Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse and a Certain Smile

We quite naturally got to talking about love. He said that it was a good thing, less important than people made out, but that you had to be loved and, yourself, love quite ardently in order to be happy. I nodded in agreement. He told me that he was very happy because he loved Françoise very much and she loved him very much too. I congratulated him, assuring him that it did not surprise me and that he and Françoise were very, very nice people. I was sinking into sentimentality.

‘Having said that,’ said Luc, ‘I would very much like to have an affair with you.’

I began to laugh foolishly. I didn’t know how to react.

‘And what about Françoise?’ I said.

‘I might tell Françoise. She likes you a lot, you know.’

‘That’s just it,’ I said. ‘And anyway, I’m not sure, it’s not the kind of thing you tell people.’

I felt indignant. Moving constantly from one state of mind to another was beginning to wear me out. It seemed to me both hugely natural and hugely improper that Luc should be suggesting we go to bed together.

‘There’s something there, in a kind of way,’ said Luc seriously. ‘I mean something between us. God knows that, generally speaking, I don’t go in for little girls like you. But you and I are two of a kind. What I mean is that it would make some sense, it wouldn’t just be banal. Anyway, think about it.’

‘That’s what I’ll do,’ I said, ‘I’ll think about it.’

I must have looked pitiful. Luc bent over and kissed me on the cheek.

‘My poor darling,’ he said. ‘You’re in a bad way. If only you had a smattering of basic morality. But you haven’t, any more than I have. And you’re nice. And you really like Françoise. And you find it less boring to be with me than with Bertrand. Ah, isn’t that you in a nutshell?’

He burst out laughing. I was annoyed. Later on I was always to feel a bit resentful when Luc began what he called summing up. On that occasion I let him see that I was annoyed.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Nothing in that realm is really of any importance. I do like you, I do like you a lot. We’ll have great fun together. Just fun.’

‘I detest you,’ I said.

I had adopted a sepulchral voice and we both began to laugh. This sense of collusion, which it had taken just two or three minutes to establish, seemed somehow disreputable to me.

‘Now I’m going to take you back,’ said Luc. ‘It’s very late. Or, if you like, we can go to the Quai de Bercy 7to watch the sun come up.’

We drove to the Quai de Bercy. Luc stopped the car. The sky was white above the Seine, which was sitting among its cranes like a sad child among its toys. The sky was white, with patches of grey. It rose to meet the day above the silent houses, the bridges and the scrap iron, slowly and unstoppably, with the same effort it made every morning. Beside me Luc was smoking; he said nothing and his silhouette was perfectly still. I held out my hand, he took it and we drove slowly back to the family-run residence. When we got to the door he let my hand go, I got out and we smiled at each other. Once indoors I collapsed into bed, thought then that I should have got undressed, should have washed my stockings and put my dress on a hanger, and promptly fell asleep.

Four

I awoke with the unpleasant sense of having an urgent problem to resolve. For what Luc was in fact proposing was just a game, an enticing game, but, even so, one that could destroy my undoubtedly quite genuine feelings for Bertrand; and it could destroy something else within me, something ill-defined but fiercely felt, which, whether I liked it or not, was opposed to transience. Or, at the very least, to the intentionally transient nature of what Luc was offering. And then, even if I was only able to conceive of any passion or liaison as being short-lived, I couldn’t accept in advance that it had to be that way. Like any individual for whom life is a series of charades, I could bear the charades only if they were written by me, and by me alone.

Moreover, I knew very well that this game – if you could call it a game, if there can be merely a game between two people who are really attracted to each other and who glimpse in each other a chance to relieve their loneliness, even temporarily – this game was a dangerous one. It was essential not to pretend foolishly to be stronger than I was. From the point at which I was ‘tamed’, as Françoise put it, from the point at which I was countenanced and wholly accepted by Luc, I would not be able to leave him without suffering. Bertrand was incapable of anything other than loving me. When I told myself that, I felt tender towards Bertrand but it did not stop me from thinking about Luc. For when all is said and done, at least when you are young, nothing in life’s long swindle seems more desperately desirable than a spirit of recklessness. Besides, I had never decided anything for myself. I had always been decided on by others. Why not once more let myself be on the receiving end? There would be Luc’s charm to add to the daily tedium and to the evenings. Everything would happen of its own accord; there was no point in trying to fathom things out.

Feeling blissfully complacent at having resigned myself to the inevitable, I took myself off to class where I met up with Bertrand and our friends and we then all went to have lunch in Rue Cujas. Yet although every day was like this, it seemed to me abnormal. My proper place was with Luc. This was how I was vaguely feeling when Jean-Jacques, a friend of Bertrand’s, launched into some sarcastic comments about me looking dreamy.

‘It can’t be true, Dominique: you’re in love! Bertrand, what have you done to this girl? Her mind is elsewhere. Have you turned her into a Princesse de Clèves?’ 8

‘I know nothing about it,’ said Bertrand.

I looked at him and saw that he had gone red. He avoided my stare. It was quite unbelievable: he had been my ally and had kept me company for the past year and suddenly he had become my adversary! I made to move towards him. I would have liked to say: ‘Bertrand, honestly, you really mustn’t suffer, it’s too sad, I don’t want you to.’ Idiotically I would even have added: ‘Anyway, remember those summer days we shared, and those winter days, and those times in your room, all of that can’t just be erased in three weeks, it doesn’t make sense.’ And I would have liked him to agree with me vehemently, to reassure me and to take up my theme. For he loved me. But he was not what you would call a real man. In some men, including Luc, you could sense a strength that neither Bertrand nor any of those other very young men possessed. Yet it had nothing to do with experience …

‘Stop annoying Dominique!’ said Catherine with her usual bossiness. ‘Come on, Dominique, men are such boors. Let’s go and have coffee together.’

Once outside, she informed me that there wasn’t much the matter, that essentially Bertrand was very attached to me and that I was not to worry about his little bouts of ill humour. I did not protest. After all, it was better that Bertrand should not be humiliated in the eyes of our friends. As for me, I was sick of their talk, their tales of which boys were going out with which girls, all that puerile stuff supposedly to do with love. I was sick of their little dramas. But still, there was Bertrand and Bertrand’s pain, and that was not negligible. Everything was happening so quickly. I could scarcely be said to have dropped Bertrand and already they were talking about it and analysing the situation, and in so doing they were driving me, through sheer irritation, to hasten on and ratchet up what might otherwise have been merely a passing distraction.

‘You don’t understand,’ I said to Catherine. ‘It’s not about Bertrand.’