Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

“All right, what?”

“ La créature, moi, regardez .”

“Oh I wouldn’t quite say that.”

“ Ah oui , I am nothing.”

“Stop being silly with this kind of talk.”

“ Petit , I am demi-mondaine! ”

Then suddenly in a torrent of tears she was kissing my face, every welt and bruise that she’d put there, winding up with my mouth, I kissing back and meaning it. She kept saying: “You make me feel as grande dame — as what I wanted to feel and could not.” I kept whispering she was a grande dame , and should stop talking this way. She listened, and soon the weeping began to slack off, so it was just comfortable little sobs as she relaxed in my arms. Then she was loosening her clothes, and not objecting much when I began taking them off.

Pretty soon she was in pantalettes, stockings, pink garters, shoes, and not much else, except for a thin gauzy sling for her attachments above. I patted her, soothed her, and she purred almost like a kitten. Then, after a long time, she asked: “Guillaume, why did you not say? You did what you did for Mignon?”

“... Mignon? You know her?”

“Mignon Fournet? But of course!”

“I hadn’t realized.”

“Not well, but — agreeably. Fournet I knew — too well. When he has lost everything in the war, he comes to me — and loses it encore . To him I have returned — all, all that he loses to me, at roulette, at vingt-et-un . I owe her nothing, and—”

“She means nothing to you?”

“ Ah oui, rien, rien! ”

“Then that’s just what she means to me.”

“Then why did she quarrel with you today?”

“So you heard about that too?”

“It is my business, as joueuse , to hear all, but I understand not why her father should reconcile with Burke.”

The ins and outs of that had to be explained, and she listened closely. “The answer was tin,” I said. “He made that plain last night — no matter what Burke had done to him, he couldn’t afford to pass up sixty thousand dollars. Well, maybe she quarreled with me so Burke wouldn’t quarrel with her and spoil her father’s game.”

“To me, this is not really clear.”

“To me either — but she means nothing to me .”

“Why did you leave me, then?”

“If I hadn’t, you know what would have happened?”

“We said dinner, non? At Antoine’s? And—”

“Marie, I’d have spent the night in your bed.”

“... Alors? Alors? ”

“I had work to do that night.”

I told of the paste-up job, the letter, the two copies, the arrangements I made with Olsen. I said: “It had to be done that night, everything — or I couldn’t take Burke by surprise.”

“But this you could have explained.”

“I was afraid.”

“Of me, Guillaume?”

“Of myself.”

“Why did you not explain me? By — letter?”

“To be honest, I was ashamed to.”

“ Did you go to her that night? ”

“I swear to you, Marie, I did not.”

She thought that over, lying there in my arms, with the look in her eye of a stud-poker player who knows how to read your mind, then asked: “Have you spoken to her of les pieux? ”

“Yes — last night, after dinner, to her and her father both. They didn’t take much interest. I have to say, if it had been a Red River job, I think it might have been different — their reaction, I mean.”

“Fournet made this complaint.”

She went into some detail about this boy from the Teche who had started a law practice here, married Mignon, and then found out that all she could get her mind on was stuff about Red River. Then suddenly: “She is folle .”

“Well? Aren’t we all, more or less?”

“She makes combinations — which prevail not.”

“I’ve had a few flukes myself, Marie.”

“She put Fournet in coton de la guerre .”

“And — she put her father in, so she says.”

“For Fournet it was a catastrophe.”

“For Mr. Landry it may turn out better.”

“He is in — not yet out, petit .”

“At least he’s out of jail.”

“Thanks to you, not to her, pourtant .”

There may have been more about Fournet, his moral collapse after the cotton broke him, his gambling, his enlistment, and death; it seems to me there must have been because I wound up knowing a great deal about him, but then, very solemnly, she asked me: “Guillaume, do you love her?”

“I swear to you I don’t.”

“Your demi-mondaine could love.”

“I know no demi-mondaine .” And then, pretty solemn myself, I added: “If a certain grande dame could love, then an engineer could, too.”

“She could venture twenty-five thousand bucks.”

She called it bocks , very funny, and my heart gave quite a twitch. Then the full force of what she meant to say hit me, and my heart gave a real, shaking thump, which caused a lump in my throat. I said: “For that I’d owe you some kisses.”

“And — anything else, petit? ”

“Are you talking about marriage, Marie?”

“To demi-mondaine it means much.”

“Consider yourself proposed to.”

“I am Episcopalienne , as you are.”

“And not Jewish, as I thought you said.”

Recollection of that made her laugh, and suddenly she kissed me and jumped up. “But, kisses first, petit! May I look at my chin in your bath?”

“Help yourself, it’s right in there.”

She went in and a minute or two later came out without a stitch on, holding her shoes and things in one hand. Blowing a kiss at me, she went on into the bedroom. I started gathering the rest of her clothes; for all I knew someone might come, and at least I’d have the sitting room clear of telltale duds. And then suddenly there she was, still with no clothes on but walking like an old woman, and slumped down in a chair. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Marie, what in the name of God is it?”

“... Guillaume, you lied to me.”

“I didn’t, I swear!”

In my heart I hadn’t been lying, at least to be conscious of it, as I’d made tremendous decisions, and in the light of them what had happened the previous day, which was all I’d really omitted, hadn’t seemed important. Or, if it had been important once, it wasn’t any more. So I went right on talking, saying the same things over, and she kept sitting there, paying not the slightest attention. Then she got her things from the bedroom, came back, and put them on. Pretty soon she was all dressed, pulling her veil in place. Then, very dignified, she said: “Guillaume, I was happy to go to your bed, and thought only of the kisses I meant to give. Then her scent came as a coup . I mistake not the Russian Leather, it is as her marque de fabrique , and your bed is full of it. It has made me malade , for example. I suppose I understand why you lied — but how can one speak of the scent? It is too much, I must go.”

“She quarreled with me over you.”

“And — you protected me, as I know.”

“They wanted your name. I refused it.”

“There spoke my chevalier .” And then, very quietly: “To him I must keep my word. You shall have the twenty-five thousand—”

“Will you forget the goddam tin?”

“My banker shall call. And now, adieu .”

So he did, the next morning, a Mr. Dumont, connected with the Louisiana Bank, but I wouldn’t let him in and talked through a crack in the door, telling him come some other time. That was because by then my face looked like liver — purple, blue, black, and yellow all at the same time — as well as being swollen twice its size. So I wasn’t seeing anyone, even waiters bringing my food. I had them leave it outside the door, then pulled the tray in after they’d gone. So I put Mr. Dumont off, and wasn’t any too sure, I admit, I wanted to see him at all. But at night I’d go downstairs, and without going through the lobby, slip out the back way, up Gravier to Carondelet, over to Canal, then down to Royal and on to the Landry flat. I’d skulk around outside, trying to see Mignon, torturing myself by spying on what she was doing. I found out all right. One night, as I stood in the shadows across the street, a cab drove up, and out of it popped Burke. Then he handed her down, and told the cabman to wait. She was laughing gaily, and the two of them went in. How long he stayed I don’t know, whether alone with her I don’t know. I slunk back to the hotel and in by Gravier again, like some cur hit with a whip. But next night I was out there as usual, seeing nothing.