"You do well enough," Christophe said. "But why aren"t you in some sort of school now? Are things so bad here that there are no schools for you at all?"
"Oh, no, Monsieur, there"re a number," and quickly Marcel told him of those he knew, all private academies like that of Monsieur De Latte, some taught by white men, some by men of color, some very much sought after and expensive, others not so. It was the fashion to seek Monsieur De Latte among those that Marcel knew, all his friends attended Monsieur De Latte"s, Monsieur De Latte was...well, an old man.
"Monsieur, you"ll be turning people away," Marcel said finally. "If you would only give me a chance."
"But why?" Christophe asked, and his eyes were hard again though the voice was sincere. "Why in particular my school? Because I"m famous? Because I wrote a novel, and got my name in the fashionable journals? What do you think will happen in my cla.s.sroom, alchemy? That you"ll be swept up into some eternal after-theater crowd where the gla.s.ses are clicking and the wit is rippling and the actors and actresses never take off their paint?" He bent forward, "What do you want to learn from me there? Your name is Marcel, isn"t it? What do you want to learn, Marcel?"
Marcel"s face was suddenly a knot. He did not see the smile on Christophe"s lips.
"Hmmm!" Marcel began finally, "You have accomplished things of which most men dream, Monsieur. Your words have been printed, they"ve been read by thousands. I would think that would make for a different...a different point of view." He looked up. "My teacher, Monsieur De Latte, the man who was my teacher...he handles books as if they were dead! Yes, dead." He looked into Christophe"s eyes, saying this last word with a slight grimace. He could see perfectly what he wanted to say, and felt miserable that he couldn"t express it. Finally he decided to be true to the image that was in his mind. "My teacher believes in those books only because they occupy s.p.a.ce, I mean he can hold them in his hand. And they are solid enough that when thrown against the wall they make a...a clonk!" He shrugged. "I want to know what"s inside of them, the way...what they actually mean. We forget all the time, I think, that things are made, that this table was made by someone for instance, with hammer and nails, and that what"s in books was made by someone, someone flesh and blood like ourselves wrote those lines, they were alive, they might have gone this way or that with a different word." He stopped, bitterly disappointed in himself, and thought, This man is going to think me a fool. "I think, Monsieur, people forget this, and all that"s in books, it"s something dead to them, something to be acquired. I want to understand it, I want to...to find some key."
Christophe"s lips were on the verge of a smile.
"You"re very clever for your age, Marcel, you understand something about the material and the spiritual which others often never come to understand, no matter how long they live or where they go."
"That"s it, the spiritual and the material," Marcel said, more intent on the idea than the compliment which Christophe had just paid him. "I have this feeling of late that all things are alive. I believed at one time that furniture was just furniture, objects that we used, and thought nothing more about it, as a matter of fact I loathed furniture and people who spoke about it with all manner of allusions to the price..."
Christophe"s eyes were wide.
"...until I watched a man make it and I learned that the curve of the leg of the chair can be a spiritual thing."
Marcel had never spoken these words to himself before, they had just taken shape from all the chaos and pain in his mind. And they gave a beautiful order to his thoughts suddenly so that he sat back lost for the moment in the vision of Jean Jacques at work in his shop, balancing the gold leaf on the tips of the brush. "But there is some point where the spiritual act creates a material object and that object gets away from it and is merely material again for those around it. It does not continue to be spiritual...chairs, tables, books, what"s inside books. But if ever there was something that is obviously supposed to remain spiritual it"s the contents of books. Chairs could fool the best of us, I suppose. We take them for granted. But the contents of books...it"s by its very nature spiritual, poetry, philosophy, etc...." He lifted his full gla.s.s of beer and suddenly drank it completely down.
"Wait," Christophe said, "you"re going to get drunk."
"Oh, no, no, I can hold much more than this," he said. He felt reckless and wonderful. He gestured for Madame Lelaud.
"Some disciplinarian this Monsieur De Latte must be, do you report back to him after your afternoons here on how much you can hold? Maybe he sends you here to draw pictures?"
"Oooh!" Marcel put his hands to his head. "There"s something more I have to tell you. A lie right now would be a spiritual disaster. I have never spoken to anyone of all these things, my head is bursting. I was expelled from school, I was thrown out. So I have a bad record, a bad reputation, Monsieur De Latte will say terrible things about me if you ask him, or worse yet write a letter calling me names. These things came about because I couldn"t endure being there any longer, listening to those endless recitations...I know know the multiplication tables, I the multiplication tables, I know know the names of the states and their capitals, I the names of the states and their capitals, I know know the basic theorems of Euclid, I the basic theorems of Euclid, I know know the Seven Acts of Mercy, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Twelve Gifts of the Holy Ghost, the Six Precepts of the Church, "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," "We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect government," "All Gaul is divided into three parts,"..."I came, I saw, I conquered."" the Seven Acts of Mercy, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Twelve Gifts of the Holy Ghost, the Six Precepts of the Church, "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," "We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect government," "All Gaul is divided into three parts,"..."I came, I saw, I conquered.""
"So he kicked you out, did he?" Christophe laughed. "The man"s a fool, obviously, how could I possibly believe a word that he might say?"
Madame Lelaud had brought their mugs. "Next time, cher cher, you draw my picture," she said as she moved away.
"Of course," Marcel said. "Madame Duck, and Monsieur Duck, and all the little Ducks!" He reached for the beer. "I"m in disgrace, Monsieur. But if you give me a new start..."
"Start by not drinking that down in one gulp," Christophe said gently, extending his hand above the gla.s.s. Marcel nodded.
"This is the greatest night of my life," he whispered.
"And you read my novel," Christophe mused, "and you admire me..."
"Monsieur, I lived Nuits de Charlotte! Nuits de Charlotte! I was Antonio with Charlotte in my arms! When Randolph killed Charlotte, it was the death of innocence, I wanted to destroy him with my bare hands!..." I was Antonio with Charlotte in my arms! When Randolph killed Charlotte, it was the death of innocence, I wanted to destroy him with my bare hands!..."
"Calm yourself," Christophe smiled. "I was the one who killed Charlotte, and I should have killed Randolph and Antonio too."
"Are you mocking me, Monsieur?"
"No," Christophe shook his head. There was something sad in his laugh, but something whimsical. "And when were you expelled, may I ask?"
"I"ll never miss a day of cla.s.s, Monsieur, I will be a changed person," he said. He lifted the gla.s.s carefully so as not to spill the slipping foam and barely tasted it. Then he took a deeper drink. "A changed person," he murmured again.
Christophe was studying him. His arms were folded on the table and he looked directly at Marcel. "I don"t care about that, Marcel," he said. "If you care so little for what happens in my cla.s.sroom that you absent yourself, that"s your affair. I won"t be teaching little boys, I won"t be training or disciplining anyone. I"ll teach the older boys, the ones who can appreciate it. And if what you say is true about there being so many students, it sounds as if I"ll have it the way I want it. They aren"t all as spirited as you are, though, are they?" he smiled.
"You mock me, Monsieur, for certain."
"You are drunk, and you have to go home."
"Oh, no, I don"t want to go home. My mother is sound asleep, besides, nothing wakes her in the night..." he stopped. The first lie. She was always waking in the night. "But my door is locked, she"ll think that I"m inside." Had he remembered to lock it, he wasn"t sure. "Je suis un criminel "Je suis un criminel," he murmured.
"There"s something I want to take up with you first, and then I"ll walk you to the end of the block and you"re to go home. But this first, the matter of what happened in my house this afternoon."
Marcel drew in his breath. His expression changed like that of a soldier being called to attention, and through the dreamy exhilaration induced by the beer, he felt quite clearheaded suddenly and miserable.
"Monsieur, I have only the most profound respect..." he began. He was vaguely conscious of putting his hand over his heart. He saw her again, beautiful, asleep against her pillows and he shut his eyes. He had the overwhelming physical sense of that soft flesh right where her arm pressed against her breast. The room moved.
"Yes, I remember that," Christophe said. "But are you a gentleman?" the voice was harsh. Marcel looked up again to see Christophe"s face somewhat hard as it had been before. "Well?"
"Ma foi, I mean to be always!" Marcel said. "I"ll never darken your door again, I swear it."
"That"s not my meaning. Shall I make it clear?"
"Yes?"
"If I ever hear one word spoken by you, or by anyone...about what pa.s.sed beneath my roof this afternoon, I will know that you are no gentleman. And I"ll break your neck."
"On my honor, Monsieur, I swear."
"Good. Because I mean what I say. And if you mean what you say then we can both look forward to the school. Now come on, your mother"s likely to send for the police if she finds you"re gone. Get up, get up! You"re going home."
Marcel nodded submissively. "You don"t despise me," he whispered, as he all but fell off the stoop into the cooler air of the street. He found himself gazing up at the women on the overhanging porches, dark shapes against the dimly lit windows beyond. A thinning but still spirited crowd moved on the banquettes under a silent and faintly fragrant rain. Marcel extended the open palm of his hand to feel the droplets.
"Now do I need to walk with you?" Christophe asked. He drew on his delicate cigar. It was clear he did not wish to leave.
"Oh, no," Marcel said, c.o.c.king his head, "I"m quite myself. When shall I come?"
"It will be a while, I have to fix the house, you know what state my house is in, it"s about to collapse, but in a few days I can give you some studying to do on your own. Tell your mother, if you wish, that I"ve accepted you, that is, if it will help with your disgrace. I"ll be advertising the school. Now go on, it"s raining on top of everything else, I want to see you off."
Marcel moved swiftly away. There was a small tavern at the end of the next block, a tarnished light in the darkness. He moved toward that light, and then turned to see if Christophe was still there. Christophe stood on the brick banquette before the cabaret and with his arms folded appeared to be looking at the sky, or perhaps at the windows of the bordellos across the way. He dropped the b.u.t.t of the cigar and ground it into the brick with his boot. And without looking after Marcel, he went back into Madame Lelaud"s. Marcel meantime pushed his way into the tavern, jostled on all sides by the ma.s.sive shoulders of the workingmen and getting his elbows onto the bar and his boot onto the slippery rail, managed to down three mugs of beer in rapid succession. Now certain he could feel no pain he plowed through the dark muddy streets toward home.
Cecile sat in his room, clutching a blue satin wrapper about her, and cried bitterly as he fell headlong onto the bed. "I"m too tired, Maman," he said, as his eyes closed. For a little while he knew she was still there, walking back and forth. He could hear her choked and angry sobs. But then he was gone.
PART THREE.
I.
AT TWELVE NOON a mild breeze from the river carried the ringing of the Angelus over the rooftops so that Marie on the settee in the parlor of the cottage put down her needle and thread, and shutting her eyes, began the prayers to herself without the movement of her lips. Her long straight black hair was parted simply in the middle, unbraided, undone; and casually, without thinking of it, she ran her hand beneath its silky weight and shook it loose over her shoulders. It descended like a veil on either side of her face. a mild breeze from the river carried the ringing of the Angelus over the rooftops so that Marie on the settee in the parlor of the cottage put down her needle and thread, and shutting her eyes, began the prayers to herself without the movement of her lips. Her long straight black hair was parted simply in the middle, unbraided, undone; and casually, without thinking of it, she ran her hand beneath its silky weight and shook it loose over her shoulders. It descended like a veil on either side of her face.
She did not feel well, and invested the prayers with her full concentration, her mind for the moment cleared of all that tortured her, her face devoid of expression. She had slept miserably the night before, a prey to thin dreams of Marcel"s troubles, and she had heard her mother crying in the night. At dawn she had been awakened to be sent on a peculiar errand to Monsieur Jacquemine, her father"s notary, in the Rue Royale, an errand which violently confused her, and coming home had had the misfortune to meet Richard Lermontant in the street and cry in his presence, and even now, some hours later, she was still on the verge of tears.
In addition, the Rue Ste. Anne was in an uncommon commotion. Juliet Mercier"s son, Christophe, the famous Paris writer, had returned the night before, and this morning he and his mother had been quarreling so fiercely that gla.s.s was broken, screams erupted from the town-house, and finally the famous man himself, his shirt open at the throat and tie streaming, had run into the street shouting with a clenched fist at his mother over the garden wall, while she with wild witch"s hair banged shut the blinds of a high window with such force that they broke, clattering down to the flags below.
A crowd had gathered, neighbors hovered at their gates, and Mercier at last stomped off, but only after demanding of one and all where a man might order a decent meal with something to drink without being thrown out of the establishment for being a n.i.g.g.e.r. Trunks lay helter-skelter on the corner for thieves to steal, and five different women had come to the cottage to relate to Cecile these amazing details.
Marie showed no interest in this matter, but merely continued to make small embroidery st.i.tches in a scarf as though she liked this kind of work when in fact she loathed it. Far from distracting her from her fears for Marcel, this confusion in the street seemed rather some absurd amplification of what was in her mind. She stopped occasionally, taking deep silent breaths, and stretched her long fingers out against the muslin of her skirt.
Cecile, muttering disdain for such disturbances, and pacing as she had since morning, at last took up her parasol and on the pretext of an errand went out, obviously to see some of the spectacle for herself.
Of course Marie knew who Christophe Mercier was.
She had seen his Nuits de Charlotte Nuits de Charlotte on her brother"s desk, and one evening Marcel had come bounding down the steps of the on her brother"s desk, and one evening Marcel had come bounding down the steps of the garconniere garconniere with a freshly done ink sketch of the man which he turned over and held up to the shade of her lamp, demanding to know if she could detect in it the slightest disproportion. Impressed with his skill, she confessed she saw none, and gave him quickly from her armoire an empty oval frame with gla.s.s intact that he accepted at once as if it were a jewel. Dazed for the moment by her brother"s pa.s.sion she had thought little of the subject of the portrait at all. with a freshly done ink sketch of the man which he turned over and held up to the shade of her lamp, demanding to know if she could detect in it the slightest disproportion. Impressed with his skill, she confessed she saw none, and gave him quickly from her armoire an empty oval frame with gla.s.s intact that he accepted at once as if it were a jewel. Dazed for the moment by her brother"s pa.s.sion she had thought little of the subject of the portrait at all.
Until on long slow nights this summer, she had overheard that name again and again as Richard and Marcel, lingering after supper, spoke of his wild Parisian life, often forgetting that she was near. Richard"s voice was a deep rumble at such times, and lounging with legs outstretched, his large heavy fingers gesturing against the lamp, he cast a man"s shadow, and now and then filled the small rooms of the cottage with a man"s laughter. Of all the young boys she knew, brothers and cousins of friends, or the few companions Marcel brought home, Richard alone had stirred in Marie some new and painful fascination.
She had always been fond of him, and had always known that Marcel loved him. And loving Marcel as she did, she could not help but see Richard bathed in a flattering light. But there was more to it than that, he had become a presence to her, something baffling in its intensity, and on dreary afternoons when she was dull and tense from the silence of the cottage and her mother"s unspoken irritations, she found herself more and more often wondering if Richard would not corne by. She listened for his voice at the door, for the sound of his foot on the path.
Quite recently, after the death of a mother of a friend, she had seen him presiding with his father at the wake when he had not known that she was there, a man among the mourners, attending to all manner of details with an adult"s ease and something gentle and reverent that struck in her a resonating chord. Later on the steps of that house, his father had taken her hands, called her Mademoiselle, and expressed his affection for Marcel. She with downcast eyes had felt a sudden anguish, a desperation as if something utterly precious, something more than she had ever wanted in her life before, might be torn from her for reasons she could not know. In the night she would awake with a start to her empty room, the tiny porcelain light flickering on the tester, and find that she had been thinking of Richard, not dreaming of him, merely thinking of him, in her sleep.
So hanging on his words on balmy evenings, when the candles burned low, and the smell of strong coffee rose deliciously from the steaming pot, she had learned something of Monsieur Christophe Mercier without ever meaning to learn it-that he was a famous novelist and a writer of pamphlets about the arts, that the boys idolized him and lived for the day that he might come home.
Well, he was home and quarreling in the street. And it was no wonder. His mother, Juliet, was as terrifying as a voodooienne, and it seemed to Marie, something evil lurked in the long and ruined house at the corner. The silhouette of that reclusive woman moving from one dim window to another was repellent, like the slime that oozed from the crevices of her walls.
Could it be that the famous Christophe, having been gone so long, had failed upon coming home to realize what everyone knew full well, that the woman was mad? It was tragic if he did not know.
But it was remote. Marie thought of Marcel who by noon had still not come down from the garconniere garconniere, and when the closeness of the parlor became too much for her, or the sewing had put her teeth intolerably on edge, she put it aside and wandered to the back of the cottage to look up at the shuttered window of her brother"s room.
It was all the same.
Sun glared in puddles from a morning rain that had cooled nothing, and the fronds of the banana trees hung listlessly against the plastered walls. Behind drawn blinds, Lisette and Zazu dozed while the pots simmered in the open hearth, and above Marcel"s room on the great thatch of blue Morning Glory that dipped its tendrils to his door, a swarm of insects gave off the only sound, a murmur that seemed the murmur of the heat itself.
Still as a statue, her hands loosely clasped before her skirt, Marie looked at these things, wanting to wake Marcel but never dreaming of actually doing it, afraid as she was of the scene that might inevitably follow, when he learned how things stood.
Early that morning, Cecile had dictated a note to Marie for the notary, Monsieur Jacquemine, demanding that he attempt to reach Monsieur Philippe at once on urgent business. Cecile"s face was drawn, and though primly dressed, her hair was yet undone and disheveled and there was a slight puffiness beneath her eyes. She had paced, summoning up her words with effort, and at last concluded, "It is a matter concerning Marcel Ste. Marie who has been expelled from school and behaves badly." Marie was appalled. For an instant she had stopped, bent over the secretaire secretaire so that her mother could not see this, and when she went on the writing was uneven, a word misspelled. Of course she had known Marcel was expelled, she had learned it the night before, but what shocked her and to some extent even for the moment revolted her was that her mother would report this to Monsieur Philippe. so that her mother could not see this, and when she went on the writing was uneven, a word misspelled. Of course she had known Marcel was expelled, she had learned it the night before, but what shocked her and to some extent even for the moment revolted her was that her mother would report this to Monsieur Philippe.
"Take that to his office, go!" Cecile had said, and her back to Marie, she moved into the dark bedroom where the blinds had been drawn against the heat. Marie had turned slowly and looked at her mother, at the hunched shoulders, at the flared and flounced muslin skirts.
It was then that Cecile had spun round and flashing a similar virulence to that she had shown the evening before in Richard"s presence, hissed at her daughter, "Go, do you hear me, go!" Her teeth were clenched and she had made of her hands two small trembling fists.
A peculiar sensation pa.s.sed through Marie then. She felt chills. They moved over her arms, up her back, and up the back of her neck. And looking up, she met her mother"s eyes for the first time since Richard had blundered out of the cottage the night before. There was a subtle alteration in Cecile"s expression, no more than a flicker, and hastily she turned her back again.
Marie watched her calmly, watched her lift the soft ma.s.s of her skirts and blend with the shadows, leaving behind her in the air only the sound of her hasty halting breath, the sudden gurgle of water being poured from a pitcher into a gla.s.s. It seemed then Cecile made some sound, something that was almost a cry. But Marie merely folded the note and left.
Walking steadily toward the Rue Royale, her parasol too far back on her shoulder to shelter her from the clear sun, the heat of the bricks rising through the thin leather of her slippers, she felt herself blinded by an uncommon emotion, uncommon in kind and uncommon in intensity: this was anger, an anger bordering on rage.
Marie did not think in words as Marcel did. She did not talk to the mirror, nor write out "thoughts" on paper, and even in the Cathedral where she often went alone on Sat.u.r.day afternoons to kneel for an hour in a pew nearest the altar of the Virgin Mary, there was no outpouring of her soul that was articulate, she did not pray in words.
And those rote prayers she uttered at such times-as she did each morning and each night and with the ringing of the Angelus, or when the beads of her rosary pa.s.sed through her hands-those rote prayers had precisely that effect they were intended to have when invented centuries and centuries before: they ceased to be language and merely became sound, a rhythmic repet.i.tious sound that lulled the mind and slowly allowed it to empty itself. So that divorced from what others call thought it was free to know itself in terms of the infinite, in terms of that which language has only begun to approximate if not destroy. Marie saw images at such times like blazing icons. Eyes fixed inwardly on the sufferings of Christ, she pierced all the mundane visions of the dusty Jerusalem streets through which He dragged His Cross and felt with a violent chill what was beyond the words of the missal in her hands: the pure nature of suffering for others, the meaning of the Incarnation: and the Word was made Flesh and the Word was made Flesh. The concept of goodness was real to her, as was the concept of the good life.
She understood this, just as throughout her life she knew her own feelings, was not given to self-doubt, spoke with quiet confidence, and seemed to possess no need to confide. In crowded rooms she could often through her own veil of silence perceive keenly the feelings of others-this one"s hurt, and that one"s anxiety-and the meaning of rapid verbal exchanges here and there, their injustice, their superficiality, their basic lie.
But when she was confused, when some emotion swept her violently for which she was utterly unprepared, Marie became lost in it, groping for a language that might help her discuss it in her own mind, and finding none, was shaken as if some force inside of her might rend her limb from limb.
It had been this way for her that morning, as she pushed steadily with the note through the muddy streets, toward the office of Monsieur Jacquemine, stopping mechanically at curbs for carts she did not see, oblivious to the shouts from a gallery doorway, her eyebrows raised, her lids lowered, in what seemed between the long shadows of her shimmering hair the very countenance of calm.
Envisioning over and over her mother"s face, hearing again and again that hiss of her words, she felt once more that extraordinary chill that had come over her at the secretaire secretaire, the very chill she felt at keen moments in her prayers, a tiny rising of the delicate down on her flesh, a shock that seemed to paralyze, though somehow the body moved, step by step with unerring instinct, on its way.
She could not abide what she felt; yet she could not stop it. All she could do was continue her violent pace, and that movement alone soothed her, seemed constructive, though the nature of the errand filled her with loathing and with fear.
There had never been closeness between them, Marie and Cecile. They had never talked to each other, did not seek each other"s company, and moving swiftly through what had to be done in life-sewing, dressing, straightening, the preparations of a fine feast day table-they fitted hand in glove in the cottage, knew nothing of argument, and held for each other not the slightest surprise.
Childhood had seemed timeless in this regard. It was the way it was. But of late, a shadow was between them, growing in depth, a shadow thick and c.u.mulative like a cloud. It was perhaps that Marie had begun to think about their life, and roaming sometimes after school through rooms of other families, mothers and daughters at cluttered dressing tables with pins and cologne, had begun to see beyond the seemingly inevitable fortress of family to other worlds.
It was little things. Gabriella Roget with her fingers clasped tight to her mother"s eyes, steering her with waltzing flounces to the mirror, saying, "Not yet, not yet, very well now, look!" Peals of laughter at a birthday table, brothers and sisters quarreling for the last bit of cake with pinches and mischievous looks; or young Fantin on Gabriella"s bed, teasing, "I know what Maman wants to do, Maman wants to get ahold of that hair," so that "Maman" turning from the dresser said, "Oh, do let me brush it, Marie, just let me take it down once, your mother won"t know, oh, just look at that thick straight hair."
Things that ran to nonsense, kisses, defied memory or made up afternoons unmarked, so that a vague feeling collected in Marie, something that felt subversive, must stop, but did not.
At home with a rigid face Cecile watched the ticking clock over the covered dishes and when at last Marcel"s step hit the door, motioned again for the reheated soup to be served. He was animated, cross, picked at things; yet all the worse was his absence, when silence lapsed back like dreary waves on a winter beach. He must have his bath water hot, not so much milk in his coffee, you know how he dislikes it, call him again, did you forget to darn his shirt? So that at odd moments, when mother and daughter wandered alone from room to room with no sound but the soft closing of the armoire doors or the rattle of a rosary drawn from a small chest, a sense of dread overcame Marie. It was awful this dread, it was like fear of the dark when she was a child, that amorphous something that lurked in shadow beyond the dull glow of the Virgin"s face above a vigil flame, or guardian angels in a bra.s.s oval on the wall paper, cl.u.s.tered with giant feather wings about the tiny figure of a golden-haired white child.
This dread. It called in question all that was warm, seemingly solid, and sometimes when it was at its worst, she felt a weakness in her toward all the world, as if she could not reach out for cold water right in front of her on a burning day.
"Come home with me," Gabriella squeezed her arm too tight, and yet she felt powerless to do the simple thing of walking through the cottage door to ask her mother, "I should like, I should like to go..."
At times when Cecile thrust at her some ribbons or lace left by her aunts, Colette or Louisa, murmuring indifferently she should try this out, Marie would look at these bits and pieces numbly, from the center of that weakness, and finally only by an austere act of will, manage to touch them long enough to put them away.
In recent weeks there had been argument among the women, begun amid all the sherry and cakes of Marie"s First Communion while she sat alone at the foot of her bed, paging slowly through the prayer book given her by Marcel, running her fingers over its cover of laminated pearl. They talked of the opera, of Marie"s clothes, and like the nuns at school insisted it was time, surely, for corsets, and a change in dress.
"She"s thirteen, that"s sheer nonsense," Cecile said coldly. "I"m weary of this subject, all this attention to an impressionable girl."
"But look at her, look at her," came the shrill voices beyond the closed door.
And Tante Colette that afternoon had flung a corset across the poster bed, laying out with ceremony a dress of pale blue flounces trimmed with the most delicate white ribbon, the center of each little bow a masterfully folded rose. She waved a warning finger as she left with heavy steps that made the mirrors shiver. Marie alone in the shadows, felt the backs of her arms, her hair shrouding her bare shoulders. And turning slowly to see if in fact her aunt was gone, encountered instead her own dark shape in the tilted gla.s.s, the swell of b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the white eyelet of her chemise.
Dress her properly, Cecile, Mon Dieu!
Properly.
The word hung in the air. Cecile, slamming the fluff and whalebone into the broad armoire drawer, paused for a moment with a bent back adjusting the cameo on its velvet ribbon at her throat. Marie, in the corner of her eye, was not there.
On the streets she loomed monstrous, turned her head from the darkened reflective windows of shops, could feel her stockinged ankles as though they were naked beneath her short girlish hem, and at night the pressure of her bosom, loose and large in her flannel gown against the mattress filled her with a vague disgust. She could see a dusky down on her arms, a bit of fleece on the backs of her fingers, and lay awake picking out of the dense gloom the distant roses on the tester of her bed, wondering vaguely what if Marcel had not finally gone to the garconniere garconniere, had not left her the luxury of this small middle room, how could they have gone on, mother and daughter, sharing that other larger bed? It was as if they had never slept together, flannel against flannel, huddled in winter for warmth. Some splendid simplicity was gone, a surface broken. She did not sense as yet that it would never be mended.
But all this might have lain dormant within her. Mothers after all make mistakes. Gabriella laced to nineteen inches and in decollete decollete at dusk for the first soiree shook her head at the bad judgment of mothers, and with a furtive glance took the white camellias out of her hair, "Just too many!" And Sister Marie Therese taking girls aside at school had so often whispered, "And your mother said you might wear this, indeed I don"t think..." at dusk for the first soiree shook her head at the bad judgment of mothers, and with a furtive glance took the white camellias out of her hair, "Just too many!" And Sister Marie Therese taking girls aside at school had so often whispered, "And your mother said you might wear this, indeed I don"t think..."
But was it a matter of that? Kneeling at the small bedside altar her hands clasped against the marble top, feeling the barest warmth from the votive candle, Marie in the flickering dark forgot her prayers at times, sensing instead some terrible illumination that fell back, back through the corridors of memory where there was hardly memory at all, as she was overcome with a profound listlessness liken to that of the infant in its crib, who, fed only at the whim of others, soon ceases its own cries because those cries have never brought it anything at all.