There was no secrecy in our dormitory. It had become almost a law to
announce whom you were going out with, and on returning to describe the
results.
One evening Mickey perfumed herself with chypre, borrowed from Ginette.
She used a depilatory under her arms, and selected her best khaki silk
tie. She said that she had a date with Robert. Ann laughed, because
Mickey had gone through all these preparations a few evenings before,
for a movie date with Robert, only to have him call it off at the last
moment.
Mickey hadn’t even been angry. She had told us that she was sure he had
a date with another woman, but it was all the same to her. She had
nothing against him for standing her up. She was neither susceptible nor
vengeful—and Robert had invited her to dinner for tonight.
“Where are you meeting him?” Ginette demanded.
“At his hotel,” Mickey said.
“Well! Something’s going to happen!” Ginette predicted.
* * * * *
Something’s going to happen, Mickey thought while dressing. Something is
certainly going to happen. I can’t go on in this state.
She had felt sick with excitement for several days. She no longer ate or
slept. She wanted “something” to happen. It was Robert. When he came
into the office, Mickey’s whole body reacted. Her typing became
scrambled, and she didn’t hear what was being said to her.
She had had enough of waiting and holding back. She had been playing at
the approaches to love for three years now. She remembered a certain
actor she had known, and the recollection, agreeable enough until then,
suddenly became disgusting to her. She had, indeed, rather bragged of
her “affair with an actor” to all of us in the dormitory. He had taught
her everything, without ever going to the very end. He had taken her,
one summer day, to a field filled with daisies, and he had caressed her,
and then he had said, “You’re too young. Go home, quickly!” She had been
satisfied to go home then, for at that time she had not wanted to
explore any further.
Now she had had enough of these sterile caresses. Before putting on her
uniform shirt, Mickey glanced at her back in the mirror. All those
pimples were so ugly. Soon, now, she wouldn’t have them any more, and
Ginette would treat her as an equal, and she would know, she would
really know what it was like.
She had met the actor at the home of some friends. He had been
performing in a small theatre in the provinces. Backstage, where she had
gone to see him, he had bent her against a pile of ropes and kissed her
while caressing her thighs. She had found it amusing. This sort of thing
had continued for a year. He had of course been much older than she.
Afterward, she had flirted with a number of boys, but still she knew no
more than she had ever known. The men saw only little pieces of her and
she gave herself in little pieces, laughing, wrinkling her nose, opening
wide her large innocent blue eyes, so that all of them felt a little bit
remorseful, and treated her like a little girl, without insisting too
much.
After a few months in Down Street, Mickey was beginning to feel tired of
being treated like a child—especially by Ginette. Ginette was very fond
of her. They often went out together, and sometimes Ginette took a few
others of us along, when her men friends wanted dates for their friends.
Ginette was ugly, but she was a great success with men. She had sex
appeal. From their first look at her, men seemed to know that she liked
to make love.
But Mickey had a certain lack of success when she went out with Ginette.
Ginette used the same trick with all of us—“They’re virgins,” she would
say with a kind of pitying scorn. For a while the idea of being out with
a virgin would amuse a man on a casual date, but after some time he
became irritated, and even seemed to find the circumstance humiliating.
Ginette was a pure type of Paris _midinette_. She was coarse, logical,
practical, intelligent, and goodhearted when she wanted to be. Her
husband had beaten and deceived her. He was a handsome lad, a champion
cyclist. Ginette had divorced him at nineteen. She had worked as a
salesgirl and supported her parents, who were old and sick. She had
become hardened by life, she was afraid of no one, and she knew how to
get along. At the barracks she was in the good graces of all her
superiors, and even Machou feared her a little. Everybody said that she
would be promoted to private first class at Christmas. Petit had
confidence in her and often assigned her to special tasks.
Somewhat to our surprise, Ginette advised Mickey against taking the
great step.
“Marry as a virgin, Mickey, it’s better,” Ginette declared, though with
the air of someone who expects that her advice will not be taken, and
indeed, would be just as pleased. “If you begin by sleeping with some
fellow, you won’t be able to stop, and you’ll go to bed with everybody.”
* * * * *
Mickey studied herself in the little mirror on the wall of the Virgins’
Room. She thought, I’m making myself ready for my wedding night. And it
seemed to her comical to see herself in a khaki uniform with cotton
stockings, and wearing a necktie, instead of being dressed in a long
white gown. It seemed so comical to her that she began to laugh out
loud; although at the bottom of her heart she suddenly felt sad. There
were so many romantic dreams that little girls had when they were
fifteen, when they went walking and stopped in front of the shop windows
to study the mannequins dressed in white satin and tulle. Now she had
definitely to separate herself from those dreams. It was a bit
terrifying and sorrowful to pass in this way from girlhood to womanhood.
In this way, all alone, and without ceremony. And, Mickey thought,
without love, either. No, she was quite sure that she didn’t love
Robert. She only wanted him. She wanted him, and she wanted to know, and
besides, it would be so agreeable to have a lover, like a real woman.
And yet she said to herself, I hope I’ll love him afterward.
Slowly she climbed the stairs. She knocked at the door.
Robert opened it. He was in civilian clothes, and it was odd to see him
dressed so; he appeared a little less cruel. His green eyes covered
Mickey with caresses. Without saying a word, he seized her in his arms
and began to kiss her. Mickey freed herself and began hurriedly to
undress. She wanted to seem experienced. Robert watched her, probably
astonished. Things were going almost too fast. But she was already nude,
and he was good enough to praise her, as a connoisseur. Long-muscled
narrow limbs, a supple, well-built body with handsome shoulders,
scarcely any hips, and small pointed breasts. He undressed just as
quickly, flinging his clothes over a chair.
His body was cold when he lay down next to her. He was very bronzed and
very hairy. He kissed her again, but hurriedly. Mickey looked about her.
The hotel room was violently lighted by a bare electric bulb. There were
jonquils fading in a vase. She felt alone, utterly isolated from this
man who was going through a ritual that did not affect her.
He was astonished to encounter a physical barrier. He had not believed
her to be a virgin. When he hurt her, Mickey uttered a short cry. It was
all so quick, so strange, she felt disappointed. Nothing but that! All
that fuss about such a little thing.
Robert still had said scarcely anything, nor had she. And now it seemed
that there was even less reason to talk.
Robert arose; he was very handsome, with his air of arrogance. He smiled
at her and said, “Come to the bathroom, honey.” His suddenly intimate
manner of speech gave her a sensation of horror. There was no reason for
his now assuming the right to say _tu_ instead of _vous_. Why did he use
the intimate form of address as soon as she had made love with him?
They dined almost in silence in the hotel restaurant, like strangers
exchanging banalities. Nevertheless, Mickey felt better. She was freed
now from that storm within herself—from that thirst and from desire. She
felt herself calm and appeased. It was done. She was a woman.