A brown haze floats over it all, wafting the awful stench of cold tobacco and cheap cigars smoked down to the smallest stump . . .
On the other hand, the four stage boxes are as resplendent as flower stands . . . A fine Saturday!
But, to use young Jadin’s drastic expression:
“Who gives a damn? I don’t get a percentage of the take!”
Right from the first few bars of our overture, I feel relieved and in tune; I’ve become unburdened and free from responsibility.
Leaning my elbow against the canvas balcony, I serenely observe the powdery layer—mud from shoes, dust, dog hairs, crushed rosin—that covers the boards on which in a little while I’ll be dragging my bare knees, and I sniff at a red artificial geranium.
From that moment on, I’m no longer part of myself, and all is well!
I know that I won’t fall while dancing, that my heel won’t catch in the hem of my skirt, that when I collapse, manhandled by Brague, I won’t scrape my elbows or flatten my nose.
Keeping a straight face, I’ll vaguely hear the young stagehand who, at the most dramatic moment, imitates the sound of farts behind the flat, to crack us up . . . The harsh light carries me through, the music governs my gestures, and a mysterious discipline both subjects and protects me . . . All’s well.
All is very well!
Our poorly lit Saturday audience has rewarded us with an uproar in which there were bravos, whistles, shouts, and well-meant obscenities, and I received, right on the corner of my mouth, a small bunch of penny carnations, those anemic white ones which the woman who sells flowers out of a basket dips into a red liquid to dye them . . . I carry it off pinned to my jacket lapel; it smells of pepper and wet dogs.
I also carry off a letter I’ve just been handed:
“Madame, I was in the first row of the orchestra; your talent as a mime leads me to believe that you possess other talents, even more special and more captivating; give me the pleasure of having supper with me tonight . . . ”
It’s signed
“Marquis de Fontanges” (I swear!) and it was written at the Delta Cafe . . . How many scions of noble families, long thought to be extinct, take up residence at the Delta Cafe? . . .
Unlikely as it may seem, I suspect that this Marquis de Fontanges is a close relative of that Comte de Lavalliere who offered me afternoon tea last week in his bachelor apartment.
Commonplace hoaxes, but you can detect in them that romantic love for high society and that respect for coats-of-arms which shelter beneath so many shapeless peaked caps in this neighborhood of hooligans.
AS USUAL, it’s with a deep sigh that I shut behind me the door of my ground-floor apartment.
A sigh of weariness, of relaxation, of relief, or the anguish of loneliness?
Let’s not go into it, please!
What’s wrong with me tonight? . . .
It’s the glacial December fog, all spangles of frost in suspension, which vibrates around the gas lamps in an iridescent halo, which melts on your lips with a taste of wood tar . . .
And then, this brand-new neighborhood I live in, which has sprung up, all white, beyond Les Ternes, disheartens the eyes and the mind.
Beneath the greenish gas, my street at this hour is a creamy mess of burnt almond, mocha brown, and caramel yellow, a dessert that has caved in and melted, with the nougat of the building stones floating on top.
Even my house, all alone on its street, has an unreal look. But its spanking new walls and thin partitions offer at a moderate price a shelter that’s sufficiently comfortable for “single ladies” like me.
When you’re a “single lady”—that is, a landlord’s pet aversion, terror, and pariah rolled into one—you take what you find, you reside where you can, you put up with the freshness of the plaster . . . The house I live in grants merciful asylum to a whole colony of “single ladies.”
On the mezzanine floor we have the acknowledged mistress of Mr. Young (of Young Automobiles); on the floor above her there’s the very well “kept” girlfriend of the Comte de Bravailles; above her, two blonde sisters daily receive a visit from one “very respectable gentleman who’s an industrialist”; on the highest floor, a horrible young party girl leads the life of an unleashed fox terrier day and night: yelling, piano playing, singing, empty bottles thrown out of the window.
“She’s the disgrace of the building,” Madame Young Automobiles said one day.
Lastly, on the ground floor, there’s me. I never yell, I don’t play the piano, I seldom receive gentlemen, and ladies even less often . . .
The little tart on the fifth floor makes too much noise, and I don’t make enough; my concierge tells me straight to my face:
“It’s odd, I never know if you’re in, I don’t hear you.
No one would ever believe you were a performer!”
Oh, what an ugly December night!
The radiator smells of strong disinfectant.
Blandine has forgotten to put the hot-water bottle in my bed, and even my dog, in a bad mood, surly, and suffering from the cold, merely casts a black-and-white glance at me, without leaving her basket. My goodness!
I’m not asking for triumphal arches or street illuminations, but all the same . . .
Oh, I can look all over, in the corners and under the bed, there’s no one here, no one but me.
The tall mirror in my bedroom reflects only the grease-painted image of a vaudeville Gypsy; it reflects . . . only me.
So here I am, in my real shape!
Tonight, in front of the long mirror, I won’t avoid that soliloquy which a hundred times I’ve evaded, accepted, fled, resumed, and broken off . . . Too bad! I feel in advance that any attempt at diversion will be in vain.
Tonight I won’t be sleepy, and the charm of the book—ah, that new book, that just-published book whose fragrance of printer’s ink and fresh paper reminds me of the smell of coal, locomotives, and the beginning of a journey!—the charm of the book won’t keep my thoughts off myself . . .
So here I am, in my real shape!
Alone, alone, and no doubt, for my whole life.
Already alone!
It’s too soon.
Without finding myself mortified by it, I’ve passed the age of thirty; after all, this face of mine only gains its value from the expression that enlivens it, from the color of my eyes, and from the wary smile that plays over it, what Marinetti calls my gaiezza volpina, my foxlike cheerfulness . . . None too wily a fox, one that a chicken could catch!
A fox devoid of greed, remembering only the trap and the cage . . . Yes, a jolly-looking fox, but only because the corners of her mouth and eyes suggest an involuntary smile . . . A fox tired of dancing in captivity to the sound of music . . .
And yet it’s true that I resemble a fox!
But a pretty, delicate fox isn’t ugly, is it? . . .
Brague also says I look like a rat when I purse my lips and blink in order to see better . . . None of that makes me angry.