The Collected Stories of Colette (22 page)

In the now glowing square of mica he gazes at the vision of his needy youth, the period when his talent struggled within him like a splendid, famished beast. As he sits staring, his pale-faced hungry youth becomes so alive that he reverts to the juicy slang of the suburbs, the drawling accent and thick voice; and sticking both hands in his pockets, he allows a shudder to shake his frame.

On this harsh winter morning we lack courage, lack all incentive to face the future. There is nothing inside us to burst into flame or blossom amid the dirty snow. Crouched and fearful, we are driven back by the hour, the cold, our rude awakening, the momentary malevolence in the air, to the most miserable, most humiliating moments of our past.

“The same goes for me,” Brague breaks out suddenly. “Just to be able to eat one’s fill . . . People who’ve always had plenty can’t imagine what that means. I remember a time when I still had some credit at the pub, but never a chance to make any dough. When I drank down my glass of red wine . . . Well, I could have cried just at the thought of a fresh little crust to dip into it.”

“The same goes for me . . .” The lovely Bastienne takes her cue. “When I was a mere kid—fifteen or sixteen—I’d all but faint in the mornings at the dancing class, because I hadn’t had enough to eat; but if the ballet mistress asked me whether I was ill, I’d brag and answer: ‘It’s my lover, Madame, he’s exhausted me.’ A lover indeed! As if I’d even known what it meant to have one! She’d throw her arms in the air. ‘Ah, you won’t keep your queenly beauty for long! But what on earth have you all got in those bodies of yours?’ What I had
not
got in my body was a good plateful of soup, and that’s a cert.”

She speaks slowly, with assiduous care, as if she were spelling out her reminiscences. Sitting with her knees wide apart, the lovely Bastienne has sunk into the posture of a housewife watching her pot boil. Her “queenly beauty” and her brassy smile have been discarded as if they were mere stage props.

A few slammed chords, a run up the scale by stumbling numb fingers, excite a superficial thrill. I shall have to move out of the posture of a hibernating animal, head inclined on one shoulder, hands tightly clasped like cold-stricken paws. I was not asleep. I am only, like my companions, emerging from a bitter dream. Hunger, thirst . . . they should be a full-time torture, simple and complete, leaving no room for other torments. Privation prevents all thought, and substitutes for any other mental image that of a hot sweet-smelling dish, and reduces hope to the shape of a rounded loaf set in rays of glory.

Brague is the first to jump to his feet. Rough-and-ready advice and inevitable invective assume, as they flow from his lips, a most familiar sound. What a string of ugly words to accompany so graceful an action! How many traces of trial and error are to be seen on the faces of the three mimes, where effort sets a too quickly broken mask! Hands that we compel to speak our lines, arms for an instant eloquent, seem suddenly to be shattered, and by their strengthless collapse transform us into mutilated statues.

No matter. Our goal, though difficult to attain, is not inaccessible. Words, as we cease to feel their urgency, become detached from us, like graceless vein stones from a precious gem. Invested with a subtler task than those who speak classical verse or exchange witticisms in lively prose, we are eager to banish from our mute dialogues the earthbound word, the one obstacle between us and silence—perfect, limpid, rhythmic silence—proud to give expression to every emotion and every feeling, and accepting no other support, no other restraint than that of Music.

“Dressing room 17, shall I find it along here?”

“. . .”

“Thank you very much, Madame. Coming straight in out of the street, one is quite dazed by the darkness of this corridor . . . So, as things are, it looks like our being neighbors!”

“. . .”

“True, it’s nothing to write home about, but I’ve seen worse, as artistes’ dressing rooms go. Oh, please, don’t bother, I can drag it alone; it’s my costume trunk. Anyway, my husband won’t be long now: he’s engaged at present in speaking to the management. You’ve turned your dressing room into something quite pretty, Madame. Ah! and there’s your poster. I caught sight of it on the walls on our way from the station. A full-length poster, and in three colors, that always spells class. So you’re the lady with the detective dogs?”

“. . .”

“Oh, sorry, I was confusing you. Pantomime, that’s it, and very interesting too. It was actually in that line I first worked, before I took up the weights! Come to think of it, I had a little pink apron with pockets, and patent-leather shoes, something after the
soubrette
style, you know. Pantomime’s not much of a bind, when all’s said and done. One hand on your heart, a finger to your lips, which goes for ‘I love you,’ and then you take your bow, that’s all there is to it! But I very soon got married, and off I went, to serious work!”

“. . .”

“Yes, weights are my job. I don’t look the part? Because I’m so small, you mean? That’s just what deceives people, but you’ll see for yourself tonight. We’re billed as ‘Ida and Hector,’ you’ve heard of us, surely? We’ve just done Marseilles and Lyons, on our way up from Tunis.”

“. . . !”

“Lucky? Because we’ve done a fortnight in Tunis? I don’t see what’s lucky about that. Far rather play Marseilles and Lyons, or even St.-Etienne. Hamburg! There’s a proper town for you! Naturally I’m not talking of big capitals, like Berlin or Vienna, places one can call big cities, especially when it comes to real slap-up establishments.”

“. . . ?”

“Why, of course, we’ve moved around, gone places! You make me laugh, speaking so envious-like! As far as traveling goes, I’d willingly let you have my share, and no tears shed!”

“. . . ?”

“Not that I’ve had enough of it, but that I’ve just never cared for travel. I’m the cozy sort. So’s my husband, Hector. But, you see, there’s just the two of us in our show and the best we can hope for is three weeks in the same town, or a month at most, in spite of our number being very good to look at, very well presented. Hector with his athletics, all very flexible and light, and me with my weights, and a very special whirlwind waltz, very new, very stylish, to finish off our number. So—what more d’you want? We get around quite a bit, the way things go!”

“. . . !”

“It’s Tunis that gets you, that’s clear enough! And I wonder why, considering the establishment there’s no great shakes!”

“. . . !”

“Oh, it’s to see the town? and the surroundings too? Well, if that’s your idea, I’m hardly the one to inform you; I’ve not seen much of it.”

“. . . ?”

“Yes, I’ve been a little bit here, a little bit there. It’s a big enough town. There are lots of Arabs. Then there are the small booths—
souks
they call them—along the covered streets; but they’re all badly kept, crammed one on top of the other, and downright lousy too. Why, it made me itch all over when I had to clean and throw away half the stuff! All that’s sold there, I mean, rugs that are not even new, cracked pottery, everything secondhand, so to speak. And the children, Madame! Scores of them, crawling on the bare ground, and half naked too! And what about the men! Handsome fellows, Madame, who stroll along, never in a hurry—with a little bunch of roses, or violets, in their hand, or even tucked behind their ear, like a Spanish dancer! And nobody puts them to shame.”

“. . . ?”

“The country round about? I don’t know. It’s like here. The land is cultivated. When the weather’s good it’s quite pretty.”

“. . . ?”

“What sort of plants? Exotic? Oh, yes, like in Monte Carlo? Yes, yes there are palm trees. And also little flowers that I don’t know the names of. And then, lots of thistles. The people over there pick them and stick them onto long thorns, pretending they smell like white carnations. White carnations may be all right for you, but for me, smells just give me a headache!”

“. . . ?”

“No. I’ve not seen nothing else. What do you take us for? We have our work, and that comes first. My routine in the morning, to start with, then a friction, then my complete toilet, and by then it’s breakfast time. Coffee and the daily papers, then I get busy with my work. D’you think it’s a joke to keep two people spotless, underwear and all, without mentioning our stage tights and costumes? I couldn’t stand a stain or a missing stitch . . . that’s how I am! Between St.-Etienne and Tunis I made myself six slips and six pairs of underpants, and I’d have completed the dozen, had Hector not fancied he needed flannel waistcoats! And then there’s the dressing room to be kept clean, the hotel room has to be tidied up, expenses accounted for, money to be banked. I’m very particular, you see.”

“. . .”

“Now you, who talk so much of travel, now you just take Bucharest! Never did a town bring me such trouble! The Establishment had recently been renovated and the damp plasterwork sweated. At night, what with the heating and the lights, the walls of our dressing room simply dripped water. I noticed that at once, and lucky I did, for imagine the mess it would have made of our stage costumes! You should have seen me every evening, at midnight, dragging about my two sequinned dresses, the ones I wear in the whirlwind waltz, one in each hand, on a couple of coat hangers! And every day at nine I had to bring them back. Now, please tell me if I could come away with happy memories of that town.”

“. . . ?”

“Oh, you just leave me alone with your travel mania! You won’t make me change my mind on that subject, and I’ve visited enough countries, I can tell you. Towns, the world over, they’re all the same! You’ll always find, first, a music hall to work in; second, a tavern, Munich-style, to eat in; third, a bad hotel to sleep in. When you’ve been all around the world, you’ll think like me. Over and above that, there are nasty people everywhere, so one has to learn to keep one’s distance; and one can count oneself lucky when one comes into contact, like today, with people who are good company and have class.”

“. . . !”

“But not at all! No flattery intended, believe me.
Au revoir
, Madame, until tonight. When you’ve finished your number, I’ll have the pleasure of introducing you to my husband, who will be as delighted as I was myself to make your acquaintance.”

A small third-floor dressing room, little more than a cramped closet with a single window opening on a narrow side street. An overheated radiator dries up the air, and every time the door opens, the funnel of the spiral staircase belches up, like a chimney stack, all the heat from the lower floor, saturated with the human odor of some sixty performers and the even more potent stench of a certain little place, situated nearby.

Five girls are packed in here, with five rush-seated stools jammed between the makeup table and the recess in which are hung, hidden and protected by a grayish curtain, their costumes for the revue. Here they live every night from seven-thirty till twenty minutes after midnight and, twice a week, for matinees, from half past one till six. Anita is the first to come in, rather out of breath, but with cool cheeks and moist lips. She shrinks back and exclaims: “Lord above! It’s not possible to stay in here, it turns you up!”

She soon becomes accustomed to it, coughs a little, then doesn’t give it another thought, since she only just has time to undress and make up. Her frock and underslip are removed quicker than a pair of gloves and can be hung up anywhere. But there comes a moment when she curbs her haste and her face assumes a serious expression. Anita cautiously extracts two long pins from her hat, and carefully sticks them back through the same holes. Then, under the four turned-up corners of an outspread newspaper, she religiously protects that garish yet mingy edifice that contrives to look like a combination of a Red Indian headdress, a Phrygian cap, and a dressed salad. For everyone knows that grease powder, flying in clouds from shaken puffs, spells death to velvet and feathers.