Bonjour tristesse Read online

  I will pass quickly over this period, for I am afraid that if I look at it closely, I shall revive memories that are too painful. Already I feel overwhelmed as I think of Anne's happy laugh, of her kindness to me. My conscience troubles me so much at those moments that I am obliged to resort to some expedient like lighting a cigarette, putting on a record, or telephoning to a friend. Then gradually I begin to think of something else. But I do not like having to take refuge in forgetfulness and frivolity instead of facing my memories and fighting them.

  10

  Destiny sometimes assumes strange forms. That summer it appeared in the guise of Elsa, a mediocre person, but with a pretty face. She had an extraordinary laugh, sudden and infectious, which only rather stupid people possess.

  I soon noticed the effect of this laugh on my father. I told her to make the utmost use of it whenever we 'surprised' her with Cyril. My orders were: "When you hear me coming with my father, say nothing, just laugh." And at the sound of that laugh a look of fury would come into my father's face. My rôle of stage manager continued to be exciting. I never missed my mark, for when we saw Cyril and Elsa openly showing signs of an imaginary relationship my father and I both grew pale with the violence of our feelings. The sight of Cyril bending over Elsa made my heart ache. I would have given anything in the world to stop them, forgetting that it was I who had planned it.

  Apart from these incidents and filling our daily life were Anne's confidence, gentleness and (I hate to use the word) happiness. She was nearer to happiness than I had ever seen her since she had been at our mercy, egoists that we were. She was far removed from our violent desires and my base little schemes. I had counted on her aloofness and instinctive pride preventing her from making any special effort to attach my father to her, and that she would rely on looking beautiful, and being her intelligent, loving self. I began to feel sorry for her, and pity is an agreeable sentiment, moving, like military music.

  One fine morning the maid, in great excitement, handed me a note from Elsa: "All is well. Come!" I had an impression of imminent catastrophe: I hate final scenes. I met Elsa on the beach, looking triumphant.

  "At last I managed to speak to your father, just an hour ago."

  "What did he say?"

  "He told me he was very sorry for what had happened, that he had behaved like a cad. It's the truth, isn't it?"

  I thought it best to agree.

  "Then he paid me compliments in the way only he can, you know, rather detached, in a low voice, as if at the same time it hurt him."

  I interrupted her: "What was he leading up to?"

  "Well, nothing. Oh yes, he asked me to have tea with him in the village to show there was no ill-feeling, and that I was broadminded. Shall I go?"

  My father's views on the broadmindedness of red-haired girls were a treat. I felt like saying that it had nothing to do with me. Then I realised that she held me responsible for her success. Rightly or wrongly, it irritated me. I felt trapped.

  "I don't know, Elsa. That depends on you. You always ask me what you should do, one might almost believe that it was I who forced you ..."

  "But it was you," she said. "It's entirely through you that ..."

  The admiration in her voice suddenly frightened me:

  "Go if you want to, but for heaven's sake, don't say any more about it!"

  "But Cécile, isn't the whole idea to free him from that woman's clutches?"

  I fled. Let my father do as he wished, and Anne must deal with it as best she could. Anyhow I was on my way to meet Cyril. It seemed to me that love was the only remedy for the haunting fear I felt.

  Cyril took me in his arms without a word. Once I was with him, everything became quite simple. Later, lying beside him, I told him that I hated myself. I smiled as I said it because although I meant it, there was no pain, only a pleasant resignation. He did not take me seriously:

  "What does it matter? I love you so much that I shall make you feel as I do."

  All through our mid-day meal I thought of his words: "I love you so much." That is why, although I have tried hard, I cannot remember much about that lunch. Anne was wearing a mauve dress, as mauve as the shadows under her eyes; the colour of her eyes themselves. My father laughed, and was evidently well pleased with himself: everything was going well for him. During dessert he announced that he had some shopping to do in the village that afternoon. I smiled to myself. I was tired of the whole thing, and felt fatalistic about it. My one desire was to have a swim.

  At four o'clock I went down to the beach. I saw my father on the terrace about to leave for the village; I did not speak, not even to warn him to be careful.

  The water was soft and warm. Anne did not appear. I supposed she was busy in her room designing her next collection, and meanwhile my father was making the most of his time with Elsa. After two hours, when I was tired of sunbathing, I went up to the terrace and sitting down in a chair, opened a newspaper.

  At that moment Anne appeared from the direction of the wood. She was running, clumsily, heavily, her elbows close to her sides. I had a sudden, ghastly impression of an old woman running towards me, and that she was about to fall down. I did not move; she disappeared behind the house near the garage. In a flash I understood, and I too began running to catch her.

  She was already in her car starting it up. I rushed over and clutched at the door.

  "Anne," I cried. "Don't go, it's all a mistake, it's my fault. I'll explain everything."

  She paid no attention to me, but bent to take the brake off.

  "Anne, we need you!"

  She straightened up, and I saw that her face was distorted: she was crying. Then I realised that I had attacked a living, sensitive creature, not just an entity. She too must once have been a rather secretive little girl, then an adolescent, and after that a woman. Now she was forty, and all alone. She loved a man, and had hoped to spend ten or twenty happy years with him. As for me . . . that poor miserable face was my work. I was petrified; I trembled all over as I leant against the door.

  "You have no need of anyone," she murmured. "Neither you nor he."

  The engine was running. I was desperate, she couldn't go like that!

  "Forgive me! I beg you ..."

  "Forgive you? What for?"

  The tears were streaming down her face. She did not seem to notice them.

  "My poor child!"

  She laid her hand against my cheek for a moment, then drove away. I saw her car disappearing round the side of the house. I was irretrievably lost. It had all happened so quickly. I thought of her face.

  I heard steps behind me: it was my father. He had taken the time to remove the imprint of Elsa's lipstick from his face, and brush the pine needles from his suit. I turned round and threw myself on him.

  "You beast!"

  I began to sob.

  "But what's the matter? Where is Anne? Cécile, tell me, Cécile!"

  11

  We did not meet again until dinner. Both of us were nervous at being suddenly alone together, and neither he nor I had any appetite. We realised it was necessary to get Anne back. I could not bear to think of the look of horror on her face before she left, of her distress and my own responsibility. All my cunning manoeuvres and carefully laid plans were forgotten. I was thrown completely off my balance, and I could see from his expression that my father felt the same.

  "Do you think," he said, "that she'll stay away from us for long?"

  "I expect she's gone to Paris," I said.

  "Paris," murmured my father in a dreamy voice.

  "Perhaps we shall never see her again."

  He seemed at a loss for words, and took my hand across the table.

  "You must be terribly angry with me. I don't know what came over me. On the way back through the woods I kissed Elsa, and just at that moment Anne must have arrived."

  I was not listening. The figures of Elsa and my father embracing under the pines seemed theatrical and unreal to me, and I could not visualise them. T
he only vivid memory of that day was my last glimpse of Anne's face with its look of grief and betrayal.

  I took a cigarette from my father's packet and lit it. Smoking during meals was a thing Anne could not bear.

  I smiled at my father:

  "I understand very well, it's not your fault. It was a momentary lapse, as they say. But we must get Anne to forgive us, or rather you."

  "What shall we do?" he asked me.

  He looked far from well. I felt sorry for him and for myself too. After all, what was Anne up to, leaving us in the lurch like that, making us suffer for one moment of folly? Hadn't she a duty towards us?

  "Let's write to her," I said. "And ask her forgiveness."

  "What a wonderful idea," said my father.

  At last he had found some means of escape from the stupor and remorse of the past three hours. Without waiting to finish our meal, we pushed back the cloth, my father went to fetch a lamp, pens, and some notepaper; we sat down opposite each other, almost smiling because our preparations had made Anne's return seem probable. A bat was circling round outside the window. My father started writing.

  An unbearable feeling of disgust and horror rises in me when I think of the letters full of fine sentiments we wrote that evening, sitting under the lamp like two awkward schoolchildren, applying ourselves in silence to the impossible task of getting Anne back. However, we managed to produce two works of art, full of excuses, love, and repentance. When I had finished, I felt almost certain that Anne would not be able to resist us, and that a reconciliation was imminent. I could already imagine the scene as she forgave us, it would take place in our drawing-room in Paris, Anne would come in and .. .

  At that moment the telephone rang. It was ten o'clock. We exchanged a look of astonishment which soon turned to hope; it was Anne telephoning to say she forgave us and was returning. My father bounded to the telephone and called "Hello" in a voice full of joy.

  Then he said nothing but "Yes, yes, where is that? yes" in an almost inaudible whisper. I got up, shaken by fear. My father passed his hand over his face with a mechanical gesture. At length he gently replaced the receiver and turned to me:

  "She has had an accident," he said. "On the road to Estérel. It took them some time to discover her address. They telephoned to Paris and got our number from there."

  He went on in the same flat voice, and I dared not interrupt:

  "The accident happened at the most dangerous spot. There have been many at that place, it seems. The car fell down fifty metres. It would have been a miracle if she had escaped."

  The rest of that night I remember as if it had been a nightmare: the road surging up under the headlights, my father's stony face, the door of the clinic. My father would not let me see her. I sat on a bench in the waiting-room staring at a lithograph of Venice. I thought of nothing. A nurse told me that this was the sixth accident at that place since the beginning of the summer. My father did not come back.

  Then I thought that once again by her death Anne had proved herself different from us. If we had wanted to commit suicide, even supposing we had the courage, it would have been with a bullet in the head, leaving an explanatory note destined to trouble the sleep of those who were responsible. But Anne had made us the magnificent present of giving us the chance to believe in an accident. A dangerous place on the road, a car that easily lost balance. It was a gift that we would soon be weak enough to accept. In any case it is a romantic idea of mine to call it suicide. Can one commit suicide on account of people like my father and myself, people who have no need of anybody, living or dead? My father and I never spoke of it as anything but an accident.

  The next day we returned to the house at about three o'clock in the afternoon. Elsa and Cyril were waiting for us, sitting on the steps. They seemed like two comic, forgotten characters; neither of them had known Anne, or loved her. There they were with their little love affairs, their good looks, and their embarrassment. Cyril came up to me and put his hand on my arm. I looked at him: I had never loved him. I had found him gentle and attractive. I had loved the pleasure he gave me, but I did not need him. I was going away, leaving behind me the house, the garden, and that summer. My father was with me; he took my arm and we went indoors.

  In the house were Anne's jacket, her flowers, her room, her scent. My father closed the shutters, took a bottle out of the refrigerator and fetched two glasses. It was the only remedy to hand. Our letters of excuse still lay on the table. I pushed them off and they floated to the floor. My father, who was coming towards me holding a full glass, hesitated, then avoided them. I found it symbolical. I took my glass and drained it in one gulp. The room was in half darkness, I saw my father's shadow on the window. The sea was beating on the shore.

  12

  The funeral took place in Paris on a fine day. There was the usual curious crowd dressed in black. My father and I shook hands with Anne's elderly relations. I looked at them with interest: they would probably have come to tea with us once a year. People commiserated with my father. Webb must have spread the news of his intended marriage. I saw that Cyril was looking for me after the service, but I avoided him. The resentment I felt towards him was quite unjustified, but I could not help it. Everyone was deploring the dreadful and senseless event, and as I was still rather doubtful whether it had been an accident, I was relieved.

  In the car on the way back, my father took my hand and held it tightly. I thought: 'Now we have only each other, we are alone and unhappy,' and for the first time I cried. My tears were some comfort, they were not at all like the terrible emptiness I had felt in the clinic in front of the picture of Venice. My father gave me his handkerchief without a word, his face was ravaged.

  For a month we lived like a widower and an orphan, eating all our meals together and staying at home. Sometimes we spoke of Anne: "Do you remember the day when . . .?" We chose our words with care, and averted our eyes for fear we might hurt each other, or that something irreparable would come between us. Our discretion and restraint brought their own recompense. Soon we could speak of Anne in a normal way as of a person dear to us, with whom we could have been happy, but whom God had called to Himself. God instead of chance. We did not believe in God. In these circumstances we were thankful to believe in fate.

  Then one day at a friend's house I met a young man I liked and who liked me. For a week I went out with him constantly, and my father, who could not bear to be alone, followed my example with an ambitious young woman. Life began to take its old course, as it was bound to. When my father and I were alone together we joked, and discussed our latest conquests. He must suspect that my friendship with Philippe is not platonic, and I know very well that his new friend is costing him too much money. But we are happy. Winter is drawing to an end; we shall not rent the same villa again, but another one, near Juan-les-Pins.

  Only when I am in bed, at dawn, listening to the cars passing below in the streets of Paris, my memory betrays me: that summer returns to me with all its emotions. Anne, Anne, I repeat over and over again softly in the darkness. Then something rises in me that I welcome by name, with closed eyes: Bonjour tristesse!