“The same here!” Hamond says, growing animated. “Do you remember when my little doll of a Jeanne used to give her opinion of my paintings?
‘Henri was born conscientious and outmoded,’ she used to proclaim. And I didn’t make a peep!”
We laugh, we’re happy, it makes us younger to stir up those bitter, humiliating memories . . . Why does my old friend have to spoil this Saturday, so in line with all our traditions, by bringing up the name of Dufferein-Chautel?
I pout angrily:
“Again!
Leave me in peace for a while with that gentleman, Hamond!
What do I know of him?
That he’s clean, properly brought up, that he likes bulldogs and smokes cigarettes.
If, on top of all that, he’s also infatuated with me (let me be modest about it), that’s no great merit.”
“But you do all you can to avoid knowing him!” “I have the right to.”
Hamond gets annoyed and clicks his tongue disapprovingly:
“You have the right, you have the right . . .
Your arguments are infantile, my dear friend, I assure you! . . .”
I free my hand, which he was keeping under his, and I speak rapidly, in spite of myself:
“What do you assure me?
That he’s a guaranteed-safe investment?
What do you want, after all?
For me to sleep with that gentleman?”
“Renee!”
“Well, it’s got to be said!
You want me to behave like everyone?
To make up my mind?
Him or somebody else, what does it matter? . . .
You want to disturb the peace that I’ve won back, you want to direct my life toward some other concern than the rugged, bracing, and natural one of earning my own living?
Or are you prescribing a lover for my health, like a purge?
What for?
I’m feeling well, and, thank God, I’m not in love, I’m not in love, I’ll never again love anyone, anyone, anyone!”
I’ve shouted that so loud that I suddenly fall silent in embarrassment.
Hamond, feeling less emotional than I, gives me time to get control of myself, while my blood, which has risen to my cheeks, slowly redescends to my heart . . .
“You’ll never again love anyone?
My Lord, that may be true.
And that would be the saddest thing of all . . . You, young, strong, and affectionate . . . Yes, that would be the saddest thing of all . . .”
Angry, close to tears, I look at the friend who dares talk to me that way:
“Oh, Hamond! . . .
It’s you, you, saying that to me?
After what you . . . what we have been through, can you still hope for love?”
Hamond turns his eyes away, those eyes so young in his old face; he stares at the bright window and replies vaguely:
“Yes . . . I’m very happy just as I am, it’s true . . .
But to be so sure of myself for that reason, to declare that I’ll never love anyone again, I wouldn’t dare to, absolutely not . . .”
That strange reply of Hamond’s has dried up our conversation, because I don’t like talking about love . . . The most intentional smuttiness doesn’t scare me, but I don’t like talking about love . . . If I had lost a dearly loved child, I think I would never again be able to pronounce its name.
*** “Come have a feed at Olympe’s tonight,” Brague said to me at the rehearsal. “After that, we’ll go say goodbye to our buddies in the revue, at the Emp’-Clich’.”
I can’t possibly be mistaken: this isn’t an invitation to dinner; we’re two colleagues, and the etiquette (there is one!) prevalent among theatrical colleagues rules out all ambiguity.
So tonight I meet Brague at Olympe’s Bar, which has a bad name.
Bad name?
What do I care?
Freed from worries about my reputation, it’s without apprehension and without pleasure that I cross the threshold of this little Montmartre eatery, which is quiet from seven to ten and jumping the rest of the night with a rather artificial racket of shouts, clattering plates, and guitars.
I used to dine here sometimes, quickly, alone or with Brague last month before showing up at the Empyree-Clichy.
A waitress from the provinces, calm and slow amid the customers’ calls for her, tonight serves us pickled pork and cabbage, a healthful, filling dishes too heavy for the enfeebled stomachs of the little neighborhood prostitutes eating near us, alone, with that wild look which animals and undernourished women have in view of a heaping plate.
Oh, this place isn’t always jolly!
Brague, bantering though basically moved by pity, criticizes two women who have just come in, young, thin, with ludicrous hats that pitch to and fro on their hairdos.