JACQUES' SUPPER
Last evening, there was a grand fête at Jacques' apartment. Pâquerette
came in the afternoon to tell us that our neighbors expected us to
supper at eleven o'clock. Imprisoned as I was for lack of clothing, I
did not refuse the invitation, being desirous of procuring some
amusement for Laurence.
After Pâquerette's departure, we debated the important question of
pantaloons. It was decided that Laurence should cut me out a pair of
short breeches from a piece of green serge, which had long lain about
upon the floor. She went to work, and, two hours afterwards, I was
costumed like a lighterman in a shirt of doubtful whiteness, with a
strip of damask around my waist to support my breeches.
Laurence then cleaned her blue silk dress, as much as possible, with a
dampened rag. She brightened it up by stretching the stuff over one of
her knees and rubbing it; she even pushed the repairs so far as to sew
around the sleeves and corsage a little lace, which had once been white
but was now yellow and rumpled.
Our entrance was triumphal. Jacques and Marie pretended to believe that
a bit of pleasantry was intended; they applauded us, as actors are
applauded who attain the effect they desire to produce. I was a trifle
ashamed; I did not feel at ease until no one paid any further attention
to my short breeches of green serge.
We found Pâquerette installed in an arm-chair. I know not how that
little old woman ever managed to get into the apartment of Jacques, who
is a cold young man and but little of a talker. She has the suppleness
of a serpent and a honeyed and trembling voice which force the best
closed doors. She appeared perfectly at home; she spread herself out
carefully, passing her dry hands over her skirts, partially throwing
back her head, opening and shutting her gray eyes lost among the
wrinkles of her face. She seemed to taste in advance the delicacies
placed beside her on a table.
Marie, who had arisen on our arrival, seated herself again in a corner
of the sofa; the flushes on her cheeks shone more brightly than usual,
and she laughed, displaying her white teeth. Jacques, standing before
the mantelpiece, politely listened to what she had to say, always grave
but affectionate, almost smiling.
They had brought forward chairs for us. The chamber was brilliantly
lighted by two candelabra, each containing five candles, placed upon the
table. This table, loaded with bottles and plates, had been pushed
against the wall to make room, there to await its opportunity to occupy
the middle of the apartment. The curtains of the bed were drawn; the
floor, the hangings and the furniture seemed to have been brushed and
washed with care. We were in the midst of luxury, in the midst of
festivity.
I was about to participate, for the first time, in one of those suppers
of which I had formerly dreamed in Provence. I was calm and
self-possessed. Laurence smiled and I was happy in her joy. There is in
the brightness of candles, in the sight of bottles red with wine, of
plates full of cakes and cold meats, in the sensation produced by a
close chamber, luminous and saturated with indefinable perfumes, a sort
of physical comfort which puts thought to sleep. My companion, her lips
parted, had, doubtless, again found well-known odors in that apartment.
As for me, I felt the blood flow with increased warmth and rapidity in
my veins; I experienced an inclination to laugh and drink, urged on by
my now thoroughly awakened nature.
Besides, the chamber was quiet, the bursts of gayety softened, the
entertainment decent and orderly. We drank a glass of Madeira, talking
with the utmost calmness. This tranquillity made me impatient, I was
tempted to cry out. The two young women had taken places beside
Pâquerette, and the trio were conversing in low tones. I heard the
broken voice of the old woman like a murmur, while Jacques was
explaining to me the reason of the festival. He had just passed an
examination successfully and was celebrating the event. He was more
expansive and less the practical man than usual; he abandoned his
customary gravity further, forgetting to talk of his future position,
going even so far as to speak of his youth. Jacques, to tell the plain
truth, was intoxicated with joy; he consented to play the fool, because
he was a step higher up on the ladder leading to wisdom.
Finally we went to table. I had waited for this moment. I filled my
glass and drank. I was exceedingly hungry, as was natural with a man who
lived on crusts; but I disdained the cakes and the cold meats; I turned
my attention to the wine, white or red. I did not drink from need of
intoxication, I drank for the sake of drinking, because it seemed to me
that I was there to empty my glass. I acquitted myself of that task most
conscientiously, and I experienced a sensation of joy on feeling my
limbs grow weaker little by little and my ideas become confused.
At the expiration of half an hour, the flames of the candles paled and
spread out, the chamber grew red in every part, a dim and vacillating
red. My reason, which had been wavering, was strengthened in a strange
fashion; it had acquired a frightful lucidity. I was intoxicated; I must
have had upon my countenance the stupid mask and idiotic smile of
drunkards; but, within me, in the depths of my intelligence, I felt
myself calm and sensible, I reasoned in full liberty. It was a terrible
species of drunkenness; I suffered from the weakening of my body, which
was greatly overcome, and from the vigor of my mind, which saw and
judged.
Amid the clatter of glasses and forks, I looked at the women and
Jacques, who were laughing and chatting among themselves. Their visages
and their words came to me sharply and clearly, producing a sensation
painful in its sharpness and penetration. My love was still in me,
troubling and transforming my being; but the man of other days, the
philosophical reasoner, had been again awakened. I took delight in my
intoxication and in Laurence, at the same time thoroughly comprehending
the nature of these two disgraces.
Jacques was seated at my left; I know not if he had succeeded in
intoxicating himself; however, he feigned to be under the influence of
liquor. Seated opposite to me were the three women, Marie on my right,
then Pâquerette, then Laurence, who was on Jacques' left. My looks were
fixed upon these women, who seemed to me to possess new visages and
tones of voice.
I had not seen Marie since the day I had found her upon the sofa, white
and languishing. Then, she looked like a young girl in the last stage of
consumption. Now, her flaxen locks hanging loosely, her face flushed
with excitement, her cheeks tinged with a pale violet, she agitated her
bare arms with the fever of an ignorant child who is marching to her
first delight. I was bewildered by the brightness of her youthful
countenance.
I cannot describe the painful sensation produced in me by this creature,
who had thrown off her agony to laugh and drink, to try to enjoy the
delicious anguish of that life which she had unconsciously lived in her
childish innocence. As I stared at her, quivering and with her hair thus
dishevelled, her eyes flashing and her lips humid, it seemed to me, in
the bewilderment of my intoxication, that I was gazing upon some
expiring creature, who, on her death bed, suddenly hears the voice of
her senses and her heart, and who, hesitating, not knowing what to do at
that supreme moment, nevertheless does not wish to die before having
satisfied her vague longings.
Laurence also had grown exceedingly animated. She was almost beautiful
amid her unwonted excitement. Her visage had assumed a terrible
expression of frankness and abandonment, which imparted to each of her
features a look of the utmost insolence; her entire countenance had
become lengthened; broad, square sections, crossed by deep lines,
divided in a marked manner her cheeks and throat into firm and
disdainful masses. She was pale, and several beads of perspiration stood
on her forehead at the roots of her hair which was puffed straight up on
her low, flat head. Reclining in her arm-chair, her face dead and
distorted, her eyes black and glowing, she appeared to me like the
frightful image of a woman who has weighed in her hand all the delights
of the world and who now refuses them, finding them too light. At times,
I fancied that she looked at me, shrugging her shoulders, that she
smiled on me in pity, and that I heard her say to me, in a hoarse and
horrid whisper: "So you love me, do you? What do you want of me?
Physically I am no more than a corpse, and as for a heart, I never had
one!"
Pâquerette looked thinner and more wrinkled than I had ever seen her
before. Her face, like a dried apple, seemed to be more wasted than
usual and had acquired a faint tinge of brick red. Her eyes were no
longer anything but two brilliant points. She wagged her head in a mild
and amiable way, chattering like a sharp-toned bird organ. She enjoyed,
besides, perfect calmness, although she alone had eaten and drunk as
much as all the rest of us together.
I stared at all three of them. The confusion of my brain, which
exaggerated their dimensions, made them oscillate strangely before me. I
said to myself that every species of dissipation was represented at this
festival: youthful and careless dissipation, dissipation ripe in its
frankness, dissipation which has grown old and lives amid its whitened
locks on the remembrance of its follies of other days. For the first
time, I saw these women together, side by side. They alone were a whole
world in themselves. Pâquerette ruled, as became her old age; she
presided; she called the two unfortunates who caressed her "my
daughters." There was, however, intense cordiality between them; they
talked to each other like sisters, without thinking of the difference in
their ages. My bewildered glances confounded the three heads; I knew no
longer above which forehead was the white hair.
Jacques and I were opposite to these women. We were young; we were
celebrating a success of intelligence. I was on the point of quitting
the apartment, brothers, and running to you. Then, I indulged in a burst
of laughter, a very loud one, without doubt, for the women stared at me
in astonishment. I said to myself that this was the kind of society amid
which I was destined, for the future, to live. I closed my eyes and saw
angels, clad in long blue robes, who were ascending in a pale light,
full of sparks.
The supper had been exceedingly gay. We had sung and we had talked. It
seemed to me that the chamber was filled with a thick smoke, which
stopped up my throat and stung my eyes. Then, everything whirled about;
I thought that I was going to sleep, when I heard a distant voice, which
cried out, with the sound of a cracked bell:
"We must embrace each other! we must embrace each other!"
I half opened my eyes, and saw that the cracked bell was Pâquerette,
who had just climbed upon her chair. She was shaking her arms and
giggling.
"Jacques! Jacques!" cried she, "embrace Laurence! She is a good girl,
and I give her to you to drive away your weariness! And you, Claude,
poor sleepy child, embrace Marie, who loves you and offers you her lips!
Come, let us embrace each other, let us embrace each other and amuse
ourselves a trifle!"
And the little old woman sprang from her arm-chair to the floor.
Jacques leaned over and gave a kiss to Laurence, who immediately
returned it. Then, I turned towards Marie, who, with outstretched arms
and head thrown back, was waiting for me. I was about to kiss her on the
forehead, when she threw her head still further back and offered me her
mouth. The light of the candles fell upon her face. My eyes were fixed
on her eyes, and I noticed in the depths of her glance a brightness of a
pure blue tint which seemed to me to be her soul.
As I bent down, still contemplating Marie's soul, I felt the touch of
cold lips on my neck. I turned instantly; Pâquerette was there,
laughing, clapping her dry hands. She had embraced Jacques and had come
to embrace me in my turn. I wiped my neck, with a shiver of disgust.
Seven o'clock struck; a wan brightness announced the advent of day. All
was over; we had now nothing to do but to separate. As I was leaving the
room, Jacques threw across my shoulder a coat and a pair of pantaloons
which I did not even think of refusing. Pâquerette ascended the stairs
in front of us, bearing a candle in her hand and holding aloft her thin
arm that she might the better illuminate our way.
When we had reached our garret, I thought of the embraces we had
exchanged. I looked at Laurence; I imagined that I saw her lips red from
contact with Jacques' lips. I had still before me, in the gloom, the
blue glimmer which had burned in the depths of Marie's eyes. I trembled,
I knew not why, at the vague thoughts which came to me; then, I fell
into a restless and feverish slumber. As I slept, I again felt on my
neck the cold and painful sensation produced by Pâquerette's mouth; I
dreamed that I passed my hand over my skin, but that I could not free
myself from those frightful lips which were freezing me.