David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (21 page)

“I want to die! Dear God, please make me die … Dear God, sweet Holy Virgin, why did you make me their child? Punish them, I’m begging you … Punish them just once, and after that, I’ll gladly die.”

She stopped suddenly and said out loud, “Of course it’s all a joke. The good Lord and the Virgin Mary are just a joke, like the good parents you read about in books and all that stuff about the happiest time of your life …”

The happiest time of your life, what a joke! She was biting her hands so hard that she could taste blood in her mouth. “Happiest… happiest… I’d rather be dead and buried…” she kept saying over and over again, furiously.

Day in, day out, doing the same things at the same times… It was slavery, prison! Getting up, getting dressed… Dull little dresses, heavy ankle-boots, ribbed stockings—all on purpose, on purpose so she’d look like a drudge, so that no one in the street would even glance at her, so that she’d be just some insignificant little girl walking by… “Fools! You’ll never be young like me again, with skin as delicate as a flower, smooth, fresh, and lustrous eyelashes, and beautiful eyes—sometimes frightened, sometimes mischievous—which can entice, reject, desire… Never, never again!” But the desire… and these terrible feelings… Why did she feel this shameful, desperate envy eating away at her heart every time she saw two lovers walking by at dusk, kissing as they passed and teetering slightly, as if they were intoxicated? Why
feel the hatred of a spinster at only fourteen? She would have her share eventually, she knew that. But it was so far off, so very far it seemed it would never come … and, in the meantime, this harsh life of humiliation, lessons, strict discipline, shouting from her mother…

“The woman dared to threaten me!” she said out loud. “She shouldn’t have dared…”

Then she remembered her mother’s raised hand.

“If she had touched me, I would have scratched her, bitten her, and then … But it’s always possible to escape … for ever… There’s the window,” she thought feverishly.

She imagined herself lying on the street, covered in blood. No ball on the fifteenth… “Couldn’t the child have chosen another day to kill herself?” they’d say. As her mother had said, “
I 
want to live,
I, I
.” Perhaps, in the end, that’s what hurt more than all the rest: never before had Antoinette seen in her mother’s eyes that cold look, the look a woman would give to a rival.

“Dirty selfish pigs.
I’m
the one who wants to live,
me
! I’m young… They’re cheating me, they’re stealing my share of happiness… Oh, if only, by some miracle, I could go to the ball! To be the most beautiful, the most dazzling woman there, with all the men at my feet!”

She lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Do you know who she is? That’s Mademoiselle Kampf. She’s not pretty in the conventional sense, you know, but she is extraordinarily charming… and so sophisticated. The others all pale by comparison, don’t you agree? As for her mother, well, she looks like a kitchen maid compared to her daughter…”

She laid her head on the tear-soaked pillow and closed her eyes; her weary limbs were overcome by a feeling of soft, gentle sensuality. She tenderly touched her body through her nightdress with light, respectful fingers. A beautiful body, ready for love…

“Fifteen, O Romeo, that’s how old Juliet was…” she murmured.

Once she was fifteen, it would all be different; then she would savour life …

MADAME KAMPF SAID
nothing about the previous night’s argument to Antoinette, but all through lunch she let her daughter know she was in a bad mood by barking out the kind of curt reprimands at which she excelled when she was angry.

“What are you day-dreaming about with your mouth hanging open like that? Close it and breathe through your nose. How nice for parents to have a daughter who always has her head in the clouds! Will you pay attention to how you’re eating? I bet you’ve stained the table-cloth… Can’t you eat properly at your age? And don’t look at me like that! You have to learn how to take criticism without making faces. Is it beneath you to answer? Cat got your tongue?

“That’s it, here come the tears,” she continued, standing up and throwing down her napkin. “Well, I’d rather leave the table than look at your stupid little face.”

She went out, slamming the door behind her, and leaving Antoinette and her governess staring at the abandoned place setting opposite them.

“Finish your dessert now,” Miss Betty whispered. “You’ll be late for your German lesson.”

Antoinette, her hands trembling, picked up a section of the orange she had just peeled. She always tried to eat slowly and calmly, so that the servant, standing motionless behind her chair, would think that she despised “that woman” and her constant nit-picking; but, in spite of herself, big, shiny tears fell from her swollen eyes on to her dress.

A little later, Madame Kampf came into the study; she was holding the packet of invitations.

“You’re going to your piano lesson after tea, aren’t you, Antoinette? You can give Isabelle her invitation, and, Miss Betty, you can put the rest in the post.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kampf.”

The post office was very crowded; Miss Betty looked at the clock.

“Oh, it’s late! We don’t have time… I’ll come back during your lesson, dear,” she said looking away, her cheeks redder than usual. “You don’t… you don’t mind, do you, dear?”

“No,” murmured Antoinette.

She said no more; but when Miss Betty left her in front of Mademoiselle Isabelle’s apartment building, urging her to hurry up and go in, Antoinette waited a moment, hidden behind the large doors leading to the courtyard. She saw the Englishwoman hurrying towards a taxi that was waiting at the corner. The car passed very close to Antoinette, who stood on tiptoe and looked inside, simultaneously curious and frightened. But she saw nothing. She stayed where she was for a while, watching the taxi disappear into the distance.

“I’d suspected she had a lover! They’re probably kissing right now, like they do in books. Will he say, ‘I love you’? And what about her? Is she his… mistress?”

Antoinette felt a sense of shame and disgust, mixed with a kind of vague suffering. To be free and alone with a man—how happy she must be! They’d be going to the woods, no doubt…

“How I wish Mother could see them,” she whispered, clenching her fists. “Oh, I do! But no … People in love are always lucky! They’re happy, they’re together, they kiss … The whole world is full of men and women who love each other… Why not me?”

She was swinging her school bag in front of her. She looked at it with hate, then sighed, turned slowly, and crossed the courtyard. She was late. She could already hear Mademoiselle Isabelle: “Haven’t you been taught that being on time is the most important obligation of a student towards her teachers, Antoinette?”

“She’s stupid and old and ugly,” thought Antoinette in exasperation.

To her face, she reeled out, “Hello, Mademoiselle, it’s not my fault I’m late. It was Mother: she asked me to give you this…”

As she held out the envelope, an idea suddenly struck her.

“… and she asked if you could let me leave five minutes earlier than usual.”

That way she might be able to see Miss Betty coming back with her man.

But Mademoiselle Isabelle wasn’t listening. She was reading Madame Kampfs invitation.

Antoinette saw the dry, dark skin of her pendulous cheeks suddenly flush red.

“What’s this? A ball? Your mother is giving a ball?”

Mademoiselle Isabelle turned the invitation over, furtively brushing it against the back of her hand to see whether it was engraved or just printed. There was a difference of at least forty francs… As soon as she touched it, she knew it was engraved. She shrugged her shoulders angrily. Those Kampfs had always been insanely vain and extravagant! In the past, when Rosine had worked at the Banque de Paris (and, good God, it wasn’t so very long ago), she’d spent all her wages on clothes. She wore silk lingerie, a different pair of gloves every week… But then again, she frequented, no doubt, the most disreputable places. It was only that kind of woman who found happiness. The others …

“Your mother has always been lucky,” she muttered bitterly.

“She’s furious,” Antoinette said to herself. “But you’ll definitely be coming, won’t you?” she asked with a malicious little smile.

“I’ll let you know. I’ll do my very best because I’d really like to see your mother,” said Mademoiselle Isabelle. “But, on the other hand, I don’t know if I can … Some friends—the parents of one of my younger students, Monsieur and Madame Aristide Gros, the former cabinet private secretary (I’m sure your father has heard of him) … I’ve known them for years—they’ve invited me to the theatre, and I’ve already accepted… But I’ll see what I can do,” she added, without going into further detail. “In any case, tell your mother that I would be delighted, just delighted to see her…”

“I will, Mademoiselle.”

“Now then, to work. Come along, sit down …”

Antoinette slowly adjusted the velour piano stool. She could have reproduced every stain, every rip in the material from memory. As she began her scales she stared mournfully at a yellow vase on the mantelpiece. It was full of dust inside, never a
flower… And those hideous little shell boxes on the shelves. How ugly this dark little apartment was, how shabby and foreboding this place that, for years, she’d been forced to come to …

While Mademoiselle Isabelle arranged the sheet music, she cast a furtive look out the window. (It must be very beautiful in the woods, at dusk, with the bare, delicate trees and the winter sky as white as a pearl…) Three times a week, every week, for six years! Would it go on until she died?

“Antoinette, Antoinette, where are you putting your hands? Start again, please … Will there be many people going to your mother’s ball?”

“I think Mama has invited two hundred people.”

“Goodness! Does she think there will be enough room? Isn’t she worried it will get terribly hot and crowded? Play louder, Antoinette, put some spirit into it. Your left hand is weak, my dear… This scale for next time and exercise eighteen in the third Czerny book…”

Scales, exercises… for months and months: Grieg’s
Death of Ase,
Mendelssohn’s
Songs without Words,
the “Barcarole” from the
Tales of Hoffmann …
Beneath her schoolgirl’s fingers they all disintegrated into a harsh din …

Mademoiselle Isabelle banged out the beat with a rolled-up notebook.

“Why are you pressing the keys like that?
Staccato, staccato!
Do you think I can’t see how you’re holding your ring-finger and your little finger? Two hundred people, you say? Do you know them all?”

“No.”

“Will your mother be wearing that new pink dress from Premet?”

Antoinette didn’t answer.

“And what about you? You’ll be going to the ball, I imagine? You’re old enough…”

“I don’t know,” whispered Antoinette with a shiver.

“Faster, faster! This is how it should go: one, two, one, two, one, two… Come along, wake up, Antoinette! The next section, my dear…”

The next section … dotted with sharps to stumble over! In the
next-door apartment a child was crying. Mademoiselle Isabelle switched on the lamp. Outside, the sky had grown dark… The clock struck four. Another hour had flowed through her fingers like water—lost, never to return. She wanted to be far away, or to die …

“Are you tired, Antoinette? Already? When I was your age, I used to practise for six hours a day. Now, wait a moment. Don’t leave so fast—you’re in such a hurry… What time should I come on the fifteenth?”

“It says on the invitation. Ten o’clock.”

“Good. But I’ll see you before then.”

“Yes, Mademoiselle.”

Outside, the street was empty. Antoinette huddled against the wall and waited. A moment later, she heard Miss Betty’s footsteps, and saw her walking quickly towards her holding the arm of a young man. Antoinette lurched forward and bumped straight into the couple. Miss Betty let out a little cry.

“Miss Betty!” said Antoinette. “I’ve been waiting for you for at least fifteen minutes…”

Miss Betty’s face was right up against hers; in a flash, her features were so changed that Antoinette stopped short, as if not recognising the person she was talking to. But she failed to notice her pitiful little mouth, gaping open, as bruised as a ravaged flower; she was staring at the man.

He was very young. A university student—maybe even still at school. His fresh lips were slightly swollen from shaving; his lovely eyes were mischievous. He was smoking. While Miss Betty stammered excuses, he said calmly and boldly, “Introduce me, cousin.”

“Ann-toinette, this is my cousin,” murmured Miss Betty.

Antoinette held out her hand. The boy gave a laugh, then said nothing; he seemed to think for a moment before suggesting, “Let me walk you home, all right?”

The three of them went down the dark, empty street in silence. The cool wind brushed against Antoinette’s face; it was damp from the rain, as if misty with tears. She slowed down, watching the lovers in front of her, their bodies pressed together, neither of them speaking. How quickly they walked … She stopped. They
didn’t even turn round. “If I were hit by a car, would they even know?” she thought with bitterness. A man bumped into her as he passed by; she jumped back in fright. But it was only the lamplighter; she watched how each street-lamp burst into flame as he touched one after the other with his long stick. The lights shimmered and danced like candles in the wind… Suddenly, she felt afraid. She ran ahead as fast as she could.

She caught up with the lovers at the Alexandre III Bridge. They were standing close together, whispering to each other urgently. The boy looked impatient when he saw Antoinette. Miss Betty was flustered for a moment; then, struck by sudden inspiration, she opened her handbag and took out the packet of envelopes.

“Here, dear, take your mother’s invitations. I haven’t posted them yet. Run down to the little tobacconist’s shop, over there, down that little street on the left… Can you see its light? You can put them in the letterbox. We’ll wait for you here.”