Read Online Aimez-vous Brahms by Françoise Sagan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Françoise Sagan
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smell, his gasps and the night chill. She left him without a word.
At dawn she half-woke and saw again, as in a dream, the dark mass of Simon's hair tangled with hers by the arctic wind, lingering between their faces like a silken screen; and she thought she could still feel his warm mouth burrowing into her. She went back to sleep smiling.
11
I T was ten days now since he had seen her. The morning after that crazy, tender evening when she had kissed him he had received a note from her, enjoining him not to try to see her again. "I should only hurt you and I am too fond of you." He had not realised that she was less afraid for him than for herself; he had believed in her pity and had not even been angry, merely searching for a means, a concept which would enable him to envisage life without her. He did not pause to consider that these precautionary phrases—"I should hurt you too much", "It wouldn't be wise", and so forth—are often the quotation marks surrounding an affair, coming immediately before, or immediately after, but on no account discouraging. Paule did not know this, either. She had been afraid; she was unconsciously waiting for him to come for her and force her to accept his love. She was at the end of her tether. The monotony of the winter days; the endless procession of unchanging streets through which she made her solitary way from flat to shop; that traitorous telephone (Roger sounded so distant and ashamed that she was always sorry she had answered it); and finally a yearning for a long, never rediscovered summer—everything conspired to bring her to a state of defenceless passivity in which something had to happen.
Simon got down to work. He was punctual, conscientious and withdrawn. From time to time, he looked up, stared vacantly at Madame Alice and drew a hesitant finger across his lips . . . The abrupt, almost commanding way in which Paule, that last evening, had pressed her mouth to his, then thrown back her head and used both her hands to hold his face gently against hers. The wind . . . Madame Alice cleared her throat, embarrassed by his stare, and he gave a faint smile. It had been a fit of spleen on Paule's part, that was all. He had not tried to follow her afterwards—had he perhaps been wrong? Ten or twenty times he went over the slightest incidents in the preceding weeks: their last drive together, that incredibly boring exhibition they had fled from, that infernal dinner at his mother's . . . and every detail, every image, every possibility pained him a little more. Yet the days passed; he was gaining time, or wasting his life; he did not know where he was any more.
One evening he walked down a dark staircase with a friend and found himself in a small night club which he had never visited. They had drunk a lot; they ordered some more and grew sad again. Then a Negress came on to sing; she had a huge pink mouth; she opened up a thousand longings, she kindled the fires of a hopeless sentimentality to which they succumbed together.
"I'd give two years of my life to be in love with someone," said Simon's friend.
"I am in love," said Simon. "And she'll never know I loved her. Never." He refused to enlarge on this, but at the same time it seemed to him that nothing was lost, that it was not possible: this flood of feeling within him to no purpose! They asked the singer over for a drink: she was from Pigalle, but she sang as though she were straight from New Orleans, filling Simon's reeling brain with a blue and tender life, full of proffered hands and faces. He stayed very late, listening to her all alone, and got home at dawn, quite sober.
* * *
At six next evening Simon stood waiting for Paule outside her shop. It was raining; he buried his hands in his pockets; he was angry to find them shaking. He felt strangely empty and limp. My God, he thought, perhaps I'm no good at anything with her now, except to feel pain. And he grimaced in disgust.
At half-past six, Paule came out.
At dawn she half-woke and saw again, as in a dream, the dark mass of Simon's hair tangled with hers by the arctic wind, lingering between their faces like a silken screen; and she thought she could still feel his warm mouth burrowing into her. She went back to sleep smiling.
11
I T was ten days now since he had seen her. The morning after that crazy, tender evening when she had kissed him he had received a note from her, enjoining him not to try to see her again. "I should only hurt you and I am too fond of you." He had not realised that she was less afraid for him than for herself; he had believed in her pity and had not even been angry, merely searching for a means, a concept which would enable him to envisage life without her. He did not pause to consider that these precautionary phrases—"I should hurt you too much", "It wouldn't be wise", and so forth—are often the quotation marks surrounding an affair, coming immediately before, or immediately after, but on no account discouraging. Paule did not know this, either. She had been afraid; she was unconsciously waiting for him to come for her and force her to accept his love. She was at the end of her tether. The monotony of the winter days; the endless procession of unchanging streets through which she made her solitary way from flat to shop; that traitorous telephone (Roger sounded so distant and ashamed that she was always sorry she had answered it); and finally a yearning for a long, never rediscovered summer—everything conspired to bring her to a state of defenceless passivity in which something had to happen.
Simon got down to work. He was punctual, conscientious and withdrawn. From time to time, he looked up, stared vacantly at Madame Alice and drew a hesitant finger across his lips . . . The abrupt, almost commanding way in which Paule, that last evening, had pressed her mouth to his, then thrown back her head and used both her hands to hold his face gently against hers. The wind . . . Madame Alice cleared her throat, embarrassed by his stare, and he gave a faint smile. It had been a fit of spleen on Paule's part, that was all. He had not tried to follow her afterwards—had he perhaps been wrong? Ten or twenty times he went over the slightest incidents in the preceding weeks: their last drive together, that incredibly boring exhibition they had fled from, that infernal dinner at his mother's . . . and every detail, every image, every possibility pained him a little more. Yet the days passed; he was gaining time, or wasting his life; he did not know where he was any more.
One evening he walked down a dark staircase with a friend and found himself in a small night club which he had never visited. They had drunk a lot; they ordered some more and grew sad again. Then a Negress came on to sing; she had a huge pink mouth; she opened up a thousand longings, she kindled the fires of a hopeless sentimentality to which they succumbed together.
"I'd give two years of my life to be in love with someone," said Simon's friend.
"I am in love," said Simon. "And she'll never know I loved her. Never." He refused to enlarge on this, but at the same time it seemed to him that nothing was lost, that it was not possible: this flood of feeling within him to no purpose! They asked the singer over for a drink: she was from Pigalle, but she sang as though she were straight from New Orleans, filling Simon's reeling brain with a blue and tender life, full of proffered hands and faces. He stayed very late, listening to her all alone, and got home at dawn, quite sober.
* * *
At six next evening Simon stood waiting for Paule outside her shop. It was raining; he buried his hands in his pockets; he was angry to find them shaking. He felt strangely empty and limp. My God, he thought, perhaps I'm no good at anything with her now, except to feel pain. And he grimaced in disgust.
At half-past six, Paule came out.
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