The Bal du Printemps is a small, dingy café in the Rue Mouffetard.
There is a long zinc bar where the clients can drink a peaceful
apéritif after the day’s work. There are painted wooden tables, long
wooden benches and a small gallery where the band sits--a concertina,
a flute and a violin. The couples dance in a cleared space at the
end of the room. Men in caps and hatless girls cling together, shake
themselves and turn with abandon and a certain amount of genuine
enjoyment.
Two policemen at the door supervise the proceedings, and there is a
large placard on the wall:
‘_Une tenue correcte est rigoureusement exigée._’
The Bal du Printemps is a family ball. If you want something _louche_
you walk further on and turn twice to the left. Mr Rolls, the author,
always hired this place for his weekly parties. Sometimes in the midst
of the proceedings the surprised head of one of the usual clients
would be thrust into the doorway. The landlord would shrug, wink,
gesticulate, explain, and the pale youth would disappear, muttering
something like: ‘_Mince de poules de luxe!_’ But the quality of the
brandy left a great deal to be desired. Imagining that it was very
weak, people drank a good deal of it, and it generally had a very bad
effect on their tempers.
Midnight. The band struck up _Valencia_ for the sixth time.
Somebody said to somebody else: ‘It’s all very well to talk about Jew
noses, but have you ever tried to paint your own mouth?’
The artist addressed burst into tears.
‘He’s only trying to be modern and brutal and all that, poor dear,’
said her friend.... ‘Don’t mind him.’
‘_Fine à l’eau_,’ bawled a tall dark gentleman immediately in Mr
Rolls’s ear.
‘Don’t shout in my ear,’ said Mr Rolls irritably.
‘Well, get out of the way,’ said the tall dark gentleman. ‘Always
blocking up the bar.’
‘It’s my bar,’ remarked Mr Rolls with majesty.
‘Then you ought to give your clients a chance,’ said the other.
Mr Rolls wandered about, asking: ‘Who brought that chap? How did that
chap get in here? Who on earth is that chap?’ Nobody knew. It did not
matter.
An unknown lady seated herself at the end of one of the benches and
remarked to Marya:
‘Doesn’t Swansee Grettle look awful tonight?’
‘She looks,’ said the unknown lady, smiling slowly, ‘like a hundred
gone bad, don’t you think?’ She was very healthy looking, was the
unknown lady, with long, very sharp teeth.
How terrifying human beings were, Marya thought. But she had drunk two
fines and a half-bottle of something which the _patron_ of the Bal du
Printemps called champagne, and after all it was a lovely party. Then
she saw Lois standing near the doorway with her coat on. She beckoned
and Marya got up with reluctance. It was only just half-past twelve.
‘H. J.’s had enough of this,’ said Lois. ‘He wants to be taken home.
D’you mind walking?’
‘Not a bit,’ answered Marya.
They went arm in arm through the lovely, crooked, silent streets. As
they passed a little café on the Boulevard St Michel: ‘This place is
still open,’ remarked Heidler. ‘Let’s have a bock.’
Lois said that she was tired.
‘I’m going home. Don’t be too long, you two.’
She disengaged herself, and walked on so abruptly that Marya stood
looking after her with some astonishment.
‘Come along,’ said Heidler.
* * * * *
It was warm as a night in summer--a wonderfully still and brooding
night. A sleepy waiter appeared with two glasses of beer and placed
them on the only table left on the terrace.
‘Do you know why Lois has gone off?’ asked Heidler.
‘No,’ said Marya. ‘Why?’
He spoke slowly, without looking at her:
‘She’s gone away to leave us together--to give me a chance to talk to
you, d’you see? She knows that I’m dying with love for you, burnt up
with it, tortured with it. That’s why she’s gone off.’
He had tilted his hat to the back of his head and was looking fixedly
across the deserted street. He looked much younger, she thought, and
extraordinarily hard.
‘You think I’m drunk, don’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘Of course.’ She repeated: ‘Of course. And I’m
tired, so let’s go home.’
‘Do you know why your door is open every morning?’ asked Heidler. ‘Have
you noticed that it’s open? No? Stay where you are and listen to what
I’ve got to say. I’ve had enough. Now you’ve got to listen. Your door
is open because I come up every night and open it. Then I look at you
and go away again. One does meaningless things like that when one is
tortured by desire. Don’t you know that I wanted you the first time I
saw you?’ He nodded. ‘Yes. Dare say that you didn’t know.’
She stared at him, silent.
‘Lois knows it now, anyway.... Well, I kept off you, didn’t I? I knew
I could have you by putting my hand out, and I kept off you. I thought
it wouldn’t be playing the game. But there comes a limit, you see.
There comes a limit to everything. I’ve been watching you; I watched
you tonight and now I know that somebody else will get you if I don’t.
You’re that sort.’
She said: ‘You’re abominably rude and unkind and unfair. And you’re
stupid in a lot of ways. Too stupid to realize how unfair you are.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ he told her calmly. ‘You’ve every right to be
like that if you want to be like that, and I’ve every right to take
advantage of it if I want to. That’s truth, and all the rest is sob
stuff.’
She thought: ‘Sob stuff, sex stuff. That’s the way men talk. And they
look at you with hard, greedy eyes. I hate them with their greedy
eyes.’ She felt despair and a sort of hard rage. ‘It’s all wrong,’ she
thought. ‘Everything’s wrong.’
‘Talk!’ she said rudely. ‘Talk. I’m going.’
She got up. He left money on the table, followed her and took her arm
in his. When he touched her she felt warm and secure, then weak and so
desolate that tears came into her eyes.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right!’ said Heidler soothingly.
The street was quite empty, a long street glistening with light like a
sheet of water. Their footsteps echoed mournfully.
When they reached the studio:
‘So you think I’m drunk,’ said Heidler. ‘So I am. So are you. But I’ll
talk to you tomorrow when I’m not drunk.’
* * * * *
Marya bolted the door of her room, collapsed on the bed and undressed
dizzily and with difficulty. The nasal music of the concertina of the
_bal musette_ was still in her ears. ‘I love you’ they played, and
_Valencia_ and _Mon Paris_. The sound was still in her ears. And the
voice of that little funny man. What was his name? The little sculptor.
‘You’re a victim. There’s no endurance in your face. Victims are
necessary so that the strong may exercise their will and become more
strong.’
‘I shall have to go away,’ she decided. ‘Of course. Naturally.’
Sleep was like falling into a black hole.
* * * * *
Next morning she woke early and lay watching the wind blow the striped
curtain outwards. It was like the sail of a ship, she thought. Voices,
steps, a knock on the door. She held her breath.
Lois called: ‘Still asleep, Mado?’
‘No, but I’m tired. I don’t want any coffee. I’ve promised to lunch
with Cairn.’
‘Oh, all right, then,’ said Lois.
Marya did not get up till after she heard the sound of the front-door
being shut.
It was a cloudless, intoxicating day. The light pale gold, the sky
silvery blue, the breeze sweet and fresh as if it blew up from the sea.
A tram-car lumbered past her, and she began to think of the women who
stood in the queue at the prison of Fresnes and of the way they would
edge forward mechanically and uselessly, pushing her as they edged. So
that she was always forced to stand touching their musty clothes and
their unwashed bodies. She remembered her tears and her submissions
and the long hours she had spent walking between two rows of street
lamps, solitary, possessed by pity as by a devil. ‘I’ve been wasting
my life,’ she thought. ‘How have I stood it for so long?’
And her longing for joy, for any joy, for any pleasure was a mad thing
in her heart. It was sharp like pain and she clenched her teeth. It was
like some splendid caged animal roused and fighting to get out. It was
an unborn child jumping, leaping, kicking at her side.
* * * * *
‘You’re very late,’ said Cairn, who was waiting for her in a restaurant
in the Place Pigalle. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’
He looked solemnly through his horn spectacles at her as she explained
that she had walked part of the way, agreed that it was a lovely day
and invited her to have a cocktail.
‘Olives?’
He was an American, a writer of short stories; ugly, broad-shouldered,
long-legged, slim-hipped.
‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ said Cairn, and added astonishingly: ‘I
thought Heidler would stop you.’
Marya asked why he should stop her.
‘Because he is a ... oh, well, doesn’t matter.’
‘But he’s very kind,’ said Marya.
There was a question in her voice, for she felt a great longing to
hear Heidler spoken of. She would have discussed Heidler with pleasure
throughout the entire meal.
‘Kind?’ said Cairn. ‘Heidler kind? My God!’
‘Don’t you think he’s kind?’ she persisted childishly.
‘Don’t let’s talk about him,’ said Cairn impatiently. ‘What’s he
matter, anyway?’
‘No,’ said Marya, with regret, ‘don’t let’s talk about him.’ She added:
‘They’ve been nice to me, you know, wonderfully nice.’
‘Have they?’
He flashed a quick, curious look from under the spectacles, hesitated,
then said:
‘Ah, Marya mia.... Well, that’s all right, then.’
They talked about Cairn’s new hat--whether it was or was not too small
for him, and about a short story that he wished to write and about
money.
‘Haven’t any,’ said Cairn gloomily.
Then they talked about Life.
‘It frightens me,’ said Marya. But as they drank their coffee, she said
to him: ‘Cairn, isn’t not caring a damn a nice feeling?’
‘Of course it is,’ said Cairn cheerfully. ‘You’ve got to be an
_arriviste_ or a _je m’en fichiste_ in this life.’ He added: ‘Only, of
course, if you are going to be a _je m’en fichiste_, you must have the
nerve to stand the racket afterwards, because there always is a racket,
you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Marya. ‘I’ve found that out already.’
* * * * *
It was late when she got back to the Avenue de l’Observatoire. When she
looked up from the street the windows were in darkness, but as soon as
she opened the door Heidler called out from the studio:
‘Hullo! There you are! You’re late. Did you enjoy yourself?’
‘Yes, very much,’ said Marya.
He got up and turned on one of the lights, but the room was still full
of shadows. He looked tired.
‘After all, he’s quite old,’ she thought and faced him, feeling
ironical and defiant.
‘I love you,’ said Heidler. ‘I love you, my dear, I love you. And I
wish I were dead. For God’s sake, be a little kind to me. Oh, you cold
and inhuman devil!’
‘I’m not cold,’ answered Marya.
Suddenly she was full of a great longing to explain herself.
‘H. J., I want to be happy. Oh, I want it so badly. You don’t know
how badly. I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want anything black or
miserable or complicated any more. I want to be happy, I want to play
around and have good times like--like other people do.... Oh, do leave
me alone. I’m so scared of being unhappy.’
‘You’ve got a fear complex,’ remarked Heidler, ‘that’s what’s the
matter with you.’
‘I don’t want to be hurt any more,’ she told him in a low voice. ‘If
I’m hurt again I shall go mad. You don’t know.... How can you know? I
can’t stand any more, I won’t stand it.’
‘Rubbish!’ said Heidler tenderly. ‘Rubbish!’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ she went on fiercely. ‘Nothing! You
can’t lay down the law about me because you don’t know anything.’
‘But I want to make you happy,’ he exclaimed loudly. ‘It’s my
justification that I want to. And that I will, d’you hear? In spite of
you, I’ll do it!’
‘Yes?’ said Marya. ‘And what about Lois?’
Heidler leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, cleared his throat.
‘My dear,’ he remarked, ‘you don’t understand Lois.’
‘Don’t I?’ asked Marya.
‘Not a bit. Lois,’ he went on, speaking carefully and persuasively, ‘is
not an excitable person.’
‘I’ve gathered that much,’ remarked Marya dryly.
‘You are so excitable yourself,’ declared Heidler. ‘You tear yourself
to pieces over everything and, of course, your fantastic existence has
made you worse. You simply don’t realize that most people take things
calmly. Most people don’t tear themselves to bits. They have a sense of
proportion and so on. Lois and I each go our own way and that’s been
the arrangement for some time, if you want to know. Why, look here; do
you know what she said about you a few days ago? I tell you because
I want you to realize that Lois simply doesn’t come into this at all
between you and me.... She said: “The matter with Mado is that she’s
too virtuous”.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what she said; that’s what she
thinks about the situation.’
‘Oh, is that so?’ Marya spoke thoughtfully.
He asked her if she couldn’t understand that all that didn’t matter.
‘I want to comfort you. I want to hold you tight--and safe--d’you see?
Safe!’
‘H. J., don’t.’ She put her hand up to her mouth as if to hide her
lips. ‘Oh, well! Give me a cigarette, will you, please?’
‘You smoke too much,’ he told her irritably. ‘I’m never alone with
you, never. And if I’m alone with you for five minutes, you smoke or
you paint your mouth or you perform some other monkey trick of the
sort--instead of listening to me. Lois will come in, in a minute.’
‘She is in,’ said Marya; ‘I heard her some time ago.’
‘Oh, is she?’ He hesitated, looked at Marya, went out of the room.
She drew her feet up on to the sofa, clasped her hands around her knees
and stared fixedly in front of her.