Paul Morand - The Man in a Hurry

“Let’s hope they’re not planning to offer us any of those!” sighed Pierre as he stole an apple from the passing trolley, which he ate without peeling it.

Fortunately, the soufflé did not take long and the Boisrosé girls did not take coffee, which put a smile back on the face of their host.

“We only drink what we make ourselves; away from home they only ever have Costa Rican. The family coffee comes from Anse à Banane.”

“Anse à Banane! What is this wonderful place?”

“It’s the Boisrosés’ house, in the West Indies,” said Fromentine. “I’ve never been there, nor to the Trou Dauphin, the sugar cane plantation that belongs to us through our mother’s side.”

“If you don’t accept a glass of rum after that, mademoiselle!”

“When I was little, my nanny used to give me baths in rum. It’s put me off rum for good,” said Hedwige.

“I’m sorry,” said Pierre. “They only have glasses here. I hadn’t anticipated baths.”

Hedwige’s voice had a strong accent when she pronounced the word rum: the initial r was slightly suppressed, in the Creole way, followed by a low nasal sound that made the whole of her palate tremble like an echoing chamber and then fade away behind her teeth as the final m died on her sealed lips.

“I’ve heard it said that the smell of molasses hovers over the Antilles just as the scent of the maquis does over Corsica,” said Pierre.

“Molasses, do you think that’s a nice smell? It stinks of old leather!” cried Fromentine, bursting out laughing.

“Used you to take tafia baths or just rum?” asked Pierre, who was trying desperately to make Hedwige pronounce the r again that had enchanted him.

Pierre had forgotten it was time to leave, but all of a sudden he stood up, remembering that it was past ten o’clock.

“You gave me a fright,” said Hedwige.

“A fright?”

“The Boisrosé family are carefree and wonderfully indolent and are not used to being aroused with a start,” said Fromentine. “Where we come from, the Negresses wake you up by pressing their hands on the soles of your feet. It’s the place that’s farthest from the heart. You don’t feel any shock.”

They rose from the table. Pierre threw his overcoat over his shoulders, while the Boisrosé girls disappeared behind that mysterious cloakroom door where all women go never to be seen again, a ceremony that normally made him despair, but which he endured this evening without hopping from one foot to another too much.

They crossed over the Champs-Elysées. The cinema was showing an absurd film, full of well-known stars, all prominently displayed, with faces exposing teeth as large as flagstones and black lips in which every crevice could be seen, with twenty-year-old skins revealing to the audience wrinkles deeper and closer than the Colorado Grand Canyon seen through a telescope. Not a single eyelash or hair was spared. Pierre was right: what passivity of feeling, what lacklustre incidents! One would never have thought that this story had been commissioned by an intelligent human being.

“It’s unbearable,” Pierre said. “Suppose we went somewhere else?”

“But where can we go at this time?”

“To the Excelsior. They show very good documentaries.”

Scarcely had he uttered these words than he dashed off. They tore after him, but he had gone ahead to find his car and drive it out of its parking space. He was back a moment later. Hedwige and Fromentine had scarcely closed their doors before Pierre sped off and pulled up on the Rond-Point, outside the Excelsior. There, he drummed his fingers fruitlessly at the kiosk window, for it was late and the woman at the cash desk had already closed her till, and leapt back into the driver’s seat brandishing a box ticket.

When they got to their seats the interval was coming to an end and the bell was already ringing. Pierre settled himself in between these two perfect bodies. He felt totally happy now. He had had his outburst. The evening was going in the right direction. The moment of difficulty had passed. He shared his smile between his two companions. They arranged a future meeting.

“We do need to see each other again to talk business,” said Pierre.

“You must come to dinner in Saint-Germain. Mother would be glad to meet you,” said Hedwige.

“There’ll just be one course, and we promise that you won’t have to wait,” added Fromentine.

The lights were dimmed. Pierre was hoping that a healthy dose of current affairs would fill them with a surge of impulsive vitality, what with the shouts of the crowd, the sporting activities and the cavalry charges — in short, the whole ebb and flow of contemporary beauty in action.

“Now we’ll have fun!” he said playfully, rubbing his hands together.

The glare of the advertisements disappeared. After the orchestra had dragged its way through a Johann Strauss waltz, the screen, alas, announced a slow-motion documentary:

THE DIGESTION OF THE BOA

“There are days when nothing succeeds,” sighed Pierre.

“Have you had enough?” asked Hedwige sympathetically.

“Well, I mean… Saint-Germain’s a long way. I suggest we go back.”

After Pierre had dropped them home, Fromentine undressed in her bedroom and then came and sat on her sister’s bed.

“He’s a weird fellow, your friend.”

“Anyway, he’s not boring,” Hedwige replied. “Do you think he had fun?”

“To begin with, yes, but he seemed to be in a great hurry, in a hurry to leave us. He must have had another rendezvous,” she insinuated.

“Not necessarily.”

“Of course he did,” Fromentine went on, teasing her.

“I think he probably wanted to be on his own,” said Hedwige. “He’s an eccentric.”

“Is he really an eccentric? I’ve never heard of a man wanting to be alone. I don’t believe in men’s solitude.”

“What experience you have!”

“He may just be a man who’s only allowed to stay out until midnight and who’s frightened of missing the call?” added Fromentine casually, as she brushed her red hair.

“HERE I AM, I’ve rushed over, what is it? What’s happened?”

Placide, his scarf knotted beneath a beard that had bristles harder than the back of an irritable porcupine, his hair awry, his trousers around his ankles, has arrived at Pierre Niox’s home and finds him extremely calm for once, sprawled in an armchair, a book in his hands.

“Nothing at all,” says Pierre calmly.

“What? You’re not even ill! It’s too bad. So why did you drag me out of bed? So that you can read to me?… And yet more Michelet!”

“He does make some good points,” said Pierre.

“A historian shouldn’t make points,” replied the Chartist. “In any case, Michelet’s Histoire de France is so confused that you close it having forgotten all your history. But that doesn’t explain why you called me urgently. What a pain…”

Placide’s dishevelled head and his confusion are so funny that Pierre, keen to prolong the teasing, continues his remarks in the tone of someone giving a lecture.

“Bit by bit, I have drawn up a small gallery of well-known geniuses, a portable pantheon of brilliant men. I give preference to impulsive heroes, to those who are geniuses at the first attempt, to leaders of military forays, to famous raiders. The contemplation of these supermen is as stimulating as listening to a military march. They are my patron saints.”

Placide could feel his temper rising.

“I know of only one patron saint for you, and it’s St Guy.”

“Caesar deserves the first place,” Pierre went on imperturbably. “One cannot but praise his crossing of the Rubicon, and also his armies that are dispatched suddenly right into the heart of Germany, and his lightning descents on Rome, from where he immediately set off again to the furthest boundaries of the Empire. Let’s read this page again where he relates how he comes to take a stand in deepest Illyria; there, he learns that little Brittany has risen up; ready to lend a helping hand, he shakes off his provincial encampment, hops over the Alps, delivers a right hook to the Armoricans while simultaneously stunning the Germans, who had also risen up, with a left cut…”