The Diary of a Chambermaid (24 page)

He was about to embark on one of those half gallant, half sociological discourses that he peddled around from
salon
to
salon,
when Countess Fergus entered the room, imposing and majestic, in a black dress, embroidered with steel and jet that set off the plump whiteness and placid beauty of her shoulders. And with a sudden whispering and murmuring of admiration the company proceeded ceremoniously to the dining-room.

To begin with, the atmosphere of the dinner-party was distinctly frigid. Despite her success, or perhaps because of it, Countess Fergus was rather stand-offish, or at least unconsciously reserved. She seemed to affect an air of condescension at honouring the modest house of these ‘nobodies’ with her presence. Charrigaud was sure that she was examining, with discreet but barely concealed contempt, the hired silver, the table decorations, Madame Charrigaud’s green evening dress, and the four waiters, whose long whiskers trailed in the food they were handing round. And he was filled with a vague sense of terror, an agony of doubt, lest perhaps something was wrong with them. It was a horrible moment!

After a few banal and laboured exchanges about the more futile events of the day, the conversation gradually became general, and eventually settled down to a discussion of standards of propriety in society. All these poor devils, these pathetic men and women, forgetting the looseness of their own lives, displayed a relentless severity towards anyone whom they suspected, not of any social offence, but merely of having, at one time or another, shown too little respect for those social standards which alone they regarded as binding. Living, in a sense, outside their own social ideal, thrust aside, so to speak, by a way of life whose proprieties and observances were their only religion, they seemed to imagine that, by expelling others, they themselves would be readmitted. Their approach to the question was really extremely comical. For them, the whole world was divided into two: those things that were ‘done’, and those that were not; those people it was permissible to entertain, and those who on no account could be invited into one’s house … And these two major-divisions of the world were again split up into an infinity of sub-divisions. Thus, there were some people with whom it was permissible to dine, and others whom one might only call on—and vice versa … those one might entertain at one’s own table, and those who could only be invited—and then only on strictly prescribed conditions—to one’s evening parties … Then there were those people whose invitations to dinner must be refused and whom one should on no account receive in one’s own house, and others that it was permissible to receive but not to dine with … Or again, there were people one might invite to lunch but never to dinner, and yet others with whom one might dine in the country but not in Paris, and so on, and so on. And all this was based on precise and exacting precedents derived from the behaviour of the most exclusive circles of society …

‘Subtlety,’ declared Viscount Lahyrais, sportsman, clubman, gambler and cheat. ‘… that’s what really counts. Whether anyone really belongs to society or not, depends entirely on his ability to observe these fine distinctions.’

I don’t think I’ve ever listened to such dreary rubbish! Hearing them talk, I couldn’t help being sorry for the wretched creatures.

Charrigaud ate nothing, drank nothing, scarcely spoke a word. But though he was not taking part in the conversation, its enormous, sinister stupidity weighed on him like lead. Pale and extremely nervous, he was keeping an eye on the waiters, scanning the faces of his guests for some indication of approval or irony, and, despite his wife’s disapproving expression, mechanically rolling his bread into larger and larger pellets. When anyone asked him a question, he could only reply, in a startled, faraway voice:

‘Certainly … Oh, certainly … certainly …’

Opposite him, very stiff in her green dress, glittering with the phosphorescent sheen of an infinity of green metal beads and wearing a plume of red feathers in her hair, Madame Charrigaud kept bowing to right and left, not saying a word, but smiling continually—a smile of such utter vacancy that she might have been wearing a mask.

‘What an absolute gawk!’ Charrigaud said to himself. ‘What a stupid idiot! What a piss-begotten get-up! Tomorrow, all through her, we shall be the laughing stock of Paris.’

And at the same time, behind her unchanging smile, Madame Charrigaud was thinking:

‘What a perfect fool Victor is! … His behaviour’s quite impossible … We shall never hear the last of him and his confounded pellets.’

Having exhausted the discussion of society, and after a short digression on the subject of love, they started talking about antiques. This was young Sartorys’ great moment, for he had some unusually fine pieces and was reputed to be an extremely skilful and fortunate collector.

‘But wherever do you find all these marvellous things?’ asked Madame de Rambure.

‘At Versailles,’ replied Sartorys, ‘in the houses of poetical dowagers and sentimental mothers-superior. You’ve simply no idea what treasures these old ladies have hidden away.’

Madame de Rambure insisted: ‘But whatever do you do to persuade them to sell?’

Puffing out his narrow chest, with a cynical expression on his girlish features and obviously hoping to shock his audience, he replied:

‘I begin by making love to them, and end up by introducing them to unnatural practices.’

There was some expostulation at this daring remark, but, as Sartorys was always forgiven, the majority of the guests decided to laugh.

‘What do you call “unnatural practices”?’ enquired Baroness Gogsthein, enjoying the scabrous situation and emphasizing the irony of her question by the bawdy tone of her voice. But, at a glance from Kimberly, Sartorys remained silent, and it was Maurice Fernancourt who, leaning towards the Baroness, said gravely:

‘That really depends on which side Sartorys regards as natural.’

His remark caused a new ripple of laughter. Whereupon, emboldened by their success, Madame Charrigaud, addressing herself directly to Sartorys, exclaimed in a loud voice:

‘So it’s true, then? You really are one of those?’

The effect of her words was like a douche of cold water. Countess Fergus energetically fluttered her fan, and they all looked at one another with a shocked and embarrassed expression which nevertheless scarcely concealed a strong inclination to laugh. But Charrigaud just sat there, his fists on the table, his lips compressed, sweat running down his forehead, furiously rolling bread pellets, with a comically distraught expression … I don’t know what would have happened if, at this tense moment, Kimberly had not taken advantage of the dangerous silence to begin an account of his recent visit to London.

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I spent a quite intoxicating week in London. Indeed, ladies, I took part in an unique occasion … a ritual feast to which the great poet, John Giotto Farfadetti, had invited a few friends to celebrate his engagement to the wife of his beloved Frederic Ossian Pinggleton.’

‘Oh, but it must have been exquisite,’ Countess Fergus simpered.

‘You simply cannot imagine!’ replied Kimberly, whose eyes and gestures, and even the orchid in his lapel, expressed a fervent ecstasy. ‘Just think of it, dear lady, in the centre of a huge room, with the palest of blue walls, decorated with white and gold peacocks, an inconceivably exquisite oval jade table, on which stood plates of sweetmeats in harmonious shades of yellow and mauve, with a bowl of rose crystal in the centre, filled with Hawaiian preserves … and that was all! Dressed in long white robes, we moved slowly along the table, helping ourselves to a portion of these mysterious preserves, which we then conveyed to our lips with the golden knives we had been provided with … and that was all!’

‘Oh, it sounds absolutely thrilling!’ sighed the Countess.

‘You cannot imagine! … But what was really most thrilling of all … what, quite truly, tore at my very heartstrings … was when Frederic Ossian Pinggleton intoned a bridal poem, jointly dedicated to his wife and his friend … I have never experienced anything so tragically, so superhumanly beautiful …’

‘Oh, but I beseech you, my dear Kimberly,’ yearned the Countess. ‘Aren’t you going to recite this marvellous poem for us?’

‘That, alas, I cannot do … All I can hope is to convey to you its essence.’

‘Of course, of course … the essence!’

In spite of his sexual predilection, which could scarcely be said to concern them, women were crazy about Kimberly, especially on account of his subtle gift for describing the most unusual sins and sensations. A sudden shudder of excitement ran round the table, and the very flowers, the women’s jewels, even the glasses on the table, assumed attitudes of spiritual harmony. Charrigaud was convinced that he was going out of his mind, that he had landed in a madhouse. However, by sheer strength of will, he forced himself to say with a smile:

‘But certainly … certainly …’

The waiters had just finished handing round something that looked like a ham, except that it was covered with a yellow sauce, swimming with cherries disguised as scarlet beetles. As for Countess Fergus, almost swooning, she felt herself already adrift in some extra-terrestrial region. Kimberly began:

‘Frederic Ossian Pinggleton and his friend John Giotto Farfadetti shared a common studio, in which they performed their appointed tasks. One was a great painter, the other a great poet, one short and plump, the other long and thin, and both of them were dressed alike in homespun cloth and Florentine caps … and both of them, too, were equally neurotic, for their bodies, though separate, were inhabited by the same twin souls and lilywhite minds. In his poems Farfadetti described the marvellous symbols that his friend Pinggleton portrayed on canvas, with the result that the fame of the poet was inseparable from that of the painter and the world saluted the immortal genius of the two friends in a single act of adoration.’

Kimberly paused … There was a religious silence, and a divine presence seemed to hover over the table … Then he continued:

‘Day was drawing in, and the early twilight filled the studio with floating, lunar shadows … Against the mauve walls, one could scarcely make out the long, undulating strands of green seaweed, that seemed to float in the current of some deep and magical stream … Farfadetti closed the vellum antiphonary, in which, with a Persian reed, he used to inscribe his immortal poems, while Pinggleton, putting down his heart-shaped palette on an exquisite table, turned his lyre-shaped easel with its face to the wall, and then, with an air of noble exhaustion, the two men sank down side by side upon a couch heaped with cushions, brilliantly coloured as the plants that grow in the depths of the sea …’

‘Ahem!’ Madame Tierclet interjected warningly.

‘Oh no, you needn’t be afraid. It was nothing of that kind, I assure you.’ And Kimberly went on: ‘In the centre of the studio, a rich perfume rose from a marble basin, filled with floating rose petals, while nearby, on a small table, a long-stemmed narcissus drooped in a narrow vase, the neck of which, shaped like the calyx of a lily, was a curiously perverted tone of green …’

‘Quite unforgettable,’ shuddered the Countess, in a voice so low that it could scarcely be heard, while, with scarcely a pause, Kimberly continued his story:

‘Outside, the deserted street was utterly silent. From the distant Thames could be heard the muted sound of sirens and the panting voices of the river steamers. It was the hour of the day when the two friends, at the mercy of their dreams, were wont to maintain an ineffable silence …’

‘Oh, I can just see them,’ said Madame Tierclet admiringly.

‘And that “ineffable” is wonderfully evocative,’ applauded Countess Fergus. ‘So utterly pure.’

Taking advantage of these flattering interruptions, Kimberly swallowed a mouthful of champagne. Then, satisfied that he was the centre of even more devout attention, he repeated:

‘An ineffable silence … But on this particular evening Farfadetti murmured: “A poisoned flower blossoms in my heart”. And Pinggleton replied: “This evening a sorrowful bird has been singing in my soul”. The whole studio seemed to respond to this unaccustomed conversation. Against the mauve wall, from which the colour was fast disappearing, one could have sworn that the golden seaweed ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed, in tune with the rhythm of some unwonted undulation, for there is no doubt that the human spirit can invest the souls of inanimate objects with its own troubles, passions, fervours, its own sins, its very life …’

‘How true that is!’

Yet, though this exclamation was repeated on all sides, Kimberly did not allow it to interrupt the flow of his narrative. His voice merely took on a more mysterious note as he continued:

‘That moment of silence was both poignant and tragic. “Oh my friend.” entreated Farfadetti, “you who have given me everything … you whose soul is so marvellously akin to mine … you must yet give me a part of your very self, something without which I must surely die”. “Is it my life you are demanding?” enquired the painter. “Take it, it is yours …” “No, something dearer still, your wife!” “Botticellina?” cried the painter. “Yes, Botticellina … Botticellina … flesh of your flesh, your soul’s soul, magical solace of all your griefs!” “Botticellina … Alas, alas! This had to happen! For you and she are drowned in one another as in a bottomless lake, beneath the light of the moon. Alas, alas! This had to happen.” In the gathering darkness, two phosphorescent tears fell from the painter’s eyes, and the poet answered: “Listen, my friend! I love Botticellina, and she loves me, and yet, fearing to give ourselves to one another we are both dying of a love we dare not speak of … She and I, once part of the same living creature, have, for thousands of years been seeking one another, calling out to one another, and now, today, at last we have found one another … Oh, my dear Pinggleton, this life of which we are so ignorant has its own strange fatalities, terrible yet enchanting. Was there ever a more splendid poem than the one we are living this evening?” But all the painter could do was to repeat in a more melancholy voice, “Botticellina! Oh, Botticellina!” He rose from the pile of cushions upon which he had been reclining and began feverishly walking up and down the studio. Then, after some minutes of anxious cogitation he exclaimed: “Must it be that Botticellina, who once was mine, shall henceforward be yours?” “No, no! she shall be
ours”,
replied the poet imperiously. “For God has chosen you as the being in whom that sundered soul, from which both she and I are sprung, should once more be re-united. If that should fail, Botticellina has the magic pearl that dissolves all dreams and I the dagger that delivers us from this mortal coil … If you refuse, then death must consummate our love.” And he added in thrilling tones that rang through the studio like a voice from the abyss: “That, perhaps, would be more beautiful still.” “No,” cried the painter, “you shall live … Botticellina shall be yours, as once she was mine. I will cut my flesh to shreds, tear out the heart from my breast, smash my skull against the wall, but my friend shall achieve happiness. I am not afraid to suffer. Suffering, too, can be a form of rapture!” “Yes, and the strongest, bitterest, most savage rapture of all!” Farfadetti exclaimed ecstatically. “I envy you your fate! … As for me, I think I shall die, either from the joy of loving or from the grief I cause my friend. The hour has come … Farewell!” He rose from the couch like an archangel and, at that very moment, the curtains quivered, then parted to reveal a shining apparition. It was Botticellina, draped in a diaphanous robe that gleamed like moonlight. Her loose hair glittered around her shoulders like flames of fire; in her hand she held a golden key; and ecstasy was on her lips, and the night sky in her eyes … As John Giotto flung himself upon her and disappeared behind the curtain, Frederic Ossian Pinggleton lay down once more upon the pile of cushions, brilliantly coloured as the plants that grow in the depths of the sea … And as he lay there, tearing at his flesh with his nails till the blood flowed in streams, the golden seaweed, now scarcely visible, gently stirred along the walls which gradually disappeared into the darkening shadows … And the heart-shaped palette and the lyre-shaped easel resounded with the strains of a bridal song.’