Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse and a Certain Smile

‘Cécile, do you enjoy being with those sorts of people, the Webbs and the Dupuis?’

‘I find the way they behave mostly quite tedious, but they can be very funny.’

She too was watching the comings and goings of the fly on the floor. I thought there must be something wrong with the fly. Anne had long, heavy eyelids so it was easy for her to look condescending.

‘Don’t you ever realize how monotonous their conversation is and – how can I put it? – how lumbering it is? All those stories of contracts, girls, parties, do they never bore you?’

‘You know,’ I said, ‘I spent ten years in a convent so it still fascinates me that these people have no morals.’

I did not dare add that it also appealed to me.

‘Even after two years,’ she said. ‘Yet it’s got nothing to do with being rational or moral, it’s a question of one’s sensitivity and having a sixth sense.’

I supposed I didn’t have one. I distinctly felt that I was lacking something in that department.

‘Anne,’ I asked abruptly, ‘do you think I’m intelligent?’

She began to laugh, astonished at the directness of my question.

‘But of course I do! Why do you ask?’

‘Even if I were an idiot, you would give me the same answer,’ I sighed. ‘You often give me the impression of being one step ahead of me.’

‘It’s just a question of age,’ she said. ‘It would be highly regrettable if I were not a little more self-assured than you. You would be able to influence me!’

She laughed out loud. I was vexed.

‘That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.’

‘It would be a catastrophe,’ she said.

She suddenly dropped her bantering tone and looked me straight in the eye. Feeling awkward, I shifted slightly. Even today I cannot get used to this mania people have for staring at you when they are talking to you or for coming up close to you to make sure you are listening. Of course it’s a miscalculation on their part, because when it happens my only thought is of retreat and escape. I say: ‘Yes, yes,’ while doing everything I can to get away and flee to the other end of the room; I become furious at their insistence, their lack of discretion, their claims to my exclusive attention. Anne, fortunately, did not feel obliged to corner me in this way. She confined herself to looking me steadily in the eye so that it became hard for me to sustain that detached, light-hearted note that I so much favoured.

‘Do you know how men of Webb’s type finish up?’

I thought to myself: ‘And of my father’s type.’

‘In the gutter,’ I said brightly.

‘The time comes when they are no longer attractive or “on form”, as the saying goes. They can’t drink any more and they are still thinking about women. The only thing is, they now have to pay for them and accept a host of little compromises to escape their loneliness. They are sad dupes. That’s when they opt to become sentimental and demanding … I’ve seen a lot of them turn into wrecks in that way.’

‘Poor Webb!’ I said.

I was at a loss. In truth, that was how my father risked ending up. At least, it would have been the end in store for him if Anne had not taken charge.

‘You hadn’t thought of that,’ said Anne with a little smile of commiseration. ‘You don’t think much about the future, do you? That’s youth’s privilege.’

‘Oh, please,’ I said, ‘don’t cast my age up at me like that. I use that card as little as possible. I don’t think being young gives me a right to every privilege or excuse. I don’t attach any importance to it.’

‘What do you attach importance to? To being left alone? To being independent?’

I was afraid of conversations like this, especially when they were with Anne.

‘I don’t attach importance to anything,’ I said. ‘I don’t do a lot of thinking, you know.’

‘I find you rather irritating, you and your father. “You don’t ever think about anything … you’re not good at much … you don’t know …” Does that make you pleased with yourselves?’

‘I’m not pleased with myself. I don’t like myself. I don’t set out to like myself. There are times when you force me to make my life complicated. I almost resent you for it.’

She began to hum to herself, pensively. I recognized the tune but I couldn’t remember what it was.

‘What is that song, Anne? It’s annoying me.’

‘I don’t know.’ She smiled again, seeming a little discouraged. ‘Stay in bed and rest yourself. I’m going to pursue my research into the family’s intellect elsewhere.’

‘Of course,’ I thought, ‘it’s easy for my father.’ From where I was I could hear him saying: ‘I don’t think about anything much, because I love you, Anne.’ For all her intelligence, that reason would be likely to appear valid to her. I had a good long stretch and dived back into my pillow. I did reflect a lot on things, in spite of what I had said to Anne. Really, she was dramatizing the situation. In twenty-five years’ time my father would be a lovable sexagenarian with white hair and a fondness for whisky and highly coloured reminiscences. We would go out together. I would be the one to recount my escapades to him and he would be the one giving advice. It struck me that I was excluding Anne from this future of ours. I was unable to find a place for her in it, I just couldn’t picture it. Our chaotic flat could sometimes be desolate, but at other times it was full of flowers and abuzz with activity and unfamiliar accents; it was frequently cluttered up with luggage. I just could not imagine it pervaded by the order, silence and harmony which Anne brought with her wherever she went, as if she were bringing the most precious of assets. I was terrified that I would die of boredom. I probably feared her influence less since loving Cyril in a real and physical sense. That had liberated me from many of my terrors. But, more than anything, I feared boredom and repose. To be inwardly reposeful, my father and I needed to be outwardly in ferment. And that was something that Anne would never be able to acknowledge.

Nine

I am talking a lot about Anne and myself and very little about my father. Not that he did not play the most important part in this story, nor that I do not deem it interesting. I have never loved anyone as much as him and, of all the feelings I experienced at that period, those I had for him were the most stable, the deepest and the ones I set most store by. I know him too well and feel too close to him to want to talk about him. However, it is he more than anyone whom I should discuss, in order to be able to present his conduct in an acceptable light. He wasn’t a vain man, nor was he an egoist. But he was a frivolous man, incorrigibly so. I cannot even say that he was irresponsible or incapable of deep feelings. There was nothing frivolous about his love for me, nor could it be regarded as merely a fatherly habit. He more than anyone could suffer through me. For my part, had I not once been close to despair solely because, in averting his gaze from me, he had seemed to be casting me off? He never put his love affairs before me. Some evenings, he must have passed up on what Webb called ‘great opportunities’ just so that he could take me home. But beyond that I cannot deny that he had given himself over to doing whatever he wanted, to caprice and convenience. He was not one for reflection. He tried to give everything a physiological explanation, which he said was the rational one: ‘Do you find yourself hateful? Sleep more and drink less!’ It was the same with the overwhelming desire he sometimes felt for a particular woman; it never occurred to him either to repress it or to elevate it into becoming a more complex sentiment. He was a materialist, but he was sensitive and understanding and quite simply very kind.