Bonjour Tristesse (7 page)

I went on to explain my plan. They raised the same objections as I had done myself the day before, and I felt a particular pleasure in refuting them. I got excited all over again, in my effort to convince them that it was feasible. It only remained for me to prove to them that it ought not to be carried out, but for this I could not find any logical argument.

"I don't like that kind of intrigue," said Cyril reluctantly. "But if it is the only way to make you marry me, I'll do it."

"It's not exactly Anne's fault," I said.

"You know very well that if she stays you'll have to marry the man she chooses," said Elsa.

Perhaps it was true. I could see Anne introducing me on my twentieth birthday to a young man with a degree to match my own, assured of a brilliant future, steady and faithful. In fact someone like Cyril himself. I began to laugh.

"Please don't laugh," said Cyril. "Tell me that you'll be jealous when I'm pretending to be in love with Elsa. How can you bear the thought of it for one moment? Do you love me?"

He spoke in a low voice. Elsa had gone off and discreetly left us alone. I looked at Cyril's tense brown face, his dark eyes. It gave me a strange feeling to think he loved me. I looked at his red lips, so near mine. I did not feel intellectual any longer. He came closer, our lips met and he kissed me passionately. I realised that I was more gifted for kissing a young man in the sunshine than for taking a degree. I drew away from him, gasping for breath:

"Cécile, let's stay together for ever! In the meantime I'll carry out the plan with Elsa."

I wondered if I was right in my reckoning. As I was the instigator of the whole thing I could always stop it.

"You're full of ideas," said Cyril with his slanting smile that lifted one side of his mouth and gave him the appearance of a handsome bandit.

And that is how I set the whole comedy in motion, against my better judgement. Sometimes I think I would blame myself less if I had been prompted that day by hatred and violence, and had not allowed myself to drift into it merely through inertia, the sun, and Cyril's kisses.

When I left the conspirators at the end of an hour, I was rather perturbed. However, there were still grounds for reassurance: my plan could misfire because my father's passion for Anne might well keep him faithful to her, besides which, neither Cyril nor Elsa could do much without my connivance. If my father showed any signs of falling into the trap, I would find some means of putting an end to the whole thing. But still it was amusing to try the plan out, and see whether my psychological judgement proved right or wrong.

What is more, Cyril was in love with me and had asked me to marry him. This was enough to make me forget everything else. If he could wait two years, to give me time to grow up, I would accept him. I could already imagine myself living with Cyril, sleeping next to him, never leaving him.

Every Sunday we would go to lunch with Anne and my father, a united married couple, and sometimes perhaps include Cyril's mother, which would add a homely atmosphere to the meal.

I met Anne on the terrace on her way down to the beach to join my father. She received me with the ironical smile with which one greets those who have drunk too much the night before. I asked her what she had been going to tell me just as I fell asleep, but she only laughed and said it might make me cross. Just then my father came out of the water. He was broad and muscular, and I thought he looked wonderful. I bathed with Anne, who swam slowly with her head well out of the water so as not to wet her hair. Afterwards we three lay side by side on our stomachs in the sand, with me in the middle. We were quiet and peaceful.

Just then the boat appeared round the rocks, all sails set. My father was the first to see it.

"So Cyril couldn't hold out any longer!" he said laughing. "Shall we forgive him, Anne? After all he's a nice boy."

I raised my head, scenting danger.

"But what is he up to?" said my father. "He's not coming in after all. Ah! He's not alone."

Anne had also turned to look. The boat was going to pass right in front of us before tacking. I could make out Cyril's face. Silently I prayed that he would go away, but I could already hear my father's exclamation of surprise:

"But it's Elsa! What on earth is she doing there?"

He turned to Anne: "That girl is extraordinary! She must already have got her claws into that poor boy and made the old lady accept her."

But Anne was not listening; she was watching me. I saw her and hid my face in the sand to cover my shame. She put out her hand and touched my neck:

"Look at me. Are you angry with me?"

I opened my eyes. She bent over me anxiously and almost imploringly. For the first time she was treating me as a sensible, thinking person, and just on the day when ... I groaned and jerked my head round towards my father to free myself from that hand. He was watching the boat.

"My poor child," Anne was saying in a low voice. "Poor little Cécile! I'm afraid it is all my fault. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so hard on you. I never wanted to hurt you, do you believe me?"

She gently stroked my hair and neck. I kept quite still. I had the same feeling as when a receding wave dragged the sand away beneath me. Neither anger nor desire had ever worked so strongly in me as my longing at that moment for utter defeat. My one wish was to give up all my plans and put myself entirely into her hands for the rest of my life. I had never before been so overcome with a sense of my utter impotence. I closed my eyes. It seemed to me that my heart stopped beating.

4

So far my father had shown no feeling other than surprise. The maid told him that Elsa had been to fetch her suitcase, but said nothing about our conversation. Being a peasant woman with a romantic turn of mind, she must have relished the various changes that had taken place in our household since she had been with us, especially in the bedrooms.

My father and Anne, in their effort to make amends, were so kind to me that at first I found it unbearable. However, I soon changed my mind, for even though I had brought it on myself, I did not find it very agreeable to see Cyril and Elsa walking about arm-in-arm, showing every sign of pleasure in each other's company. I could no longer go sailing myself, but I could watch Elsa as she passed by; her hair blown by the wind, as mine used to be. It was easy enough for me to look unconcerned when we met, as we did at every corner: in the wood, in the village, and on the road. Anne would glance at me, start a new topic of conversation, and put her hand on my shoulder to comfort me. Have I ever mentioned how kind she was? Whether her kindness emanated from her intelligence, or was merely part of her detachment, I do not know, but she had an unerring instinct for the right word, and if I had really been unhappy, I could hardly have found better support.

As my father gave no signs of jealousy, I was not unduly worried, and allowed things to drift; but while it proved to me how fond he was of Anne, I felt rather annoyed that my plan had misfired. One day he and I were on our way to the post-office when we passed Elsa. She pretended not to see us, and my father turned round after her with a whistle of surprise, as if she had been a stranger: "I say! Hasn't she become a beauty!" "Love seems to agree with her," I remarked. He looked rather astonished: "You're taking it very well, I must say!"

"What can one do? They're the same age. I suppose it was inevitable."

"If Anne hadn't come along, it wouldn't have been inevitable at all!" he said angrily. "You don't think I'd let a boy like that snatch a woman from me without my consent?"

"All the same, age tells!" I said solemnly. He shrugged his shoulders. On the way back I noticed he was preoccupied: perhaps he was thinking that both Cyril and Elsa were young, and that in marrying a woman of his own age, he would cease to belong to the category of men whose age does not count. I had a momentary feeling of triumph, but when I saw the tiny wrinkles at the corners of Anne's eyes, and the fine lines round her mouth, I felt ashamed of myself. It was only too easy to follow my impulses and repent afterwards.

A week went by. Cyril and Elsa, who had no idea how matters were progressing, must have been expecting me every day. I was afraid to go and see them in case they tempted me to try anything new. Every afternoon I went up to my room, ostensibly to work, but in fact I did nothing: I had found a book on Yoga, and spent my time practising various exercises. I took care to smother my laughter in case Anne should hear it. I told her I was working hard; and I pretended that my disappointment in love had made me keen to get my degree as a consolation. I hoped this would raise me in her estimation, and I even went so far as to quote Kant at table, to my father's dismay.

One afternoon I had wrapped myself in bath towels to look like a Hindu, and was sitting cross-legged staring at myself in the mirror, hoping to achieve a Yoga-like trance, when there was a knock at the door. I thought it was the maid and told her to come in.

It was Anne. For a moment she remained transfixed in the doorway, then she smiled:

"What are you playing at?"

"Yoga," I replied. "But it's not a game at all, it's a Hindu philosophy."

She went to the table and took up my book. I began to be alarmed. It lay open, and every page was covered with remarks in my handwriting, such as 'Impracticable', 'Exhausting'.

"You are certainly conscientious," she said. "And what about that essay on Pascal? I don't see it anywhere."

At lunch I had been talking about Pascal, implying that I had worked on a certain passage, but needless to say I had not written a word. Anne waited for me to say something, but as I did not reply she understood.

"It is your own affair if you play the fool up here instead of working, but it's quite another matter when you lie to your father and me. In any case I found it difficult to believe in your sudden intellectual activity."

She went out of the room leaving me petrified in my bath towels. I could not understand why she had used the word 'lie'. I had spoken of Pascal because it amused me, and had mentioned an essay to give her pleasure, and now she blamed me for it. I had grown used to her new attitude towards me, and her contempt made me feel humiliated and furious. I threw off my disguise, pulled on some slacks and an old shirt and rushed out of the house. The heat was terrific, but I began to run, impelled by my anger, which was all the more violent because it was mixed with shame. I ran all the way to Cyril's villa, only stopping when I reached the door to regain my breath. In the afternoon heat the houses seemed unnaturally large and quiet, and full of secrets. I went up to Cyril's room; he had shown it to me the day we visited his mother. I opened the door. He was lying across the bed, fast asleep with his head on his arm. I stood looking at him and for the first time he appeared to me defenceless and rather touching. I called him in a low voice. He opened his eyes and sat up at once.

"You, Cécile? What's the matter."

I signed to him not to talk so loudly. Suppose his mother were to come and find me in his room? She might think . . . anyone might think ... I suddenly felt panic-stricken and moved towards the door.

"But where are you off to?" he cried. "Come here, Cécile!"

He caught me by the arm and laughingly held me back. I turned round to him, and saw him grow pale, as I must have been myself. He let go my wrist, only to take me in his arms and draw me over to the bed. The thought that it had to happen sometime flashed through my confused mind.

I stayed with him for about an hour. I was happy, but bewildered. I was used to hearing the word love bandied about, and I had often mentioned it rather crudely as one does when one is young and ignorant, but now I felt I could never talk of it again in that detached and vulgar way. Cyril, lying beside me, was talking about marrying me and how we would be together always. My silence made him uneasy. I sat up, looked at him, and called him my lover. I kissed the vein on his neck, murmuring "Darling, darling Cyril!" I was not sure whether it was love I felt for him at that moment, I have always been fickle, and I have no wish to delude myself on this point, but just then I loved him more than myself; I would have sacrificed my life for him. He asked me when I left if I was angry with him. I laughed: how could I possibly be angry?

I walked slowly back through the pine trees; I had asked Cyril not to come with me, it would have been too risky. In any case I was afraid something might show in my face or manner. Anne was lying in front of the house on a deck chair, reading. I had a story all ready to explain where I had been, but she said nothing, she never asked questions. Then I remembered that we had quarrelled, and I sat down near her in dead silence. I remained motionless, aware of my own breathing and the trembling of my fingers, and thinking of Cyril.

I fetched a cigarette from the table and struck a match. It went out. With shaking hands I lighted another, and although there was no wind, it too went out. In exasperation I took a third, and for some reason this match assumed a vital importance; perhaps because Anne was watching me intently. Suddenly everything around me seemed to melt away and there was nothing left but the match between my fingers, the box, and Anne's eyes boring into me. My heart was beating violently. I tightened my fingers round the match and struck it, but as I bent forward my cigarette put it out. The matchbox dropped to the ground and I could feel Anne's hard, searching gaze upon me. The tension was unbearable. Then her hands were under my chin, and as she raised my face I shut my eyes tightly for fear she should read their expression and see the tears welling up. She stroked my cheek, and half reluctantly let me go, as if she preferred to leave the matter in abeyance. Then she put a lighted cigarette into my mouth and returned to her book.

Perhaps the incident was symbolic. Sometimes when I am groping for a match, I find myself thinking of that strange moment when my hands no longer seemed to belong to me, and once again I remember the intensity of Anne's look, and the emptiness around me.