Fermina Marquez (1911) (2 page)
V
This was the first time that Santos Iturria and Demoisel had publicly referred to their nocturnal escapades. Yet it was an open secret! I have always wondered why they persisted obstinately in saying nothing about it. For two years now it had been going on. Every week on certain days, you could see Iturria and Demoisel coming down from the dormitory at the call to wake up with the washed-out eyes and drawn features of men who have not slept. Looking dog-tired, their ears buzzing, they would appear at prep simply to take a nap behind a barricade of dictionaries. At break, we would not see them either in the yard or in the grounds but when we returned to our classes, we would see them sneak out of the piano practice rooms and conceal themselves in our midst, walking with the heavy step of drowsy people. Santos was pallid, which rather suited him; as for the Negro, he looked like a badly made-up clown, his face smeared with ink and chocolate. In class, they slept once more. Demoisel who was a dunce and who for this reason ivas seated in the back row, would have a good snooze without putting himself out for anyone, his head resting against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Santos by contrast, who was top of his class, slumbered leaning on his desk, his torso upright. Before falling asleep, he would say to his neighbour: "If I'm asked a question, tap me on the arm." Only in the evenings in the
dining hall did they seem to wake up.
And then they would cast each other anxious looks of complicity as though to question whether each was really feeling better. We who guessed the cause of their tiredness, venerated them in silence. This sleepiness which they paraded in front of us a whole day long, this mysterious, conspiratorial behaviour, this air, in short, of men who have "lived it up" all night, aroused our curiosity and made us yearn for pleasures of which we were still ignorant. They were aware of the prestige which these expeditions conferred upon them in our eyes, and I ask myself today whether they did not derive as much satisfaction in showing off their seedy, all-nighter's look to us as in acquiring it while enjoying themselves in the cafes and restaurants of Montmartre. For it was in Montmartre that they used to perform their feats; we had had proof of that: supper bills on the headed paper of well-known restaurants of the Butte had gone round from hand to hand in the philosophy class, bills at the bottom of which the total in francs sometimes came to three figures.
We never knew how they slipped out of the grounds, nor what they had organized so as to return to the dormitory in the middle of the night, barely a few hours before the call to wake up. Had they bought the silence of the night porter, of the night watchmen? Did they have secret dealings with someone in the village? It is more than likely. It was said that the riding master, whose home was outside Saint Augustine's, hired out horses to them. So they rode to the nearest station and in twenty-five minutes or half an hour, the two companions found themselves in Paris. On the return journey, they recovered the horses, left in an inn stable, and did not break a gallop until they reached the school. Fermina Marquez was not wrong: there was enough here to get them expelled and some of the staff sacked at the same time. Anyway, all this only became known to the school authorities much later on, when the culprits and their accomplices had left Saint Augustine's several years before.
Initially, Santos went out by himself at night. He began by frequenting the Quartier Latin, because the train which he used to catch in the suburbs dropped him at place Denfert and he did not yet have the nerve to map out more involved itineraries on the network of orbital trains. But he quickly wearied of the Quartier. He did not feel comfortable in the student brasseries: the milieu was too sophisticated for him; he heard his fellow diners discuss philosophy and literature with astonishment. He felt he was just a schoolboy out of his depth here. Moreover, his immoderate spending, the unconscious flaunting of his money, provoked the spiteful jealousy of the majority and the scorn of one or two of those precisely whom he felt daunted by and whose liking he would have wished to attract. And finally, once he had sampled the costly pleasures of the Butte, he spurned the more modest diversions of the Quartier.
In Montmartre, Santos Iturria could move more freely. Gradually, as he was coming about twice a week, he was numbered in some establishments among the regulars and several of us, after our school careers were over, have met people in the cafes of the boulevard Clichy and place Blanche, who had known M. Iturria and could remember him well.
As soon as Santos had so to speak discovered Montmartre, Demoisel never missed a single spree. Santos had permitted the Negro to accompany him, because, requiring a companion and shrinking from dragging his brother Pablo into these perils, he had found in Demoisel an audacity as great as his own. The two friends became popular in a certain world of revellers, head waiters, gypsies and alluring girls. The Negro, tall, too lanky, with his short nose curiously snubbed at the tip: the irregular but not unattractive nose of a Parisian dressmaker's assistant, but truly remarkable in his African features — an inheritance perhaps from his mother, the 'Pahisian' of Port-au-Prince? - Demoisel, I repeat, nature's oversight, did not have any success with these girls if the truth be known. Moreover he was violent, brutal and malicious, and
so strong that nobody dared to contradict him, particularly when he was drunk. At moments such as these, Santos alone was able to restrain him and bring him back to school in time. The other Negroes we had at Saint Augustine's were model pupils; hardworking and highly intelligent, these boys were inoffensive and sparing of words and they had an occasional glimmer of melancholy in their eyes. Demoisel was therefore an exception and a terrible one at that. In certain groups, there were stories told of his deplorable exploits in hushed voices. It seems that, despite Santos, he would enter heaven only knows what dives during these famous nights and pay the girls there to beat them. And these unhappy creatures who doubtless went hungry, acquiesced in this degradation! Today on calm reflection I think this was pure myth, some incident distorted by the imagination of a depraved child. But I well recall the distress this story threw us into, the first time it was related to us. The majority of us were spoilt children and this is what degrades character the most and what hardens the soul, but several amongst us shed tears of indignation and pity on learning of this thing; we used to think about it constantly in spite of ourselves and at night, before falling asleep, it was like a suffocating weight which our hands sought to lift off our chests . . .
Santos, quite on the contrary, was welcome everywhere. No sooner did he enter a restaurant, his head held high, his hat tilted back, than there was always a beautiful woman in some merry group to say: "Well, here's my hearthrob." Santos Iturria was indeed very good-looking. Between eighteen and nineteen years of age, he already had the build, the full-fledged vigour, the confident air of a twenty-five-year-old man. A liveliness normal for his age added, by contrast, a further charm to his appearance. His face was not exactly long, but large, and was always closely shaved which emphasized the characteristics of cleanliness and candour his whole person exuded. His colouring was light, even a little pink. His chestnut hair with its hint of waviness nobly crowned his high
brow. But his eyes above all were remarkable: they were blue, but a deep blue which was almost black. They astonished. And all the more so since their unfaltering, manly expression full of gay insolence entirely belied his very long, dark, almost feminine eyelashes.
Santos learnt about life by going to Montmartre to amuse himself in this way. Initially, there had been a certain churlishness in his manners and occasionally he had put himself in the wrong. One evening, as Demoisel and he were running up the stairs of a fashionable restaurant behind a young ladyfriend of theirs, they came across a group of men who were descending this same staircase. The young woman went past, but Santos, wishing to follow, dashed after her and knocked into an elderly man who immediately stood in his way saying: "Sir, I have let the lady go by but it is for you who are young to give way to me now. People have no idea ..."
The old boy persisted in his reprimand for a few moments and Demoisel was already laughing at the thought of the sharp riposte that Santos was about to make. But Santos meekly listened right to the end. Then he bowed, stepped aside and said unaffectedly: "You are right to rebuke me. I apologize to you Sir."
Somebody on the nearby landing shouted out: "Bravo Sir, you know how to play the game!"
"As for you, I didn't ask for your opinion," retorted Santos and he went past.
Soon, he was able to move with ease in this rather intricate world. He even became a force for the good here: a champion of the disreputable woman and the pet hate of one or two of those mincing fellows seen hanging around certain beautiful girls too much.
These young men are extremely elegant. You enter into conversation with them and they first announce that they are "sons of privileged families" in the process of ruining themselves; they are on the brink of being sought in justice and once they have "squandered" everything, they will blow
their brains out. Only, and this is very curious, they will also say: "I am going to tell you an anecdote!" or else, "The atmosphere is heavy this evening"; they have confided that they studied at Janson and yet they have no foreign accent. So you observe them more closely and you note that they appear ill at ease in their tails and speak to the waiters as rudely as is possible. And then when a wealthy man, a
serious client,
seems to find their woman companion pleasing, you see them disappear on some pretext or other, allowing their place to be taken without getting upset. And then you understand (but too late) with whom you have been dealing . . .
Santos Iturria could not stand these fellows of the
demi-monde.
He began by rejecting their overtures with a briskness that did credit to his courage. With great ostentation, he would congratulate the one whose love was sincere on the tact with which he left the way clear for the suitor whose love came at a price in such-and-such a circumstance he recalled. To another, he would speak of love and money with an offensive insistence. His conversation was elegant and highly vivacious; ungossipy but full and adorned with comic expressions, tremendous jokes, delivered with an earnestness which was quite hilarious. And the tone of his voice itself which had something musical would give an added zest to these jests. Soon he took the offensive against these fine fellows he did not like. And with these witless folk, who were quick to anger and to use ugly language, he had a rare time of it. They were his enemies and his butts. He drove them wild. He persecuted them. He made them feel that he was always ready to cuff them as soon as they became crude. And they themselves did not dare to behave boorishly for fear of being shown the door. In these onslaughts of impertinence, Santos invariably had people — both men and women — laughing with him. This was liable to end in real disaster. And one night in the roadway, Santos received a shocking blow on the back of the head. However, Demoisel dealt with the assailant so thoroughly that he did not come back again. Santos recovered from this by spending a few days in the infirmary; as far as everybody was concerned, he had taken a fall in the gymnasium.
Thus, to return Fermina Marquez her bracelet was not really very difficult for Santos. Throughout evening prep and even going upstairs to the dormitory, he played with this bracelet. And the following day when the girl held out her hand to us, the trinket was on her arm. This filled us with pride: Iturria's audacity lent distinction to all of us.
dining hall did they seem to wake up.
And then they would cast each other anxious looks of complicity as though to question whether each was really feeling better. We who guessed the cause of their tiredness, venerated them in silence. This sleepiness which they paraded in front of us a whole day long, this mysterious, conspiratorial behaviour, this air, in short, of men who have "lived it up" all night, aroused our curiosity and made us yearn for pleasures of which we were still ignorant. They were aware of the prestige which these expeditions conferred upon them in our eyes, and I ask myself today whether they did not derive as much satisfaction in showing off their seedy, all-nighter's look to us as in acquiring it while enjoying themselves in the cafes and restaurants of Montmartre. For it was in Montmartre that they used to perform their feats; we had had proof of that: supper bills on the headed paper of well-known restaurants of the Butte had gone round from hand to hand in the philosophy class, bills at the bottom of which the total in francs sometimes came to three figures.
We never knew how they slipped out of the grounds, nor what they had organized so as to return to the dormitory in the middle of the night, barely a few hours before the call to wake up. Had they bought the silence of the night porter, of the night watchmen? Did they have secret dealings with someone in the village? It is more than likely. It was said that the riding master, whose home was outside Saint Augustine's, hired out horses to them. So they rode to the nearest station and in twenty-five minutes or half an hour, the two companions found themselves in Paris. On the return journey, they recovered the horses, left in an inn stable, and did not break a gallop until they reached the school. Fermina Marquez was not wrong: there was enough here to get them expelled and some of the staff sacked at the same time. Anyway, all this only became known to the school authorities much later on, when the culprits and their accomplices had left Saint Augustine's several years before.
Initially, Santos went out by himself at night. He began by frequenting the Quartier Latin, because the train which he used to catch in the suburbs dropped him at place Denfert and he did not yet have the nerve to map out more involved itineraries on the network of orbital trains. But he quickly wearied of the Quartier. He did not feel comfortable in the student brasseries: the milieu was too sophisticated for him; he heard his fellow diners discuss philosophy and literature with astonishment. He felt he was just a schoolboy out of his depth here. Moreover, his immoderate spending, the unconscious flaunting of his money, provoked the spiteful jealousy of the majority and the scorn of one or two of those precisely whom he felt daunted by and whose liking he would have wished to attract. And finally, once he had sampled the costly pleasures of the Butte, he spurned the more modest diversions of the Quartier.
In Montmartre, Santos Iturria could move more freely. Gradually, as he was coming about twice a week, he was numbered in some establishments among the regulars and several of us, after our school careers were over, have met people in the cafes of the boulevard Clichy and place Blanche, who had known M. Iturria and could remember him well.
As soon as Santos had so to speak discovered Montmartre, Demoisel never missed a single spree. Santos had permitted the Negro to accompany him, because, requiring a companion and shrinking from dragging his brother Pablo into these perils, he had found in Demoisel an audacity as great as his own. The two friends became popular in a certain world of revellers, head waiters, gypsies and alluring girls. The Negro, tall, too lanky, with his short nose curiously snubbed at the tip: the irregular but not unattractive nose of a Parisian dressmaker's assistant, but truly remarkable in his African features — an inheritance perhaps from his mother, the 'Pahisian' of Port-au-Prince? - Demoisel, I repeat, nature's oversight, did not have any success with these girls if the truth be known. Moreover he was violent, brutal and malicious, and
so strong that nobody dared to contradict him, particularly when he was drunk. At moments such as these, Santos alone was able to restrain him and bring him back to school in time. The other Negroes we had at Saint Augustine's were model pupils; hardworking and highly intelligent, these boys were inoffensive and sparing of words and they had an occasional glimmer of melancholy in their eyes. Demoisel was therefore an exception and a terrible one at that. In certain groups, there were stories told of his deplorable exploits in hushed voices. It seems that, despite Santos, he would enter heaven only knows what dives during these famous nights and pay the girls there to beat them. And these unhappy creatures who doubtless went hungry, acquiesced in this degradation! Today on calm reflection I think this was pure myth, some incident distorted by the imagination of a depraved child. But I well recall the distress this story threw us into, the first time it was related to us. The majority of us were spoilt children and this is what degrades character the most and what hardens the soul, but several amongst us shed tears of indignation and pity on learning of this thing; we used to think about it constantly in spite of ourselves and at night, before falling asleep, it was like a suffocating weight which our hands sought to lift off our chests . . .
Santos, quite on the contrary, was welcome everywhere. No sooner did he enter a restaurant, his head held high, his hat tilted back, than there was always a beautiful woman in some merry group to say: "Well, here's my hearthrob." Santos Iturria was indeed very good-looking. Between eighteen and nineteen years of age, he already had the build, the full-fledged vigour, the confident air of a twenty-five-year-old man. A liveliness normal for his age added, by contrast, a further charm to his appearance. His face was not exactly long, but large, and was always closely shaved which emphasized the characteristics of cleanliness and candour his whole person exuded. His colouring was light, even a little pink. His chestnut hair with its hint of waviness nobly crowned his high
brow. But his eyes above all were remarkable: they were blue, but a deep blue which was almost black. They astonished. And all the more so since their unfaltering, manly expression full of gay insolence entirely belied his very long, dark, almost feminine eyelashes.
Santos learnt about life by going to Montmartre to amuse himself in this way. Initially, there had been a certain churlishness in his manners and occasionally he had put himself in the wrong. One evening, as Demoisel and he were running up the stairs of a fashionable restaurant behind a young ladyfriend of theirs, they came across a group of men who were descending this same staircase. The young woman went past, but Santos, wishing to follow, dashed after her and knocked into an elderly man who immediately stood in his way saying: "Sir, I have let the lady go by but it is for you who are young to give way to me now. People have no idea ..."
The old boy persisted in his reprimand for a few moments and Demoisel was already laughing at the thought of the sharp riposte that Santos was about to make. But Santos meekly listened right to the end. Then he bowed, stepped aside and said unaffectedly: "You are right to rebuke me. I apologize to you Sir."
Somebody on the nearby landing shouted out: "Bravo Sir, you know how to play the game!"
"As for you, I didn't ask for your opinion," retorted Santos and he went past.
Soon, he was able to move with ease in this rather intricate world. He even became a force for the good here: a champion of the disreputable woman and the pet hate of one or two of those mincing fellows seen hanging around certain beautiful girls too much.
These young men are extremely elegant. You enter into conversation with them and they first announce that they are "sons of privileged families" in the process of ruining themselves; they are on the brink of being sought in justice and once they have "squandered" everything, they will blow
their brains out. Only, and this is very curious, they will also say: "I am going to tell you an anecdote!" or else, "The atmosphere is heavy this evening"; they have confided that they studied at Janson and yet they have no foreign accent. So you observe them more closely and you note that they appear ill at ease in their tails and speak to the waiters as rudely as is possible. And then when a wealthy man, a
serious client,
seems to find their woman companion pleasing, you see them disappear on some pretext or other, allowing their place to be taken without getting upset. And then you understand (but too late) with whom you have been dealing . . .
Santos Iturria could not stand these fellows of the
demi-monde.
He began by rejecting their overtures with a briskness that did credit to his courage. With great ostentation, he would congratulate the one whose love was sincere on the tact with which he left the way clear for the suitor whose love came at a price in such-and-such a circumstance he recalled. To another, he would speak of love and money with an offensive insistence. His conversation was elegant and highly vivacious; ungossipy but full and adorned with comic expressions, tremendous jokes, delivered with an earnestness which was quite hilarious. And the tone of his voice itself which had something musical would give an added zest to these jests. Soon he took the offensive against these fine fellows he did not like. And with these witless folk, who were quick to anger and to use ugly language, he had a rare time of it. They were his enemies and his butts. He drove them wild. He persecuted them. He made them feel that he was always ready to cuff them as soon as they became crude. And they themselves did not dare to behave boorishly for fear of being shown the door. In these onslaughts of impertinence, Santos invariably had people — both men and women — laughing with him. This was liable to end in real disaster. And one night in the roadway, Santos received a shocking blow on the back of the head. However, Demoisel dealt with the assailant so thoroughly that he did not come back again. Santos recovered from this by spending a few days in the infirmary; as far as everybody was concerned, he had taken a fall in the gymnasium.
Thus, to return Fermina Marquez her bracelet was not really very difficult for Santos. Throughout evening prep and even going upstairs to the dormitory, he played with this bracelet. And the following day when the girl held out her hand to us, the trinket was on her arm. This filled us with pride: Iturria's audacity lent distinction to all of us.
VI
We were now the girl's habitual escort. There were ten or so of us. All those who came near her, those to whom she spoke, with whom she larked about, made up a sort of love's following around-her; these were her knights. So the knights of Fermina Marquez were admired by all the pupils and even possibly by the youngest of the monitors. We would no longer bring back the smell of tobacco smoked on the sly from those wonderful walks in the grounds, but rather the fragrance of the young South American girls. Was it geranium or mignonette? It was an indefinable scent, a scent which conjured up blue, mauve, white and pink dresses; large, floppy straw hats; dark hair in ringlets or curled like shells; black eyes so huge that the whole sky must be mirrored in them.
Pilar was only a child; her fingers were always stained with ink, her elbows, chafed — those blatant, fatuous signs of little girls aged between eleven and thirteen. But Fermina really was a grown-up girl. It is for this reason that her appearance had something which so affected us. A girl! On seeing her, we would want to clap our hands and dance around her. So what is it that sets her apart from a young woman to such an extent? I watch a young woman, a young mother surrounded by her children, and she watches me in turn and recognizes me: it is my hand which drew her and only released her once I had received her kiss. She watches me and has all these images stored within her: I am a man, similar to the father of her children. Whereas for the girl, I am an unfamiliar person, a strange country, an enigma. A poor, unfamiliar person, all clumsiness and stammers in her presence; a pitiful mystery who loses his entire composure at a peal of her laughter.
And yet we are not so unfamiliar to each other: when life leaves me quite alone with myself, I discover aspirations and feelings of a woman within me; and I am sure that those women who know how to explore themselves, can perceive the lucid and well-ordered mind of man beyond their own bountiful woman's heart. But since we will never be able to understand ourselves clearly, will we ever come to know that part of the opposite sex which we all contain, both men and women? At twenty, it was our mistake to believe that we had fathomed life and womankind. Neither the one nor the other will ever be fathomed; only objects of astonishment and an uninterrupted succession of miracles prevail everywhere. Santos thought he had got to know about women in the cafes of Montmartre; and we too who had only gone — and then infrequently — to tea parties and soirees at the houses of our guardians in Paris, we too would say to ourselves: "That's a woman all over."
Pilar was only a child; her fingers were always stained with ink, her elbows, chafed — those blatant, fatuous signs of little girls aged between eleven and thirteen. But Fermina really was a grown-up girl. It is for this reason that her appearance had something which so affected us. A girl! On seeing her, we would want to clap our hands and dance around her. So what is it that sets her apart from a young woman to such an extent? I watch a young woman, a young mother surrounded by her children, and she watches me in turn and recognizes me: it is my hand which drew her and only released her once I had received her kiss. She watches me and has all these images stored within her: I am a man, similar to the father of her children. Whereas for the girl, I am an unfamiliar person, a strange country, an enigma. A poor, unfamiliar person, all clumsiness and stammers in her presence; a pitiful mystery who loses his entire composure at a peal of her laughter.
And yet we are not so unfamiliar to each other: when life leaves me quite alone with myself, I discover aspirations and feelings of a woman within me; and I am sure that those women who know how to explore themselves, can perceive the lucid and well-ordered mind of man beyond their own bountiful woman's heart. But since we will never be able to understand ourselves clearly, will we ever come to know that part of the opposite sex which we all contain, both men and women? At twenty, it was our mistake to believe that we had fathomed life and womankind. Neither the one nor the other will ever be fathomed; only objects of astonishment and an uninterrupted succession of miracles prevail everywhere. Santos thought he had got to know about women in the cafes of Montmartre; and we too who had only gone — and then infrequently — to tea parties and soirees at the houses of our guardians in Paris, we too would say to ourselves: "That's a woman all over."
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