Simone Beauvoir - She Came to Stay

‘You make him do too much,’ said Françoise, when Vuillemin and Gerbert had gone off.

‘He’s the only one I can rely on,’ said Pierre. ‘Vuillemin will make a mess of things again if he isn’t watched.’

‘I know, but he isn’t as strong as we are,’ said Françoise. She got up. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘We’re going to try out the lighting,’ shouted Pierre. ‘Give me night; only blue back-stage floods.’

Françoise went over and sat down beside Xavière.

‘Still, I’m not quite old enough,’ she thought. There was no denying it, she had a maternal feeling towards Gerbert – maternal, with a faintly incestuous touch. She would have liked to put that weary head against her shoulder.

‘Do you find it interesting?’ she said to Xavière.

‘I don’t understand what’s supposed to be happening,’ said Xavière.

‘It’s night. Brutus has gone down into his garden to meditate. He has received messages asking him to revolt against Caesar. He hates tyranny, but he loves Caesar. He’s perplexed.’

‘Then this fellow in the brown jacket is Brutus?’ said Xavière.

‘When he wears his beautiful white toga and make-up he looks much more like Brutus.’

‘I never imagined him like that,’ said Xavière sadly. Her eyes shone. ‘Oh, how beautiful the lighting is!’

‘Do you think so? That makes me very happy,’ said Françoise. ‘We worked like slaves to get just that impression of early morning.’

‘Early morning? ’ said Xavière. ‘It’s so chill. This light makes me think of …’ she hesitated and then added in one breath, ‘of a light like the beginning of the world, before the sun and the moon and the stars were created.’

‘Good evening, Mademoiselle,’ said a harsh voice. Canzetti was smiling with timid coquetry. Two thick black curls framed her charming gypsy face. Her lips and cheeks were very heavily made up.

‘Does my hair look all right now?’

‘I think it’s very becoming,’ said Françoise.

‘I took your advice,’ said Canzetti gently, pursing her lips.

There was a short blast of a whistle and Pierre’s voice shouted. ‘We’ll take the scene again from the beginning, with the lighting, and we’ll go right through. Is everyone here?’

‘Everyone’s here,’ said Gerbert.

‘Goodbye, Mademoiselle, and thank you,’ said Canzetti.

‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’ said Françoise.

‘Yes,’ said Xavière. She added petulantly: ‘I loath that type of face and I think she looks dirty.’

Françoise laughed.

‘Then you don’t think she’s at all nice.’

Xavière scowled and made a wry face.

‘I’d tear my nails out one by one rather than speak the way she spoke to you. A worm couldn’t be as low.’

‘She used to teach at a school near Bourges,’ said Françoise. ‘She gave up everything to try her luck in the theatre. She’s starving to death here in Paris.’ Françoise looked with amusement at Xavière’s inscrutable face. Xavière hated anyone who was at all close to Françoise. Her timidity towards Pierre was mingled with hatred.

A moment before, Tedesco had begun once more to pace the stage. Out of a religious silence, he began to speak. He seemed to have recovered himself.

‘That still isn’t it,’ thought Françoise in distress. Only another three days, and in the auditorium there would be the same gloom, on the stage the same lighting, and the same words would move through space. But instead of this silence they would come into contact with a world of sounds. The seats would creak, restless fingers would rustle programmes, old men would cough persistently. Through layer upon layer of indifference, the subtle phrases would have to blaze a trail to a blasé and intractable audience; all these people, preoccupied with their digestion, their throats, their lovely clothes, their household squabbles; bored critics, malicious friends – it was a challenge to try to interest them in Brutus’s perplexity. They had to be taken by surprise, taken out of themselves. Tedesco’s restrained, lifeless acting was inadequate.

Pierre’s head was bent: Françoise regretted she had not gone back and sat down beside him. What was he thinking? This was the first time that he had put into effect his aesthetic principles so systematically, and on such a large scale. He himself had trained all these actors. Françoise had adapted the play according to his instructions. Even the stage designer had followed his orders. If he succeeded he would have asserted decisively his conception of art and the theatre. Françoise’s clenched hands became moist.

‘There’s been no stint either in work or money,’ she thought, with a lump in her throat. ‘If we fail, it will be a long, long time before we’re in any position to start over again.’

‘Wait,’ said Pierre suddenly. He went up on to the stage. Tedesco froze.

‘What you’re doing is all very well,’ said Pierre. ‘It’s quite correct. But, don’t you see, you’re acting the words, but you’re not acting the situation enough. I want you to keep the same nuances – but at a different level.’

Pierre leaned against the wall and bowed his head. Françoise relaxed. Pierre just did not know how to talk to actors. It embarrassed him to have to bring himself down to their level. Yet when he demonstrated a part he was remarkable.

… ‘I know no personal cause, to spurn at him, But for the general’…

Françoise watched the miracle with inexhaustible wonder. Physically, Pierre in no way looked the part. He was stocky, his features were irregular, and yet, when he raised his head, it was Brutus himself who turned a tortured face to the heavens.

Gerbert leaned toward Françoise. He had sat down behind her without her having noticed him.

‘The angrier he gets the more amazing he is,’ he said. ‘At this very moment he’s seething.’

‘With good reason,’ said Françoise. ‘Do you think Tedesco will ever make anything of his part?’

‘He’s on to it,’ said Gerbert. ‘He’s only to make a start and the rest will follow.’

‘You see,’ Pierre was saying, ‘that’s the pitch you have to get and then you can be as restrained as you like. I will feel the emotion. If the emotion isn’t there, it’s no damn good.’

Tedesco leaned against the wall, and bowed his head.

‘It must be by his death: and for my part, I know no personal cause, to spurn at him, But for the general.’

Françoise gave Gerbert a triumphant smile. It seemed so simple, and yet she knew that nothing was more difficult than to awaken in an actor this sudden enlightenment. She looked at the back of Pierre’s head. She would never grow tired of watching him work. Of all her lucky breaks, the one she valued the most was that which gave her the opportunity of collaborating with Pierre. The weariness they shared and their efforts united them more surely than an embrace. There was not one moment of all these harassing rehearsals that was not an act of love.

The conspirators’ scene had gone off without a flaw; Françoise got up from her stall.

‘I’m just going to say something to Elisabeth,’ she said to Gerbert. ‘If I’m needed I’ll be in my office. I haven’t the energy to stay any longer. Pierre hasn’t finished with Portia.’ She hesitated. It was not very nice to leave Xavière, but she had not seen Elisabeth for ages; it was verging on rudeness.

‘Gerbert, I’m leaving my friend Xavière in your hands,’ she said. ‘You might take her back-stage while the scenery’s being changed. She doesn’t know what a theatre is like.’

Xavière said nothing: ever since the beginning of the rehearsal there had been a look of resentment in her eyes.