Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse and a Certain Smile

‘That’s a very, very good idea,’ I said again, and I smiled at them.

‘My little kitten, I knew you’d be pleased,’ said my father.

He was relaxed and delighted. The effects of love-making had redefined Anne’s features and her face seemed gentler and more open than I had ever seen it.

‘Come here, kitten,’ said my father.

Holding out his hands, he drew me to them both. I was half-kneeling in front of them while they looked on at me fondly and stroked my head. For my part, I kept thinking that even though my life just then was maybe at a turning-point, to them I was in fact nothing but a kitten, an affectionate little creature. I sensed them hovering above me, united by a past and a future, by ties, unknown to me, that could not bind me. I deliberately closed my eyes, laid my head on their laps, laughed along with them and resumed my role. In any case, I was happy, wasn’t I? Anne was a fine person. To my mind there was nothing mean-spirited about her. She would guide me, she would take responsibility for my life, in every circumstance she would show me which path to follow. I would reach my full potential and so would my father.

My father got up to fetch a bottle of champagne. I was sickened. He was happy, that was the main thing, but I had so often seen him happy on account of a woman.

‘I was rather frightened of you,’ said Anne.

‘Why?’ I asked.

To hear her, I had the impression that my veto could have prevented the marriage of two adults.

‘I was afraid that you were frightened of me,’ she said, and she began to laugh.

I began to laugh too, because I was indeed a little frightened of her. She was conveying to me both that she knew and that my fear was groundless.

‘Does it not seem ridiculous to you, two old people getting married like this?’

‘You’re not old,’ I said, summoning up the required conviction, for my father was on his way back, doing a little waltz while cradling a bottle in his arms.

He sat down next to Anne and put his arm round her shoulders. She responded by moving close to him in a way that made me lower my eyes. It was no doubt for just that that she was marrying him, for the way he laughed, for his firm, reassuring arm, for his liveliness and warmth. Being forty must bring with it the fear of loneliness, perhaps the last stirrings of desire … I had never thought of Anne as a woman, more as an abstraction. I had seen her as being composed of confidence, elegance and intelligence, though never of sensuality or weakness. I could understand my father’s pride: the haughty, aloof Anne Larsen was marrying him. Did he love her and would he be capable of loving her for long? Could I distinguish between this tenderness and the tenderness he felt for Elsa? I closed my eyes. The heat was making me drowsy. There we were on the terrace, all three of us, full of reservations, of secret fears and of happiness.

Elsa did not come back just then. A week went by very quickly, seven happy, very pleasant days – the only ones there were to be. We drew up elaborate plans for furnishings, we drew up timetables. My father and I took pleasure in making these timetables tight and difficult to keep to, with the recklessness of people who have never known what timetables are. In any case, did we ever believe in them? Coming home every day to the same place at half past twelve to have lunch, eating at home in the evening and staying in afterwards: did my father really believe that was possible? However, he was cheerfully burying his bohemianism; he was commending the virtues of order and of a bourgeois lifestyle, elegant and well-organized. But doubtless, for him as well as for me, all this merely amounted to castles in the air.

Whenever I want to put myself to the test, I like to ruminate on what I remember of that week. Anne was relaxed, confident and very sweet and my father loved her. I would see them come downstairs in the morning, leaning on each other for support, laughing together, with rings under their eyes, and I swear I would have loved that to have lasted for the rest of their lives. In the evening we often went along the coast to take our aperitif on the terrace of some café. Everywhere we went people took us to be a normal, united family. I was used to going out alone with my father and attracting smiles from people, or looks of ill will or pity, so I was delighted to revert to a role more suitable for my age. The wedding was due to take place in Paris after the holidays.

Poor Cyril had observed with some astonishment the changes taking place in our domestic arrangements. But he was delighted at the prospect of a legitimate outcome. We went out in the boat together, we kissed as the desire took us, and sometimes, while he was pressing his mouth against mine, I saw Anne’s face again, that morning face of hers with its softened contours. I saw the kind of leisureliness and happy nonchalance that love gave to her movements and I envied her. You get tired of just kissing, and no doubt if Cyril had loved me less than he did I would have become his mistress during that week.

At six o’clock, on our way back from the islands, 7Cyril would drag the boat on to the sand. We would make our way to the house through the pine wood and to warm ourselves up we invented games of cowboys and Indians, and races where he let me have a head start. He would regularly catch up with me before we reached the house, throw himself on me with a shout of victory, roll me over in the pine needles and pin me down and kiss me. I can still remember the taste of those breathless, inept kisses and the sound of Cyril’s heart beating against mine in rhythm with the breaking of the waves on the sand … One, two, three, four heartbeats and the gentle sound on the sand; one, two, three … one … He would draw breath again and his kisses would become precise and pressing. I could no longer hear the sound of the sea but instead of that in my ears there was the rushing, relentless patter of my own blood.

The sound of Anne’s voice caused us to break apart one evening. Cyril was stretched out alongside me as we lay half-naked in the reddish glow and shadows of the setting sun and I can understand how that could have misled Anne. She spoke my name curtly.

Cyril leapt to his feet, full of shame, of course. Then I stood up, more slowly, watching Anne. She turned to Cyril and, looking right through him, said quietly:

‘I am not expecting to see you ever again.’

He did not reply, but leant over and kissed my shoulder before retreating. His gesture astonished and touched me – it was like a pledge. Anne was looking at me with a fixed stare in that same serious, detached way, as if she were thinking of something else. That irritated me. If she was indeed thinking of something else, it was wrong of her to have so much to say for herself. I went up to her pretending to be embarrassed, but it was purely out of politeness. Mechanically she removed a pine needle from my neck and all at once seemed to see me properly. I saw her don her fine mask of scorn, that expression of weariness and disapproval which made her look remarkably beautiful and which I found rather frightening.

‘You ought to know that indulging in that kind of pastime usually lands a girl in a clinic,’ she said.

She was standing there staring at me as she spoke, and I was extremely vexed. She was one of those women who can speak while standing perfectly still. I, on the other hand, needed to be sitting in an armchair and it helped to have an object to grasp, like a cigarette; it helped if I swung one leg to and fro and watched it as it swung …

‘Don’t let’s exaggerate,’ I said, smiling. ‘All I did was to kiss Cyril. That’s not going to land me in a clinic.’

‘I don’t want you to see him again,’ she said, as if she assumed I was lying. ‘Don’t protest. You’re seventeen, I’m to a certain extent responsible for you now and I am not going to allow you to ruin your life. In any case, you have work to do, and that will take up your afternoons.’