se permet, ma parole. . . .”
Elle se leva avec rage:
“Fred, cria-t-elle, tu ne me parleras pas deux fois sur ce ton-là! Pour qui me prends-tu?
— Mais pour une gaffeuse, est-ce que je ne viens pas d’avoir l’honneur de te le dire?”
Il lui toucha l’épaule d’un index dur, elle en souffrit comme d’une meurtrissure grave.
“Toi qui es bachelière, est-ce qu’il n’y a pas quelque part un . . . une sentence, qui dit: “Ne touchez pas au couteau, au poignard”, au truc, enfin?
— A la hache, dit-elle machinalement.
— C’est ça. Eh bien, mon petit, il ne faut pas toucher à la hache. C’est-à-dire blesser un homme . . . dans ses faveurs, si j’ose m’exprimer ainsi. Tu m’as blessé dans les dons que je te fais. . . . Tu m’as blessé dans mes faveurs.
— Tu . . . tu parles comme une cocotte!” bégaya-t-elle.
Elle rougissait, perdait sa force et son sang-froid. Elle le haïssait de demeurer pâle, de garder une supériorité dont tout le secret tenait dans le port de tête, l’aplomb des jambes, la désinvolture des épaules et des bras. . . .
L’index dur plia de nouveau l’épaule d’Edmée.
She hesitated, then smiled with a subtlety that had an element of suspicion in it.
“You call that love, Fred . . .”
“There are other words for it, but you don’t care for them.”
“What you call love . . . Might that not be really a . . . a kind of . . . alibi?”
She added hastily:
“I’m speaking in general terms, Fred, you understand . . . I mean, in certain cases, it could be . . .”
He let go of Edmée’s hands.
“That,” he said coldly, “was a foolish blunder.”
“Why?” she asked in a weak voice.
He started to whistle with his chin in the air, walking away a few steps. Then he returned to his wife and looked her up and down as if she were a stranger. A wild animal doesn’t have to leap at you to frighten you—Edmée saw that his nostrils were flaring and the tip of his nose was pale.
“Bah!” he puffed, looking at his wife. He shrugged his shoulders and did an about-face. When he reached the end of the room, he returned.
“Bah!” he repeated. “It speaks.”
“How’s that?”
“It speaks, and what does it say? My word, it takes the liberty . . .”
She stood up, furious:
“Fred,” she shouted, “I won’t have you talk to me like that again! Who do you take me for?”
“For a blunderer, that’s what. Haven’t I just had the honor of telling you so?”
He prodded her shoulder with a hard index finger, and it hurt her like a heavy bruise.
“You graduated from school. Isn’t there some . . . some maxim somewhere that says: ‘Don’t lay hands on the knife,’ or ‘on the dagger,’ or on some such thing?”
“On the axe,” she said mechanically.
“Right! Well, my girl, you shouldn’t lay hands on the axe—that is, wound a man . . . where his ‘favors’ are concerned, if I may express it that way. You have wounded me with regard to the gifts that I give you . . . You’ve wounded me with regard to my favors.”
“You . . . you speak just like a cocotte!” she stammered.
She was blushing and losing her strength and her equanimity. She hated him for remaining pale and retaining a superiority, the whole secret of which consisted of the way he held his head, the steadiness of his legs, and the nonchalant posture of his shoulders and arms . . .
His hard index finger made a new dent in Edmée’s shoulder.
“Pardon, pardon. Je vous épaterais bien en affirmant qu’au contraire c’est vous qui pensez comme une grue. En fait d’estimation, on ne trompe pas le fils Peloux. Je m’y connais en “cocottes”, comme vous dites. Je m’y connais un peu. Une “cocotte”, c’est une dame qui s’arrange généralement pour recevoir plus qu’elle ne donne. Vous m’entendez?”
Elle entendait surtout qu’il ne la tutoyait plus.
“Dix-neuf ans, la peau blanche, les cheveux qui sentent la vanille; et puis, au lit, les yeux fermés et les bras ballants. Tout ça, c’est très joli, mais est-ce que c’est bien rare? Croyez-vous que c’est bien rare?”
Elle tressaillait à chaque mot et chaque piqûre l’éveillait pour le duel de femelle à mâle.
“Possible que ce soit rare, dit-elle d’une voix ferme, mais comment pourrais-tu le savoir?”
Il ne répondit pas et elle se hâta de marquer un avantage:
“Moi, dit-elle, j’ai vu en Italie des hommes plus beaux que toi. Ça court les rues. Mes dix-neuf ans valent ceux de la voisine, un joli garçon vaut un autre joli garçon, va, va, tout peut s’arranger. . . . Un mariage, à présent, c’est une mesure pour rien. Au lieu de nous aigrir à des scènes ridicules. . . .”
Il l’arrêta d’un hochement de tête presque miséricordieux:
“Ah! pauvre gosse . . . ce n’est pas si simple. . . .
— Pourquoi? Il y a des divorces rapides, en y mettant le prix.”
Elle parlait d’un air tranchant de pensionnaire évadée, qui faisait peine. Ses cheveux soulevés audessus de son front, le contour doux et enveloppé de sa joue rendaient plus sombres ses yeux anxieux et intelligents, ses yeux de femme malheureuse, ses yeux achevés et définitifs dans un visage indécis.
“Ça n’arrangerait rien, dit Chéri.
— Parce que?
— Parce que. . . .”
Il pencha son front où les sourcils s’effilaient en ailes pointues, ferma les yeux et les rouvrit comme s’il venait d’avaler une amère gorgée:
“Parce que tu m’aimes. . . .”
Elle ne prit garde qu’au tutoiement revenu, et surtout au son de la voix, plein, un peu étouffé, la voix des meilleures heures. Elle acquiesça au fond d’elle-même: “C’est vrai, je l’aime; il n’y a pas, en ce moment, de remède.”
La cloche du dîner sonna dans le jardin, une cloche trop petite qui
“Excuse me, excuse me. You’d probably be astonished if I told you that, on the contrary, you’re the one who’s thinking like a tart. When it comes to evaluating such things, no one fools young Peloux here. I know my way around ‘cocottes,’ as you call them. I think I know my way around them. A ‘cocotte’ is a lady who generally arranges to get more than she gives. Understand?”
What she heard more than anything else was that he had stopped addressing her as tu.
“Nineteen years old, white skin, hair that smells of vanilla—then, in bed, eyes closed and dangling arms. All that is very pretty, but is it very unusual? Do you think it’s very unusual?”
She winced at every word, and every sting aroused her for the duel between female and male.
“Maybe it is unusual,” she said in a firm tone, “but how would you know?”
He didn’t answer, and she hastened to mark up a point against him:
“As for me,” she said, “in Italy I saw men who were handsomer than you. The streets are full of them. I, at nineteen, am as good as the next girl of that age; one good-looking boy is as good as the next; come now, everything can be arranged . . . A marriage nowadays is a meaningless ceremony. Instead of embittering ourselves by making ridiculous scenes . . .”
He stopped her with an almost pitying shake of his head:
“Oh, poor kid . . . it’s not that simple . . .”
“Why not? There are quick divorces, yo
u just have to pay enough.”
She was speaking in a peremptory fashion, like a runaway boarding-school girl, and it was painful to hear her. Her hair, raised above her forehead, and the gentle, plump outline of her cheeks made her anxious, intelligent eyes darker—those eyes of an unhappy woman, eyes that were complete and definitive in a face that was still undetermined.
“That wouldn’t settle anything,” Chéri said.
“Why not?”
“Because . . .”
He leaned his head forward—that forehead on which the eyebrows narrowed into pointed wings—shut his eyes, and opened them again as if he had just swallowed a bitter mouthful:
“Because you love me . . .”
All she paid attention to was the fact that he was addressing her as tu again, and especially the sound of his voice, full and slightly muffled, the tone he used when he was at his best. Deep in her heart she concurred: “It’s true, I love him; there’s no help for it at the moment.”
The dinner bell rang in the garden, a too-small bell that had been
datait d’avant Mme Peloux, une cloche d’orphelinat de province, triste et limpide. Edmée frissonna:
“Oh! je n’aime pas cette cloche. . . .
— Oui? dit Chéri distraitement.
—Chez nous, on annoncera les repas au lieu de les sonner. Chez nous, on n’aura pas ces façons de pension de famille; tu verras, chez nous. . . .”