The little clock on the table by the bed was ticking so loudly that
Marya got up and shut it away in a drawer. But she could still hear it,
fussy and persistent. Then a train gave a long piercing shriek and she
sighed, turned on the light and lay contemplating the flowers which
crawled like spiders over the black walls of her bedroom. The mechanism
of her brain got to work with a painful jerk and began to tick in time
with the clock.
She made a great effort to stop it and was able to keep her mind a
blank for, say, ten seconds. Then her obsession gripped her, arid,
torturing, gigantic, possessing her as utterly as the longing for water
possesses someone who is dying of thirst. She had made an utter mess of
her love affair, and that was that. She had made an utter mess of her
existence. And that was that, too.
But of course it wasn’t a love affair. It was a fight. A ruthless,
merciless, three-cornered fight. And from the first Marya, as was right
and proper, had no chance of victory. For she fought wildly, with
tears, with futile rages, with extravagant abandon--all bad weapons.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she would ask herself. ‘Why are you like
this? Why can’t you be clever? Pull yourself together!’ Uselessly.
‘No self-control,’ thought Marya. ‘That’s what’s the matter with me. No
training.’
But of course he was very clever. And Lois, just sitting tight and
smiling, was very clever. Oh, very clever! And she, Marya, was a fool
who could do nothing but cry behind a locked door.
She shut her eyes and at once his face was close to hers, hard and
self-contained. ‘All that!’ his cool eyes said. ‘Oh, yes, very nice.
But all that grows on every blackberry bush, my dear.’ His cool eyes
that confused and hurt her.
He wasn’t a good lover, of course. He didn’t really like women. She had
known that as soon as he touched her. His hands were inexpert, clumsy
at caresses; his mouth was hard when he kissed. No, not a lover of
women, he could say what he liked.
He despised love. He thought of it grossly, to amuse himself, and then
with ferocious contempt. Not that that mattered. He might be right. On
the other hand, he might just possibly be wrong. But it didn’t really
matter much.
What mattered was that, despising, almost disliking, love, he was
forcing her to be nothing but the little woman who lived in the Hôtel
du Bosphore for the express purpose of being made love to. A _petite
femme_. It was, of course, part of his mania for classification. But he
did it with such conviction that she, miserable weakling that she was,
found herself trying to live up to his idea of her.
She lived up to it. And she had her reward.
‘... You pretty thing--you pretty, pretty thing. Oh, you darling.
I say, did you notice what I did with my wrist-watch? Lois has got
hold of two Czecho-Slovakians and that young American chap--you
know--what’s-his-name?--the sculptor--for tonight and I promised I’d
turn up. Are you all right for money? I’d better leave some money,
hadn’t I?’
The endless repetition of that sort of thing became a torture. She
would wait for him to say, ‘Look here, I must go now. Because Lois....’
As he dressed she would lie with one arm over her eyes and think: ‘A
bedroom in hell might look rather like this one. Yellow-green and
dullish mauve flowers crawling over black walls.’
Her lips were dry. Her body ached. He was so heavy. He crushed her. He
bore her down.
The dim room smelt of stale scent. She began to imagine all the women
who had lain where she was lying. Laughing. Or crying if they were
drunk enough. She felt giddy and curiously light, as if she were
floating about bodiless in the scented dimness.
‘It’s frightfully hot in here,’ Heidler was saying. ‘D’you mind if
I pull the curtains and open the window? Where’s your handbag? Look
here--do go and dine somewhere decent, for God’s sake.’
He always hurried the end of his dressing, as if getting out of her
bedroom would be an escape.
‘Yes,’ said Marya dully. ‘All right. I will.’
‘It oughtn’t to be like this. I oughtn’t to let it be like this. It’s
ugly like this.’
All very well to think that. But he crushed her. He bore her down.
Besides, she hadn’t a leg to stand on, really. He had everything on his
side--right down to the expression on the waiter’s face when he brought
up her breakfast. Everything. Including Logic and Common Sense. For he
could so easily say--he often did say--‘Why did you leave the Avenue de
l’Observatoire?’
Or, ‘Why don’t you come along with me and see Lois? Come to Lefranc’s
tomorrow for lunch. Lois is very fond of you. And you must turn up
occasionally, my dear; you really must.’
* * * * *
They would be sitting in the Café de Versailles, a peaceful place at
three o’clock in the afternoon, given up to middle-aged gentlemen
drinking bocks and young men writing letters. The vague smell of lunch
still hung on the air. Outside, the Rue de Rennes stewed drearily in
the sun.
‘I don’t want people to know anything. It isn’t anybody’s business.
We can’t let Lois down, surely you must see that. She’s been awfully
generous and we can’t let her down.’
‘But everybody knows already,’ said Marya. ‘If you think they don’t,
your crest ought to be an ostrich.’
‘Nonsense!’
She persisted. ‘Everybody cuts me dead all along the Boulevard
Montparnasse, anyway. Even De Solla cuts me. I’m the villain of the
piece, and they do know. They say that Lois picked me up when I was
starving and that the moment I got into her house I tried to get hold
of you. And that there are limits. Or they say--shall I tell you what
else they say, the ones who have lived here long enough?’
‘Oh, I know the sort of thing,’ said Heidler. ‘But what if they do?
They can’t be sure. You must live it down. My dear child, you can live
everything down, believe me, if you keep your head and don’t give
yourself away.’
‘And if you have a good little income. Don’t forget that.’
‘Why should I be a butt for Lois and her friends?’ Marya went on
excitedly. ‘She wants me there so that she can talk at me. She wants
me there so that she can watch out for the right moment to put her
enormous foot down.’
She began to laugh loudly. There was a coarse sound in her laughter.
Heidler looked at her sideways. He disliked her when she laughed like
that.
He told her coldly: ‘You talk the most awful nonsense sometimes, don’t
you?’
‘What?’ said Marya. ‘Aren’t Lois’s feet enormous? Well, I think they
are. You didn’t exactly look for _fines attaches_ when you married, did
you?’
His eyes were very hostile. When she saw his hostile eyes she stopped
laughing and her lips trembled.
‘All right. Very well. Just as you like,’ said Marya. ‘What’s it
matter, anyway?’
* * * * *
It was no good arguing, there she was, the villain of the piece; and
it hurt, of course. When the lonely night came it started hurting like
hell. Then she would drink a couple of Pernods at Boots’ Bar to deaden
the hurt and, carefully avoiding the Boulevard du Montparnasse, she
would walk to a side-street off the Boulevard St Michel and dine in a
students’ restaurant, not frequented by the Montparnos.
‘A Pernod fils, please.’
‘Pernod is very bad for the stomach, mademoiselle,’ the _patronne_ said
disapprovingly. ‘If mademoiselle had a Dubonnet instead?’
The _patronne_ was really a wonderfully good sort. Fancy caring what
happened to the stomach of a stray client. On the other hand, fancy
facing life--that is to say, facing Heidler and Lois--on a Dubonnet!
Marya could have cackled with laughter.
‘No, a Pernod,’ she insisted.
And a minute afterwards the merciful stuff clouded her brain. Then,
dazed, she watched the lady who was sitting opposite dining slowly and
copiously. Soup; a beefsteak; a salad; cheese. She was a lady with
a pale face, crimson lips, a close-fitting black hat, and eyebrows
like half moons. She was indeed exactly like Pierrot and every now
and then she would turn and look at herself in the glass approvingly.
Eventually, gathering up her belongings, she moved out with stately and
provocative undulations of the hips.
But the students at the next table were _camelots du roi_. They
were talking politics and the lady passed out unnoticed. Then Marya,
imitating her, turned round and looked at herself in the mirror at
the back, powdered her face and reddened her lips. But hopelessly,
thinking, ‘Good God, how ugly I’ve grown!’ Loving had done that
to her--among other things--made her ugly. If this was love--this
perpetual aching longing, this wound that bled persistently and very
slowly. And the devouring hope. And the fear. That was the worst. The
fear she lived with--that the little she had would be taken from her.
Love was a terrible thing. You poisoned it and stabbed at it and
knocked it down into the mud--well down--and it got up and staggered
on, bleeding and muddy and awful. Like--like Rasputin. Marya began to
laugh.
* * * * *
As she walked back to the hotel after her meal Marya would have the
strange sensation that she was walking under water. The people passing
were like the wavering reflections seen in water, the sound of water
was in her ears. Or sometimes she would feel sure that her life was a
dream--that all life was a dream. ‘It’s a dream,’ she would think; ‘it
isn’t real’--and be strangely comforted.
A dream. A dream. ‘_La vie toute faite des morceaux. Sans suite comme
des rêves._’ Who wrote that? Gauguin. ‘_Sans suite comme des rêves._’ A
dream. Long shining empty streets and tall dark houses looking down at
her.
Often during these walks she passed under the windows of the studio in
the Avenue de l’Observatoire. Once it was on a Thursday night. Lois’s
party, of course. She stood outside in the dark street imagining that
she heard the sound of the gramophone playing, ‘If you knew Suzie like
I know Suzie’.
Then she thought, ‘No, this is too stupid. I’m going home.’ But still
she stood there listening, looking up at the lit windows.
Well, there she was. In a bad way. Hard hit. All in. And a drunkard
into the bargain. And she had to stuff herself with veronal before she
could sleep.
But when she tried to argue reasonably with herself it seemed to her
that she had forgotten the beginnings of the affair, when she had still
reacted and he had reconquered her painstakingly. She never reacted
now. She was a thing. Quite dead. Not a kick left in her.
When Lois sneered she sat with bent head and never answered.
‘Oh, I know I’ve got a terrible tongue,’ Lois would say complacently.
And Marya, watching her, silent, would think: ‘One of these days just
when she’s thought of something clever to say about me for her friends
to snigger at, just when she’s opening her mouth to say it, I’ll smash
a wine-bottle in her face.’
Sitting there silent, her hands cold and a little fixed smile on her
face, she would imagine the sound of the glass breaking, the sight
of the blood streaming. As she lay awake she imagined it, breathing
quickly, and then she would tell herself, horrified: ‘My God, I’m going
mad!’
Little wheels in her head that turned perpetually. I love him. I want
him. I hate her. And he’s a swine. He’s out to hurt me. What shall I
do? I love him. I want him. I hate her.
So she would lie for hours, tortured by love and hate, till the morning
came and the coloured tepid water which they called coffee in the Hôtel
du Bosphore. Then she would get up and look at herself in the glass,
thinking: ‘Good Lord! can that be me? No wonder people think I’m a bad
lot.’
Her eyelids were swollen and flaccid over unnaturally large, bright
eyes. Her head seemed to have sunk between her shoulders, giving her a
tormented and deformed look. Her mouth drooped, her skin was greyish,
and when she made up her face the powder and rouge stood out in
clownish patches.
She would stare at herself, feeling a horrible despair. A feeling of
sickness would come over her as she stared at herself. She would get
back into bed and lie huddled with her arm over her eyes.
This was Marya’s life for six days of the week. On the seventh she went
to Fresnes and returned soothed, comforted, and, because she reacted
physically so quickly, once more desirable.
‘My dear, how much better you look!’ Heidler would never fail to remark
the next day. ‘Not half so peaky. My darling child. You pretty thing.’
* * * * *
Marya thought of her husband with a passion of tenderness and
protection. He represented her vanished youth--her youth, her gaiety,
her joy in life. She would tell herself: ‘He was kind to me. He was
awfully chic with me.’
Soon, for her sentimental mechanism was very simple, she extended this
passion to all the inmates of the prison, to the women who waited with
her under the eye of the fat warder, to all unsuccessful and humbled
prostitutes, to everybody who wasn’t plump, sleek, satisfied, smiling
and hard-eyed. To all the people who never went to tea-parties or gave
them. To everybody, in fact, who was utterly unlike the Heidlers.
She went to the prison gaily, as if she were going to visit a friend,
and all the way there she would revolve her plans for Stephan.
* * * * *
It was the beginning of August. Stephan was to be released on the
second Sunday in September.
‘I’ll have to find a coiffeur,’ he said anxiously. ‘I don’t want to go
around Paris with my hair on my shoulders and a long beard....’
The warder who shaved the prisoners’ heads was, it seemed, a good sort.
A few weeks before they were released he let them start to grow their
hair.
‘Not a bad type,’ said Stephan. ‘Many of them are not bad. They do
their work, what do you wish? I daresay they’d prefer to do something
else.’
‘Oh, you’ll find a coiffeur,’ said Marya. ‘I’ll get a room for you in
the Quartier Latin somewhere, will that do?’
‘Look in the Rue Tollman,’ he advised.
‘Well, you can go straight there from Fresnes and in the afternoon I’ll
turn up with the money.’
‘It’s all very well,’ said Stephan, ‘but what about you? How will you
manage about money?’
She answered: ‘I’ve told you, the Heidlers have lent me some money.’
‘They’re chic,’ remarked Stephan.