My eyes, opened too quickly, blink in the lamplight, and the edges of the shade and of the strongly illuminated table wound my eyes like so many gleaming blades . . .
“It’s you?
Where’s Hamond?”
“Hamond has just left.”
“What time is it, then?”
“It’s midnight.”
“Midnight!”
I’ve slept over an hour!
Mechanically I raise my flattened hair, combing it with my fingers, then I pull the hem of my robe down to the tip of my slippers . . .
“Midnight?
Why didn’t you leave with Hamond?”
“We were afraid you might get scared finding yourself alone here . . . So I stayed.”
Is he making fun of me?
I can’t make out his face, so high up, in the dark . . .
“I was tired, you understand . . .”
“I understand very well.”
What is this dry tone of reprimand?
I’m thunderstruck!
Truly, if I were a coward, this would be the right time to call for help—alone with this dark individual who’s talking to me from way up there! . . .
Maybe he’s drunk, too.
“Tell me, Dufferein-Chautel, are you feeling poorly?”
“I’m not feeling poorly.”
Thank goodness, he begins walking: I had had my fill of seeing him so high up, so close to me!
“I’m not feeling poorly, I’m angry!”
“Ah! Ah!”
I reflect for a moment, then I very foolishly add:
“Because I’m going on tour?”
Dufferein-Chautel stops in his tracks:
“Because you’re leaving?
I wasn’t thinking of that.
Since you’re still here, I don’t need to think about your departure.
No. I’m annoyed with you.
I’m annoyed with you because you were sleeping.”
“Yes?”
“It’s ridiculous to fall asleep like that! In front of Hamond! And even in front of me!
It’s obvious that you don’t know what you look like when you’re asleep!
Or else you do it on purpose, and it’s shameless of you!”
He sits down abruptly, as if breaking into three pieces, and now he’s very close to me, with his face at the level of mine:
“When you sleep, you don’t look as if you’re sleeping! You look . . . well, in short, you look as if you’ve closed your eyes to conceal a joy that’s stronger than you!
Precisely!
Your face isn’t like that of a sleeping woman . . . In short, you understand what I mean, damn it!
It’s revolting!
When I think that you must have slept that way in the presence of God knows how many men, I feel as if I could kill you!”
He’s sitting at a slant on a fragile chair, half-turning away his distressed face, which is split by two large creases, one on his forehead and the other down his cheek, as if the explosion of his anger has just cracked it.
I feel no fear; on the contrary: it’s a relief to me to find him sincere, like the man who entered my dressing room two months ago.
And so, here before me, with his childish rage, his animal obstinacy, and his calculated sincerity, my enemy, my tormenter is reappearing: Love.
There’s no mistake about it. I’ve already seen that forehead, those eyes, and those convulsed hands knotted together, yes, I’ve seen all that . . . in the days when Adolphe Taillandy desired me . . .
But what am I to do with this man?
I’m not offended, I’m not even moved (or very little!), but what am I to do?
What am I to reply? . . .