No one was listening to her story.
‘People began to take an interest in him. Péclard more or less adopted him; he’s still living with him. He’s had as many as six adoptive fathers at one time. They dragged him out to cafés and night clubs; the women used to stroke his head. Pierre was one of these fathers; he helped him with his work and his reading.’ She smiled and her smile was lost in space. Pierre, huddled into himself, was smoking his pipe. Xavière looked barely polite. Françoise felt ridiculous, but she kept talking with stubborn animation.
‘That boy had a very funny education. He was an expert on surrealism without ever having read a line of Racine. It was touching, because to fill in the gaps he used to go to the public libraries to pore over atlases and books on mathematics like a real little self-educator, but he kept it all a secret. And then he had a very hard time of it. He was growing up; people could no longer find amusement in him as if he were a little performing monkey. About the same time as he lost his job in the movies, his adoptive fathers dropped him, one after the other. Péclard dressed and fed him when he thought of it, but that was all. It was then that Pierre took him in hand and persuaded him to take up the theatre. Now he’s made a good start. He still lacks experience, but he’s talented and has a great stage-sense. He’ll get somewhere.’
‘How old is he?’ asked Xavière.
‘He looks sixteen, but he’s twenty.’
Pierre smiled faintly.
‘I must say, you do know how to spin out a conversation,’ he said.
‘I’m very glad you’ve told me his story,’ said Xavière eagerly. ‘It’s extremely amusing to picture that little boy and all those self-important men who condescendingly kicked him around, and so felt strong and generous, and patronizing.’
‘You can easily see me doing that, can’t you?’ said Pierre, pulling a wry face.
‘You? Why? No more than the others,’ said Xavière, in all innocence. She looked at Françoise with marked affection. ‘I always thoroughly enjoy your way of telling stories.’
She was offering Françoise a transference of her allegiance. The woman with the green and blue feathers was saying in a flat voice: ‘… I only rushed through it, but for a small town it’s very picturesque.’ She had decided to leave her bare arm on the table and as it lay there, forgotten, ignored, the man’s hand was stroking a piece of flesh that no longer belonged to anyone.
‘It’s extraordinary, the impression it makes on you to touch your eyelashes,’ said Xavière. ‘You touch yourself without touching yourself. It’s as if you touched yourself from some way away.’
She spoke to herself and no one answered her.
‘Have you noticed how pretty those green and gilt latticed windows are?’ said Françoise.
‘In the dining-room at Lubersac,’ said Xavière, ‘there were leaded windows, too. But they weren’t as wishy-washy as these, they had beautiful rich colours. When I looked out at the park through the yellow panes, there might have been a thunderstorm over the landscape; through the green and blue it appeared like paradise, with trees of precious stones and lawns of brocade; and when through the red, I thought I was in the bowels of the earth.’
Pierre made a perceptible effort to be amiable. ‘Which did you prefer?’ he asked.
‘The yellow, of course,’ said Xavière. She stared into space, as if in suspense. ‘It’s terrible the way one loses things as one grows older.’
‘But you can’t remember everything?’ he said.
‘Why not? I never forget anything,’ said Xavière scornfully. ‘For instance, I remember very clearly how beautiful colours used to transport me in the past; now …’ she said with a disillusioned smile, ‘I only find them pleasing.’
‘Yes, of course! That always happens when you grow older,’ said Pierre in a kind voice. ‘But there are other things to be gained. Now you understand books and pictures and plays which would have been meaningless to you in your childhood.’
‘But I don’t give a damn about understanding just with my mind,’ said Xavière with unexpected violence and with a kind of sneer. ‘I’m not an intellectual.’
‘Why do you have to be so disagreeable?’ said Pierre abruptly.
Xavière stared, wide-eyed.
‘I’m not being disagreeable.’
‘You know very well that you are. You hate me on the slightest pretext. Though I think I can guess why.’
‘What do you think?’ asked Xavière.
Her cheeks were flushed with anger. Her face was extremely attractive, with such subtly variable shadings that it seemed not to be composed of flesh, but rather of ecstasy, of bitterness, of sorrow, to which the eye became magically sensitive. Yet, despite this ethereal transparency, the outlines of her nose and mouth were extremely sensual.
‘You thought I wanted to criticize your way of life,’ said Pierre, ‘that’s not so. I was arguing with you as I would argue with Françoise, or with myself. And for the simple reason that your point of view interested me.’
‘Of course you chose the most malicious interpretation at once,’ said Xavière. ‘I’m not a sensitive child. If you think I’m weak and capricious and I don’t know what else, you can surely tell me.’
‘Not at all, I’m very envious of your capacity to feel things so strongly,’ said Pierre. ‘I understand your putting a higher value on that than on anything else.’
If he had taken it into his head to win his way back into Xavière’s good graces, this was only the beginning.
‘Yes,’ said Xavière with a certain gloom; her eyes flashed. ‘I’m horrified that you should think that of me. It’s not true. I don’t get annoyed like a child.’
‘Still, don’t you see,’ said Pierre in a conciliatory tone, ‘you put an end to the conversation, and from that moment on you were no longer in the least friendly.’
‘I wasn’t aware of it,’ said Xavière.
Try to remember; you’re sure to become aware of it,’
Xavière hesitated.
‘It wasn’t for the reason you thought’
‘What was the reason?’
Xavière made a brusque gesture.
‘No, it’s stupid, it’s of no importance. What good does it do always to hark back to the past? It’s over and done with now.’
Pierre sat up and faced Xavière squarely, he would spend the whole night here rather than give in. To Françoise, such persistence sometimes seemed tactless, but Pierre was not afraid of being tactless. He had consideration for other people’s feelings only in small things. What exactly did he want of Xavière? polite rencontres on the hotel staircase? an affaire? love? friendship?
‘It’s of no importance if we expect never to see each other again,’ said Pierre. ‘But that would be a pity: don’t you think we could establish pleasant relations?’ He had infused a kind of wheedling timidity into his voice. He had such absolute control over his face and his slightest inflections, that it was a little disconcerting.
Xavière gave him a wary and yet almost affectionate look.
‘Yes, I think so,’ she said.
‘Then let’s get this straight,’ said Pierre. ‘What did you hold against me?’ His smile already held an implication of secret understanding.
Xavière was playing with a strand of hair. Watching the slow and steady movement of her fingers, she said:
‘It suddenly occurred to me that you were trying to be nice to me because of Françoise, and I disliked that.’