The Vagabond Page 6

  At fifteen minutes after midnight, Brague and I arrive at the building on the Avenue du Bois. A fine town house! The people in it must be extravagantly bored . . . The imposing servant who shows us into the “drawing room reserved for performers” offers to help me take off my fur-lined cloak; I refuse harshly: does he imagine I’m going to wait till those ladies and gentlemen are good and ready, dressed as I am in four blue necklaces, a winged scarab, and a few yards of gauze?

  Having much better manners than mine, the imposing servant doesn’t insist and he leaves us alone. Brague stretches in front of a mirror; with his white makeup, in his loose Pierrot smock, he has become thin to the point of being insubstantial . . . He doesn’t like private performances, either. Not that he misses the footlight barrier between himself and them as much as I do, but he doesn’t have much use for those he calls his salon “customers,” and he repays society spectators with a little of that malevolent indifference they show to us:

  “Do you think,” asks Brague, handing me a little card, “that those damn people will ever get my name right? They call me ‘Bragne’ on their programs!”

  Very hurt, deep down, he vanishes, pursing his thin, red-painted lips, beneath a portiere with flowered borders, because another imposing servant has just called him, politely, by his mangled name.

  In fifteen minutes it will be my turn . . . I look at myself and find myself ugly without the raw electric light which, in my dressing room, throws a cloth over the white walls, bathes the mirrors, and penetrates the makeup and softens the look of it . . . Will there be a rug on the dais? If only they’ve shelled out, as Brague puts it, for a few footlights . . . This Salome-style wig pinches my temples and makes my headache worse . . . I’m cold . . .

  “Your turn, old girl! Go and knock the pants off them!”

  Back in the room, Brague has already sponged his white face, which is streaked with trickles of sweat, and has slipped on his cloak while still speaking:

  “A very classy crowd, you can tell. They don’t make too much of a racket. Sure, they talk, but they don’t guffaw too loud . . . Here, take this two francs fifteen for my share of the cab ride . . . I’m going home.”

  “You’re not waiting for me?”

  “What for? You’re going to Les Ternes, I’m going to Montmartre: they’re too far apart. Besides, I’m giving a lesson tomorrow morning at nine . . . So long, see you tomorrow.”

  Let’s go! It’s my turn. My little rickety piano player is at her post. I roll around me, with hands made nervous by stage fright, the veil that comprises almost my whole costume, a round purple-and-blue veil with a circumference of fifteen yards . . .

  At first I can’t make out anything through the dense network of my gauze cage. My bare feet are alert; they feel the short, tough wool of a fine Persian rug . . . Unfortunately, there are no footlights . . .

  A brief prelude awakens the bluish chrysalis that I represent, and makes it writhe, slowly freeing my limbs. Little by little the veil is loosened, swells, flies out, and falls back again, revealing me to the eyes of those present, who, in order to look at me, have interrupted their feverish chatter . . .

  I see them. In spite of myself, I see them. While dancing, while crawling, while spinning, I see them and I recognize them! . . .

  There, in the front row, is a woman, still young, who for quite some time was my ex-husband’s mistress. She didn’t expect to see me tonight, and I wasn’t thinking of her . . . Her sorrowful blue eyes, the only thing beautiful about her, express as much surprise as fear . . . It isn’t me she fears; but my appearing out of the blue has brutally thrown her back on her memories. She suffered for Adolphe’s sake, she would have left everything for him; with loud cries and hot, imprudent tears, she wanted to kill her husband and me, too, and run away with Adolphe. By that time he was no longer in love with her and he found her a burden. He’d entrust her to me for days at a time, with the mission—no, the orders!—not to bring her back before seven; and there have never been more heartbreaking one-on-one conversations than the ones between those two betrayed women who hated each other. Sometimes the poor creature, all her strength gone, would break into tears of humiliation, while I watcher her cry, feeling no pity for her tears and proud of my ability to hold back my own . . .

  There she is in the front row. All available space has been put to use, and her chair is so close to the dais that, with an ironic caress, I could graze her hair, which she dyes blonde because it’s getting gray. She’s grown old in these four years, and she looks at me in terror. Through me she is contemplating her sin, her despair, and her love, which has possibly died at last . . .

  Behind her I also recognize that other woman . . . and then yet another . . . They used to come to my home for tea every week when I was married. Maybe they slept with my husband. That’s of no importance . . . None of them shows any sign that she knows me, but something indicates that they’ve recognized me, because one of them is pretending that her attention is wandering and she’s muttering animatedly to the woman next to her; another one is exaggerating her nearsightedness; while the third, fanning herself and shaking her hand, keeps on whispering:

  “How hot it is in here! How hot it is!”

  They’ve changed their hairdos since the year when I dropped all those false friends . . . They’re wearing the now compulsory tight cap of hair that covers their ears, bound with a wide band of ribbon or metal that makes them look like unwashed convalescents . . . You no longer see tempting napes or filmy temples; all you see now is little snouts—jaws, chin, mouth, nose—which this year strikingly reveal their true wild-animal nature . . .

  On the sides and in the rear is a dark line of standing men. Crowded together, they lean forward with that vulgar curiosity men in society have for a woman who “has lost her standing”; they used to kiss her fingertips in her salon, and now she’s dancing half-naked on a dais . . .

  Snap out of it! I’m seeing things too clearly tonight, and if I don’t get control of myself, my dance will suffer . . . I go on dancing and dancing . . . A beautiful serpent coils itself on the Persian rug, an Egyptian amphora tilts and pours out a wave of perfumed hair, a cloud rises and flies off, stormy and blue, a feline darts forward and retreats, a sphinx the color of yellow sand stretches out, rests her elbows on the ground, her back drawn in and her breasts thrust forward . . . I’m not forgetting a thing, I’ve got hold of myself again. Who cares? Do those people really exist? . . . No, the only real things are the dance, the light, freedom, music . . . The only real need is to make your thoughts rhythmical, to translate them into beautiful movements. Isn’t a single backbend of mine ignorant of all shackles, sufficient to heap scorn on those bodies diminished by their long corsets, impoverished by a fashion that demands they look slim?

  I have better things to do than to humiliate them; for just one instant, I want to seduce them! Just a little more effort: already their necks, laden with jewelry and hair, are following me with a vague, submissive swaying . . . In a moment that vindictive light in all their eyes will go out, in a moment all those animals I have charmed will succumb and smile, all together.

  The end of the dance and the very discreet sound of applause break the spell. I disappear, I return for my bow, I flash a smile in every direction . . . In the rear of the salon, the silhouette of a man gesticulates and cries, “Bravo!” I know that voice, that tall black dummy . . .

  Yes, it’s my idiot from that night! It’s the big ninny! . . . Anyway, I can’t remain in doubt for long, because here he is, his head lowered, entering the little room where my pianist is rejoining me. He’s not alone; he’s accompanied by another tall, dark ninny who certainly looks like the man of the house.

  This last man greets me: “Madame . . . ”

  “Sir . . . ”

  “Will you permit me to thank you for agreeing, on short notice, to lending your talents to . . . and to express all my admiration for you . . . ”

  “Please, sir! . . . ”

  �
��My name is Henri Dufferein-Chautel.”

  “Oh, of course! . . .

  “And this is my brother, Maxime Dufferein-Chautel, who is so eager to be introduced to you . . . ”

  My big ninny of that recent day greets me again and succeeds in taking hold of and kissing a hand that was busy pulling together the blue veil . . . Then he remains standing there, saying nothing, much less at his ease than he was in my dressing room . . .

  Meanwhile, Dufferein-Chautel No. 1, embarrassed, is crumpling a sealed envelope:

  “I . . . I don’t know whether I’m supposed to give this to Monsieur Salomon, your agent . . . or to you . . . ”

  Dufferein-Chautel No. 2, suddenly blushing under his dark skin, darts a furious, wounded look at him; and there are the two of them competing in stupidity!

  What’s there to be embarrassed about? Cheerfully I get them out of their fix:

  “Why, to me, sir, it’s as simple as that! Give me that envelope, or rather slip it into my sheet music, because I confess in all confidence that my dancing costume has no pockets! . . . ”

  They both burst out laughing, with a roguish laugh of relief; declining the sly offer of Dufferein-Chautel No. 2, who is worried I might be attacked by the apaches of Les Ternes, I am able to go home alone, happily lock away my big five-hundred-franc note, go to bed, and sleep.

  TRYING TO insert my hand into the box where they leave the mail—a little case nailed to the side of the ticket takers’ desk—on this Friday night I disturb a good-looking pimp wearing a peaked cap, one of the classic types so abundant in the neighborhood.

  Although popularized by drawings, cartoons, plays, and vaudeville acts, the pimp remains faithful to his sweater or collarless colored shirt, to his cap, to his jacket, which his hands, thrust into its pockets, tighten flatteringly at the hips, and to his extinguished cigarette and his noiseless slippers . . .

  On Saturdays and Sundays, these gentlemen fill half of our Empyrée-Clichy, lining the balcony; they shell out two francs twenty-five to reserve the cane-bottomed chairs that abut the stage. They’re loyal fans who converse with the performers, hoot them, applaud them, and know just when to call out a dirty word or scatological exclamation that will set the whole house roaring.

  Sometimes their success goes to their head, and the situation becomes a riot. From one balcony to another there’s an exchange, in lusty slang, of dialogues prepared in advance; then shouts are followed by missiles, which lead to the prompt arrival of the cops . . . The performer onstage will do well to wait, with a neutral expression and modest demeanor, until the storm is over, if he doesn’t want to see a change in the trajectory of the oranges, rolled-up programs, and small coins. Simple prudence also cautions him not to go on with his interrupted song.

  But, I repeat, these are brief storms, skirmishes that occur only on Saturdays and Sundays. Order is maintained very well at the Empyrée-Clichy, where you can feel the energy of the manageress—the boss-lady!

  A lively brunette, covered with jewelry, the boss-lady presides over the box office, tonight like every other night. Her bright, alert eyes see everything, and the house cleaners don’t dare forget the dust in the dark corners during their morning rounds. Just now those frightening eyes were darting lightning at a genuine beefy and well-known apache who had come to purchase the right to occupy one of the best cane-bottomed chairs adjacent to the stage, one of those in the first balcony, where you lord it, crouching like a toad with your arms on the railing and your chin resting on your crossed hands.

  The boss-lady is giving him a dressing-down, calmly, but she looks just like a lion tamer!

  “Take back your forty-five sous and beat it!”

  The husky guy, his arms dangling, sways like a bear:

  “Why, Madame Barnet? What did I do?”

  “Oh, sure, ‘what did I do?’ You think I didn’t see you last Saturday? Weren’t you in seat one in the balcony?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Wasn’t it you who stood up during the pantomime and said, ‘She’s showing only one tit, I wanna see both! I paid two francs, one per tit’?”

  The husky guy, blushing, defends himself, hand on heart:

  “Me? Me? Look here, Madame Barnet, I know how to behave, I know that such things aren’t done! I assure you, Madame Barnet, that it wasn’t me who . . . ”

  The queen of the Empyrée extends a merciless right hand.

  “No fibbing! I saw you, didn’t I? That’s enough. You won’t get a seat for another week. Take back your forty-five sous, and don’t let me catch you here till next Saturday or Sunday! Now scram!”

  The departure of the beefy guy, refused admittance for a week, is well worth my spending a few more minutes on it. He slinks away on his noiseless felt slippers, stooped over, and only when back on the sidewalk does he put on his insolent expression again. But his heart isn’t in it, his gait is artificial, and for a little while there’s no difference between this dangerous beast and a kid who’s been deprived of his dessert . . .

  On the iron staircase, along with the heat rising from the radiator, smelling of plaster, charcoal, and ammonia, there comes to me in short gusts the voice of Jadin . . . Oh, the little tart! She’s back with her neighborhood audience, and she’s recaptured it! You need only hear the roars of laughter back there, the rumble with which they accompany her and support her.

  That warm, rasping contralto, already affected by sprees and perhaps a touch of tuberculosis, goes right to your heart via the lowest and surest paths. If a “knowledgeable, artistic” manager were somehow to find himself here, and if he were to hear Jadin, he’d exclaim:

  “I’ll take her on, I’ll launch her career, and in three months you’ll see what I can make of her!”

  A stuck-up, soured failure—that’s what he’d make of her . . . Experiments of that kind aren’t very encouraging: where would Jadin of the messy hair shine more brightly than here?

  There she is on the stairs, looking just the same as when she left, yes sir, with a dress too long for her, frayed at the hem by her own heels, with her Marie Antoinette fichu, yellow from the smoke in the theater and revealing her skinny young body, with her sloping shoulder and her vulgar mouth, her curled upper lip with a mustache of powder on its down . . .

  I feel a keen, real pleasure in seeing once again this foulmouthed girl; for her part, she clatters down the last few steps, throws herself onto me, and squeezes my hands in her warm “mitts”: somehow or other, her escapade has brought us closer together.

  She follows me into my dressing room, where I hazard a discreet reproach:

  “Jadin, it’s disgusting, you know! You don’t drop people that way!”

  “I went to see my mother,” Jadin says with a perfectly straight face.

  But she can see herself fibbing in the mirror, and her whole childish face breaks into a laugh, widening, with slit eyes, like the face of a very young Angora cat . . .

  “Really think so? . . . You must all have been bored to death here without me!”

  She radiates a self-confident pride, basically surprised that the Empyrée-Clichy hasn’t put up its shutters during her absence . . .

  “I haven’t changed, have I? . . . Oh, what beautiful flowers! May I?”

  Her swift shoplifter’s hand, formerly skilled at swiping oranges from stands, has grasped a big purple rose, before I’ve even opened the little envelope attached to the side of a large bouquet, which has been standing and waiting for me on my makeup shelf:

  Maxime Dufferein-Chautel with his respectful compliments.

  Dufferein-Chautel! At last I’ve rediscovered the big ninny’s name! Ever since the other night I’ve been too lazy to open the guide to Parisian socialites, and I’ve alternated between calling him Thureau-Dangin, Dujardin-Beaumetz, and Duguay-Trouin . . .

  “I’ll say these are flowers!” Jadin exclaims while I undress. “Are they from your boyfriend?”

  I protest with a sincerity that’s in vain:

  “No, no! It’s
someone thanking me . . . for a private performance . . . ”

  “Too bad!” Jadin decrees, like a competent judge. “These are flowers from a real gentleman. The guy I took off with the other day gave me flowers this big . . . ”

  I burst out laughing: Jadin discussing the quality of flowers and of “guys” is irresistible . . . She turns bright red beneath her flour powder and takes offense:

  “So! Maybe you don’t think he was a well-off dude? Just ask Canut, the chief stagehand, how much dough I brought back last night right after you left!”

  “How much?”

  “Sixteen hundred francs, dearie! Canut saw it, it’s no fairy tale!”

  Do I look sufficiently impressed? I doubt it . . .

  “And what are you going to do with it, Jadin?”

  She nonchalantly tugs at the threads hanging from her old white-and-blue dress:

  “I’m sure it won’t go into a savings account. I stood the stagehands a round of drinks. And then I loaned (as she’d call it!) fifty francs to Myriame to pay for her coat, then there were a few dames who came to hit me up, saying they were stony broke . . . What can I tell you? . . . Hey, here comes Bouty! Hi, Bouty!”

  “Greetings to the party girl!”

  Having politely made sure that a kimono is covering up my state of undress, Bouty pushes open my dressing-room door and shakes the hand Jadin is holding out to him; he says “Hi” again with a roguish gesture but in a tender tone . . . But Jadin forgets him immediately; standing behind me and talking to my reflection in the mirror, she continues:

  “You understand, it makes me feel terrible to have all that money!”

  “But . . . why not buy some dresses . . . at least one . . . to replace what you’ve got on?”

  With the back of her hand she pushes back her lightweight, lank hair which is coming down in thin strands:

  “Don’t believe it! This dress can last very well until the revue! What would they say if they saw me stepping out earning dough to bring fancy duds back here? . . . ”