Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse and a Certain Smile

‘Well, anyway, I’m behaving very well,’ I replied, somewhat annoyed.

‘I would be jealous,’ he went on. ‘I only want you to get drunk and say silly things when you’re with me.’

‘And what would I do the rest of the time?’

‘You would just look rather a sorry sight, as you did at dinner.’

‘And what about how you looked?’ I said. ‘Do you think you were looking very cheerful? You can’t belong to the right generation, contrary to what you said.’

He laughed.

‘Come and take a walk round the garden with me.’

‘In the dark? What about Bertrand and the others?’

I was panic-stricken.

‘They’ve bored us for long enough. Come on, let’s go.’

He took me by the arm and turned to the others. Bertrand had not come back yet with the whisky. I vaguely thought that when he returned he would go and look for us, find us under a tree and maybe kill Luc, just as happens in Pelléas et Mélisande . 13

‘I’m taking this young lady for a romantic walk,’ he said, to no one in particular.

I didn’t turn round but I heard Françoise laugh. Luc was already leading me off down a pathway which looked white to start with, where it was gravelled, but which then carried on into the darkness. I was suddenly very frightened. I wanted to be with my parents on the banks of the Yonne.

‘I’m frightened,’ I said to Luc.

Instead of laughing, he took my hand. I wished that he could always be as he was just then, silent, rather solemn, protective and tender, that he would never leave me, that he would say he loved me, I wished that he would cherish me and take me in his arms. He stopped and took me in his arms. I was pressed up against his jacket with my eyes closed. And all those recent days and weeks had merely been a long flight from this instant in time, and from those hands lifting my face and that warm, sweet mouth which was just made for mine. He had kept his fingers around my face and he pressed them down firmly while we kissed. I put my arms around his neck. I was frightened of myself, of him and of everything that was not that moment.

Straight away I liked his mouth, I liked it a lot. He did not say a word, only kissed me, raising his head from time to time to draw breath. When he did that, I could see his face above mine, in the half-light, looking absent yet focused at the same time, like a mask. Then he would come back to me, very slowly. Soon I was no longer able to make out his face and I closed my eyes because a warmth was flooding my temples, my eyelids and my throat. Something was surfacing within me that I had not known before, that had not the haste and impatience of desire but was happy and slow-paced and indistinct.

Luc broke away from me and I stumbled slightly. He took me by the arm and, without a word, we walked round the garden. I told myself that I would have liked to do nothing but kiss him until dawn. Bertrand had very quickly exhausted the pleasure of kisses. As he saw it, desire soon had no further use for them. They were only a stage on the road to pleasure, not something inexhaustible and sufficient in themselves, as in the glimpse that Luc had given me.

‘You have a wonderful garden,’ said Luc, smiling, to his sister. ‘Unfortunately it’s getting rather late.’

‘It’s never too late,’ said Bertrand drily.

He was staring at me. I turned my eyes away. What I wanted was to be alone in the darkness of my room, in order to recall and comprehend those few moments in the grounds. I would put them aside while the conversation lasted, my mind would be a complete blank. Then I would go up to my room with that memory. I would lie flat on the bed with my eyes open, would turn it over and over in my head for a long time and would either destroy it or allow it to become an essential part of me. That night I locked my door, but Bertrand did not come to knock.

Six

The next morning got off to a slow start. Waking up had been very pleasant and very gentle, like waking up had been when I was a child. But what awaited me was not one of those long, bright, solitary days punctuated by reading, it was ‘other people’ 14– other people in relation to whom I had a role to play, a role for which I was responsible. At first the thought of that responsibility and that activity gripped me by the throat and I plunged back into my pillow feeling physically sick. Then I remembered the previous evening and Luc’s kisses and I felt something gently rend itself within me.

The bathroom was wonderful. Once in the bath I began to croon away merrily to a jazz tune: ‘And now, I must decide, I must decide.’ There was a loud knock on the wall.

‘Could decent folk be allowed to sleep?’

It was a happy voice, Luc’s voice. If I had been born ten years earlier, before Françoise, we could have lived together and he would have laughingly stopped me from singing in the morning and we would have slept together and we could have been happy for a very long time, instead of finding ourselves in a blind alley. For it really was a blind alley and perhaps that was why we were not going down it, in spite of our splendid, blasé lack of concern. I had to flee from him, I had to get away. I got out of the bath, but only to come across a fluffy bathrobe that smelt of old country wardrobes and that I wriggled into, telling myself that the sensible approach was just to let things run their course and that it wasn’t always necessary to be dissecting events, you needed to be calm and courageous. I was purring with inauthenticity at the idea.

I tried on the denim trousers that I had bought and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw: my hair was untidy, I had sharp features and I looked too nice. I would have preferred regular features and braided hair, with the dark eyes of girls whose destiny it was to make men suffer and whose faces were severe yet at the same time carnal. If I threw my head back I did perhaps look voluptuous, but what woman wouldn’t have, in that pose? And then those trousers were ridiculous, they were too tight-fitting. I would never dare go downstairs in them. It was a form of despair that I was well acquainted with. I disliked my appearance so much that if ever I decided to go out anywhere in the evening I would be unbearable beforehand for the whole day.

But Françoise came in and made everything all right.

‘Dear little Dominique, you look really charming like that! You’re looking even younger and livelier than usual. You’re a living reproach to me.’

She had sat down on my bed and was looking at herself in the mirror.

‘Why am I a reproach?’

Without looking my way, she replied:

‘I eat too many cakes, purely because I like cakes. And then there are these wrinkles here.’

She had quite deep wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. I touched them with my forefinger.

‘I think that’s wonderful,’ I said tenderly. ‘Just think of all those nights you’ve lived through and all the countries and faces you’ve known, to get those two tiny little lines … It’s a plus for you. And they make you look alive. And, how can I put it, I think a face like yours is beautiful and expressive and affecting. I have a horror of smooth faces.’

She burst out laughing.

‘Just for the sake of cheering me up, you would make beauty salons go bankrupt. You’re sweet, Dominique, you’re very sweet.’

I felt ashamed.

‘I’m not as sweet as all that,’ I said.

‘Am I irritating you? Young people have a horror of being thought sweet. But you never say anything unpleasant or unjust. And you really like people. So I think you’re perfect.’

‘I’m not.’

It had been a very long time since I had talked about myself. Yet it was an occupation that I had indulged in a lot up to the age of seventeen. But I was wearying of it. The fact was that I could only take an interest in myself, and love myself, if Luc loved me and took an interest in me, which was stupid.