Whatever attempt he makes, I reply concisely, or else I address to Hamond the answer meant for my admirer . . . This mode of indirect conversation lends our get-togethers an indescribable slowness and false gaiety . . .
*** I’m still rehearsing the new pantomime with Brague.
Sometimes the Folies-Bergere gives us asylum in the morning, or else it’s the Empyree-Clichy that lends us its stage for an hour; we’re still roaming from the Gambrinus beer parlor, which is accustomed to the noisy shouts of performers on Baret tours, to the Cernuschi dance studio.
“It’s falling into shape . . . ,” says Brague, who’s as stingy with compliments for others as for himself.
The Old Caveman is rehearsing with us: he’s a half-starved youngster of eighteen, whom Brague shakes up, badgers, and loads with insults, to the point of arousing my pity:
“You’re too hard on him, Brague! He’s going to cry!”
“Let him cry, and I’ll kick him in the ass!
Tears don’t get any work done!”
Maybe he’s right.
The Old Caveman chokes back his tears, tries to round out his “prehistoric” back, and dedicates himself to guarding a Hamadryad who’s attitudinizing in her white knitted sweater . . .
One morning last week Brague took the trouble to come in person and let me know that there wouldn’t be a rehearsal on the next day.
He found us—Hamond, Dufferein-Chautel, and me—finishing lunch.
I had to let Brague stay for a few minutes, offering him coffee and introducing him to my guests . . . And I saw his little shiny dark eyes furtively coming to rest on my admirer with a curious satisfaction, a kind of assuredness that foolishly vexed me . . .
When I was showing him out again, my partner didn’t interrogate me or permit himself any personal allusions, and my embarrassment doubled.
I rebelled against the silliness of explaining:
“He’s a chum, you know . . . a friend of Hamond’s who came for lunch . . .”
Fossette is now wearing a red morocco collar with gilded studs, in a deplorable “sporting” taste.
I didn’t have the heart to say I thought it was ugly . . . That damned little servile female is fawning up to the well-dressed gentleman, who smells of maleness and tobacco, and whose patting takes the form of a sharp slap on her back . . .
Blandine is everywhere at once, polishing the windowpanes, and bringing the tea tray without being asked, when my admirer is here . . .
Everybody, following the example of my old friend Hamond, seems to be conspiring against me in favor of Maxime Dufferein-Chautel . . . Unfortunately, it costs me so little effort to remain invulnerable! . . .
Invulnerable, and even worse than feelingless: repelled.
Because when I give my hand to my admirer, the touch of his long, hot, dry hand surprises and displeases me.
I never brush up against the cloth of his jacket without bristling nervously a little, and I involuntarily avoid his breath when he speaks, even though it’s fresh and clean . . . I wouldn’t consent to tie his tie, and I’d rather drink out of Hamond’s glass than out of his . . . Why?
It’s because . . . this fellow is a man.
In spite of myself, I always remember he’s a man.
Hamond isn’t a man, he’s a friend.
And Brague is a colleague; so is Bouty.
Those slender, well-muscled acrobats who reveal the most flattering details of their anatomy beneath their lustrous tights . . . well, they’re acrobats!
Has it ever occurred to me that Brague, who in Dominance hugs me so hard he bruises my ribs, and seems to be crushing my lips with his ardent kiss, has a sex? . . .
No.
Well, the slightest glance from my admirer, his most proper handshake, remind me of why he’s there and what he’s hoping for . . .
What a fine pastime this would be for a coquette!
What a fine flirtation, irritating and earnest!
The trouble is, I don’t know how to flirt.
I lack the aptitude, I lack the experience, I lack the lightness of touch, and above all, oh, above all, there’s the memory of my husband!
If for just a moment I recollect Adolphe Taillandy in the exercise of his functions—that is, toiling doggedly, with the hunter’s persistence he’s known for, to seduce a woman or girl, I feel chilled, tense, and completely hostile to lovemaking . . . I recall only too well the conquering expression on his face, his eyes glazed over, his mouth like a cunning child’s, and that ploy of sniffing as if there were perfume in the air . . . Bah!
All those maneuvers and ruses for the sake of love—for the sake of a goal that can’t even be called love—am I to adopt them and imitate them?
Poor Dufferein-Chautel!
Sometimes I think you’re the one being deceived here, and I ought to tell you . . . tell you what?
That I’ve become an old maid again, immune to temptation, and cloistered in my own way between the four walls of a vaudeville dressing room?
No, I won’t tell you that, because, like pupils taking the tenth lesson at Berlitz, we can only exchange rudimentary sentences, in which the words bread, salt, window, temperature, theater, and family take up most of the space . . .
You’re a man, too bad about you!
Everyone in my household seems to have it in mind, not the way I do, but in order to congratulate you on it—from Blandine, who observes you with untiring contentment, down to Fossette, whose wide canine smile also says,
“At last, a man in the house—MAN!”
I don’t know how to talk to you, poor Dufferein-Chautel.
I waver between my personal way of expressing myself, a little clipped, with sentences sometimes left unfinished, but with respect for the preciseness of a technical term—my ex-bluestocking language—and the low but lively, vulgar but picturesque idiom that one learns in the vaudeville house, with its sprinkling of “You said it!,” “Shut up!,” “I’m out of here!,” and “No way!” . . .
I hesitate so long that I choose to remain silent . . .
“HAMOND, DEAR, how happy I am to be lunching with you!
No rehearsal today, sunshine, and you.
It’s wonderful!”