Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse and a Certain Smile

‘Really?’ she said.

Turning to look at her, I saw on her face such curiosity, such a mania for giving advice and such a vampire-like expression that I had to laugh.

‘I’m thinking of going into a convent,’ I went on solemnly.

At this, Catherine, overcoming her astonishment, embarked on a long discussion of the pleasures of life, the little birds, the sun and so on. These were all things that I was going to leave behind, she said, and it was sheer madness! She also spoke of the pleasures of the flesh, dropping her voice to a whisper: ‘It has got to be said … That’s important too.’ In short, if I had been seriously thinking about taking vows, her description of life’s pleasures would have sent me headlong in that direction. Could it be that life merely amounted to ‘that’ for anyone? As far as I was concerned, if I was bored, at least there was an intensity to my boredom. Besides, she turned out to have at her disposal such a wealth of truisms, and to be so eager for that revolting type of intimacy that girls can share with one other, so eager for a detailed heart-to-heart, that I cheerfully left her standing on the pavement. ‘Let’s ditch Catherine while we’re about it,’ I thought merrily, ‘Catherine and her devotedness.’ I was almost humming this, so strongly did I feel.

I walked around for an hour, went into half a dozen shops, talked to everyone I met with total ease. I felt utterly free and utterly happy. Paris belonged to me. Paris belonged to those who had no scruples, who were free and easy. I had always been pained by my awareness of this, because I myself was not free and easy. This time it was my city, my beautiful city, gilded and sharp-edged, a city you couldn’t hoodwink. I was carried along by something that might have been joy. I walked quickly. I felt full of impatience and of my own strength. I felt young, ridiculously young. In those moments of wild happiness I had the impression of arriving at a truth much more self-evident than the poor, hackneyed little truths learnt in times when I had been unhappy.

I went into a cinema on the Champs-Élysées where they showed old films. A young man came and sat next to me. One glance told me that he was good-looking, though perhaps a bit too fair-haired. Before long he shifted his elbow against mine and ventured a cautious hand in the direction of my knee. I grasped his hand as it advanced and held it in mine. I wanted to giggle, like a schoolgirl. Where were those shocking acts of promiscuity that they said took place in dimly lit cinemas, the furtive embraces and the shame? I had in my hand the warm hand of an unknown young man who meant nothing to me and it made me want to laugh. He turned his hand over in mine and slowly advanced one knee. I watched him do so with a mixture of curiosity, apprehension and encouragement. Like him, I feared that my sense of dignity would assert itself and I felt myself turning into the kind of elderly lady who gets up from her seat in exasperation. My heart was beating quite fast: was it that I was agitated or was it the film? It was a good one, incidentally. They ought to give one cinema over to mediocre films, just for people who are short of companions. The young man turned an enquiring face towards me and, since the film was Swedish, therefore full of luminosity, I saw that he was in fact quite handsome. ‘Quite handsome, but not my type,’ I said to myself, just as he was cautiously bringing his face closer to mine. I thought for a moment of the people behind us and the impression they must be having. He was good at kissing but at the same time he was pressing harder with his knee, putting out his hand and trying stealthily to take some advantage, which was stupid of him, since up to that point I had not rebuffed him. I stood up and walked out. He must have been totally uncomprehending.

I found myself back on the Champs-Élysées with the taste of a strange mouth on my lips and I decided to go home and read a new novel.

It was a very fine work by Sartre, The Age of Reason . 9I threw myself into it with relish. I was young, I was attracted to one man and another man loved me. I had one of those silly little girlish conflicts to resolve. I was acquiring some importance. There was even a married man involved, and another woman; in fact a little game for four players was getting under way in Paris, in the springtime. I was turning it all into a nice, dry little equation, as cynical as you could wish for. What’s more, I was feeling remarkably at ease with myself. I accepted whatever sorrows, conflicts and pleasures might lie ahead; flippantly I accepted them all in advance.

As I read, evening fell. I put down my book, laid my head on my arm and watched the sky turn from mauve to grey. Suddenly I felt weak and without defences. My life was slipping past, I was achieving nothing, all I did was sneer. I imagined someone’s cheek resting on my cheek, someone whom I would not let go, whom I would press close to me with the heart-breaking violence of love. I was not cynical enough to envy Bertrand, but I was sad enough to envy anyone who knew what it was to experience happy love, rapturous meetings, passionate enslavement. I got up and went out.

Five

Over the two weeks that followed I went out with Luc several times, but always in the company of his friends. Generally speaking they were travellers with tales to tell, and quite agreeable individuals. Luc talked fast and amusingly and would look at me in a kindly way, while still appearing to be simultaneously preoccupied and pressed for time, which made me continue to wonder whether he was really interested in me. Afterwards he would drop me off at my front door, getting out of the car and kissing me lightly on the cheek before driving off. He no longer talked about the desire for me that he had previously spoken of and I felt both relieved and disappointed. Eventually he announced that Françoise was coming home in a couple of days’ time and I realized that those two weeks had gone by in a flash and that I had got myself worked up over nothing.

So one morning we went to fetch Françoise from the station, but without Bertrand, who had not been on speaking terms with me for ten days. I was sorry about that, but it gave me the opportunity to lead an idle, carefree life on my own, which I liked. I knew he was unhappy at no longer seeing me and that stopped me from being seriously unhappy myself.

Françoise arrived, all smiles, kissed us and exclaimed that we were not looking well but that, as good luck would have it, we had been invited to spend the weekend at Luc’s sister’s (she being the mother of Bertrand). I protested that I wasn’t invited and that in any case I had rather fallen out with Bertrand. Luc added that his sister exasperated him. But Françoise settled things. She said that Bertrand had asked his mother to invite me, adding with a laugh: ‘probably so that you can make up after this famous falling-out of yours’. And as for Luc, he sometimes really just had to enter into the family spirit.

She looked at me, still laughing, and I smiled back at her, overcome by goodwill. She had put on weight. She was rather on the large side, but she was so warm and trusting that I was delighted to think that nothing had happened between Luc and me and that we could all three of us be happy, as before. I would get back together with Bertrand, who basically did not irritate me all that much and who was so cultured and intelligent. We had been sensible, Luc and I. Even so, when I got into the car between Françoise and Luc I glanced at him for a second and realized that here was someone I was renouncing, and I felt a strange little jolt inside, which was very unpleasant.

We left Paris on a fine evening to drive to Bertrand’s mother’s place. I was aware that her husband had left her a very pretty house in the country and the idea of ‘going to spend the weekend’ somewhere allowed me to indulge in a feeling of superiority when I used this expression, which before then I had not had the opportunity to do. Bertrand had told me that his mother was a very pleasant person. In saying this he had spoken in that detached manner that young people affect when referring to their parents, in order to make the point that they themselves lead their own lives elsewhere. I had gone to the expense of buying some denim trousers, 10since all Catherine’s trousers were really too wide for me. This purchase put a strain on my budget but I knew that Luc and Françoise would provide for me, should it become necessary. I was astonished at the ease with which I took this for granted but, like all those who are keen to live on good terms with themselves, at least with regard to small matters, I had put it down more to the tactfulness of their generosity than to any indelicacy on my part. In any case, it’s better to credit others with having virtues than to admit to having faults yourself.