Cheri Page 16

  IL marchait légèrement, stimulé par un printemps sourd que l’on goûtait seulement dans le vent humide, inégal, dans le parfum exalté de la terre des squares et des jardinets. Une glace lui rappelait de temps en temps, au passage, qu’il portait un chapeau de feutre seyant, rabattu sur l’œil droit, un ample pardessus léger, de gros gants clairs, une cravate couleur de terre cuite. L’hommage silencieux des femmes le suivait, les plus candides lui dédiaient cette stupeur passagère qu’elles ne peuvent ni feindre, ni dissimuler. Mais Chéri ne regardait jamais les femmes dans la rue. Il quittait l’hôtel de l’avenue Henri-Martin, laissant aux tapissiers quelques ordres, contradictoires mais jetés sur un ton de maître.

  Au bout de l’avenue, il respira longuement l’odeur végétale qui venait du Bois sur l’aile lourde et mouillée du vent d’Ouest, et pressa le pas vers la porte Dauphine. En quelques minutes, il atteignit le bas de l’avenue Bugeaud et s’arrêta net. Pour la première fois depuis six mois, ses pieds foulaient le chemin familier. Il ouvrit son pardessus.

  “J’ai marché trop vite”, se dit-il. Il repartit puis s’arrêta encore et, cette fois, son regard visa un point précis: à cinquante mètres, tête nue, la peau de chamois à la main, le concierge Ernest, le concierge de Léa “faisait” les cuivres de la grille, devant l’hôtel de Léa. Chéri se mit à fredonner en marchant, mais il s’aperçut au son de sa voix qu’il ne fredonnait jamais, et il se tut.

  “Ça va, Ernest, toujours à l’ouvrage?”

  Le concierge s’épanouit avec réserve.

  “Monsieur Peloux! Je suis ravi de voir monsieur, monsieur n’a pas changé.

  — Vous non plus, Ernest. Madame va bien?”

  there since before Madame Peloux’s occupancy, a bell like one in a provincial orphanage, sad and clear. Edmée shuddered:

  “Oh, how I dislike that bell . . .”

  “Yes?” said Chéri absentmindedly.

  “At our place, meals will be announced, not rung for. At our place, we won’t have these boardinghouse ways; you’ll see, at our place . . .”

  She was saying this while walking down the hospital-green corridor without looking back, so she didn’t see how, behind her, Chéri was listening fiercely to her last words and giving a silent half-smile.

  HE was walking with light steps, inspirited by a surreptitious springtime that could only be detected in the irregular moist breeze and in the heady fragrance of the ground in the planted squares and little gardens. As he went, a mirror occasionally reminded him that he was wearing a becoming felt hat, pulled down over his right eye, a capacious light overcoat, large light-colored gloves, and a terra-cotta tie. The unspoken admiration of female passers-by accompanied him; he inspired in the more candid among them that transitory awe which they’re unable either to feign or to conceal. But Chéri never looked at women in the street. He had just stepped out of his Avenue Henri-Martin town house, having left the paperhangers with some orders that were self-contradictory but imperiously issued.

  At the end of the avenue, he inhaled for some time the fragrance of plant life that arrived from the Bois on the heavy, moist wings of the west wind, then he hastened onward toward the Porte Dauphine. A few minutes later he reached the lower end of the Avenue Bugeaud, and stopped short. For the first time in six months his feet were treading that familiar path. He opened his overcoat.

  “I’ve been walking too fast,” he said to himself. He set out again, then stopped again, and this time his eyes focused on a precise spot: fifty meters away Ernest the concierge, Léa’s concierge, bareheaded and his chamois cloth in hand, was “doing” the brass mountings of the gate in front of Léa’s house. Chéri began humming as he walked, but the sound of his own voice reminded him that he never hummed, and he fell silent.

  “How are things, Ernest, still at work?”

  The concierge beamed, but in moderation.

  “Monsieur Peloux! I’m delighted to see you sir; you haven’t changed.”

  “Neither have you, Ernest. Is madame all right?”

  Il parlait de profil, attentif aux persiennes fermées du premier étage.

  “Je pense, monsieur, nous n’avons eu que quelques cartes postales.

  — D’où ça? de Biarritz, je crois?

  — Je ne crois pas, monsieur.

  — Où est madame?

  —Je serais embarrassé de le dire à monsieur: nous transmettons le courrier de madame, — trois fois rien, — au notaire de madame.”

  Chéri tira son portefeuille en regardant Ernest d’un air câlin.

  “Oh, monsieur Peloux, de l’argent entre nous? Vous ne voudriez pas. Mille francs ne feraient pas parler un homme qui en ignore. Si monsieur veut l’adresse du notaire de madame?

  — Non, merci, sans façons. Et elle revient quand?”

  Ernest écarta les bras:

  “Voilà encore une question qui n’est pas de ma compétence! Peutêtre demain, peut-être dans un mois. . . . J’entretiens, vous voyez. Avec madame, il faut se méfier. Vous me diriez: “la voilà qui tourne au coin de l’avenue”, je n’en serais pas plus surpris.”

  Chéri se retourna et regarda le coin de l’avenue.

  “Monsieur Peloux ne désire rien d’autre? Monsieur passait en se promenant? C’est une belle journée. . . .

  — Non, merci, Ernest. Au revoir, Ernest.

  — Toujours dévoué à monsieur Peloux.”

  Chéri monta jusqu’à la place Victor-Hugo, en faisant tournoyer sa canne. Il buta deux fois et faillit choir, comme les gens qui se croient âprement regardés dans le dos. Parvenu à la balustrade du métro, il s’accouda, penché sur l’ombre noire et rose du souterrain, et se sentit écrasé de fatigue. Quand il se redressa, il vit qu’on allumait le gaz de la place et que la nuit bleuissait toutes choses.

  “Non, ce n’est pas possible? . . . Je suis malade!”

  Il avait touché le fond d’une sombre rêverie et se ranimait péniblement. Les mots nécessaires lui vinrent enfin.

  “Allons, allons, bon Dieu. . . . Fils Peloux, vous déraillez, mon bon ami? Vous ne vous doutez pas qu’il est l’heure de rentrer?”

  Ce dernier mot rappela la vision qu’une heure avait suffi à bannir: une chambre carrée, la grande chambre d’enfant de Chéri, une jeune femme anxieuse, debout contre la vitre, et Charlotte Peloux adoucie par un Martini apéritif. . . .

  He presented his profile as he spoke, while he looked hard at the closed shutters on the second story.

  “I believe, sir, that we’ve had only a few postcards from her.”

  “Where from? Biarritz, I believe?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir.”

  “Where is madame?”

  “I’d find it hard to tell you, sir: we forward madame’s mail—which hardly amounts to anything—to madame’s lawyer.”

  Chéri pulled out his wallet and looked at Ernest with an expression of shrewdness.

  “Oh, Monsieur Peloux, money between us? You can’t really mean it. A thousand francs couldn’t make a man talk if he had no information. Would you like the address of madame’s lawyer, sir?”

  “No, thanks, don’t bother. And when is she returning?”

  Ernest flung out his arms:

  “That’s another question that’s beyond me! Maybe tomorrow, maybe a month from now . . . As you see, I’m keeping things in shape. With madame, you have to be on your guard. If you were to say, ‘There she is now, turning the corner of the avenue,’ I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  Chéri turned around and looked at the corner of the avenue.

  “Do you desire anything further, Monsieur Peloux? Were you taking a stroll and just passing by? It’s a lovely day . . .”

  “No. Thank you, Ernest. I’ll be seeing you, Ernest.”

  “Always ready to oblige you, Monsieur Peloux.”

  Chéri walked up as far as the Place Victor-Hugo, spinning his walking-stick. He stumbled twice, nearly falling, as people do when they think someone’s behind them, staring at them hard. When he reached the raili
ng of the Métro station, he leaned his elbows on it, looking down into the black-and-pink shadows of the underground passage, and he felt overwhelmed with fatigue. When he straightened up again, he saw that the gas lamps on the square were being lit, and that night was turning everything blue.

  “No, it can’t be possible . . . I’m ill!”

  He had reached the depths of his gloomy musing, and it was hard to shake himself out of it. Finally the words he wanted came to him.

  “Come on, come on, my God . . . Young Peloux, my good friend, are you losing your head? Don’t you realize it’s time to go home?”

  The last word summoned back the vision which one hour had been enough to dispel: a square bedroom, the big room that had been Chéri’s nursery; a worried young woman standing by the window; and Charlotte Peloux mollified by a Martini aperitif . . .

  “Ah! non, dit-il tout haut. Non. . . . Ça, c’est fini.”

  Au geste de sa canne levée, un taxi s’arrêta.

  “Au restaurant . . . euh . . . au restaurant du Dragon Bleu.”

  Il traversa le grill-room au son des violons, baigné d’une électricité atroce qu’il trouva tonifiante. Un maître d’hôtel le reconnut, et Chéri lui serra la main. Devant lui, un grand jeune homme creux se leva et Chéri soupira tendrement:

  “Ah! Desmond! moi qui avais si envie de te voir! Comme tu tombes!”

  La table où ils s’assirent était fleurie d’œillets roses. Une petite main, une grande aigrette s’agitaient vers Chéri, à une table voisine:

  “C’est la Loupiote”, avertit le vicomte Desmond. . . .

  Chéri ne se souvenait pas de la Loupiote, mais il sourit à la grande aigrette, toucha la petite main sans se lever, du bout d’un éventail-réclame. Puis il toisa, de son air le plus grave de conquérant, un couple inconnu, parce que la femme oubliait de manger depuis que Chéri s’était assis non loin d’elle.

  “Il a une tête de cocu, pas, le type?”

  Pour murmurer ces mots-là, il se penchait à l’oreille de son ami et la joie dans son regard étincelait comme la crue des pleurs.

  “Tu bois quoi, depuis que tu es marié? demanda Desmond. De la camomille?

  — Du Pommery, dit Chéri.

  — Avant le Pommery?

  — Du Pommery, avant et après!”

  Et il humait dans son souvenir, en ouvrant les narines, le pétillement à odeur de roses d’un vieux champagne de mil huit cent quatrevingt-neuf que Léa gardait pour lui seul. . . .

  Il commanda un dîner de modiste émancipée, du poisson froid au porto, des oiseaux rôtis, un soufflé brûlant dont le ventre cachait une glace acide et rouge. . . .

  “Hé ha, criait la Loupiote, en agitant vers Chéri un œillet rose.

  — Hé ha”, répondit Chéri, en levant son verre.

  Le timbre d’un cartel anglais, au mur, sonna huit heures.

  “Oh! flûte, grommela Chéri. Desmond, fais-moi une commission au téléphone.”

  Les yeux pâles de Desmond espérèrent des révélations:

  “Va demander Wagram 17-08, qu’on te donne ma mère et dis-lui, que nous dînons ensemble.

  “Oh, no,” he said out loud. “No . . . That’s over with.”

  At the summons of his raised walking-stick a taxi stopped.

  “To the . . . er . . . to the Blue Dragon restaurant.”

  He crossed the grill room to the sound of violins. It was drenched in a hideous electric glare which he found bracing. He was recognized by a maitre d’, whose hand Chéri shook. In front of him, a thin young man got up; Chéri sighed warmly:

  “Oh! Desmond! I so much wanted to see you! How lucky it is that you’re here!”

  The table at which they sat down bore a vase of pink carnations. At an adjacent table, a small hand and a large aigrette bobbed in Chéri’s direction.

  “It’s Girlie,” Viscount Desmond warned him . . .

  Chéri didn’t recall Girlie, but he smiled to the large aigrette and, without getting up, touched the small hand with the tip of an advertisement-bearing fan. Then, with his most serious heartbreaker manner, he gazed at a couple he didn’t know, because the woman had been forgetting to eat ever since Chéri had sat down not far from her.

  “The guy looks like a cuckold, doesn’t he?”

  To murmur those words, he was leaning over toward his friend’s ear, and the joy in his eyes glistened like a surge of tears.

  “What do you drink now that you’re married?” Desmond asked. “Camomile tea?”

  “Pommery,” said Chéri.

  “But before the Pommery?”

  “Pommery, before and after!”

  And in his memory, he opened his nostrils wide and sniffed the rose-scented bubbles of an old champagne from 1889 that Léa used to keep for him alone . . .

  He ordered a dinner that a milliner with liberal ideas might order: cold fish with port wine, roast chicken, and a piping hot soufflé that hid a tart, red ice inside it . . .

  “Hey there!” Girlie called, waving a red carnation at Chéri.

  “Hey there!” Chéri replied, raising his glass.

  An English clock hanging on the wall struck eight.

  “Oh, damn,” Chéri grumbled. “Desmond, do me a favor and make a call for me.”

  Desmond’s pale eyes hoped for revelations.

  “Go call Wagram 17-08, ask for my mother, and tell her we’re having dinner together.”

  — Et si c’est Mme Peloux jeune qui vient à l’appareil?

  — La même chose. Je suis très libre, tu vois. Je l’ai dressée.”

  Il but et mangea beaucoup, très occupé de paraître sérieux et blasé. Mais le moindre éclat de rire, un bris de verre, une valse vaseuse exaltaient son plaisir. Le bleu dur des boiseries miroitantes le ramenait à des souvenirs de la Riviera, aux heures où la mer trop bleue noircit à midi autour d’une plaque de soleil fondu. Il oublia sa froideur rituelle d’homme très beau et se mit à balayer la dame brune, en face, de regards professionnels dont elle frémissait toute.

  “Et Léa?” demanda soudain Desmond.

  Chéri ne tressaillit pas, il pensait à Léa.

  “Léa? elle est dans le Midi.

  — C’est fini, avec elle?”

  Chéri mit un pouce dans l’entournure de son gilet.

  “Oh! naturellement, tu comprends. On s’est quittés très chic, très bons amis. Ça ne pouvait pas durer toute la vie. Quelle femme charmante, intelligente, mon vieux. . . . D’ailleurs, tu l’as connue! Une largeur d’idées. . . . Très remarquable. Mon cher, je l’avoue, s’il n’y avait pas eu la question d’âge. . . . Mais il y avait la question d’âge, et n’est-ce pas. . . .

  — Evidemment”, interrompit Desmond.

  Ce jeune homme aux yeux décolorés, qui connaissait à fond son dur et difficile métier de parasite, venait de céder à la curiosité et se le reprochait comme une imprudence. Mais Chéri, tout ensemble circonspect et grisé, ne cessa pas de parler de Léa. Il dit des choses raisonnables, imprégnées d’un bon sens conjugal. Il vanta le mariage, mais en rendant justice aux vertus de Léa. Il chanta la douceur soumise de sa jeune femme, pour trouver l’occasion de critiquer le caractère résolu de Léa: “Ah! la bougresse, je te garantis qu’elle avait ses idées, celle-là!” Il poussa plus loin les confidences, il alla, à l’egard de Léa, jusqu’à la sévérité, jusqu’à l’impertinence. Et pendant qu’il parlait, abrité derrière les paroles imbéciles que lui soufflait une défiance d’amant persécuté, il goûtait le bonheur subtil de parler d’elle sans danger. Un peu plus, il l’eût salie, en célébrant dans son cœur le souvenir qu’il avait d’elle, son nom doux et facile dont il s’était privé depuis six mois, toute l’image miséricordieuse de Léa, penchée sur lui, barrée de deux ou trois grandes rides graves, irréparables, belle, perdue pour lui, mais — bah! — si présente. . . .

  Vers onze heures, ils se levèrent pour partir, refroidis par le restau-

  “What if it’s young Madame Peloux who comes to the phone?”

  “Sa
me message. I’m a free man, as you see. I’ve got her trained.”

  He ate and drank a lot, intent on seeming serious and blasé. But the slightest burst of laughter, a broken glass, a shabby waltz, heightened his pleasure. The harsh blue of the shiny woodwork evoked memories of the Riviera, on the days when the sea, all too blue, becomes black at noon around a sheet of molten sunshine. He forgot the ritual coldness proper to a very handsome man, and began to look the dark-haired woman opposite him up and down with a professional gaze that made her shudder all over.

  “And Léa?” Desmond asked all of a sudden.

  Chéri didn’t jump, because he had been thinking of Léa.

  “Léa? She’s in the south.”

  “Is it all over with her?”

  Chéri stuck one thumb in the armhole of his vest.

  “Oh, naturally, you understand. We broke up in the nicest way, as very good friends. It couldn’t last a lifetime. What a charming, intelligent woman, my friend . . . Anyway, you’ve met her! Broadminded . . . Very remarkable. My friend, I confess, if it hadn’t been for the difference in our ages . . . But there was a difference in our ages, and don’t you think . . .”

  “Of course,” Desmond interrupted.

  That young man with colorless eyes, who knew thoroughly his tough, difficult trade as a hanger-on, had just succumbed to curiosity, and he was reproaching himself for it, fearing he’d been incautious. But Chéri, who was simultaneously circumspect and tipsy, didn’t stop talking about Léa. He was speaking rationally, making remarks that were imbued with a husband’s good sense. He praised married life, but still did justice to Léa’s good points. He lauded his young wife’s gentle submissiveness in order to find an opportunity to criticize Léa’s determined character: “Oh, that tough customer, she had a mind of her own, I can assure you!” He became even more confiding, and even became severe and impertinent with regard to Léa. And while he was talking, sheltering behind the foolish words that were suggested to him by a persecuted lover’s mistrust, he was tasting the subtle pleasure of being able to speak about her without danger. A little longer, and he would have besmirched her, all the while extolling in his heart his precious memories of her; her soft, easy-to-say name that he had deprived himself of for six months; the entire merciful image of Léa bending over him, her face lined with two or three large, deep, irreparable wrinkles—a beautiful face, lost to him, but oh, so present . . .