You won’t leave!”
“You don’t say!
And what about my forfeit for breaking the contract?”
“I’ll pay it.”
“And Brague’s forfeit?
And the Old Caveman’s?”
“I’ll pay them.”
Even if it’s a joke, I only half-like it.
Can I doubt any longer that we’re in love? Here we are on the brink of our first quarrel! . . .
I was wrong, because here’s my friend next to me, almost at my feet:
“My Renee, you know perfectly well that you can do anything you want!”
But he has laid his hand on my forehead, and his eyes are fixed on mine, seeking my obedience in them . . .
Anything I want?
Unfortunately, right now I want only him!
“On your tour, are you still going to perform Dominance?”
“We’re taking along The Dryad, too . . . Oh, what a lovely purple tie you’ve got on!
It makes you look all yellow!”
“Forget about my tie!
Dominance, The Dryad, et cetera, are just excuses for showing off your beautiful legs and all the rest!”
“You should complain!
Wasn’t it on the stage that ‘all the rest’ had the honor of being introduced to you?”
He hugs me to himself so hard that it hurts:
“Be still!
I remember!
Every night for five days I said painful things to myself, and each time I thought they were decisive. I felt stupid for coming to the Emp’-Clich’, as you call it, and after your exit I’d leave, insulting myself.
Then, the following day, I’d make a cowardly compromise:
‘This is the very last night I’ll be seen in that dump!
But I want to be sure of the color of Renee Nere’s eyes, and, besides, yesterday I was unable to get there for the beginning.’
In short, I was already behaving like an imbecile!”
“Already an imbecile!
You’ve got quite a way with euphemisms, Max!
I find it so odd that a man can be smitten with a woman just by looking at her . . .”
“It depends on the woman he’s looking at.
You know nothing of such things, Renee Nere . . . Imagine: after seeing you mime Dominance for the first time, I spent at least an hour drawing a diagram of your face.
I carried it off, and I don’t know how many times I repeated, in the margins of a book, a little geometrical drawing that only I can interpret . . . Also, there was a moment in your pantomime when you filled me with unbearable joy: it was when you were sitting on the table and reading the threatening letter from the man you were deceiving. Remember?
You slapped your thigh as you bent backward with laughter, and I could hear that your thigh was bare under your thin dress.
You executed that gesture robustly, like a young floozy, but your face was aflame with such keen, well-defined malevolence, so far superior to your easy-to-get body . . .
Do you recall?”
“Yes, yes . . . that’s how it was . . . Brague was satisfied with me when I did that scene . . . But, Max, that’s . . . that’s only admiration, desire!
Has it changed into love since then?”
He looks at me in great surprise:
“Changed?
I’ve never thought about it.
No doubt I loved you from that time on. There are many women more beautiful than you, but . . .”
With a motion of his hand he expressed all the incomprehensible, incurable side of love . . .
“All the same, Max, what if, instead of a good little middle-class woman like me, you had met some cool, knowing bitch as mean as hell?
Didn’t the fear of that hold you back?”
“It never occurred to me,” he says with a laugh. “What a funny idea!
You see, we men don’t think of so many things when we’re in love!” He’s apt to say things like that, which set me straight, I who do think of so many things!
“Little one,” he murmurs, “why do you perform in vaudeville?”