‘Poor Gerbert, he was so sleepy,’ she thought. She pulled up the cover a little, and lay there motionless, her eyes open. She was sleepy, too, but she wanted to stay awake a little longer. She looked at Gerbert’s smooth eyelids, at his lashes as long as a girl’s; he was asleep, relaxed and impersonal. She could feel against her neck the caress of his soft black hair.
‘That’s all I shall ever have of him,’ she thought.
There must be women who had stroked his hair, as sleek as that of a Chinese girl’s; pressed their lips against his childish eyelids; clasped this long, slender body in their arms. Some day he would say to one of them: ‘I love you.’
Françoise felt her heart thumping. There was still time. She could put her cheek against his cheek and speak out loud the words which were coming to her lips.
She shut her eyes. She could not say: ‘I love you.’ She could not think it. She loved Pierre. There was no room in her life for another love.
Yet, there would be joys like these, she thought with slight anguish. His head felt heavy on her shoulder. What was precious was not the pressure of this weight, but Gerbert’s tenderness, his trust, his gay abandon, and the love she bestowed upon him. But Gerbert was sleeping, and the love and tenderness were only dream things. Perhaps, when he held her in his arms, she would still be able to cling to the dream; but how could she let herself dream of a love she did not wish really to live?
She looked at Gerbert. She was free in her words, in her acts. Pierre left her free; but acts and words would be only lies, as the weight of that head on her shoulder was already a lie. Gerbert did not love her; she could not really wish that he might love her.
The sky was turning to pink outside the window. In her heart Françoise was conscious of a sadness, as bitter and rosy as the dawn. And yet she had no regrets: she had not even a right to that melancholy which was beginning to numb her drowsy body. This was renunciation, final, and without recompense.
From the back of a Moorish café, seated on rough woollen cushions, Xavière and Françoise were watching the Arab dancing girl.
‘I wish I could dance like that,’ said Xavière. A light tremor passed over her shoulders and ran through her body. Françoise smiled at her, and was sorry that their day together was coming to an end. Xavière had been delightful.
‘In the red-light district of Fez, Labrousse and I saw them dance naked,’ said Françoise. ‘But that was a little too much like an anatomical exhibition.’
‘You’ve seen so many things,’ said Xavière with a touch of bitterness.
‘So will you, one day,’ said Françoise.
‘I doubt it,’ said Xavière.
‘You won’t remain in Rouen all your life,’ said Françoise.
‘What else can I do?’ said Xavière sadly. She looked at her fingers with close attention. They were red, peasant’s fingers, in strange contrast to her delicate wrists. ‘I could perhaps try to be a prostitute, but I’m not experienced enough yet.’
‘That’s a hard profession, you know,’ said Françoise with a laugh.
‘I must learn not to be afraid of people,’ said Xavière thoughtfully. She nodded her head. ‘But I’m improving. When a man brushes against me in the street, I no longer let out a scream.’
‘And you go into cafés by yourself. That’s also an improvement,’ said Françoise.
Xavière gave her a shamefaced look. ‘Yes, but I haven’t told you everything. At that little dance-hall where I was last night, a sailor asked me to dance and I refused. I gulped down my calvados and rushed out of the place like a coward.’ She made a wry face. ‘Calvados is terrible stuff.’
‘It must have been fine rot-gut,’ said Françoise. ‘I do think you could have danced with your sailor. I did all sorts of things like that when I was younger, and no harm ever came out of them.’
‘The next time I shall accept,’ said Xavière.
‘Aren’t you afraid that your aunt will wake up some night? I should think that might very well happen.’
‘She wouldn’t dare to come into my room,’ said Xavière, with defiance. She smiled and began to hunt through her bag. ‘I’ve made a little sketch for you.’
It was of a woman, who had a slight resemblance to Françoise, standing at a bar with her elbows resting on the counter. Her cheeks were green and her dress was yellow. Beneath the drawing Xavière had written in large, purple lettering: ‘The Road to Ruin.’
‘You must sign it for me,’ said Françoise.
Xavière looked at Françoise, looked at the sketch, and then pushed it away. ‘It’s too difficult,’ she said.
The dancing girl moved towards the middle of the room; her hips began to undulate, and her stomach to ripple to the rhythm of the tambourine.
‘It seems almost as if a demon were trying to tear itself from her body,’ said Xavière. She leaned forward, entranced. Françoise had certainly had an inspiration in bringing her here; never before had Xavière spoken at such length about herself, and she had a charming way of telling a story. Françoise sank back against the cushions; she, too, had been affected by the shoddy glamour of the place, but what especially delighted her was to have annexed this insignificant, pathetic little being into her own life: for, like Gerbert, like Inès, like Canzetti, Xavière now belonged to her. Nothing ever gave Françoise such intense joy as this kind of possession.
Xavière was absorbed in the dancing girl. She could not see her own face, its beauty heightened by the state of her excitement. Her fingers stroked the contours of the cup which she was holding lightly in her hand, but Françoise alone was aware of the contours of that hand. Xavière’s gestures, her face, her very life depended on Françoise for their existence. Xavière, here and now at this moment, the essence of Xavière, was no more than the flavour of the coffee, than the piercing music or the dance, no more than indeterminate well-being; but to Françoise, her childhood, her days of stagnation, her distastes, were a romantic story as real as the delicate contour of her cheeks. And that story ended here in this café, among the vari-coloured hangings, and at this very instant in Françoise’s life, as she sat looking at Xavière and studying her.
‘It’s seven o’clock already,’ said Françoise. It bored her to have to spend the evening with Elisabeth, but it was unavoidable. ‘Are you going out with Inès tonight?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Xavière gloomily.
‘How much longer do you think you’ll be staying in Paris?’
‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’ A flash of rage appeared in Xavière’s eyes. ‘Tomorrow, all this will still be going on here and I shall be in Rouen.’
‘Why don’t you take a secretarial course as I suggested? I could find you a job.’
Xavière shrugged her shoulders despondently. ‘I couldn’t do it,’ she said.
‘Of course you could. It’s not difficult,’ said Françoise.
‘My aunt even tried to teach me how to knit,’ said Xavière, ‘but my last sock was a disaster.’ She turned to Françoise with a discouraged and faintly provocative look. ‘She’s quite right. No one will ever manage to make anything of me.’
‘Definitely