She was seated on the couch. Philippe leaned over her and, as on the day
before, began to kiss her. Ursula was astonished to discover that his
mouth was already familiar to her. How warm and good it was, penetrating
her own!
With his free hand, Philippe put out the bright lamp and snapped on
another, which suffused the room with a dim rosy light, in which
everything was intimate and soft. Ursula felt tranquil, happy. After
all, his nearness was natural, not frightening at all, quite normal and
reassuring.
Perhaps half an hour passed. Philippe’s hand began to explore Ursula. It
touched her very lightly, but at the same time much more determinedly
than yesterday; a hand that had a will of its own. And as on the day
before, a mad panic seized the girl. In the same instant she became
rigid and filled with tremors. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want it
at all.
Philippe sighed, took his hand away, and resumed his kissing. But very
quickly he returned to the charge. For quite a while, in silence, the
struggle continued. Ursula would become rigid, and then would relax
slightly, murmuring only, “No, no.” Finally Philippe sat back on the
couch next to her. He looked at her queerly, with an air that was
neither angry nor astonished. With a quick motion of his hand he brushed
back the mass of brown hair that fell in disorder over his forehead. He
said, “Why don’t you want me to make love to you?”
In very low broken words, Ursula said that she was afraid, that as yet
no man had ever touched her, that she didn’t want it. She begged him not
to be angry. She liked his kisses well enough, but nothing else. “I beg
you, nothing else.”
She didn’t tell him that in the depths of her being there was also an
infantile panic at being found ignorant, at failing like a schoolboy who
hasn’t prepared his lesson; a fear that he would make fun of her as of
the Englishwomen who didn’t know how to make love. She didn’t tell him
that she was still in terror of the unknown thing before her, of that
which came after the kisses, and which could not be in any way like what
she had learned from Claude—certainly altogether different.
Philippe looked at her with astonishment. In his eyes, Ursula could see
that he didn’t believe she was a virgin—a virgin after a year in the
Army! He certainly believed that she was just a little teaser playing
the ingenue. After all, she knew how to kiss well enough; it just wasn’t
possible. He didn’t believe it. And this thought pained her very much.
She really liked him. She wished she could prove to him that she was
telling the truth, and she wished that she could make him happy, but she
was afraid, and her fear was stronger than any other feeling.
At first, Philippe said nothing. He took her in his arms again and
resumed his kissing, as though his kisses could convince her better than
words. But when it became clear that nothing was going to change her, he
studied her attentively with a reflective air, as though asking himself
whether she was after all telling the truth, and whether she was indeed
a virgin, a naïve little girl.
Then he said gently, “Why are you afraid, Ursula? I won’t hurt you. Why
are you afraid to make the jump? Afterward you will be a woman. You have
to become a woman someday, and it will make you very happy, you know.”
He said the things that all men say on this occasion, but he said them
sincerely, gently, and Ursula was hearing these words for the first
time.
She wanted to cry and to ask his forgiveness. He was so gentle and nice,
and she was probably behaving very badly, letting him kiss her and then
refusing to go further, like those frightful teasers that Claude was
always talking about in disgust.
She wanted to; she wanted to; but she simply could not.
Philippe rose, poured himself a glass of whisky, and returned to sit
next to her. He no longer attempted to kiss her, but he began to speak
of his childhood, of his home and his parents, of their small estate in
the Pyrenees, of his brother and sisters, and of a way that his mother
had when he was bad of saying that it wasn’t he who had misbehaved, but
“Popaul.” He turned toward Ursula smiling, and said that it probably
wasn’t Philippe, but still Popaul who wanted to go to bed with her.
Philippe didn’t want to annoy her, or hurt her in any way. He was so
good, so simple this way, and Ursula didn’t know how to explain the
gratitude and the tenderness that she felt toward him.
They talked quietly the rest of the evening. He spoke again of his
voyages. It was always to this that he returned most easily. And Ursula
described the barracks, and our warrant officers, and Mickey,
Jacqueline, and me, but without ever speaking of Claude. She sensed that
Philippe would never have understood, that he would have been terribly
shocked.
It was past midnight. There was a discreet knock on the door. Doc
entered with his young woman, who was as elegant and as well made up as
before. The young woman gave Ursula a little glance of complicity filled
with secret understanding. Doc assumed the well-bred air of a gentleman
who deliberately ignores the obvious.
They played the phonograph and danced a little, and then Doc said that
he and the young woman were going to leave. Philippe helped Ursula into
her coat, and the four of them left together.
The streets were black. There was no more wind, and the sky was filled
with stars. Doc and the English girl hailed a taxi and drove off.
Philippe and Ursula walked on without speaking.
At her door Philippe asked her to meet him the following day for dinner.
He apologized again and said that everything was Popaul’s fault, and
then he took her in his arms and kissed her very long and gently.