Fermina Marquez (1911) (3 page)
VII
However, the scandal of our absence at break; our unsanc-tioned walks and our games of tennis in the grounds finally disturbed the school authorities. And one day, each of Fermina Marquez' knights heard that he had been forbidden entrance to the grounds on pain of the most severe disciplinary action. Leniot, a fifth-form pupil, was alone given special permission to accompany these ladies. Mama Dolore had asked this favour because Leniot had become the protector of little Marquez and was steering him through the early pitfalls of school life.
VIII
Joanny Leniot, at fifteen and a half, was quite simply a schoolboy good at composition. His physiognomy was not pleasant; he was taciturn and never looked people straight in the face. He lived, moreover, in relative isolation. He was even suspected of using break to go over his lessons in his head, while all the time pretending to sleep stretched out on a bench. He had a somewhat drab nature about which nobody would have been able to say anything precise. He was there, sitting in his place or standing in his row; that was all. But on prizegiving day when his class was read out, none but his name would be heard, he alone could be seen on the rostrum; and since in the end he was a credit to the school, all the pupils applauded him with such vigour they would hurt their hands. Yet nobody liked him.
He had come to Saint Augustine's when he was nine, barely able to read. At first, he had felt so lonely — surrounded by these schoolfellows who spoke a language unfamiliar to him — so like a captive, so abandoned that he had begun to work frantically to stop being affected by the wretchedness of his existence. He started to study as a man might start to drink: to forget. He was one of those characters whom a boarding school can stamp with an ineradicable flaw; he knew it and did his best to struggle against its influence.
His progress astounded everybody. At the end of one year, he was moved from the juniors' penultimate class into the senior school's first form, and in this new class he came top in the first composition of the year. From that moment on he dug his heels in, determined never to lose first place. He had been excluded from outdoor games; his clumsiness guaranteed the defeat of his side; the team captains themselves asked that he be excused from participating in the games. Of this he was glad. Henceforth, nothing interested him except this first place, his
idee fixe.
And it was an unstinting daily effort, for even the ordinary prepared work was given an order of merit after it had been corrected. The actual subject matter of his studies hardly mattered to him: science, literature, grammar, geography, they were simply opportunities for satisfying his obsession with scholastic distinction. He could have been taught anything at all since this ambition had been kindled in him. This goal blinded him; he had reached the point of no longer experiencing life's daily movement around him, of no longer seeing its monotony, its dullness and banality: the prep monitor who yawns over the authors he is studying for his degree, the idlers who are rushing slapdash through their proses and the dunces who are catching flies or gazing wistfully out of the windows, where a mother-of-pearl sky deepens to the blue of night. The melancholy of those evenings at Saint Augustine's no longer even made any impression on him — those forlorn village evenings of the outer suburbs, when you can hear until sleep overcomes you the distant moaning of trains which seem to flee towards Paris terror-stricken . . . Joanny Leniot's every effort was strained to what he used to call, in his heart of hearts, success.
And so this is what would happen: the boys would return to their classes; the master would be seated at his desk; in front of him, a pile of corrected scripts. Once silence had fallen, he would say: "I have given 18 out of 20 to Mr Leniot's unseen: it is without any real errors; I will read it out to you."
Or else, it would be the results of the last composition. They were only given in each form every week on Saturday evening in the presence of the prefect of studies and a chief monitor. They would begin with the highest forms: the upper and lower sixths . . . For a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, Joanny Leniot, seated at his desk, listened to the different stages of the ceremony. The sounds of footsteps and voices, the pupils' din as they all stood up at the same time on the entrance of the authorities - he heard all this and his doubts and anxieties drove him out of his mind. And these noises would be repeated from one class to the next. Now these gentlemen were entering the formroom next door. Finally it would be the turn of Leniot's class. In frock coats and top hats, the authorities made their entrance; the pupils and master stood up.
"Sit down, gentlemen," said the prefect of studies who assumed a solemn expression. And then the master would read out the results of the last composition. What a moment! "First: Leniot (Joanny)."
He hurriedly got to his feet; the prefect of studies smiled at him; then he sat down again shakily. It caused an upheaval, a shock to his mind, an unhinging of his nervous system. Until the end of the class, he continued to tremble inside from this, to retain a sort of feverishness. At the doorway, he would hear: "Did you have an order called in your form? Who came top?" "Leniot again of course!"
He allowed no trace of his joy to surface. Besides, he knew how little all that mattered to the vast majority of the pupils. And he did wish to be modest as well. But this joy was so great that he wanted to cry out, that he walked with stooping gait, wholly bent beneath the weight of his pride. Just as in the pictures of adventure stories a pirate can be seen carrying a beautiful white girl captive, so it seemed to him as though he were walking dazzled, holding his glory in his arms right against his heart. It was a fresh victory: for a further eight days, he would be seated in the form's place of honour. It was a bit like after Communion: he felt purified; he had more respect for himself.
The prefect of studies and all the masters used to congratulate him: high hopes were founded on him. He was so intelligent, he absorbed everything so quickly. This was the widely held opinion, for Joanny Leniot had the pride to conceal his dogged exertions. If he permitted himself a slack half an hour in prep, he would spend it demonstrating to everyone how idle he was, by getting up twenty times from his place, by having himself constantly admonished by the monitor. He would affect to copy out his prepared work at the last minute. He even managed to sleep during lessons. All this was deceptive and his mental swiftness aroused wonderment. In fact, his emotions were always more lively and distinct than his thoughts; they obscured his intelligence which was dominated by them, and all in all, despite his reputation for being intellectually able, Leniot was remarkable only for his boundless ambition, which truly was above that of his peers. His parents (who lived in Lyons) used to write him letters of encouragement, full of praise for each of his successes. Leniot senior would tell himself that his son understood the sacrifices being made for him, and that as a sensible boy he would take advantage of the education which was being placed within his reach. And his mother would reflect: "It's to please me that he works so much!" Joanny discerned these thoughts behind their congratulations. No, his parents would never understand . . . and he tore up their letters with smiles of pity. Nobody would ever understand that what he wanted and what he worked so hard for was solely this upheaval of the mind, this spasm occurring in response to the call of glory: "First: Leniot (Joanny)". These insignificant little feats of a schoolboy with a good record became the triumphs of a Roman emperor in his adolescent imagination.
Yet the adult world does not guess — life has so deafened, so blunted it — that these laurels might well never fade on the brow of this gifted pupil. At Saint Augustine's, wreaths were not awarded at prizegiving; but engraved on their covers, the books bore escutcheons in gold, set with the school's initials:
S.A. which, according to the old pun handed down from generation to generation since the school's earliest days, also meant: Sleazy Alehouse. The escutcheon was about as wide as a hundred-franc piece. For a long time, Joanny had gazed reverentially at this golden disc. It was like the permanent reflection of the memorable "first ray of glory" of which several fine authors speak; and although this deference was already nothing more than a childhood memory for him, at the mere sight of his prize books from the preceding years, his boyhood stood revealed with all its bitter taste, sadness and earnestness. Yet, throughout his life he would have prizes; throughout his life he would feel the warmth of this golden disk resting on him. His whole life would breathe that studious gravity, that quiet, unremitting tenacity to excel in everything. For him, his whole life would have that precious bitterness, the bay leafs self-same savour. And outside, far from prep rooms and dark corridors, there might be the vast open air and the whole summer with its full-scented breezes which make you dizzy; or again, there might be the autumn and the first warm mists which settle like a hand on your heart; there might be Paris and all its nights full of sins — such wonderful, such terrible sins, you would not dare imagine them; there might be all the women of the earth, who are so beautiful that you would want to find them names to express their beauty; and there might be Fermina Marquez' eyes, in which the tropical sun dazzles; — Joanny Leniot turned his face to the wall and thinking of the prepared work he had to do, experienced in his innermost self a joy which was greater than all these joys.
No, he would not be disturbed for anything in the world. His would be a centralization of the self, a refusal to overdiversify, to grant a moment's sympathy to anything whatsoever. He could plainly see the limitations of his mind. He had read and reread a short
Life of Benjamin Franklin,
which had ended with these words: "he wrung the most he could out of himself". Leniot would reflect: "Franklin must have despised himself as I myself do; but he found the way to be great in the eyes of men . . . that is the path to follow and without faltering". He was sparing of himself. When Fermina Marquez appeared at the school bringing with her a fresh spirit, he admitted that he had allowed himself to be distracted for an instant. The most wonderful eyes in the world were not supposed to divert him from his commendable goal. Had Caesar so much as on a single occasion looked fondly at the daughters or wives of the Gaulish chieftains? When from the ramparts' top, they entreated him by exposing their breasts; or again, when on the evening of a battle they were brought in herds to the proconsul's camp, had he ever experienced the slightest thrill of pity, a moment of desire for the prettiest and most unfortunate of them? Nevertheless, they were absolutely his to command; and they sensed their master perfectly in this diminutive, bald, well-shaven man! How often Joanny had imagined scenes of this sort . . .
Well then, he himself just like Caesar was destined to be admired by men and loved by women. It was unworthy of him to admire and love in return. Or rather, perhaps he could love but only a captive woman, that is to say one humbled and imploring who grovelled at your feet and fearfully kissed your hands. Yes, but could such a woman be found anywhere other than in novels whose actions took place in the colonies?
Not having a sister, seeing little of girls, Leniot instinctively recoiled from those pert creatures who, with their mockery, so severely test the timid and solemn pride of very young men. It is pretty hard for a boy who compares himself exclusively with the likes of Franklin and Julius Caesar to hear himself ridiculed for a blunder committed while serving tea, or for the over-vivid green of a new tie. Bursting with resentment, he did not forget the memory of occasions when he had been a laughingstock and when inane, older girls had made fun of him, "silly little geese, provincial peasants with their rustic tones". But the evocation of their accent was not enough to avenge Leniot for the wounds they had inflicted on his self-esteem. No — and as he drew closer to his sixteenth year, he became more convinced of this — what would truly give him his revenge, what would conclusively fix his position and his attitude towards women was a
seduction.
By this expedient, from the child he was at the outset, he would become a man; then unquestionably he would at last be able to approach those as yet uninitiated little fools without blushing. By this expedient as well, he would experience a new kind of triumph: he would know what a man feels to see a girl sacrifice her scruples, sense of decency and all her years of innocence for him. "And a woman who gives herself, isn't she failing her entire sex?" Yes, just seduce one of them! How your conqueror's heart beats feverishly at this thought!
So Leniot mused as he smoked his after-lunch cigarette in the grounds. At this precise moment, Mama Dolore and the young Colombian girls appeared round an avenue. Leniot hastened to join them and, while greeting them, looked Fermina implacably in the face as one would an enemy. The thought had just occurred to him: "Why shouldn't it be you?"
Suddenly the temerity of this idea struck him; it seemed to him as though all his blood were sweeping back in flight towards his heart. This girl was so beautiful, so arrestingly graceful and majestic in her youthfulness that he would never dare even allow her to see the confusion into which her presence threw him. And then, just as abruptly, his will reasserted itself and drove the overheated, altogether electrified blood back into his veins. Oh yes! He dared; he would show them! He began to walk at her side. He could envisage everything he proposed to accomplish. With care, he measured the distance separating him from the first kiss. And here once again his courage failed him. Yet where was the urgency? But now he came up against an obstacle which his timidity — quivering and recalcitrant — refused to clear. It was not that he was afraid of setting himself up as Santos Iturria's rival. On the contrary; even were it to end with a fight in which he, Leniot, would certainly be beaten, he would keep the very considerable prestige of having defied the school hero
all on his own . . . "and over a woman as well". Nor was it that he thought he might be treated as a child and disregarded because of his age; besides, Fermina Marquez was barely a year older than him. So whence did this obstacle stem if not from his own timidity? And yet he did not lack pluck. The essential point was to make a start; and this was bound to be simple; even amongst the classical writers, their lovers appeared to feel no embarrassment in declaring their love. Moreover, Santos and Ortega and other pupils in the upper forms would frequently visit the linen room to steal kisses off the young linen maids one after another. To be sure, this only involved linen maids. But one morning, in the dining hall, Pablo boasted that he had slipped love letters into the hands of their young female guests at the time of last Saint Charlemagne's day, yes love letters, and under the noses of their parents. And one of them had even replied — what more could a gallant man say?
He had come to Saint Augustine's when he was nine, barely able to read. At first, he had felt so lonely — surrounded by these schoolfellows who spoke a language unfamiliar to him — so like a captive, so abandoned that he had begun to work frantically to stop being affected by the wretchedness of his existence. He started to study as a man might start to drink: to forget. He was one of those characters whom a boarding school can stamp with an ineradicable flaw; he knew it and did his best to struggle against its influence.
His progress astounded everybody. At the end of one year, he was moved from the juniors' penultimate class into the senior school's first form, and in this new class he came top in the first composition of the year. From that moment on he dug his heels in, determined never to lose first place. He had been excluded from outdoor games; his clumsiness guaranteed the defeat of his side; the team captains themselves asked that he be excused from participating in the games. Of this he was glad. Henceforth, nothing interested him except this first place, his
idee fixe.
And it was an unstinting daily effort, for even the ordinary prepared work was given an order of merit after it had been corrected. The actual subject matter of his studies hardly mattered to him: science, literature, grammar, geography, they were simply opportunities for satisfying his obsession with scholastic distinction. He could have been taught anything at all since this ambition had been kindled in him. This goal blinded him; he had reached the point of no longer experiencing life's daily movement around him, of no longer seeing its monotony, its dullness and banality: the prep monitor who yawns over the authors he is studying for his degree, the idlers who are rushing slapdash through their proses and the dunces who are catching flies or gazing wistfully out of the windows, where a mother-of-pearl sky deepens to the blue of night. The melancholy of those evenings at Saint Augustine's no longer even made any impression on him — those forlorn village evenings of the outer suburbs, when you can hear until sleep overcomes you the distant moaning of trains which seem to flee towards Paris terror-stricken . . . Joanny Leniot's every effort was strained to what he used to call, in his heart of hearts, success.
And so this is what would happen: the boys would return to their classes; the master would be seated at his desk; in front of him, a pile of corrected scripts. Once silence had fallen, he would say: "I have given 18 out of 20 to Mr Leniot's unseen: it is without any real errors; I will read it out to you."
Or else, it would be the results of the last composition. They were only given in each form every week on Saturday evening in the presence of the prefect of studies and a chief monitor. They would begin with the highest forms: the upper and lower sixths . . . For a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, Joanny Leniot, seated at his desk, listened to the different stages of the ceremony. The sounds of footsteps and voices, the pupils' din as they all stood up at the same time on the entrance of the authorities - he heard all this and his doubts and anxieties drove him out of his mind. And these noises would be repeated from one class to the next. Now these gentlemen were entering the formroom next door. Finally it would be the turn of Leniot's class. In frock coats and top hats, the authorities made their entrance; the pupils and master stood up.
"Sit down, gentlemen," said the prefect of studies who assumed a solemn expression. And then the master would read out the results of the last composition. What a moment! "First: Leniot (Joanny)."
He hurriedly got to his feet; the prefect of studies smiled at him; then he sat down again shakily. It caused an upheaval, a shock to his mind, an unhinging of his nervous system. Until the end of the class, he continued to tremble inside from this, to retain a sort of feverishness. At the doorway, he would hear: "Did you have an order called in your form? Who came top?" "Leniot again of course!"
He allowed no trace of his joy to surface. Besides, he knew how little all that mattered to the vast majority of the pupils. And he did wish to be modest as well. But this joy was so great that he wanted to cry out, that he walked with stooping gait, wholly bent beneath the weight of his pride. Just as in the pictures of adventure stories a pirate can be seen carrying a beautiful white girl captive, so it seemed to him as though he were walking dazzled, holding his glory in his arms right against his heart. It was a fresh victory: for a further eight days, he would be seated in the form's place of honour. It was a bit like after Communion: he felt purified; he had more respect for himself.
The prefect of studies and all the masters used to congratulate him: high hopes were founded on him. He was so intelligent, he absorbed everything so quickly. This was the widely held opinion, for Joanny Leniot had the pride to conceal his dogged exertions. If he permitted himself a slack half an hour in prep, he would spend it demonstrating to everyone how idle he was, by getting up twenty times from his place, by having himself constantly admonished by the monitor. He would affect to copy out his prepared work at the last minute. He even managed to sleep during lessons. All this was deceptive and his mental swiftness aroused wonderment. In fact, his emotions were always more lively and distinct than his thoughts; they obscured his intelligence which was dominated by them, and all in all, despite his reputation for being intellectually able, Leniot was remarkable only for his boundless ambition, which truly was above that of his peers. His parents (who lived in Lyons) used to write him letters of encouragement, full of praise for each of his successes. Leniot senior would tell himself that his son understood the sacrifices being made for him, and that as a sensible boy he would take advantage of the education which was being placed within his reach. And his mother would reflect: "It's to please me that he works so much!" Joanny discerned these thoughts behind their congratulations. No, his parents would never understand . . . and he tore up their letters with smiles of pity. Nobody would ever understand that what he wanted and what he worked so hard for was solely this upheaval of the mind, this spasm occurring in response to the call of glory: "First: Leniot (Joanny)". These insignificant little feats of a schoolboy with a good record became the triumphs of a Roman emperor in his adolescent imagination.
Yet the adult world does not guess — life has so deafened, so blunted it — that these laurels might well never fade on the brow of this gifted pupil. At Saint Augustine's, wreaths were not awarded at prizegiving; but engraved on their covers, the books bore escutcheons in gold, set with the school's initials:
S.A. which, according to the old pun handed down from generation to generation since the school's earliest days, also meant: Sleazy Alehouse. The escutcheon was about as wide as a hundred-franc piece. For a long time, Joanny had gazed reverentially at this golden disc. It was like the permanent reflection of the memorable "first ray of glory" of which several fine authors speak; and although this deference was already nothing more than a childhood memory for him, at the mere sight of his prize books from the preceding years, his boyhood stood revealed with all its bitter taste, sadness and earnestness. Yet, throughout his life he would have prizes; throughout his life he would feel the warmth of this golden disk resting on him. His whole life would breathe that studious gravity, that quiet, unremitting tenacity to excel in everything. For him, his whole life would have that precious bitterness, the bay leafs self-same savour. And outside, far from prep rooms and dark corridors, there might be the vast open air and the whole summer with its full-scented breezes which make you dizzy; or again, there might be the autumn and the first warm mists which settle like a hand on your heart; there might be Paris and all its nights full of sins — such wonderful, such terrible sins, you would not dare imagine them; there might be all the women of the earth, who are so beautiful that you would want to find them names to express their beauty; and there might be Fermina Marquez' eyes, in which the tropical sun dazzles; — Joanny Leniot turned his face to the wall and thinking of the prepared work he had to do, experienced in his innermost self a joy which was greater than all these joys.
No, he would not be disturbed for anything in the world. His would be a centralization of the self, a refusal to overdiversify, to grant a moment's sympathy to anything whatsoever. He could plainly see the limitations of his mind. He had read and reread a short
Life of Benjamin Franklin,
which had ended with these words: "he wrung the most he could out of himself". Leniot would reflect: "Franklin must have despised himself as I myself do; but he found the way to be great in the eyes of men . . . that is the path to follow and without faltering". He was sparing of himself. When Fermina Marquez appeared at the school bringing with her a fresh spirit, he admitted that he had allowed himself to be distracted for an instant. The most wonderful eyes in the world were not supposed to divert him from his commendable goal. Had Caesar so much as on a single occasion looked fondly at the daughters or wives of the Gaulish chieftains? When from the ramparts' top, they entreated him by exposing their breasts; or again, when on the evening of a battle they were brought in herds to the proconsul's camp, had he ever experienced the slightest thrill of pity, a moment of desire for the prettiest and most unfortunate of them? Nevertheless, they were absolutely his to command; and they sensed their master perfectly in this diminutive, bald, well-shaven man! How often Joanny had imagined scenes of this sort . . .
Well then, he himself just like Caesar was destined to be admired by men and loved by women. It was unworthy of him to admire and love in return. Or rather, perhaps he could love but only a captive woman, that is to say one humbled and imploring who grovelled at your feet and fearfully kissed your hands. Yes, but could such a woman be found anywhere other than in novels whose actions took place in the colonies?
Not having a sister, seeing little of girls, Leniot instinctively recoiled from those pert creatures who, with their mockery, so severely test the timid and solemn pride of very young men. It is pretty hard for a boy who compares himself exclusively with the likes of Franklin and Julius Caesar to hear himself ridiculed for a blunder committed while serving tea, or for the over-vivid green of a new tie. Bursting with resentment, he did not forget the memory of occasions when he had been a laughingstock and when inane, older girls had made fun of him, "silly little geese, provincial peasants with their rustic tones". But the evocation of their accent was not enough to avenge Leniot for the wounds they had inflicted on his self-esteem. No — and as he drew closer to his sixteenth year, he became more convinced of this — what would truly give him his revenge, what would conclusively fix his position and his attitude towards women was a
seduction.
By this expedient, from the child he was at the outset, he would become a man; then unquestionably he would at last be able to approach those as yet uninitiated little fools without blushing. By this expedient as well, he would experience a new kind of triumph: he would know what a man feels to see a girl sacrifice her scruples, sense of decency and all her years of innocence for him. "And a woman who gives herself, isn't she failing her entire sex?" Yes, just seduce one of them! How your conqueror's heart beats feverishly at this thought!
So Leniot mused as he smoked his after-lunch cigarette in the grounds. At this precise moment, Mama Dolore and the young Colombian girls appeared round an avenue. Leniot hastened to join them and, while greeting them, looked Fermina implacably in the face as one would an enemy. The thought had just occurred to him: "Why shouldn't it be you?"
Suddenly the temerity of this idea struck him; it seemed to him as though all his blood were sweeping back in flight towards his heart. This girl was so beautiful, so arrestingly graceful and majestic in her youthfulness that he would never dare even allow her to see the confusion into which her presence threw him. And then, just as abruptly, his will reasserted itself and drove the overheated, altogether electrified blood back into his veins. Oh yes! He dared; he would show them! He began to walk at her side. He could envisage everything he proposed to accomplish. With care, he measured the distance separating him from the first kiss. And here once again his courage failed him. Yet where was the urgency? But now he came up against an obstacle which his timidity — quivering and recalcitrant — refused to clear. It was not that he was afraid of setting himself up as Santos Iturria's rival. On the contrary; even were it to end with a fight in which he, Leniot, would certainly be beaten, he would keep the very considerable prestige of having defied the school hero
all on his own . . . "and over a woman as well". Nor was it that he thought he might be treated as a child and disregarded because of his age; besides, Fermina Marquez was barely a year older than him. So whence did this obstacle stem if not from his own timidity? And yet he did not lack pluck. The essential point was to make a start; and this was bound to be simple; even amongst the classical writers, their lovers appeared to feel no embarrassment in declaring their love. Moreover, Santos and Ortega and other pupils in the upper forms would frequently visit the linen room to steal kisses off the young linen maids one after another. To be sure, this only involved linen maids. But one morning, in the dining hall, Pablo boasted that he had slipped love letters into the hands of their young female guests at the time of last Saint Charlemagne's day, yes love letters, and under the noses of their parents. And one of them had even replied — what more could a gallant man say?
Other books
Jae's Assignment by Bernice Layton
Crazy Horse by Jenny Oldfield
Take a Chance by Abbi Glines
Best Friends by Martha Moody
La selva by Clive Cussler, Jack du Brul
Unexpected Treasure: A High Seas Adventure by Tammy Andresen
La sociedad de consumo by Jean Baudrillard
The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy by David Handler
Double Dare (A Neighbor from Hell Book 6) by Mathewson, R.L.
Blindsided by Katy Lee