begins to paint without having any desire to paint. She goes to meet her man whether she has any desire to see him or not …’ Her upper lip curled in a contemptuous sneer. ‘How can anyone submit to living according to plan, with time-tables and homework, as if they were still at a boarding school? I’d rather be a failure!’
She had achieved her aim: Françoise had been struck by the indictment. Usually, Xavière’s insinuations left her cold; but tonight, it was a different matter. The attention Pierre was paying to Xavière’s opinions lent them weight.
‘You make appointments and then don’t keep them,’ said Françoise. ‘It’s all very well when you do that to Inès, but you might also ruin some real friendships by going through life like that.’
‘If I like people, I’ll always want to keep appointments,’ said Xavière.
That’s not bound to happen every time,’ said Françoise.
‘Well, that’s just too bad,’ said Xavière. She pouted disdainfully. ‘I’ve always ended up by quarrelling with everyone.’
‘How could anyone quarrel with Inès?’ said Pierre. ‘She’s like a sheep.’
‘Oh, don’t be too sure of that,’ said Xavière.
‘Really?’ said Pierre. His eyes wrinkled gaily. He was curiosity itself. ‘With that big, innocent face do you mean to tell me she’s liable to bite you? What has she done to you?’
‘She hasn’t done anything,’ said Xavière reticently.
‘Oh, please tell me,’ said Pierre in his most coaxing voice. ‘I’d be delighted to know what’s hidden in the depths of those still waters.’
‘Oh nothing. Inès is a dunce,’ said Xavière. ‘The point is, I don’t like anyone to feel they hold any proprietary rights over me.’ She smiled and Françoise’s uneasiness crystallized. When alone with Françoise, Xavière, despite herself, permitted loathing, pleasure, affection, to be visible on a defenceless face, a child’s face. Now she felt herself a woman in front of a man and her features displayed precisely the shade of confidence or reserve she wanted to express.
‘Her affection must be an encumbrance,’ said Pierre with a look of concurrence and innocence which trapped Xavière.
‘That’s right,’ said Xavière brightening. ‘Once I put off an appointment at the last minute – the evening we went to the Prairie. She pulled a face a yard long …’
Françoise laughed.
‘Yes,’ said Xavière excitedly. ‘I was rude, but she dared to make some uncalled-for remarks,’ she blushed and added, ‘about something that was none of her concern.’
So that was it. Inès must have questioned Xavière about her relations with Françoise, and perhaps, with her calm Norman heavy-handedness, had joked about it. Beneath all Xavière’s vagaries there was without question a whole world of obstinate and secret thoughts. It was a somewhat disquieting idea.
Pierre laughed.
‘I know someone, that young Eloy girl, who always answers when a friend breaks a date: “It so happens that I’m no longer free!” But not everyone has that amount of tact.’
Xavière frowned.
‘In any case, not Inès,’ she said. She must have been vaguely aware of the sarcasm, because her face had frozen.
‘It’s very complicated, you know,’ said Pierre seriously. ‘I can readily understand that you find it distasteful to follow the rules, but it’s also impossible to live only for the moment.’
‘Why?’ said Xavière. ‘Why do people always have to drag so much dead weight about with them?’
‘Look,’ said Pierre, ‘time isn’t made up of a heap of little separate bits into which you can shut yourself up in turn. When you think you’re living purely in the present, you’re involving your future whether you like it or not.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Xavière. Her tone was not friendly.
‘I’ll try to explain,’ said Pierre. When he became interested in a person, he was capable of carrying on a discussion for hours with angelic sincerity and patience. It was one form of his generosity. Françoise rarely took the trouble to explain what she thought.
‘Let’s assume you’ve decided to go to a concert,’ said Pierre. ‘Just as you’re about to set out, the idea of walking or taking the métro there strikes you as unbearable. So you convince yourself that you are free as regards your previous decision, and you stay at home. That’s all very well, but when ten minutes later you find yourself sitting in an arm-chair, bored stiff, you are no longer in the least free. You’re simply suffering the consequences of your own act.’
Xavière laughed dryly.
‘Concerts! That’s another of your beautiful inventions. As if anyone could want to hear music at fixed hours! – It’s utterly ridiculous.’ She added in a tone of almost bitter hatred: ‘Has Françoise told you that I was supposed to go to a concert this afternoon?’
‘No, but I do know that as a rule you can never bring yourself to leave your room. It’s a shame to live like a hermit in Paris.’
‘Well, this evening isn’t going to make me want to change my mind,’ she said scornfully.
Pierre’s face darkened.
‘You’ll miss scores of precious opportunities if you carry on like that,’ he said.
‘Always being afraid of losing something! To me there’s nothing more sordid. If it’s lost, it’s lost, that’s all there is to it!’
‘Is your life really a series of heroic renunciations?’ said Pierre with a sarcastic smile.
‘Do you mean I’m a coward? If you knew how little I care!’ said Xavière smugly, with a slight curl of her upper lip.
There was a silence. Pierre and Xavière both assumed poker-faces.
‘I think we’d better go home to bed,’ said Françoise.
What was most aggravating was that she herself could not overlook Xavière’s ill humour as easily as during the rehearsal. Xavière had suddenly begun to count, though no one understood exactly why.
‘Do you see that woman facing us?’ said Françoise. ‘Listen to her a moment. She’s been telling her boy-friend all the particular secrets of her soul for quite a long time.’
She was a young woman with heavy eyelids. She was staring, as if hypnotized, at her companion. ‘I’ve never been able to follow the rules of flirting,’ she was saying. ‘I can’t bear being touched; it’s morbid.’
In another corner, a young woman with green and blue feathers in her hair was looking uncertainly at a man’s huge hand that had just pounced on hers.
‘This is a great meeting-place for young couples,’ said Pierre.
Once more a long silence ensued. Xavière had raised her arm to her lips and was gently blowing the fine down on her skin. Françoise felt she ought to think of something to say, but everything sounded false even as she was putting it into words.
‘Have I ever told you anything about Gerbert?’ said Françoise to Xavière.
‘A little,’ said Xavière. ‘You’ve told me he’s very nice.’
‘He had a queer childhood,’ said Françoise. ‘He comes from a completely poverty-stricken working-class family. His mother went mad when he was a baby, his father was out of work, and the boy earned a few sous a day selling newspapers. One fine day a pal of his took him along to a film-studio to look for a job as an extra, and it happened that both were taken on. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old at the time. He was very likeable and he attracted attention.